The president issued an order yesterday to stop the military tribunals at Guantanimo. This stood out for me.

Following Monday’s hearings, the Office of the Military Commissions held a press conference with several 9/11 family members, who had reportedly been selected by lottery to travel to the base to attend the hearings. Visibly angry, and holding up large photographs of their relatives who died on 9/11, they appealed to President Obama to keep Guantánamo open.

“Today we were in the presence of true evil,” said Donald Arias, who lost his brother Adam in the attack on the World Trade Center. “Mr. Obama needs to reexamine his decision and keep these tribunals going.”

Joe Holland, who lost his son in the World Trade Center, trembled with rage as he took the podium.

“My name is Joe Holland and I lost my son in 9/11,” he said. “When I said I was coming down here, people asked me what they could do. I said, ‘Write a letter to Obama saying that this place should stay open.’”

When journalists asked Holland about the possibility of trying the 9/11 suspects in federal court, he replied, “No, right here, at Guantánamo,” then excused himself from the podium as he fought back tears.

Report after report concludes that most of the people we held at Guantanamo were never affiliated with Al Qaida, weren’t picked up on any battlefield, and were being held for little or no reason, which means we were destroying lives and families across the globe in response to 9/11. I mean, put aside from the odd Taliban foot soldier who was conscripted, never understood what was happening to him, but finds himself imprisoned a world away from his family with no hope of escaping the Kafkaesque nightmare we’ve created. Perhaps you can’t stir up sympathy for anyone that picked up a gun for the Taliban. Fine. What about the fucking Uyghurs, that everyone, everyone, understood weren’t even peripherally involved? What about the fact that 18 Uyghurs were held in isolation for years and years in Cuba? Why isn’t Donald Arias concerned about that, and how can he be certain that he’s in the presence of “true evil” knowing any of that?

Some of the detainees were undoubtedly involved in planning or executing attacks against the U.S., but since we stepped over every bright line of human rights during their interrogations, bringing them to a fair, legitimate trial will be impossible. Maintaining the moral integrity and legitimacy of our judicial process is a prerequisite to bringing the perpetrators of 9/11, as well as terrorists we may apprehend in the future, to justice. But Joe Holland apparently doesn’t think this is important, or at least, doesn’t think it’s important in cases involving people even remotely suspected of involvement in the attack that killed his son.

And that, folks, is why victims of violent crime should never, ever be able to weigh in on how justice is best served. You can’t blame these people for being in pain, or for the depth and breadth of their grief. If I lost any member of my family to violence, I imagine I would be similarly consumed by heartbreak, rage, and vengeance. I am, after all, human.

By the same token, you can’t expect these folks to think rationally about what’s fair and just. I’m not saying that these families, or victims of violence generally, can’t overcome fear and anger to see clearly, but it shouldn’t be surprising if they can’t, and we certainly shouldn’t be asking their advice on how to proceed. It’s a circus sideshow, and the military folks that brought them down to Cuba to stir them up in front of the press ought to be deeply ashamed of themselves.

The makings of another shit sandwich, left by George W. Bush, for all of us to figure out how to eat. Thanks for that, George, and bon apetit America.

The issues surrounding Israel’s recent attacks in Gaza are swirling and complex, and I don’t know if anyone can even say the words “Israel” and “Gaza” in the same sentence these days without inspiring spittle-flecked invective from both sides of the perceptual chasm.

My own view is that both sides hate each other more than they love their own children, and that this will continue until that’s no longer the case. I’m also not happy that my money’s purchasing weapons that will ultimately keep the fire burning bright and hot. I also realize that, as an American, despite the fact that I was as opposed to the strategy and tactics of the GWOT as anyone could be, I have zero moral authority or credibility when it comes to counseling other nations to resist the temptation to lash out with violent, irrational military responses to attacks by a handful of extremists.

I also despise the language people use to talk about military action. The terms “fighting”, “kick ass”, “defend (one’s) self”, and even “strength” are terms appropriately used when discussing a bar brawl, where two violent actors punch and kick each other until one or both have had enough. They have no place in honest conversations and arguments in which children are blown up or immolated by modern weapons of war, and I find the practice (especially by Americans) disgusting.

One thing that I do know, though, is that Max Blumenthal is a fucking bad-ass.

(h/t Dennis Perrin)

Every so often I run into something on the Internet that makes me believe that all the spam and bullshit social networking garbage and cultural flotsam is worth it, just so that the writer or filmmaker or musician I stumbled across could have somewhere to hang their shingle.

I just tripped over a post by Chris Floyd, someone I’m not yet familiar with, so I stopped and took a closer look was transfixed. I’m late to the party, but I’m glad I made it, and I’m looking forward to spending time there.

You ask why the old American Establishment would acquiesce in policies that “weaken the United States.” But I think the underlying assumption of this question is unsound. It implies that the common good – the welfare and well-being of individual, non-elite American citizens – is somehow synonymous with the strength or success of the United States in the eyes of our elites. But this is not true, and never has been. They identify “American interests” solely with what benefits their own kind. They equate American “strength” with the ability to kill large numbers of people at short notice whenever they desire, and to bully and humiliate those they don’t kill into submission, in some form or other.

The American state still retains these capabilities, and our elites are quite willing to see tens of millions of their fellow citizens go down the tubes in order to keep this gargantuan war-and-extortion machine going. To our elites, this ruination is not a “financial collapse,” because their wealth and privilege remains intact, the markets remain intact, and if a bit of bother shaves a few decimal points from their fortunes, they will make it up later.

Wow. Now that’s some straight talk you can believe in, my friends. I mean strip-the-bark-off-ya, straight-up-yer-sweet-patootie talk. What else ya got in that there blog, Mr. Floyd?

Is it not time to be done with lies at last? Especially the chief lie now running through the world like a plague, putrescent and vile: that we kill each other and hate each other and drive each other into desperation and fear for any other reason but that we are animals, forms of apes, driven by blind impulses to project our dominance, to strut and bellow and hoard the best goods for ourselves. Or else to lash back at the dominant beast in convulsions of humiliated rage. Or else cravenly to serve the dominant ones, to scurry about them like slaves, picking fleas from their fur, in hopes of procuring a few crumbs for ourselves.
…
Beyond the thunder and spectacle of this ape-roaring world is another state of reality, emerging from the murk of our baser functions. There is power here, too, but not the heavy, blood-sodden bulk of dominance. Instead, it’s a power of radiance, of awareness, connection, breaking through in snaps of heightened perception, moments of encounter and illumination that lift us from the slime.
…
The moments, and their momentary power – a power without the power of resistance, defenseless, provisional, unarmed, imperfect, bold. The ape-world’s cycle of war and retribution stands as the image of the world of power; what can serve as the emblem of this other reality? A kiss, perhaps: given to a lover, offered to a friend, bestowed on an enemy – or pressed to the brow of a murdered child.

Anyway, it got my attention, I thought I’d bring it to yours. I’ll put a link over on the right.

Devilstower at DailyKos asks Robert Zubrin, author of Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil, about the importance of getting off foreign oil, and about the potential role of biofuels in kicking the habit.

Most of what I’ve heard about biofuels as a drop-in replacement for petroleum is pretty pessimistic, and I’m skeptical about the scalability of combustion-oriented solutions given the dire climate situation we’re facing. However, Mr. Zubrin does raise interesting points about how biofuel can dramatically change our foreign policy vis-a-vis the Middle East.

This year, the USA will import 5 billion barrels of oil. At $100/bbl that is $500 billion dollars taxed out of the US economy by the collection of foreign governments known as OPEC, some of whom are using it to promote terrorism directed against the United states and numerous other countries. When George Bush took office in 2001, we were paying $90 billion per year for foreign oil. So the Bush administration has effectively responded to 9-11 by increasing our financing of the enemy fivefold — and now we are actually paying OPEC more than we are paying our own defense department (the US DOD budget this year is about $435 billion).

Not only that, but this OPEC price rigging is driving our economy into a recession. Consider this: The Congress just passed a law to take $150 billion out of the treasury to pass out to taxpayers in the hope that they will spend it and thus stimulate the economy away from falling into a recession. However, even as Congress is raiding the treasury to try to put $150 billion into our pockets, OPEC is taking $500 billion out of our pockets. That is an economic de-stimulus package three times as big as the effort Congress is paying for.

The fact that we’re paying the Saudis more than our astronomical defense budget is stunning. But if our economy’s being slapped around a bit, the rest of the world is taking a vicious beating to keep up with OPEC’s prices.

People need to understand this: OPEC’s price rigging amounts to a huge extremely regressive tax on the entire world economy. Setting oil prices at $100/bbl is harmful to the advanced industrial countries, but it is brutally destructive to the third world. It is one thing to pay $100/bbl for oil when you live in a country where the average worker makes $45,000 per year. It is quite another when you make $1000 per year. Effectively, the high oil price amounts to taking hundreds of billions of dollars away from the world’s poorest people and giving it to the world’s richest people.

Think about this: In 2006, Saudi Arabia, with a population of 24 million people (15% of whom work) raked in $200 billion in foreign exchange from its oil exports. In the same year, Kenya, with a population of 36 million people (the majority of whom work) earned $2.5 billion in foreign exchange in exports of all categories combined. Distributed elsewhere, the $200 billion taken by the Saudis for their overpriced oil would double the foreign exchange of 80 countries comparable to Kenya.

Now, personally, I’m a bigger proponent of conservation and human-powered transportation, or at least more focused on those pieces of the puzzle. Neither is a panacea, but applied where easily applicable, I think both will be important components of an alternative energy strategy. While biodiesels, hybrids and plug-in electric vehicles will reduce emissions, I just don’t see how adding a giant, toxic battery to every 2-3 ton car on the road is going to clear up the many problems that car-oriented culture creates. We’ll still be left with this:

72 people by car, bus, and bike

Also, reading through the comments, there’s abundant skepticism to Zubrin’s assertions (ranging from polite disagreement, to personal attacks, to Ultimate Pissing Championship strikes and choke holds, ’cause that’s how DailyKos comments roll). Amidst the din, there are some serious objections worth weighing, and I’ll be curious to see if these are addressed in the book, as well as what Zubrin’s literary critics have to say. Maybe he’s wrong, or short-sighted, or maybe he’s even full of shit.

But no single solution is going to solve our energy problems, and it’s going to take time to bring oil alternatives online. In the very near term, I think that these two points, about OPEC’s toll on our economy, and that of the global economy, are valid and definitely worth consideration. Whether or not Mr. Zubrin’s particular argument for how to deal with these problems is viable, the goal’s still worth pursuing.