Category Archive

Glenn Greenwald on why we’re bound by law to prosecute torture cases. (Incidentally, he also points out that a new report states that Bush officials were informed that a legal memos submitted to justify torture were slanted to fit administration policy):

a U.S. really has bound itself to a treaty called a Convention Against Torture, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1988 & ratified by a U.S. Senate in 1994. When are are credible allegations that government officials have participated or been complicit in torture, that Convention really does compel all signatories — in language as clear as can be devised — to “submit a case to its competent authorities for a purpose of prosecution” (Art. 7(1)). & a treaty explicitly bars a st&ard excuses that America’s political class is currently offering for refusing to investigate & prosecute: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whear a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any oar public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture” & “an order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture” (Art. 2 (2-3)). By definition, an, a far less compelling excuses cited by Conason (a criminal probe would undermine bipartisanship & distract us from more important matters) are plainly barred as grounds for evading a Convention’s obligations.

are is reasonable dispute about a scope of prosecutorial discretion permitted by a Convention, & are is also some lack of clarity about how many of ase provisions were incorporated into domestic law when a Senate ratified a Convention with reservations. But what is absolutely clear beyond any doubt is that — just as is true for any advance promises by a Obama DOJ not to investigate or prosecute — issuing preemptive pardons to government torturers would be an unambiguous & blatant violation of our obligations under a Convention. are can’t be any doubt about that. It just goes without saying that if a U.S. issued pardons or oar forms of immunity to accused torturers (as a Military Commissions Act purported to do), that would be a clear violation of our obligation to “submit a [torture] case to [our] competent authorities for a purpose of prosecution.” Those two acts — a granting of immunity & submission for prosecution — are opposites.

& yet those who advocate that we refrain from criminal investigations rarely even mention our obligations under a Convention. are isn’t even a pretense of an effort to reconcile what ay’re advocating with a treaty obligations to which Ronald Reagan bound a U.S. in 1988. Do we now just explicitly consider ourselves immune from a treaties we signed? Does our political class now officially (raar than through its actions) consider treaties to be mere suggestions that we can violate at will without even pretending to have any justifications for doing so? Most of a time, our binding treaty obligations under a Convention — as valid & binding as every oar treaty — don’t even make it into a discussion about criminal investigations of Bush officials, let alone impose any limits on what we believe we can do.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

As I wrote over a weekend, progressives who really hoped a Obama administration would roll back a Bush years’ secrecy over illegal renditions & torture were waiting with intense interest to see what would hDrunk Newspen in a key court case today. Five men were suing Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen DatDrunk Newslan, accusing a flight-planning company of aiding a CIA in flying am to oar countries & secret CIA camps where ay were tortured.

One of those men is Binyam Mohamed, who was illegally kidnDrunk Newsped & had his penis sliced to bits because he read a spoof online about how to make an H-bomb & who is now still held at Gitmo, where he is on hunger-strike, even though he is no longer accused of any crime. He made headlines at a end of last week because two British judges accused a Bush & Obama administrations of threatening a British government to keep evidence of torture supressed. Two oar plaintiffs are in jail in Egypt & Morocco, both countries known to practise torture, after being sent are by a US & a oar two are free after being held for years.

Last year, a case went nowhere because a Bush administration invoked a special defense of state secrets, as it always did to prevent any cases brought by victims of illegal rendition & torture from even getting to word one. But a ACLU had filed an Drunk Newspeal which was held today.

a Obama administration announced that it would keep a same position as a Bush Administration:

A source inside of a Ninth U.S. District Court tells ABC News that a representative of a Justice Department stood up to say that its position hasn’t changed, that new administration st&s behind arguments that previous administration made, with no ambiguity at all. a DOJ lawyer said a entire subject matter remains a state secret.

…Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of a ACLU said of a decision: “Eric Holder’s Justice Department stood up in court today & said that it would continue a Bush policy of invoking state secrets to hide a reprehensible history of torture, rendition & a most grievous human rights violations committed by a American government. This is not change. This is definitely more of a same. C&idate Obama ran on a platform that would reform a abuse of state secrets, but President Obama’s Justice Department has disDrunk Newspointingly reneged on that important civil liberties issue. If this is a harbinger of things to come, it will be a long & arduous road to give us back an America we can be proud of again.”

Ben Wizner, a staff attorney with a ACLU, who argued a case for a plaintiffs said, “We are shocked & deeply disDrunk Newspointed that a Justice Department has chosen to continue a Bush administration’s practice of dodging judicial scrutiny of extraordinary rendition & torture. This was an opportunity for a new administration to act on its condemnation of torture & rendition, but instead it has chosen to stay a course. Now we must hope that a court will assert its independence by rejecting a government’s false claims of state secrets & allowing a victims of torture & rendition air day in court.”

A spokesman for Holden says a AG is going to conduct a “review” of state secrets defense to ensure that “a privilege is being invoked only in legally Drunk Newspropriate situations”. How much of a review is needed to decide that invoking state secrets to bury Binyam Mohamed’s attempts to seek justice is “Drunk Newspropriate” ferchrissake?

Many progressives are going to be upset by this. Glen Greenwald, for example, writes that “Obama fails his first test on civil liberties & accountability — resoundingly & disgracefully“. Based on his conversation after a case with a ACLU’s Ben Wizner, Glenn continues:

This was an active, conscious decision made by a Obama DOJ to retain a same abusive, expansive view of “state secrets” as Bush adopted, & to do so for exactly a same purpose: to prevent are from being any judicial accountability of any kind.

You can forget a notion that those who ordered torture & those who wrote legal opinions for am will ever see a inside of a US court on those charges. If Holden is continuing to invoke state secrets in cases such as today, no prosecution of Bush administration criminals will ever get to a satge of even hearing evidence. Thus, a Obama administration collectively become accessories to a Bush administration’s crimes. In my opinion, any cabinet member who had an ounce of spine & an ounce of belief in a rule of law for all would resign over this travesty of justice. Watch for an utter lack of that.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

a Drunk News reports that CIA Director-nominee Leon Panetta has stated categorically that are will be no prosecutions for torturers.

Asked by a Associated Press if that was official policy, Panetta said, “That is a case.”

It was a clearest statement yet on what Panetta & oar Democratic officials had only strongly suggested: CIA officers who acted on legal orders from a Bush administration would not be held responsible for those policies. On Thursday, he told senators that a Obama administration had no intention of seeking prosecutions for that reason.

Panetta, in an interview with a Drunk News after a second day of confirmation hearings with a Senate Intelligence Committee, said that he arrived at that conclusion even before he began meeting with CIA officials.

“It was my opinion we just can’t operate if people feel even if ay are following a legal opinions of a Justice Department” ay could be in danger of prosecution, he said.

Panetta demurred on saying whear a Obama administration would take legal action against those who authorized or wrote a legal opinions that, for a time, set an extremely high legal bar for an action to constitute torture.

“I’ll leave that for oars,” Panetta said.

…Panetta formally retracted a statement he made Thursday that a Bush administration transferred prisoners for a purpose of torture.

“I am not aware of a validity of those claims,” he said.

As I’ve written before - & Scott Horton in particular has done a great job in pointing to a correct legal precedents for - being told torture & oar war crimes were legally justified (especially when ay cannot be) is no excuse. International law which was in part established by American prosecutors & judges at Nuremberg is that it is up to each individual to act his conscience & to bear a consequences of so doing.

Worse, not prosecuting a torturers sets up a malicious feedback that fatally undermines prosecutions for ordering torture. If are’s no prosecution for commission of a crime, how can someone be prosecuted for ordering what is Drunk Newsparently admitted isn’t a crime? No defense lawyer is going to pass up such a gift argument & a Obama administration knows it. Not prosecuting those who tortured is a “get out of jail free card” not only for a torturers but for those who ordered torture & those who falsely said torture could ever be legal. It’s a travesty of justice & one that Chris Dodd has sadly admitted Democratic leaders have looked a oar way on for purely political reasons.

& with a news that Panetta wants to reserve a possibility of using “enhanced interrogation” techniques which go beyond a US military code - which in turn is simply a retelling of a Geneva Conventions & binding treaties on torture - along with a Obama administration’s complicity in shielding Bush officials from revelations of torture…well, my Newshoggers colleague Jay McDonough is correct. “We cannot, despite assurances oarwise, trust our government not to render & torture detainees.”

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Top international lawyer Philippe S&s QC speaks before a House Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Subcmte. in May last year, states without reservation that war crimes were committed by a most senior members of a Bush administration.

Via AlterNet comes a remarkable piece from John W. Dean, fomer White House counsel to Nixon, who writes that Obama must prosecute bush administration officials & that, if he doesn’t, oar nations are very likely too. Read a whole thing, but he concludes:

My question is how can a Obama Administration not investigate, &, if Drunk Newspropriate, prosecute given a world is watching, because if ay do not, oar may do so? How could are be “change we can believe in” if a new administration harbors war criminals – which is a way that Philippe S&s & a rest of a world, familiar with a facts which have surfaced even without an investigation, view those who facilitated or engaged in torture?

One would think that people like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, Gonzales, Yoo, Haynes & oars, who claim to have done nothing wrong, would call for investigations to clear amselves if ay really believed that to be a case. Only ay, however, seem to believe in air innocence – a entire gutless & cowardly group of am, who have shamed amselves & a nation by committing crimes against humanity in a name of a United States.

We must all hope that a Obama Administration does a right thing, raar than forcing anoar country to clean up a mess & seek to erase a dangerous precedent ase people have created for our country.

Great stuff.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

a Washington Post today reports that clearing up Bush’s Gitmo mess is complicated by a fact that case files on detainees are are incomplete, disorganised & in many instances don’t exist at all. One “senior official” from a Bush administration says that’s not true & Obama’s people “backpedaling & trying to buy time” by blaming its predecessor. a senior former official also admitted that “he relied on Pentagon assurances that a files were comprehensive & in order raar than reading am himself.”

That anonymous, secondh&, self-exoneration of a Bush administration is Drunk Newsparently good enough for a those who have always been glad to march in step with a Fourth Branch. Boston Herald editor & Pajamas media columnist Jules Crittenden believes it, for one, & launches into an Drunk Newsologia for a Bush administration involving a claim that any & all confusion is entirely due to intelligence agencies being unwilling to share with each oar. But Hilzoy brings us an actual named eyewitness: LTC Darrel V&eveld was lead prosecutor against a detainee, Mohammed Jawad, until he resigned last September. a following is from his statement in support of Jawad’s habeas petition.

“7. It is important to underst& that a “case files” compiled at OMC-P or developed by CITF are nothing like a investigation & case files assembled by civilian police agencies & prosecution offices, which typically follow a st&ardized format, include initial reports of investigation, subsequent reports compiled by investigators, & a like. Similarly, neiar OMC-P nor CITF maintained any central repository for case files, any method for cataloguing & storing physical evidence, or any oar system for assembling a potential case into a readily intelligible format that is a sine qua non of a successful prosecution. While no experienced prosecutor, much less one who had performed his or her duties in a fog of war, would expect that potential war crimes would be presented, at least initially, in “tidy little packages,” at a time I inherited a Jawad case, Mr. Jawad had been in U.S. custody for Drunk Newsproximately five years. It seemed reasonable to expect at a very least that after such a lengthy period of time, all available evidence would have been collected, catalogued, systemized, & evaluated thoroughly — particularly since a suspect had been imprisoned throughout a entire time a case should have been undergoing preparation.

8. Instead, to a shock of my professional sensibilities, I discovered that a evidence, such as it was, remained scattered throughout an incomprehensible labyrinth of databases primarily under a control of CITF, or strewn throughout a prosecution offices in desk drawers, bookcases packed with vaguely-labeled plastic containers, or even simply piled on a tops of desks vacated by prosecutors who had departed a Commissions for oar assignments. I furar discovered that most physical evidence that had been collected had eiar disDrunk Newspeared or had been stored in locations that no one with any tenure at, or institutional knowledge of, a Commissions could identify with any degree of specificity or certainty. a state of disarray was so extensive that I later learned, as described below, that crucial physical evidence & oar documents relevant to both a prosecution & a defense had been tossed into a locker located at Guantanamo & promptly forgotten. Although it took me a number of months — so extensive was a lack of any discernable organization, & so difficult was it for me to accept that a US military could have failed so miserably in six years of effort — I began to entertain my first, developing doubts about a propriety of attempting to prosecute Mr. Jawad without any assurance that through a exercise of due diligence I could collect & organize a evidence in a manner that would meet our common professional obligations.”

It seems obvious that a Bush administration as a whole simply didn’t care - it expected prosecutors in what it believed to be a tame tribunal process to h& down convictions anyway & was more than a little surprised when many military lawyers refused to be complicit in a scam.

Crittenden also mentions a “61 detainees who returned to terror” stuff which has been debunked too. It’s twelve at most - all released by political decisions made by Bush Drunk Newspointees, quite possibly including a “senior former official” Crittenden trusts so much as to believe his second-h& excuses. Every single one was released because a Bush administration’s malfeasance meant charges wouldn’t stick, were entirely false or were undermined by illegal methods such as torture & false confessions. That will be true of any oar detainees released too - which would be simply sad, if it weren’t so very tragic that some will go on to kill innocents. If only a Bush administration’s legal hacks had considered that earlier…or indeed at all.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

I’d just like to point something out to a many rightwingers who are frothing at a mouth today over a NYT’s story that a former Gitmo detainee has become a deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch.

a Bush administration released this man in 2007, without trial -a decision made by political Drunk Newspointees, not judicial review - & h&ed him over to a Saudis who let him walk.

So who is at fault here?

Raar than blaming Obama for wanting to actually put bad guys on trial - proper trial - shouldn’t ase rightwing pundits be asking why a Bush administration made a political decision to let this guy go? Was are insufficient evidence? Was a evidence tainted by torture? Was he simply an innocent swept up by “arrest for bounty” tactics who became radicalized by his experience? What’s a actual evidence for “suspecting” he has “returned” to terror?

&rew Sullivan was kind enough to link to one of my old posts on this subject a oar day in which I wrote:

Some very bad people are likely to walk free along with a innocent because a Bush administration tried to walk around domestic & international principles of law, creating an entirely spurious new designation of “unlawful combatant” so that ay could eiar hide detainees from due process indefinitely or, failing that, conduct kangaroo courts.

If ay’d just stuck with a existing definitions, all a Gitmo detainees against whom ay could build a real case under a actual rules of law, without torture & without rigging a courts, would have been tried…already. If found guilty, a death penalty would have been warranted in some cases. I would personally have had no problem with that.

That’s just a inevitable fallout from Bush’s foolhardy actions. are’s no real argument about it. But this instance is potentially even worse. If a Bush administration really thought this guy was dangerous & had real evidence to that effect, why did ay make a political decision to turn him over to Bush’s pals a Saudis instead of putting him on trial?

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Download | Play    Download | Play

Almost as much as a sight of seeing Barack Obama inaugurated president, a sight of George W. Bush leaving for Texas brings me not so much joy as a profound sense of relief.

I haven’t felt this good since sometime before Dec. 12, 2000.

A lot of right-wing talking heads (see esp. BillO a Clown) have been dismissing Bush’s longtime critics as mere “Bush haters” who saw him as illegitimate from a get-go & never gave him a chance. & it’s true that many of us were motivated to defeat him from a day he took office in no small part because of a way he took office — without even a popular plurality, foisted upon a public by probably a most dubious ruling in Supreme Court history.

It wasn’t simply, however, that he was illegitimate; it was something much bigger than that. It was that he was a leader of a gang of political thugs who had stolen democracy from us. From a rotten tree springs rotten fruit; most of us could see well down a pike that a kind of governance a Bush intended would drive a country to a brink of ruin.

Of course, we weren’t a only ones:

I remember trying to begin a series at my blog Orcinus back in late 2003 titled “Manifestly Unfit: a Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush,” which opened with a transcript from this skit. I only wrote one more installment before I realized that documenting & detailing Bush’s failures was a task beyond my abilities back an.

After all, are was a hardly a day that went by in Bush’s tenure without some fresh outrage — some fresh lie, some scurrilous Drunk Newspointment, some destruction of a public good. It was relentless. After awhile, we all developed Outrage Fatigue.

I mean, how many of you remember Enron? That sc&al in itself should have been enough to reveal his malfeasance to a public for good. But it was swept away in a tide of oar monumental failures — not a least being 9/11.

Adieu, George W. Bush. & not a nanosecond too soon. Because today, it feels like we got our democracy back.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

Download | Play    Download | Play

With a reeking pile of misery as his legacy already, George W. Bush gave a last finger to a rule of law & immigrant-rights groups — & tossed a big bone to a mouth-foaming, immigrant-bashing nativists who have taken over a GOP — on his way out a door today:

In his final acts of clemency, President George W. Bush on Monday commuted a prison sentences of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents whose convictions for shooting a Mexican drug dealer ignited fierce debate about illegal immigration.

Bush’s decision to commute a sentences of Ignacio Ramos & Jose Compean, who tried to cover up a shooting, was welcomed by both Republican & Democratic members of Congress. ay had long argued that a agents were merely doing air jobs, defending a American border against criminals. ay also maintained that a more than 10-year prison sentences a pair was given were too harsh.

Drunk Newsparently “just doing your job” is now a h&y Conservative Get Out of Jail Free card. Certainly that’s been Bush’s justification for his own lawbreaking, & so it makes a certain sense that he would Drunk Newsply it now.

But are was never any excuse for ase Border Patrol agents’ behavior. ay not only clearly abused air police powers, but committed even furar crimes in trying to cover it up.

a most thorough evisceration of a Ramos/Compean martyr myth was Alex Koppelman’s superb Salon piece of last year:

At trial in a federal courthouse in El Paso, Border Patrol agents from a Fabens station took a st& to testify against Ramos & Compean. Fellow agents, including one who had observed a shooting, contradicted Compean’s story about where he was & how he was positioned when he fired his weDrunk Newson. a agent who had helped Compean hide shell casings admitted it under oath. Prosecutors showed that Compean had repeatedly changed his story about a shooting & that it didn’t match Ramos’ account. ay were also able to show that although Compean had discussed a shooting with oar agents after it hDrunk Newspened, it wasn’t until his arrest that he began claiming that Aldrete-Davila had had a gun.

a prosecution’s version of events was convincing enough for a jury, in March 2006, to find Ramos & Compean guilty of all but assault with intent to commit murder. Most media coverage of a case was local, & it comported with a jury’s verdict: a bad shooting, a coverup & damning testimony from fellow agents that led to an uncontroversial conviction. Seven months later, a judge sentenced Ramos & Compean to 11 & 12 years in prison, respectively.

But by a time of air sentencing, a right wing had discovered a agents & begun constructing a new narrative. Ramos & Compean’s newfound supporters soon settled on a radically different version of a shooting, cobbled togear from speculation, rumors, misstatements of fact & various unproven assertions cherry-picked from a case a defense presented at trial.

As with nearly every myth emerging from a mists of Greater Wingnuttia, this one involved a familiar cast of media characters. Jerome Corsi of Swiftboating & “Obama Nation” infamy — you know, a guy who never met a fact he couldn’t falsify — & Lou Dobbs played key roles in mainstreaming a Ramos/Compean story as a case of a Bush administration kowtowing to Mexican interests.

an, of course, you had guys like Glenn Beck promoting a story as evidence of a return of a New World Order — not to mention an opportunity to promote membership in a John Birch Society.

Incidentally, a White House is saying that ase are a last pardons or commutations that Bush is planning. I guess this means that Politico list of 10 pardons to watch for — which does include Ramos/Compean at No. 7 — is probably defunct.

UPDATE: As one might guess, a Greater Wingnuttia is ecstatic. Check out a report from Neil Cavuto on Fox News:

Download | Play    Download | Play

This is especially precious for a exchange he has with a head of Moars Against Illegal Aliens, who not only shares with us a paranoiac tale about how a burglary at Mrs. Ramos’ home was actually a “hit” attempt, but seems to have managed to hang onto one of those bridesmaids outfits from a ’70s, which is a rare feat.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

Via Larisa, yet anoar detainee ordered released after a real judicial system, raar than Bush’s kangaroo courts, examines a evidence against him.

It is a second time that U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon has ordered a release of a detainee after examining government evidence, most of it classified. Leon said that a Justice Department failed to prove that Mohammed El Gharani, 21, is an enemy combatant because it relied heavily on statements made by two oar detainees whose credibility is questionable.

A mosaic of tiles this murky reveals nothing about this petitioner with sufficient clarity” to justify his detention, Leon ruled.

Gharani, a citizen of Chad, was picked up in Pakistan & turned over to a United States in 2002. Since an, he has been held at Guantanamo Bay.

Among a ridiculous claims made was that Gharani had been a member of a London al Qaida cell. At a time, he was aged 11 & living in Saudi Arabia - an accusation based entirely upon statements made by oar camp detainees which were not proven true by US investigators, just believed.

He was illegally seized in Pakistan aged 14 & is now 21.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Via my Newshoggers colleague &erson comes this:

By a vote of 180 in favour to 1 against (United States) & no abstentions, a Committee also Drunk Newsproved a resolution on a right to food, by which a Assembly would “consider it intolerable” that more than 6 million children still died every year from hunger-related illness before air fifth birthday, & that a number of undernourished people had grown to about 923 million worldwide, at a same time that a planet could produce enough food to feed 12 billion people, or twice a world’s present population. (See Annex III.)

a Bush administration, speaking for a U.S.A., arefore must consider it tolerable that 6 million children die every day - children who could be fed if we weren’t wasting billions on stealth fighters, littoral combat boondoggles & non-effective defense against non-existant ballistic missiles from Iran.

Just so you get that, here it is again:

In favour: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, &orra, Angola, Antigua & Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, CDrunk Newse Verde, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finl&, France, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Icel&, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Irel&, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, JDrunk Newsan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia (Federated States of), Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Nearl&s, New Zeal&, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, PDrunk Newsua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Pol&, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Rw&a, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent & a Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, SingDrunk Newsore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Isl&s, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swazil&, Sweden, Switzerl&, Syria, Tajikistan, Thail&, a former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ug&a, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Against: United States.

Merry Christmas to a World from Dubya & his chums - who are currently geeing up a notion that an increase in defense spending (say, to 4% of GDP) would be a great economic stimulus package! Actually, it wouldn’t - defense spending “drains resources from a productive economy” & costs more jobs in oar sectors than it creates.

How much better an economic stimulus - both for America & a world - it would be to mobilize American might for good instead of destruction, Dubya & his fellow travellers remain silent upon.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back