by TChris

Maj. Gen. Richard C. Zilmer: "I think we are winning this war."

Tony Snow: "It is conceivable that other people have differing assessments."

Despite his optimism, Zilmer concurs with the "frank and candid" analysis of "Col. Pete Devlin, the Marine intelligence chief in Iraq, who concluded that prospects for securing Anbar province are dim."

According to several Defense Department officials who have read the report, Devlin also argued that the lack of political progress has created a political vacuum in the province. He wrote that the gap is being filled by the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, said one Army officer who read the assessment.

Today's news from Iraq provides little cause for optimism:

by TChris

Michael Chertoff tells us that the goal of al Qaeda is to bankrupt the United States. If so, the President is surely assisting al Qaeda by squandering public resources on the war in Iraq.

Chertoff explained that "the American public must accept that the government cannot protect every possible target against attack." There's no doubt that choices need to be made -- better choices than cutting anti-terrorism grants to New York so that money can be diverted to protect petting zoos and popcorn factories. But finding money to protect ports and to inspect cargo would be easier if the Bush administration didn't continue to squander billions on a war that simply breeds supporters of terrorism.

by TChris

Missouri's latest attempt to fashion a protocol for executing condemned prisoners by lethal injection failed to satisfy Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. Judge Gaitan wanted a board-certified anesthesiologist to participate in executions to assure that the injected drugs do not cause excruciating pain in a conscious prisoner, but no anesthesiologist was willing to help the state take a life. Judge Gaitan modified his order yesterday to permit "a physician with training in the application and administration of anesthesia to either mix the chemicals or to oversee the mixing of the chemicals for lethal injection."

Gaitan also said the protocol must include additional safeguards for ensuring that inmates were adequately anesthetized before the injection of succeeding chemicals that stop their breathing and heart.

Judge Gaitan barred the doctor who had mixed the drugs in the past from participating in future executions.

Why would I fly to New York for a day? Because former President Bill Clinton invited a group of progressive bloggers (who happen to be Democrats) in for a 2 hour roundtable meeting at his Harlem office. It was awesome. More later, including a list of all the bloggers there (and yes, even the TL kid was there, thrilled at the opportunity.)

Bill Clinton, Peter Daou, Jeralyn Merritt

Bill Clinton and Bloggers

Criminal defense lawyers take note: He's far better on our issues than we thought while he was President, from mandatory minimums, to drug courts to restoring the right to vote to former offenders. I'm totally impressed.

More later, time to board the plane. I'll have lots more pictures up tonight as will all the bloggers there. I'll also update with a list of the bloggers.

First Update:

by TChris

TalkLeft recently introduced you to Majid Khan, one of the detainees held in a (formerly) secret prison before being transferred to Guantanamo. Now meet Muhibullo Abdulkarim Umarov, formerly held as an enemy combatant at Guantanamo.

It was early in the morning of May 19 when Pakistani secret service agents came. The agents woke them up, took the T-shirts down, and used them to tie the men's hands and cover their eyes. When his blindfold was removed, Umarov was in a jail cell, his friends at his side. "I was not afraid," he says. "I knew I'd done nothing wrong."

Umarov was questioned about a suicide bombing in Pakistan that he knew nothing about. After ten days, he was handed over to two Americans wearing civilian garb.

by TChris

This is primary day in many states, including Rhode Island, where Lincoln Chafee, one of the country's few Republican moderates holding elected office, may be voted out by right wing voters. Meanwhile, battles are underway in several states regarding conservative legislative efforts to make voting more difficult.

Here's a place to talk election politics.

I just got back from a great dinner in Manhattan and turned on the tv. The Path to 9/11 was over but a Nightline special was on. It blasted American farmers' opposition to federal attempts to regulate the sale of ammonium nitrate. It was an incredibly misinformed piece of journalism.

Ammonium nitrate is not a bomb. It can be a bomb when it's mixed with fuel oil or some other such substance. The OKC bomb was a mixture of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. It was the fuel oil portion that created the confusion for the Government -- where did it come from? They didn't arrive at a conclusion until the eve of trial. The ammonium nitrate was not a puzzle. By itself, it is not a bomb. Didn't anyone see Rent?

Its ANFO that is dangerous -- ammonium nitrate and fuel oil -- not ammonium nitrate by itself.

Let's stop the fear mongering -- and let the farmers alone.

by TChris

It took little time after 9/11 for neocons to start repeating the mantra, "Everything changed after 9/11," a phrase that the traditional media uncritically reported. But many things didn't change: the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, the American values of privacy and liberty, and the need for a governmental system of checks and balances. The LA Times reports on the things that did change:

[Law enforcement and intelligence-gathering authorities] increased the tapping of Americans' phone calls and voice mails. They watched Internet traffic and e-mails as never before. They tailed greater numbers of people and into places previously deemed off-limits, such as mosques.

They clandestinely accessed bank and credit card transactions and school records. They monitored travel. And they entered homes without notice, looking for signs of terrorist activity and copying the contents of entire file cabinets and computer hard drives. ...

In the five years since the attacks, the scope of domestic surveillance has steadily increased, according to interviews with dozens of current and former U.S. officials and privacy experts.

by TChris

In the days following 9/11, much of the rest of the world viewed the United States with sympathy and support. Five years later, thanks to the Bush administration, world opinion of the U.S. has flip-flopped.

Critics say Americans have squandered the goodwill that prompted France's Le Monde newspaper to proclaim ''We are all Americans'' that somber day after the attacks, and that the Iraq war and other U.S. policies have made the world less safe in the five years since. ...

Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- an advocate of closer ties with Washington -- had veiled criticism of the United States, saying: ''The ends cannot justify the means.''

''In the fight against international terror ... respect for human rights, tolerance and respect for other cultures must be the maxim of our actions, along with decisiveness and international cooperation,'' she said.

She'll get no argument here.

by TChris

An editorial in today's NY Times calls attention to the true purpose of felon disenfranchisement laws in southern states: "felony disenfranchisement is an enormous obstacle to voting for black people in the Deep South."

In Alabama, an archaic law strips the right to vote from people convicted of crimes involving "moral turpitude,'' without explaining what that is or what crimes are covered. A man who was convicted of a felony for driving under the influence of alcohol, for example, was stripped of his right to vote. When he reapplied for the vote, different agencies gave him contradictory answers, and he was initially prohibited from registering.

People who work and pay taxes deserve to participate in the political process. Erecting barriers to voting that disproportionately disenfranchise black voters is antithetical to democracy. The solution is clear:

The only honorable solution is to automatically restore voting rights to Alabamians who have completed their sentences. That's the only way to take this issue out of the hands of bureaucrats and make amends for one of the most shameful voting rights records in American history.

I'm headed to the airport and won't be back to a computer until tonight. Here's a place for you to discuss whatever is on your mind.

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

Five years ago today, Al Qaida, led by Osama bin Laden, perpetrated the most heinous attack against the United States on our territory since Pearl Harbor. As the CIA warned President Bush and his administration in its August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing, bin Laden was determined to strike in the United States using hijacked airplanes. As President Bush noted at the time, the CIA had "covered [its] ass." In December 2001, President Bush chose to let bin Laden, the person behind the murder of nearly 3,000 souls, go:

Well past midnight one morning in early December 2001, according to American intelligence officials, Osama bin Laden sat with a group of top aides - including members of his elite international 055 Brigade - in the mountainous redoubt of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan. Outside, it was blustery and bitterly cold; many of the passes of the White Mountains, of which Tora Bora forms a part, were already blocked by snow. . . .

. . . Now, as the last major battle of the war in Afghanistan began, hidden from view inside the caves were an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 well-trained, well-armed men. A mile below, at the base of the caves, some three dozen U.S. Special Forces troops fanned out. They were the only ground forces that senior American military leaders had committed to the Tora Bora campaign.