Bivens's Outrage

Sacrificed to Cynicism

By Matt Bivens

The CIA has studied the video of Nicholas Berg's murder and has concluded the executioner was indeed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- the friend-of-Osama's who the Pentagon recently memorialized as the Joker in its deck of playing card villains.

Others have countered that Zarqawi, a one-legged Jordanian, was killed long ago by American aerial bombardments. But let's assume for a moment that the CIA is right.

Isn't it time, then, that we asked -- again! -- why we did not kill Zarqawi when we had the chance?

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May 13, 2004

Nicholas Berg

By Matt Bivens

A political magazine like The Nation is supposed to make political points. And Lord knows there are points that could be made about the horrible tragedy -- the horrible crime -- of the murder by Islamic extremists of Nicholas Berg.

Already the political tug-of-war over Berg's life and his death has begun. (Not for nothing do we all agree politics is a dirty business.) Everything is sorting itself out nicely into the facts for "their side" -- the pro-war pro- Bush camp -- and "our side" -- the anti-war anti-Bush camp.

"They" can claim Nicholas Berg himself -- one of the most admirable- sounding Americans to come our way in a long time. He was a supporter of the war. He traveled to Iraq on his own because he was adventuresome, and idealistic, and because he had at age 26 set up his own company from scratch: Having built a radio tower in his backyard for fun, he now wanted to get wealthy by helping rebuild radio towers in Iraq.

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May 12, 2004

Arresting the Innocent

By Matt Bivens

As Congress holds more hearings today on the torture of Iraqis in American custody, consider a recently unveiled Red Cross report (subscribers to The Wall Street Journal can download a PDF of the full report here).

The Associated Press says the Red Cross contradicts President George W. Bush's claims that abuses were "the wrongdoing of a few." Instead, abuse of prisoners by American soldiers -- at Abu Ghraib and at more than ten other facilities [!] observed -- was widespread and routine. Among other horrors, this included having some mauled by military dogs. And all of this was visited upon people who, the Red Cross says, shouldn't have been in jail in the first place, because the majority of them had been arrested apparently at random. (Gee, I wonder how that happens.)

Military Times cuts to the chase on this with a scathing editorial that characterizes the entire affair as "a failure that ran straight to the top." The editorial concludes: "Accountability here is essential -- even if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war."

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May 11, 2004

Moms & Cops

By Matt Bivens

Uzis, Kalashnikovs, civilian-model M-16s and other assault weapons are soon to be legal in America again, because a ban on them -- a ban that has been applauded by police forces across the country -- expires in September.

The ban could easily be renewed, and that's what police chiefs and mayors -- and 1 million mothers -- are fighting for.

George W. Bush has the power to save the assault weapons ban. All he has to do is call on the Republican Party leadership in Congress to send an extension of the ban to his desk. Instead, President Bush has taken a politically craven position: He'll sign an extension of the ban if Congress sends him one, but he isn't going to ask for one, or provide any leadership on the matter. After all, it's just a bunch of Uzis and Kalashnikovs on our streets.

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May 10, 2004

Litigation George

By Matt Bivens

The Bush Administration never sleeps, and its minions are active all across the government. So for George W. and his merry men, there's a limp silver lining to a catastrophe like the outing of the Bush-Rumsfeld "torture lite" cells. That silver lining? It distracts Americans from all of the other Bush monkeyshines.

So this week, as evidence mounted that the horrors of Abu Ghraib issued from a system built piece by piece, starting in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay -- and as a solemn Donald Rumsfeld made clear we haven't come close to seeing the worst photos and videos -- the Labor Department, at least, was not in the spotlight. Congressional hearings on the President's pay cut -- his drive to eliminate over-time pay protections for non-Homo CEOpiens -- were thus eclipsed.

We've recently gone over the list of who specifically gets screwed in this latest iteration of Bush's controversial plans -- nurses, funeral directors and embalmers, nursery school teachers -- and those and other professions were named again in the testimony of Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute. (Eisenbrey also says that police advocates declared a premature victory, and that "claims that [the Administration] has clarified and expanded the overtime rights of police officers and other first responders are untrue. The ambiguities in the rule make their rights more uncertain than ever.")

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May 7, 2004

We're Shocked -- Shocked!

By Matt Bivens

Our government is shocked -- shocked! -- to find that its representatives have been torturing people.

But this is the same government that, while insisting that of course it never tortures anyone, has for two years now boasted of a tough-minded new-and-improved product: "torture lite".

What is torture lite? That's like asking "What is fat-free yogurt?" Answer: It's torture. (It's yogurt.)

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May 5, 2004

A Crime -- a Cover-up?

By Matt Bivens

Across the top of the Pentagon report by Major General Antonio Taguba -- the one about "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" made famous by our amateur photographer-torturers -- is a stamp: SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEMINATION.

This designation, which means the document can only be shown to top US and Saudi government officials, is a puzzler. After all, as Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists observes, official policy "forbids the use of secrecy to cover up crimes."

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May 5, 2004

Just Nuts

By Matt Bivens

The Treasury Department division that tries to choke off the financial resources of terrorists has been mentioned in this space before. Some may remember OFAC -- the Office of Foreign Assets Control -- as the oddly forgiving crowd that cheerfully lets celebrity American corporations wave away charges of trading with the enemy or financing terrorism.

Others may remember these crack G-Men as the hard-asses who bust up American citizens who violate the absurd Cuban embargo -- for example, assessing thousands-of-dollar fines against an American couple who -- having been rescued from a sinking ship by the Cuban Coast Guard -- admitted to having given a band-aid to a Cuban who'd burnt his finger, which the Castro-crazed Bush Administration says amounts to illegally providing "nursing services to a Cuban national."

With priorities this whacked-out, is it any wonder that OFAC -- which is the Treasury Department agency tasked with choking of financial resources of terrorists -- is more interested in American tourists than al Qaeda terrorists?

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May 3, 2004

Wages of Sin

By Matt Bivens

I can understand why politicians raise taxes: There's a political downside (taking away our money) but also a political upside (spending our money and then taking credit for the result).

But what's the political logic of simply taking away money, and giving nothing back?

Why do this?

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April 30, 2004

The President's Pay Cut

By Matt Bivens

When the Bush Administration last year unveiled its startling new plans for "reforming" the laws on overtime, there was general agreement: all sorts of workers could kiss time-and-a-half goodbye.

For example, under current law, workers who are "learned professionals" -- understood as doctors, lawyers, scientists and others with advanced degrees and a lot of control over their own time -- aren't eligible for overtime pay.

Enter the Bush team with its complex new overtime regs. "Learned professionals" would now include not just M.D.s and Ph.D.s but just about anyone who had amassed a vaguely defined yet impressive set of knowledge and skills "through a combination of work experience, training in the armed forces, attending a technical school, attending a community college or other intellectual instruction."

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April 29, 2004