by Charles
The paragraph made famous by Dick Durbin: "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis,
Soviets in their gulags,
or some mad regime — Pol Pot…
…or others — that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."
The photos are just snapshots, giving the barest glimpse of the wholesale atrocities that led to the murder of millions in each of the respective countries. Can we agree that, no matter how the words are weaseled, putting American in the same sentence with Nazis, gulags and the Khmer Rouge has no place in civil political discourse? If you don’t agree, fine, then accept that consciously or unconsciously, like it or not, the above images come to mind when such rhetoric is employed. From where I sit, those are the images now tied to the United States of America when those associations are made (hat tip to Donald Sensing for the photos). Can we agree that throwing down the Nazi and gulag cards is simply not a thing reasonable people should do?
Speaking of agreement, having read Durbin’s statement in its entirety, I found myself agreeing with pretty much all of it, offending paragraph notwithstanding. I agree with Durbin that that the detainees should not be given prisoner of war status. I agree with Durbin that Gitmo should stay in operation. I agree with Durbin that we should abide by the Geneva Conventions and the rulings of the Supreme Court. I agree with Durbin that our treatment of many detainees has been deporable. I agree with Durbin that all detainees should be treated humanely. Because of my broad agreement with what he said, that is why it is so unfortunate that an otherwise sensible and temperate speech was drowned out and frittered away with abusive, counterproductive and unimaginative hyperbole. Taking a step beyond what Durbin recommended, President Bush should appoint a bipartisan commission–similar in authority and scope to the 9/11 Commission–to expeditiously investigate all incidences of mistreatment, fold all the separate investigations into a single authority, hold accountable those responsible and make recommendations as necessary.
So when are you going to join the Army and defeat the dreaded Islamofacist, who are the new Nazis?
Taking a step beyond what Durbin recommended, President Bush should appoint a bipartisan commission–similar in authority and scope to the 9/11 Commission–to expeditiously investigate all incidences of mistreatment, fold all the separate investigations into a single authority, hold accountable those responsible and make recommendations as necessary.
Do you really think that is going to happen? Explain this:
The 9/11 Commission was created against his protests, but with public pressure and the fact that he was running for reëlection he gave in. Now, with no reëlection worries do you believe for a minute that he will do anything about this.
Because of my broad agreement with what he said, that is why it is so unfortunate that an otherwise sensible and temperate speech was drowned out and frittered away with abusive, counterproductive and unimaginative hyperbole.
Well, that and the willingness of people like you to carry the water necessary to do the drowning out.
Can we agree that, no matter how the words are weaseled, putting American in the same sentence with Nazis, gulags and the Khmer Rouge has no place in civil political discourse?
Ever? No matter what we do, or to whom we do it, or on what scale?
By the way, this trick was much better when Tacitus pulled it.
This is like saying the guy who rapes and murders one small child is morally superior to the guy who rapes and murders 100 small children. If you say so.
And I am not comparing George Bush to a child molestor.
Bird, it’s like you suddenly discovered you have gangrene so now you’re complaining that people are saying you smell like a rotting corpse. Your reaction is to plead for them to stop while you rush out for some perfume.
a) it’s not going to stop the gangrene
b) it’s not going to cover up the smell
I still maintain that the guy who used the word “tsunami” to describe the “march of freedom” (**snort**) has no business ever, ever, ever, ever criticizing others’ use of language. Ever.
I gotta go with Hal and Phil, here, Charles. Once again, whether deserved or not you are giving the impression that some comments have outraged you far more than the activities that led to those comments.
Looks like the Grand Old Pranksters have embraced their own kind of moral relativism.
Gays getting married = end of Western Civilization.
Atrocities committed by US soldiers = not that bad.
Bird,
Since you enjoy mourning over piles of corpses while crying for justice and demanding that poetic license be stopped, “before it kills again!”
Here goes another pile of human flesh, for which, poetic license is responsible.
And don’t you owe Mr Shiavo an apology, or were your accusations concerning murder, just metaphors?
I can understand this, the hanging on, the denial. We are not as bad as X or quite as bad as Y means that though there have been lapses and mistakes we are still good guys. We really are good people, right?
Damn, morality is hard. The rules are tough. You can save the lives of a hundred children,a thousand children…but if you rape and murder one child you are 100% bad guy.
There is not an economics of sin & guilt, a balance sheet with double-entry bookkeeping where you get to weigh the good acts against the bad and get to call yourself 60/40 decent. Especially when the bad stuff is inarguably, inescapably, universally acknowledged evil.
Durbin said: these acts are not the sort of acts we’d expect our country to tolerate. (True.) They are the sorts of acts that you’d expect to find in some vile dictatorship. (Also true.)
He did not assert any sort of moral equivalence between us and the Nazis, or Pol Pot, or Stalin. He did not say that every act of which those dictators are guilty is one that we have committed. Just that the specific acts he mentioned were one’s we’d think would happen in those regimes, not here.
This is not sentence-parsing; it’s basic reading comprehension.
And, that said, I am not going to play this game anymore.
Charles Bird:
If Senator Durbin had said that Guantanamo was as bad as the worst of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, your pictures would be relevant. He did not say that and your pictures are irrelevant.
Charles, shouldn’t you be spending your Saturday fund-raising for or doing work on behalf of Amnesty International, which I’m to understand you recently joined?
Durbin described barbaric conditions and said that they sound more like what one would expect from a brutal dictatorship than from the United States of America. I would have thought anyone but a serious America hater would find that an obviously correct statement. Unfortunately, I’ve again overestimated the moral character of today’s Republican Party. Apparently supporting Bush is more important than supporting the principles that the United States is supposed to stand for — or telling the truth. Most of the right-wing commentary simply lies about what Durbin actually said.
I mean, there is a little Protestantism 101 here, isn’t there. I am no expert, but I don’t think you go to the pastor and say I have just committed little sins, nothing really bad like that thief over there or the adulteress on the right. Only take a minute, just a little effort on Jesus’s part to save a basically good person like me.
And the Lord saith what, you trying to strike a deal? This is a negotiation here? You asking for redemption and grace while retaining as much pride and self-satisfaction as possible? Come back when you need Me brother, right now you seem to be doing just fine without Me.
Ya gotta give it all up, or it ain’t contrition. You want Bush to pick a commission to investigate? So that whoever does the judging judges fairly (by your standards) and so the consequences are just & merciful (by your standards)? You get to keep control? The torturers (not you, or anybody here) and murderers get to manage the investigations, trials, impeachments, imprisonments?
When I hear Republicans ask that the whole thing get handed to the ICC, I will believe they are serious.
I think I’m going to vote with CB here. As long as he’s consistent applying “Can we agree that throwing down the Nazi and gulag cards is simply not a thing reasonable people should do?” to his side’s rhetorical excesses.
Not to speak for Katherine, but reading the comments to this [updated] John Cole post I think she doesn’t disagree with the above but emphasizes that Durbin had a good case to say what he did given the unreasonable silence in response to what CB would term reasonable discussion of the torture we’ve committed.
And I think the first comment in this thread (and perhaps some subsequent) is ad hom and doesn’t belong here.
p.s. Hi, I’m back in the wired world.
* God does not grade on a curve.
* What mcmanus said.
* How can those who decry moral relativism so strenously embrace it so fully?
Again, the meaningless call for a “commission” without one word of comdemnation for those reponsible for all that you claim to deplore.
This leaves you with no credibility, especially since you devote energy to the non-issue of Durbin’s language and no energy to analysis of the reason for the problems you claim to deplore.
Hey I will ad hominem hilzoy, who I think is being really unfair to Charles. God knows we diced and pared and minced Santorum’s words finely enough to find offense. And to put Durbin’s words under a microscope and say well he really wasn’t comparing the Bush adminstration to Stalin or Hitler, he was saying that are some points of comparison in specific acts is just BS.
Fact is, hilzoy and many on the left also want to say:”Well, we really aren’t that bad, what we have done isn’t quite that awful.” because there are serious implications and consequences for us all if we look without mercifully rose-colored glasses at what we have become.
“Can we agree that, no matter how the words are weaseled, putting American in the same sentence with Nazis, gulags and the Khmer Rouge has no place in civil political discourse?”
No. One can and should remember, for example, that the American entrepreneur Henry Ford was an early funder of the Nazis or that the American president Ronald Reagan supported Pol Pot
As others have pointed out, the actions of the US government are hardly as bad as the actions of the Nazis, the Soviets under Stalin, or the Khmer Rouge in quantity. But some of them are disturbingly similar in quality. People are being “disappeared”, arrested and held indefinitely without trial, tortured up to and including being tortured to death, and otherwise abused by the current US government. It’s got to stop before the name “Bush” joins the names Hitler, Stalin, etc as synonyms for evil.
I see the moral clarity now. It’s all a matter of prioritizing – “Yes, torture and human rights abuses sanctioned by the Bush administration are terrible, but first we must address the far more serious matter of the Democrats use of language I find intemperate.” It also reminds me of the old Steve Martin bit where he thinks he’s invisible and gets arrested for being in a women’s locker room. “But officer, you don’t understand, I’m invisible.” “But, Democrats and human rights organizations, you don’t understand, we’re Americans.”
The following is a quote from Durbin’s speech, detailing the specific acts he described as being more like something the Nazis, etc, would do than like something the US would do:
” On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold….On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.”
Certainly sounds more like the acts of a totalitarian state than a democratic one to me.
I am beginning to regret the ObWi policy on profanity.
The relevant quote:
Question for you Charles — does this sound like treatment of prisoners by:
a. Nazis
b. The Soviet gulag system
c. The Khymer Rouge
d. Americans
You may pick multiple answers.
It might be possible to have a useful conversation sparked by Durbin’s paragraph. Here’s what I’m thinking.
My dad was in the German navy in World War II. The talk among the sailors was that if you were sunk, you should pray that the Americans fished you out. He was later in an American prisoner of war camp. It was no picnic, but I can’t remember him ever talking about abuse or torture.
We could compare the behavior of Americans in WWII to today.
1) To what degree was there abuse and torture of captives by Americans in WWII? (Probably it would be revealing to have the answers for different theatres, and different types of captives.)
2) How widely was this known? (Among officialdom, among the troops, among the general public)
3) What was the attitude toward it? Forthright approval? Sincere condemnation? A lack of interest? Pro-forma condemnation?
If there’s a marked difference between those answers and what we see today, we might know better if we’ve lost our way. (Although I was born in the US, as a child of that generation of Germans, I know in my gut that entire nations can go crazy. Germany certainly did. I believe France did, after the Revolution. I believe the West went a little crazy in the late ’60s. And I worry that my country is going crazy, too.)
Imagine this series of US torture photos here. Yes, its true, they are very ugly; but they do not involve as many bodies as CB’s pictures — I guess that’s the key moral difference (we are not as bad as Stalin). The number of bodies tortured is what matters — as opposed to an official policy of torture. Oh, and distort what Durbin says so that you can falsely pretend that he was saying that US torture and Stalin torture was comparable, which is why we should be counting the dead bodies to prove him wrong.
Imagine the Bush administration torture memos laid out here, followed up by a healthy dose about extraordinary rendition (inlcuding the phony written finding that accompanies each that there is no reason to believe torture will take place (HA HA), and also the deliverate refusal by Bush to end this practice).
Oh, and don’t forget about ghost prisoners, the sole purpose for which is to conceal prisoners so that they can be tortured without disclosure.
Look at the rhetoric for the last year that this is just about a few bad apples, and the complete failure to hold anyone accountable above the most junior level — indeed, reward those who hands are bloody.
What to do? Why, appoint a commission — yes, that’s the way to deal with evil doers.
And say not a word about who is responsible — that demonstrates moral courage. Instead, trash those who speak out — that’s who deserve our outrage.
I’ve agreed with Charles in the past that Kofi Annan should resign from his post at the U.N., if only for the appearance of corruption so close to him.
And, that singer, Bright Eyes? He’s even worse than the International Red Cross, who can sing better.
I think too that Bush and Cheney should step down now during the investigation Charles envisions, and should even the appearance of responsibility for the abuse extend to them, impeachment of both should proceed. That my bias wishes for this and that such action would be true and good would be mere coincidence.
Also, for the record, I want to once again condemn the Soviets, the Nazis, Pol Pot, and the rest for going far beyond just murdering a few people during or after torture. I wish they had stopped right there and practiced a little moderation like we do.
Okay, looking for a new open thread to talk about light stuff in now….
Charles, I think you’ll find that messengers are out of season. Please stop shooting them.
I never liked it either when Richard Nixon was called a Nazi, or LBJ called the same either.
I prefer to think of Nixon, anyway, as kind of like the young, pre-Nazi, Heinrich Himmler, in his latency period tending his chicken farm with a little Wagner raging in the background, posing observations to his neighbors about the untoward influence of the Jews on German life. No piles of human cordwood yet, but the relish with which the chicken’s heads were removed might have been cautionary to the careful observor.
I still maintain that the guy who used the word “tsunami” to describe the “march of freedom” (**snort**) has no business ever, ever, ever, ever criticizing others’ use of language. Ever.
Love this.
Actually, the use of “tsunami” was peculiarly appropriate.
After all, we are talking about the “march of freedom” being accomplished pursuant to the neo-con ideal of imposing our will through force to achieve “freedom.” So what if it also involves a wave of violence and fear.
Indeed, use the tsunami, that destructive force which on 12/26/04 involved more violence than any prior tsunami in human history, to describe this tactic of spreading freedom through violence. Makes sense to me.
When I see American soldiers grinning beside the corpses of their prisoners, and smearing naked prisoners with their own excrement, and setting dogs on naked prisoners, and dragging naked prisoners around on leashes, I see horrors that seem to me very likely to lead to those piles of corpses you show us, Charles. What is one such death today can be ten tomorrow and a hundred next month, if it’s not condemned and stopped. There was a time when the Nazis and Soviets had each slain just a few – they didn’t leap from the end of World War I straight to Auschwitz or the gulags. There was a time when they were doing just what our troops and non-military people are doing right now, on precisely the same moral trajectory. Because in each case, they were led by people who decided that their cause was so important, all means could be allowed.
So we have a President who thinks his authority is unbounded for the duration of a crisis without a definable enemy or possible end point, and we have leaders who encourage the abandoment of restraint in the pursuit of information or whatever, and we have soldiers who receive this instruction and carry it out, often not just compliantly but gleefully, taking souvenir pictures to trade with friends. We have people accused of no crime, held without reason or suspicion, treated in any way that their captors see fit, and more of them dying all the time in horrible ways.
What the Goddamn hell is wrong with you? Why are you refusing to call this anything but a great evil, a blight on everything the American experiment stands for, and calling for anything less than the president ordering an immediate halt, full openness, full inspection, punishment of all guilty parties, and then a mess of resignations and impeachment hearings?
Gah. And if I get banned for this, I’ll take it.
“Why are you refusing to call this anything but a great evil….”
Attachment to an ideal not actually greatly connected to today’s reality, but far more to a desire to believe and preference to believe that one’s idealization of reality is more correct than reality, I suspect.
I’d love to live in this grand world of the U.S. setting an example, etc. We should be a light unto the world, I’ve heard, from and in more than one place. Good plan. But it pays to check reality as to how we’re doing beyond setting up wonderful fantasies and ideals.
Boy another good post eaten by my browser.
Charles is serious, and Durbin & hilzoy are playing games.
“If it really isn’t as bad as all that, then stop using those comparisons. If it really is as bad as all that, watcha gonna do about it? Huh? Watcha gonna do, write really beautiful posts and speeches that make all the liberals cry? Write your congressman?
“Ok, fine. Meanwhile I’m gonna expand Guantanamo 40%, promote my torturers, and tell AI and the Red Cross to f*** off. I mean, you really haven’t given me any reason to stop, have ya. You’re not exactly scarey.
“We all know you aren’t really going to do anything meaningful. We all know there won’t be consequences. We will throw ya a couple non-coms, do a bunch of pardons at the end of my term, and bring the methods back when they feel right. And when the world asks how you could let it happen, tell em it wasn’t your fault, or that the fight wasn’t worth it, or that you wrote a beautiful blog post.”
I want the Bush administration handed to the ICC, and I demand Hillary and Edwards or any other candidate commit to it during the campaign. No, commit to it now.
CB – so at which point between 1 and 6,000,000 people killed did the Nazis become evil?
How many people is it OK for the US to torture and kill?
I’m not them, and have no posting privileges here, but just speaking up gnerally, while I much love and solicit your input, Bob, my own response to any such demand is to, amid hugging and thumbs up, bite me.
“I want the Bush administration handed to the ICC, and I demand Hillary and Edwards or any other candidate commit to it during the campaign. No, commit to it now.”
No offense intended. But I’m just cranky when anyone puts “demands” in my neighborhood. Love ya otherwise. Perhaps those folks are different, of course.
*pause for breath*
As others have pointed out, Bush could stop all of this in a single afternoon. He claims, after all, unlimited authority in the prosecution of the war – even if there were any problem with regular executive power for the job (and there isn’t), by his own theory, he has it. He could stop operations, replace leaders and underlings, allow in outside investigators, publish records, get experts in language and law to review cases, remove bounties, release cleared victims and provide some groveling apologies along with rich rewards, and get the whole thing running on a footing worthy of the American people and the cause of liberty.
He could order lie detector tests for everything in the chain of comand and fire everyone who fails to account well for themselves. Yes, polygraphs are unreliable. So what? Err on the side of caution.
He could demand pay raises for soldiers to bring them more into line with what the private mercenaries get, and suspend the use of mercenaries. He could order an extension of the best medical care to current soldiers and veterans and their families, to remove the stresses and uncertainties of serving without security there. He could call attention to the funerals of American servicepeople and civilians, both to honor them for their sacrifices and to remind the public of the fears that those serving in the field face. He could encourage Americans to enlist, and provide rewards and subsidies for those who do.
He’s not doing any of that.
Couple of more things: I know that CB has been consistant in opposing this sort of behavior, and bully for you on that, CB. Yet I find these “outrages” over semantics the very definition of benality of evil.
As long as he’s consistent applying “Can we agree that throwing down the Nazi and gulag cards is simply not a thing reasonable people should do?” to his side’s rhetorical excesses.
Maybe, back when the fist Abu Ghrab pictures first came out you would have a point. Yet this sort of rhetoric seems to be the only way to get those in power to pay attenion this. Reasoned discourse along the lines of “hey, you know perhaps we shouldn’t torture people” hasn’t worked. Now Bush is building a $40m addition to Gitmo so we can torture even more people. Sorry but if jumping up and down yelling “gulag, gulag, gulag” is the only way to bring attention to this, so be it.
Really there was a time when the Nazis had only killed a few people I’m sure there some of them saying “well, at least we aren’t as bad as the Inquisition”
There’s of course no arguing that Durbin got the sign right, as we like to say in physics – the Bush admin doesn’t believe in doing that.
One more stray thought:
I disbelieve that bipartisan anything would help. The Democrats are, as far as the Republican Party’s rhetoric is concerned, the party of opposition to war and of kowtowing to tyranny. Leave them out of this. Make the housecleaning a Republican venture, precisely so that there’s no room for anyone later to say that enemies of the march of freedom could muck it up at all. Let the adults in charge deal with it, just as adults should.
Helping Amnesty International
If you’re as tired as I am of the misplaced outrage on the right of those who seem to reserve the majority of their high dudgeon for metaphors rather than the acts that led to the use of those metaphors, here’s a way to help out Amnesty International a…
My sole comment in this thread shall be: welcome back, rilkefan 🙂
Thanks, Anarch.
Umm, so when clicking back to this site I’m finding those pictures hard to deal with. CB, could you put them behind the fold, please?
As many have pointed out, the difference between our government’s actions in Guantanamo today and those of the repellant leaders that you mentioned is that there is a very loud, and still legal, outcry against this behavior. If you must insist that we draw parallels between Bush and Hitler, that is fine, but you will find that Hitler wasn’t nearly as quick to cause harm as Bush has been.
It’s brilliant of you to notice that the Bush Administration isn’t as bad as the Third Reich or Stalin’s Soviet Union became, but you seem utterly unwilling to look at the causes that lead people to complain about this administration — it is the direction of this Administration and its amoral attitude toward the lives of those who are not like them, its cynical attitude toward foreign affairs, and its willingness to manipulate religious symbols to maintain power. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld don’t care what happens to people — not abroad not in the US.
The people who are crying out in alarm may be overstating the case of what has happened already, but they are not overstating the direction that we are heading, nor the risk that we run. Our President has proven himself to be deaf to criticism, no matter how many mistakes he has made, no matter what harm we have suffered from those mistakes. The Downing Street Memo is just one more example of how indifferent the President is to anyone else’s opinion.
One final question: How many deaths was Hitler responsible for after he was in office for four and a half years? How many countries had he invaded without provocation at that point? We are looking at an administration that has persuaded itself that everything it does, no matter how evil, will be justified because they are ‘defending freedom’. How far is that from telling folks that work will make them free.
I have to say that Slacktivist said it much better than I could.
But I’d like to perhaps point out how ironic it is that the right is all up in arms about the Hitler analogies when they were the ones to harp on the “Saddam is Hitler” meme during the run up to the war. What’s the deal with that? Do you guys own Hitler now and we on the left can’t use him? I’m just trying to get the rules straight
Fledermaus: I know that CB has been consistant in opposing this sort of behavior, and bully for you on that, CB
Oh, for heaven’s sake. The only behavior CB has been consistent in opposing is that of Senator Durbin’s, or Amnesty International’s, or anyone else who loudly and noticeably criticizes the atrocities committed by US in the past years. CB is presently engaged in a long-running and very consistent campaign of shooting the messengers. This evidently works for him – why publicly oppose atrocities, when trying to get people to shut up about them is so much easier? – just as it appears to be working very nicely for the Bush administration within the borders of the US.
Umm, so when clicking back to this site I’m finding those pictures hard to deal with. CB, could you put them behind the fold, please?
Seconded. Use of atrocity pictures as a handy prop is also disturbing, IMO.
On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold….On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.
What the FBI memo alleges, and it is an allegation, is, you know, would be considered a day at the beach in the Soviet gulag or Nazi…I mean, what was so horrific in the memo, and I’m not saying, you know, there aren’t legitimate questions there, is that someone is chained to a floor and forced to defecate on themselves, and has loud rock music playing. Excuse me? I mean, you know, Auschwitz? Bergen Belsen? The Soviet gulag? I think they would have been very happy to be allowed to defecate on themselves.
Chris Wallace: I mean, you know, Auschwitz? Bergen Belsen? The Soviet gulag? I think they would have been very happy to be allowed to defecate on themselves.
You need that bumper-sticker: “America – Not As Bad As the Nazis!”
Jes: about Chris Wallace: see here.
Thanks, Hilzoy. Wow, I miss American TV. Not.
Chris Wallace,
It worked for Ted Nugent. (Scroll down)
A question for Charles or anyone else truly offended by Durbin’s remarks– What ought he to have said? I don’t believe that there is any possible statement, no matter how sensible and temperate, that would not either be completely ignored or evoke the same set of responses. But you seem convinced that there is– or it would make no sense to criticize Durbin’s choice of language as counterproductive. So what does this effective statement look like?
Charles,
How is it possible for Rush to use to word “feminazis” on a daily basis and earn high praise from you, yet Durbin is somehow over the line?
(And spare me the crap about Senator v. talk show host; millions listen to Rush) Don’t foget to pick up one of the t-shirts he’s selling to celebrate torture.
Such Clintonian parsing Charles. I’m sorry Durbin wasn’t PC enough for you, but he’s right.
I think you should have posted pictures more like this. This picture portrays what Durbin was talking about.
http://users.adelphia.net/~bigshirtlessron/images/dachau.jpg
Your pictures don’t portray what Durbin was talking about, they portray the weak straw man you have errected in order to attack the messenger.
Re: Ted Nugent. Doubtful that he has the size of cojones to murder the hippies in the foxholes unless they were unarmed and otherwise distracted by some hashish. I once saw him on T.V. shoot a boar in the ass with a arrow as the boar was running back to his den to get his gun. The boar’s squealing was something I expect to hear from Rush Limbaugh should he ever undergo torture by rock and roll, miniskirted menstruating damsals, and hopefully, liver removal without benefit of illicit painkillers. I don’t think Nugent has ever actually shot off anything but his mouth toward an actual living, breathing, pissed off human being.
On the pictures Rilkefan has protested: I agree with this sentiment and were I a balanced guy I would be asking that they removed to below the fold as well. But since they merely being used as props in the gathering cynical sledgehammer tsanami of mischaracterizing all criticism of the current lovely GITMo tactics, I’ll play along with this stuff in my face.
If you look very closely, in a forensic photographic enlargement sort of way, at the third picture — the pile of femurs and tibias from Pol Pot’s hobby — in the lower left hand corner you’ll notice a single femur from a dead guy at Abu Ghraib which accidentally got mixed in.
This was a mistake. It should be in a smaller, new pile, just started, which may be investigated someday under a new regime. Meanwhile, at least we’re nipping things in the bud, as Barney Fife used to say.
“Certainly sounds more like the acts of a totalitarian state than a democratic one to me.”
This is getting very tiresome.
The actions which Durbin’s allegation described are *illegal*. It is not true to claim that illegal actions by an individual are actions of a state.
Until someone can prove that the state meant for them to happen, people who make this claim are proven anti-American propagandists.
a: Until someone can prove that the state meant for them to happen, people who make this claim are proven anti-American propagandists.
Secretary Rumsfeld approved these actions. Does that satisfy your request to “prove that the state meant for them to happen”?
a: hilzoy has written more eloquently than I am ever likely to on this subject. I refer you to this post for more information on this matter.
It’s not anti-American to criticize the government or demand that it change behaviors that are not consistent with the ideals of US culture. It is pro-American.
Yes, a, the administration had nothing to do with it. It was all Lynndie England’s idea.
What ought he to have said?
I can’t speak for Charles Bird, but this would have worked for me:
“If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by [rogue government agents in a bad made for TV movie], or the actions of [a petty Carribean island dictatorship]. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.”
“I’m not them, and have no posting privileges here, but just speaking up gnerally, while I much love and solicit your input, Bob, my own response to any such demand is to, amid hugging and thumbs up, bite me.”
“I want the Bush administration handed to the ICC, and I demand Hillary and Edwards or any other candidate commit to it during the campaign. No, commit to it now.”
As far I can tell, the only demands were directed at potential Presidential candidates. You too,Gary, can someday learn to read. When someone here offically throws their gimme cap into the ring, they can so make your demand. Until then, I will never bite John Edwards.
Upon request, small nips and nibbles in strategic places might afforded Mrs Clinton.
…
I repeat,I think Charles is being unfairly treated as to the intention of Durbin’s rhetoric. Moral comparison, if not quite moral equivalence, was intended. And “not quite” is no more an escape for Durbin than it is for the torturers.
And being an equal opportunity jerk, famous I hope for making an effort at having all sides (rather than just two) angry at me, I repeat my irritation at the left’s continual whimpering as tough political tactic. Boo-hoo, bullies done mean things to my country.
You know what, Charles and Slartibartfast can attest to the fact that you only know you are making a sacrifice to the cause and approaching effectiveness when your friends begin turning on you.
OK, I’m back for just this one thing:
Chris Wallace (yes, I know who he is): Excuse me? I mean, you know, Auschwitz? Bergen Belsen? The Soviet gulag? I think they would have been very happy to be allowed to defecate on themselves.
This has to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard coming from a man who, let’s face it, won’t be up for a Nobel any time soon. “Happy to be allowed to defecate on themselves“? What on earth is he on about? Does he know nothing about the camps and the gulags? Has he never seen a latrine? Does he think that Beria ordered all kulaks to have their intestines sewn shut, or that Himmler was running around Auschwitz trying to shove corks up Jewish bottoms? What the hell kind of worldview do you need to utter that sentence? Good grief.
very effective post, Charles.
I still side with von on this one, but clearly, the comparison is hyperbolic.
out, he said, meekly.
Oh, for pity’s sake. Let me quote from Slacktivist, who says it better than I could, “The American prison camps in Guantanamo, Bagram, Afghanistan and elsewhere are, in fact, not as vast or as brutal as Stalin’s gulags. The American camps are also Not As Bad As the contemporary torture facilities that the U.S. occasionally subcontracts in places like Uzbekistan.
But such comparisons are beside the point. The threshhold has been crossed and conventional arithmetic no longer applies. The only relevant and meaningful comparison is between those regimes that countenance torture and those that do not. Once a nation crosses that line any difference between it and other torture regimes is inconsequential in comparison to the difference between it and those nations which have refused to cross that threshhold.”
Charles’ posts seem more concerned with Godwin’s Rule than the fact that the United States of America, in our names, is torturing people. And not caring if they’re innocent or guilty before doing it, even. How’s this for moral math, our actions being mentioned in the same breath as the actions of Nazis is less important than the fact that we’re torturing people.
So would referring to the Gestapo specifically instead of the Nazis generally have been okay? What about the NKVD specifically instead of Stalin generally?
Edward: very effective post, Charles.
Very effective indeed, I agree. Charles is getting very good at shooting the messenger, though I’m surprised to see you applaud his shots.
but clearly, the comparison is hyperbolic.
Not in the least hyperbolic, as you would know if you had read the text of Durbin’s speech: Senator Durbin described tortures committed by US soldiers, and invited his audience to consider whether this was behavior expected of American soldiers or of Nazis. Charles has, as we expect from him, ignored the point – that this is not how good Americans expect or want American soldiers to behave – and gone directly to attack-mode on the messenger for pointing this out.
CB: it is so unfortunate that an otherwise sensible and temperate speech was drowned out and frittered away with abusive, counterproductive and unimaginative hyperbole
With you all the way through ‘drowned out.’ And you know what? Dick Durbin didn’t do the drowning-out.
While we’re on the subject of abusive hyperbole, keeping those pics above the fold counts as such in my book. You were asked politely and more than once to put them below the fold. BSR’s picture link at 8:53 is quite apt.
The lameness of your suggestion that Bush to appoint a commission to investigate his crimes has been adequately pointed out by other commenters above. Patting yourself on the back for “taking a step beyond what Durbin recommends” is what really makes it laughable.
Don’t be comforted that this wave of outrage is fooling anyone (except possibly Edward). It’s all the same old ‘kill the messenger’ routine — in this case, by a combination of bludgeoning and drowning.
Of course, my argument against hilzoy’s umm quietism, are also indirects arguments against Charles. By saying Charles is correct about Durbin’s intentions, I am saying, as opposed to apparently most people in this thread, that Durbin’s message, as interpreted by Charles is, if not a completely accurate analysis, the most effective one politically. I am also saying that Durbin intended Charles’ interpretation to be the dominant one, not hilzoy’s or Katherine’s obfuscation.
How does an insurgency or resistance succeed? I went thru this several years ago, and finally it appears Dean and AI and Durbin are moving to more effective tactics.
A resistance succeeds by provoking the ruling regime to over-reaction.
Now if the regime or wider populace is the America of Eisenhower & Kennedy, or the British of mid-century India, an essentially decent regime, the non-violent civil disobedience of MLK and Ghandi can be effective. But if the regime does not recognize or care about the measured judgements of good people, you can get Hungary or Czechoslovakia or Tianemen[sic] Square.
Or if the regime does represent the wishes of a significant plurality, or has them controlled thru bribes and threats or propaganda, the NV CD is no longer an option. Jewish sitdown strikes in Munich in 1938 would not have helped. Unless you believe the Int’l Community will step in, non-violent civil disobedience will not help us in America.
So you move to less “nice” means of provoking overreaction and repression. These need not be violent actions, they can be violent words. In the sixties, it was precisely the anti-war movement calling Nixon a fascist, repeatedly, loudly, with many voices, that turned Nixon into a fascist and caused him to overstep into his own destruction. He was not a madman in the fifties and sixties.
It is too much to ask the American people or the base of the Republican party to turn on their leaders at this point. All rhetoric must be directed at the leadership, to provoke, to infuriate, to make them overt maddogs instead of covert rabies carriers.
I think people are being too hhard on Charles. Yes, I’m not enthusiastic about the focus on ward choice, but he did outline all of his areas of agreement with Durbin and he did propose an investigationn of an adminnistrationn that he mostly supports. I think he should be given credit for that. I think it is naive to thinnk the Republicans would ever allow an ivestigation, but I also think Charles is completely sincere and that his suggestion shows tht he is not dismissive of the serriousness of the evidence of torture.
Bob, I wanted to apologize for however I provoked your previous reaction, and so I do. But I’ve always found the Leninist strategy of “heighten the contradictons” an outrageous one, for a variety of reasons I don’t feel up to outlining in detail at the moment, but which tend to go along the lines of feeling that making things worse actually makes things worse, and that revolutions eat their young; things are bad, but I don’t remotely agree that we’ve gotten to the point where this strategy would be helpful, or other than reprehensible. But, as usual, that’s just me.
On the flip side, I tend to think that the more people are forced to look at pictures of true horror, the better. It’s ugly and disturbing.
Looking away: perhaps not the solution.
Two suggestions:
1)Check out the Syrian resistance blogs, of which there are a surprisingly large number, and look at the language in which they discuss Bashir and the Baath. Not the Bush is as bad as Assad or that Republicans are as bad as the Baathists. I would never say that.
2) Check out the way the various Iraqi factions describe their various oppositions. Look at the language of Sadr.
Finally, you have to decide if we have a “policy difference” or a major problem. The actions, or non-actions of most members of Congress, of both parties, after 4 years, should make it pretty clear that appealing to the better natures of the American people is not working. Stop it. Try something new.
I think a bunch of folks have missed the point here, taken in, I guess, by CB’s need to heap scorn on the opposition. After the whining about the images, and the comparison, he goes on to reject the Admin’s approach in a way that may well lead to the revocation of his VRWC membership card. Compliance with the Supreme Court’s rulings, which the Admin continues to resist in many many ways,* will lead to the end of the policy. When it comes time for the trials, it will quickly become very clear that the government has little or no evidence sufficient to hold people for any length of time, and that the number of detainees who have not been subjected to treatment that we would consider torture if delivered to our servicemen will be small indeed.
As for a commission, I’m not optimistic. There are plenty of oxen that will get gored here, and politicians will look for ways to avoid it. Maybe it’s better to let this all get resolved on an individual basis, through the tort system. Our courts put a value on torture/abuse in Acree v. Iraq and on hostage-holding in Cicippio v. Iran. It’ll be expensive, but that’s how lessons get learned.
* Here’s a simple unclassified example: we filed a motion for an order requiring the government to preserve all evidence related to our clients, and the government is fighting it. Second example: we got an order requiring the government to give us 30 days notice before sending our clients to some other country, and the government has appealed.
Charlie:
I hope people tell you this IRL all the time, but you’re doing God’s own work. Just knowing firms are sending good people to do this work makes me feel better.
As many people have died in the US’ prisons for captive in the War on Terror in three years as died in Vietcong prisons in twelve years of war against them. By the Republican logic, I presume, we are all entitled to criticize the US four times for every time we mourn the POWs and MIAs.
Kinda late in the thread, but I have got to weigh in here with a comment on CB’s latest post: First, reading it all the way through, I notice Mr. Bird has reversed his usual method of composition: this time he leads off with the outrageous nonsense, and closes the post with a reasoned and intelligent suggestion (not that I particularly agree that another governmental “commission” is the answer, but at least it’s not the usual right-wing excuse-making, pace the commenters here who seem to want to view this post as open-season-on-messengers sniping).
That said, Charles, you really ought to spend a little more time thinking about this stuff before you hit “Post”: Pictures of Belsen or the Cambodian killing-fields are, of course, awful: but what purpose, exactly, other than shrilling the by-now-standard “We’re not as bad as X—– [insert favorite evil tyranny here]” line is served by shoving this stuff at us?
“Can we agree that throwing down the Nazi and gulag cards is simply not a thing reasonable people should do?”
Sure, I agree as well: so why do you feel you have to throw it down in (what I am reading as) support of the same position we mostly seem to share?
“Jewish sitdown strikes in Munich in 1938 would not have helped.”
Actually, they might have. In Berlin in 1943 saved a number of Jewish men married to non-Jewish women were arrested for deportation to the camps. Their wives protested their husbands’ arrest. This protest embarressed the Nazi regime so badly that it actually released these men, many of whom survived the war. A sit down strike in 1938 would probably have intimidated the Nazis, who, like all bullies, were basically cowards, both politcally and physically, quite thoroughly. Peaceful protest is nearly always worth trying. It doesn’t always succeed, it is almost never easy, but it is always worth trying.
“Peaceful protest is nearly always worth trying. It doesn’t always succeed, it is almost never easy, but it is always worth trying.”
Assuming you’re perfectly willing to die. This seems not worth obscuring.
This seems worth not obscuring, to put it the way I meant it.
Don’t be comforted that this wave of outrage is fooling anyone (except possibly Edward).
You’d be shocked at what does or does not fool me Nell…seriously, it’s not all about winning points.
“Assuming you’re perfectly willing to die.”
I’m not “perfectly willing” to die–all things considered I’d rather continue to live. And yeah, there is always a risk inherent in protesting. I think the risk is low in the US in 2005, quite unlike the situation in Berlin in 1943. So I’m quite willing to take the minor risk that I might be in the crowd that learns that Bush has decided to earn his comparison to Hitler, starting with mowing down a crowd of protesters or that some random nut will decide to express his/her disapproval for the cause I am protesting with a rocket launcher or whatever. If enough people object to the bad behavior of the government before it gets to the mass murder level, perhaps it will never get there. Maybe if there had been sit down strikes in Munchen in 1938 the camps would never have been built. Then again, maybe they would have. I don’t know. But attempting to get rid of Camp X-ray by peaceful means (protesting in the streets, writing to Congress, etc) seems worth attempting.
Back to say: welcome back rilkefan; different images now greet our readers; and I really do know all about those kittens.
And also: CharleyCarp is my hero.
“Bob, I wanted to apologize for however I provoked your previous reaction, and so I do.”
This “approaching effectiveness when your friends begin turning on you.” was not directed at you, Gary. I am not angry at you today. I am still in good humour. I even respect your arguments of 9:13, tho I obviously disagree on “how bad it is” ot what the most effective response would be.
Nah, I get tired of the piling-on Birddog. He, and Slart, and Sebastian, and von are doing their best within a limited range 🙂 and have alienated themselves from their community in the process. I have seen how macallan talks to von.
Consider this an internal ongoing Democratic/left discussion on whether it is time to up the ante, turn up the heat, umm, heighten the contradictions. Like the ever-present arguments over Dean, there are options of supporting him, criticizing him, or staying silent.
Of course Durbin was comparing the Bush administration to Nazis. I won’t do so, but neither will I say he wasn’t. He was. And it doesn’t matter if the comparison is fair or not. We are not playing softball. Go Durbin.
“A resistance succeeds by provoking the ruling regime to over-reaction.” …Bob
“Leninist strategy of “heighten the contradictons” an outrageous one”…making things worse just makes thing worse”
Okay, Gary, re Dianne above, are you saying Rosa Parks or the lunch-counter sitters or especially MLK in Selma were wrong? An awful lot of innocent people got hurt, and the obvious purpose was to provoke a reaction, and things did get worse before they got better.
Echo the admiration of Charleycarp, tho I am not optimistic. Like Katherine, lawyers have to believe in the effectiveness of law, or even the value of honoring it i the face of ineffectiveness. But is Padilla that much better off yet, either physically or legally?
Maybe not Charleycarp, but somebody or somebodies are going to spend many lifetimes in court on this.
“Okay, Gary, re Dianne above, are you saying Rosa Parks or the lunch-counter sitters or especially MLK in Selma were wrong?”
No.
“Maybe if there had been sit down strikes in Munchen in 1938 the camps would never have been built.”
Since the camps were first constructed in 1933, this seems unlikely.
Paint them a picture
It occurs to me that I have not responded to Amnesty’s “gulag of our time” comments (and similar remarks made recently by other Bush critics). My slowness results from an inability to communicate just how…
And also: CharleyCarp is my hero.
Yep. Me too.
But, why would America want to torture innocent people?
Why would ANYbody want to torture innocent people? Because there is deep evil available in the human heart, even if that heart was born &/or raised in the good ol’ US of A.
That’s the reason we really do need checks and balances, an honest and energetic press, and an intensely observant populace.
“Because there is deep evil available in the human heart, even if that heart was born &/or raised in the good ol’ US of A.”
I tend to think this isn’t the way to look. People do bad things for, more often than not, the best of reasons. That’s the thing to most look at, I tend to think. It’s not because of any particular evil they possess or feel or are motivated by. That’s why it happens so often. And why some are so determined to look away from it and deny it and insist it couldn’t be happening and must be for a good reason and, after all, other people are worse, and, most of all, we must look elsewhere, say, at these pictures and at other people. Because, you know, we can’t do evil. Because it’s us.
Lily: and he did propose an investigationn of an adminnistrationn that he mostly supports. I think he should be given credit for that
*shrug*
Gosh. When Charles can bring himself to stop attacking the messenger, I’ll give him credit for that. But so far, that’s what he likes to do: shoot at people who criticize the US. He’s never bothered to go back and update the post in which he attacked Newsweek and claimed its story was false (even though, as it turned out, Newsweek was right and Charles Bird was wrong). He still snarls at Amnesty International. He can’t bring himself even to argue against Durbin’s speech: instead he sets up a straw man and violently attacks that, claiming that this straw man is what Durbin said. I fully expect to see a post from him attacking the Red Cross any day now.
And I wish I was joking.
“Since the camps were first constructed in 1933, this seems unlikely.”
Hmm…I thought they were built in 1942 and later, after the Wannsee conference. Of course, that doesn’t imply that the first camps weren’t built sooner…altough again, 1933 sounds too early. I thought the Nazis were just elected in 1933.
Dianne, it depends which camps you’re referring to.
The death camps were built – and used – between 1942 and 1945.
The first concentration camps were built for “enemies of the state” – primarily Communists and Socialists – and the first one, Dachau, was opened in March 1933. (Hitler was named Chancellor in January 1933: he became dictator of Germany following the March 5 elections and the Reichstag fire on February 28. cite)
The concentration camp system was expanded – by 1945 there were at least a hundred – and conditions in the camps were terrible. Millions died because they were sent there. But they were not simple killing machines like the “extermination camps”: they began:
Hitler to the Reichstag, March 23, 1933: “The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures…The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a law is in itself a limited one.”
Otto Wells, leader of the Social Democrats, on the same occasion: “We German Social Democrats pledge ourselves solemnly in this historic hour to the principles of humanity and justice, of freedom and socialism. No enabling act can give you power to destroy ideas which are eternal and indestructible.”
It’s true – it’s very true – that so far the camps that the US has set up to hold those accused of being their enemies resemble the Nazi’s regimes concentration camps only on a small scale and only at the very beginning of Hitler’s regime. Indeed, were you to compare Dachau to Guantanamo Bay, even in 1933 versus 2002, I am certain that Guantanamo Bay is a far more pleasant place in which to suffer indefinite, unjust imprisonment, and that the US soldiers do not go to the lengths of torturing people to death as often as the Nazi guards did.
But to argue that because what the US is doing is not as bad as the Nazis, that Bush has not, in the five years he’s been in power, committed anything like the crimes of Hitler in the first six months he was in power, should not make anyone happy. That’s not an achievement to be proud of.
The Old Issue, Rudyard Kipling:
Nevertheless
Jesurgislac: Thanks for the info. I’m afraid my knowledge of history is rather spotty (you know how it is with US-Americans…)
I agree with you that the probable* fact that the Guantanamo Bay camp is not as bad as the early Dachau camp is not much to be proud of. If I were Bush I’d want a better legacy than “not as bad as Hitler” but then again, I’m not Bush. Maybe he’s happy to be known for his moderation in only rarely torturing a prisoner to death.
*I’m weasel wording a little because I don’t know enough about conditions in either to make a definitive statement.
“Why would ANYbody want to torture innocent people?”
Maybe it’s not always for the best of reasons or the worst of reasons, but simply because they were told to. The Milgram Experiment suggests that the majority of people will torture an innocent person simply because an authority figure tells them to do so. This, to me, is the reason that torture should never be allowed as official policy: because it is too easy to convince people that they are doing what they have to do by torturing, even torturing people they know to be innocent, if it is.
It is interesting to note that in one variant of the Milgram experiment, in which the experimental subject sees two previous actors playing the “teacher” role refuse to go on giving shocks only 10% of subjects go on to give a supposedly lethal shock (down from 65% in the classic study). This suggests that refusing to obey an authority when the authority is demanding an immoral behavior is worthwhile even when it is apparently futile (ie if a soldier refuses to torture prisoners in Guantanamo he/she might not stop the torture of that particular prisoner but he/she might influence others to refuse, which might end the policy of torture more quickly than if he/she had complied.)
I fully expect to see a post from him attacking the Red Cross any day now.
Too late, I’m afraid. Far too late.
That earlier post by Charles is remarkably in sync with the GOP report issued Monday…
Oh, I’m not at all surprised, Edward. If there’s one thing at which Charles absolutely excels, it’s beating the drum for the Party talking points, and the ICRC has been a target ever since the Administration decided to start ghosting detainees.
Like I said on the other thread, when your proclaimed enemies are the ICRC, Amnesty International, the United Nations, the Federal Judiciary and so forth, you might want to step back and examine your basic principles again to figure out just what you stand for.
And so well put, Phil, it deserves to be said on this one, too.
Too late, I’m afraid. Far too late.
Ah well. I’m such a good prophet, I can even tell what Charles was writing six months ago on a blog I don’t read… 😉
Actually, no
Charles Bird at Obsidian Wings asks: Can we agree that, no matter how the words are weaseled, putting American in…
Actually, no
Charles Bird at Obsidian Wings asks: Can we agree that, no matter how the words are weaseled, putting American in…
Actually, no
Charles Bird at Obsidian Wings asks: Can we agree that, no matter how the words are weaseled, putting American in…
Actually, no
Charles Bird at Obsidian Wings asks: Can we agree that, no matter how the words are weaseled, putting American in…
We could wallpaper everyone’s homes with them, but as we saw with the videos of the WTC, repeated exposure quickly makes even horrific images less and less shocking.
“Tactics reminiscent of Saddam”
Can you tell, without peeking at the linked articles, which group of torturers is on our side? From today’s New York Times: He was having a lunch of lettuce and cucumbers in the kitchen of his home in the small
rilkefan–I agree with hilzoy’s characterization of Durbin’s remarks. I don’t think using a “Nazi” analogy is always offensive; you simply have to look at what the person actually says, and whether it is true or not. I think it is always inflammatory, and there is usually a less inflammatory and equally or mre effective way to make the same point. In this case, given the lousiness of media coverage of these issues, I’m not sure that there was.
I don’t know if this was wise of Durbin to do–as far as his political career certainly not; as far as the torture issue I don’t know–but I think he was taking a calculated risk that could only harm his own career, in a very good cause. (frankly it makes me a little verklempt.) I am not aware of any other politician in America who has a comparable amount to lose or a comparable chance to affect the debate taking a comparable risk on this issue. So I don’t want to be construed as criticizing him.
I think it’s quite reasonable to say: this was a foolish thing to do because the inflammatory use of the word “Nazi” distracts from his point. It is not reasonable to say he was minimizing the Holocaust or comparing Guantanamo to Auschwitz. He was not. He did not. That is a false characterization of not only intent, but of the actual words he said, and it is not something one should repeat. Demanding that Charles listen to the actual sentences a politician said, and not the indefensible things Charles wishes he said, is not “weaseling”. The people using the genocide to score political points are the ones using these images to a respond to an argument Durbin never made and never would make.
“I fully expect to see a post from him attacking the Red Cross any day now.”
Oh, that happened several months ago. “Non-netural Red Cross”, December 21, 2004. Google cache here (2nd post down)
Katherine, if I understand your 03:33, my description of your position early in this thread was accurate – a position I’m in full agreement with (in fact in part I take the view I do following your expertise.) However, I don’t think CB‘s take is that different – certainly in emphasis, but at core this post in its entirety seems to be on our side. (Except I’m not sure the pictures are acceptable for making the point – wish CB was here to debate that issue.)
Welcome back, Rilkefan.
I disagree with Katherine’s point … I think… regarding Durbin’s rhetoric as distracting, from his message. And thus I agree with McManus, I think (though I can’t be sure because of his Joycean way), that this is hardball.
Look, reasonable rhetoric directed at the rhetorical masters in charge now won’t work. You need a big neon sign, or maybe a little clown pointing at the big dangerous clowns, or maybe an explosion saying pay attention. Democrats are now beggars; in Calcutta the beggars cut a hand off to draw attention. The alternative is to be ignored.
Quite frankly, I wish Durbin had said what he said and then resigned. And I then I wish another Democratic Senator would stand the next day and say what needs to be said regarding George Bush’s conduct leading up to the war in Iraq (and that ain’t all) and resign. And so on, until the Nation’s business stops. Then disappear into the high grass.
Proof: The uproar caused Charles to read Durbin’s substantive remarks in their entirety. And then agree with them in a post here. To be attacked, of course, but attack is now reflexive.
John: To be attacked, of course, but attack is now reflexive.
I disagree. Attacking Charles Bird happens frequently, but it’s by no means a reflex action. Had CB simply agreed that Senator Durbin was right to say what he did, and the abuses he called attention to were wrong, he wouldn’t have been attacked: he was attacked for deliberately misreading what Senator Durbin said and attacking his own misreading. Passionately, of course, because Charles is fond of the sport of messenger-shooting.
I’m back yet again — curse my feeble resolve! — with a brilliant piece by Jeanne at Body And Soul [h/t Making Light]:
Can you tell, without peeking at the linked articles, which group of torturers is on our side?
I don’t know whether his rhetoric was politically effective or not. I’m saying, it’s reasonable to think it was ineffective and reasonable to think it’ll be effective–the jury’s still out as far as I can see.
As far as I’m concerned, a man with a bright political future is risking it and painting a huge target on himself to do the right thing. And he did so without making an untrue statement or calling Guantanamo a death camp or the troops Nazis or everything else he is being accused of. Unless he’s stupid he knew he would be accused of those things—but he did not actually say them. Anticipating that your political opponents would distort and lie about what you said does not mean that you were saying what they accuse of saying.
Durbin
Sorry about the duplication; I’d already been writing about the Durbin thing when Patrick finished and posted his piece about…
Jes:
I write on the run, so my thoughts, confused as they are, emerge extravagantly confused.
What I mean to think, I think, and mean to say, I think, is that we are all conditioned by deliberate political strategy to attack reflexively. Which is why Charles can’t write a post agreeing with you without a thumb gouge to the eye. And me too, right back at him. Because the fight is the thing. This is learned behavior, like my Welsh grandmother married to the German, condemning with full freshly regurgitated venom the Hun from 60 years before.
All bad and it will come to no good end. But it makes little difference to me any longer whether I’m right.
I wanna win. We can drink after, but I’ll reassemble a semblance of being right from the wreckage of winning.
Gingrich and Delay didn’t start the contest but they changed the rules. Fine. Using their rules, I want utter victory over them. I want to smirk precisely as Bush does as I raise his taxes to pay for his impeachment. I’ll forego his torture. Back to Texas for him where he can swagger harmlessly with the fake bowleggedness.
And, yes, Charles, I hate Bush. Note that he likes it.
It gets him up in the morning. That you find it offensive is utterly inconsequential to him.
Here’s the thing. GWB likes me, because I remind him of himself.
That said, You, Jes, are right, and Charles is brave in his way, and Rilkefan and Hilzoy will prevail, and Slart and Von and Sebastian are not to far away from me in true policy (well, I exaggerate now) and, as always, McManus rules.
It is not all the fight. And it is not reflexive. Not unless you let it be. But politics is too important for that.
I am writing in short sentences. I wonder why.
Durbin
Sorry about the duplication; I’d already been writing about the Durbin thing when Patrick finished and posted his piece about…
Like I said, Hilzoy, you will prevail.
I know why, unless I’m stupid, which would pretty much nail it.
I’m merely meeting the opposing tactics at their level.
You, should we be lucky, will win.
John: you aren’t stupid 😉 And I’m not sure whether I said this already, but welcome back. (Also, to blogbudsman, if he’s reading.)
😉
“I am writing in short sentences. I wonder why.”
Because you can. Perhaps. Or maybe not.
No, you definitely can. Wonder why.
It’s not haiku. But it could be.
I wish the administration had set out specific rules for how to handle prisoners taken at the beginning of the WOT, if it felt they were not lawful combatants under the existing Geneva Conventions.
I wish that the keeping and interrogation of these prisoners had not been put in the hands of under-trained National Guard troops, and I wish that someone at any level of command in Abu Ghraib had stopped things before they got out of hand.
I wish most of my fellow conservatives weren’t still shooting the messenger, as if Godwin violations (as unhelpful as they might be) were somehow worse than Americans systematically abusing prisoners.
I wish that I didn’t agree the most honorable thing we can do now would be to close down Gitmo, and I wish that I didn’t agree we can’t afford to. I wish there was a better solution, but I can’t think of one.
Most of all, I wish that I didn’t have to defend the indefensible in order to be a Bush administration supporter.
Well, most of all, I wish that Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri had never been born, but fighting the monster they created doesn’t give us an excuse to behave monstrously. And that’s pretty much all I’ve got to say about this.
And that’s pretty much all I’ve got to say about this.
You said plenty. Good post.
Ditto to Anarch’s comments on your post, ThirdGorchBro. I think I’d add the wish that this administration not consistently get us into situations in which all the remaining choices are bad. But I realize that that’s one you might not agree with.
Do you really think that is going to happen?
I really don’t know, Randy. Even a lame duck faces political pressures.
This is like saying the guy who rapes and murders one small child is morally superior to the guy who rapes and murders 100 small children.
That’s not what I said, Bob. Read my final paragraph.
He did not assert any sort of moral equivalence between us and the Nazis, or Pol Pot, or Stalin.
What matters is not how Durbin inserted Nazis and gulags into the statement, but that he inserted them, Hil. The second ranking Democrat in the Senate deliberately made these associations, and the quicker he apologizes the less the fallout. He was trying to be clever by half and he was busted.
Let’s falsifise, Charles. What would it take for America to need to apologize?
I assume you can say.
CB, did you see Durbin’s follow-up?
Also, is it your position that no Republican of similar stature has ever made comparisons of similar import?
Ehh, never mind on the last point, who cares.
Charles, I think you are arguing against what you perceive to be Durbin’s intent, more than his actual words. You’ve partially conceded that he did not say the things that his critics attribute to him. You also can’t mean this:
“Can we agree that, no matter how the words are weaseled, putting American in the same sentence with Nazis, gulags and the Khmer Rouge has no place in civil political discourse”
because if that sentence is correct, then that sentence itself has no place in civil political discourse. The words “American”, “Nazis”, “gulags” and “Khmer Rouge” all appear in it.
Obviously, that’s not what you meant. Saying that “Americans defeated the Nazis” is obviously not what you’re talking about. But I’m not trying to just be obnoxious and nitpicky, I’m trying to get you to concede this point: It’s not just what words are in the sentence. How the words are used also matters.
I think what you object to is neither Durbin’s actual statements (which you have not chosen to try to directly refute) nor the fact that he used certain words in the same sentence (because so did you and so do thousands of sentences about WW2 you’ve got no problem with), but that you think he “deliberately made these associations” between Bush/American soldiers/Guantanamo interrogators and the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge.
You often hand out “Karnak awards” to people who try to get inside politicians heads. I think you have a point, in doing that, but you overstate that point. The fact is, politicians’ intent matters. While you are correct that we don’t know for sure and in online discussions people often make silly, implausible, baseless guesses about politicians’ intent–intent matters. And it is possible to make informed guesses backed up with evidence.
So rather than handing out a “Karnak award” to you for your guess about Durbin’s intent, let me try to see if I can accurately state what you perceive his bad intent to be, and let me explain why I think that it was NOT his intent. (ctd.)
Thanks everyone.
Bob, there’s plenty of things to think about re: timing. I expect that the DC Circuit is going to issue a decision in Hamdan relatively soon — this is a pure Geneva Conventions case — and it may well decide Khaled/Boumediene before October.
If the Circuit affirms Khaled, the Supremes might not even take cert, which ends the case say 5 months after decision. We can look forward to mass releases, I think, after that, as the government decides which half dozen or dozen cases it really cares to defend.
Padilla is better off, I’d bet, now that he’s not in total isolation. He’s still in jail, of course, but has reason to hope, and that’s got to be something.
(I’m flying to Alaska tomorrow to argue a case on Tuesday. We filed the complaint in 1996. Win or lose Tuesday, the case won’t be over. It’s not Jarndyce, but patience is called for in this line of work . . .)
Okay, first–here is what I’m guessing you think his motivations were:
He wants to associate Guantanamo Bay and the Bush administration with the images of horror, atrocity and genocide we associate with the gulag, the killing fields, and the Holocaust. At the same time, he knew that such comparisons are politically very risky, and he did NOT want to be accused of slandering the troops or calling them Nazis or whatever else. So he was “too clever by half”–but the fact is, you don’t use the words “Nazi” and “gulag” and “Pol Pot” without a reason. There are plenty of other of historical analogies you could make to denounce torture and abuse that are equally accurate and equally effective (and as you say, more imaginative), but he chose three of the worst mass murderers of the century. He can only have done so in order to evoke those horrors, and link them to Guantanamo & the Bush administration.
I apologize if I have that wrong, and you may correct me. I am not trying to set out a straw man though–that is the best guess I can make at what you think his motivations were.
Note that as far as I can tell, some of the liberal posters here and elsewhere seem to agree with you that this was Durbin’s motivation. Their main disagreement is that they think that inappropriate historical analogies are justified if that’s what it takes to stop these policies.
That is NOT the root of my disagreement with you. Not this time. I think the root of our disagreement is that I have another, entirely different guess about what Durbin’s motivations were in using that imagery. Let me audition for the Karnak awards of all Karnak awards, and explain that guess.
I obviously do NOT know if this is accurate; I’ve never met Durbin. But he is my senior senator (as of this month) and has been my favorite Senator for a considerably longer. I have read a whole lot of news stories about him & speeches by him, especially as regards this issue; I have also bugged his staff about rendition and read the legislation he has co-sponsored on the torture issue.
No doubt I am also projecting my own views onto Durbin to a great extent. But, part of the reason I like Durbin so much is that his actions in the Senate suggest that his policy and moral views are quite similar to mine, and that he sees the U.S. political situation in general and the torture issue in particular in a way that is uncannily similar to the way I see it.
Which doesn’t mean the following guess about Durbin’s motivations is correct. But–just consider it, and ask yourself: how would I respond to his remarks if I thought that this, and not the less worthy motives I’m assuming he had, was what led him to use that inflammatory language?
I start from the same premise that you do: if you mention Pol Pot, the Nazis, and Stalin in the same sentence as U.S. troops, you are doing it for a reason. You know that those words are inflammatory. You know that the press is more likely to cover a speech where you use that comparison than an ordinary Senate floor speech. You know that you risk being accused of slandering American soldiers Nazis, of minimizing the Holocaust. You know your words will be taken out of context, honestly misunderstood by some and deliberately misrepresented by others. You know that those regimes slaughtered millions and committed worse tortures than those described in the FBI memo you are quoting from. You know that there are plenty of other analogies you could use–there is no shortage of countries that have tortured prisoners in history, no shortage of countries that torture prisoners today. Or you could simply read from the documents on torture, instead of making an analogy. There are dozens of ways to make this point. If you chose this one, you did it for a reason.
I agree with that. But, what if this is the reason?
Say you are just horrified and appalled and heartbroken by the U.S. torture and interrogation policies. Say you feel everything that hilzoy expressed here.
Say you are the minority whip in the United States Senate–the third most powerful Democrat in Washington and the second most powerful in the only branch where the Democrats have anything resembling a voice. It won’t do just to be sad. Your position gives you an obligation to do something to stop your country from continuing down this road. It also gives you enough power that you ought to be able to do SOMETHING.
But you’re running out of ideas of what to do.
You’ve tried making speeches (1, 2, 3) but they’ve been ignored.
You’ve tried writing and co-sponsoring amendments and attaching them to appropriations bills, but they’ve either been stripped out in conference, or watered down so that they wouldn’t really have any legal force.
You’ve tried co-sponsoring bills, which could not be quietly deleted in conference committees. (to name a few from this session: S. 654, on rendition; section 223 and 224 of S.12) But none of them has gotten a single Republican cosponsor. None of them has gotten a committee hearing. None of them has gotten a committee vote. S. 654 has only four other Democratic sponsors and cosponsors; S.12 has only twelve. Neither of them has a chance in hell of passing.
You’ve held up the Haynes nomination for the Fourth Circuit, for now, but that’s not going to change the policy.
You questioned Gonzales as thoroughly as you could on these issues, and you managed to get a few answers, but not many. They stonewalled on the document requests. You helped persuade the wavering Democrats on judiciary to vote no unanimously, you worked to get as many no votes as possible on the floor, you even would have risked a filibuster if you could have gotten enough votes for it–but the votes just weren’t there. Reid couldn’t twist arms on this with the nuclear option and social security debates upcoming. Your side won the floor debate, but how many people were watching C-Span 2? Even in the political news it was totally swamped by the state of the union aftermath. The press noted in passing that there were more no votes than originally expected, and that was that. Gonzales was the Attorney General, and worse, the administration had learned that there was no real political cost for these policies. John Yoo said so in the New Yorker:
No Republicans broke ranks on the Gonzales vote. No Republicans have broken ranks to support supboenas of documents. No Republicans have broken ranks to call for an independent investigation. Warner and Specter can be shamed into sponsoring a hearing occasionally when the issues in the news, but you already know how the hearing tomorrow will go: most of the Republicans will be outraged by the outrage. A few of them–Specter, Graham, maybe DeWine–will ask half-hearted questions in front of the cameras, and when they’re not answered they won’t even bother to submit written followups. And a lot of the other Democrats will read statements rather than ask questions. So maybe four of you will actually be asking questions, and you’ll have time for maybe three to five questions each, and you can’t ask about certain subjects–just forward looking questions about Guantanamo, not Bagram, not rendition, not the CIA facilities, not the torture memos, not the reports of torture at Guantanamo. You won’t get any real answers–and that will be that. Better luck at the next hearing six months from now.
Without hearings, or subpoenas, or a confirmation vote, or a filibuster, or a bill that can’t be quietly killed in committee or stripped out in conference–the press will not cover this, not in a sustained enough way to make any difference in the print media, and not at all on TV. Things would’ve been different if Kerry had been willing to raise this during the campaign, but he wasn’t. Press conferences and floor speeches by the minority whip do not make the papers, nor do document requests and legislation and calls for an investigation that don’t have any chance at all of passing. If the Democrats would make this an issue in the midterms, it might be different, but that’s a year and a half from now. And if a large percentage of the caucus is afraid of this issue now, two years before the election–they’re not going to get less afraid of it in the months leading up to one.
So. None of these things will work.
When AI called Guantanamo gulag–that didn’t work, exactly, but it came closer than anything has since the Abu Ghraib to working.
It was a lousy historical analogy. The horrors were not on the same scale. Not only is Guanatanamo not Stalin’s gulag archipelago; it is not even close to the worst prison in the U.S. archipelago. Bagram is worse, the Salt pit and the other CIA jails are worse, Abu Ghraib was worse, Egypt and Syria are worse.
But you had to admire the risk they took. Maybe it wasn’t a risk a neutral human rights organization should be taking–but you were hardly in a position to criticize that, when not a single U.S. politician had risked much of anything to stop that.
Maybe it was time that a U.S. politician take that risk.(ctd.)
*waits with bated breath*
[Although what’s currently up is great.]
ThirdGorchBro: I wish that I didn’t agree the most honorable thing we can do now would be to close down Gitmo, and I wish that I didn’t agree we can’t afford to.
Why do you think the US cannot afford to?
Katherine: But you had to admire the risk they took. Maybe it wasn’t a risk a neutral human rights organization should be taking–but you were hardly in a position to criticize that, when not a single U.S. politician had risked much of anything to stop that.
*applauds*
I’m getting sick of writing the second person so let me continue in a more normal tone, and let me proceed more on the basis of what Durbin said last week than on his previous record on these issues, or my guesses as to his evaluation of the political situation.
One of the things that’s striking about Durbin’s statement is that it is very inflammatory and very careful at the same time. As hilzoy and von and I have noted, he does NOT say that Guantanamo is gulag. He does not criticize any U.S. troops other than those directly involved in prisoner abuses–and when charged with insulting the troops, he was immediately ready to say: actually, they could be contractors or CIA agents, I never even said that it was the armed forces and we don’t know that. He does not talk about genocide, only brutal interrogation. He does not say that these horrors are comparable in scale to the gulag. He does not say that these abuses are as bad as what happened to individual prisoners in Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, or under the Khmer Rouge.
And yet–Durbin is a very smart, very effective politician. He doesn’t tend to get into trouble for his remarks like Dean does. He’s also pretty good at anticipating the other side’s moves. I read his questions at the Gonzales hearings; he’s very good at anticipating the ways that someone is going to try to evade the question. He was also apparently the one who wanted to respond the nuclear option by forcing debate on popular Democratic bills that the GOP wouldn’t allow a vote on, rather than “shutting down the Senate” as Reid had originally threatened.
Well, you don’t have to be half that good at anticipating your opponents’ arguments to realize that when you not only talk about the gulag in the same sentence as Guantanamo, but throw in the Nazis and Pol Pot for good measure–if a talk radio host or far right weblog or whoever else hears about it, they are going to go into hysterics. And they are very good at all going into hysterics at the same time, and these stories tend to get picked up by Fox News and the Murdoch papers and the Washington Times, and from there to the mainstream press–the dailies and the TV shows. And when they do, the administration and GOP Congressional leadership are not exactly shy about joining in.
I wouldn’t have necessarily predicted that anyone noticed this speech, and even after they did, I wouldn’t have thought it would become quite this vicious this quickly or reach quite this high up–I didn’t expect the Bush administration to join in or Newt Gingrich to call for censure, and apparently once again I overestimated John McCain. I also would have thought that some prominent Democrat would have actually defended what Durbin said by now, and that the ADL and the veterans’ groups would have been more careful to respond to what he actually said and not what he was accused of saying. So I’m not saying he would’ve anticipated all of this. But he had to know that this was a risk.
His statement seems perfectly constructed to guarantee he would be accused of saying all sorts of horrible things about the military and minimizing the horror of genocide, without actually saying horrible things about the military or minimizing the horror of genocide. That suggests premeditation.But what it does NOT suggest to me, is cynical self-interest.
How big a moron would Durbin have to be to think that this would help his career? It’s not like he needs the attention; he’s the second ranking Democrat in the Senate, he’s close to Reid, and the Democratic caucus just about always taps the deputy to lead the house or senate caucus when the leader retires or loses his seat.
He’s scrupulously built up a long record as an oppose-the-war-support-the-troops Democrat. I think he genuinely believes that, but say it is just political calculation. Isn’t that all the more reason not to blow it up with a few careless words? And if he got carried away and misspoke, why isn’t he apologizing? (That statement of regret Friday was an unusually blatant non-apology apology.)
I just can’t see how this could help his career. I can see very easily how it could harm it. And very few people LIKE being called a traitor. There had to be some another reason.
He could be trying to help the Democrats for the midterm elections, but that also seems extremely unlikely to me. The Senate is weighted towards red states. I really can’t see this comment helping.
So, I think he’s genuinely motivated by concern about the torture issue, to the point where either he wasn’t thinking at all, or that he deliberately made himself a target to keep the story in the news, get to a place where people would listen when he spoke about these issues, perhaps guilt trip some of his colleagues into acting. And if he wasn’t thinking, I’m not sure why he phrased his statement in such a careful yet such an inflammatory way, and I’m not sure why he’s refused to apologize.
And if he was just making careless allusions because he wants to associate Guantanamo and Bush and the military with these past atrocities–come on. This is a U.S. Senator, not some poster on Democratic Underground or undergraduate protest organizer. He’s not Cynthia McKinney or Robert Byrd, either. He’s in the leadership. He has a lot to lose. And I will guarantee you, he does not believe that Guantanamo is as bad as those images you post, or that U.S. troops are comparable to the S.S., which is why he very carefully avoided saying all the things the talk radio hosts are accusing him of saying. Was he counting on the right wing press’, the administration’s, and Republican Congressmen’s scrupulous refusal to misquote and distort what he said? Was he counting on the mainstream press to call them on it? He’s going to risk his career to make a cheap, false insinuation that will get nowhere with the electorate, alienate veterans, and which he doesn’t actually believe?
It doesn’t make any sense. I know you don’t share my opinion of Durbin, but two decent assumptions to make about politicians are:
1) they want to keep their jobs
2) they want to be able to sleep at night
So. There you are.
Well said, Katherine.
Jes: For one thing, we’re still at war, and the vast majority of the prisoners we have taken really are insurgents or terrorists. We have every right to keep them prisoner until the war ends. Maybe not at Gitmo itself, I guess what I meant was we can’t just let them all go, even though we are now in the position of having abused them.
FWIW, I don’t think Durbin said anything out of line, and I am mostly in agreement with Katherine’s 2:58 and 4:12 posts.
Bravo, Katherine.
Again, the meaningless call for a “commission” without one word of comdemnation for those reponsible for all that you claim to deplore.
Misreading yet again, dm. I’ve been consistently railed against the piss-poor treatment of detainees. Read the final paragraph, particularly the sentence where I agree with Durbin that our treatment of detainees has been deplorable. My positions have been clear.
A question for Charles or anyone else truly offended by Durbin’s remarks– What ought he to have said?
A fair question, AS. He could’ve compared Guantanamo to how we treated prisoners in previous wars and conflicts. See BrianM’s comments above. He could’ve said that the detainee treatment doesn’t measure up to American standards: “This is not America. This is not the America I know.” This would be a way to measure ourselves against our own standards. He could’ve gone generic. “This is the conduct of a totalitarian state, not America.” He could’ve said that Guantanamo looks like any other prison on the island of Cuba (which is admittedly a stretch). He could’ve specified countries without referring to regimes that mass-murdered by the millions: “This isn’t China. This isn’t a Turkish prison. This is about the Bill of Rights. This is about America fighting a war AND respecting the rule of law.” Like I wrote, what Durbin said was unimaginative.
How is it possible for Rush to use to word “feminazis” on a daily basis and earn high praise from you, yet Durbin is somehow over the line?
First, he doesn’t he use it daily. In fact, very seldom if at all anymore. There’s a lot of things I don’t agree with Rush on (including using feminazi), and he’s rated lower than NPR in my book.
You were asked politely and more than once to put them below the fold.
The pictures are integral, Nell. For that reason, I politely refuse your and others’ reqest. If von-Edward-Hilzoy deem them not appropriate for the front page, then they are free to do as they wish.
ThirdGorchBro: Jes: For one thing, we’re still at war
(conceded for the sake of argument)
and the vast majority of the prisoners we have taken really are insurgents or terrorists.
Really? Please cite the evidence at which you looked before you came to that conclusion. There are 540 prisoners in Guantanamo Bay: show me evidence that at least 271 of them (by name, since you have looked them all up*) are in fact insurgents or terrorists. Note that the mere fact that they have been accused of so being is not evidence that they actually are.
We have every right to keep them prisoner until the war ends. Maybe not at Gitmo itself, I guess what I meant was we can’t just let them all go, even though we are now in the position of having abused them.
If they have in fact been taken fighting against US forces/allied forces in Iraq or in Afghanistan, they can be PoWs, in which case they should be held in proper PoW camps.
But the US has no right to hold any of them extralegally. And the longer the US holds them all extralegally, declining to show evidence in court that it has any right to hold any of them, the more I become convinced that it has no evidence to show, beyond confessions obtained under torture.
*This is sarcasm. I am fairly certain that you’ve not investigated many** of them, let alone the “vast majority”.
**I originally wrote “any” and then decided you deserved the benefit of the doubt. 😉
For the sake of everyone else, ThirdGorch, feel free to just e-mail me the details of the 271 prisoners you looked up and can show me that they’re insurgents/terrorists. I’ll comment here and post at my livejournal that you’ve done so.
Charles Bird claimed: My positions have been clear.
You certainly have! You’ve railed against Newsweek for the story about US soldiers desecrating the Koran (and have yet to update the post in which you claimed it was false – which it wasn’t): you’ve railed against Amnesty International (for calling a gulag a gulag): you’ve railed against Senator Durbin: and when I sarcastically said you’d rail against the Red Cross next, someone pointed out that you already had. In all cases, the “crime” these people committed was to protest against the crimes committed by the Bush administration in the name of the US. You don’t like that at all. You have made your position extremely clear.
Serious question:
What is the war for the duration of which the US is holding its prisoners? What constitutes victory in it?
He could’ve said that the detainee treatment doesn’t measure up to American standards: “This is not America. This is not the America I know.” This would be a way to measure ourselves against our own standards. He could’ve gone generic. “This is the conduct of a totalitarian state, not America.” He could’ve said that Guantanamo looks like any other prison on the island of Cuba (which is admittedly a stretch). He could’ve specified countries without referring to regimes that mass-murdered by the millions: “This isn’t China. This isn’t a Turkish prison. This is about the Bill of Rights. This is about America fighting a war AND respecting the rule of law.” Like I wrote, what Durbin said was unimaginative.
Ah. So now we’ve gone from “outside the realm of civil discourse” to “unimaginative.” So you’re conceding that it’s OK to measure our actions vis a vis detainees against totalitarian regimes, you just don’t like the ones he picked?
138 comments in and apart from Lilly, Bob McManus or CharleyCarp they can be summed up as “Well Bush (or his policies) isn’t a Nazi, but he is Nazi-like”. You people whine when others outside your self-congratulatory echo chamber employ rhetorical excess against you like hating America or having a serious case of BDS. However, this is just fine? Well, something about a goose and a gander. Personally I’m not outraged by Durbin because if I was part of the Illinois GOP I bash him over the head with this for an easy senate seat in 2008.
138 comments in and apart from Lilly, Bob McManus or CharleyCarp they can be summed up as “Well Bush (or his policies) isn’t a Nazi, but he is Nazi-like”. You people whine when others outside your self-congratulatory echo chamber employ rhetorical excess against you like hating America or having a serious case of BDS. However, this is just fine? Well, something about a goose and a gander. Personally I’m not outraged by Durbin because if I was part of the Illinois GOP I bash him over the head with this for an easy senate seat in 2008.
Charles Bird: He could’ve specified countries without referring to regimes that mass-murdered by the millions: “This isn’t China. This isn’t a Turkish prison.” [Emph mine]
I think I just swallowed my tongue in shock, which is preferable to rupturing my innards with laughter. Not only does no-one remember the Armenians, it looks like we’re in danger of forgetting both the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Bravo, Charles; that takes some ballsy revisionism.
Sulla: or having a serious case of BDS.
BDS?
What would it take for America to need to apologize?
It would take knowing whom to apologize to, and the Bush administration to do it, Gary.
CB, did you see Durbin’s follow-up?
Yes, rilke. Durbin regretted that so many didn’t understand his brilliance. Captain Ed was right.
Okay, first–here is what I’m guessing you think his motivations were:
He’s the one who made the association, Katherine. The person who should explain his motivations is the Senator himself. But if I were guessing, I would guess that most of the motivations you ascribe to the Senator are accurate.
Jes- Heh, yeah.
Charles Bird: He could’ve gone generic. “This is the conduct of a totalitarian state, not America.”
This would be followed by an outpouring of right-wing blogger anger and discussion of what REAL totalitarian governments do to detainees, along with sarcastic references to lack of elections in the US. Followed by “I heart Gitmo” tshirts.
He could’ve said that Guantanamo looks like any other prison on the island of Cuba (which is admittedly a stretch).
Followed by outraged posting of actual testimonies of Cuban political prisoners, angry denouncements of Durbin comparing Bush to Castro, and sarcastic comparisons of the US and Cuban political systems. Followed by “I heart Gitmo” tshirts.
He could’ve specified countries without referring to regimes that mass-murdered by the millions: “This isn’t China. This isn’t a Turkish prison. This is about the Bill of Rights. This is about America fighting a war AND respecting the rule of law.”
Resulting in spittle-producing outrage by conservative lements who point out that China executes tens of thousands of prisoners each year with a shot to the back of the head and then uses their organs for transplant. Followed by “I heart Gitmo” tshirts.
Like I wrote, what Durbin said was unimaginative.
Unimaginative is not the issue. Being critical of the human rights conditions of US “detainees” is the issue, and unless the words used to do so are suitable meek and fawning in the eyes of the supporters of this administration, the critic will face a wall of right-wing hysteria. A hysteria-tsunami, if you will.
Correction: When I was suggesting alternatives, I should’ve said (and meant to say) “This isn’t present day China.” China under Mao was every bit as bad as murderous as Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany and Cambodia under Pol Pot.
There are 540 prisoners in Guantanamo Bay: show me evidence that at least 271 of them (by name, since you have looked them all up*) are in fact insurgents or terrorists.
Because they’ve faced tribunals and 94% were found to be enemy combatants, Jes.
So now we’ve gone from “outside the realm of civil discourse” to “unimaginative.”
No “we” haven’t, Phil.
I stand corrected, Charles. You have gone from “outside the realm of civil discourse” to “unimaginative.” I was not so dense as to fall victim to mischaracterization and irrelevancy in the first place. Thanks for clearing that up!
Hahahahaha . . . did you even read your own link?
You actually think that link supports your argument? HAHAHAHAHAHahahahahaha! I would actually have expected Jes to post that link to show where you were wrong!!! If I’m ever accused of a crime, dude, I want you prosecuting me.
Let me give you a clue: A 94% success rate when everyone thinks you’re cheating is not as significant as you appear to believe.
Charles: Because they’ve faced tribunals and 94% were found to be enemy combatants, Jes.
Did you read the article you linked to? Sure, it says:
But the article picks out one particular tribunal that turned out to be grossly flawed:
The reason for picking out this particular tribunal is that:
And so:
In January, U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green ruled that the tribunals are illegal, unfairly stacked against detainees and in violation of the Constitution. The Bush administration has appealed her decision.
In short, in the only one of those 558 tribunal reviews where the “classified evidence” that was used has become public, it turns out the evidence shows the detainee was most likely innocent, even though the tribunal found him guilty. Shall we assume this was one bad apple of a tribunal, and all the other 557 were just fine?
ThirdGorchBro, I’ll await your response.
Bet we’ll see Charles Bird railing against Sean Baker soon.
Any takers?
Bet we’ll see Charles Bird railing against Sean Baker soon.
I don’t think Sean Baker compared the actions of his attackers as Nazi-like or made any other comparisons or metaphors of that sort. Which is what Charles’ post focuses on.
Teach me to make an unsourced assumption. Truthfully, I just assumed most of our prisoners were taken either in combat or in raids on insurgent hideouts where there was other evidence lying around (weapons, bomb-making materials, etc.) If I’m wrong, and the majority of our prisoners are just random dudes we picked up off the street, then our problems are even more serious than I thought. Tell you what, Jes, I’ll do a little research (later, ’cause right now I’m at work) and get back to you.
Sulla: “138 comments in and apart from Lilly, Bob McManus or CharleyCarp they can be summed up as ‘Well Bush (or his policies) isn’t a Nazi, but he is Nazi-like’.
Wrong: our general point has been: that’s not, in fact, what Durbin said.
And I second Anarch’s response to Charles’ amazing choice of less bad comparisons.
Hugh Hewitt has actually written something useful on this. His breathless conspiratorial tone is of course ridiculous, but he does quote at length from Durbin, including a radio interview I’d not heard before.
After reading that interview–I’d say I was more or less right about his motivations, but he did not think it through as carefully as my comments would suggest, and he was not fully prepared for the response.
I’d wondered about that, because while clarifying his meaning is worthwile, it seems to me his best bet is to confront his critics with a whole lot of factual information about allegations which are even more disturbing than the FBI report he quoted. And he hasn’t done that; he had one press release prepared but after that he’s floundered a bit.
Hopefully his staff is picking themselves off the mat and preparing a more complete response.
3Gbro
I haven’t heard a refutation of this story, though this is not the original version. If there has been a refutation (other than ‘hey prisoners lie’) I’d love to hear it.
– They fed them well. The Pakistani tribesmen slaughtered a sheep in honor of their guests, Arabs and Chinese Muslims famished from fleeing U.S. bombing in the Afghan mountains. But their hosts had ulterior motives: to sell them to the Americans, said the men who are now prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
Bounties ranged from $3,000 to $25,000, the detainees testified during military tribunals, according to transcripts the U.S. government gave The Associated Press to comply with a Freedom of Information lawsuit.
snip
Several detainees who appeared to be ethnic Chinese Muslims – known as Uighurs – described being betrayed by Pakistani tribesmen along with about 100 Arabs.
They said they went to Afghanistan for military training to fight for independence from China. When U.S. warplanes started bombing near their camp, they fled into the mountains near Tora Bora and hid for weeks, starving.
For the benefit of Chas, I should point out that Chinese Muslim separatists are of the Sufi variety, and that the Chinese government has, according to Stephen Schwartz, been supporting Wahhabi Muslim groups.
In March 2002, the AP reported that Afghan intelligence offered rewards for the capture of al-Qaida fighters – the day after a five-hour meeting with U.S. Special Forces. Intelligence officers refused to say if the two events were linked and if the United States was paying the offered reward of 150 million Afghanis, then equivalent to $4,000 a head.
On Powerline and Durbin: this is funny.
Hilzoy
Defend Durbin’s Nazi hyperbole all you want, no foul here. However, I expect you not write some weepy rant defending yourself against anti-Americanism if that happens because of this.
I think it’s more un-American to assert unbounded executive privilege and to do this sort of thing than to be occasionally intemperate in criticizing it.
However, I expect you not write some weepy rant defending yourself against anti-Americanism if that happens because of this.
I can’t speak for Hilzoy, but I was planning on writing a weepy rant defending the Nazi hyperbole and hypocritically decrying the resulting anti-Americanism on my own blog. Would that be okay with you?
Whatever, if the GOP can unseat a triple amputee Vietnam Vet for a Senate vote canning this guy should be a walk in the park. The more attention brought to this the better.
Sulla: you thought that I was defending myself in that piece?
…
Wow.
If you’re looking for anti-Americanism, look to the folks who are saying that keeping people chained up and defecating on themselves and depriving them of sleep for days in unbearable heat and noise sounds more like the actions of Americans than Nazis. That’s what Durbin’s critics are saying, if you actually read the statement they’re disagreeing with.
I’m not looking for anything except a further increase in the Senate GOP majority and Mr. Durbin is bringing that about just fine.
I’m not looking for anything except a further increase in the Senate GOP majority and Mr. Durbin is bringing that about just fine.
Then stop complaining.
Yet another in a long series of right wing “but we are still better than Nazis and al-Qaida” posts. And reading comprehension still hasn’t improved with the pro-war crowd.
When this comes up in a discussion, just ask the question – do you think America should torture prisoners. Thank goodness, most people say no and the conversation can turn towards the facts.
Don N.
When this comes up in a discussion, just ask the question – do you think America should torture prisoners. Thank goodness, most people say no and the conversation can turn towards the facts.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is exactly Charles’ point, no?
DPU- got me there, it was a pre-emptive whine.
3Gbro: Tell you what, Jes, I’ll do a little research (later, ’cause right now I’m at work) and get back to you.
That’s a remarkably temperate and thoughtful response. Thank you. You might find this post of interest. 😉
kenB: Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is exactly Charles’ point, no?
No. Charles’ point, made repeatedly, is that no one should be complaining about America torturing prisoners – certainly not out loud, in public, in ways the mass media pays attention to. I’ve never yet seen Charles rail against America torturing prisoners as we have seen other ObWingers, from Katherine to Sebastian Holsclaw, protest it. Charles always rails about someone else protesting America’s human rights violations: loudly, passionately, and with conviction. Then he may slip in a face-saver that naturally he doesn’t think the US should be torturing people, but just the same, it’s wrong for the Red Cross, or Amnesty International, or Newsweek, or Senator Durbin, or whoever this week’s villain is, to be talking about it.
Okay. So suppose your daughter is somehow on the wrong list, and is picked up, and given peroneal kicks a few hundred times, because American patriots find it amusing how many times she screams. Could that happen? Would she deserve an apology, albeit after her death? How would she be different than Dilawar, Charles? How would this be different from reality?
Charles’ point, made repeatedly, is that no one should be complaining about America torturing prisoners
Of course you’re overstating. CB says in this very post that he agrees with the thrust of Durbin’s statement, just not the reference to Nazis, etc. I guess he’s not saying it loudly enough for your taste?
This Sullivan post deserves a linking to:
As does this post at Body & Soul, though for different reasons.
kenB: I guess he’s not saying it loudly enough for your taste?
CB is spending far more of his passion on attacking the critics of those who commit the abuses than he is on the abuses themselves. He’s never this passionate about actually attacking the abuses, nor does he ever bother to attack the abuses unless he can, at the same time, far more passionately, attack those who criticise the abuses.
Going by Charles’ own, frequently-used word count criterion, he cares 24% more about what words Durbin used than he does about the actual abuse situation (217 words to 175 words.)
I suspect that another reason some of us are skeptical about Charles’ criticism of torture and abuse of US captives is that his major solution seems to be a bipartisan investigation. Very little in his posting history leads one to feel that he in general has a high regard for such things, or for the general desirability of Democrats anywhere near the levers of power. So it comes across as misdirection, even if in fact he feels that something in this situation warrants an exception to his general support for a Republican hold on as many aspects of power as possible.
I’m trying to phrase this in a descriptive rather than perjorative way, because even though I don’t see it, maybe there is something that makes a bipartisan commission desirable here when it wouldn’t be on other matters. I am doubtful rather than flat-out denying.
Pardon me for pointing it out, but these are the same sorts of arguments certain conservatives use to “prove” that [fill in liberal blogger here] is really an America-hater. Always criticizes America! (no, look what I wrote here — I love America!) Well then, why are 75% of your posts devoted to criticizing America? Why do you never devote a post to talking about how America is a great country, without getting several jabs in? Etc., etc.
My preference would be for us to discuss the actual arguments advanced, rather than mind-reading based on word count and topic selection. But that’s just me.
kenB: My preference would be for us to discuss the actual arguments advanced,
I thought we were. Charles is raising two arguments here: (1) Senator Durbin is bad because he criticised US human rights abuses; (2) US human rights abuses are also bad. Charles himself devoted more attention to (1) in his post, including three attention-getting pictures, and is getting more discussion on that topic as a result.
Charles is raising two arguments here: Senator Durbin is bad because he criticised US human rights abuses;
Jes, WTF?? What blog do you think you’re commenting on? CB is specifically criticizing the reference to the Nazis et al. That’s what his post says. He agrees with Durbin’s message. Your Jes-ified version of his post is pure mindreading and likely evidence of Bird Derangement Syndrome.
kenB: CB is specifically criticizing the reference to the Nazis et al. That’s what his post says
Actually, it’s not. What CB’s post says is that he isn’t specifically criticizing Durbin’s reference to the Nazis et al: he’s specifically setting up a straw man of an argument which Durbin did not make, and specifically criticizing his own straw man. Then he has the gall to accuse Durbin of “weasel words”.
Had CB actually written a post criticizing Durbin’s actual reference to the Nazis et al, your argument would make sense. I’m not sure what that post would have read like, though.
Jes, can I ask a favor? Please restrict yourself to commenting on what people actually write. For example, CB’s post explicitly says that he’s criticizing the Nazi reference while endorsing Durbin’s broader point. Whatever you think about his critique and his endorsement, please, give him at least that much credit.
Can we agree that, no matter how the words are weaseled, putting American in the same sentence with Nazis, gulags and the Khmer Rouge has no place in civil political discourse?
No.
(The image, by the way, is from the BBC. It’s a soccer stadium in Fallujah which has been turned into a mass grave.)
Half a million children dead through ten years of sanctions. 100,000+ civilians killed in the war, mainly by bombs. And counting.
And if the US pulls out, Iraq collapses, and a civil war rages, we could have another Somalia or Congo.
Since these seems likely, let’s start practicing our denials now. All together – “It has nothing to do with us, uh-huh!”.
Hahahahaha . . . did you even read your own link?
Yep, I did. The GC states that should any doubt arise, then the detainee should face a competent tribunal to clarify status. If the US tribunal was incompetent–and it looks like the one in question was–then that detainee deserves another tribunal, this time by competent adjudicators. What we know now is that there were problems with Kurnaz, and more activity is underway. According to this source:
We’ll find out soon enough if the judge’s case holds water.
Charles’ point, made repeatedly, is that no one should be complaining about America torturing prisoners – certainly not out loud, in public, in ways the mass media pays attention to.
That is false, Jes. You should be judging my writings on what I actually write, not on your feelings or what you perceive my feelings are. Your tack has all too often led to false conclusions and flat out misstatements.
Charles is raising two arguments here: (1) Senator Durbin is bad because he criticised US human rights abuses
Except I didn’t, Jes. Read the actual words and refrain from stating positions that I explicitly did not take. You smeared me on the Amnesty Travesty post on multiple occasions. Doing it again here crosses the line. If you do not stop, you are violating the posting rules. Consider this a warning.
Going by Charles’ own, frequently-used word count criterion, he cares 24% more about what words Durbin used than he does about the actual abuse situation
Tell me where I’ve used this “frequently-used word count criterion”, Phil. This is rank silliness.
CB and TGB, you ought to take the government at its word when it says that the little old lady in Switzerland is within the ambit of ‘enemy combatant.’ Although I’m quite confident that even on this standard, a 94% conviction rate could not be had with a fair process, surely this is a standard with which you have some difficulty.
Man, I suck at googling. Here’s what I’ve found so far: A US DOD statement (PDF file) which talks about how some of the Gitmo detainees were captured but doesn’t give any hard numbers. I’ve also found the AI report on Guantanamo, which gives some totals for prisoners and where they are held but doesn’t have any percentages for how they were captured either (unless I’m missing something, it’s a long report). If anybody out there has a link to anything giving numbers or percentages of exactly how most detainees are captured, I’d appreciate it.
If there isn’t any real information available, the question becomes, how much credence to we give the US government on this issue? I suspect most people here already have their minds made up on that, no matter what their political persuasion. I would like to believe my government, but I confess I find it increasingly hard to do so.
I have a question for you, though, Jes (and anyone else who wants to answer): What should we do to get intelligence on international terrorists out there? Our policies prior to 9/11 prevented some terrorist attacks (the planned attacks in Seattle at the Millenium, for example) but – obviously – failed to prevent a number of others. If we shut down our interrogations and release all those detainees we can’t prosecute, what should we do instead?
Not trying to score any points here, I’m asking in all seriousness. How then should we go about finding and stopping these groups?
BTW, I did read the post you linked to, Jes, as well as the material regarding those same detainees (and others like them) in the AI report. And it’s very troubling, I admit. I hope very much that these are the exception rather than the rule.
Tell me where I’ve used this “frequently-used word count criterion”, Phil. This is rank silliness.
First, it’s the frequently-used “word count” criterion. Second, you haven’t been the main offender there — although you’ve just accused both von and Slarti of “rank silliness” — but off the top of my head there’s this contender:
[Which statistical tomfoolery, incidentally, you never rescinded.]
TGB, I’d be the last to say we should surrender in the WOT. I think we ought to be aggressively trying to infiltrate, and at the same time, working hard to curry favor among those on the fence.
I heard a couple of years back about a proposed joint Dole-McGovern program for worldwide school lunches. My source (GMcG) suggested it’s cost would be dwarfed by our then impending invasion of Iraq, but that the actual benefits would be many times greater. It’s not the only answer, of course, but it might be part of the answer.
The necessary element of this kind of thing, though, is we have to do it without triumphalism. If, as I believe, the central motivating factor for the people who would attack us is not their religion, but their feeling of collective humiliation, actions on our part that would increase the latter are counterproductive. The Pres understands this — or at least seemed to in the 2000 debates with VP Gore — but has given in to the (apparently) greater need to be surrounded by people holding their index fingers aloft chanting ‘we’re number one!’
Some blame for said tomfoolery rests squarely on my shoulders, truth be told.
ThirdGorchBro: My impression – and I’m really willing to be shown I’m wrong here, I have no ego invested in this – is that the major problem in dealing with terrorism is not the acquisition of raw data, but rather A) putting the data together into real information and B) acting effectively on it.
We need, I would think it obvious, more people who understand the languages and cultures in which terrorism most often emerges. We need more people who can live among them, and work undercover. We need an analytical culture which rewards being right no matter how uncomfortable that may be to prevailing wisdom, and we need a political culture in which those correct analyses become the basis of sound policy, hitting our actual enemies and (ideally) no others at all, and reinforcing our presence in the world as one of justice, law, intelligence, prudence, and respect.
For all its manifold failings, I think the Clinton administration did much better on this overall picture than the Bush administration. Bush could have had a glorious legacy on this front if he’d taken the good work he inherited from his predecessor, went over the plans of people like Richard Clark, and scaled them up, backing good data with good action.
It’s really unclear to me that anything beyond really good espionage and interrogation entirely compatible with the Geneva Conventions and other protections of universal rights actually does any good. And it invites disbelief from the people we need as informants, reporters, and the like, as well as having other bad consequences.
An operation can be really big and yet focused intently on its targets. Speaking for myself, I think it appalling that Bush professes not to even think much about Osama bin Laden, and I think it very likely that if his administration had stuck to the goal of getting Al Qaeda and its supporters that we would actually have been good for Middle East democracy with many, many fewer problems.
ThirdGorchBro,
First off, I have to say that I’m quite impressed with your willingness to apply your conscience even at the risk to your ideology. It is too bad that has become a praiseworthy feature in this day and age.
Instead of answering your question, I’d like to ask you a question. Should we attempt to stop international terrorists?
Now, most people would say yes I think. So my next question is, how much should we be willing to spend to stop international terrorists? Seriously, what is the dollar amount you are willing to spend to stop terrorists? $100 per citizen per year? $1,000? $10,000? $50,000?
I’m dead serious here. The problem with talking about strategies for dealing with international terrorism is that all too often those discussions take place in a vacuum where there are no costs. Yes, terrorists kill people, but so do accidents, infections, and cigarettes, and from where I’m standing, you’re just as dead no matter how you go.
Let me be very clear here: I’m not saying that we should not fight terrorism. What I am saying is that if we’re going to fight terrorism, we need to apply the same basic rules we apply to fighting other serious problems. Rules like Cost benefit analysis. More importantly, we need to start actually measuring the effectiveness of our counterterrorism efforts. Most of the dollars spent on reducing airline terrorism since 9/11 has been wasted, and no one seems to care. Moreover, I don’t think we could justify the amount of money we spend on preventing aircraft terrorism through any rational cost benefit analysis.
If we’re going to seriously discuss counter terrorism techniques, I suggest we keep the following questions in mind:
1. How much does technique A cost?
2. Does it actually solve a real problem?
Do you think terrorism will go away on the day that we kill Bin Laden? Because there are some experts who believe that Al Queda is not a command and control organization, in which case killing Bin Laden does nothing. If that is true, then we’re wasting money looking for him.
3. Assuming that technique A works flawlessly all the time, what is the cost to our adverseries of bypassing it?
For example, even if we spent trillions of dollars searching every container ship that docks in the US for nuclear weapons, would that actually deter terrorists given that driving across the mexican border is pretty easy and that mexican ports are not likely to screen cargo to the extent we are? That suggests that searching cargo ships may be a massive waste of money that does not make anyone safer.
4. How often does technique A fail in the real world? No, seriously. Vendor supplied failure rates are not an acceptable answer to this question. That means that you can’t trust the CIA to accurately asess the quality of the CIA’s efforts.
The point here is that security from terrorism is something we’re buying, and so far, we’ve been the worst possible consumers imaginable. As a result, we have spent vast sums of money and gotten very little in return. Its true, there haven’t been lots of attacks in the US recently, but given the massive flaws in our security, I would suggest this has little to do with our efforts to stop real terrorism. Until we become intelligent consumers, counter terrorism funding will simply be a boondoggle for private industry and government agencies.
3GB
If we shut down our interrogations and release all those detainees we can’t prosecute, what should we do instead?
Knowing and being able to surveill is much better. Intelligence work doesn’t stem from holding more and more people, it grows from being able to plot and understand the connections. I don’t know if the current admin is unwilling or unable to do it, but whatever the reason is, it is a pretty damning point either way.
Which statistical tomfoolery, incidentally, you never rescinded
If Phil had said article count, Anarch, instead of word count, then you would’ve had a point. Again, AI obligated itself in its mission statement that every person should enjoy all the human rights codified in the UNDoHR and other international human rights standards. What I did was measure them against their own standards. Since I am not AI, it makes no sense for you or Phil or anyone else to measure my words to the standards of some other entity.
Anarch: Jes, can I ask a favor? Please restrict yourself to commenting on what people actually write.
And ignore the pictures that they use to add to what they’ve actually written? Why?
ThirdGorchBro: I have a question for you, though, Jes (and anyone else who wants to answer): What should we do to get intelligence on international terrorists out there?
On this point, I don’t really have anything to add to what liberal japonicus said (June 21, 2005 12:51 AM). (Except that it really doesn’t make sense, if you’re out to build a surveillance network in the Arab world, to sack Arab translators from the military for reasons beyond my comprehension [apparently about 150 Arab translators have been sacked from the military for being gay since 2001, though I admit I don’t have a good source for this]).
Our policies prior to 9/11 prevented some terrorist attacks (the planned attacks in Seattle at the Millenium, for example) but – obviously – failed to prevent a number of others. If we shut down our interrogations and release all those detainees we can’t prosecute, what should we do instead?
The question I feel you should ask yourself, and I mean this with all due respect, exactly what does it accomplish to keep prisoners locked up in extra-legal detention, when you really have no means of knowing whether they’re guilty or innocent? Some of the 540 prisoners have been in Guantanamo Bay for three years: they cannot possibly have any recent news about what’s going on in the al-Qaeda network, even if they were connected to it.
Whether or not more recently-captured prisoners can be interrogated, I think it’s clear that they ought not to be tortured – for all sorts of reasons, from the moral to the pragmatic.
Properly-constituted tribunals had to be held for all prisoners the US captured in Afghanistan or Iraq (leaving aside the prisoners who were taken elsewhere, with even less legal justification). That’s what the Geneva Convention requires.
Had such tribunals been held as soon as possible after each prisoner was taken, it’s just possible that the sheep could have been sorted out from the goats – PoWs, civilians for whom there was good cause to suspect they were al-Qaeda, and civilians for whom there was no good cause. Both PoWs and civilians have legal rights, even in war time, and while they can be interrogated, they can’t be held indefinitely or forced to respond. That this didn’t happen is, I hope, one of the mistakes the Bush administration made that is not going to come back and bite us all in the ass – because eventually, I think that some US administration is simply going to have to let them all go – regardless. (And some of them may be al-Qaeda: and by this time, some of them may have decided to become al-Qaeda if they ever get out. But because the Bush administration decided to break the Geneva Conventions from the start, they put themselves in the wrong when dealing with them.)
That’s what I think the US should do instead: adhere strictly to the Geneva Conventions. Make sure every prisoner gets a tribunal, and that the evidence used by that tribunal can be made public. If there is real need to take someone prisoner and hold them for life, then make sure the legal procedures are followed. It’s not just concern for the prisoners in the US system who are innocent, or if guilty, not deserving of a life sentence: it’s the fact that once you move away from the law, once you stop caring if the sheep are sorted from the goats, you end up either with the need to keep all the prisoners (because no one knows which are which) or else being compelled to release goats and sheep alike. I don’t think that the US will be able to maintain their prison camp at Guantanamo Bay indefinitely: it may well last out this present administration, but I doubt it will still be there in twenty years.
Israel has been trying to operate for many years on the basis that if you kill nine innocent bystanders and one suspected terrorist in a missile attack on a neighborhood, you are at least down one terrorist. The problem with that arithmetic is that terrorists are not a finite sum. It is precisely the power and the attitude that leads to killing nine innocent bystanders in order to assassinate one man that leads to the creation of more terrorists. In the same way, locking up 540 people because 40 or 400 of them are terrorists but you have no idea which, does not mean the world is at least down 40 terrorists: it means that somewhere out there there are an indefinite number of people who see this and see the US acting as if it can break the law with impunity, lock any Muslim up it chooses, and nothing will happen, nothing will change, no peaceful means will make it stop.
And that makes more terrorists, not fewer.
Again, AI obligated itself in its mission statement that every person should enjoy all the human rights codified in the UNDoHR and other international human rights standards. What I did was measure them against their own standards.
The wha . . ? Having Amnesty International articles written about your country is now a human right? Absent that interpretation, I can’t see any way in which a head count of pieces written has anything to do with believing that all people should enjoy the fullness of the Declaration of Human Rights.
Would you really prefer that AI write exactly the same number of articles, news releases and reports about each country? That’s what you appear to be implying.
What I did was measure them against their own standards.
No, you didn’t: what you did was to measure them against a stupid standard of your own making, as I pointed out in the comments to that thread. You assumed, for example, that the United States and Cuba had the same populations; you assumed that the number of articles written had any correlation, let alone causal relevance, to AI’s “standards”; you assumed that the language in these reports was functionally equivalent; and probably a few more that I can’t think of off the top of my head. You never addressed the statistical tomfoolery of that first point, nor did you ever provide a justification for the latter contention — against such possibilities as the relative transparency of the political process, the number of members in each country, the question of effectiveness &c — nor did you ever address the fact that the “number of articles” standard is a standard entirely of your own creation. It’s not even a straw man, it’s a snow poodle.
As it happens, I don’t think you were the biggest offender on the whole “word count” standard; that was primarily von, IIRC, as I noted above. [And it sure would be nice if you started acknowledging the entirety of my posts instead of a snippet here and there.] The “article count” standard, however, isn’t much of an improvement… as Phil has just remarked (yay preview!). In both cases, one can produce a statistic that looks superficially meaningful without actually possessing any real meaning at all, let alone any relevance to the broader question.
And you should know this, Charles, because it was pointed out to you in comments repeatedly. I don’t know whether you’re ignoring us because we’re critical or because you don’t have the time, but either way your failure to take these criticisms on board is crippling the utility of much of your work.
CharleyCarp, Bruce, Common Sense, lj and Jesurgislac, thank you for your responses. As far as the intelligence gathering aspect goes, I think you’re right that guys captured three years ago aren’t going to be able to give us any actionable intelligence. And Jes, I totally agree that we should never torture people for information, under any circumstances. Maybe the fact that we’re getting better cooperation from other intelligence services these days, and the fact that our own people are highly focused on this issue, will be enough to prevent the next major attack. I certainly hope so.
TGB: I don’t think I’m being defeatist when I say that I don’t think we can prevent all major attacks. Common Sense’s comments about cost/benefit analysis say all I’d want to on that subject – even if we put every conceivable dollar, erg, and body to the task, we couldn’t guarantee success, and we’d increase the death and misery from other neglected causes. (Have you read C.S. Lewis’ essay “Learning in Wartime”? Very good explanation of how and why total mobilization and dedication to war destroy nations.) So I look at what, first of all, gets us a lot of return with as little hassle or side effect as possible, to do that, and what creates a lot of nuisance and cost but doesn’t actually help, so as not to do that. But I think that if we demand total safety, we will end up getting less overlal than if we look to maximize safety on as many fronts as possible rather than making one absolute.
I hope none of that sounded snarky, as I don’t mean it that way.
No, you didn’t: what you did was to measure them against a stupid standard of your own making, as I pointed out in the comments to that thread.
Because AI has its own transparency problems, you work with what they give you, Anarch. How much are they spending on the respective countries they report on? You and I don’t know because they don’t provide a proper accounting. I received a batch of financial information in the mail from Amnesty the other day. As a member and as a onetime CPA, the information provided little enlightenment.
Charles, when are you going to use your new AI membership to, you know, actually fight for human rights, rather than waste it trying to do an audit of AI?
How much are they spending on the respective countries they report on? You and I don’t know because they don’t provide a proper accounting. I received a batch of financial information in the mail from Amnesty the other day. As a member and as a onetime CPA, the information provided little enlightenment.
And that’s a completely legitimate point to make. [I’d ask Randy Paul whether more information is accessible and, if so, how you might get it, although I second Phil’s query re human rights v. auditing.] What’s not legitimate is to invent an obviously screwy metric and to relay the statistics derived therefrom as meaningful — let alone turn them into a springboard for your derision — as you did in your previous post, nor defend them once they’ve been shown to be meaningless as you’re doing here.
If Phil had said article count, Anarch, instead of word count, then you would’ve had a point.
Are you joking?
It also presumes that they keep track of how much they spend on each country. In other words, Charles is trying to develop his beloved and ultimately irrelevant ranking system for human rights abuses by making inferences from the amount that they spend on each country.
My guess is that they don’t break it out that way, much to Chuckie’s unending dismay. I would imagine that they probably have line items broken out by such activities as POC work, Campaigns, Urgent Action Network, Regional Action Networks, Co-Groups, Death Penalty Campaigns as well as other expenses.
Of course if Charles had taken Phil’s advice and actually started to work on AI’s human rights work instead of devoting himself to outrage over a metaphor, he might have figured this out on his own.
Oh how world shattering it is when one has to face the fact that the world doesn’t answer to your preconceptions.
Taking a step beyond what Durbin recommended, President Bush should appoint a bipartisan commission–similar in authority and scope to the 9/11 Commission–to expeditiously investigate all incidences of mistreatment, fold all the separate investigations into a single authority, hold accountable those responsible and make recommendations as necessary.
Ain’t gonna happen Charles. Can’t wait for the post when you condemn the Bush administration for this decision.
I assume people saw about the apology. I like Durbin, but what the f*ck. Apologize if you have to, but don’t cry–not during that part of the speech. Cry when you talk about what you were responding to, not when you’re worried about hurting people’s feelings because they didn’t read your words carefully. And don’t so completely fail to turn people’s attention back to the real issue. What message are you sending to the rest of the democratic caucus?
I had always believed that our side would win this, sooner than we think. Well. I suppose I still believe we’ll win in the end, but it won’t be anytime soon. What a f*cking disaster.
As the contrast with Amnesty shows, the substance of the “gaffe” matters much less than being competent and prepared for the response. God help us when AI has more political savvy and courage than one of the most politically savvy and bravest Democrats in Congress.
Katherine
I normally don’t go for me too posts, but you are exactly correct.
As happens much too often, only the Fafblog can capture folks like Charlie. Go and visit:
“This is not the type of thing you would expect from the United States.” Well the White House wants you to know it’s all crazy talk! There’s just no way Guantanamo Bay is as bad as the Soviets or Pol Pot. Those guys were really really bad! But that’s not all! There’s a whole lot of other people America isn’t as bad as. Let’s take a look!
Hitler
How many times has the US tried to wipe out the Jews or started World War II? None – which is more than Hitler can say. Hitler killed ten million innocent people in camps over the 1930s and 40s. America has only killed about a hundred innocent people in prison camps over three years. At this rate it’ll take the US thirty thousand years to beat Hitler’s record. Hitler isn’t too impressed with America’s badness, I can tell you that…”
Better than the really, really bad. That’s the america some people want.
Don N.
btw, you all have seen Michael Berube’s response to Charles, right?
And Fred Clarke’s.
Ugh, Katherine’s right about Durbin’s apology:
We won’t be seeing much criticism from Congress on that subject for a while. Good job, Charles and the rest of the right-wing pile-on! Now that we’ve made sure no one’s going to talk about that pesky torture problem, we can go back to pretending it doesn’t exist.
Reading through these comments, one would think they were made by brain damaged, kneejerk anti-american, terrorism apologists. Sadly, this is not the case. These are from (mostly) Americans.
Jeanne at Body and Soul on Senator Durbin.
PS: Doug, I think your comment (your first?) broke the posting rules. It’s not generally allowed to call other commenters, let alone Hilzoy and Charles Bird and other ObWing posters, “brain damaged, kneejerk anti-american, terrorism apologists”.
Doug didn’t call other commenters “brain damaged, kneejerk anti-american, terrorism apologists”. He said, in fact, that this was not the case.
True, Felix. Doug is only saying that it appears to him that the commenters on this thread are “brain damaged, kneejerk anti-american, terrorism apologists”. I still think this is a breach of the posting rules.
I agree, Jesurgislac. DougM, please make sure you’ve read the posting rules, and then please comply.
LOL
Jes and Slart, I think you missed the ironic dig in DougM’s post. It wasn’t any different then what Durbin said on the floor of the Senate.
Sulla claimed: It wasn’t any different then what Durbin said on the floor of the Senate.
It was considerably different. Have you actually read what Durbin said? Suggest you do.
“you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.”
“one would think they were made by brain damaged, kneejerk anti-american, terrorism apologists. Sadly, this is not the case. These are from (mostly) Americans.”
More similarities than differences for me, I must be obtuse.
More similarities than differences for me, I must be obtuse.
No, I would never say that. I would say, however, that you evidently haven’t read the entire speech, and I recommend it to your attention.
If you have no wish to read the entire speech, do at least show me the similiarities to Doug’s comment in this:
“How should we treat them? This is not a new question. We are not writing on a blank slate. We have entered into treaties over the years, saying this is how we will treat wartime detainees. The United States has ratified these treaties. They are the law of the land as much as any statute we passed. They have served our country well in past wars. We have held ourselves to be a civilized country, willing to play by the rules, even in time of war.”
Please. Go ahead.
“More similarities than differences for me, I must be obtuse.”
Probably not, and you have a point, but alternative punctuation of this is yet possible.
“More similarities than differences for me, I must be obtuse.”
Probably not, and you have a point, but alternative punctuation of this is yet possible.
Jes,
Come on, it is obvious he was only referencing the part of the speech Durbin ended up bawling over a couple days ago.
Gary,
I suppose and the punctuation I got is Doug and I have a similar sense of humor.
Sulla: Come on, it is obvious he was only referencing the part of the speech
Ah, but that’s not what you claimed. (And Doug hasn’t yet come back to explain what he meant, so we’re dealing what you said, here.)
You asserted: “It wasn’t any different then what Durbin said on the floor of the Senate.”
I’ve just cited you what Durbin said on the floor of the senate, and it’s way different from what Doug just said – at least to my eyes.
Jes,
Must be a Obi-Wan “truth from a certain point of view” thing.
Sulla; Must be a Obi-Wan “truth from a certain point of view” thing.
If this is a reference to one of the new SW movies, it’s going right over my head: I do my best to pretend they don’t exist.
But, if you claim you are referencing a whole statement, as you did, don’t be too surprised when people assume that you mean what you say.
“If this is a reference to one of the new SW movies, it’s going right over my head: I do my best to pretend they don’t exist.”
Whatever he may mean, it’s clearly a reference to The Return Of The Jedi, the third movie, wherein Obi-Wan explains to Luke that his account of the death of Luke’s father in the first movie was true “from a certain point of view.”
I think Sulla is right about Doug’s comment, which was obviously intended to parallel Durbin’s. Doug is saying that the comments more resemble those of “brain damaged, kneejerk anti-american, terrorism apologists” than those one would expect from Americans. I disagree with that statement, of course, and I find it an outrageous thing to say about perfectly civil comments from people who are supporting what America stands for rather than everything it does.
The problem with the reaction to Durbin is that those opposing him are disagreeing with the statement that the prisoner abuse described more resembles the actions of Nazis, Soviets, and the Khmer Rouge than those one would expect from Americans. I’m still amazed that that idea is controversial.
Realizing moments later that I may have engaged in more repetition than explanation, I’ll further note that in the first movie, Obi-Wan explained that Darth Vader killed Luke’s father. From his later “certain point of view,” Obi-Wan explained that Darth Vader was, in fact, Luke’s father, but that when Vader turned to the Dark Side, he killed Luke’s father “from a certain point of view.”
If I added that I realize this is pretty obscure stuff that only tens of millions of people know about, I’d probably be being bad, and entirely insincere, so I won’t. Only Darth Tyranus would do such a thing.
And, man, Darth Tyranus on his scooter, in his dark cloak, played by Christopher Lee, is possibly one of the best Star Wars villains, ever, but I digress. It’s not as if an open thread on the topic would be timely, anyway.
Sulla: More similarities than differences for me, I must be obtuse.
Obtuse, probably. Unlike Durbin, who provided specific accounts of abuse, DougM didn’t do us the favor of pointing out which comments on this thread are consistent with the remarks “made by brain damaged, kneejerk anti-american, terrorism apologists”, but if you see those similiarities, then you should have no trouble giving us the particular quotes. Where is the apologia for terrorism? Where is the indication of diminished mental capacity (or was that bit put in for strictly pejorative purposes)? And you can only get to “anti-American” if you assume that criticism of particular American practices is equivalent to opposition to the country in general, a frankly stupid position. So which comments fit these criteria, and how?
Durbin claimed that the abuses described by that FBI agent are more consistent with the acts of Nazis, the Khmer Rouge, or Stalinist Soviets than they are with the way he expects Americans to treat their prisoners. You obviously disagree, but in what regard? Are the abuses consistent with your conception of American values? Or are they somehow inconsistent with the abuses of the totalitarian regimes in question? The question here isn’t whether we know those regimes to have committed worse abuses — we certainly do. The question is whether we would expect our men and women to commit the acts described. Am I to take it from your obvious disagreement with Durbin that you do not find such treatment at the hands of American soldiers and agents shocking? Am I to take it that you find this behavior to be more in line with American values than with those of the totalitarian regimes Durbin listed?
Are there any Chicagoans here? Look what our Mayor did.
I’ve got to hand it to that family. Usually mayors only manage to mess up their own cities, but the Daleys have got some real geographical reach.
Gromit,
You get much more worked up about this than I ever will. Doug made a crack that I think cleverly demonstrates how offensive Durbin’s remark can be construed and as a consequence he was pointed toward the posting rules. I thought it was funny, others don’t, end of story.
Sulla,
Doug’s cleverness would have been much more apt if anyone here had actually said anything which would open them up to being compared to “terrorism apologists.” This is in contrast to Durbin’s remarks, which referenced specific acts as the basis for the comparison. Doug’s crack, in fact, demonstrates exactly how Durbin’s critics have misconstrued his words. But Gromit already said all this, and you didn’t seem to get it then, so I’m not sure you will now.
BTW, if you think any remarks here are at all similar to anti-americanism or terrorist apologia, please do give some examples.
Larv,
I would say both remarks are over the top and with out historical basis. If that isn’t a good enough explanation then no, I don’t get and neither do I care to.
Sulla,
Okay, let’s try this:
Do you think that the treatment of prisoners described by Durbin in his remarks is at all comparable to the treatment of prisoners by the Nazis, Soviets or other mad regimes? Not necessarily in degree, but just in general outline?
Do you think that any of the comments on this thread are at all comparable to kneejerk anti-americanism or terrorist apologia? Even in very general terms?
If you answer yes and yes, or no and no, then I’ll leave you to your opinions. Otherwise, the comparison is inapt and a bit offensive.
Larv,
I would say no, no. That isn’t to say the treatment described by Durbin is humane but to reference death camps and the killing fields seems in these cases over the top to me because of the matter of scale. I believe he could have made his point just as strongly with other metaphors.
How few people would the Soviets or Nazis have had to kill, or how many would the US have to abuse, for the comparison to be apt? Can you ballpark it for me, here?
If I asked you to complete the sentence, “If I read this to you . . . you would most certainly believe this must have been done by ____________?” how many guesses would it take for you to answer, “The United States Army?”
1,000,000
the mafia
So your answers are actually:
1. We can abuse, torture and kill up to and including 999,999 detainees and still be Better Than Hitler, and
2. Infinity.
Do I have that about right?
Sulla: ?to reference death camps and the killing fields seems in these cases over the top to me because of the matter of scale.
I agree. But you see, as you would know if you had read Durbin’s statement, he did not reference death camps or the killing fields. I keep urging you to read the full statement: why do you persist in not doing so?
From the OP:
” Can we agree that, no matter how the words are weaseled, putting American in the same sentence with Nazis, gulags and the Khmer Rouge has no place in civil political discourse?”
From Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago
“5. Preliminary humiliation was another approach. In the famous cellars of the Rostov-on-the-Don GPU (House 33), which were lit by lenslike insets of thick glass in the sidewalk above the former storage basement, prisoners awaiting interrogation were made to lie face down for several hours in the main corridor and forbidden to raise their heads or make a sound. They lay this way, like Moslems at prayer, until the guard touched a shoulder and took them off to interrogation. Another ease: At the Lubyanka, Aleksandra O_-va refused to give the testimony demanded of her. She was transferred to Lefortovo. In the admitting office, a woman jailer ordered her to undress, allegedly for a medical examination, took away her clothes, and locked her in a “box” naked. At that point the men jailers began to peer through the peephole and to appraise her female attributes with loud laughs. If one were systematically to question former prisoners, many more such examples would certainly emerge. They all had but a single purpose: to dishearten and humiliate.
6. Any method of inducing extreme confusion in the accused might be employed. Here is how F. I. V. from Krasnogorsk, Moscow Province, was interrogated. {This was reported by I. A. P__ev.} During the interrogation, the interrogator, a woman, undressed in front of him by stages (a striptease!), all the time continuing the interrogation as if nothing were going on. She walked about the room and came close to him and tried to get him to give in. Perhaps this satisfied some personal quirk in her, but it may also have been cold-blooded calculation, an attempt to get the accused so muddled that he would sign. And she was in no danger. She had her pistol, and she had her alarm bell.
…
18. The accused could be compelled to stand on his knees-not in some figurative sense, but literally: on his knees, without sitting back on his heels, and with his back upright. People could be compelled to kneel in the interrogator’s office or the corridor for twelve, or even twenty-four or forty-eight hours. (The interrogator himself could go home, sleep, amuse himself in one way or another-this was an organized system; watch was kept over the kneeling prisoner, and the guards worked in shifts.) What kind of prisoner was most vulnerable to such treatment? One already broken, already inclined to surrender. It was also a good method to use with women. Ivanov-Razumnik reports a variation of it: Having set young Lordkipanidze on his knees, the interrogator urinated in his face! And what happened? Unbroken by anything else, Lordkipanidze was broken by this. Which shows that the method also worked well on proud people_.
19. Then there is the method of simply compelling a prisoner to stand there. This can be arranged so that the accused stands only while being interrogated-because that, too, exhausts and breaks a person down. It can be set up in another way-so that the prisoner sits down during interrogation but is forced to stand up between interrogations. (A watch is set over him, and the guards see to it that he doesn’t lean against the wall, and if he goes to sleep and falls over he is given a kick and straightened up.) Sometimes even one day of standing is enough to deprive a person of all his strength and to force him to testify to anything at all.
…
Sleeplessness was a great form of torture: it left no visible marks and could not provide grounds for complaint even if an inspection-something unheard of anyway-were to strike on the morrow.
“They didn’t let you sleep? Well, after all, this is not supposed to be a vacation resort. The Security officials were awake too!” (They would catch up on their sleep during the day. j One can say that sleeplessness became the universal method in the Organs. From being one among many tortures, it became an integral part of the system of State Security; it was the cheapest possible method and did not require the posting of sentries. In all the interrogation prisons the prisoners were forbidden to sleep even one minute from reveille till taps. (In Sukhanovka and several other prisons used specifically for interrogation, the cot was folded into the wall during the day; in others, the prisoners were simply forbidden to lie down, and even to close their eyes while seated.) Since the major interrogations were all conducted at night, it was automatic: whoever was undergoing interrogation got no sleep for at least five days and nights. (Saturday and Sunday nights, the interrogators themselves tried to get some rest.)”
You know what, Mr Bird? I really do not think we can agree, no. Not on this.
Phil,
Sure
Jes,
When Nazis or Pol Pot are mentioned I don’t believe the images they are meant to invoke are industrious workers or yeoman farmers.
Keep spinning Sulla.
Sulla,
I thought I had phrased that in a way that would specifically exclude consideration of matters of scale. The point isn’t whether he could have used other metaphors, it is whether the ones he did use are absolutely out of bounds. If Durbin had said something like, “Our soldiers are acting like Nazis over there,” I’d agree with you. But that’s simply not what he did. He compared specific treatment of prisoners with that of odious totalitarian regimes, specifically Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, probably because they are the best-known examples of such for most americans. As for your setting a threshold of a million people killed/abused as a cutoff for Nazi/Soviet comparisons, this is just silly. Is it your contention that if some unspecified state (setting aside the US and any potential emotional involvement for a moment) were to start rounding people up into forced labor camps, and maybe executed some portion of them, as long as the numbers stayed at a few thousand (less that a million!) any comparisons to concentration camps or gulags would be inappropriate?
BTW, the “matters of scale” argument, while a potentially valid point in objecting to AI’s use of the term gulag, simply does not apply here. There is nothing in Durbin’s comments that references the relative scale of abuses. He’s clearly speaking of equivalences of quality, not quantity.
Sulla: When Nazis or Pol Pot are mentioned I don’t believe the images they are meant to invoke are industrious workers or yeoman farmers.
Your assertion that death camps or killing fields were invoked in Senator Durbin’s speech is either complete ignorance of what he actually said – which since I have provided the link to his speech several times, is culpable in itself – or a flat lie. Which?
Your assertion that he meant to invoke the death camps and the killing fields is worthy of a Karnak award, given that in his statement he makes absolutely clear how he is referring to the Nazi regime or the Pol Pot regime. Wouldn’t it be better just to read the damn statement and then (if you must) disagree with what he actually said, rather than keeping yourself in ignorance and being compelled to make stuff up?
If they’re doing it to you, as selfish as it seems it really doesn’t matter that they’re only doing it to ten thousand other people, rather than one million. They could just be doing it to you, and it would still be wrong.
That we are doing it to any, is wrong. This is not a hard concept to understand. It has been explained in words of one syllable or less. Did anyone hear what Andrew Sullivan said the other day?
“I don’t know about Hugh Hewitt, Bill Kristol or NR, but I supported this war in large part because I wanted to end torture, abuse and cruelty in Iraq. I did not support it in order, two and a half years later, to be finding specious rhetorical justifications for torture, abuse and cruelty by Americans.”
So, Sulla — why did you support it?
Larv,
“As for your setting a threshold of a million people killed/abused as a cutoff for Nazi/Soviet comparisons, this is just silly.”
Silly questions get silly answers. And I don’t see how you separate quantity from a Nazi comparison because it is the sheer scale of what they did that is so shocking and I believe if you mention them you’re intention is to shock.
Jes,
You think Durbin’s Nazi reference is in bounds, I think it was out, I’m pretty sure neither one of us is going to bring the other over to their point of view. Karnak or no I don’t see why you would mention the regimes without intending to invoke their most profound horrors.
McDuff,
I supported it because I believe we needed a larger presence in the region.
Sulla: You think Durbin’s Nazi reference is in bounds, I think it was out, I’m pretty sure neither one of us is going to bring the other over to their point of view.
Certainly not if you persist in refusing to read what Durbin actually said. Ignorance is a wonderful excuse. *shrug* I can’t make you read it for yourself, of course. But I do wonder why you refuse to.
. . . it is the sheer scale of what they did that is so shocking . . .
Ah, so it’s not that they did it at all, it’s that they did it a whole bunch of times. Usually we refer to this as “moral relativism,” and I’m to understand it’s supposed to be bad.
I supported it because I believe we needed a larger presence in the region.
So you’ll be moving over there . . . when?
(Alternate answer: What you mean “we,” Kemo Sabe?
Sulla,
…I believe if you mention them you’re intention is to shock.
Of course his intent was to shock. Truly, do you not find the revelations that we have been abusing prisoners at all shocking? Reading the account of prisoner treatment that Durbin cited, you can remain perfectly unfazed, unshocked? Your argument seems to be that because these actions are not as shocking as other historical abuses, no comparisons with those other abusers are permissible. For reasons stated above by myself an others, I think this is ridiculous. And by the way, if only crimes of the same magnitude as Hitler’s or Stalin’s permit comparisons, may I assume you were equally outraged by the Saddam/Hitler rhetoric being bandied about by the right in the runup to the Iraq war?
Phil,
Horrible deaths occur in this country every year at the hands of various sociopaths. What made the Nazi’s so vile is that a group of sociopaths got a hold of the mechanisms to an industrialized nation state and took genocide to the next level. Appropriate comparisons should reference this IMHO, not just some reprehensible acts.
I’ll move over there once our colonial offices are set up.
Larv,
Shocking and worthy of condemnation but I differ from most folks here with my faith that the administration is working to correct the abuses, they don’t and are calling for transparency. In Nazi comparisons I would certainly say Hussein was a lot closer to the mark than our treatment of the detainees but it is still off. I believe he had the will but lacked the means.
Larv: Reading the account of prisoner treatment that Durbin cited, you can remain perfectly unfazed, unshocked
Actually, as far as I can tell Sulla has consistently refused to read what Durbin actually said.
I get this from the following clues: (1) He thinks Durbin references the death camps and the killing fields, and he’d know if he’d read Durbin’s statement that this is not so.
(2) He thinks (not having read it) that Durbin must have meant to reference the death camps and the killing fields, and he’d know if he’d read Durbin’s statement that this is not so.
(3) He really doesn’t appear to be aware of the context of Durbin’s query, following the description of specific abuses documented in Guantanamo Bay by an FBI agent, asking if people hearing this would not rather associate this abuse with regimes such as the Nazis or Pol Pot than American soldiers.
I conclude that either Sulla is a hardened liar or he hasn’t read Durbin’s speech. As it would be very rude to assume he was lying to us, I have to assume he’s simply chosen to remain ignorant.
Jes,
From what I understand Durbin read an FBI agents account of abuse and said it was something he expected from a Nazi rather than an American. I don’t see how anything I’ve said doesn’t take that into account but maybe you do. Either way I’m out for the night. Gotta get a run in before game 7.
Go Pistons!
Sulla: I don’t see how anything I’ve said doesn’t take that into account but maybe you do.
You claimed (June 23, 2005 02:15 PM) that Durbin had referenced the death camps and the killing fields. If you’d read Durbin’s statement by that time, you were lying: if you hadn’t, you were asserting as fact something that wasn’t true, and hadn’t bothered to check the source material to find out if it was true. You repeated this false assertion at June 23, 2005 04:56 PM.
Heh, I didn’t really think I had to parody the whole speech to get the point across, and I still don’t. Comparing actions/comments to outrageous acts/comments, check. Backhanded ‘but I’m not saying you -reaaaally- are like them’, check. Humor…ehh, half check. It is good to know that Durbin would have gotten referred to the posting rules if he had said it here though.
DougM: It is good to know that Durbin would have gotten referred to the posting rules if he had said it here though
Of course not: Senator Durbin’s speech, as you’d know if you read it, could not have been construed as a personal attack on anyone commenting here, unlike yours.
“Of course not: Senator Durbin’s speech, as you’d know if you read it, could not have been construed as a personal attack on anyone commenting here”
Then color me mistaken, I had assumed the posting rules would encompass comments that may “have been construed as a personal attack” on our soldiers/military as well as those posting here. My mistake.
DougM: I had assumed the posting rules would encompass comments that may “have been construed as a personal attack” on our soldiers/military as well as those posting here.
You’re right about the posting rules. I can’t remember whether this is specifically in the posting rules, but it is generally understood that you don’t make sweeping attacks on whole groups of people – for example, to claim that “liberals are all stupid” or “conservatives are all evil”. So, if Durbin had made a sweeping attack on all US soldiers, you’d be right.
But you are wrong: because, as you would know if you read Durbin’s statement, he made no sweeping attack on US soldiers. As specifically as Moe Lane could have desired, he objected to torture being carried out by some US soldiers in Guantanamo Bay. And that would fall well within the posting rules.
What made the Nazi’s so vile is that a group of sociopaths got a hold of the mechanisms to an industrialized nation state and took genocide to the next level.
Along with a compliant society willing to agree to the victimization of Jews, Gyspies, homosexuals, the disabled (physically and mentally), among others, while the government appealed to the basest form of nationalist fervor and while the government sought to conjure a sense that der Volk had a right to conquer the world for themselves.
Not all Germans were like that, of course, but a compliant public aided the Nazis.
People don’t believe in the mundanity of evil any more. That’s a shame.
I unfortunately have read the speech, so you can rest your html skills at the door. If objecting to actions was all that occurred, this wouldn’t even have hit the radar. Durbin knew this, so well, he did what he did. Ignoring the impact of his statement, and the way it was made, is just as silly as getting in a huff over my little parody above. Though it does serve to show the carelessness of his words. By the way, do you really think that others who get fed this particular soundbite, will get to, or even want to, read his full statement?
DougM: I unfortunately have read the speech, so you can rest your html skills at the door.
Ah. So when you claimed that it included a sweeping attack on US soldiers, you were lying, rather than merely ignorant.
Ignoring the impact of his statement, and the way it was made
Who’s ignoring it? It was a terrific statement, and I really hope it’s effective. To put it in simple terms, Doug, I believe torture is evil and it ought to be stopped. I believe, further, that responsibility for torture lies all the way up the chain of command, among those in the military who saw it happen and failed to stop it, as well as among those who gave direct orders for torture or who signed orders to send someone away to be tortured. I believe that the further up the chain of command you go, the heavier lies the responsibility. Senator Durbin’s speech was fine, and admirable, and splendid. I hope indeed the impact was effective.
I’m sorry to see that your reaction to it was to lie.
Ah. So when you claimed that it included a sweeping attack on US soldiers, you were lying, rather than merely ignorant.
Golly gee, I’m pretty tempted to point you to the posting rules. Anyway, I was echoing your idea that my parody had included a sweeping attack on the commentors here.
PS: Doug, I think your comment (your first?) broke the posting rules. It’s not generally allowed to call other commenters, let alone Hilzoy and Charles Bird and other ObWing posters, “brain damaged, kneejerk anti-american, terrorism apologists”
I’ll let you do your own little thought experiment on who’s lying and being ignorant.
Doug,
Although he is being quite irrational on your joke I think Jes is a worthy and admirable opponent. Just my 2 cents.
Dougm
my parody
Don’t give up your day job
Sulla
JFTR, she, not he. (though she thought I was a she, but I’m actually he)
Doug, if you wish to retract and apologise for your false assertion at June 23, 2005 06:19 PM that Senator Durbin’s speech included any personal attack on American soldiers/military, I will certainly retract and apologise for my assertion that you lied.
Sulla: I think Jes is a worthy and admirable opponent. Just my 2 cents.
Thanks. You too! 🙂
Dougm,
I don’t think it’s a violation of the posting rules to point out that a given statement is a lie. Whether or not the statement Jes refers to qualifies as a lie is, I think, debatable, but the posting rules don’t forbid criticism or vituperation. As to whether it is a lie, in the comment that I think Jes had in mind, you state that …I had assumed the posting rules would encompass comments that may “have been construed as a personal attack” on our soldiers/military as well as those posting here, implying that Durbin’s statement could be so construed. I challenge you to point to any part of Durbin’s remarks that would qualify as such an attack. If his remarks can’t reasonably be construed as such, then your assertion that they can be is very, very close to a lie. As many of us have pointed out, the remarks about Nazis, Soviets and Pol Pot were clearly directed at a specific account of specific examples of prisoner mistreatment. Any attempt to read them as a personal attack on our soldiers/military is either due to a willful misreading, or, more likely, the reading of just the Nazi line out of context of the rest of the speech, specifically the precededing paragraph. You say you’ve read Durbin’s speech, so please explain to us how you’ve detected an attack on our military in his words. It reads to me more like an attack on the administration. I do hope you see the difference.
btw, Sulla, I’m pretty sure Jes is a she. And it’s not that anyone is being irrational about the joke, we all got it. Ha ha. Unfortunately, the “joke” contained a gratuitous attack on the posters here, and was also a prime example of the way Durbin’s critics have been misrepresenting his remarks. Toss us up a softball like that, of course people are going to swing at it.
Jes sez: PS: Doug, I think your comment (your first?) broke the posting rules. It’s not generally allowed to call other commenters, let alone Hilzoy and Charles Bird and other ObWing posters, “brain damaged, kneejerk anti-american, terrorism apologists”
Doug sez: Then color me mistaken, I had assumed the posting rules would encompass comments that may “have been construed as a personal attack” on our soldiers/military as well as those posting here. My mistake.
Jes sez: So when you claimed that it included a sweeping attack on US soldiers, you were lying, rather than merely ignorant.
Is it really that hard? I believe I’ll leave it at this, as I don’t know how to simplify further than I have to this point. Although I must say, it was rather more successful that I expected, I thought I was being -too- obvious in the parody.
“JFTR, she, not he.”
Really (slicks eyebrows and lowers voice).
Larv,
Gratuitous attacks are in vogue these days, especially on the senate floor.
Hey Larv,
Would you care to point to me the difference in my “joke” that contained the gratuitous attack, and Mr. Durbin’s now infamous blurb that, uhh, I guess doesn’t? By the way, softball? No way man, teeball.
Larv,
Sorry, hit post to quick there, my own JFTR, and correct me if I’m wrong cause these comments have been spread over a few days, but I don’t believe I’ve actually stated a position re: Durbin’s comments, what I have done, is 1. Make my “joke” 2. Parrot responses I recieved in regards to that “joke” about Durbin’s comments 3. Try over and over and over again to find some consistency behind Jes’ arguments in light of 1 & 2.
“JFTR, she, not he.”
Really (slicks eyebrows and lowers voice).
Also JFTR, she’s gay. 😀
Oh well, then we can cruise for chicks together.
Doug: Is it really that hard?
To retract a false statement and apologize for it? Evidently it is.
Doug: but I don’t believe I’ve actually stated a position re: Durbin’s comments
Let me remind you, then: You asserted on June 23, 2005 06:19 PM that I had assumed the posting rules would encompass comments that may “have been construed as a personal attack” on our soldiers/military as well as those posting here. So you did, in fact, state a position re: Durbin’s comments – and make a false assertion with regard to them.
Sulla: Oh well, then we can cruise for chicks together.
Duck!
Dougm,
Actually, I’ve already pointed out the difference, specifically in my post of June 23, 2005 01:17 PM. I’m pretty sure others have done the same. The difference is that Durbin pointed to specific actions as the basis for his remarks, whereas you just made a baseless smear. That you think the two comparable simply illustrates how completely you are either misreading or misrepresenting what Durbin said. Again, if you’d care to point to specific remarks here that you think qualify as anti-american and/or pro-terrorist, or that could be mistaken for such, by all means do so.
Okay, I’ll correct you. You asserted that Durbin’s remarks could be “construed as a personal attack on our soldiers/military”. This appears to be a position on those comments (i.e., that Durbins’ remarks are capable of being interpreted as such). You have still not explained just how you have derived said personal attack from his actual remarks. Might I ask again for a clarification of your thought processes here? Perhaps its obvious, and I’m just a dense, kneejerk anti-american terrorism apologist, but humor me, will ya?
Wow. I can’t believe I yet again have to point out the following…
The difference is that Durbin pointed to specific actions as the basis for his remarks, whereas you just made a baseless smear.
I doubt Ed and Kat would have liked me to fill up the comments with a parody of Durbin’s entire speech, but if thats where you’re getting confused, I can certainly oblige.
You asserted that Durbin’s remarks could be “construed as a personal attack on our soldiers/military”
Again, and again, this was me -parroting- Jes’ first response to -me-. So no, I haven’t made any judgement here about his remarks.
Doug: I doubt Ed and Kat would have liked me to fill up the comments with a parody of Durbin’s entire speech, but if thats where you’re getting confused, I can certainly oblige.
Okay, so your non-apology for the baseless smear directed at everyone who posted here amounts to “it was only a joke”? Am I reading you right?
1. Make my “joke” 2. Parrot responses I recieved in regards to that “joke” about Durbin’s comments 3. Try over and over and over again to find some consistency behind Jes’ arguments in light of 1 & 2.
I see: so everything you said since can be taken to be the disgruntlement of someone who made a comment he thought was amusing, that fell utterly flat. That does make a kind of sense.
It’s interesting that you should assume that a total stranger walking into an ongoing discussion and insulting everyone taking part would be regarded as amusing: is this how you usually try to make jokes in real life?
Again, and again, this was me -parroting- Jes’ first response to -me-.
And I hope you now realise that it would have been much better just to apologize for your initial stupid joke, rather then defensively try to claim you never really did anything wrong because you meant to be funny.
Okay, so your non-apology for the baseless smear directed at everyone who posted here amounts to “it was only a joke”? Am I reading you right?
Haha, wow, I think we’ve reached critical density. Though this is really a great bookend to your breathless ‘LIAR’ accusations and your equally strange ‘ITS ALL TRUE’ about the Durbin speech. I bow to your ability to selfparody. Toodles.
Doug, if you are under the impression that Senator Durbin was lying when he reported the FBI agent’s description of torture/abuse in Guantanamo Bay, I fear you’re beyond help.
I accept that when you insulted everyone commenting in this thread, or when you falsely accused Senator Durbin of attacking the US military, you were “only joking”.
But if you’re foolish enough to think that the US is not committing torture, I recommend to your attention this series of blog posts on this topic.
I thought that the GOP “didst protest too much” when those Durbin remarks were made on the Senate floor, then, less than 3 months later, we found out WHY the *GOP*er *PILE*-ons went ballistic! They weren’t behaving LIKE Nazis or soldiers in their gulags – they were REALLY using ACTUAL concentration camps & real gulags!
Any hyper-patriotic aliterate twits our there in the red-states still wanting to pick a fight with reality – should first spar “light contact” with Google. Here are some good starting points: Camp Siegfried, Camp Nordland, Camp Hindenburg & Camp Hindenburg – those are just 4 of the more than FIFTY NAZI YOUTH CAMPS in the America of George Bush’s youth. Rienhardt Gehlen was a Nazi spy who came to America and ran our intelligence operations. The American corporations and the Christian churches basically BUILT Hitler and his war machine from the ground up and out in every direction. The coup d’ etat against the FDR White House tells you EVERYTHING YOU’LL EVER NEED TO KNOW about the christian-corporate-conservatives here in the USA. For THAT CrAzY CoNspIrACy tHEoeY story, you’ll only have to go to The History Channel! …but you may have to cut&paste…
http://www.amazon.com/Plot-Seize-White-House-Conspiracy/dp/1602390363
Durbin
Sorry about the duplication; Id already been writing about the Durbin thing when Patrick finished and posted his piece about…
Actually, no
Charles Bird at Obsidian Wings asks: Can we agree that, no matter how the words are weaseled, putting American in…