Condoleezza Rice: War Criminal

A good friend of mine named Mike lost his wife on Tuesday. In just over the past decade, Mike has had a lot of grief land on his plate. His first wife, Susan, died from an aneuryism. Not long after, Mike stopped by his Dad's place to find his father dead from a heart attack. And now, Mike's lost his second wife, Linda, due to a seizure.

It's enough to test anyone's faith or belief in a universe where there's an ultimate plan or meaning to our lives. Even if you believed in karma, what kind of sins in a past life would merit this?

So if you can spare a prayer or light a candle, Mike can use it.

It's not really a surprise that Condoleezza Rice has been identified as one of the principals involved in giving the green light to torturing suspects in our custody.

But I'm wondering how it is that Rice returns to academic life at Stanford, torture-justifying lawyer John Yoo is still teaching law at U.C. Berkeley, and Jay Bybee is sitting on the bench of the 9th District Court. Freedom of speech? Really? That's what they call it now?

These people, among others, chose to deliberately ignore international and domestic law, forego protections assured within our founding documents, and then gloss it over with legalese, dismissing the Geneva Conventions as 'quaint and antiquated,' or insisting that they were looking for 'moral clarity.'

You don't look for moral clarity unless you understand that you're engaged in morally suspect behavior and are looking to justify it.

Still, we need to remember that Democrats - whether they were or were not fully briefed on these policies and procedures - chose to ignore the inconsistencies and their duty to investigate once allegations of torture came to light. (And it was the same empty excuse - that they didn't want to be perceived as partisan, that it would be a distraction from the Real Work to be done.)

So Rep. Jane Harman, alleged to have been engaged in some quid-pro-quo with AIPAC lobbyists, is outraged that she was wiretapped.

Got it? It's perfectly okay for the NSA to conduct warrantless surveillance on U.S. citizens in violation of the 4th Amendment and FISA, but Outrage! Outrage! that she should be wiretapped in the course of an investigation into her political dealings.

There are reports that Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the leader of al-Qaeda Iraq, has been captured.

Well, we think he's the leader of al-Qaeda Iraq. We're not sure. He's actually in charge of a larger group of Sunni militants that is supposedly dominated by al-Qaeda. Or he could just be a 'face' put forward by foreign al-Qaeda members. Or he may not exist at all.

Oh, and the Iraqis captured him, not American forces.

Quick! Let's waterboard us some more prisoners! I can haz intel!

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