No Kidding

A two-year investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee turns up the obvious:

The physical and mental abuse of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was the direct result of Bush administration detention policies and should not be dismissed as the work of bad guards or interrogators, according to a bipartisan Senate report released Thursday.

Kudos to Sen. John McCain for his strong role in the investigation:

"These policies are wrong and must never be repeated," he said in a statement.

Of course, President Bush and his crew continue to hide/break the law:

The report comes as the Bush administration continues to delay and in some cases bar members of Congress from gaining access to key legal documents and memos about the detainee program, including an August 2002 memo that evaluated whether specific interrogation techniques proposed to be used by the CIA would constitute torture.

Bush: Grass Green, Water Wet

Actual headline from the AP - Bush: Iraq war longer, more costly than expected

Thanks for the update, Mr. President.

Robert Gates - the Handbreak on Bush's Handbasket to Hell

If Obama is a complete reversal of Bush’s policies, but Bush had already started to reverse himself a little bit, does that make Obama just more of the same? Hogwash. Complete garbage.

Still, that’s why David Brooks tries to argue in the New York Times today.

Brooks claims that President George W. Bush (learning from the unmitigated disaster of Iraq from 2003-2006) launched a new, holistic approach to foreign policy under Sec. of Defense Robert Gates. And Brooks goes on to praise President-elect Obama for following in Bush’s recent footsteps.

Bringing in Gates as Secretary of Defense was an important step towards replacing recklessness with common sense; I’ll give Bush that. But to pretend that a holistic approach to foreign policy is somehow a Bush invention is preposterous.

Alleviating global poverty, strengthening the rule of law, and stabilizing peaceful governments has been a vital part of US foreign policy since World War II. Only Bush was stupid enough to think it could be accomplished by the military alone.

Gates was never that stupid. He was never a neo-con. He doesn’t represent Bush’s governing philosophy or foreign policy; he’s a repudiation of it. Gates comes from outside Bush’s circle – not just his circle of people but his circle of thought.

Gates represents “continuity,” Brooks claims? Ha. At best, Gates represents that even Bush knew his own political ideology led to total failure.

Benefit of the Doubt

Should Pres. Barack Obama keep Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at his post? Looks like it may happen. I can’t say I’m thrilled with the idea, but I’m willing to trust Obama’s judgment.

Some Obama fans may be horrified to see anything short of an crisp, clean break from President Bush and immediate abandonment of his foreign/war policies. But there’s something to remember -- Gates was already a repudiation of Bush’s war policies. After 2006, Bush was forced to fire Donald Rumsfeld and pretty much acknowledge that everything in Iraq up to that point had been a total disaster.

Gates is not a neo-con. He’s not a Rove-ite. He’s not part of that inner Bush circle that ransacked the federal government, politicizing everything they could and burning the rest to the ground. If President-elect Obama says he can work with this guy, then I believe him.

I can’t stand Republicans who would drive this country into a brick wall just to spite the Democrats. I can’t stand Republicans who confuse reckless ignorance with “principles.” The last thing I want is for President-elect Obama to start mimicking that behavior. If he did, that would represent a far more dangerous continuation of President Bush’s behavior than keeping Gates in charge of the Defense Department.

If President-elect Obama says the best thing for our nation and our troops is to keep Gates around another 6-18 months for a slower, more gradual changeover, then I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

We're All Going to Die!

The Bush Administration has agreed to a specific timetable for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, a move that President Bush previously assured us would lead to the death of countless Americans on American soil.

According to the AP, the deal between the US and Iraq would set: “a timeline for their withdrawal from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, and from the country by Jan. 1, 2012.”

So either Bush is a bald-faced liar or he wants you and your children to die.

Possibly both.

The Cost of Living

In news that would have been a lot more meaningful before the election, an independent study of President-elect Obama’s healthcare plan finds that it will provide coverage for 2/3 of currently uninsured Americans at a cost of $75 billion--or about one tenth of the bailout. The government will recover about $25 billion of that because it won’t have to cover the hospital costs of those newly insured people anymore.

So that’s a $50 billion bill to the taxpayer in exchange for health insurance for 31 million people.

Of course, it’s an annual cost, not a one-time deal. With healthcare costs rising much faster than inflation or wages, the burden will become increasingly large every year.

I’m all for the Obama plan, but I think it’s important to take an honest look at the numbers. If anyone thinks we can pay for it with the money we’ll save by withdrawing from Iraq, remember that we paid for Iraq with borrowed money--which was stupid--and it’d be stupid to pay for this with borrowed money as well.

In the long term, we can pay for healthcare reforms with the money we currently pay on interest on the national debt, but we’ve got to eliminate the deficit first and start paying down the debt before that money gets freed up. In the meantime, the money must come from somewhere.

No one said Obama’s job was easy.