Cheney Still At It

Last week, President Barack Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney presented two divergent view of the interrogation of suspected terrorists. While our President is calling for an end of anything that could be considered torture, the former Vice President advocated for "enhanced interrogations." Cheney claimed that these techniques were legal and have saved lives. He even defended the use of waterboarding.

But the issue is not about effectiveness or legality, it is about what America we want to be. Are we to be a nation that employs interrogation methods like waterboarding, something I would consider to be torture?

Or are we to be the beacon of freedom and justice to the world? Why should we employ torture in the cause of freedom and justice? It makes no sense to me.

I can only conclude that Mr. Cheney has been seduced by the "dark side." In how many stories, historic and fiction, do we see a leader advocate oppressive means to protect the freedom of the people?

Our President is right. We must say "no" to torture!

Supreme Court Hears Case of 13-Yr. Girl Strip-Searched by School Officials

Is this an outrageous or what? Strip searching a 13-year old girl because she might have prescription-strength ibuprofen!

NPR reports:

The Supreme Court seemed worried Tuesday about tying the hands of school officials looking for drugs and weapons on campus as they wrestled with the appropriateness of a strip-search of a 13-year-old girl accused of having prescription-strength ibuprofen.

Savana Redding was 13 when Safford, Ariz., Middle School officials, on a tip from another student, ordered her to remove her clothes and shake out her underwear looking for pills. The district bans prescription and over-the-counter drugs.
Her lawyer argued to the Supreme Court that such a "intrusive and traumatic" search would be unconstitutional in every circumstance if school administrators were not directly told the contraband was in her underwear.

NPR also reports:

Vice Principal Kerry Wilson took Redding to his office to search her backpack. When nothing was found, Redding was taken to a nurse's office where she says she was ordered to take off her shirt and pants. Redding said they then told her to move her bra to the side and to stretch her underwear waistband, exposing her breasts and pelvic area. No pills were found.

Analysis

I find this intrusive search for a possible prescription drug to be an outrageous violation of her rights. Wasn’t it sufficient to check her bag and pockets? How could one ibuprofen be such a threat to the school that a strip search was necessary?

Furthermore, since she had to bare her breasts and pelvic area, I find this very close to rape and child abuse. Granted there was no physical contact or penetration, but think of the extreme personal embarrassment and the visual violation of one’s “private parts.” Rape is not a sexual crime; it is a crime of power – a person in a position of greater power violates the private parts of another.

This is just another example of women of all ages can becoming the victims of abuse of our right to privacy.

In my view, this school official should be liable for sexual abuse!

Afghan women march to protest restrictions

Women in Kabal, Afghanistan marched to protest Taliban-like restrictions passed by the Parliament. As reported in the Boston Globe, these restrictictions on women would allow such practices as marital rape -- a woman cannot say "no" to her husband's sexual demands.

This is a nation where most women are uneducated, and where the Taliban burn schools that educate girls and harrass and even harm girls who try to go to school.

These brave women were met by a mob of men yelling "Get out of here, you whores."

The contrast in freedom is so striking. Here in the US as in much of Europe and other nations, women are educated, travel independently, can choose to live alone or with a partner of their choosing(even one of either sex), and work to independely support oneself. In parts of Afghanistan (and now parts of Pakistan, too), women cannot travel unescorted, cannot work to support themselves, and cannot even divorce from their husbands should they be abusive.

Even in the US, there was a time years ago when women were 2nd class citizens, couldn't vote or own land, and were little more than the property of their husbands. But brave women stood up and protested, and won the freedom that women enjoy today.

We should all honor the stuggle of these brave women in Kabul and hope someday their daughters will enjoy the freedoms they fought for.

Captain Freed from Pirates (But Are We Satisfied with the Outcome?)

The Obama Administration took the cool, calculated approach to freeing Capt. Richard Phillips of the Maersk-Alabama. This wasn't Jack Bauer. Or Mission Impossible. No shock and awe.

But look at the outcome:

• The ship reached its destination with the entire crew, less their captain
• The captain was freed unharmed
• No ransom was paid
• The pirates: 1 captured, 3 dead

Clearly the score is US 1, Pirates 0.

But somehow I suspect that many are not satisfied about the military approach. No going in with guns blazing. No retaliatory bombing of suspected pirate holdouts in Somalia. Rather, the military tried negotiations and then, when the opportunity presented itself, took out the 3 pirates simply and efficiently with just 3 shots.

I, for one, prefer the "think first, act deliberately" approach rather than the "act first -- just do something" approach.

But will the American public be satisfied with military success with a limited expenditure of adrenaline?

We're Going Up?

Just after I blogged about the economy going down, what happens? It goes up! Ah, the joy of being a pessimist!.

(Being an engineer, I get paid to think about what might go wrong, so being a pessimist is a occupational hazard!)

MSNBC proclaimed today: "Dow ends at almost 2-month high." Quoting that byline: "The stock market rally continued Thursday, driving the Dow Jones industrials above the 8,000 mark for the first time since February and to its highest close in nearly two months."

Maybe I can put that Bruce Springsteen song on hold for a while.

We're Going Down, Down, Down, Down

Bruce Springsteen sang "I'm going down, down, down, down. I'm going down, down, down, down. I'm going down, down, down, down."

This downfall in the economy hasn't been a real "crash" like the stock market crash of October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday.

Instead we keep going down, down, down, down. (Then we take a break.) Then we resume going down, down, down, down. (Then another break.) Then, we keep going down, down, down, down.

And the worst part is that no one knows how to stop the fall. No one knows where we're going or when we will hit the bottom. Not the President, not the Secretary of the Treasury, not stock brokers or financial advisors.

But in an almost surreal way, we're not panicing. Maybe it's the air conditioning and sealed windows, but we never had business men jumping from office buildings like in '29. We don't have former stock brokers selling apples or pencils on the street. It's bad on paper, but our life goes on. Yeah, we're not retiring at 65, and we cut back on things, but life goes on.

So for now, we're going down, down, down, down; we're going down, down, down, down; we're going down, down, down, down.

Bush Administration Memos Shown to Support the Repression of Rights

As reported by the AP and NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101360891), the Obama Administration has released many anti-terrorism memos from the Bush Administration. As the report states:

"The conclusion, reiterated in page after page of documents, was that the president had broad authority to set aside constitutional rights.

"Fourth Amendment protections against unwarranted search and seizure, for instance, did not apply in the United States as long as the president was combating terrorism, the Justice Department said in an Oct. 23, 2001, memo.

"'First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully,' Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo wrote, adding later: 'The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.'
(source: "Obama Releases Secret Bush Anti-Terrorism Memos," by The Associated Press)

In a related statement, the Obama Administration also spoke out against the use of waterboarding and requiring a return to complying with the Army Field Manual for interviewing suspected terrorists.

I, for one, hope this is the change we've been looking for -- the return to constitutional rights and the rule of law!