by TChris

Is President Bush foregoing pragmatic solutions to terrorism, instead locking the country into an unending and unwinnable conflict that creates more enemies than it can destroy? Robert Parry asks why the alternative strategy -- "to reduce tensions, resolve political differences and gradually ease the hardliners to the sidelines" -- has been so little debated. While many of the President's supporters contemptuously label pragmatic solutions as "appeasement" or warn that "the terrorists win" if western nations recognize and address legitimate grievances that breed terrorism, Parry argues that Bush's approach is almost certain to fail, with drastic consequences.

Taken in its totality, Bush’s vision carries logical consequences of the gravest order: Military strategy will overwhelm diplomacy; root causes of Middle Eastern terrorism, such as the plight of the Palestinians, will go unattended so as not to “appease” the terrorists; civil liberties at home and abroad will be set aside in the name of security; Bush’s allies, no matter how brutal and autocratic, will be hailed for their moral virtues; critics of Bush, including longtime Western allies such as France, Germany and now Spain, will be derided as “soft on terror”; lying, spin and intimidation will be the currency of the U.S. public debate.

Parry argues that the consequences of Bush's approach will lead to a long-term victory for terrorists -- "one that is looming if the United States can’t figure out how to have a realistic and honest debate about terrorism."

On '60 Minutes' tonight: Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism coordinator, whose book Against All Enemies : Inside the White House's War on Terror--What Really Happened is being released tomorrow. Background is here and here.

Reactions? Here's an open thread to discuss it.

by TChris

As TalkLeft recently reported, Air America Radio, a network with a progressive perspective, will go on the air March 31. One of its key ingredients is Al Franken -- the left's answer to Dennis Miller. This in-depth profile of Franken in The New York Times Magazine gives an overview of the network and of Franken's prospects for success as a talk radio host.

by TChris

A new book by Jennifer Gonnerman, Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett (reviewed here), examines the problem of society's relationship with ex-convicts from the perspective of a woman who received a sentence of 20 years to life for her first offense -- selling cocaine in Albany, New York, exposing her to the unbelievably harsh Rockefeller sentencing laws. Elaine Bartlett was a young woman in Harlem "hoping for a quick score of $2,500, perhaps to buy some furniture and hold a nice Thanksgiving dinner for her family." Instead, she was arrested for selling drugs to an undercover cop, having been set up by George Deets, an informant who was allowed to continue his own drug dealing so long as he supplied the police with people who were easy to arrest.

[Deets] waltzed down to New York and lured the mark up to Albany County, making sure there was enough drug present for an A-1 bust. The mark sold the drugs to the cops, who were grateful for the collar, and Deets lived to traffic another day.

The book discusses Bartlett's sixteen years in prison (when she was finally pardoned), including her prison visits with her four children. Bartlett's experience exemplifies the sad reality that children of imprisoned parents often come to accept imprisonment as a normal part of life.

Her worst nightmare comes true when her teenage son, Jamel, who grew up in the visiting room, follows in his mother's footsteps and goes to jail himself. Jamel is visited inside by a 15-year-old girlfriend who is too young even to enter the gates but gets in with a fake ID. The girl becomes pregnant by Jamel, who has left jail briefly only to return, and the cycle begins anew.

But the book's focus in not on life behind bars, but on the new version of imprisonment that inmates face after their release.

Ex-cons are marooned in the poor inner-city neighborhoods where legitimate jobs do not exist and ... are commonly denied the right to vote, parental rights, drivers' licenses, student loans and residency in public housing -- the only housing that marginal, jobless people can afford. The most severe sanctions are reserved for former drug offenders, who have been treated worse than murderers since the start of the so-called war on drugs.

The book offers further proof that sentencing laws need radical reform, but reform can't end there. We need to return to the philosophy that people who have done their time are entitled to a fresh start; that having been punished, ex-offenders deserve a chance to reform their lives and to make better lives for their children. With almost 7 percent of our adult population having spent time behind bars, and with 600,000 "angry, unskilled people" being released from prison each year, society's unwillingness to help ex-offenders become productive will only perpetuate cycles of crime.

Our pick for inspirational story of the day....volunteers in Berkeley gather weekly to wash the feet of the city's young homeless.

The service is part of a youth clinic program run primarily by UC Berkeley undergrads near campus with funding from the university and other sources. ...The 4-year-old clinic also provides counseling, acupuncture and legal advice. No one is sure how the foot-washing started, but Ryan Houk, 20, a Cal student who helps coordinate the clinic, said he thought it probably started for religious reasons (in the Bible, Jesus washes his disciples' feet as a gesture of humility) but evolved into simply a nice thing to do for people who are out on their feet all day.

There are about 500 homeless kids in on the streets in Berkeley. The interviews with some the kids and their responses to the footwashing really make the article. Here's a few of them:

On another night, I met a 23-year-old guy who gave his name as Spencer. He wore black, a silver ring through his nose, a gigantic safety pin dangling from one of his belt loops. He said besides the obvious pleasure of having a beautiful woman like Cal student Birdie Nguyen wash his feet, the ritual made him feel homey and safe, the way you sometimes feel when you're taken care of as a little kid. ''It relaxes me completely. It makes me feel a lot better.''

Six U.S. soldiers have been charged with abusing Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad.

It's "the kind of cancer that you have to cut out quickly. You've got to address it very, very quickly," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the U.S. military's deputy director of operations.

17 soldiers have been suspended for abusing prisoners at the prison. As to these six,

The probe of the six MP's is being handled by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division Command. They face an Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury, which will decide whether there is enough evidence to prosecute them, Kimmitt said.

TBogg analyzes the new "movement" of conservativepunks for Bush working to get out the vote.

Taking an in-depth look at cases in New York, the New York Times reports that awareness of prosecutorial misconduct is on the rise.

Misconduct by prosecutors has become a national concern in recent years, highlighted last month in a United States Supreme Court decision to throw out a Texas inmate's death sentence because prosecutors had deliberately withheld critical evidence. In a study last year, the Center for Public Integrity, a group that monitors government ethics issues, reported that since 1970, there have been more than 2,000 cases of prosecutorial misconduct in the United States that resulted in dismissed charges, reversed convictions or reduced sentences.

....The greatest crime of all is an unjust conviction," Judge John P. Collins said. "It is truly a scandal which reflects unfavorably on all participants in the criminal justice system."

[hat tip to Ted in Chicago]

by TChris

TalkLeft predicted that death row inmate David Paul Hammer would be called as a defense witness in the trial of Terry Nichols. Judge Steven Taylor has now overruled the prosecution's objection to Hammer's testimony, clearing the way for Hammer to take the stand.

Hammer is expected to testify that Timothy McVeigh told him that Nichols refused to take part in the Oklahoma City bombing and that the bomb was assembled at an Oklahoma City warehouse, not in Nichols' Kansas home as authorities claim. Hammer may also reveal the identity of John Doe No. 2, the man some witnesses saw with McVeigh on the day of the bombing.

The prosecution calls Hammer "one of the least credible sources ever to serve time" in an Oklahoma prison. But the prosecution's star witness against Nichols, Michael Fortier, is serving a federal prison sentence for knowing about the bomb plot and not telling authorities. Funny how the prosecution thinks its own incarcerated witness is credible while the defense witness isn't.

It's ultimately up the jury to decide whether any witness is worthy of belief. The jury will hear opening statements Monday.

by TChris

If local crime rates seem too high, there's an easy way to solve the problem: Stop reporting the crimes.

Police in Atlanta recently revealed that reports of 22,000 crimes in that city were missing. But the problem isn't confined to Atlanta.

In New York, a police captain was accused of routinely downgrading crime reports so he'd look good in the eyes of his superiors. Philadelphia's Sex Crimes Unit dismissed as non-crimes several thousand reports of rape in 1999. And in Baltimore, an information technology worker quit in December over claims the city's crime reporting was wildly inaccurate.

The extent of the problem is unclear. Only a few cities, including Atlanta, Boston, and New Orleans, have ordered an independent audit of crime reporting. But the practice is sufficiently widespread to cast doubt on the reliability of the FBI's crime statistics, which depend upon the accuracy of reports made by local law enforcement agencies.

Reform may begin with police officers who are tired of watching their superiors take credit for crime reduction that hasn't actually happened.

In New York, 70 sergeants rallied in front of a Queens station house with a 15-foot inflatable rat this month as they demanded the ouster of Capt. Sheldon Howard, who they say reduces the severity of crimes so his statistics look better than they are.

by TChris

After Janet Jackson brought the free world to the brink of disaster by briefly exposing her nipple during Superbowl halftime, Clear Channel Communications -- the mega-broadcasting company that owns 1,200 radio stations -- implemented a "zero tolerance" policy for explicit discussions of nipples or other titillating subjects on the air. The latest victims of that policy, after Howard Stern and Bubba the Love Sponge, are the Regular Guys on Atlanta's 96rock.

Larry Wachs and Eric Von Haessler were suspended after they accidentally left a microphone on while taping a bit during a commercial.

Over the sound of a Honda truck ad, Lane could be heard describing sexual acts in graphic terms.

The Guys had planned to play the tape backwards during the show to mock the government's campaign against indecency. They cancelled that plan after realizing that the words had been broadcast live.

by TChris

Anti-war protestors took to the streets today. A crowd of 30,000 attended a rally in Manhattan, one of 250 protest sites across the country. Other protests around the world commemorated the one year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.