Yuppers.

I see a Dem takeover of Congress this November as a stopgap measure. Even if Dems take both houses of Congress we face enormous challenges to pull the nation back from the brink and restore our pathological political culture to something approaching health. But if the Republicans keep control of both houses of Congress, the task of saving our nation may become impossible.

Time is short. We cannot afford to sit on our hands and wait for the Messiah Candidate to come and save us. We’ve got to work with the tools we have. Once we’ve pulled back from the brink of disaster we can take steps to get better tools.

Here’s another analogy: Imagine you are stranded on your roof in rising floodwaters. Sooner or later you’re going to drown if you aren’t rescued. Yet you refuse to be rescued in an old rowboat because it might be leaky and you are waiting for a helicopter.

Well, folks, the Dems are the rowboat, and there ain’t gonna be a helicopter. Article

It has been quite a while since mention of Herr Ashcroft has been made. This has potential to develop into something quite legally explosive.

A federal judge in Idaho has ruled that former attorney general John D. Ashcroft can be held personally responsible for the wrongful detention of a U.S. citizen arrested as a “material witness” in a terrorism case.

U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge, in a ruling issued late Wednesday, dismissed claims by the Justice Department that Ashcroft and other officials should be granted immunity from claims by a former star college football player arrested at Dulles International Airport in 2003.

Attorneys for the plaintiff in the civil suit, Abdullah al-Kidd, said the decision raises the possibility that Ashcroft could be forced to testify or turn over records about the government’s use of the material witness law, a cornerstone of its controversial legal strategy after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

[snip]

While not deciding on the veracity of Kidd’s claims, Lodge, who was appointed to the federal bench in 1989 by President George H.W. Bush, ruled that Ashcroft could be found personally liable in the case because of his role in establishing and enforcing the government’s material-witness policies. Article

Hats off to Mr. Gnjidic. Thank you.

When Khaled al Masri walked into Manfred Gnjidic’s small-town law office more than a year ago, spinning a tale of government kidnappings, torture and secret prisons, the lawyer thought he was dealing with a crazy man.

[snip]

Hans-Christian Stroebele, a member of the German parliamentary secret services investigation committee, said the work Gnjidic had started could lead to criminal charges in the coming weeks against American CIA agents, and had led many to rethink Germany’s relationship with the United States.

“Politicians of all camps are now calling for warrants of arrest to be issued for the kidnappers,” he said, adding that the case has led many to “resent the German investigators’ `muzzle’ when it comes to attacking Americans. A crime is a crime, regardless of who commits it. You can’t spare a friend from facing the facts if he did wrong.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has declined to admit error in Masri’s case [Soo-prize, soo-prize — voxd], and other U.S. officials won’t discuss it.

[snip]

…From passport stamps to witnesses from the original bus to chemical studies of Masri’s hair - which showed he’d been under food stress and, from nutrients he’d consumed, also showed he’d been in Central Asia - it panned out.

News reports and European investigations further verified the story.

Armed with the written version of the story, Gnjidic set out to try to right the wrongs done to his client. Article

George Soros lays out the spreadsheet the woebegone G. Walker administration cannot will not see.

What makes the war on terror self-defeating?

• First, war by its very nature creates innocent victims. A war waged against terrorists is even more likely to claim innocent victims because terrorists tend to keep their whereabouts hidden. The deaths, injuries and humiliation of civilians generate rage and resentment among their families and communities that in turn serves to build support for terrorists.

• Second, terrorism is an abstraction. It lumps together all political movements that use terrorist tactics. Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Sunni insurrection and the Mahdi army in Iraq are very different forces, but President Bush’s global war on terror prevents us from differentiating between them and dealing with them accordingly.

• Third, the war on terror emphasizes military action while most territorial conflicts require political solutions. And, as the British have shown by foiling a plan to blow up to ten airplanes, terrorists are best dealt with by good intelligence. The war on terror increases the terrorist threat and makes the task of the intelligence agencies more difficult.
Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are still at large; we need to focus on finding them, and preventing attacks like the one foiled in England.

• Fourth, the war on terror drives a wedge between “us” and “them.” We are innocent victims. They are perpetrators. But we fail to notice that we also become perpetrators in the process; the rest of the world, however, does notice. That is how such a wide gap has arisen between America and much of the world.

Taken together, these four factors ensure that the war on terror cannot be won. An endless war waged against an unseen enemy is doing great damage to our power and prestige abroad and to our open society at home. It has led to a dangerous extension of executive powers; it has tarnished our adherence to universal human rights; it has inhibited the critical process that is at the heart of an open society; and it has cost a lot of money. [And ended or diminished thousands upon thousands of lives — voxd] Most importantly, it has diverted attention from other urgent tasks that require American leadership, such as finishing the job we so correctly began in Afghanistan, addressing the looming global energy crisis, and dealing with nuclear proliferation. Article