George W. Bush Hates America

Thanks to the Bush Regime, the spirit of the Axis has triumphed: To paraphrase an eminently quotable line from a pretty decent film, We have become what we once beheld.


Treating someone with contemptuous condescension is surely one of the most effective ways to express hatred. Soothing insincerity rarely provides adequate cover for flagrant insults to the intelligence, especially when they are coupled with oblique references to the subject's presumed shortcomings.


Deploying insults of this variety requires a certain flair for the language. This is why we can be sure that George W. Bush's use of that tactic in justifying his veto of a legislation banning the use of torture followed a script composed by hireling wordsmiths paid to transmute Bush's primate grunts and snarls into something approximating refined English.


Before describing the specifics of this controversy, I must make it quite clear that the "War on Terrorism" is an entirely stage-managed exercise. Our nation does not confront an existential threat from abroad, in the form of "Islamo-fascism" or anything else -- apart from the prospect of foreclosure by the foreign regimes that own the paper on Washington's debts.


Our troops should not be in Iraq, Afghanistan, or any of the other foreign countries they occupy, and as illegal intruders they have no moral right to interrogate anybody for any reason. Yes, I understand the security challenges confronted by troops as they deal with indigenous populations who don't overflow with gratitude for the occupation.* But the best way to provide for the security of our troops in Iraq would be to get them the hell out of that country immediately, and the same can be said of Afghanistan.


If this seems a trifle harsh, remember: Unctuous flattery may flow freely from someone who hates you, but a genuine friend may sometimes express his affection by sternly speaking of your shortcomings.


That being said, it must be acknowledged also that the military's interrogation standards are much higher than those of the Bush-era CIA and the spooked-up "contractors" who have been given free rein by Bush and Cheney over the past six years.


Granted, this hasn't always been the case: During the sanguinary "liberation" of the Philippines a century ago -- a "humanitarian" occupation that eerily prefigured the current missions in Iraq and elsewhere -- water torture was widely used by military personnel, and just as widely defended here at home. But in recent years, the military has taken commendable steps away from the efforts of the Bushian Reich to legitimize torture.


Perhaps torture is only evil when the Enemy does it.


No, the military isn't pure. But for the most part it has been the "Intelligence Community" -- or, more specifically, a select element within that cohort -- that has worked to institutionalize torture, both the variety carried out directly by American operatives and the even more gruesome trade plied by the foreign intelligences services used as sub-contractors for Washington.


"Were it not for this program," lied Bush with reference to his Regime's torture apparatus, "our intelligence community believes that al-Qaida and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland.... I cannot sign into law a bill that would prevent me, and future presidents, from authorizing the CIA to conduct a separate, lawful intelligence program, and from taking all lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack."


By this, the Simian-in-Chief means a program "separate" from the interrogation methods approved for use by military interrogators, and "lawful" in the sense that the CIA's torture program has received the imprimatur of the president, in whom dwells the fullness of the law.


Regarding these triumphs of preventive counter-terrorism, we have only the word of a Regime run by people who have never told us the truth about anything. Contradicting the claim that torture is a reliable means of gathering valid intelligence are centuries of relevant experience and the views of people with relevant experience in the field of interrogation.


Scores of retired admirals and generals opposed Bush's veto, as did nearly a score of "national security experts" (regarding the contribution of the last group, my reaction is: Preserving the ban is a good idea anyway).


Military opposition to torture reflects the influence of an honorable enemy whose methods made him the most effective interrogator of World War II: Hanns-Joachim Scharff, the German Luftwaffe's "master interrogator."


Scharff, who held an unprepossessing rank akin to that of lance corporal, was slated for deployment to the Russian Front when he was conscripted in 1943. His wife -- obviously not someone easily intimidated -- barged into the office of her husband's would-be commanding officer to excoriate the German military for wasting the life of a well-educated man who spoke perfect English.


The general agreed that this would be a poor use of Scharff's gifts, and in short order Hans found himself assigned to the Dulag Luft, a prison camp holding many American and Allied POWs.


There were some German interrogators who beat and otherwise abused POWs (although the Germans were rarely, if ever, anywhere near as brutal as the Japanese in this respect). Scharff never did -- and his results were extraordinary. Rather than using the practice or threat of duress to compel a prisoner to talk, Scharff simply got them talking, and used his wits and powers of observation to extract morsels of vital information from them. In due time, those morsels would aggregate into a feast.


"My dad used to go on a lot of walks with [the POWs]," recalls Chris Scharff. "Close by [Dulag Luft] was a zoo owned by car manufacturer Adam Opel. They had moose and deer. `Would you like to feed a moose today?' he'd ask a person. He found a way to break into one of Opel's cellars and tasted the wine there. So they'd be sitting there drinking wine and he'd say, `So tell me about the bursts of red or white,' and the unsuspecting guy would say, `Oh, that means we've run out of ammunition.'"


Former US Army interrogator Torin Nelson, a professional intelligence officer and (therefore) an Abu Ghraib whistle-blower, "worships at the altar" of Scharff,"a German corporal whose highly effective methods of extracting information from captured Allied pilots in World War II included such techniques as having protracted philosophical conversations with his subjects while strolling through the woods," observes Government Executive magazine.



"He'd get little bits of information each day, so small the prisoners didn't even realize what they'd given up," Nelson points out.


Former Army interrogator David Swanner, who taught interrogation techniques at the US Army Intelligence Center and School at Arizona's Ft. Huachuca, points out that the course on interrogation taught there "was ... based on the techniques that Hanns Scharff developed.... All that seems to have gone out the window in favor of torture now."



However, the model for interrogation today is not the real-life successes achieved by Hanns Scharff -- who went on to become a naturalized US citizen and, as a mosaic artist, helped create some of the attractions at Disney World -- but the fictional exploits of 24's Jack Bauer, a television character who stirs the loins of squishy nationalist herd-poisoners like Rush Limbaugh and Joe Farah.



Yes, Scharff worked for a murderous regime. But in his efforts to question Allied pilots and bomber crews, he was working to defeat a foreign coalition that was actually laying siege to his homeland. Because of Hitler's demented war, Germany actually faced the prospect of annihilation. Allied air attacks were devastating and utterly terrifying. Yet Scharff, in dealing with those who were attacking his country, never needed to resort to mistreatment in order to extract information from captives.


Using skills that would later shape his career as a mosaic artist, Scharff teased critical intelligence from POWs through the application of his wits and careful detective work. One former prisoner told Scharrf's biographer that the Luftwaffe corporal "could probably get a confession of infidelity from a nun" -- a valid one, that is, not one desperately offered in the hope of avoiding or ending torture.


The key to Scharrf's success, notes a recent profile, "was that in most cases, the POWs being interrogated never realized their words—many times seemingly insignificant small talk—were being reconstructed by Scharff for Germany’s benefit. It’s a measure of Scharff’s reputation that after the war, he was not prosecuted for war crimes. Instead, the Pentagon invited him on a postwar lecture tour. Scharff told his military audiences that camaraderie, fair treatment and respect are the indispensable keys to extracting information from the enemy."


While Scharff was using those methods with great success, it was the Gestapo that employed the methods both they and the Bush Regime call "enhanced interrogation" techniques -- thereby earning many of their interrogators places at war crimes tribunals (as was the case with their even more brutal counterparts working on behalf of Imperial Japan).





















A translation of an official Gestapo memo outlining that Regime's version of Bush-style "enhanced interrogation" methods. (Courtesy of Andrew Sullivan.)


It is a sobering illustration of what we have permitted ourselves to become that the Bush Regime denigrates as inadequate the methods successfully employed by Hans-Joachim Scharrf, an honorable soldier fighting for a thoroughly dishonorable government, and embraces those employed by war criminals who served in history's most notorious secret police organization.


The injury done to our nation by Bush's torture policy is immense. But the insult resides in his mock-pious insistence that our country would be defenseless if we didn't emulate the Gestapo. That's the kind of thing that could only be said by someone who truly hates our country, and genuine patriots should feel free to reciprocate that hatred in kind.

______
*The subject of how American troops have worked to engender the trust and gratitude of Iraqis is dealt with in this installment's "Video Extra" (caveat lector: this video contains exceptionally foul language; severe, gratuitous cruelty to civilians; inexcusable cruelty to innocent children; and lethal cruelty to helpless animals):



Doubtless some of these heroic troops are destined for post-war careers as police officers.


One other thing: My enthusiasm for The Untouchables (alluded to in the first caption above) shouldn't be taken as an endorsement of Prohibition (of any kind), or the execrable ATF, of which the real-life Elliot Ness was the founder. It was a good film, however tainted its real-life inspiration. (And how about this for irony: Ness ended his days working as Chairman of the Board for Diebold -- at the time, a manufacturer of locks and safes, and now the corporation charge of rigging elections for the Regime.)


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Dum spiro, pugno!

Prepare To Panic!

Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 have been taken captive aboard a U-Boat commanded by their KAOS arch-nemesis, Siegfried.

A Navy destroyer pursuing the KAOS sub releases depth charges that detonate nearby.

“Look, Siegfried," Agent 99 exclaims, "your men look like they are about to panic.”

“Never!" Siegfried defiantly cries. "My men have been thoroughly trained. They will not panic unless I give the order to panic.”

Less than a split-second passes before the sub is tossed around by an even stronger explosion.

“Prepare to panic!” bellows a rattled Siegfried.


"There will probably be some bank failures."

Federal Reserve Commissar Ben Bernanke, in a presentation to Congress last week intended to forestall panic.



The U.S. economy is sinking, and it will take the global economy with it. This is the perfect time to panic. If we wait until our rulers give us permission to panic, we'll be dragged to the bottom along with everyone else.


One needn't be a devoted student of history to recall the proud boast that attended the launch of the Titanic: "Not even God could sink this ship." As it happens, God didn't have to bother, since an iceberg -- not one of his more notable creations -- proved adequate to that task.


Just as the Titanic was too mighty and cunningly designed to sink, Citigroup is supposed to be too big and too powerful to fail. In fact, Citi is supposed to help rescue smaller banks when they get in trouble.


After England's Northern Rock began its terminal swoon last fall, Citi was called in to help rescue the ailing bank, that country's eighth-largest mortgage lender.



That rescue plan, which would have involved Richard Branson as well, didn't work out. I suspect this is due, at least in part, to the fact that Citi is poised on the brink of oblivion itself. Just shortly before offering to help save Northern Rock, Citi was given a lifeline by the United Arab Emirates in the form of a buy-in by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA).


It looks like ADIA is experiencing severe buyer's remorse.


The Citi rescue is a collaborative effort of two Gulf State sovereign wealth funds and one Saudi mega-investor. Of this multi-billion-dollar bailout, ADIA's Sameer al-Ansari warns: "It's going to take more than that to rescue Citi." But it's doubtful that the Arabs are going to pony up the petro-dollars like they used to now that Alan "The Annihilator" Greenspan has urged them to abandon the dollar he destroyed.


So Citi is going to implode, most likely this year. Another possibility is a huge taxpayer bail-out -- socialism for the uber-wealthy investor class disguised as humanitarian intervention for homeowners facing foreclosure -- of the sort Bank of America has discussed in a memo quietly making the rounds on Capitol Hill.


Of course, the $739 billion BoA talks about is pitifully small when compared to the volume of bad mortgage debt we confront: A "fix" that size would be as useless as using a band-aid to treat decapitation.


So it's not an "either/or" proposition for the economy: We'll probably see huge bank failures and even larger taxpayer bailouts. And Washington will continue to hemorrhage on that unique imperial fixer-upper project in Mesopotamia, which has already cost us $2 trillion (plus an incalculable fortune in lost lives).














Expect to see this kind of thing frequently in the near future: A 1933 bank run in New York City.



Ambrose Evans-Pritchard warns that "economic winter" is setting in, and not just in the northern part of the Western Hemisphere.


"Half the eurozone is grinding to a halt," he writes. "Italy is slipping into recession. Property prices are flat or falling in Ireland, Spain, France, southern Italy and now Germany. French consumer morale is the lowest in 20 years."


And, let us not forget, in terms of the exchange rate, the eurozone is doing much better than the U.S.


The Fed and its comrades are doing what they can to hold winter in abeyance, and failing.
John Williams, publisher of the U.S. Government Shadow Statistics news-site, summarizes:


"[If not] for systemic intervention and manipulations by the Federal Reserve, it appears we might be contemplating a collapsed U.S. banking system and a looming deflationary great depression that could have dwarfed the bad times of the 1930s. Such is the good news. The bad news is that with those same systemic interventions, the Fed is locking in a hyperinflationary great depression in the decade ahead, with the turmoil possibly breaking by 2010 or earlier."
(Emphasis added.)


There are people who will be genuinely surprised when this happens, just as there are people who are taken by surprise when winter returns every year.


We can't avoid winter, but it is possible to mitigate its impact.


Get liquid. Get out of debt. Get some food stored up in quantity, against the possibility of sudden price spikes and shortages.


And to the extent possible, apart from what's necessary to pay expenses and debts, get out of FRNs in favor of real money -- right now.


If I seem to be counseling panic, remember: Now -- not after we've been given permission -- is the perfect time to panic.


Video extra







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Dum spiro, pugno!

Leniency Is For the Powerful

If you're a veteran police officer who beats, chokes, and sexually assaults a prisoner in the State of Idaho, you can anticipate a wrist-slap so trivial as to defy detection by the human nervous system.


If, on the other hand, you're a law-abiding, 66-year-old retired nun, who -- in the sanctuary of the jury room -- expresses the view that a juror's first allegiance is to God and the truth, you can expect to be charged with felonious perjury.


You can expect the same state Attorney General who displayed torpid indifference in prosecuting the abusive police officer to pursue you hammer and tongs. You can anticipate that the AG will make it a priority to put you in prison for the supposed crime of behaving like a conscientious citizen and carrying out the fundamental duty of a juror: Forcing the State to prove its case against a defendant, and voting to acquit if you're honestly convinced that the case hadn't been made. And if that AG had his way, you would probably spend the rest of your life in prison.


Kevin Buttars, formerly of the Montpelier Police, didn't escape punishment entirely for his March 2007 assault on Jared Finley. He will spend about two weeks in the local jail, and was stuck with a $500 fine and court costs of about $75. He will also be on probation for a year. This sentence -- imposed for a crime that involved physical battery and a sexual assault -- is much lighter than what the typical Idahoan would receive for driving with a suspended license.


To understand the magnitude of the break Buttars was cut by Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, one need only learn that the prescribed sentence for the crime of "unnecessary assault by a police officer" -- which is a misdemeanor (!) -- is a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.


For commonplace assault and battery, the Idaho Criminal Code prescribes a sentence of up to a year in jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both. And of course, if someone of the plebian class had dared to lay his unhallowed hands on the sanctified person of Officer Buttars in exactly the same way he attacked Finley, the punishment would have been a prison term of at least five years.


From the testimony provided by the victim and Officer Kenny Yellen, an eyewitness to the attack, it's clear Buttars should have received the full sentence, and change.


A year ago (March 5, 2007), Finley was arrested and booked into the Bear Lake County Jail. Ordered to sign a form, Finley committed the unpardonable crime of hesitating to read the paper and ask questions when he didn't fully understand what he was signing.


This fleeting and entirely justified delay was enough to pull Buttars' hair trigger: He thrust himself into Finley's face, barraging him with insults and -- more importantly -- insulting his father, for whom Buttars once worked in the Bonneville County Sheriff's Office.


Understandably infuriated by the profane outburst, Finley replied in kind. Like many bullies who take refuge behind badges, Buttars can be as bold as Achilles when he has numbers in his favor and his victim is unarmed. Accordingly, he beat Finley, slammed his head into a wall, choked him, and committed an act described as "simulated sodomy" after the two fell to the floor.


During his belated trial last January, Buttars insisted (in the paraphrase of a local reporter who covered the trial) that "the only reason he used force was because Finley was not in handcuffs and he was doing what he had to [in order to] protect himself and his fellow officers."


Note the plural here: "Officers."


So a solitary, unarmed, outnumbered, physically unremarkable prisoner was a lethal threat to several of Montpelier's Finest. Got it.


And the prison rape pantomime was necessary, because...?


Well, y'see, it really wasn't simulated sodomy, 'cause, y'know, the two of them fell to the ground in an "awkward position," and the only reason Buttars "pushed his hips into Finley was to keep him down."


Ah.


At this point, I'm prompted to ask: Officer Buttars, are you perchance related to Larry Craig?* Your explanation here rivals Craig's immortal plea "I take a wide stance" for sheer inventive desperation.


In any case, one of those who witnessed the incident, Officer Kenny Yellen, broke ranks with the rest of his tribe to tell the truth.


When it became clear that Finley was going to press charges, Buttars, with the support of then-Chief David Higley, planned to cover up the offense. Yellen, a genuinely heroic young officer who remembers that the rule of law is supposed to apply to those trusted to enforce it, wasn't interested in abetting the cover-up. He surreptitiously tape-recorded a conversation in which Buttars acknowledged his intention to lie about the matter: The "I'm gonna make you my prison bitch" routine was intended to humiliate the defiant Finley, Buttars confided, and it would be relatively easy to cover up.


And when the case went to trial, Yellen's corroborating testimony was sufficient to convict Buttars. On the witness stand, Yellen recalled having to look away in angry disgust after Buttars took Finley to the ground.


Officer Yellen deserves a commendation and a promotion. Most likely, he will get neither. Although Yellen has received perfunctory praise from various officials, he will probably endure ostracism and various informal punitive sanctions for taking the side of a mundane against his fellow Heroes in Blue.


After Finley reported his experience, Buttars was placed on administrative leave -- essentially, a paid vacation. After it was revealed that he and Chief Higley were trying to cover up the assault on Finley, they were fired by the City Council. Buttars and Higley responded by filing a "wrongful termination" lawsuit. I suspect that it will soon be dismissed with prejudice, at least where Buttars is concerned. (Higley has yet to stand trial for his part in the cover-up.)


The corrupt audacity displayed by Buttars and his former chief reminds me of scandal that erupted here in Idaho late last year. In December, a graduating class of police trainees at the Idaho Peace Officer Standards and Training (I-POST) academy chose as its slogan: "Don't suffer from PTSD -- go out and cause it."


PTSD, of course, stands for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a tragic and occasionally fatal psychological condition that follows an individual's experience with lethal violence. PTSD will be one of the lingering legacies of the Idiot King's criminal war in Iraq; its victims will be Iraqis on the receiving end of Washington's murderous "liberation," and many of the Americans sent to carry it out.


Needless to say, the line about PTSD that struck the next cohort of Heroes in Blue as such a thigh-slapper provoked nary a chuckle from the rest of us.


Clearly, some ugly things have taken up residence in Idaho's law enforcement culture, and even uglier things appear to be gestating in the I-POST academy. All the more reason, then, for Attorney General Lawrence Wasden to make an example out of Buttars, rather than flogging him with a single strand of overcooked linguine.


That's not to say that Wasden is incapable of dealing sternly with those who impede the course of justice, as he pretends to understand it. Take the matter of Carol Asher, the retired nun whom we met previously.


This stretch of sylvan splendor is the ugliest spot in Kamiah. I'm not kidding.










In 2005, Miss Asher was called to serve on a jury hearing a narcotics case in Kamiah (one of the most beautiful places with which God has favored fallen humanity). She is associated with "Police and Military Against the New World Order," an activist group led by former Phoenix Police Officer Jack McLamb. As its name indicates, the group opposes globalism and policies conducing to the creation of a domestic police state. It also emphasizes the role of the jury in reining in abuses of government power.


Despite her supposedly controversial background, Miss Asher was duly empaneled as a juror. The case she heard involved a warrantless search of an automobile that revealed a small quantity of meth. The prosecutor apparently considered a guilty verdict a foregone conclusion. But Asher didn't believe that the prosecution had proven that the defendant a young Indian man, was aware that the company-owned vehicle he was driving was carrying the drug.


During jury deliberations Asher expressed her views to the other jurors and urged that they vote to acquit the suspect. Chastised for refusing to follow the judge's precise instructions, Asher pointed out that it is the jury, not the judge, that is entrusted with the power to decide not only the facts of the case, but also to rule on the justice of the law. She also pointed out that District Judge John Bradbury, august as he may be, is not the supreme authority.


One of Asher's fellow jurors, driven by the perverse yet irresistible urge to tattle, relayed those comments -- made in the supposedly unassailable privacy of jury deliberations -- to the prosecutor. After the defendant was acquitted, the prosecutor, his lust to imprison somebody unappeased, filed felony perjury charges against Asher -- with the enthusiastic support of the same Attorney General Lawrence Wasden.


Perhaps owing to the prominence of fully-informed jury activists in Idaho, jurors here are required to sign, under penalty of perjury, a statement attesting that they will be guided by the judge in determining the facts and law of a case. The intention here, of course, is to prevent "jury nullification" by effectively rendering the jury a nullity -- a body that exists solely to ratify the will of the presiding judge.


Oddly enough, the official guide to jury duty published by the State Supreme Court doesn't foreclose the possibility of "jury nullification." In describing the role and functions of the jury, that document says the following:

"After the jury has been selected, the jurors will be asked to rise and swear or affirm that they will render a true verdict according to the law and the evidence.

Once the jury has been sworn, the judge will give instructions about how the trial will be conducted--generally what the case is about and how the jury is to carry out its responsibilities.

Your duty as a juror is to listen to the judge, witness and lawyers; to deliberate calmly and fairly; and to decide intelligently and justly. Your decision must be made upon the evidence presented to you in court."

This is exactly what was done by Carol Asher and the other three jurors who voted for acquittal: They listened to the judge, examined the evidence, applied their intelligence, and decided that the State hadn't made its case. Of the four, only Miss Asher was prosecuted for "perjury," on the assumption that she had deceived the court by not disclosing her views about the primacy of the jury.


Carol Asher, a meek and unassuming former nun, did nothing to injure anyone or anything, other than the pathological pride of a pack of preening prosecutors. And for that offense Attorney General Wasden, the same bureaucratic Babbitt who held his punches in dealing with a depraved, perverted, abusive cop, was willing to send Asher to prison for up to 14 years -- a term that could have been a life sentence for the 66-year-old woman.
















Somebody light a match! Idaho Governor "Butch" Otter (the well-coiffed one on the right) seems to be reacting to the stench of Attorney General Lawrence Wasden's hypocrisy. Either that, or Wasden and his colleagues are experiencing the olfactory aftermath of the extra-large burrito he had for lunch (the size of which he is illustrating with his hands).


Fortunately, Magistrate Judge Michael Griffin didn't buy what Wasden and his chums were selling. On March 7, 2006 (almost exactly a year before Buttars' assault on Finley), in front of a courtroom in Grangeville packed with honorable, peaceable people who may have rioted if Asher had been sent to prison, Griffin dismissed the perjury charge -- a decision that inspired a close friend of mine to defy courtroom decorum by exclaiming, "Praise be to God!"


For reasons left unexplained, my friend was not arrested for daring to assert that there is a power in the universe superior to that of trial judges. That's progress of a sort, I guess.


A brief post-script....

It's becoming apparent that random acts of physical violence against detainees, attended by profane verbal abuse, and followed by an attempted cover-up, constitute standard operating procedure in many local jails across this once-free country.

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* An even more interesting question is this: Is former Officer Kevin Buttars of Bear Lake County -- which abuts the Utah border -- related to Utah state senator Chris Buttars? The latter is the sponsor of a bill that would help police officers suppress disclosure of both criminal and administrative charges. If the two are related, it's possible the Utah politician was thinking of helping his wayward relative get a law enforcement job on his side of the border.



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Dum spiro, pugno!