The Propaganda Campaign Dissected

"Failure to reach an agreement on the arrangements, which must be approved by the Iraqi parliament, would leave the negotiations over a future U.S.-Iraqi relationship and the role of U.S. forces in the country to the next American president. . . .

"The Iraqi government, still struggling toward political reconciliation, can ill-afford to sign an agreement that leading political actors have branded a violation of sovereignty. After a meeting Wednesday of the Council of Ministers -- made up of Maliki, the Iraqi president and the two vice presidents -- government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told the London-based newspaper Asharq Alawsat that 'the Iraqi government's vision differs from that of the Americans, who think . . . [the agreements] will give them almost totally a free hand in Iraq and that, as a military force, they must have absolute powers.'"

Remember Peace?

Michael Abramowitz writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush, whose administration has been dominated by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the global battle against terrorism, helped break ground yesterday on a $185 million facility for the U.S. Institute of Peace -- a government-funded think tank with the mission of preventing conflict and helping promote postwar stability operations."

Abramowitz writes that some of Bush's fellow speakers, while "outwardly polite. . . hinted at the deep disagreements over Bush's use of preventive war to head off what his administration considered a threat from Iraq.

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pointedly quoted from President John F. Kennedy's 1963 commencement address at American University to say that he would 'look kindly' on the work of the institute.

"'The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war,' Kennedy told the crowd, as Pelosi recounted. 'We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just.'"

How We Became Torturers

From a Fox News report last night by Jim Angle: "The nation was stunned by the attacks on 9/11, and in the fearful days that followed, the intelligence community was consumed with finding out if another attack was on the way. In an interview, CIA Director Michael Hayden told Fox the fear of an imminent attack led to what are now known as enhanced interrogation techniques."

Hayden: "And keep in mind, this is a time when we didn't know nearly as much about al-Qaeda as we know today, and you have the nation suffering, reeling from a recent attack in which 3,000 citizens had been killed, until it was the collective judgment of the American government that these techniques would be appropriate and lawful in these circumstances."

Angle: "Hayden was at the National Security Agency in those days, but now has been at the CIA for two years. He acknowledges that three high-value detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, were waterboarded. . . . [U]sually the subject is tilted on a board with a cloth covering his mouth and nose, then water is poured over it, creating a sense of drowning. Hayden says that technique generated key intelligence that allowed the U.S. to disrupt attack plots that were already in motion."

Hayden: "That two of the people against waterboarding was used created a significant fraction of our reporting in al-Qaeda over a period of several years.

Angle: "Really?"

Hayden: "Yes. But there's a question of lawfulness. Now, if you ask me was it lawful, the answer is absolutely.

Angle: "Though he says the legal landscape has changed as a result of court cases and legislation, back then, the U.S. government as a whole gave the green light. Key members of Congress from both parties were briefed and none raised objections, in part, perhaps, because the U.S. had long experience with waterboarding, a matter raised with Hayden."

Angle (to Hayden): "We waterboard our pilots as a way of training them against something that might happen to them. Has anyone at the agency who's involved in interrogations subjected themselves to waterboarding?

Hayden: "Yes."

Angle: "They have."

Hayden: "Yes."

Angle: "As a result, Hayden argues, interrogators had a detailed knowledge of waterboarding's effects from their own experiences and those of many others."

Hayden: "Could it be that waterboarding was selected as the high-end interrogation technique against a very small population because of our experience with the technique on literally thousands of Americans that gave us a body of knowledge as to what the transient and permanent effects of the technique would be?"

Here's how Angle finished up the report: "Whether the effects are transient or permanent has legal significance, because the law defines torture as mental harm that is either prolong or permanent, and some say waterboarding is neither. Controversial yes, but inappropriate for terrorists who know of ongoing plots to kill innocent civilians? After 9/11, the government's answer to that was no."

A little context: Waterboarding is one of the most iconic and notorious forms of torture, dating back to the Spanish inquisition. It is flatly a violation of international law, and administration officials have never made a compelling case as to how it could be legal under American law.

Furthermore, as I've repeatedly pointed out, none of the administration assertions that torture provided valuable intelligence have been substantiated -- and in fact they are highly suspect.

Meanwhile, Desmond Butler writes for the Associated Press: "A leading Homeland Security Department investigator said Thursday his office is re-examining the conclusions of a probe that exonerated the government in the case of a Canadian engineer who was seized by U.S. officials, sent to Syria and allegedly tortured."

Karl Rove Watch

In an excerpt from his new book 'Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove' published by Salon, Paul Alexander writes about how Karl Rove played politics while New Orleans drowned.

"Instead of supplying relief to the city, Rove had devised a scheme whereby he could blame the failure of government to take action on someone besides Bush. . . .

"Here was Rove's strategy: Praise Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi; praise Michael Brown and FEMA; blame [Louisiana governor Kathleen] Blanco, the Democrat. . . .

"Rove sold the story, as he had in the past, through the media. On Wednesday, while Blanco was trying to get help from the White House, her staff began receiving calls from reporters questioning her handling of the disaster, almost all of them citing as their sources unnamed senior White House officials."

Not an American Idol

Elizabeth Snead blogs for the Los Angeles Times: "'American Idol' creator Nigel Lythgoe didn't want President Bush to appear on the 'Idol Gives Back' show.

"Lythgoe has told OK! magazine that during the planning for the second annual 'Idol Gives Back' fundraising special, which aired in April, America's biggest TV show had a serious spat with the White House.

"He said that the show's producers were so disappointed with Bush's efforts to combat the poverty that the show was trying to relieve that they were simply embarrassed to have him on their show.

"But Nigel says they relented under pressure from the Prez's peeps, and allowed him to speak during the star-studded broadcast."

Cartoon Watch

Rex Babin on Bush's new sales job; Ed Hall on the McAlbatross; Mike Keefe and Matt Wuerker on the new G.I. Bill.