Cafferty: How can Bush salvage his presidency?

[You can now view this video here.]

Write Your Own Caption

Bush with members of the Iraq Study Group:

Bush: Well, they handed me the report in the back room and then they squished my head...just like this...and wouldn't let me out here until I said, 'Uncle'!

'Justice Department Brings First-Ever Torture Charges'

You're forgiven for thinking that those charges have something to do with what happened at Abu Ghraib or to one of the many victims of the CIA torture flights (those so-called 'extraordinary renditions') that shipped innocent people like Canada's Maher Arar or Germany's Khalid el-Masri to countries like Syria and Afghanistan to be horrendously abused. No, the day Attorney General Alberto 'torture memo' Gonzales decides to lay charges in circumstances that he helped to create will be a cold day in hell indeed.

These charges are being levied against the son of the former Liberian president, Charles Taylor:

Roy M. Belfast Jr., 29, aka Chuckie Taylor, aka Charles Taylor, Jr., aka Charles Taylor II, aka Charles McArther Emmanuel, was charged in an indictment returned today by a federal grand jury in Miami with one count of torture, one count of conspiracy to torture, and one count of using a firearm during the commission of a violent crime. The indictment charges Taylor, son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, with participating in the torture of an individual on or about July 24, 2002, in and around Monrovia, Liberia. The defendant, who was born in the United States, is alleged to have been serving in his father's government in Liberia at the time of the incident.

According to the indictment, on or about July 24, 2002, the victim was abducted from his home and transported to various locations, finally arriving at the residence of then-Liberian President Taylor. The defendant observed questioning of the victim at this location. The victim was then transported for continued interrogation to the residence of a co-conspirator, who was a member of the Liberian Special Security Service.

According to the indictment, while at this residence, the defendant and others tortured the victim. The torture included repeatedly burning the victim's flesh with a hot iron, burning various parts of his body with scalding water, including forcing the victim to hold scalding water in his hands at gunpoint, repeatedly electrically shocking the victim's genitalia and other body parts, and rubbing salt into the victim's wounds.

"This marks the first time the Justice Department has charged a defendant with the crime of torture," said Assistant Attorney General Fisher. "Crimes such as these will not go unanswered."

"The allegations in this case include acts of torture, such as burning flesh with a hot iron, burning flesh with scalding water, and applying electric shocks," U.S. Attorney Acosta stated. "Such conduct is criminal and constitutes torture and must be prosecuted."

"Today's indictment against Charles 'Chuckie' Taylor marks a key milestone in ICE's longstanding efforts to bring human rights violators to justice," said Assistant Secretary Myers. "This is a clear message that the United States will not be a safe haven for human rights violators."

Unless, of course, that torture has been sanctioned by the United States government.

On the Anniversary of the Ecole Polytechnique Massacre...

Today is the sad anniversary of the massacre at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique yet this Blogging Tory cannot even bring himself to offer one word of sympathy for the victims, deciding instead to blame the men who were forced out of the school by Marc Lepine at gunpoint after shots had already been fired while bringing up the old fearmongering tactic of pointing out that 'Gharbi was the second generation son of a Muslim immigrant' because that talking point now fits in neatly with the right-wing hysteria and bigotry towards Muslims. I'd like to know exactly what that blogger, Frank Hilliard, would do if he met face to face with an armed gunman in the midst of mass confusion under the threat of death. I guess we'll never know. In the meantime, however, he preaches from his pulpit that others in such a situation should have acted differently. Well, hindsight is always 20/20. Being there in that moment, however, is an entirely different story. Anyone who's lived through a traumatic incident knows just how true that is.

These are the women who were lost that day. May they never be forgotten:

* Geneviève Bergeron (b. 1968), civil engineering student.
* Hélène Colgan (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
* Nathalie Croteau (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
* Barbara Daigneault (b. 1967) mechanical engineering student.
* Anne-Marie Edward (b. 1968), chemical engineering student.
* Maud Haviernick (b. 1960), materials engineering student.
* Maryse Laganière (b. 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique's finance department.
* Maryse Leclair (b. 1966), materials engineering student.
* Anne-Marie Lemay (b. 1967), mechanical engineering student.
* Sonia Pelletier (b. 1961), mechanical engineering student.
* Michèle Richard (b. 1968), materials engineering student.
* Annie St-Arneault (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
* Annie Turcotte (b. 1969), materials engineering student.
* Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (b. 1958), nursing student.

Keep their families and friends, along with everyone who was directly impacted by the horrors of that day, in your thoughts and prayers on this day.

Update: Kathy of the Relapsed Catholic blog is also quite proud of herself for making this proclamation: 'The young men who left their female classmates to their fates during the Montreal Massacre were wimps.' Just how sadistic do you have to be to blame victims? And yes, those men were victims of Lepine's terror as well.

Breaking News! Zaccardelli Resigns

Harper announced during question period that RCMP Chief Zaccardelli has submitted his letter of resignation and that he has accepted it.

Additionally, when Dion asked Harper when he found about Zaccardelli's changing story, Harper said he just heard about it this week. However, a letter was submitted to the committee responsible for dealing with the Arar report on November 2 by Zaccardelli explaining his revisions to his September testimony (which, the opposition claims, is proof that the government knew about the inconsistencies for 1 month and did nothing). Harper skirted Dion's question and it was then up to Stockwell Day, who has been accused of coaching Zaccardelli's September testimony, to try to weasel his way out of the facts presented which resulted in quite a pathetic performance as he tried to cover his butt as well.

developing...as they say...

Update: The Globe and Mail has a timeline of events surrounding Zaccardelli's testimony.

Liberals Get Free Vote on SSM

It's crunch time with the Tories forcing the house of commons to vote on reopening the same sex marriage issue as a gift to their base. It's going to fail, but they don't care. They're going to waste everybody's time on it anyway.

Liberal party leader Stephane Dion announced today that Liberal members are free to vote as they see fit in an effort to stave off further criticism from Steve:

Dion, elected Liberal leader on Saturday, said he doesn't want to see the debate reopened.

However, forcing his MPs to vote alongside him would only give Prime Minister Stephen Harper some leverage, he said.

"This way, [Harper] will not be able to say, 'Dion prevented his MPs from voting freely,' " Dion said.

Additionally:

Thursday's motion is not expected to pass. But if it did, Dion said he would ask MPs to vote along party lines if there was another vote to change the same-sex law itself.

That's sure to draw some ire but, considering that 8 provinces and 1 territory already allow same sex marriage and that Dion feels this is a charter matter, he certainly will have support for a whipped vote on the actual motion if it comes before the house.

This rhetoric from the Tory camp that they are raising this issue because it was one of their election promises should be taken with a grain of salt. They also made an election promise not to touch income trusts so they obviously believe in breaking their promises when they feel like it.

Now, isn't there a war going on in Afghanistan that we should be focusing on instead?

Prager Tries to Fight Back and Fails Miserably

Right-wing radio host Dennis Prager wrote an absolutely paranoid column last week (which I wrote about here) about the fact a new Democratic congressman, Keith Ellison who is Muslim, has decided to swear his oath with the Koran instead of the Bible. That sounds like common sense, doesn't it? Well, not to Prager - who went off the deep end:

He [Ellison] should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.

And it just got worse from that point...

Now, he's decided to fight back against his critics and starts out with this attack:

Aside from the immaturity and loathing of higher civilization that such public use of curse words reveal, the fury and hate render the leftist charge that it is the Right that is hate-filled one of the most obvious expressions of psychological projection I have seen in my lifetime.

Who was it again who told a leftist senator to 'Go fuck yourself' in the hallowed senate chamber? Oh, right. It was that beacon of righteous right-wing idealism Dick Cheney - vice president of lower civilization.

As it happens, the exchange occurred on the same day the Senate passed legislation described as the "Defense of Decency Act" by 99 to 1.

Whoops.

Prager does one pathetic job of trying to explain why he still believes that using the Koran while being sworn in is the end of America as we know it and tries to deflect the bigotry charge rightly levelled against him with this:

"Bigoted": Bigoted against whom? Against non-Christians? I am a non-Christian. Am I bigoted against myself as a Jew? I happen to be one of the most active individuals in American Jewish life and co-author of probably the most widely used English-language introduction to Judaism of the last 30 years.

Ummm...what?

You, Prager, are bigoted against Ellison who is not a Jew. He is a Muslim. Which part of that don't you get, exactly? And since you can't grasp that, you are just wasting your time trying to convince people who see right through your paranoid hysteria - and there are lots of us out here.

Just how much more obvious does it get than this from Prager's original column?

Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison's favorite book is. Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress.

And if you are incapable of rationality, stop writing such ridiculously shallow attacks while trying to convince everyone that you are a paragon of virtue or an example of what the founders meant when they defined what it means to be an inclusive American citizen.

Wanker.

Iraq Study Group Report is Released

Well, at least they were honest about what's going on in Iraq:

Iraq Panel Calls Conditions 'Grave and Deteriorating'

Conditions in Iraq are "grave and deteriorating," with the prospect that a "slide toward chaos" could topple the U.S.-backed government and trigger a regional war unless the United States changes course and seeks a broader diplomatic and political solution involving all of Iraq's neighbors, according to a bipartisan panel that gave its recommendations to President Bush and Congress today.

In what amounts to the most extensive independent assessment of the nearly four-year-old conflict that has claimed the lives of more than 2,800 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis, the Iraq Study Group paints a bleak picture of a nation that Bush has repeatedly vowed to transform into a beacon of freedom and democracy in the Middle East.

Despite a list of 79 recommendations meant to encourage regional diplomacy and lead to a reduction of U.S. forces over the next year, the panel acknowledges that stability in Iraq may be impossible to achieve any time soon.

The top 3 points emphasized by the group are:

The group's recommendations for the way forward in Iraq focus largely on building a broad international consensus for helping the nation, pushing Iraq to meet a set of rather ambitious deadlines for internal progress, and gradually reducing the U.S. troop presence there while boosting support for Iraqi army control of the security situation.

Along with:

The study group recommends that the United States withdraw nearly all of its combat units from Iraq by early 2008, sharply reducing the current troop level of more than 140,000 while leaving behind tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel to advise, train and embed with Iraqi forces.

It also recommends that Bush threaten to reduce economic and military support for Iraq's government if it fails to meet specific benchmarks intended to improve security in the country. It suggests that the Bush administration open talks with Iran and Syria about ways to end the violence in Iraq, proposes holding a regional conference to bring together all of Iraq's neighbors and urges Bush to aggressively tackle the Israeli-Palestinian dispute to reduce the broader regional tensions fueling the Iraq conflict.

The Washington Post has more....

No doubt the Cherry-Picker-in-Chief will now feel more than slightly defeated but he'll most likely come out in public feistier than ever as he tries to continue to exert his authority while now pretending that some of these ideas were his own to begin with. And although 'freedom is on the march' is a stale, old cliche, there's no doubt that he won't abandon what he calls his 'optimism' (which others call living in la la land) to keep pushing this idea that the US can somehow 'win' (which no one seems to be able to define) in Iraq.

What Bush needs to realize is that this is no longer about him, his legacy and how he can best cover his ass. He now needs to start taking this very seriously for the sake of America, Iraq, the coalition, the broader Middle East and most importantly for those who are being wounded and who are dying every day in the name of his horrendous misadventure. I doubt, however, that he is up to the challenge.

You can read the Iraq Study Group's executive summary, full report and appendices (.pdf files) by following the links on The Washington Post's site. I haven't had the chance to read through everything yet... Additionally, check out CSPAN for video of the Study Group's press conference.

Update: You can also download the ISG report here on the U.S. Institute of Peace site.

Afghanistan: The PMO's Titanic Mistake

As the Toronto Star points out, if Canadians aren't getting all of the news coming out of our efforts in Afghanistan (the Rumsfeldian Good News™) which Brig. General David Fraser is now openly complaining about, it isn't for a lack of trying either on the part of the media or opposition members of parliament.

"I'll tell you right now, the story Canadians are receiving is like an iceberg. They're only seeing one-third of it." [Fraser said.]
[...]
Fraser's criticism follows similar comments by Prime Minister Stephen Harper who has said several times that the good work Canadians soldiers are doing often goes unreported.

What the Conservative government does not say is that civilian members of government agencies, such as the Canadian International Development Agency and the Foreign Affairs Department, are routinely barred from speaking with journalists on the ground about redevelopment projects.

Last spring, Fraser's own principal political advisor at Kandahar Airfield — a Foreign Affairs staffer — was not allowed to be quoted on the record by the embedded media.

Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh blamed the information vacuum on the Conservatives and their policy of muzzling ministers and officials.

"I have the utmost respect for Gen. Fraser, the work he's done, and I understand his frustration," said Dosanjh. "But it's really up to the government to provide information. And they have not been providing that information."

Opposition MPs and senators — especially parliamentary defence committees — have "fought tooth and nail" to be briefed on the latest goings on in Afghanistan, he said.

Speaking to NATO parliamentarians last month about anemic support for the mission, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor conceded the government hadn't gone a good job engaging the public on the question of why the country was in Afghanistan.

I think it's time for Fraser to take a vacation and catch up on exactly what's been happening in Canada while he was in Afghanistan. Maybe then he can place the blame squarely where it belongs - at the feet of Harper who makes reporters grovel for every bit of information he allows to be released from his fortress of an office.

There certainly is a need for an icebreaker in Canada to break up that iceberg that Fraser referred to and its course should be 'Iceberg, dead ahead' as it aims for Steve's desk.

Fire Zaccardelli

It's certainly more than ironic that RCMP Chief Zaccardelli is now saying that he didn't intend to mislead the committee investigating the Arar affair when he tesitified in September. He told the media today that he just didn't have the proper information at the time to provide accurate testimony. This - coming from the same RCMP machine that has had to admit that it didn't give the US government accurate information about Arar's security status either.

When Zaccardelli appeared before the committee on Sept. 28, he said he first learned of RCMP mistakes some time after Arar was imprisoned and that he informed senior government officials about the problems. Zaccardelli testified that he knew the RCMP were trying to correct the record with their U.S. counterparts while Arar was being detained in Syria.

But at a speech Monday and again at the committee meeting this morning, Zaccardelli told a different version of events.

He told MPs that he knew Arar was a “person of interest,” but did not learn that the RCMP had passed inaccurate information to U.S. authorities until much later, when he read O’Connor’s report.

Zaccardelli said today that his senior officers were not aware that Arar had been mislabeled or that false information had been passed on to U.S. authorities and, therefore, there’s no way he could have known because his senior officers are responsible for briefing him on such matters. Throughout his testimony, Zaccardelli repeated that he only learned the full scope of how the RCMP mishandled the Arar case when he read the inquiry report.

How are we now expected to believe that his testimony was just a mistake? You'd think he would know when he actually learned about Arar's situation. It's time for those 'senior government officials' and MPs to step forward to either confirm or deny Zaccardelli's sudden reversal (not that they'll necessarily tell the truth if they decide they want to help him save his butt).

Regardless, Zaccardelli's changing story is an admission of incompetence and he needs to either resign or be fired for screwing around with a Canadian's life to the point where that person ends up being tortured in a Syrian jail due to RCMP 'mistakes'.

Update: When asked about this during question period by Stephane Dion, Harper began his answer with this: 'I know the Liberal party doesn't like the RCMP.' In response to a second question from Dion, Harper once again attacked the Liberals (because that's all he knows how to do): 'The animus of the Liberal party towards the RCMP and the commissioner is well known...'

Screw you, Steve. Just do your job and fire Zaccardelli. And, while you're at it, give Stockwell Day his walking papers too.

Update: CTV has the reaction from Maher Arar's lawyer and video of Zaccardelli's testimony today.