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In what has to be one of the most extreme appointments yet by the Obama Administration, ex-Los Angeles Times columnist and Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks has just been made an adviser to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Fluornoy - a move Brooks describes as "my personal government bailout."Bailout is certainly the right word for someone who appears to have no relevant national security qualifications for the position. She does though have experience working as Special Counsel for George Soros's Open Society Institute in New York, and as a former adviser to Harold Koh, the hugely controversial nominee for Legal Adviser to the State Department. Brooks' new boss Fluornoy holds one of the most powerful posts in the Pentagon, and is already playing a key role in shaping the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan as well as the wider war against al-Qaeda. She will also be a central figure in shaping U.S.-UK defence cooperation and Washington's policy towards NATO. As an adviser to Fluornoy, Brooks will wield an extraordinary degree of influence in helping shape U.S. policy. Her extreme views should therefore be closely scrutinized.Brooks' description of the previous occupant of the White House as "our torturer in chief" is hard to square with President Obama's call for bipartisanship. Nor is her ludicrous comparison of the Bush Administration's legal arguments on the war on terror with Adolf Hitler's use of political propaganda.
Rosa Brooks: Our Torturer-in-ChiefUntil Bush took office, the U.S. had no problem defining what is cruel and inhuman.Rosa Brooks September 22, 2006WE DON'T torture detainees, President Bush has repeatedly insisted; we just make use of lawful "alternative procedures" of interrogation.But if everything we've done is lawful, why is the White House suddenly so desperate to get a deal with Congress that would "clarify" Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention and amend the War Crimes Act, which criminalizes violations of the article?FOR THE RECORD:Geneva Convention: Rosa Brooks' column Friday stated that the U.S. signed and ratified the Geneva Convention in 1949. It was in 1955. —According to Bush, the problem is that Common Article 3, which prohibits "cruel," "humiliating" and "degrading treatment" and "outrages upon personal dignity," is vague. He claims it doesn't give "clear" guidance about what is permitted and what is prohibited during interrogations.That's not what Bush is actually worried about, though. His real problem is precisely the opposite — Common Article 3 and the War Crimes Act aren't nearly vague enough. If called on to determine whether several of the administration's "alternative" techniques violate Common Article 3 — and thus the War Crimes Act — virtually any court in the land would agree that they do.
Straitjacket BushThe president's warmongering remarks on the Iranian threat suggest he is psychotic. Really.Liberals, put it behind you. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney shouldn't be treated like criminals who deserve punishment. They should be treated like psychotics who need treatment.Because they've clearly gone mad. Exhibit A: We're in the middle of a disastrous war in Iraq, the military and political situation in Afghanistan is steadily worsening, and the administration's interrogation and detention tactics have inflamed anti-Americanism and fueled extremist movements around the globe. Sane people, confronting such a situation, do their best to tamp down tensions, rebuild shattered alliances, find common ground with hostile parties and give our military a little breathing space. But crazy people? They look around and decide it's a great time to start another war.That would be with Iran, and you'd have to be deaf not to hear the war drums. Last week, Bush remarked that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III . . . you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." On Sunday, Cheney warned of "the Iranian regime's efforts to destabilize the Middle East and to gain hegemonic power . . . [we] cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its most aggressive ambitions." On Tuesday, Bush insisted on the need "to defend Europe against the emerging Iranian threat."Huh? Iran is now a major threat to Europe? The Iranians are going to launch a nuclear missile (that they don't yet possess) against Europe (for reasons unknown because, as far as we know, they're not mad at anyone in Europe)? This is lunacy in action.
ROSA BROOKS - A really bad case of 'reality'By Rosa Brooks July 20, 2007REALITY mugs us all, in the end.In those heady post-9/11 days when the nation's stunned acquiescence made the neoconservative dream of limitless executive and U.S. power seem eminently attainable, the gang running the White House grew fond of quoting pundit Irving Kristol's aphorism: "A neoconservative is a liberal who's been mugged by reality."In this smug formulation, "reality" was understood to mean violence and power -- epitomized both by the terrorist attacks that brought down the Twin Towers in a hail of falling bodies and burning rubble, and by the planned U.S. response in Afghanistan and (later) Iraq. To the neocons, "reality" was bombs, blood and fire; the transformative effects of shock and awe.In a much-quoted 2004 New York Times Magazine article, journalist Ron Suskind described a 2002 conversation with a senior Bush advisor -- widely assumed to be Karl Rove -- who added an extra gloss to Kristol's aphorism, making it clear that "reality" can mean different things to different people.As Suskind relates the story: "The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors
Oh yeah, this girl moonbat. Bill O'Reilly has been raising holy hell about her infiltration into the Pentagon - now Daddy Soros has a clear inside operative. God help us all.
