Before Plame, a woman who revealed the administration's lies on Iraq paid a horrible price for coming forward. In an effort to diminish her testimony, Susan Lindauer was labelled insane, isolated, and forcibly medicated during her detention.
Lindauer is a former reporter and Congressional aide, so she can't so easily be dismissed. Espionage charges were filed against her in 2004, then later dropped. Rather than release her, now-Attorney General Mukasey, Lindauer's presiding judge at the time, ordered her to undergo extensive psychological observation and treatment against her will.
I am not a psychologist so I couldn't assess Lindauer's mental condition. I don't trust a Court-appointed psychiatrist, either, especially when the presiding judge is a friend of the President's, or seeking a promotion. The present Attorney General, Mike Mukasey, presided over Lindauer's case while a federal judge in New York. She'd been accused of "acting as an unregistered agent," in the original indictment.
Mukasey's payback for forcing Lindauer out of the public eye must have been his selection as A.G.. Doing dirty jobs for the Bush administration has been a ticket for advancement. Now-Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, John Roberts was on a Federal Appeals Court that granted a favorable ruling to the White House prior to his nomination in 2005. Democracy Now explains:
"Roberts was part of a three-judge panel that handed Bush an important victory last week when it ruled that the military tribunals of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could proceed. The decision also found that Bush could deny terrorism captives prisoner-of-war status as outlined by the Geneva Conventions."
Mukasey is a neocon who has fought hard since his promotion to keep John Bolton and Harriet Miers from testifying before Congress. Sacrificing moral and judicial principles and integrity for a little bigger slice of the pie is just how the game is played in Washington. None of this of course excuses Mukasey, Bush, or Roberts, any more than just obeying orders would have been an excuse for anyone active in achieving the aims of the Nazi government.
Of course, we are not the Nazis, or we wouldn't have need for any solution more complicated than a bullet in the back of the head. The neocons however, have said that any behavior is tolerable in defense of democracy. It should also be noted that neocons fervently believe the case against fascist regimes--as Hussein's was painted--justify any action by democracies, legal or illegal, who were seen as too soft in opposing the rise of Hitler.
In another example of how we aren't like the Nazis, our Supreme Court by a 5-4 decision just agreed to give Gitmo detainees back their right to challenge their detention. Chief Justice John Roberts dissented of course, claiming detainee rights were sufficient or in his words, "the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants.” (link)
Don't dose me, bro
Forced medication is against numerous state, federal, and international laws. The US military recently suspended the involuntary drugging of Gitmo detainees due to a recent Court ruling (seeking the link). The Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent a letter to the Department of Defense in April, 2008, TPMMuckraker reported.
One anti-psychotic drug, Haldol, was used by the Soviet Union. A May, 2008, the commondreams.org article "Back in the USSR" by Joyce Marcel cites a Washington Post article:
"“Haldol gained notoriety in the Soviet Union, where it was often given to political dissidents imprisoned in psychiatric hospitals,” the Post said. Then the story quoted a specialist who pointed out — as if it needed to be pointed out — that giving these drugs to people who are not psychotic “is medically and ethically wrong.”
The Soviets liked to accuse dissidents of mental illness and imprison and medicate them on those grounds. If the activists were too much of a problem, their disappearance might only generate additional public interest about what they did, and stir more curiousity in why the activist had presented such a threat to the regime. By isolating the individual, medicating and most likely over-medicating, the threat could be quarantined. In our alternate approach, the effort seems to be on restricting negative media coverage. This is fitting as our politicians are extremely media-conscious and eager to manage public perception.
The US has admitted that "Some US detainees (were) drugged for deportation." Along a similar theme, in January, Immigration and Customs Control announced that they would no longer sedate detainees. The change in policy came after a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.
It began with Plame. Or did it?
It should come as no surprise that the Bush administration is hostile to the truth. By now, the vast bulk of evidence indicates that secrecy has been a methodology through which the White House has attempted to cover up illegal activities, including the willful outing of Valerie Plame.
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