There’s a scene in HBO’s Recount during which a main character proclaims how proud he is that the transfer of power occurred peacefully. How nobody died, etc. Funny, even that bar would prove to be too high for the GOP.
The best Iraq-related ad I’ve seen this year:
Introduction: The BSCT Program
In a review of unclassified United States government data, Denbeaux et al. (2006) concluded that, of the 517 “unlawful combatants” detained at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp for more than four years, 55% had not been charged with engaging in hostilities against the United States or its coalition allies and 60% are detained for being “associated with” one or more terrorist organizations. Additionally, “[o]nly 8% of the detainees were characterized as al Qaeda fighters. Of the remaining detainees, 40% have no definitive connection with al Qaeda at all and 18%…have no definitive affiliation with either al Qaeda or the Taliban” (Denbeaux et al., 2006, p. 2).
In 2005, a small group of civilian medical professionals, which included New England Journal of Medicine contributing editor Dr. Susan Okie, visited the Camp Delta to be briefed by the commander of Guantánamo Bay, Major General Jay W. Hood, on the current state of the medical and mental health care provided to the detainees. Because of safety and privacy concerns, the group was not permitted to see or talk to the detainees (Okie, 2005). Of main concern to the group was the possible involvement of medical personnel in the mistreatment of the detainees. Specifically, the group was curious about the Behavior Science Consultation Team (BSCT, pronounced “Biscuit”) program.
The BSCT program began in 2002 and was approved for use at Guantánamo Bay by then commander Major General Geoffrey Miller to develop behavioral and psychological strategies that would expedite the gathering of intelligence from the “more than 100 detainees considered to have high intelligence value” (Okie, 2005, p. 2532). The BSCT at Guantánamo Bay included a psychiatrist and a psychologist who “prepared psychological profiles for use by interrogators [and]…sat in on some interrogations, observed other from behind one-way mirrors, and offered feedback to interrogator” (Bloche & Marks, 2005a, p. 7). The role of the BSCT medical personnel in the abuse of Mohammed al-Qahtani, a detainee determined to be of high intelligence value, is well documented (Miles, 2007).
Yesterday, Matt Yglesias blogged about a Fox News Sunday interview with O’Hanlon and Pollack. In case you don’t attend to the daily political minutiae, O’Hanlon and Pollack recently returned from Iraq and declared that we’ll need more time (at least another Friedman unit) to see the full fruit of the Iraq surge. Subsequently, Glenn Greenwald reminded everyone that O’Hanlon, has been wrong about everything probably since birth:
Chris Wallace, journalistic instincts perking up at the sight of a newsworthy coup proposal asks “When you say a different government, meaning ousting Maliki and putting another man in?” Pollack, because he’s a smart guy recognizes that this is a bad idea and says he “wouldn’t necessarily suggest that the United States try to oust anyone” since, after all, “Our experience of ousting foreign leaders has been a very bad one.” At this point, however, he proceeds to suggest ousting Maliki.
But I think what we could do is go to the Iraqis and say, “Look, you’re planning to have national elections in 2009. This government is deadlocked. It can’t do it. You need to move those national level elections up and get a new parliament, hopefully one that actually can produce real results.”
Will we be giving the Iraqi electorate explicit instructions on who they’re supposed to vote for in these elections?
They tiptoe around the issue of course. The only type of government that can keep Iraq together is an iron-fisted, unaffiliated, strong-willed, decisive, paranoid, and bloodthirsty regime. Reminds me of *gasp* Saddam Hussein and his Ba’ath Party. Given how iron-fisted, unaffiliated, strong-willed, decisive, paranoid, and bloodthirsty the neoconservative ilk has been here in the states, it’s a wonder that the Iraq occupation has been such a spectacular failure.
Also, NPR reported that the Brits are under siege in Basra. The host reported that tribal militias have taken over the city and the killing. Within the same breath and without hint of irony, the host reported that the Brits believe they are handing over control to Iraqi security forces.
