Per request an open thread to discuss the GOP Tea Party Debate.

I’ll be in and out more than usual because to be honest I’d rather watch dumb jocks than dumb pols.

Bito’s Much more thorough update.

Image by albike's via Flickr

The debate tonight will be broadcast on CNN and  http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/?/tab/live 

I (Bito) will add the livestream when and if it becomes available.  Please add your comments here and I (Bito) will be tweeting some of your comments.

While waiting what are your questions and what do expect out of this debate except more for the jabbers  and pudnuts to pontificate about?

Related articles

• Poll: GOP Hurt by Debt Ceiling Debacle (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• Perry’s Ponzi scheme debacle (thehill.com)
• Ratings For Last Week’s GOP Debate A Surprise (lezgetreal.com)
• Social Security Marks The Battle Lines For CNN/Tea Party Debate (brandtstandard.com)

As the 10th anniversary of Al Qaeda’s 9/11/2001 attack on the U.S. nears, I must confess to a feeling of unease…not about more terrorist attacks but about how the anniversary of this heinous act will be treated.

The first of two unappetizing appetizers to the banquet that’s to come is Dick Cheney’s release of a book that proudly touts the torture, deaths and destruction that he and the Bush administrations wrought in the aftermath of 9/11. He’s appeared to hype the book and brag about his crimes against international law on every cable channel except Animal Planet (which might have been the most appropriate).

The second run up to this anniversary was the National Geographic Channel’s infomercial-like presentation of George W. Bush’s historical revisions of his first reaction to the 9/11 attacks, his eventual responses to it and his surprise that it even happened (how was he supposed to know that a daily briefing titled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” and described the hijacking of planes wasn’t about Bin Laden collaborating with Unions for better pay?).

Many stations on cable and network tv have one or more 9/11 specials planned. No doubt, many will take viewers back through that horrible day and many of the most tragic and traumatic events that occured.

I am a lover of history and there can be no question about the historic importance of that day and how it changed the course of America. However, there can be a thin line between exploring those events and exploiting the horror of that day just for ratings or other less than altruistic agendas.

The question for each of these alleged tributes is, are they reflecting genuine remembrance and insights or are they just terror porn?

Will they honor the lives of the innocent that were brutally taken that day and those who loved them or will the real focus be the planes crashing into the towers repeatedly, people jumping and those on the streets running in terror from the debris clouds of the collapsing towers?

Do we gain something worthwhile from seeing those disturbing images repeatedly? Is it important that they be refreshed in our minds periodically? For me they seem drug-like, working on parts of the brain such as the fear center. Those images communicate a sense of fear, sorrow, helplessness and vulnerability which the majority in this nation has had more than enough of over the last 10 years.

I’m not for censorship, networks absolutely should be free to show them but I personally have no wish to be immersed in them again, to witness mass murder over and over. The irony is, at the time, I was like many who were glued to the news and watched repeatedly, the planes crashing into the towers and their later collapse. It was surreal, so hard to grasp, bigger than reality had seemed before.

However, now that we have seen these images for 10 years and know the details very well, now that Bin Laden has been killed and Al Qaeda’s on the ropes, it would seem most appropriate that the focus is on the human aspect of that day and moving forward. Reliving or going back to those days is in itself, terrifying (it was amusing how Bush and his Admin kept saying years later how he wished we could go back to those days right after 9/11 when Americans were united…what he clearly was saying was, it was so much easier to get what he wanted passed into law and critics silenced when Americans were all together in being scared shitless and gave him a 90% approval rating just for being President when we were attacked) .

Instead of the spectacle of fear and horror that day provided, I wonder if any of these specials will focus on the firefighters and workers who have contracted cancer and other terrible illnesses…but ten years later still can’t get the government to treat them as the heroes they proclaimed them to be and pay all of their health costs and help their families cope financially? Will we see tributes to those who were lost and will it be thoughtful instead of exploitative?

Will they document how the Bush Administration used the attacks to shove through violations of our Constitutional rights and freedoms, used the multicolor Terrorism Threat Level politically, raising the threat level periodically to whip up support for Bush when it waned (especially before the 2004 election) or how at a press conference, in response to Bill Maher making an irreverent statement about the terrorists, President Bush’s Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer shot a warning to  “all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do.”?

I wonder if they’ll document the chill on free speech and speaking out against Bush, describe the journalists, teachers, entertainers and others who were fired or had their careers damaged just for speaking out against Bush. Will they address how the Anthrax Terrorist struck right after the Al Qaeda attack, targeting only Dem lawmakers and the Bush Administration never convincingly identified the party responsible.

How about the duct tape and plastic sheeting we were all feverishly urged by our government to buy, to somehow make our homes chemical and biological weapon proof (even though having an absolutely airtight house would end up suffocating everyone to death instead).

Will there be mention of the aborted TIPS program that would have legally authorized and required any service person entering your home to spy on you (mail carriers, UPS and Fedex, power and telephone companies, cable installers,  even neighbors).  How we were terrorized on almost a daily basis by the Bush Admin that remote controlled model planes, crop dusters and dirty bombs in common suitcases may be used to destroy us? How our airports, stadiums, malls, bridges, reservoirs and trains were all at risk targets?

Will these specials describe how, in response to 9/11, Bush used what he has admitted was already a plan in hand to invade Iraq? How about the 200,000 to 1 million or more Iraqis who were killed by our liberating them? Or all of our servicemen unnecessarily killed and those permanently disabled because of that war of choice that 9/11 was used to justify?

Maybe they’ll cover the witch hunt against people who could be perceived to be Middle Eastern or Muslim, how they were required to turn themselves in for questioning and in some cases, detained for long periods without any rights or lawyer…meanwhile, the Bin Laden family members in the U.S. were allowed to fly out of the country while all the rest of America was grounded?

Will they cover how Halliburton, KBR and others war profiteered off Iraq with the help of Cheney and Bush and even electrocuted our own soldiers to death in faulty showers? How Blackwater/XE killed scores of innocent civilians and were immune to any prosecution for it?

What about how Americans were told by President Bush that the only way for them to patriotically respond to being attacked on 9/11 was to mindlessly go shopping? Or Freedom Fries, anyone? Or how 10 years later we’re just now starting to rebuild in earnest at the site of the World Trade Center?

And all those American flags people had on their cars…what the hell happened to all of them???

Unfortunately, out of laziness, greed for ratings or propagandizing to manipulate the public, it seems likely that the attacks themselves and their immediate aftermath will be what’s most focused on by many in the MSM.

The fallacy is that 9/11 ended. We are still living through 9/11, the fear of Muslims, Middle Eastern people and the rest of the scary world out there (Muslims were demonized for wanting to build a community center in Manhattan, GOP Presidential hopeful Herman Cain announced he would never hire a Muslim in his cabinet and that states should be free to prevent mosques from being built).

We are surrounded by the economic destruction and continued military and civilian deaths Bush began in the wake of 9/11. We continue the practices of rendition and there are scores of people locked up at Guantanamo for 10 years with no charges and few trials being held. The Republican party still strongly supports Islamophobia and boasts an appetite for torture and other violations of international and Constitutional law that 9/11 inspired.

Only if we were to see 9/11 holistically, beginning with the attacks but continuing through the government sponsored hysteria and oppression that followed, the launching and continuance of two wars, the massive economic collapse, the rise of the intolerant and prejudiced Tea Party with their Presidential candidate Rick Perry as a potential nominee of the GOP,  can we grasp the full scope of 9/11 and its impact on the American psyche.  Hopefully, in doing so, we can finally move past it so it truly is history.

9/11 was more than the horrific events that took place that day. It instigated more horrific acts on the part of the U.S. which helped undermine our moral authority in the world and decimated our sense of shared values with our fellow Americans.

We should remember 9/11 for the good people who were lost, the heroic acts of our fellow Americans and how we can come together to help and to heal each other. That day could and should be taken back from Al Qaeda by Americans, as a cause for coming together, however we differ in our opinions on politics.

If we can use the memory of 9/11 for  something constructive instead of re-living horror, fear and helplessness, that is, when we can truly overcome terror, then the terrorists have indeed lost.

Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
- Auden

St Francis of Assissi had, to be sure, an odd relationship with his body. As a strict ascetic, he considered it of utmost importance not to give in to its cravings for pleasure and leisure. He dubbed his own body “brother ass” and felt that it should be treated as any other domestic beast of the time. Beaten when in need of discipline, and given only coarse food upon which to subsist. He was known to curb his temptations by hurling his body into snow, or even on one occasion a briar patch which he tossed himself about in until his flesh was ripped and bleeding. However, by the time of his death, the great man had reconsidered his ill treatment of his body – his earthly vehicle – and asked the Lord to pardon him for having treated Brother Ass so cruelly. He realized that he had been indulging a fascination; an attempt to conquer that which his Creator had given him. Finally, it seems, that he who loved life and all its manifestations, had finally learned to love, or at least honor, his own organism.

Although many may feel that Francis’ relationship to his body was downright bizarre, I think it is difficult to escape the conclusion that we, in our modern age, relate to our own bodies in even more dysfunctional ways, or at least are encouraged to. We obsess over its skin layer, its most superficial aspect. Say the word “body” to a teenage male, and no doubt the image that will result is a female with Playboy-approved proportions. Or perhaps his own body, “ripped” and sculpted. It is doubtful that he will think of the intricate, mechanical wonder he inhabits, the magnificence that goes far beyond the skin layer. I’m reminded of a scuba diver, who, seated next to a friend who looked out at the ocean at sunrise and remarked at how beautiful it was, replied, “yes, and that’s only the roof!”

We indulge our bodies in exactly the way that St. Francis frowned upon, as we load up on ice cream, tortilla chips, cola, coffee and red wine. We then scan it for signs of resultant flab, and hold it up for critique alongside the impossible ideals that mass media relentlessly parades before our eyes. In magazine articles and website pages we are asked to consider which Hollywood hunk or starlet has “the best body”, when presumably the correct answer should be the one that functions best – the one that digests, eliminates, breathes, repairs, etc. most efficiently.

No greater indication of our dysfunctional relationship to our bodies can there be than the fact that we have created a trillion dollar industry that has as its sole purpose the manufacture of machines and devices that destroy and disfigure it by the millions. Our so-callled “defense industry” would perhaps be looked upon less favorably by its supporters if it were referred to, more honestly, as “the body destroying industry”. Although it has numerous competitors, perhaps the most atrocious and obscene example of this in all our sad history was the Treblinka II Death Camp in Nazi Germany. This was the Industrial Revolution meets Dante’s Inferno. For the first and only time in history an actual factory was built, with train lines leading up to it, that served no purpose other than the destruction of human bodies as quickly and “efficiently” as possible. People were carted in by the train car-load, and few lived more than 24 hours after arriving.

And these bodies that we waste and destroy so casually are near miraculous machines that are far beyond the capabilities of our greatest scientific geniuses to create or even imitate. Each cell, when it is first birthed in us, is like any other cell in our bodies, yet each knows how to evolve through exactly the right iterations so that it becomes part of our hair, our eyes, our lungs, our genitals, etc. How do the cells do this? Nobody knows, but it is likely the answer will someday be found in the portion of our DNA that biologists have lovingly referred to as “junk”.

We punish bodies mercilessly, and yet throughout the history of our species they have never sinned in any way. They serve us faithfully to the fullest extent they are capable at any given moment, until they can no longer. When they long for sleep we deprive them of it. When they need healthy natural food to stay strong, we insist that they make do on starchy, sugary, salty substances they have little use for. We keep them chained to chairs when they long to move about in the open air, as they were evolved to do. If we treated our pets the same way we treat our bodies we would be considered negligent, at best. And we punish bodies for the transgressions of the mind. I am opposed to the death penalty because I believe it is always a miscarriage of justice, as the body merely did what it was told, no matter how heinous the crime. To the body, slicing a cucumber or slicing into a human finger is essentially the same act, insofar as it merely follows the instructions of a healthy, or deranged, mind. An eye for an eye is thus two outrages, not one.

I am only writing to say that human bodies are innocent. We have yet, as a species, to demonstrate our worthiness to inhabit them. We should never harm them in any way.

Welcome to Middle East Update. Enjoy a cup of tea, proper Turkish coffee, or shisha pipe while you’re here. Think of this as a café to discuss the latest goings on in the Arab Uprisings and beyond. We don’t have backgammon here, but there is occasional trivia.

The only rule is that I generally limit the topics to the Middle East and North Africa.

Basic reference material, such as maps and such can be added later here upon request, to assist familiarizing and helping you follow events.

Additional information may also be found in past articles by me:

• Arab Uprisings: Still Writing History
• Mubarak: Half sunk, a shattered visage lies
• From the Embers, Jasmine

The media is failing Americans again by buying into the narrative that there is a real debate if using torture actually helped or did not help track down Osama Bin Laden.  It is simply logically invalid to let the debate continue that Osama Bin Laden was anyway discovered through the use of torture because that belief has a fatal logical flaw.  Instead using premise whether or not torture worked they should be asking questions to why we should be having this debate at all.

Why is the media not asking the first obvious question?

Since we know torture ended late in Bush’s term or early in his second term at worst why did Bush’s intelligence apparatus not find the name of the real courier?  The answer should be obvious if the media was competent and or not bias.  Because knowing Osama Bin Laden had a courier with a code name was of no real intelligence value.

Based on media reports the absolute most we got from torturing detainees was that Osama Bin Laden had a courier with a code name that could not even be corroborated because some detainees understandably lied and some just denied he had a trusted courier at all.

So we start out with the facts that at most they found out through torture that they found out Osama Bin Laden had a courier with some sort of code name.

There are two reasons the information gathered through torture was absolutely useless or at least obvious.

First since anchient times any military organization with competent military commanders have used couriers to transfer messages and orders.  It goes back that far because it’s obviously necessary for military leaders to use couriers.  So there is no way that piece of information was useful in any way because it was easily deduced unless you had the absurd belief that Osama Bin Laden used no couriers to carry out complex operations like 911.

Second since at least during Roman times (probably much earlier and I bet Khirad would probably have more insight) couriers had code names.  They used code names so they would not be caught and most importantly not be tracked back to the source in this case Osama Bin Laden.  So the couriers nickname could have been Donald Duck and it would still have not gotten us any closer to Osama Bin Laden.

Therefor the obvious logical conclusion is the “best” intelligence that could have been uncovered with torture was meaningless.  Ergo we should not even be debating whether torture helped catch Osama Bin Laden at all.  It really is logically speaking like debating if the world is flat or a spheroid.

Again based on the information we have most importantly the key crack in the case happened when we discovered Osama Bin Laden’s courier’s real name to a high degree of certainty.  Because that courier led us to the compound where Osama Bin Laden resided.  That key information was unequivocally gathered without the use of torture under the Obama administration using good old fashioned detective work including legal interrogations, survailance and FISA law.  Based on this excellent detective work the administration still only knew there was a 60-80% chance that Osama Bin Laden resided there.   Quite frankly I’m surprised no one is bringing up how the Patriot Act or newest FISA laws where most likely used to find the possible whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden.  But then again that would require a competent and unbiased media.