Late last month, I jokingly suggested that Barack Obama could emulate his “hero” Ronald Reagan by doing a progressive version of Reagan’s signature move of making appointments that are the exact opposite of the goals of the position by nominating Dennis Kucinich as Secretary of Defense and Daniel Ellsberg to head the CIA. Sadly, Obama seems to have taken a garbled version of this suggestion, as word came Sunday that Obama is creating “a high-profile initiative in support of military families” and has put war criminal and Pat Tillman cover-up leader Stanley McChrystal in charge of this operation. This is a truly Reaganesque appointment, as it is hard to imagine a military figure who has done more to harm families around the world, and now he is leading the charge to put a happy face on the devastation ten years of war has wreaked on the very small number of US families who have borne the brunt of the death and other sacrifices by our all-volunteer force.

As recently as last January, Barack Obama reiterated his love of the Reagan zombie, when Time described a dinner Obama shared with a group of presidential historians: “And yet Obama was clearly impressed by the way Reagan had transformed Americans’ attitude about government.” If Obama really wants to emulate Reagan, I have a suggestion for how he could copy Reagan’s pioneering moves when Reagan appointed individuals with attitudes diametrically opposed to the mission of their agency and in line with Reagan’s radically conservative agenda. With Robert Gates’ impending departure there is soon to be an opening for Secretary of Defense. With some bandying Leon Panetta’s name for SecDef, that leaves a potential opening for DCI. I have Reaganesque suggestions for Obama: appoint Dennis Kucinich,who has been a big advocate for a Department of Peace, as Secretary of Defense and Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers, as Director of Central Intelligence.

Early Wednesday morning (BH time) “security forces” launched a multi-pronged attack, destroying the encampment at the Pearl Roundabout where about 500 protesters were located — and attacking neighborhoods where protesters live.

We have clear evidence that there may be an ongoing policy of collective punishment and expulsion, war crimes under international and US law, happening in Afghanistan, and it’s time for the House oversight committee to investigate.

The New York Times has released a full unredacted version version of the Department of Justice’s Office of Special Investigation (OSI) “Striving for Accountability in the Aftermath of the Holocaust.” According to NYT reporter Eric Lichtblau, “The Justice Department has resisted making the report public since 2006.” A “heavily redacted” version was released last month to the private National Security Archive, and now a leaked version of the entire document has been released to the public.

The evocation of words like “accountability” in the context of suppressed documents, leaks, and war crimes has an eerie resonance today for those fighting for accountability for U.S. torture.

Any war another atrocity, another group of xenophobes all geared up to do it all over again someplace else.

I’ve been thinking all week as I’m sure you have about the ways 9/11 have led our country into deeper and deeper war on Islamic communities – seen at home in the hysteria about an Islamic center planned for New York and the threatened koran burning, seen overseas in the horrors of our wars on [...]

While the media proclaims the end of the Iraq war, we leave behind 1/3 of our forces and a devastated country.

Just as soon as Omar Khadr’s trial began, it’s stopped; Khadr’s lawyer, Lt. Col. Jon Jackson, collapsed in the courthouse late yesterday. The military commission is now recessed for thirty days; does the recess help or hinder the process?

Justice has been discarded in favor of political expediency at Guantanamo, as Judge Patrick Parrish has allowed Omar Khadr’s confessions to be admitted into evidence in his military commission trial. Included among the confessions is one obtained by convicted torturer Joshua Claus under threat of rape and/or death for the then 15 year old suspect.