Today's GOP Benghazi Show Trial

Love her or hate her, today Hillary Clinton will testify before the House Benghazi Committee in hearings about as objective as Stalin's show trials of the 1930's that had no purpose other than to destroy Stalin's chief rivals.  Exposing the truth bore no role in the trials orchestrated by Stalin and the same holds true for the circus that Republicans will oversee today.  As the image above underscores, there have been many more embassy staff deaths under George W. Bush, yet there have been no comparable hearings or committees.  No, the Benghazi Committee has one real goal only: damage Hillary Clinton. Along the way, of course, Republican members of the committee will get to grandstand for the spittle flecked, knuckle dragging members of the GOP base that hate Clinton no matter what she does or doesn't do.  In some ways the hearings are the logical outcome of the GOP's descent into insanity and the alternate reality that it's base lives in daily.  A piece in Salon looks at the Committee and it's pure political agenda.  Here are highlights:

Today Hillary Clinton will appear before the House Select Committee on Benghazi in a likely futile attempt to rebut the fever dreams of cover-up and conspiracy that the committee’s Republican members have gleaned from the comments section at Breitbart. It will be a fantastic piece of theater so far removed from the terrible events that occurred at the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012, that it might as well be occurring on the other side of a galactic wormhole. The hearing’s participants could speak gibberish for all we are really going to learn about the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others. Assuming there even is anything more to learn that seven prior congressional investigations have not turned up.

It is a truism of modern political horse-race coverage that reporters are not really interested in accurately explaining a candidate’s positions and policies to the audience. The reason the TV cameras are turned on the candidate every single second is in hopes of catching a gaffe, that race-altering goof that undermines the message he or she is trying to pitch to voters.

The hope of inducing that type of campaign-altering gaffe is really the reason why the select committee is dragging Hillary Clinton up to Capitol Hill today. No matter what the most rabid right-wingers think, these hearings are not about investigating a cover-up the way the Watergate or Iran-contra hearings were. They are not about figuring out what really happened in Benghazi, because we already have dozens of reports produced by other congressional committees, federal agencies, and the military to explain what happened and why.

No, what the Republicans want – what they need in order to justify the colossal effort they have put into building Benghazi up to be worse that Iran-contra plus Watergate and Teapot Dome times eleventy billion – is a Clinton gaffe along the lines of “What difference does it make.” Only worse. Something that will rip off the Democratic frontrunner’s carefully spit-polished image and reveal the shrill, corrupt, power-mad harridan underneath.
[T]his has been the Republican way with Hillary Clinton for 25 years now. No matter how many investigations clear her of any wrongdoing on an issue, the GOP just cannot accept it. There must always be one piece of information it did not turn up, one thread it failed to pull until the whole sweater unraveled. 

The only question is how they will go about it. Will they grill her like a salmon, coming at her from every angle, interrupting, badgering, trying to confuse her until the internal dam that has always successfully kept her bottomless evil at bay finally bursts? Or, as Brian Beutler argues, will they be polite and restrained while testing her memory of isolated details to try and trip her up? 

[A]t heart, this is all just one long political attack ad, a sequel to “Hillary: The Movie“ in the guise of a congressional investigation. It’s theater of the absurd for an audience of suckers.

As noted before, to be a Republican nowadays, one has to lack any integrity, and be either insane, a white supremacist, a religious fanatic, motivated solely by greed, or a combination of the foregoing.  It is a very ugly reality. 

Murdered and Martyred and Show Trials - Part 2

In an update to my post yesterday, Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has accused the brutal Islamic dictatorship government of "medieval torture"to force protesters to confess to the litany of crimes that the regime is alleging. The whole situation seems like a flash back to the show trials in the old Soviet Union when Stalin purged those who were in the way of his personal ambition and/or opposed what he was doing to the country. One can only hope such nasty and brutal tactics will only harden the resolve of those seeking democracy in Iran. Those in the USA who fail to heed the insanity of domestic theocrats and the Christian Taliban should take note of how the Islamic equivalents of these people operate. Religious fanaticism combined with a lust for power (e.g., folks like James Dobson, Richard Land at the SBC and Pat Robertson) are a dangerous mix. Here are some updates from the BBC News:

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Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi says opposition detainees put on trial have been subjected to "medieval torture". He denounced the trials, which started on Saturday, as fraudulent and said the prisoners had been forced to confess.

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Earlier ex-President Mohammad Khatami criticised the hearings as "show trials" that would damage confidence in Iran's Islamic establishment. More than 100 people have been put on trial on charges including conspiracy. . . . Mr Khatami, in comments on his website, expressed hope that Saturday's trial would not "lead to ignorance of the real crimes", the Associated Press reports.

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The AFP news agency quotes Mr Khatami, who was president from 1997 to 2005, as making more outspoken criticism of the trial. "What was done yesterday is against the constitution, regular laws and rights of the citizens," his office quoted him as saying.

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Mr Mousavi's comments went even further, accusing the authorities of forcing the detainees to confess to the crimes. "The teeth of the torturers and confession-extorters have reached to the bones of the people," he said. "Witnessing such trumped-up trials, the only judgment that the conscience of humanity can make is the moral collapse and discredit of its directors."
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Mohsen Rezai, the only conservative to have challenged Mr Ahmadinejad in the election, also criticised the trial, saying people who had attacked the protesters should also be put on trial.

Martyred and Murdered - And Show Trials

I continue to watch events in Iran with a mixture of hope and dismay. Personally, I think in the long term the Islamic dictators are making huge mistakes. While they seem intent on making examples of protesters and have started the equivalent of the old Soviet Union's show trials, ultimately they are creating a whole class of martyrs the memories of which will help keep opposition alive even if it takes a long time to finally boil over. Then again, when one's motivations are power and religious extremism, logic and thoughtful analysis of the bigger picture often isn't even on the radar screen. Tehran Bureau has a story that identifies some of those murdered by the dictators' thugs which is very sad and moving. Here are some highlights (I urge readers to review the site in order to realize that brutality of the current regime):
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A massive demonstration had been called for today [this past Thursday] to commemorate the dead of “Bloody Saturday” — the violent showdown on June 20 in central Tehran during which Neda Aga Soltan and others were killed. Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi’s Facebook page announced he would pay homage at her grave at Behesht Zahra cemetery on the outskirts of the capital. Mousavi invited other mourners to join him for the Shia 40-day memorial ritual. Tehran Bureau is compiling profiles of those who died in the post-election turmoil, as confirmed by official news sites Mowjcamp, Ghalam News and other reliable sources. The list (chronologically ordered) will be updated.

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Today's New York Times has coverage of the trials of protestors that the dictators wish to use as examples to deter others from challenging its regressive and anti-democratic policies. Again, I continue to hope that repression serves merely to inspire more contempt for the current rulers and cause fence sitters to go over to the side of the pro-democratic opposition. As with all despots, the regime is making allegations against protestors that are fabricated and hopefully will be seen as such by the wider population. Here are some highlights:

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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- More than 100 opposition political activists and protesters stood trial in Tehran Saturday on charges of rioting and conspiring to topple the ruling system in the country's first trial since the disputed presidential election, Iran's state media reported. The trial underlines the government's efforts to bring to a close anti-government demonstrations that have persisted since the disputed June 12 presidential election.

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The defendants faced charges that include attacking military and government buildings, having links with armed opposition groups and conspiring against the ruling system, Iran's official news agency, IRNA, reported. During the session, prosecutors read out an indictment outlining what they said was a yearslong plot by the top pro-reform political parties to carry out a ''velvet revolution,'' a popular, non-violent uprising to overthrow the Islamic Republic similar to ones that have occurred in Eastern Europe.

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Among the defendants were several prominent reformist opposition activists, including former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, former government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, former Vice Speaker of parliament Behzad Nabavi, former Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsen Aminzadeh and leader of the biggest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, Mohsen Mirdamadi. The reformist Web site www.mowjcamp.com denounced Saturday's trial and said defendants had no access to lawyers and there was no jury.