Doctors, Nurses Not Allowed to Pass Gaza Crossing

1.  “If America were blessed with a noninterventionist foreign policy, we could all thank Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for giving President-elect Barack Obama a thoroughgoing lesson in the absolute irrelevancy of Israel and Palestine to the national interests of the United States. More than a week into Israel’s invasion of Gaza, America is still alive and kicking and none of our citizens are dead, which is the way it should be, as this is their religious war and not ours. If stubborn noninterventionism were our creed – as the Founders intended – the Gaza war could continue for two more days or two more months and we could simply shrug and mutter “Who cares?” America could simply go on its way, rebuilding its economy and marveling over the madness of two religions fighting to the death over a barren sandpit at the eastern end of the Mediterranean.

Unfortunately, America today is run by a political and media elite that is addicted to intervention. This would be bad enough if these men and women had the brains to intervene and produce a result that benefits U.S. interests, but they are not. They are instead – despite their Ivy League diplomas – uneducated and naïve people who still live in the Cold War, foolishly believing that America is the boss of a strong Western/NATO community (which is now in its death throes on Afghanistan’s plains); that other nations are eager to do America’s dirty work; and, most fatally of all, that the national security interests of the United States and Israel are identical.“

http://www.antiwar.com/scheuer/?articleid=14000

2.  “There’s got to be some irony in the U.S. transference of control to Iraqi security forces while the Israelis pound Gaza. Why? Because, despite the hoopla in the U.S. press and its Iraqi clones, the nature of the control being “given back” to the Iraqis seems quite similar to the control given back to the Gazans by the Israelis when they withdrew their forces in 2005. In other words, any control the Iraqi government and its security forces might now have can be removed at any time by U.S. forces. Indeed, the U.S. forces are not even withdrawing. They are merely turning the security details they performed for the past five years or so to Iraqi security forces whose existence depends on the presence of U.S. forces populating bases around Iraq.

According to a Washington Post article about the transfer, “the long-term plan, which could change if security deteriorates, is to maintain a handful of heavily secured American compounds,” which would facilitate support, intelligence, and other such functions on an ongoing basis. In addition, the U.S. forces will also be available for raids and other police and military actions when the U.S.-approved government in Baghdad asks for their help. While it is safe to assume that many of these actions will be at the genuine request of that government, it is also safe to expect that some will be at the behest of the U.S. command.“

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/jacobs.php?articleid=13999

3.  War crime:

“Israel Won’t Let Red Cross Team into Gaza

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The organization says the team has been waiting at the Erez Crossing for three days now. Initially their entry was denied by the Israeli military, citing security reasons, and while that decision was officially reversed the crossing has been closed ever since, keeping the team unable to provide aid to Gaza’s thousands of wounded.

The Swiss government condemned the move, calling on Israel to immediately reopen all border crossings to allow humanitarian aid into the strip, and urged both sides to respect the provisions of international humanitarian law, including allowing access to the victims of the war.“

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/01/04/israel-wont-let-red-cross-team-into-gaza/

4.  I sure never thought of PETA and Amnesty International as terrorist groups:

“The Maryland State Police surveillance of advocacy groups was far more extensive than previously acknowledged, with records showing that troopers monitored — and labeled as terrorists — activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes.

Intelligence officers created a voluminous file on Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, calling the group a “security threat” because of concerns that members would disrupt the circus. Angry consumers fighting a 72 percent electricity rate increase in 2006 were targeted. The DC Anti-War Network, which opposes the Iraq war, was designated a white supremacist group, without explanation.

One of the possible “crimes” in the file police opened on Amnesty International, a world-renowned human rights group: “civil rights.”

According to hundreds of pages of newly obtained police documents, the groups were swept into a broad surveillance operation that started in 2005 with routine preparations for the scheduled executions of two men on death row.

The operation has been called a “waste of resources” by the current police superintendent and “undemocratic” by the governor.“

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/03/AR2009010301993_pf.html

5.  Finally, what sounds like a really good Obama appointee:

“The Office of Legal Counsel, inside the Justice Department, is probably the most consequential federal government office that remains relatively obscure.  The legal opinions which it issues become, more or less automatically, the official legal position of the Executive Branch.  It was from that office that John Yoo, Jay Bybee and others did so much damage, issuing now-infamous memoranda that established the regime of lawlessness that has dominated our political institutions over the last eight years.  Other than Attorney General-designate Eric Holder and Obama himself, there is probably no official who will have a more significant role in determining the extent to which the Obama administration really does reverse the lawlessness and legal radicalism of the Bush years.

Today, as The Boston Globe just reported, Barack Obama announced several new appointments to key DOJ posts, including Dawn Johnsen to head the OLC.  Johnsen is a Professor of Law at Indiana University, a former OLC official in the Clinton administration (as well as a former ACLU counsel), and a graduate of Yale Law School.  She’s become a true expert on executive power and, specifically, the role and obligation of the OLC in restricting presidential decisions to their lawful scope.

There are several striking pieces of evidence that suggest this appointment may be Obama’s best yet, perhaps by far.  Consider, first, this rather emphatic Slate article authored by Johnsen in the wake of the disclosure, last April, of the 81-page John Yoo Memo which declared that the President’s power to torture detainees is virtually limitless.  Her article is notable at least as much for its tone as for its substance (emphasis added):

I want to second Dahlia’s frustration with those who don’t see the newly released Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) torture memo as a big deal. Where is the outrage, the public outcry?! The shockingly flawed content of this memo, the deficient processes that led to its issuance, the horrific acts it encouraged, the fact that it was kept secret for years and that the Bush administration continues to withhold other memos like it–all demand our outrage.

Yes, we’ve seen much of it before. And yes, we are counting down the remaining months. But we must regain our ability to feel outrage whenever our government acts lawlessly and devises bogus constitutional arguments for outlandishly expansive presidential power. Otherwise, our own deep cynicism, about the possibility for a President and presidential lawyers to respect legal constraints, itself will threaten the rule of law–and not just for the remaining nine months of this administration, but for years and administrations to come. . . .

The correct response to all this? Marty has several good suggestions to start. And outrage. Directed where it belongs: at President Bush, as well as his lawyers.

A couple of weeks before that, she wrote a short piece for Slate lambasting the Bush administration for violating FISA in secret (with the approval of then-OLC head Jack Goldsmith) and for manipulating the New York Times into concealing the story for a full year.  There, she wrote (emphasis added):

I’m afraid we are growing immune to just how outrageous and destructive it is, in a democracy, for the President to violate federal statutes in secret. Remember that much of what we know about the Bush administration’s violations of statutes (and yes, I realize they claim not to be violating statutes) came first only because of leaks and news coverage. Incredibly, we still don’t know the full extent of our government’s illegal surveillance or illegal interrogations (and who knows what else)-despite Congress’s failed efforts to get to the bottom of it. Congress instead resorted to enacting new legislation on both issues largely in the dark.

Perhaps most importantly — and most impressively — of all, this is what she wrote in Slate on March 18, regarding what the next administration must do about Bush’s serial lawbreaking:

The question how we restore our nation’s honor takes on new urgency and promise as we approach the end of this administration. We must resist Bush administration efforts to hide evidence of its wrongdoing through demands for retroactive immunity, assertions of state privilege, and implausible claims that openness will empower terrorists. . . .

Here is a partial answer to my own question of how should we behave, directed especially to the next president and members of his or her administration but also to all of use who will be relieved by the change: We must avoid any temptation simply to move on. We must instead be honest with ourselves and the world as we condemn our nation’s past transgressions and reject Bush’s corruption of our American ideals. Our constitutional democracy cannot survive with a government shrouded in secrecy, nor can our nation’s honor be restored without full disclosure.

I first read these posts of Johnsen’s a few weeks ago when a reporter asked me about my reaction to the possibility that she might be appointed to head the OLC.

…

A bit more good news today was Obama’s announcement of his selection for CIA Director:  former Clinton White House Chief of Staff (and Congressman) Leon Panetta.  I don’t have any particular thoughts, one way or the other, about Panetta himself, but — particularly in the wake of the Brennan controversy — it does seem clear that the Obama team was serious about avoiding anyone who had any connection at all to the Bush torture, surveillance and detention programs.“

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

6.  “John Travolta has revealed that his 16-year-old son Jet died while on holiday due to the fact “He had failed to attend the $5,000 Scientology course that deals with not drowning in the bath”. The Battlefield Earth chindimple stated that “Our trusted Scientology pathologist – the former actress Kirstie Alley – has shown that my beloved son was taken from us after his dynamic relating to ‘Life’ was, like, totally out of whack.”

Jet’s body was discovered by Travolta in the early hours of Saturday morning. It is believed that the sort-of-actor had been attending a function dedicated to building a three-hundred foot monument to L Ron Hubbard constructed entirely out of fifty-dollar bills.

Scientology spokesperson Teck Ebbsfleet explained “The human person is made up of eight dynamics relating to different areas of existence – ‘Spirituality’, ‘Self’, ‘Gullibility’ and so on. Each of them has a direct impact on our day to day life. That will be eight hundred dollars, please”.

“According to our audit records Mr Travolta’s son was behind schedule for the training course relating to ‘Life’. In this course, via a series of Direct Debit-based lessons, we show the subject how a trillion-year-old spirit, formerly suffering under the extraterrestrial dictatorship of Helatrobus, can hold back an individual and stop him from sucking up bathwater like a hungry aardvark. What? No, really, I’m deadly serious. Fifteen hundred dollars, please.”

Travolta, who shot to fame for not being shit in three of his many films, is to fly Jet’s body to the International Church Of Scientology for a private funeral later this week. He is expected to donate several million dollars to the legally-protected religion in order to ensure that Jet’s Thetan level on reincarnation is sufficient to grant him steady work in regional theatre.

Messages of condolence have been sent from many of Hollywood’s famous blank-eyed lunatics. Tom Cruise said “Our thoughts go out to John at this time, although we know he won’t feel depressed about it because psychology is just bullshit. I know these things, for I am Tom Cruise. Hear me now, o globe. Hear the words of Tom Cruise.” Katie Holmes added a more cryptic message of sorrow, saying “I please am help very me saddened Tom to is hear keeping about me Jet. Prisoner He the was fucking a gibbering great moron kid.

As a mark of respect, Scientology representatives across the globe will drape black cloth over their ‘E Meters’ while buttonholing confused and lonely passers-by outside their joyless centres.”

http://pushjelly.blogspot.com/2009/01/travolta-son-dies-of-imbalanced.html