Yesterday evening, ThinkProgress spoke with Lieut. Gen, Harry Soyster and Ret. Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, at a Human Rights First reception honoring retired generals who have spoken out against President Bush’s torture policies. Soyster criticized Bush’s veto of a bill banning the CIA from waterboarding — a veto Sen. John McCain supported. Soyster said one clear standard on torture was needed:

SOYSTER: Our position is, all of us, that we need one standard for the United Sates. And because the Central Intelligence Agency has authorized torture, then Americans are torturing. It doesn’t matter where your paycheck comes from.

Taguba reiterated Soyster’s critique of Bush’s torture policies, and also slammed the Pentagon’s military analyst program, which the New York Times revealed in April. He said he found it “incredible” that generals would agree to be the Pentagon’s spokesmen, and said military “experts” should do their own research:

TAGUBA: You can probably provide an expert opinion, but you always have to preface that by saying, ‘Nobody told me to say these things.’

TP: What if someone did tell you to say those things? Then you shouldn’t be saying them?

TAGUBA: You shouldn’t be saying them. We should take bold measures to provide our own perspective through your own research. That’s why they call you an expert. They don’t call you an expert because they fed you information. That means you’re just a talking head. You don’t want to be a talking head. Do your own research.

In fact, the participants in the Pentagon program were explicitly prohibited from following Taguba’s urging: to say explicitly whether they were repeating someone else’s facts. As the Times report revealed, “The access came with a condition. Participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon.”

In an interview with Time magazine this week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) declared that Iraq “is a peaceful and stable country now.” ThinkProgress spoke with Reps. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Robert Wexler (D-FL) at the Democratic National Convention today, and asked them their response to McCain’s assertion. Wexler was incredulous, declaring, “He’s just dead wrong”:

WEXLER: Sen McCain’s judgment unfortunately has become so mistaken on so many things, and this is yet another example of his apparently not understanding the facts on the ground whatsoever. There still is a totally unacceptable level of killing in Iraq. There has been in effect ethnic cleansing in Iraq where religious groups are totally separated from one another. How he can call Iraq — what did you say he called it?

TP: A peaceful and stable country.

WEXLER: It is the furthest thing from a peaceful and stable country. And I guess if in fact he’s right then why do we have 150,000 troops there? We ought to bring them all home as quickly as possible even under his logic. He’s just dead wrong.

Ellison agreed, calling McCain’s assessment “ridiculous.” He noted that “the people of Iraq probably would not agree with that”:

ELLISON: I’d say the people of Iraq probably would not agree with that. Besides the ongoing warfare, death, destruction, people dying every single day…there still is no system of clean sewage, water, electricity. People are still living in dire circumstances. People are still suffering every day. … That’s ridiculous. It just goes to prove that this guy does not get it.

McCain’s rosy view — which comes in the same week that suicide bombs killed at least 65 Iraqis — is dangerously inaccurate.

In a recent TIME interview, McCain defended his support for the war by declaring “I can only imagine what Saddam Hussein would be doing with the wealth he would acquire with oil at $110 and $120 a barrel.”

The key word here is “imagine,” because if the U.S. hadn’t invaded Iraq, it’s very likely that oil wouldn’t be anywhere near $120 a barrel. According to a leading oil economist, the Iraq war “tripled the price of oil…costing the world a staggering $6 trillion in higher energy prices alone”:

Dr Mamdouh Salameh, who advises both the World Bank and the UN Industrial Development Organisation (Unido), told The Independent…that the price of oil would now be no more than $40 a barrel, less than a third of the record $135 a barrel reached last week, if it had not been for the Iraq war.

As I wrote a few weeks ago when Christopher Hitchens first trotted out this crude ex post facto casus belli, it is patently ridiculous to defend the Iraq war on the grounds that it prevented Saddam Hussein from profiting from the skyrocketing oil prices that have resulted from the war to remove Saddam Hussein.

Our guest blogger is Maggie Fick, Special Assistant at the ENOUGH Project.

Early on Monday morning, some 60 vehicles filled with Sudanese forces, reportedly in search of smuggled weapons, surrounded the Kalma camp for internally displaced persons in South Darfur. When the camp residents tried to block the Sudanese forces from entering, government forces opened fire. Against a wall of gunfire, some civilians tried to defend themselves with ‘sticks, knives, and spears.’

Kalma is home to more than 90,000 people, making it one of the largest camps for internally displaced people in the world. The Sudanese military’s attack left some 64 people dead and more than 115 wounded. Victims ranged from 11 to 60 years old, and the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders treated 65 patients with gunshot wounds in the camp. Joint United Nations-African Union (UNAMID) peacekeepers stationed near the camp did not intervene, and, with Sudanese forces still surrounding the camp, the threat of further atrocities is acute.

In the wake of this attack, the U.S. Department of State expressed its “concern [over] indiscriminate weapons fire” on civilians by Sudanese government forces and preposterously called on the Government of Sudan to “thoroughly investigate this incident and ensure that such actions are not repeated.” The United States has accused Sudan of genocide. Would the Justice Department, I wonder, call on a serial killer to investigate his own crimes?

The fecklessness of the State Department’s response to the Sudanese government’s latest atrocities is all the more conspicuous in the context of the administration’s forceful condemnation of Russia’s aggression in Georgia. President Bush and other cabinet officials have, on numerous occasions since the conflict began on August 7, “deplored” Russia’s actions in Georgia and threatened “consequences” for Russian aggression. Yes, the Russia-Georgia conflict has major geopolitical ramifications, and so the Bush administration has adopted a tough tone in its response. The question, then, is why the State Department puts on kid gloves in response to atrocities, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Sudan.

While the State Department’s limp rhetoric is deplorable, the world’s failure to protect civilians in Darfur remains indefensible. Activists have spent much of the past four years lobbying for a United Nations peacekeeping mission with a mandate to protect civilians in Darfur, and nearly 10,000 of a planned 26,000 peacekeepers are on the ground. Where were the peacekeepers while Kalma was under siege? The reasons are not entirely clear, but UN forces stationed just kilometers away did not get to Kalma until hours after the attack. UNAMID reported that their team was “delayed by a checkpoint and protracted negotiations with Sudanese security authorities.”

Although UN forces certainly could have acted more boldly in response to the attack on Kalma, the finger of blame for the UN’s deficiencies in Darfur rests squarely with UN member states, as troop contributing countries have deployed a force with no deterrent capabilities. No matter how brave, peacekeepers armed with AK-47s, riding in a Toyota pick-up, and lacking air support are no match for a national army with armored personnel carriers and the latest heavy weapons from China. While diplomats come up with excuses why not to send troops and equipment to bolster UNAMID’s strength, how many more Kalmas before they stand up and say “enough is enough”?