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Obama’s Nuclear Diplomacy – Big Step in the Right Direction

AP — Sun, 02 May 2010 20:09:11 +0000

Forget Confederate History Month, April is now ‘Nuclear Nonproliferation Month.’ Wrapping up his administration’s Nuclear Security Summit on Tuesday, President Barack Obama efforts seem to have paid off with all 47 attending delegations reaching an agreement to tighten controls on nuclear materials.

Several nations agreed to dispose of weapons-grade uranium, end plutonium production, tighten port security and other voluntary steps. All participants endorsed Obama’s call to secure vulnerable nuclear materials in four years, and agreed to seek further cooperation even as they stopped short of any enforceable international agreement.

News of the international agreement comes on the heels of a flurry of nuclear nonproliferation activity from the Obama administration. The most notable accomplishment came last week with the April 8 signing of the START treaty between the U.S. and Russia. Despite Sarah Palin’s childish assessment of the arms reduction commitment, proper experts have declared the cuts to be ‘modest and real.’

Internationally, these commitments will be viewed as significant, if not historic. The domestic reaction is another matter. It remains uncertain whether an international success will register with American voters whose focus, at present, is acutely attuned to internal issues.

The Republicans, for their part, have been predictably dismissive. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), quoted in The Washington Post, said, “The summit’s purported accomplishment is a nonbinding communiqué that largely restates current policy and makes no meaningful progress in dealing with nuclear terrorism threats or the ticking clock represented by Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”

Kyl is technically correct. The agreement is voluntary. Its success or failure will be determined by the ensuing actions of the signatories. As Obama told the press following the summit’s conclusion, “We are relying on good will.” Kyl, though, is missing the point, vastly underestimating the Summit’s significance.

Raising (much needed) Awareness is Progress

The significance of Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit can’t be measured by the communiqué, alone. In the grand scheme of things, simply drawing attention to the inherent threat represented by loose nuclear material makes the president’s efforts worthwhile.

It’s hugely important for the international community to treat the threat with the proper urgency. The main reason for this is explained in a April 13 post from Peter Grier at The Christian Science Monitor (emphasis added):

…how much loose nuke material is out there? A lot. The nations of the world together have about 1.6 million kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and about 500,000 kilograms of plutonium, according to data compiled by Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Security.

Simple division shows the magnitude of the threat this stuff portends. It takes only about 25 kilograms of HEU or eight kilograms of plutonium to make a crude nuclear bomb.

Fissile material is held at hundreds of locations, with varying levels of security…

Worldwide, many of these locations need better security. Would it be difficult for terrorists to break in and get their hands on fissile material? Not difficult enough.

Indeed, recent incidents indicate that securing this material is a problem that can’t be overstated.

“In 2007, for instance,” Grier writes, “a group of eight people broke into South Africa’s Pelindaba nuclear reactor and research center. “ The Pelindaba facility was previously considered a prime example of how the security of nuclear material should be conducted.

Abandoning Belligerence of the Bush Years

Time will tell whether or not the nonbinding agreement lives up to its intentions. Immediately obvious, however, is the administration’s rejection of the diplomatic belligerence characteristic of the Bush/Cheney years.

The Bush administration’s exercise of nuclear diplomacy amounted to figuratively poking other nations with a stick, actually seeking to expand potential justifications for the use of nuclear weapons. Further, Bush had no problem turning that stick on his own constituents, beating fear into the American populace during the run up to the invasion of Iraq.

Perhaps Obama’s critics are nostalgic for Bush’s counterproductive approach. Personally, I find Obama’s efforts refreshing, and since he’s having to deal with a number of nuclear messes left by his predecessor — Iran’s nuke pursuits and North Korea’s half-assed, yet dangerous, nuclear program, to name a couple — a more pragmatic approach is certainly justified.

Steve Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, put it much more eloquently in his April 13 Politico post:

Obama has now showed two essential strengths. First, he can deliver what he promised in September 2009, when he chaired a special Security Council session. Second, his team understands the difference between approaches that have strategic depth and can move global players into new positions versus those that are vapidly bilateral and uncompelling to either party.

By inspiring international cooperation toward lowering the potential for non-state actors to acquire nuclear material, then, Obama is potentially setting the table for increased cooperation in persuading Iran relent its nuclear ambitions. The president is further isolating Iran without the rattling of sabers. Quite the opposite, in fact, and though the prospects for eliminating nuke related threats are far from certain, they’re remarkably better than they were before Obama took office.

Crossposted from Care2.com ~ Originally published 15 April 2010

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t r u t h o u t ~ Ex-Bush Official Willing to Testify Bush, Cheney Knew Gitmo Prisoners Innocent

AP — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 01:16:20 +0000

by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Report ~ Orignially Published, 9 April 2010

(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: amarine88, Bebopsmile,ImageAbstraction, JoesSistah...)

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once declared that individuals captured by the US military in the aftermath of 9/11 and shipped off to the Guantanamo Bay prison facility represented the “worst of the worst.”

During a radio interview in June 2005, Rumsfeld said the detainees at Guantanamo, “all of whom were captured on a battlefield,” are “terrorists, trainers, bomb makers, recruiters, financiers, [Osama Bin Laden's] body guards, would-be suicide bombers, probably the 20th hijacker, 9/11 hijacker.”

Click here to listen to Truthout’s Jason Leopold discuss this story on The Peter B. Collins show (mp3).

But Rumsfeld knowingly lied, according to a former top Bush administration official.

And so did then Vice President Dick Cheney when he said, also in 2002 and in dozens of public statements thereafter, that Guantanamo prisoners “are the worst of a very bad lot” and “dangerous” and “devoted to killing millions of Americans, innocent Americans, if they can, and they are perfectly prepared to die in the effort.”

Now, in a sworn declaration obtained exclusively by Truthout, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell during George W. Bush’s first term in office, said Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld knew the “vast majority” of prisoners captured in the so-called War on Terror were innocent and the administration refused to set them free once those facts were established because of the political repercussions that would have ensued.

“By late August 2002, I found that of the initial 742 detainees that had arrived at Guantánamo, the majority of them had never seen a US soldier in the process of their initial detention and their captivity had not been subjected to any meaningful review,” Wilkerson’s declaration says. “Secretary Powell was also trying to bring pressure to bear regarding a number of specific detentions because children as young as 12 and 13 and elderly as old as 92 or 93 had been shipped to Guantánamo. By that time, I also understood that the deliberate choice to send detainees to Guantánamo was an attempt to place them outside the jurisdiction of the US legal system.”

He added that it became “more and more clear many of the men were innocent, or at a minimum their guilt was impossible to determine let alone prove in any court of law, civilian or military.”

For Cheney and Rumsfeld, and “others,” Wilkerson said, “the primary issue was to gain more intelligence as quickly as possible, both on Al Qaeda and its current and future plans and operations but increasingly also, in 2002-2003, on contacts between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s intelligence and secret police forces in Iraq.”

“Their view was that innocent people languishing in Guantánamo for years was justified by the broader war on terror and the capture of the small number of terrorists who were responsible for the September 11 attacks, or other acts of terrorism,” Wilkerson added. “Moreover, their detention was deemed acceptable if it led to a more complete and satisfactory intelligence picture with regard to Iraq, thus justifying the Administration’s plans for war with that country.”

Documents have been released over the past year that showed how in 2002 several high-value detainees were tortured and forced to make statements that linked Iraq to al-Qaeda and 9/11, which the Bush administration cited as intelligence to support its invasion of the country in March 2003. But the confessions were utterly false.

Wilkerson’s declaration was made in support of a lawsuit filed by Adel Hassan Hamad, a 52-year-old former Guantanamo detainee who is suing Defense Secretary Robert Gates, former Joint Chief of Staff Richard Myers, and a slew of other Bush administration officials for wrongfully imprisoning and torturing him.

Hamad was arrested in his apartment in Pakistan in July 2002, rendered to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan for three months, where he says he was tortured, and then transferred to Guantanamo, where he was interrogated daily and subjected to even more torture by US military personnel.

At Bagram, according to Hamad’s lawsuit, “dogs were set upon [him] while watching United States military personnel laughed and mocked him.” Moreover, he was forced to stand for three days without “sleep or food” and eventually collapsed. He was then sent to a hospital where it took him two weeks to recover.

“Mr. Hamad was not given notice of the basis for his detention until more than two years after first being detained, when a Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) was convened in November 2004,” according to the lawsuit, filed in US District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle earlier this week. “Not until March 2005, nearly three full years after initially being detained, was Mr. Hamad officially labeled an ‘enemy Combatant’ by the flawed CSRT process,” according to the lawsuit.

“However, this determination drew a rare dissenting opinion that acknowledged his enemy combatant status determination was unwarranted and, as such, would have ‘unconscionable results,’” the lawsuit states. “The basis for Mr. Hamad’s enemy combatant determination was simply because of his association as an employee of two organizations for whom he had done humanitarian and charity work (one of which he had left years before), and nothing more.

“In fact, a second CSRT was ordered for Mr. Hamad in November of 2007, one month before he was ultimately released to the Sudan. This was unusual, and indicates that the government recognized that the initial CSRT determination of Mr. Hamad was not accurate.”

While Hamad was detained, his wife gave birth to a daughter who died some time later because the family did not have any money to pay for medical care. He has five other children.

Since he has been released, Hamad says he suffers from emotional, physical and psychological injuries and he is seeking undisclosed compensatory and punitive damages. Similar lawsuits against former Bush administration officials, however, have been dismissed in other jurisidictions.

Wilkerson said he “made a personal choice to come forward and discuss the abuses that occurred because knowledge that I served in an Administration that tortured and abused those it detained at the facilities at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere and indefinitely detained the innocent for political reasons has marked a low point in my professional career and I wish to make the record clear on what occurred.”

“I am also extremely concerned that the Armed Forces of the United States, where I spent 31 years of my professional life, were deeply involved in these tragic mistakes. I am willing to testify in person regarding the content of this declaration, should that be necessary,” he added.

Gwynne Skinner, an assistant professor of clinical law at Willamette University College of Law in Salem, Oregon and a member of Hamad’s legal team, said WIlkerson’s declaration was originally intended to be filed in support of Hamad’s habeas corpus case, which was still pending in federal court in Washington, DC, along with more than 100 others, even though Hamad and the other former Guantanamo prisoners have already been released.

But US District Court Judge Thomas Hogan dismissed the cases, stating the former prisoners’ transfers rendered their habeas lawsuits moot. Attorneys for the detainees were upset because they had hoped the court would make a decision that would ultimately clear the peitioners’ names, lift travel restrictions, and the stigma that comes from being detained at Guantanamo.

Still, Skinner said Wilkerson’s declaration is signficant because it marks the first time a Bush administration official is willing to state, under oath, that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others knew many of the prisoners were innocent when they were sent to Guantanamo.

Wilkerson said detainees like Hamad were of little concern to Cheney.

The Office of Vice President Dick Cheney “had absolutely no concern that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees were innocent, or that there was a lack of any useable evidence for the great majority of them,” Wilkerson said in the 9-page declaration. Cheney’s position, Wilkerson asserted, “could be summed up as ‘the end justifies the means.’”

Cheney, and his daughter Liz, have been vocal critics of President Obama’s efforts to shut down Guantanamo. Obama signed an executive order immediately after he was sworn into office and set a one-year deadline to close the facility. But he missed the date, due in part, to Congress’ refusal to earmark funds that would have allowed the administration to close the prison and move some detainees to a supermax prison in Illinois.

Cheney said last year that the only alternative the Bush administration had to setting up Guantanamo was to kill the prisoners detained there.

“If you don’t have a place where you can hold these people, the only other option is to kill them, and we don’t operate that way,” Cheney said.

It is not news that the majority of the initial 742 prisoners who were detained at Guantanamo were innocent of the crimes that they were accused of.

Indeed, in February of 2006, the National Journal reviewed the case files of 132 prisoners who filed habeas corpus petitions and the redacted CSRT transcripts of 314 others and concluded that “most of the ‘enemy combatants’ held at Guantanamo… are simply not the worst of the worst of the terrorist world” as Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush had claimed.

“Many of them are not accused of hostilities against the United States or its allies,” according to an investigative report published by the National Journal. “Most, when captured, were innocent of any terrorist activity, were Taliban foot soldiers at worst, and were often far less than that. And some, perhaps many, are guilty only of being foreigners in Afghanistan or Pakistan at the wrong time. And much of the evidence — even the classified evidence — gathered by the Defense Department against these men is flimsy, second-, third-, fourth- or 12th-hand. It’s based largely on admissions by the detainees themselves or on coerced, or worse, interrogations of their fellow inmates, some of whom have been proved to be liars.”

The Journal noted that a common thread among many of the detainees is that a majority of them “were not caught by American soldiers on the battlefield. They came into American custody from third parties, mostly from Pakistan, some after targeted raids there, most after a dragnet for Arabs after 9/11.”

That’s a point Wilkerson made in his declaration and said it likely applied to Hamad’s case as well.

“With respect to the assertions by Mr. Hamad that he was wrongfully seized and detained, it became apparent to me as early as August 2002, and probably earlier to other State Department personnel who were focused on these issues, that many of the prisoners detained at Guantanamo had been taken into custody without regard to whether they were truly enemy combatants, or in fact whether many of them were enemies at all,” Wilkerson said in his declaration. “I soon realized from my conversations with military colleagues as well as foreign service officers in the field that many of the detainees were, in fact, victims of incompetent battlefield vetting.

“There was no meaningful way to determine whether they were terrorists, Taliban, or simply innocent civilians picked up on a very confused battlefield or in the territory of another state such as Pakistan. The vetting problem, in my opinion, was directly related to the initial decision not to send sufficient regular army troops at the outset of the war in Afghanistan, and instead, to rely on the forces of the Northern Alliance and the extremely few US Special Operations Forces (SOF) who did not have the necessary training or personnel to deal with battlefield detention questions or even the inclination to want to deal with the issue.

“A related problem with the initial detention was that predominantly US forces were not the ones who were taking the prisoners in the first place. Instead, we relied upon Afghans, such as General [Abdul Rashid] Dostums forces, and upon Pakistanis, to hand over prisoners whom they had apprehended, or who had been turned over to them for bounties, sometimes as much as $5,000 per head.

“Such practices meant that the likelihood was high that some of the Guantanamo detainees had been turned in to US forces in order to settle local scores, for tribal reasons, or just as a method of making money. I recall conversations with serving military officers at the time, who told me that many detainees were turned over for the wrong reasons, particularly for bounties and other incentives.”

In Hamad’s case, Wilkerson said that he has “no reason to believe that any more thorough process was used to determine whether his seizure or transfer to Guantanamo was justified.”

Wilkerson said that he discussed the Guantanamo detainees issue regularly with Powell and, based on those discussions, Wilkerson discovered that “President Bush was involved in all of the Guantanamo decision-making.”

“My own view is that it was easy for Vice President Cheney to run circles around President Bush bureaucratically because Cheney had the network within the government to do so,” Wilkerson said. “Moreover, by exploiting what Secretary Powell called the president’s ‘cowboy instincts,’ Vice President Cheney could more often than not gain the President’s acquiescence.”

Wilkerson said issues revolving around efforts to repatriate individuals wrongfully detained at Guantanamo came up during the morning briefings chaired by Powell that he and about 50 to 55 senior State Department officials attended beginning in August 2002 after the prison facility was opened.

“At the briefing, Secretary Powell would question Ambassador Pierre Prosper (Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes), Cofer Black (Coordinator for Counter Terrorism), and Beth Jones (Assistant Secretary for Eurasia), or other senior personnel for information about specific progress in negotiating detainee releases,” Wilkerson said. “A number of these conversations arose because Secretary Powell received frequent phone calls from British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, who had consulted with Secretary Powell frequently about repatriating the British Guantánamo detainees …

“I also know that several other foreign ministers spoke with Secretary Powell urging him to repatriate their countries’ citizens. During these morning briefings, Secretary Powell would express frustration that more progress had not been made with detainee releases.”

During one particular meeting, Wilkerson said, Ambassador Prosper, the point person on negotiating the transfer of detainees to other countries, “would discuss the difficulty he encountered in dealing with the Department of Defense, and specifically Donald Rumsfeld, who just refused to let detainees go.”

Wilkerson said it was “politically impossible” to release detainees, even the ones Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and other senior officials knew were innocent.

“The concern expressed was that if they were released to another country, even an ally such as the United Kingdom, the leadership of the Defense Department would be left without any plausible explanation to the American people, whether the released detainee was subsequently found to be innocent by the receiving country, or whether the detainee was truly a terrorist and, upon release were it to then occur, would return to the war against the US,” he said. “Another concern was that the detention efforts at Guantánamo would be revealed as the incredibly confused operation that they were. Such results were not acceptable to the
Administration and would have been severely detrimental to the leadership at DOD.”

A spokesman for Rumsfeld said Wilkerson’s claims are untrue. Peggy Cifrino, Powell’s spokeswoman, said the former Secretary of State, “has not seen Colonel Wilkerson’s declaration and, therefore, cannot provide a comment.”

Still, what Wilkerson described may have very well been an issue in Hamad’s case, although as Jim White pointed out in a blog post, the Pentagon appears to have had a policy in place to “justify the long-term detention and interrogation of innocent civilians.”

According to Hamad’s lawsuit, the Pentagon had cleared him for release in November 2005, according to a redacted copy of his clearance decision his attorneys cited in their complaint.

But he was not freed from Guantanamo until December 2007. His attorneys said they were notified via email in March 2007 that Hamad was eligible to be sent back home to Sudan and it was during negotiations with the Sudanese government that they discovered he was eligible for release a full two years earlier.

About 183 detainees, many of whom have already been cleared for release, remain at Guantanamo. A majority of them have never been charged with a crime.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Karl Rove’s Historically Useless Memoir

AP — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:52:16 +0000

I imagine that some folks are anxious to get their hands on Karl Rove’s memoir. As I’ve previously mentioned, I am not one of those folks.

I gather from the numerous previews and reviews, “Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight,” is around 600 pages of Rove taking whacks at his critics, attempting to spin the Bush administration’s legacy out of pit for which it is destined. If you’re curious about Rove’s memoir, but you’re not in the market for a new doorstop, here are a few places to look:

Stephen Levingston, book reviewer for The Washington Post, writes, “Rove has fashioned a portrait of the Bush presidency that aims to shape history in his boss’s favor.”
Also at WaPo, Dana Milbank offers “… what he learned from Karl Rove’s book” within a Q&A chat with readers.
The Huffington Post features “The 13 Must-Read Passages From ‘Courage And Consequence’” along with a slide show presentation of relevant material.
The Daily Beast narrows it down to the “10 best revelations” within Rove’s book, sans the slideshow.

All of the above mention a couple of assertions made by Rove which demand further scrutiny.

Rove posits that his biggest regret from the Bush years was that he didn’t push back harder on accusations suggesting Bush misled the nation into war with Iraq. Further, Rove maintains the tired conservative meme, proclaiming an intelligence community consensus on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as proof of Bush’s honesty.

You can almost hear the incredulous sigh from David Corn — Washington Bureau Chief for Mother Jones and author/coauthor of two books on the subject – as he writes:

Here we go again: Did Bush grease the way to war with lies?..

Let’s cut to the bottom line: prior to the Iraq war, US intelligence generally produced faulty information overstating Saddam Hussein’s WMD capabilities, which were actually nonexistent. But Bush and his crew purposefully and callously overstated these overstatements—and made dramatic and untrue assertions unconnected to the flawed intelligence—in order to whip up popular support for the invasion of Iraq.

Corn suggests checking out Mother Jones‘ extensive timeline of “the false Bush administration assertions. I would add that Sam Smith’s “The revision thing,” originally published by Harper’s Magazine in Oct. 2003, should be required reading for anyone considering Rove’s, or any other Bush lackey’s memoir broaching this topic. Smith’s treatment is remarkable for its being composed entirely from false statements made by Bush administration officials.

Rove also attempts to spin away Bush administration statements connecting al Qaida and Saddam Hussein.

From “Courage and Consequence”:

Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda and about Iraq’s support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information,” according to the Senate Intelligence Committee 2004 report.

But, Rove is leaving out some important information.

From Media Matters Research (emphasis added):

Rove is presumably referring to a June 5, 2008, Senate Intelligence Committee report examining government officials’ pre-war statements about Iraq. (…) Rove is correct that the committee found that some Bush claims — specifically, “[s]tatements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda and about Iraq’s support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda” — were substantiated by the intelligence at the time. But the committee also concluded that Bush’s allegations suggesting “that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership” were “not substantiated by the intelligence”; and that Bush’s statements indicating Saddam was prepared to give WMD to terrorists were “contradicted by available intelligence.”

Should you decide to subject yourself to “Courage and Consequence,” keep in mind that Karl Rove was, and is, in essence, a BS artist. This designation is implied in Bush’s nickname for him: Turd Blossom. His entire professional life has been spent crafting favorable public perceptions for his employers, often emphasizing, even creating negative memes to hang around the necks of those candidates and critics who happened to be in the way.

The “elections” of George W. Bush are the twin pinnacle achievements of Karl Rove’s life. He has a vested interest in Bush’s historical legacy. And as a professional BS artist, Rove will buff that turd to a fine shimmering shine before conceding anything to his critics.

Knowing full well that Rove’s self interest is woven throughout the pages of “Courage and Consequences” — His positions, crafted for the purpose of propping up the Bush legacy, informed by a lifetime of BS artistry – has the effect of rendering his memoir historically worthless. Put another way, if those responsible for rendering judgment on the Bush presidency are to find Rove’s memoir useful as a source, it will be when they discredit it with other, more objective, sources.

Thus, I see no reason for creating space in my library for it.

Crossposted from Care2.com ~ “Rove’s ‘Courage and Consequence’ Short on Both,” originally published 10 March 2010

Dawn Johnsen and the GOP Obstruction Game | People For the American Way Blog

AP — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:23:33 +0000

As you may have seen reported, in a perfect exclamation point to the obstruction we’ve seen all year, when the Senate adjourned last week, the Republicans objected to what is ordinarily a routine request to waive Senate rules and permit pending nominations to remain in the Senate confirmation pipeline. Without what’s called “unanimous consent,” under Senate rules, pending nominations must be returned to the President, who then has to re-nominate in the next session. In what has become a far too typical exercise by the “Just Say No” party, Republicans objected to three DOJ nominees who have been on the Senate’s calendar awaiting consideration for months: Dawn Johnsen, for the Office of Legal Counsel; Chris Schroeder for the Office of Legal Policy; and Mary Smith, for the Tax Division. They also objected to two pending federal District Court nominees (Edward Chen, for a seat on the Northern District of California and Louis B. Butler for a seat on the Western District of Wisconsin) and to Craig Becker for reappointment as a member of the National Labor Relations Board…

Follow the link below to read more:

via Dawn Johnsen and the GOP Obstruction Game | People For the American Way Blog.

Related on PiP:

Tell the Senate, GOP – Stop Stalling on Dawn Johnsen OLC Confirmation

Investigating Torture ~ Bush Tactics Harmed U.S. National Security

AP — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:26:20 +0000

Evidence of torture, new and old, has landed President Obama in a bit of a quandary. A significant percentage of his supporters are calling for criminal prosecution of Bush officials responsible for apparent war crimes. Meanwhile, the President’s detractors pose numerous counter arguments, recommending against investigating the Bush Administration’s torture policy. Barack Obama is in a tight spot, and his impetus to “look forward, not back” is understandable considering the antagonistic state of political affairs in America. However, as unpleasant as investigations and prosecutions will be domestically, external perspectives need to be considered.

Perhaps the most important foreign perspective worth considering is that of our enemy: Al Qaeda. How is the argument over torture within the U.S. perceived by Osama Bin Ladin ? More importantly, how does it impact their recruiting capacity? To a certain extent, we already know the answers.

One extremely informed opinion was published at The Daily Beast last week. Writing under the pseudonym, Matthew Alexander, a 14 year Air Force interrogator offered his assessment in a April 20 post. Responding to Christopher Buckley’s and Michael Mukasey’s criticisms of Obama for releasing the previously classified Office of Legal Council torture memos, Alexander wrote:

Our policy of torture and abuse of prisoners has been Al Qaida’s number one recruiting tool, a point that Buckley does not mention and is also conspicuously absent from former CIA Director General Michael Hayden and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s argument in the Wall Street Journal. As the senior interrogator in Iraq for a task force charged with hunting down Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the former Al Qaida leader and mass murderer, I listened time and time again to captured foreign fighters cite the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as their main reason for coming to Iraq to fight. Consider that 90 percent of the suicide bombers in Iraq are these foreign fighters and you can easily conclude that we have lost hundreds, if not thousands, of American lives because of our policy of torture and abuse…

In addition to increasing Al Qaeda’s pool of recruits, the torturing of detainees has undoubtedly led counter terrorism officials to waste time and resources chasing invented threats. Former Middle East CIA field officer, Robert Baer noted in the May 4 print issue of Time that the Bush Administration selected their techniques from a 1957 paper regarding communist efforts during the Korean War:

The Crucial point, though, is that even the communists suspected that torture can’t be relied on to produce more than false confessions — because people will say anything to make the pain stop. This is the history that Bush officials chose to ignore…

I’d love to know what you think. If you’re able, set aside the moral and legal implications of the Bush Administration’s treatment of captured enemy combatants. Then consider the implications of the above informed commentators, Alexander and Baer; respectively, that torturing our prisoners makes it easier for our enemies to recruit, and that waterboading, specifically, is more likely than not to produce false information from a prisoner. These tactics, then, are quite contradictory to the maintenance of U.S. national security.

(Originally posted at Care2.com, Political Causes Blog 28 April 2009)

Tell the Senate, GOP – Stop Stalling on Dawn Johnsen OLC Confirmation

AP — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:50:58 +0000

Cross posted at Care2.com‘s Political Causes Blog

Dawn Johnsen, Barack Obama’s nominee to head his administration’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), is potentially the most qualified candidate ever selected for the position. Nominated February 11 and approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee March 19, the Indiana University law professor has yet to be considered by the full Senate. What’s the hold up, you may ask? It appears that Johnsen is but another among many who has fallen victim to Republican obstructionism and the minority party’s ongoing misuse of the filibuster.

The Republican filibuster threat is only the most immediate cause for delay; forcing Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-NV) to scramble for the 60 votes necessary for cloture, followed by an up or down vote which would undoubtedly result in Johnsen’s confirmation. The underlying causes behind GOP opposition to Johnsen stem from two ideological issues; one of which has been blown out of proportion by right-wing activists. The other, more significant reason for fighting Obama’s OLC nominee is grounded in GOP fear that she, unlike her Bush administration OLC predecessors, may actually follow the law.

Right-wing activist opposition to Johnsen pertains to her past work for NARAL, a pro-choice advocacy organization. More specifically, their objection pertains to a 1989 brief in which Johnsen’s organization — along with 76 others — argued against states having the right to prohibit abortions at public health institutions.

Johnsen’s critics have zeroed in on two sentences within a footnote, which they employ claiming the OLC nominee equated motherhood with “involuntary servitude.” It’s an assertion which Politifact declared, March 24, to be “false.”

Of course, right-wing pundits further afield have taken Johnsen’s words and maliciously converted them, as AmericanConservative.org did September 19, placing the Obama nominee as number 41 among 650 unpalatable administration officials as, “Dawn ‘Compared Pregnancy with Slavery’ Johnsen.” No matter how it’s stated, however, Johnsen’s pro-choice stance is and has always been remarkably mainstream.

“The real reason” for the GOP stance in opposition to Dawn Johnsen was imparted by Scott Horton, March 26, at The Daily Beast:

…Johnsen is committed to overturning the Bush administration’s policies on torture and warrantless surveillance, which would clip the wings of the imperial presidency. Even more menacingly (from their perspective), she is committed to shining a light on some of the darkest skeletons of the Bush years.

If this is correct, then Horton’s assessment lends credence to that of Glenn Greenwald, whose aptly titled post, “Dawn Johnsen’s belief in the rule of law disqualifies her from Senate consideration,” was published May 13 at Salon.com. Within his post, Greenwald emphasized the fact that the Senate’s scrutiny of Johnsen was tragically absent in its confirmation of some previous, ultimately dubious, past nominees:

The Senate that is refusing to confirm Dawn Johnsen is the same Senate that confirmed Gen. Michael Hayden as CIA Director — with overwhelming Democratic support — even after it was revealed that he oversaw Bush’s illegal NSA spying program. It’s the same Senate that confirmed Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General — with substantial Democratic support — even once everyone knew that he had played a key role in Bush’s torture program. It’s the same Senate that — thanks to Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer — confirmed Michael Mukasey as Attorney General even after he refused to say whether waterboarding was torture and endorsed some of the most extremist presidential powers ever asserted in the U.S.

In other words, their covering their collective butts, and their doing so at the expense of a nation in desperate need of objective legal guidance.

Fortunately, there are those willing to tell their senators to quit stalling. A good example of this was a September 22 letter from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, written behalf of several organizations, directing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to drop the stall tactics on Obama nominations.

The LCCR letter refers to Johnsen, specifically:

…Professor Johnsen has already served with distinction in the OLC, and is undoubtedly well-qualified for the position. Her nomination was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in March. The OLC plays a highly important role within the Administration, and the failure to confirm the President’s nominee to lead the office prevents the OLC from providing crucial legal advice on a wide range of issues currently confronting our nation.

I’ll include some additional links below, but if you agree with the sentiment of the above letter, contact your senators and tell them so. Additionally, consider signing THIS PETITION from NARAL-Pro-Choice America, calling on GOP senators to refrain from filibustering on the basis of any candidate’s pro-choice disposition.

Francis Scott Key Emerges from Grave, Demands His Poem Back

AP — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:28:46 +0000

Originally Published at Care2.com‘s Political Causes Blog, 4 September 2009:

I was sitting on a train, head buried in my laptop, minding my own business when an oddly dressed man burst in from the next car. Nobody else seemed to take notice, which was peculiar because he appeared to be wearing an early nineteenth century costume as if he were some kind of museum tour guide. The man looked about the train car, eventually focusing his gaze directly upon me! He glanced down at my computer, then at me again. He sat in the empty seat next to me and said, “My name is Francis Scott Key, are you a journalist?”

Of course my initial reaction was incredulous. The absurdity of it: Key, author of the poem that eventually became the “Star Spangled Banner,” National Anthem of the U.S., was long dead. Unsure what to make of this character, I proceeded to lie, telling him that I was a journalist. He could have asked me if I was an astronaut, and I would have done the same.

“I need to get something off my chest, and I’d like you to write it down,” he said.

“Certainly, Mr. Key. Pleased to make your acquaintance,” I told him, having decided to humor the guy. I was bored, and I was stuck on a train for the next hour, at least. He was dressed like a dandy and appeared to be harmless.

“I assume you know who I am, and that I died long ago,” he began. I nodded, and he continued, “You should know that we watch the living. We see everything.”

He proceeded to describe the present political drama in America with particular emphasis on the irrational fear of Barack Obama, “displayed in disparate, but decidedly loud segments of America’s politically motivated,” as he put it. He spoke of his observances like someone describing “Reality TV” to a person who had no idea what a television was.

With an eyebrow raised, I inquired, “What do you mean, you see everything?”

He tacitly acknowledged my skepticism and said, “Just bear with me. Yes, we watch you. There is very little else for the dead to do. Get over it.”

Key explained that afterlife viewership had fallen off somewhat during George W. Bush’s first term, but had dropped precipitously following the 2004 presidential election. “It got to be frustrating to watch, ” he said. “Your nation had clearly, jumped the shark, electing Bush to a second term.” He paused to inquire if he had used the entertainment industry phrase properly, and he was quite pleased with himself after I informed him that he had.

“We started watching again during the 2008 campaign,” he reassured me as if I were concerned about our ratings. He didn’t have to tell me it was entertaining. I saw it live!

He lowered his voice, “I happened to be in the company of Karl Marx, whose interest in the election was piqued following the primaries. It was about the time people started throwing Marx’s name around when referring to Obama. Honestly, I don’t understand it. At least when McCarthy did it, he had an external entity in the Soviet Union, to which he could, and did, attribute potential domestic subversion.”

“Marx was irritated at first,” Key explained. “Once Karl figured out that there was no real comparison between his predictive political philosophy and the proposed policies of Senator Obama, he just thought it was hilarious.” Key confessed, he didn’t think much of it at the time, but when the irrational comparisons continued past Obama’s election he became frustrated.

He wrung his hands as he went on, “You were just starting to get interesting again. You elected a clearly empathetic and erudite individual to the presidency. You celebrated well, deservedly so, but a malevolent undercurrent of fear-inspired hate persisted, and persists, which brings me to why I’m here, talking to you.”

He was visibly agitated, but at that point I was totally into it. “Go on,” I encouraged.

Key settled himself and continued, “I apologize for my candor, but the events of the present week provoked my action. Seeing a wheelchair bound woman heckled as she attempted to describe her health care plight was despicable. It was like a punch in the gut. Then I read about the Florida GOP chairman’s profound display of ignorance: proclaiming that a motivational speech from Obama to the nation’s children was somehow akin to socialist indoctrination. It’s preposterous!”

At this point, I informed him that he was preaching to the choir on this issue. I made an effort to calm him, explaining, “though it’s not rational, many are genuinely scared and..” Abruptly, he cut me off.

“But that’s just it,” he said. “The needless, pointless fear, don’t you get it? The man is the President of the United States, for heaven’s sake. Out of cowardice, some have decided to overtly disrespect and slander your constitutionally elected leader. It’s tantamount to heresy! Further, it is insulting to those who voted for Obama; perhaps, it’s insulting to anyone who has ever voted, EVER!”

Key took a deep breath and went on, “It is because this behavior is fear-inspired that I have come back. I’ve returned to take back my poem. ‘The Home of the Brave,’ sadly, is no longer applicable to a country capable of such a display.”

I sat in a state of shock, mouth agape, as the train approached the station.

Again, Key composed himself and went on, “I’m not doing this on a whim. Far from it. For weeks, I’ve heard the word ‘tyranny’ bandied about by people who have absolutely no concept of what the word actually means.”

“And, don’t think for a moment that demanding this comes without a sense of deep personal loss. Until recently, I had taken great pride that my poem was selected for your national anthem. When president Hoover signed the congressional resolution in 1931, making my remembrance of the defense of Fort McHenry a symbol of national pride, I was so excited I nearly forgot that I was dead!”

“Further, my story is not unique,” Key continued. “Take the first American president, George Washington, for example. Though he’d be the first to tell you he’s somewhat confused and embarrassed by the phallic nature of his monument on the national mall, he remains humbled by how the nation he helped guide through its infancy remembers him. Indeed, all of us whom history has chosen to smile upon following our deaths live on symbolically because living Americans honor us by remembering us and what we fought for. The poisonous political climate of the present has led to the perversion of that honor. It makes me feel dirty, to be honest. By taking back my poem, I’m symbolically washing myself.”

The train came to a stop as he finished. I followed him across the platform, begging him to reconsider. I told him that going through with his plan could only exacerbate the issue, preventing any chance for Obama to turn it around.

“Give him a chance,” I said. “With more time the displays of ignorance could subside. Give us a chance to come to our senses, to awaken to the fact that there is nothing to be afraid of,” I pleaded.

With that, the man who portended to be Francis Scott Key, paused, turned to me, and smiled.

“Alright,” he said. “If you haven’t given up, then neither will I. You’ve got until the next presidential contest in 2012.”

I barely had time to outwardly display my relief when Key turned to leave. As he parted, he issued a warning:

“Just know that if you haven’t sorted it out by then, I’ll return with others. Indeed, tell Glenn Beck if he misquotes Teddy Roosevelt again, he’ll have a lot more to worry about than losing his sponsors. The OP (Original Progressive, I’m guessing) is about ready to go ‘Rough Rider’ on his sociopathic backside.”

Following this bizarre encounter, I took some time to gather my notes and set to writing them down. Was it actually Francis Scott Key, back from the grave to reclaim his legacy? Probably not, but that’s beside the point. The perpetrators of the Obama-as-tyrant meme, and those who repeat it out of fear, or otherwise, are spitting on the very institutions they claim to hold most dear. Key, or not Key, his assessment was spot on in my opinion. I’d rather not disappoint him by giving up.

To that end, I encourage you to sign the following petition: Boycott Fox News Advertisers. Though Fox is not the exclusive purveyor of the above described fear, they are the most visible; and, for reasons I cannot begin to explain, they are the most watched.

Memos Show Nixon’s Bid to Enlist Brazil in a Coup

AP — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:17:56 +0000

The following is from NewYorkTimes.com, posted 16 August 2009, by Alexi Barrionuevo. The recently declassified documents are linked within a post from the historian responsible for analyzing them, Peter Kornbluh, located at GWU’s National Security Archive.

Some thoughts below the fold.

Barrionuevo wrote:

The formerly secret memos, published Sunday by the National Security Archive in Washington, show that Brazil and the United States discussed plans to overthrow or destabilize not only Mr. Allende but Fidel Castro of Cuba and others.

Mr. Nixon, at a meeting in the Oval Office on Dec. 9, 1971, said he was willing to offer Brazil the assistance, monetary or otherwise, it might need to rid South America of leftist governments, the White House memorandum of the meeting shows…

“The full history of intervention in South America in the 1970s cannot be told without Brazil coming clean about a dark past that is not previously acknowledged,” Mr. Kornbluh said.

This reminded me of a post I wrote for Care2.com following the 2009 Summit of the Americas. There, Barack Obama was approached by Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, and they exchanged a greeting. The post, “Gingrich Ignores History, Calls Obama – Chavez Encounter a Sign of Weakness,” is my take on the nonsense which erupted from conservative pundits & wannabe (but never will be) Presidents:

Conservatives have really got their shorts in a bunch over the Barack Obama – Hugo Chavez exchange over the weekend at the Summit of the Americas. Their discomfort is yet another example of Obama’s detractors, digging in their heels, opposing every aspect of the three-month-old presidency; further, this conservative meme is no more rational than any of the others. Their outrage over a simple greeting between Obama and Chavez is illustrative of a deeper problem within the American ideological divide.

The best example of irrational criticism came from a potential Obama opponent in 2012: Newt Gingrich. Satyam Khanna summed up Gingrich’s position in a April 20, Think Progress post:

The right wing has responded with outrage to Obama’s meeting with Chavez, claiming face-to-face talks with a dictator show that Obama is projecting weakness. On NBC this morning, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Obama “bows to the Saudi King and is friends with Venezuela” and claimed the President showed “shallowness” in talking with Chavez. Gingrich then claimed that U.S. presidents do not “smile and greet” with Russian leaders…

Khanna goes on to explain why Gingrich, a former history professor, needs to brush up on his history. The author provides a series of photographs of past US leaders smiling and greeting Russian leaders during the height of the Cold War. But, Gingrich’s factual error is emblematic of the larger issue: Americans tend to forget their nation’s history.

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Not only do we forget our history, many among us are inclined to guild memories of the past, providing them with a veneer of propriety that isn’t always deserved. The past behavior in question — the contentious relationship between the US and Latin America — is a prime example of our historical ignorance.

Now, before you start with the “anti-American” or “Blame America Firster” accusations, hear me out. American treatment of its neighbors to the South has been neither all good, nor has it been all bad. Indeed, much of the most egregious offenses were undertaken with the best of intentions: the prohibition of Soviet influence in Latin America. While Americans are justifiably proud of their nation’s efforts in quashing their communist foes during the Cold War, too often we fail to empathize with Latin American populations who were adversely affected by US actions.

Consider that, historically, the US has, sometimes covertly, intervened in Latin American affairs over 50 times. Regardless of the legitimacy of the interventions, a common result of such actions was American support of repressive right wing dictators for the sake of preventing leftist regimes from coming to power.

Hugo Chavez, whose handshake with Obama has garnered so much conservative ire, was able to come to power in Venezuela because of that history. Additionally, American support of a coup attempt to oust the Chavez regime in 2002 has served to strengthen his position in Venezuela.

In a March 2006 post at CommonDreams.org, Medea Benjamin described the consequences of the Bush Administration’s subversive actions in Venezuela, encouraging her readers to imagine if the shoe were on the other foot:

To this day, Bush Administration officials routinely deny their involvement in the coup, in spite of official US documents that prove otherwise. But the truth is widely known in Venezuela, and forms the basis for the antagonism that plagues the US-Venezuela relationship. To be fair, Chávez engages in regular verbal tirades against Bush and Rice which overreach presidential diplomacy. But imagine how the US government would treat a foreign government that had financed domestic groups that participated in a coup against the US government…

Well, what do you think? How would you react to a foreign coup attempt? I look forward to your comments, but consider this final question: If it was a sign of weakness for Obama to interact with the Venezuelan President at a diplomatic summit, what action or actions could Obama have used in order to display strength? Of course, Gingrich did not offer a suggestion.

Instead he railed against his own President, and did so without any consideration for how the Obama – Chavez encounter may have impacted the perceptions of the Venezuelan people. Gingrich conveniently forgot that the eight years of Bush’s diplomatic neglect, combined with a long history of intervention in the region, contributed to the Venezuelans being predisposed to relish in Chavez’s anti-American rants. His neglecting to include such considerations reflects his tacit acknowledgment that, Americans who are predisposed to accept such cynicism are ignorant of their own history. As a former history professor, Newt Gingrich should be ashamed of himself.

Peter Kornbluh

Intelligence Lacking: More Cherry Picking From Dick Cheney

AP — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:05:10 +0000

This was originally published @ Care2.com:

Former Vice President, Dick Cheney, was at it again last Sunday. He adamantly vocalized his disapproval of President Obama’s national security policy, and was incredulous about the idea that Bush Administration officials should be investigated for their treatment of enemy combatants. Of course, Cheney has every right to voice his opinion in these matters, though such criticism from a former VP is highly unusual. However, considering the Bush Administration’s past behavior in politicizing traditionally non-political government entities, how are the claims of Dick Cheney, in any way, credible?

On last Sunday’s Face the Nation, one of Cheney’s statements deserved more scrutiny than the 30 min. program allowed:

One of the things that I did six weeks ago was I made a request that two memos that I personally know of, written by the CIA, that lay out the successes of those policies and point out in considerable detail all of — all that we were able to achieve by virtue of those policies, that those memos be released, be made public.

First of all, the “two memos… that lay out the successes of those policies,” couldn’t possibly discount that torturing detainees enhanced the ability of terrorists to recruit new supporters. So, even if the memos in question reveal productive results, those results were, at best, a push when considering the policy’s impact on US national security.

Second, and more importantly, how can two memos vindicate policies that were in clear violation of prescriptions within the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture? Jeremy Scahill summed up why the policies can’t be excused, particularly as they apply to the latter, “This is a matter of law and US obligations to its international treaties, which the Constitution explicitly states the US will respect and enforce.” The memos, even if they support what Cheney suggests, are illustrative of a policy that was blatantly illegal.

Finally, consider the behavior of Dick Cheney and others in the run up to the Iraq invasion. There is a pattern of deceptive practices by Bush officials in shaping policies and intelligence to fit their goals. The Office of Special Plans (OSP) is an instructive example. Jason Leopold, presently of ThePublicRecord.org, reported for Truthout.org in 2007:

The Office of Special Plans routinely provided President Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, who headed the National Security Council at the time, with questionable intelligence information on the Iraqi threat. Much of that information was included in various speeches by Bush and Cheney, and some was never vetted for accuracy by career CIA analysts…

…Patrick Lang, a former director of Middle East analysis at the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in an interview with the New Yorker in May 2003 that the Office of Special Plans “started picking out things that supported their thesis and stringing them into arguments that they could use with the president. It’s not intelligence. It’s political propaganda.”

The OSP was developed by Donald Rumsfeld out of frustration regarding the lack of actionable intelligence on Iraq’s capabilities and intentions. Headed by Douglas Feith — whom Gen. Tommy Franks once referred to as the “Dumbest MF’er on the planet” — the OSP did not gather new intelligence. Rather, the Department of Defense office reinterpreted existing data, cherry-picking and restating evidence to support the invasion of Iraq. When Dick Cheney insists upon a link between Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein, the OSP is the source of his evidence. Of course, we now know there was no such link.

This is merely one example, but when considered along with Cheney’s insistence that waterboarding “worked” and “kept us safe,” how can he be taken seriously? Let me know what you think.

Personally, I wouldn’t put it past Cheney to contort evidence to fit his narrative. It is entirely plausible that, in calling for the release of the two CIA memos, the former Vice President is cherry-picking evidence just as he did before the invasion of Iraq. Further, it is more than plausible, as was indicated today by FBI agent, Ali Soufan, in his testimony before Congress that the interrogation methods DO NOT WORK. Soufan said the harsh techniques were “ineffective, slow and unreliable and as a result, harmful to our efforts to defeat al-Qaida.”:

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When the past actions of Dick Cheney are considered along with his present public statements, it is entirely possible that torture was employed, not to discover a link between Al Qaida and Iraq, but to create one.

Bush May Haunt Republicans for Generations

AP — Sun, 10 May 2009 20:18:15 +0000

Some fascinating data based on more than 120,000 interviews completed over the past four months, on the way that partisan identification breaks down by age.

From FiveThirtyEight.com, 9 May 2009 post, by Nate Silver:

Partisan ID Gap, Based on Identity of President When Voter Turned 18

...It’s become common knowledge that the younger generation is highly predisposed toward Democrats. (Actually, that’s not quite right — they’re more predisposed against Republicans than they are toward Democrats — but the net effects on their voting behavior are probably about the same.) What’s more remarkable, though, is how sharp the increase in the partisan ID gap becomes at about age 25. People aged 26-34 are pretty Democratic, put people aged 18-25 are really Democratic…

Letter From Paris: Obama Nails It

AP — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:25:56 +0000

Below is my comment re: the above titled post from Beth Arnold @ The Huffington Post:

(Link to Arnold’s post @ page bottom.)

Imagine if it were W, rather than Obama, who stepped in to settle the Sarkozy / Hu rift at the G20. Try to picture the faces of the translators as Bush broke off a sports analogy or two. Or, maybe there would have been someone — a Secret Service Agent or, perhaps, Angela Merkel — charged with distracting W from getting involved.

Frankly, Bush never possessed the gravitas to pull something like that off. It’s refreshing to have a President who does.

I’m glad it went well for Obama in Paris. He strikes me as the kind of fella’ who’d truly enjoy the city’s atmosphere.

More on Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Rachel Maddow Show – Jon Turley – impassioned case for prosecuting alleged torture

AP — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 20:31:59 +0000

Professor Turley: “This is the most well defined and publicly known crime I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

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Expect Congress to Look Backward as Obama Moves Forward

AP — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:31:24 +0000

Originally Published @ Care2.com, 18 February 2009, by Aaron D. Pendell

The first month of the Obama administration has been a whirlwind. The president signed the American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act–the most comprehensive (and most expensive) legislation in American history–into law on Tuesday in Denver. The following day, Obama began to implement the economic recovery package, no doubt continuing the frenetic pace established since his inauguration. Congress, however, will likely set about getting some answers out of the Bush administration.

That the Congress and the President will be traveling separate paths is inconsequential and should be expected. As Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com perceptively posted on Sunday, the liberal, or progressive, electorate is by no means a homogeneous bunch. He describes progressives as being divided into “rational” and “radical” contingents with countless individual members falling somewhere between the two.