Discourse.net

Someone Should Market These

I could see a set of these as being a popular joke Xmas gift: Defense Intelligence Agency: Terrorist Recognition Cards.

Some plugs

The Supreme Court is supposed to announce interesting decisions today. I’ll discuss them later today or early tomorrow. At this point, though, I’d like to highlight some less presently preoccupied writing.

Academic writers are, among other things, supposed to develop points of view that help their readers think about not only the most immediate and concrete aspects of events but also their more general and maybe more lasting dimensions. Mark Tushnet is an especially dry-eyed master of this sort of thing. In “The Political Constitution of Emergency Powers,” just published in the Minnesota Law Review (91: 1451), he emphasizes the narrowness of the Supreme Court’s decision in Hamdan holding that the President could not set up military commissions of the sort he wanted without congressional authorization: That’s all, nothing more. The Court’s insistence that there need be legislation involved no substantial judgment about what commission procedures should look like. But this otherwise empty insistence also put in motion the “political constitution,” familiar congressional/executive dealings that serve generally as the mechanism through which decisions about commission procedures, for example, are reached. See, e.g., the Military Commissions Act. Tushnet shows at some length how those dealings are organized by parts of the Constitution. But he celebrates nothing (neither the Constitution nor Hamdan).”[I]f Hamdan is a triumph of the Rule of Law, so much be the Military Commissions Act. (Now apply the logical rule of contraposition.)” (1472)

Still and all there is a complexity that Tushnet also sometimes acknowedges. The Executive Branch isn’t precisely unitary, and its own internal conflicts show up in the content of the Military Commissions Act, for example, even if Congress was in fact pretty much acquiescent. Marty Lederman’s recent postings at Balkinization discussing decisions of two commission military judges and the striking 4th Circuit ruling are provocative in this regard. And see also David Kennedy’s excellent and important new book “Of Law and War.” Legality is a form of politics too (not news to Mark Tushnet, of course: see almost everywhere in his huge body of work.) It overlaps other forms of politics (executive/legislative interactions inevitably address, among other things, the brute work of legal drafting.) The constitutional set-up, whatever other institutional politics it defines, is hardly ever free of legal infection and its consequences. (With regard to Hamdan and the Military Commissions Act, I discuss this phenomenon in especially cryptic ways in the same Minnesota symposium in which Mark Tushnet’s article appears, see 91:1473.)

Writing in this Tuesday’s Slate, Dahlia Lithwick, in the posting “Crisis of Confindence,” notes that the 4th Circuit opinion is, maybe among other things, an effort at “creating clean legal lines for the next enemy combatant case.” This is a very thoughtful essay. But it’s not wrong to wonder, I think, whether the “legal lines” (“clean” or not) aren’t also relevant in cases that are more mundane — involve no enemy combatants or other emergency elements. In this regard, Michael’s and my colleague Ricardo Bascuas has written much worth thinking about in a new article soon to appear in the Rutgers Law Journal — titled “Fourth Amendment Lessons From the Highway and the Subway: A Principled Approach to Suspicionless Searches.” This is not a short work, but Bascuas’s writing proceeds quickly, clearly and emphatically (it is legally sophisticated but also, I think, largely accessible to nonlawyers). The last part is for present purposes the most important. There he shows that it’s entirely possible to think about searches incident to ordinary traffic stops and searches undertaken to protect subways from terrorist attacks in precisely the way, a way that turns out not only to be responsive to emergency, but to catch the most important element in our constitutional commitment to civil liberties (no police state) more clearly and effectively than the Supreme Court’s famously muddled day-to-day efforts. (The article is posted on SSRN if you don’t want to wait.)

Meanwhile, Back in Reality

Reactions to P2911 from Bill Clinton (well, his spokesmen):

Having now seen the first night of this fiction, it is clear that the edits made to the film did not address the factual errors that we brought to your attention. "The Path to 9/11" flagrantly ignored the facts as reported by the 9/11 Commission and invented its own version of history. The result, in our judgment, is irreparable damage to the Commission's work. More importantly, it is a disservice to the American people.

That the film directly contradicts the findings of the 9/11 Commission is troubling. That it defames dedicated public officials is tragic. But the fact that it misleads millions of people about the most tragic and consequential event in recent history is disgraceful.

and from Richard Clarke:

As someone who was directly involved in almost every event depicted in the fictionalized docudrama, "The Path to 9-11," I believe it is an egregious distortion that does a deep disservice both to history and to those in both the Clinton and Bush administrations who are depicted....

Although I am not one to easily believe in conspiracy theories and have spent a great deal of time debunking them, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the errors in this screen play are more than the result of dramatization and time compression. There is throughout the screenplay a consistent bias and distortion seeking to portray senior Clinton Administration officials as holding back the hard charging CIA, FBI, and military officers who would otherwise have prevented 9-11.

The exact opposite is true. From the President, to all of his White House team, and NSC Principals (Lake, Berger, Albright, Tenet, Reno) there was a common fixation with terrorism, al qaeda, and bin Ladin. The President approved every counter-terrorism operation presented to him, including many that CIA proved unable or unwilling to implement. He increased counter-terrorism spending by 400% and initiated the first homeland security program in forty years. Even though the US had taken relatively few casualties from al qaeda at the time, the President repeatedly authorized the use of lethal force against bin Ladin and his deputies and personally requested the US military to develop plans for "commando operations" against them. Even though he knew the timing of an attack aimed at killing bin Ladin would be labeled by critics as a political diversion, Clinton decided to follow the advice of his national security team and pay the price politically.

Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on Bush: Who has left this hole in the ground? We have not forgotten, Mr. President. You have. May this country forgive you.

This Should Help the 'Path to 9/11' Libel Case

Via Daily Kos, Disney/ABC Highlighting Faked Scenes In Ads For 9/11 Terror Porn, a heads up to this You Tube version of the 'Path to 9/11' Trailer being shown abroad: Starting with the words "Official True Story" and containing fictional scenes (see the story board at Redstate).

"It's just a movie?" If there is libelous content in the show by the time that it's aired, I don't see how even a disclaimer during the show could undo the effects of this advertisement, one which promises us the shocking truth. I don't know exactly where this ad is being shown, but if it is being shown in England or in Australia or New Zealand, it could prove to be an expensive choice.

Then again, the writer at Daily Kos speculates that ABC/Disney may edit the most libelous scenes in the 'The Path to 9/11' in order to obfuscate who is doing what -- in other words, leave the fabrications in place so as not to upset the blame-Clinton narrative which is apparently the core of the show ("how they could have wiped bin Laden out; they didn't, but why? ..."he's right there"; how one decision changed our world...can't you give the order?...I don't have that authority"), but fuzz the parts identifying people by name that might be most actionable.

ABC/Disney should wake up and pull this horror before they trash their brand. Disney is a diversified company with a market capitalization of almost $62 billion. Even so, I wonder how long before this starts affecting the stock price.

The Walt Disney Company Standards of Business Conduct Illustrated

Walt Disney Standards of Business Conduct Illustrated

All quotes verbatim excerpts from Walt Disney Standards of Business Conduct; illustrations shamelessly hotlinked from all over.

Dear Fellow Disney Team Member:

Throughout the years, our guests, audiences, consumers and shareholders have come to depend on us for quality, creativity, innovation and integrity.

People trust us because of our commitment to them and to the standards to which we hold ourselves. We alone are responsible for upholding our excellence and our integrity. This means acting responsibly in all our professional relationships, in a manner consistent with the high standards we set for our business conduct.

Upholding legal standards of conduct, while mandatory for every Cast Member and employee, is not enough. We are also responsible for maintaining ethical standards. These standards govern how we treat everyone with whom we have contact. These are standards of integrity... honesty... trust... respect... fair play... and teamwork.
In short, these are the standards we want Disney to continue to uphold in the years to come. Your company believes that its behavior as a business should reflect the commitment to the values set forth in these "Standards of Business Conduct."

The Standards in this booklet explain both our legal and ethical standards. Please read them. Be familiar with them. Act on them. And don't be afraid to speak up when you have a concern or a question. Talk to your supervisor, your respective Human Resources representative, or the Corporate Legal Department.

Our Standards of Business Conduct are here to guide our behavior and to help us live up to the highest expectations of excellence that are "Disney." As we continue to create Disney magic, I hope your actions show your pride in yourself, those you work with, and the Company.

- Bob Iger
  President and Chief Executive Officer

Our guests and customers expect and deserve the best.

Quality
The Walt Disney Company and its subsidiary and affiliated companies (collectively the "Company") are recognized around the world as providers of high-quality entertainment of all kinds, including films, television shows, attractions, consumer products, stores and resorts.
Our Company's reputation is a heritage that we must safeguard.

It is our goal to provide a reasonable return to our shareholders, and to increase the value of their investment. At the same time, we must be sure to protect the business and reputation of our Company, so that the Company can and will continue to live up to the expectations of shareholders, guests, customers, Cast Members and employees. Honest and ethical behavior in all matters relating to the business of the Company contributes significantly to achieving these goals.


Conflicts of Interest

Our business is built on public trust and confidence, and the expectation of our guests and customers that they can depend on our products and services.

To ensure that we deliver our very best, we require the full and undivided dedication and efforts of all of our Cast Members and employees. Moreover, every Cast Member and employee must avoid conflicts of interest or the appearance of conflicts of interest in the performance of his or her job. Conflicts of interest or the appearance of such conflicts could also damage the Company's good name.


Accurate Reporting
Each individual shall report and record all information, and complete Company documents, accurately and honestly.


L. Accountability for Compliance with the Standards of Business Conduct

The standards referred to herein are mandatory and apply to all employees and Cast Members, who will be held accountable for compliance with the Standards. Failure to abide by applicable standards may lead to disciplinary action up to and including termination. Additional standards may apply to employees of specific business units or locations. Thus, for example, station and network programming and news personnel are subject to additional standards which are set forth in other documents.


M. Dealing with Improper or Illegal Behavior, and Suspected Violations of Law (continued)

Cast Members and employees are encouraged to talk to their supervisors or managers when in doubt about the appropriate or ethical course of action in a particular situation. Every Cast Member and employee must report any unethical, improper or illegal behavior, or any suspected criminal activity involving or relating to the Company. The Company also must be made aware of any complaints regarding accounting or auditing matters, as well as its internal controls. Thus, any Cast Member or employee who believes, suspects, or becomes aware of any complaint that anyone at the Company is acting unethically or is violating, or has violated, any law, governmental rule or regulation on behalf of the Company, must report this to the Guideline or to the Corporate Legal Department. The Company believes that it is most helpful when a Cast Member or employee making such a report identifies himself or herself; however, it is not required. While, in any event, the confidentiality of any person reporting unethical, improper or illegal activity will be protected to the extent possible under the circumstances, reports will also be accepted anonymously. Moreover, the Company strictly prohibits any form of retaliation against anyone who reports unethical, improper or illegal activity.


The Guideline (800) 699-4870

The Guideline is one way for employees, Cast Members, vendors, suppliers, customers, and others to report 1) questionable activities - including questionable accounting or auditing matters; 2) complaints regarding the Company's accounting, internal accounting controls or auditing matters; or 3) to ask for guidance on any work-related issues, or to make the Company aware of any suspected unethical or illegal conduct, or violation at the Company.

The Guideline may be called any time, day or night, as it is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The Company strictly prohibits any form of retaliation against anyone who reports any suspected wrongful conduct to the Company or any governmental agency. Reports are accepted anonymously, and the confidentiality of all reports will be maintained to the extent possible.

American Airlines Should Sue ABC Too

American Airlines has extensive operations in the UK. It looks like they might have a great case against the makers of 'The Path to 9/11': American Airlines to blame for 9/11, Disney/ABC movie falsely claims:

I'm just wondering when American Airlines is going to realize that it's about to be defamed in the entire English-speaking world.

As I first noted yesterday, I have the entire "Path to 9/11" video. And one of the very first scenes makes it explicitly clear that American Airlines had Mohammad Atta in its grasp, warning lights flashing on the computer screen, yet the airline simply blew off the threat and helped Atta kill 3,000 Americans.

Unfortunately, it's a total lie.

Besides England, there's hay to be made in New Zealand and Australia (where apparently the film is being marketed as "the story of exactly what happened" on 9/11 !).

As AmericaBlog says, the potential damages are so large that when the dust settles ABC might stand for 'Albright, Berger and Clinton.' Plus the corporate plaintiffs...

You Want a Libel Trial? Try England

I suggested the other day that ABC/Disney better be pretty careful or they would have some serious libel exposure for their 'Path to 9/11.' News reports since then suggest that the cutting room floor is getting crowded, so perhaps the most potentially libelous sections are being removed. What's left behind may be one-sided, may leave out critical moments and information, but it's an awful lot harder to make out a libel case based on implication by omission than it is to point to the smoking gun of commission.

Meanwhile, however, comes the news that ABC has sold rights to the BBC, which will be showing the film on Sunday. I'd love to know whether ABC has indemnified the BBC for any libel claims because it is waaaaaay easier to make a libel claim stick in the UK -- even if one is a non-resident -- than it would be in the US. And a British jury (libel being about the only time civil cases are tried to a jury in England any more) is likely to be infinitely more sympathetic to the Clintons, and hostile to the current administration, than any US jury.

I can see why ex-President Clinton might not want to file suit in the US, but discovery is much less invasive in the UK. As for the other persons in the Clinton administration who may feel that their reputations have been tarnished by whatever emerges from the dungeons of ABC/Disney, I'd advise them to consult counsel in England (names available on request). Easier to make the case, and the damages (plus costs!) could be quite substantial if the facts are still there to support a claim.

If I have any readers in the UK, they might wish to contact the BBC to warn them about their programming choices. It would be good to put them on notice of the risks. The BBC will understand what its potential exposure is.

WPLG Plans to Show 'The Path to 9/11'

I called WPLG this morning to try to persuade them not to run the 'Path to 9/11' movie. (I emailed a couple of days ago but didn't get an answer.) The Miami number (305) 576-1010 just takes you to an unhelpful automated telephone menu with no options that seemed appropriate for complaints about programming. I finally picked the news desk and asked for the general manger; they sent me back to the automated menu.

Fortunately, Google allowed me to find the name of the general manager, so on my next call I was able to pick his name out of the automated directory. I'm not going to print it here in the hopes that he won't get too inundated with telephone calls, just those from the well-informed and highly motivated. I don't think harassment is likely to be effective here. If you do call, please be polite. I also suggest writing out the main points you want to make before you place the call. (Good sources of inspiration include ThinkProgress and Open Letter to ABC and this post at The Carpetbagger Report.)

It was a frustrating conversation, which got off the wrong foot when the GM tried to suggest his hands were tied without actually saying so in so many words and I forcefully said that since WPLG isn't ABC-owned it has a choice to make. (In fact, Wikipedia says that WPLG is owned by a subsidiary of the Washington Post.)

Main point: WPLG plans to air 'The Path to 9/11'. During a 20 minute or so call with a generally polite but sometimes exasperated and occasionally almost bullying GM (in all fairness, I gave as good as I got), I was offered the following justifications which I've summarized and paraphrased below (my responses in parenthesis):

• It's just a movie. (But that's not how it was promoted, including a big glossy ad that came with this morning's Miami Herald saying "based on the 9/11 commission report" right across the top. Anyway, running a one-sided drama on a critical national issue shortly before a key election can be harmful in itself).
• We'll be running a disclaimer several times during the show, the full text of which is quoted below. (But these are not as effective as images; they will fail to undo the harm done by the film; and of course they can't substitute for what's missing.)
• They are proud of the news division and hold it to the highest standards of accuracy. (I said, does that mean those standards don't apply to movies, and was accused of putting words in his mouth).
• Wasn't their coverage of 9/11 tremendous? (I said I didn't have a photographic memory for what they did five years ago, and even if it was great that didn't alter the choice facing them now).
• People like me want to censor everything they disagree with on TV and in Blockbuster (I said I didn't want the government to prevent him from showing it, I wanted him to make an independent moral choice. And there's lots of stuff on TV I disagree with, but this was the first time I'd ever called him.)
• I can't (or shouldn't) criticize the movie until I've seen it (I suggested that [1] ABC had controlled who could see it in advance and [2] there were many actions in life where it was appropriate to try to prevent something rather than wait until after the damage was done -- and this was one of them).
• The effects of this movie will be positive as it is creating a useful debate that we wouldn't otherwise have had. (Couldn't you justify airing any false thing with that argument?) [Incidentally, this counter-argument, and the hypos I offered to support it produced the most anger: how could I make such generalizations!?! I'm afraid I didn't say what I do for a living.]
• I've made up my mind on the issue. (Yes, I said, and now I want to change yours.)

The only thing I said that seemed to even give him pause was when I said I'd be contacting local advertisers. To the response that there will be no ads during the program I said that money was fungible, that advertisers in other parts of the country were pulling ads for a week around the show to make a point. He didn't like that. To the claim that I was trying to interfere with his freedom of speech, I said, no, I supported his freedom and wanted him to use it in a responsible way; if he didn't I had the freedom to criticize him and to urge others not to support him financially.

At one point towards the end of our conversation I asked what it would take to convince him that the film shouldn't run, if there was any amount of error or misleading that would suffice, but never got a straight answer. When I suggested that meant there was no amount of error that could block a 'docudrama' I was again told not to put words in his mouth. But if there is a local standard here, I was unable to get an articulation of it.

So, left with no alternative, I've started by contacting ABC's national advertisers whose products I currently use. But doing it on a local level would be much, much more effective. Anyone have a list of local WPLG advertisers?

Meanwhile, here's the full text of the disclaimer that WPLG's General Manger kindly faxed me; he told me they will be running this "throughout" the 'Path to 9/11':

The following movie is a dramatization that is drawn from a variety of sources including the 9/11 Commission Report and other published materials, and from personal interviews. The movie is not a documentary. For dramatic and narrative purposes, the movie contains fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue, as well as time compression.

My impression is that disclaimers do almost nothing compared to the impact of a dramatic scene and that they fail utterly at making up for what's left out if a story is told in a one-sided way; WPLG's manager emphatically disagreed.

I was invited to call back after I saw the show, but frankly I don't think I would want to spend several hours of my life being propagandized and then have to make an effort to sort truth from fiction. As someone who reads history books and newspapers, I've always avoided watching docudramas in the past to avoid the mental confusions they threaten to create and I don't think I want to start with this one. But if there are any local experts around who want the job, I have someone you might like to talk to afterwards. Not that I expect it could possibly achieve anything meaningful after the damage is done...

ABC's '9/11' Libel By Fiction Exposure

In all the ink, real and virtual, that's being spilled over ABC's fictionalization of the run-up to the 9/11 attacks, it seems to me that one aspect of ABC/Disney's position has been missed: if the public descriptions of the show are accurate, then the people who made it and those who plan to show it have some serious libel exposure.

To recap, just in case you are reading this blog from Pluto, ABC hired a bunch of right-wing hardcases who got the Republican chair of the 9/11 Commission to lend them his good name. Purporting to dramatize the findings of the 9/11 commission they instead produced the sort of mockumentary that Rush Limbaugh would love, and in fact does love.

The show includes scenes that are flat-out inventions designed to show that the Clinton administration refused clear shots at bin Laden (in fact, no such event took place) and was generally to blame for the 9/11 attacks. Missing from the show are key moments such as Bush ignoring written warnings that al Quaeda was planning to attack. Equally absent is the famous 'My Pet Goat' moment. And so on.

Publicity for the show has been a bit odd: ABC sent pre-release tapes to Limbaugh and to conservative bloggers, but not liberal ones. It also refused requests by Clinton and others in his administration for an advance look -- shocking disrespect for a former President.

The blogs are hard at work on this one. But nowhere have I seen mention of the libel claim that I think is looming.

Generally in the United States you can't libel a public figure. [*] Plus, libel claims based on fiction are obviously much harder than claims based on assertions in supposed non-fiction. But neither of these bars is insurmountable. And on the facts as reported, they could be surmounted surprisingly easily.

As one New York court put it not so long ago, a claim of "libel by fiction" requires that "the description of the fictional character must be so closely akin to the real person claiming to be defamed that a reader of the book, knowing the real person, would have no difficulty linking the two." The novel Primary Colors didn't meet that test as it didn't use real names, nor were the physical description of any character like the plaintiff in that case. But the 9/11 show differs from Primary Colors in a very basic way: It uses actors portraying real people with their actual names involved in activities that are a blend of real things they did and of the partisan imagination. I suspect it wouldn't be hard to get a court to see the difference from Primary Colors-like facts. Furthermore, even if ABC were to run a big disclaimer with the episode, that wouldn't necessarily suffice.

It's even harder to make out a case of libel when the victim is a public figure. Basically, to win you have to show that the author of the libelous work demonstrated a "reckless disregard for the truth." Given the public nature of the warnings that various scenes are false, if in fact they are false then I think this part of the case should be pretty easy.

If I were at ABC or Disney I'd be having a serious talk with my lawyers right about now.

----

* Update: As noted in the comments, a better way to say this would have been, "Generally, in the United States, it is very difficult for a public figure to win a libel case.'

Saturday Will Start With a Bang

In today's inbox:

University disaster exercise planned for this Saturday On Saturday morning, August 26, local emergency and disaster response agencies, including the 'Canes Emergency Response Team (CERT), will conduct a disaster exercise at Miller Circle near the University Green from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Faculty and staff should be aware that Miller Drive and areas surrounding Miller Drive Circle will be inaccessible during the exercise. Members of the UM community should also note that a small charge will be detonanted to signal the start of the drill at 10 a.m.

Other participants include the Coral Gables Fire Department and the Miami-Dade Office of Emergency Management. UM Public Safety will provide security and traffic control on Miller Drive during the exercise.

Smart planning, or giving into and feeding post-9/11 hysteria?

Ryan Air Objects

Ryan Air's CEO is threatening to sue the UK government if it doesn't relax air-security hysteria:

TERRORISTS are "rolling around the caves of Pakistan, laughing" at Britain's response to the terror threat, an airline boss said last night as he gave the government a seven-day deadline to relax restrictions or face legal action.

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary described some of the security measures as "farcical, Keystone Kops-like and completely insane and ineffectual".

Pilots also attacked the measures, which ban them from taking toothpaste on to aircraft, and said subjecting flight crews to the same restrictions as passengers made "no sense at all".

An estimated 800,000 passengers have been disrupted by the chaos caused by new measures, which resulted in massive queues at airports and led to the cancellations of about 1,800 flights.

Ryanair demanded the government return passenger-search requirements to pre-alert levels. It also wants the government to restore the hand-luggage allowance for passengers leaving British airports, and an assurance that military and police personnel would be released to help with airport security checks next time there is a major alert.

Mr O'Leary yesterday gave the government a seven-day deadline to make the changes or face legal action, arguing that some of the security measures had been stupid and it was "completely untenable" to expect airport staff to continue working flat-out to cope with the new regulations.

But at least Ryan Air has a sense of humor about the situation. Here's their graphic -- very graphic -- take on the absurdity of new airport security procedures.

Strange Priorities

Digby: "This is for real, apparently. The government is actually spending money doing simulations of potential terrorist attacks by peace activists."

London Backpedals on Bomb Plot

Kevin Drum has the round up on The Incredible Shrinking Bomb Plot.

I Need to Get More Cynical

When my spouse suggested a similar theory over breakfast the other day -- noting the odd coincidence between the Lamont victory and the news that Terrorism Is Back -- I was skeptical, noting that the investigation had, after all, been going on for a year.

I have got to get more cynical in time for the next election.

Source: U.S., U.K. at odds over timing of arrests. NBC News has learned that U.S. and British authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States.

A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.

In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports.

... At the White House, a top aide to President Bush denied the account. ... Another U.S. official, however, acknowledges there was disagreement over timing.

Quarterman on Fighting Terrorism

John S. Quarterman has a typically intelligent essay, Perilocity: What can We Do about Terrorism?,

Well, for one thing, [we] can continue to discourage use of methods that have little promise of working, such as blanket scans of all telephone numbers or electronic mail, which just increase the haystack without making finding the needle more likely, or national ID cards such as the British government has been pushing lately.

...

As to what could [we] encourage, how about more Arabic and Farsi-speaking intelligence people, more intelligence and law enforcement agents who understand the cultures that are producing the terrorists and what their grievances are; maybe even agents who can infiltrate them.

And there's more...

[Bonus update: TSA Insanity by George RR Martin (via Making Light)]

Department of Lost Opportunities

It looks as if the Bush administration’s outing of an intelligence source last year, during the week of the Democratic National Convention, may have undercut the British intelligence efforts aimed at preventing the recent London bombings.

ABC News reports that, a year ago, U.S. and British authorities learned of plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway system (as well as on financial buildings in the U.S.); the plans were on the laptop computer of al Qaeda operative Naeem Noor Khan. The British, ABC News continues, responded by arresting a bunch of young men of Pakistani descent in Luton linked to al Qaeda. The story, though, turns out to be a little more complicated. DHS used the laptop information to justify a heightened terrorism alert, publicizing it at a press conference. Those actions seem to have led directly to the public disclosure of Khan’s name — though it’s not clear whether the name was leaked by U.S. officials, or by Pakistani officials responding to questioning by reporters following up press conference leads. This was a problem because Khan had continued, after his arrest, to communicate with Al Qaeda contacts, allowing Pakistani authorities to monitor the communications; once the fact of his arrest became known, those contacts scattered. British authorities had to scramble to make arrests; according to Juan Cole and others, the leak caused the British to have to move hastily against the Al Qaeda cell Khan had been in contact with. Five members got away entirely; others couldn’t be charged. The British were furious at all of the information becoming available on this side of the Atlantic; Chuck Schumer was quoted by CNN at the time as explaining that Home Secretary Blunkett “expressed displeasure in fairly severe terms that Khan’s name was released, because they were trying to track down other contacts of his.”

So when the British attempted to move against the Luton cell last year, who weren’t they able to arrest, thanks to the Administration’s at best incompetent and “seriously unclever,” at worst crass and politically motivated August 2004 actions?

Links courtesy of AMERICAblog

London

The BBC reports thirty-seven deaths confirmed so far in today’s London bombings.

Here’s a piece of Glyn Maxwell’s story, towards the beginning of The Sugar Mile, of the bombs falling on London sixty-odd years ago (and no, I’m not planning on making a habit of poetry in this blog):

Everyone’s come to look at where we were.
There’s nothing to see, though, is there, Julie. There,
there. I say it to you but you’re not crying
    I’m the one.

You’re the one not doing a single thing
but looking at your fingers, I’m the one.
Everyone’s come to look at our old home
    when it’s too late

for visits. Should have been there yesterday.
Given you lemonade we did have plenty.
Didn’t think I’d cry, it’s not as if I’m
    at the pictures,

it’s just that I loved that house it’s never sunk in.
It never has. Mrs. Piper, she was digging
yesterday and she said for Victory
    poor old Jule.

Look, there’s Joey Stone. I knew he’d come.
Nothing’s happened to him. I had this dream.
There’s the silver balloons, are they just there
    to say hello?

Halloo, silver balloons. Can you lift us up
and put us down in a bluebell field of sheep
high in the mountains? We want to hitch a ride,
    me and my sis,

if that’s your destination. What did you say?
What did you say there, Jule? The Crystal County?
You heard her. The Crystal County, silver balloons,
    at the double!

False Alarm

Remember that rise to “orange alert” back in in the 2003 holiday season? The one that disrupted international flights? The one based on well-hyped “credible” threats and “credible sources” (Official: Credible threats pushed terror alert higher)? The one where Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the information suggested “an attack on the United States and the United States’ interests — both within the United States and outside — is imminent”?

Well, it turns out that the whole thing was just a big mistake.

All that “chatter” that caused the Bush Keystone Kops to panic was actually just … a fantasy:

senior U.S. officials now tell NBC News that the key piece of information that triggered the holiday alert was a bizarre CIA analysis, which turned out to be all wrong.

CIA analysts mistakenly thought they’d discovered a mother lode of secret al-Qaida messages. They thought they had found secret messages on Al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language television news channel, hidden in the moving text at the bottom of the screen, known as the “crawl,” where news headlines are summarized.

But of course, in fact it was no such thing. And even Ridge himself now admits that it was pretty nutty. (His exact words are “Bizarre, unique, unorthodox, unprecedented.”)

You can’t make this stuff up. Not sober, anyway.

PS. Why are we still on “yellow alert”? Not to mention that the whole concept is moronic.

Meanwhile get your parody terror alert systems here

Padilla Latest

Padilla latest from Scotusblog :

The Supreme Court may act as early as next Monday on his attempt to get the Justices to review his challenge to his status and his indefinite detention, before the Fourth Circuit can rule.

The petition in 04-1342 seeks direct review of a ruling in February by U.S. District Judge Henry F. Floyd of Spartanburg, S.C., concluding that the President has no authority to designate and detain as an “enemy combatant” a U.S. citizen captured on U.S. soil.

…

The litigation is also moving along on an expedited schedule in the Fourth Circuit (docket 05-6396), on a regular appeal path by the Justice Department after its loss in Judge Floyd’s ruling. The latest development there was the filing on Monday of Padilla’s brief.

Amnesty International Report 2005

From Amnesty International’s Report 2005:

The USA continued to hold hundreds of foreign detainees without charge or trial in the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. The refusal of the US authorities to apply the Geneva Conventions to the detainees and to allow detainees access to legal counsel or the courts violated international law and standards and caused serious suffering to detainees and their families. The ruling by the US Supreme Court in June that the US courts have jurisdiction to consider challenges to the lawfulness of such detentions appeared to be a step towards restoring the rule of law for the detainees, but the US administration sought to empty the ruling of any real meaning in order to keep the detainees in legal limbo. The USA also failed to clarify the fate or whereabouts of detainees that it held in secret detention in other countries.

Such serious abuses carried out by a country as powerful as the USA created a dangerous climate. The US administration’s unilateralism and selectivity sent a permissive signal to abusive governments around the world. There is strong evidence that the global security agenda pursued since 11 September 2001, the US-led “war on terror”, and the USA’s selective disregard for international law encouraged and fuelled abuses by governments and others in all regions of the world.

In many countries, new doctrines of security continued to stretch the concept of “war” into areas formerly considered law enforcement, promoting the notion that human rights can be curtailed when it comes to the detention, interrogation and prosecution of “terrorist” suspects.

The “security excuse”, whereby governments curtailed and abused human rights under the cloak of the “war on terror”, was particularly apparent in a number of countries in Asia and Europe. For example, thousands of members of the ethnic Uighur community were arrested in China as “separatists, terrorists and religious extremists”. In Gujarat, India, hundreds of members of the Muslim community continued to be held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. In Uzbekistan, the authorities rounded up and detained hundreds of people said to be devout Muslims or their relatives, and sentenced many people accused of “terrorism-related” offences to long prison terms following unfair trials. In the USA, there have been reprehensible attempts by officials to argue that torture was not torture, or that the USA bore no responsibility for torture carried out in other countries, even if it had sent the victim there.

Call For Papers on "Federal Secrecy After September 11 and the Future of the Information Society"

This sounds interesting — and important.

I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society seeks research papers for a special Fall/Winter, 2005 issue on the theme, “Federal Secrecy After September 11 and the Future of the Information Society.” This issue will be published with the support of The Century Foundation, which has received a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to promote scholarly inquiry into the impacts of government secrecy. We are open to topics within any discipline, and would be especially receptive to multidisciplinary research in this domain.

Examples of possible topics include:

• The impacts of secrecy in various domains (e.g., transportation, facility vulnerabilities) on national security
• The impact of secrecy on public safety preparedness
• Historical patterns in government secrecy
• The impacts of the 2001 amendments to the FOIA
• Government secrecy behavior after September 11 compared to other wars
• U.S. government secrecy behavior in comparison with other democracies
• Secrecy before and after the end of the Cold War
• Is current secrecy policy a consequence of September 11 or an extension of Aministration policies antedating September 11?
• The impact of government secrecy and scientific research
• The impact of government secrecy and the impact on innovation
• The impacts of secrecy on public attitudes
• The interplay of federal secrecy policy with state and local open government policies

Proposals should offer original work that has not and will not be previously published in another venue. The work should not simply offer the author’s opinion, but shed significant light on the topic presented through the rigorous presentation and analysis of evidence. We envision that completed articles should be roughly 10,000 words each, exclusive of references (but including textual footnotes). Depending on the number of meritorious proposals received and accepted, honoraria in the range of $750.00-$1000.00 will be offered for completed works.

I/S would also be pleased to receive proposals for shorter, less formal essays, of no more than 5,000 words that represent advocacy or more preliminary analysis, although we will be unable to provide honoraria for such works.

Please forward proposals, no more than 1-3 pages in length, to Sol Bermann, Managing Editor of I/S, at bermann.1@osu.edu. The deadline for proposals is WEDNESDAY JUNE 1, 2005. Decisions will be made by June 15, 2005, and the deadline for accepted manuscripts will be August 1, 2005.

I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society is a new interdisciplinary journal of research and commentary concentrating on the intersection of law, policy, and information technology. I/S represents a one-of-a-kind partnership between one of America’s leading law schools, the Moritz College of Law at the Ohio State University, and the nation’s foremost public policy school focused on information technology, Carnegie Mellon University’s H. J. Heinz III School of Law and Public Policy. For additional information about I/S, see www.is-journal.org.

I’m on the I/S editorial board, and will probably submit a paper proposal if I can get the #$# grading done in time, but I’m not an editor of this symposium so I can’t take the credit.

Ridge Defends that Curious Yellow

Former Homeland Security Czar Tom Ridge Defends Color-Coded Alert System.

Yellow alert forever?

So Much for the Third Degree

That Al-Queda #3 man captured the other day? He’s enjoying the gentle ministrations of the Pakistani intelligence services. But the interrogation, allegedly, isn’t going that well:

Intelligence officials who have been questioning Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the senior al-Qa’eda suspect arrested last week, have cast doubt over claims by the Pakistani prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, that the interrogation is “proceeding well”.

The officials say that al-Libbi, who is believed to be al-Qaeda’s number three, has defied efforts to make him reveal valuable intelligence about its senior hierarchy, despite coming under “physical pressure” to do so.

More than a dozen low-key al-Qa’eda targets were arrested in Pakistan last week thanks to information stored on al-Libbi’s satellite telephone. Yet early hopes among both American and Pakistani intelligence officials that he would tell them the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawihiri, were dashed.

One senior intelligence official told The Telegraph: “So far he has not told us anything solid that could lead to the high-value targets. It is too early to judge whether he is a hard nut to crack, or simply that he doesn’t know more than he has told us.”

Al-Libbi had been beaten and injected with the so-called “truth drug”, sodium pentothal, said the official. “They have tried all possible methods, from the ‘third degree’ to injecting him with a truth serum but it is hard to break him,” he said.

I have to say “allegedly” because this is the sort of disinformation you’d expect an on-the-ball intelligence agency to spread if the guy had in fact spilled his guts.

Three is the Loneliest Number

A followup to Three is a Convenient Number to State, in which I noted how the US was trumpeting the capture of yet another third-in-command Al-Qaeda leader — the British and world press are reporting that Captured Al-Qaeda kingpin is case of ‘mistaken identity’:

THE capture of a supposed Al-Qaeda kingpin by Pakistani agents last week was hailed by President George W Bush as “a critical victory in the war on terror”. According to European intelligence experts, however, Abu Faraj al-Libbi was not the terrorists’ third in command, as claimed, but a middle-ranker derided by one source as “among the flotsam and jetsam” of the organisation.

As yet there is no sign of this story in the US media, at least not in the sources covered by news.google.com.

Three is a Convenient Number to State

First Draft - Got Any Threes? notices that we sure seem to be catching a lot of third-ranking al Qaeda leaders.

Of course, there could be all sorts of explanations for this: ties, replacements, fudging….

(Apologies to those offended by Snarks).

'FBI Helped Saudis Escape' Not Such Tin Foil After All

Remember that tin-foil tale about the US helping high-ranking Saudis — including members of the bin Laden family — leave the US without interviewing them? It seems the conspiracy theory had one fact wrong — the flights in question didn’t actually take off before the air travel ban was lifted, but only soon after, in a period when flights were still limited. Otherwise, the tin foil view is looking pretty good.

New Details on F.B.I. Aid for Saudis After 9/11: The F.B.I. gave personal airport escorts to two prominent Saudi families who fled the United States, and several other Saudis were allowed to leave the country without first being interviewed, the documents show.

The Saudi families, in Los Angeles and Orlando, requested the F.B.I. escorts because they said they were concerned for their safety in the wake of the attacks, and the F.B.I. - which was then beginning the biggest criminal investigation in its history - arranged to have agents escort them to their local airports, the documents show.

But F.B.I. officials reacted angrily, both internally and publicly, to the suggestion that any Saudis had received preferential treatment in leaving the country.

“I say baloney to any inference we red-carpeted any of this entourage,” an F.B.I. official said in a 2003 internal note. Another F.B.I. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said this week regarding the airport escorts that “we’d do that for anybody if they felt they were threatened - we wouldn’t characterize that as special treatment.”

Yes, you see, we give Saudis special treatment like this all the time, so it’s not really special, is it?

Annals of Death and Destruction

How to destroy the earth — harder than you might think.

How to cause massive death and destruction in the US (zip file) — easier than it should be. (News article, infographic summary.)

YATA (Domestic)

Bilmon reads the NY Daily news:

Whiskey Bar: The Out of Towners Defense attorneys call it Brooklyn’s Abu Ghraib. On the ninth floor of the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, terrorism suspects swept off the streets after the Sept. 11 attacks were repeatedly stripped naked and frequently were physically abused, the Justice Department’s inspector general has found.

The detainees - none of whom were ultimately charged with anything related to terrorism - alleged in sworn affidavits and in interviews with Justice Department officials that correction officers … shackled their hands and feet before smashing them repeatedly face-first into concrete walls — within sight of the Statue of Liberty …

I’ve heard stories like this which pre-date 9/11, but one has the strong anecdotal feeling that 9/11 and/or the Patriot Act has created a psychological climate among law enforcement which makes things much worse than previously.

See Clarke's Memo for Yourself

[revised] The National Security Archive has put Richard Clarke’s prophetic memo about Al Qaeda and terrorism (January 25, 2001) (pdf) online. Also note the very important attachments.

The significance of these memos is that they contradict the claim made by Dr. Condoleezza Rice and others, that the Clinton administration did not leave a plan behind to confront Al Qaeda…although you do have to wonder why they waited so long themselves.

Note that the memo itself is addressed to….Condoleezza Rice.

They Did A Great Job on the Cover-Up

Dozens of warnings preceded 9/11.

Kinda would have been nice if this had leaked before the election.

Classic Bush

I think this is what passes for reality-based thinking in the White House:

The No-Accountability Moment:

“The Post: Why do you think [Osama] bin Laden has not been caught?

“THE PRESIDENT: Because he’s hiding.”

This would be the new CIA Director’s version of high-quality intelligence briefing?

These Stories Are NOT Connected

There is NO connection at all between the following two stories:

#1

TalkLeft: Nat’l Guard May Return to FL Airports

Florida’s National Guard patrolled Florida’s airport terminals for a few months after 9/11. Now the National Guard troops have received “warning orders” advising them that they may return to that duty later this month.

“Several law-enforcement officials said there is no specific threat to Florida.” So why return the troops to the airports after nearly a three year absence? A cynic might suspect that the administration is trying to scare voters, or that it wants to create the illusion that the government is working to protect voters from a specific threat.

and, #2,

First Draft, Manipulating the Public through Terror Warnings: Empirical Evidence,

Noting that a study shows that, “When the federal government issues a terrorist warning, presidential approval ratings jump, a Cornell University sociologist finds. Interestingly, terrorist warnings also boost support for the president on issues that are largely irrelevant to terrorism, such as his handling of the economy.”

75% of What Exactly?

Matthew Yglesias: 75 Percent Of What catches Condi Rice floundering when asked how many al-Qaeda people are being counted as “leaders” when Bush et. al say they have captured or killed ‘75 percent of the al-Qaeda known leadership’ . Given the vagueness of her answer, which appears due to total ignorance as to either the real facts or how this factoid was concocted, Matt Yglesias concludes “they could mean as few as eight people.”

9/11 and Its Aftermaths

For the families, friends and neighbors of the victims, 9/11 has one special evil aftermath that can never be erased and redeemed, one that the rest of us fortunately can share only at a remove. The 9/11 plane hijacks and crashings were acts of terror, the modern piracy. They were an offense against humanity and the law of nations, and it was right to seek out the guilty in Afghanistan and elsewhere where we had reason to believe they lurked—a category to which Iraq had never at any relevant time belonged prior to the US-led invasion; whether our invasion has turned Iraq into a international terrorist haven is less clear.

For all of us, 9/11 has a second subtler and yet also evil aftermath—one that was and is avoidable: the making of scapegoats, the punishment and torture of the innocent, the national turn towards fear, suspicion, paranoia, encouraged by politicians with a firmer grasp of self-interest than of the national interest. Where are the leaders who understand that the corrupting effect of fear is more to be feared than those relatively puny forces who try to make us fear them?

9/11 fostered a policy climate, or became an excuse to create a policy climate, that lost any interest in compliance with international law when inconvenient. It remains an excuse invoked to justify domestic policing characterized by increased elements of ‘security theater’, and unleashed police brutality. This involves disdain for niceties of human rights and even human decency both abroad (Abu Ghraib) and at home (Padilla, Hamdi and many other illegal detentions). Some of the hardest hit at home are immigrants, not all of them in full compliance with visa requirements and thus in some cases not total innocents or totally blameless, but none deserving to become unpersons, or to be shackled for months in solitary confinement without access to counsel.

By scaring the gutless — including notably our leaders — into the abandonment of some of our core ideals, the 9/11 terrorists scored an infinitely more damaging and potentially lasting victory than just one day of mass murder.

Think I am overdoing it? Read the news. Or if you can’t read the news, watch the pictures.

State Dept. Says US Close to Capturing He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named

TalkLeft: US Says Close to Capturing Bin Laden. It would be nice to catch him. But the timing looks suspciously convenient.

Personally I have no truck with the “Bin Laden already captured” (aka ‘bin Laden on ice’) school of thought. I am, however, inclined to think that the “Pakistani forces herd him into the hills and respond to hints about proper timing” hypothesis has a plausible ring to it.

Effective Propaganda

I have no reason to share in this flash movie’s paranoid imaginings, and one good reason (Occam’s Razor) not to. But as a piece of shockwave-flash craft, and as effective propaganda, Pentagon Strike is a model of its kind.

Update (9/6/04): Snopes debunks it.

Idle Question About Pre-9/11 Briefings

The papers and pundits are abuzz about the revalation that our CIA Director met with GW Bush at most twice in August of 2001, including only one meeting while Bush was on his extended vacation in Crawford, TX. Leaving aside the issue of whether other forms of communication might have worked — did they ever speak by phone? — here’s the real question I wish someone would ask:

How often did DCIA George Tenet meet with Dick Cheney during that period?

After all, it seems increasingly and unavoidably clear that GW Bush is not in charge:

Q. Mr. President, Why are you and the vice president insisting on appearing together before the 9/11 commission? And Mr. President, who will you be handing the Iraqi government over to on June 30?

A. We’ll find that out soon. That’s what Mr. Brahimi is doing. He’s figuring out the nature of the entity we’ll be handing sovereignty over. And secondly, because the the 9/11 commission wants to ask us questions. That’s why we’re meeting, and I look forward to meeting with them and answering their questions.

Q. Mr. President, I was asking why you’re appearing together rather than separately, which was their request.

A. Because it’s a good chance for both of us to answer questions that the 9/11 commission is looking forward to asking us, and I’m looking forward to answering them.

Let’s see. Hold on for a minute. Oh — I’ve got some must calls, I’m sorry.

It Only Hurts When I Don't Laugh, and I'm Not Laughing

Wonkette is less cynical than me. She can still joke about this stuff:

ROEMER: OK. I’m just confused. You see him on August 6th with the PDB. TENET: No, I do not, sir. I’m not there.
ROEMER: OK. You’re not — when do you see him in August?
TENET: I don’t believe I do.
ROEMER: You don’t see the president of the United States once in the month of August?
TENET: He’s in Texas.

OK, we’re starting to get a picture of just how bad the technological lag was at the intelligence agencies… Imagine poor Tenet, desperately wanting to tell the president about this threat to national security: But no! The president is in Texas! Texas! “I just wish I had a way to speak to someone without actually being present in the room… some device that might transmit sound or text over wires… maybe even through the air!

Smoking Gun? No. Smoking Cannon.

The New York Times has the devastating report..

It begins:

President Bush was told more than a month before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that supporters of Osama bin Laden planned an attack within the United States with explosives and wanted to hijack airplanes, a government official said Friday.

The Smoking Gun on 9/11

So know we know about the smoking gun: GW Bush got a memo entitled BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO ATTACK INSIDE UNITED STATES.

And they did nothing.

And that’s why the administration made such a fight about releasing the PDB’s to the 9/11 Commission.

When the 9/11 commission was created, I think no one who hadn’t seen this memo could have imagined it would exist. I don’t care how much Dr. Rice and the others spin the memo as “historical” or failing to spell out what should be done to the last detail. Short of capturing a memo stating the date, place and time of an attack, what more do you want? Do Presidents get memos like this every day? I rather doubt it.

In a normal world we might actually be having a serious conversation about impeachment at this point. Sleeping at the switch is serious. But we’ll have to content ourselves with an election. Let’s hope they count the votes this time. And remember that sometimes — sometimes — even the conspiracy theories are not damning enough.

Update: Billmon and others were struck by this also. Billmon, however, says that the title of the August 6, 2001 presidential briefing was mentioned in a news article by Bob Woodward published May, 2002. I missed it, and so it seems did he.

Which I suppose proves my point that no quanity of evidence of negligence matters here, except to the election. In that context having the telegenic Dr. Rice say this title on camera — and then beat around the bush to denigrate its significance — is much more important than having it on the Common Dreams web page. But it certainly disproves my point above that no one could have imagined such a damning memo. (New question, why didn’t any of the articles over the legalistic fights over the PDB’s mention this title?)

Meanwhile I’ve acquired the Clarke book…

Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?

It seems heretical to even suggest it, but could it be that 9/11 was preventable?

Richard Clarke Is Not A Lone Gunman

There is a sleeper (waking?) witness on Bush & 9/11: Sibel Edmonds, a translator who alleges that she was bougt off witgh a promotion to keep silent about the adminstration ignoring evidence that suggested an attack was being planned. (I first blogged Ms. Edmonds in January. She’s interesting.)

Salon has an article quoting Edmonds as saying,

Referring to the Homeland Security Department’s color-coded warnings instituted in the wake of 9/11, the former translator, Sibel Edmonds, told Salon, “We should have had orange or red-type of alert in June or July of 2001. There was that much information available.” Edmonds is offended by the Bush White House claim that it lacked foreknowledge of the kind of attacks made by al-Qaida on 9/11. “Especially after reading National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice [Washington Post Op-Ed on March 22] where she said, we had no specific information whatsoever of domestic threat or that they might use airplanes. That’s an outrageous lie. And documents can prove it’s a lie.”

Bush Flip-Flops (Again) on 9/11 Commission

This zinger:

“If the president of the United States can find time to go to a rodeo, he can find the time to do more than one hour in front of a commission that is investigating what happened to America’s intelligence,” Mr. Kerry told hundreds of supporters at a rally in West Palm Beach on Monday afternoon.

Produced this:

White House: Bush will take all questions of 9/11 panel: President Bush will privately answer all questions raised by a federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House said Tuesday, apparently dropping a one-hour limit on the president’s testimony.

The shift came on the heels of accusations by presumed Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry that Bush was “stonewalling” investigations of the terrorist attacks and U.S. intelligence failures.

This is Bush’s second flip-flop on the 9/11 commission issue alone. And you wonder why — when faced with such a strong, resolute negotiator — the North Koreans are suddenly saying they have a new condition for scrapping their nukes?

North Korea’s government said it will make the pullout of U.S. forces from South Korea a condition of a nuclear agreement, unless the U.S. stops insisting that an accord require the North to dismantle its weapons program first.

North Korea also will demand a “complete, verifiable, irreversible security assurance” from the U.S. in exchange for American insistence the nuclear program be dismantled on those terms, the official Korea Central News Agency said in a release.

Of course, the two situations are not parallel: the Bush position on the 9/11 commission was absurd, while taking a tough line with North Korea is not. But will the North Koreans understand the difference? I think this Adminstration is starting to look weak abroad. I trust this doesn’t mean we are in for a new round of foreign adventurism, if only because there are no ground troops left to spare to conduct it.

Update: Well, is it a flip-flop or not? The NYT version of the story suggests an administration artfullly trying to have it both ways:

He’s going to answer all the questions they want to raise,” the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, told reporters today. When pressed, Mr. McClellan repeated this statement but did not clarify whether the time restriction had been dropped.

“That’s what it’s scheduled for, an hour, but look, he’s going to answer all the questions that they want to raise,” Mr. McClellan said.

The spokesman said the president still planned to meet only with the panel’s top two officials.

Whassamater, he’s afraid of witnesses?

Another update: Actually, if this press gaggle is the source of the story quoted above, then it seems like the adminstration is not able to bring itself to say it will answer all the questions. Presumably, after about 68 minutes Bush will leave, and announce he answered an unprecedented number of questions. And the Republican chair won’t contradict him.

Stonewalling the 9/11 Commission

The stonewalling of the 9/11 Commission continues.

Bush to Limit Testimony Before 9/11 Panel: President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have placed strict limits on the private interviews they will grant to the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, saying that they will meet only with the panel’s top two officials and that Mr. Bush will submit to only a single hour of questioning, commission members said Wednesday.

I have no idea what they think they gain by this. Is it easier to intimidate two people? Is it easier to stonewall without more live witnesses? Is there some other member of the commission who’s being particularly agressive whom they want to keep out? Or is it just reflexive antagonism — fight about the shape of the table to distract from the substance?

Dingbat Kabuki

Josua Marsahll has a way not just with ideas but with words. What better phrase than “dingbat kabuki” to describe the bizarre and transparently fraudulent claim that House Republicans are rebelling against GW Bush’s earnest and assertive request to extend the life of the 9/11 commission?

The White House’s suggestion that Andrew Card’s personal appeal to Speaker Hastert to make good on Bush’s pledge to deliver an extra 60 days for the commission fell on deaf ears would be funny if the issues — the extent to which 9/11 was preventable, and what we can learn from the failure to prevent it — were not so serious.

So now I have two questions. First, which one of these three scenarios is at work:

1. Karl Rove and Dick Cheney never planned to extend the 9/11 Commission’s mandate past May, and Bush’s pledge was a lie when uttered.
2. Rove & Cheney did plan to extend the 9/11 Commission, but then backed off due to declining poll numbers, figuring it was better to take a hit now, from a disorganized limited and rushed report than later, closer to the election from a slicker, fuller report. [This seems to be Josh Marshall’s assumption.]
3. They did plan to extend, but the committee got frisky or got near something, and they decided to pull the plug.

My second question is whether, after being continually shafted by non-cooperation from the White House (refusal to testify, refusal to provide documents, bait and switch on the terms by which Commission members could see documents), and now by this latest promise reneged upon, even the Republican members of the committee — or at least one of them — won’t develop enough patriotism to denounce the White House’s sabotage of their efforts.