The National Strategy on Iraq. Actually this looks as if it has been cut-and-pasted from a PowerPoint presentation, but otherwise presented without comment*. Here’s your chance to analyze it before hilzoy has done her usual thorough dissection. Don’t wait for the back of the book to show up, give it a shot.
Month: November 2005
Books And Blogging
by hilzoy
Naomi Baron has a rather silly op-ed in the LATimes. (Short version: now that students have Google, they don’t have to read books. This threatens their ability to understand sustained arguments. Short answer: Baron is a professor. She can assign papers that require students to construct sustained arguments, and she can require drafts, which would let her tell the students exactly where they’re falling short before the paper is due.)
What makes this interesting is that Kevin Drum and Jeanne d’Arc have similar responses to this piece. Kevin Drum:
“It’s not just that I spend less time reading books, it’s that I find my mind wandering when I do read. After a few paragraphs, or maybe a page or two, I’ll run into a sentence that suddenly reminds me of something — and then spend the next minute staring into space thinking of something entirely unrelated to the book at hand. Eventually I snap back, but obviously this behavior reduces both my reading rate and my reading comprehension.
Is this really because of blogging? I don’t know for sure, but it feels like it’s related to blogging, and it’s a real problem. As wonderful as blogs, magazines, and newspapers are, there’s simply no way to really learn about a subject except by reading a book — and the less I do that, the less I understand about the broader, deeper issues that go beyond merely the outrage of the day.”
“I find that the more I read online, the less I read off. I don’t think it’s even a matter of using up my reading time. It actually destroys brain cells or something, because if I’ve been doing too much online reading, I lose the patience for following a sustained or subtle argument, or reading a complex novel. One of my reasons for frequent blogging disappearances is recovery: I need to get away from the fast and facile and let my brain heal. It actually feels like recovering a bit of humanity that I forgot I had.”
My experience is exactly the opposite of theirs.
Cunningham Resigns. Good Riddance.
by hilzoy Today, Duke Cunningham pled guilty to accepting bribes, among other things, and resigned from Congress. From the WaPo: “Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, an eight-term congressman and hotshot Vietnam War fighter jock, pleaded guilty to graft and tearfully resigned Monday, admitting he took $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors to steer business their … Read more
Intellectual Integrity Watch
by hilzoy Joe Biden wrote an editorial calling for a timetable for Iraq yesterday, and today the White House not only endorsed Biden’s plan, but claimed that it was actually Bush’s: “The White House for the first time has claimed possession of an Iraq withdrawal plan, arguing that a troop pullout blueprint unveiled this past … Read more
Alito And CAP
by hilzoy
The fact that Samuel Alito was a member of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, and cited that fact on his 1985 job application, has been in the news recently; and it occurred to me that since I was a Princeton undergraduate (class of ’81) while CAP was active, I might be able to provide some useful background on this one.
Someone Is Watching You…
by hilzoy
From the WaPo:
“The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world. The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts — including protecting military facilities from attack — to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.
The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction. The proposals, and other Pentagon steps aimed at improving its ability to analyze counterterrorism intelligence collected inside the United States, have drawn complaints from civil liberties advocates and a few members of Congress, who say the Defense Department’s push into domestic collection is proceeding with little scrutiny by the Congress or the public.
“We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a recent interview. (…)
Perhaps the prime illustration of the Pentagon’s intelligence growth is CIFA, which remains one of its least publicized intelligence agencies. Neither the size of its staff, said to be more than 1,000, nor its budget is public, said Conway, the Pentagon spokesman. The CIFA brochure says the agency’s mission is to “transform” the way counterintelligence is done “fully utilizing 21st century tools and resources.”
One CIFA activity, threat assessments, involves using “leading edge information technologies and data harvesting,” according to a February 2004 Pentagon budget document. This involves “exploiting commercial data” with the help of outside contractors including White Oak Technologies Inc. of Silver Spring, and MZM Inc., a Washington-based research organization, according to the Pentagon document. For CIFA, counterintelligence involves not just collecting data but also “conducting activities to protect DoD and the nation against espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, assassinations, and terrorist activities,” its brochure states.
CIFA’s abilities would increase considerably under the proposal being reviewed by the White House, which was made by a presidential commission on intelligence chaired by retired appellate court judge Laurence H. Silberman and former senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.). The commission urged that CIFA be given authority to carry out domestic criminal investigations and clandestine operations against potential threats inside the United States.”
This is serious.
Iraq and Vietnam: Similarities and Differences
by Charles
I know this has been ground well trod before, but former Nixon defense secretary Melvin Laird put together an informative piece, juxtaposing the history of our past involvement in Vietnam with our present involvement in Iraq. Several factors caused me to take a second look at Laird. One, he was a primary architect of Vietnamization, and then this entry stands out:
In spite of Vietnam and the unfolding Watergate affair, which threatened to discredit the entire Nixon administration, Laird retired with his reputation intact.
Such is the taint of Nixon that any of those who worked under him are viewed with hard skepticism. I knew little of Laird because I was in grade school at the time he was defense secretary, and in his own words, he has been below the radar for the last thirty years. But when someone with integrity and reasonably good judgment decides to speak up after three decades of relative silence, it’s worthy of notice:
I have kept silent for those 30 years because I never believed that the old guard should meddle in the business of new administrations, especially during a time of war. But the renewed vilification of our role in Vietnam in light of the war in Iraq has prompted me to speak out.
Iraq And Al Qaeda
by hilzoy A few days ago, Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber made a good point: “Cheney asks “Would the United States and other free nations be better off or worse off with (Abu Musab al-) Zarqawi, (Osama) bin Laden and (Ayman al-) Zawahiri in control of Iraq?” he asked. “Would be we safer or less … Read more
The Abramoff Case Widens…
by hilzoy From the WaPo: “The Justice Department’s wide-ranging investigation of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has entered a highly active phase as prosecutors are beginning to move on evidence pointing to possible corruption in Congress and executive branch agencies, lawyers involved in the case said. Prosecutors have already told one lawmaker, Rep. Robert W. Ney … Read more
Dumbest. Column. Ever.
by hilzoy
Kevin Drum warned me not to click this link, but silly me had to go ahead and click it anyways. When I did, I found one of the stupidest columns of all time. In it, David Gelernter wonders why students now are so much more career-minded than when he was in college. He thinks he’s figured it out:
“Why the big change between now and then? Many reasons. But there’s one particular reason that students seem reluctant (some even scared) to talk or think about. In those long-ago days, more college women used to plan on staying home to rear children. Those women had other goals than careers in mind, by definition. They saw learning as worth having for its own sake; otherwise why bother with a college education, if you weren’t planning on a big-deal career? (…)
In the days when many college-trained women stayed home to rear children, the nation as a whole devoted a significant fraction of all its college-trained worker-hours to childrearing. This necessarily affected society’s attitude toward money and careers. A society that applauds a highly educated woman’s decision to rear children instead of making money obviously believes that, under some circumstances, childrearing is more important than moneymaking. No one thought women were incapable of earning money if they wanted or needed to: Childrearing versus moneymaking was a genuine choice. (…)
But all that changed with feminism’s decision to champion the powerful and successful working woman. Nowadays, feminists and many liberals are delighted when women make careers in large corporations, which are still the road to riches and power in this country. (…)
In many ways, life today is a lot easier than it was in 1960. But don’t kid yourselves. The age that rated childrearing higher than money-grubbing and intellectual exploration higher than career preparation had it exactly right. We might come to miss what we had then, but we are never going back; no nation has ever sacrificed wealth for intangible spiritual satisfactions.
In some important ways, this society has made a tragic but probably inevitable (and certainly irreversible) mistake. Crying about it is senseless. Denying it is cowardly.”
Despite the scary, scary nature of this topic, I’m going to brave my deepest innermost fears and discuss it. A veritable Profile in Courage, that’s me — at least until I get around to disagreeing with Gelernter, at which point I will magically transform myself into a coward. (I’ve been drinking Polyjuice Potion again.)
Paradox
by hilzoy Via Unqualified Offerings: Julian Sanchez has a good article on torture that includes this, about apologists for torture: “Implicit in many of their arguments is the notion that there’s something contemptibly fainthearted about those who want to hew to the principles of basic decency fit for a nation that styles itself primus inter … Read more
I Love This Sentence
by hilzoy From Pharyngula, a glorious sentence to be thankful for: “This video from the BBC of slugs mating is spectacular—it’s got mucus ropes, everting male organs, entwining penises, and penises forming a translucent flower-like globe.” Before blogs, I would never, ever have encountered that sentence, and my life would have been the poorer for … Read more
Thanksgiving
by hilzoy Here is George Washington’s first Thanksgiving Proclamation. Reading it, I am struck by the unquestioned assumption that the God Washington asks us to thank is a real being: a person with a mind of his own, not the object of some sort of vague spiritual gesture. He is, moreover, a being who is … Read more
Quarantine!
by hilzoy
On October 4, President Bush said this at a press conference:
“The policy decisions for a President in dealing with an avian flu outbreak are difficult. One example: If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country, and how do you then enforce a quarantine? When — it’s one thing to shut down airplanes; it’s another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu. And who best to be able to effect a quarantine? One option is the use of a military that’s able to plan and move. And so that’s why I put it on the table. I think it’s an important debate for Congress to have.”
When he made that remark, I thought: the idea of using quarantines in the face of the threat of disease is exactly the sort of idea that might occur to some people for bad reasons, and perhaps be opposed by others for equally bad reasons, especially in the face of an emerging infectious disease. Just think back to the early 1980s, when AIDS first hit the news: there were all sorts of calls for quarantines; kids with AIDS were prevented from going to school or, in one case, allowed to sit in a glass box in the classroom; and so on and so forth. This was a completely inappropriate reaction to AIDS: for reasons that will become clear later, AIDS is a terrible candidate for quarantine. Nonetheless, they were very common then (and some people still advocate them to this day.)
It seemed to me that it would be a very good idea to write something about quarantines and the circumstances in which they can and should be used, so that as many people as possible outside fields like public health will already have thought about them before the need arises and emotions get heated. That way, there will be more people scattered about the general populace who can assess calls for quarantines if avian flu or some other new and dangerous infectious disease hits. And the more such people there are, the less likely we will be to do something stupid.
???!!!
by hilzoy [Second Update (first is at the bottom): I can’t recall posting something and regretting it so quickly. I did not mean to suggest that I knew this story to be true, or even particularly believed it, but I also had forgotten that the Mirror was the paper that broke the detainee abuse story … Read more
Scanlon Pleads. The Guilty Get Nervous. Good.
by hilzoy
From the Washington Post:
“A onetime congressional staffer who became a top partner to lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiring to bribe a congressman and other public officials and agreed to pay back more than $19 million he fraudulently charged Indian tribal clients.
The plea agreement between prosecutors and Michael Scanlon, a former press secretary to then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), provided fresh detail about the alleged bribes. The document also indicated the nature of testimony Scanlon is prepared to offer against a congressman it calls “Representative #1” — who has been identified by attorneys in the case as Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio).
Scanlon, a 35-year-old former public relations executive, faces a maximum five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but the penalty could be reduced depending on the level of his cooperation with prosecutors. His help is expected to be crucial to the Justice Department’s wide-ranging Abramoff investigation, which began early last year after the revelation that Scanlon and the lobbyist took in tens of millions of dollars from Indian tribes unaware of their secret partnership to jack up fees and split profits.
Investigators are looking at half a dozen members of Congress, current and former senior Hill aides, a former deputy secretary of the interior, and Abramoff’s former lobbying colleagues, according to sources familiar with the probe who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Because of his central role in much of Abramoff’s business, Scanlon could be a key witness in any trials that arise from the case.”
This is really, really important.
The Importance of Being Earnest
by von
I confess: it was difficult for me to read Hilzoy’s piece below, "Failures of Will."
It wasn’t that the writing was complex or convoluted: Hilzoy is a subtle thinker, but she writes with an admirable clarity. It wasn’t that the arguments are unusual or hard to grasp: her arguments are straightforward and, in places at least, well supported. And it certainly wasn’t that Hilzoy’s words made me, a war supporter, feel uncomfortable or guilty as she tried to nail my (supposed) heartfelt beliefs to a metaphorical wall.
No, it wasn’t any of that. I had trouble finishing Hilzoy’s piece because its assumptions regarding the Bush Administration and its supporters are almost impossible to me to understand. Hilzoy’s basic presumption seems to be that the Bush Administration is stupid and black hearted and that the Bush Administration’s supporters are testosterone-fueled nincompoops, easily misled by the latest shiny thing. Hilzoy’s piece appears founded on a caricature, and not a flattering one at that.
It seems to me that Hilzoy has absolutely no idea what actually motivates the folks on the "other side" of this debate. If we’re going to have a debate over the war, both sides need to know what motivates the other. Both sides need to understand that the other is not arguing from idiocy, malice, or foolishness, but actually has reasons why they believe what they believe. And that some of those reasons are good ones; and that some of these questions are hard; and that smart and decent folks can actually come to opposing opinions on the war.
I am a war supporter who agrees with Hilzoy that the Bush Administration has been negligent in its planning in Iraq. I am a war supporter who, out of disgust with the Administration, voted for John Kerry in the last election, a man who did and still does strike me as a total boob — and a silicone boob at that. I am a war supporter who believes that there can be No End But Victory in Iraq, and that victory cannot be achieved if we preemptively declare defeat.
I am a war supporter who disagrees passionately with Hilzoy’s piece.
Read on.
American Forces Should Withdraw in Six Months
by Charles
Why? Because their mission in Fallujah has been mostly accomplished. Kevin Sites, made famous for his video of an American soldier killing an Iraqi in Fallujah, interviewed U.S. Marine Colonel David Berger, and here is what Berger said about the security situation.
SITES: "Frustrating from the point that if something doesn’t get done soon there is the potential for more violence? Have you noticed anything that is manifesting that frustration?"
BERGER: "No, not at all. It isn’t at that kind of tipping point where if things don’t improve in another month it’s going to go south, no not at all. The two biggest reasons are the [Iraqi] army and the Iraqi police. We’ve spent a long time working with them — especially the army. They’re firmly entrenched here, people know, and they have a good confidence level.
"And the police are also a big factor here. … There are a thousand, maybe 1,100 police and they are on the streets every day, 24/7. The people very much trust them and look to them for security, and I think in another six months [the Iraqi police] will be in control of the whole city themselves. And the army and the rest of the military forces will continue to push out."
SITES: "You’re saying in six months the police will be able to control the whole city?"
BERGER: "If they keep on going like they’re going, yes."
SITES: "How is this police force different, which, along with the Iraqi national guard back in April 2004, turned the city over to insurgents?"
BERGER: "It’s more confident, it’s more highly trained, and that makes all the difference in the world. There’s still a lot of perception that some of the police have too much loyalty to certain parts of the city, and won’t be objective as law enforcement parties. But I think the police chief and the leadership he has selected is key to making sure that doesn’t happen. He has even established an internal affairs-type section that roots out — just like any police force does — those people that are working both sides.
"The big difference is training, absolutely. And there are a lot of little things, like in any military law enforcement: uniforms, discipline, holding people accountable. Those things didn’t exist eight or 10 months ago; now they do."
SITES: "In the year since the battle for Fallujah, have you been successful in keeping the insurgents from returning, and also keeping the weapons flow out?
BERGER: "Yes. I don’t just think so. Statistically, when you look at it, there’s no question."
SITES: "Is there an ambient level of violence that’s always there?"
BERGER: "Yes, I’m sure there is. It’s higher than I’d like. But because the control points in the city are manned so efficiently, there’s always an influx that’s going to get through, but the cordon and containment is good. There’s going to be some that get through but it’s absolutely manageable. And it’s so small that there is not going to be a buildup in the city."
Emphasis mine. The only problem that I can see is that this type of information is reported in a blog and not by the Bush administration and not by the mainstream media. Fallujah isn’t solved, partly because we have not released funds to help restore its economy, but what a difference a year makes. A valid reason for troop reductions is that there are enough Iraqi forces sufficiently trained to do the job in the stead of coalition forces. There will be troop reductions in 2006, and why not. By August of next year, there will be 270,000 trained Iraqis to do it. For those looking mainstream media fatcats looking for tipping points, perhaps they can cast their eyes at the critical mass of trained native troops available to do the job.
Is al-Zarqawi Dead?
OK, so even ABC’s evening news is reporting that, to paraphrase an AP story, there are efforts under way to determine if terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead in Mosul where eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight, and three insurgents detonated explosives and killed themselves to avoid capture, suggesting an … Read more
Wanna Win the War? Sacrifice Bush
by Edward
As seems to have become my habit recently, I wrote this post before reading Hilzoy’s preceding post. What a freakin’ brilliant effort that is, I must say. I could not agree with her more and only offer these paltry-by-comparison observations because eventually I let myself dare dream one step past her assessment.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Three things I’ve read recently have led me to believe that Iraq is defnitely lost unless there’s some way to change the President. First was the manifesto at No End But Victory:
This is not a partisan issue. This is not a left- or right-wing issue. This is an American and Iraqi issue, and all men of good faith must now come together to remind our leadership that whatever our politics, and whatever we thought of the decision to go to war, there can be only one end:
Victory.
I disagree with much of the text before and after this excerpt, but I believe this part is indeed the case. Victory in Iraq will require a united effort of Americans, left and right, and although I opposed invading Iraq for too many reasons to list, once we were in, I knew failure was not an option we could allow ourselves to become resigned to. Not if we want the world to become safer. Letting Iraq descend into Civil War would make us less safe than we currently are. We must keep that fact foremost in our minds when formulating our future plans.
The second thing I read was Frank Rich’s column in today’s New York Times. It’s available to subscriber’s only, but I’ll quote the relevant bits (I’ve retyped this from the print version…please forgive any typos):
Only since his speech about "Islamo-fascism" in early October has Mr. Bush started trying to make distinctions between the "evildoers" of Saddam’s regime and the Islamic radicals who did and do directly threaten us. But even if anyone was still listening to this president, it would be too little and too late. The only hope for getting Americans to focus on the war we can’t excape is to clear the decks by telling the truth about the war of choice in Iraq: that it is making us less safe, not more, and that we have to learn from its mistakes and calculate the damange it has caused as we reboot and move on.
Mr. Bush is incapable of such candor.
I ultimately want to disagree with Mr. Rich that we’re on our way of out Iraq. I’m holding tight to the hope that something can turn this around, but I agree with his assessment that clearing the decks–that is, changing the narrative and thus the public opinion that’s increasingly against the effort–requires telling the truth about the war.
Finally, I read David Brook’s column in today’s New York Times (also only by subscription online). Mr. Brook’s offered the most sobering, yet ultimately most optimistic information on what changing public opinion will take:
As a survey by the Pew Research Center suggests, most journalists and most academics think the war is unwinnable….. When you talk to serious, nonpartisan experts with experience on the ground, you find that most think the war is at least a 50-50 proposition. Everyone I’ve spoken to, given the consequences of bugging out, believes that it is therefore worth struggling on.
That’s the sobering part…what was optimistic was the part I left out of that quote:
[B]ut 64 percent of military officers believe the U.S. can prevail.
Now, while that perception might be wishful thinking or a misguided example of the sort of can-do attitude that makes our military the superior organization is, it’s also possible that it’s the professional assessment of folks who’ve spent their lives in the business of such things. I’m hoping it’s the latter.
Failures Of Will
by hilzoy
“I’m quite sure that one never makes fundamental mistakes about the thing one really wants to do. Fundamental mistakes arise out of lack of genuine interest. In my opinion, that is.”
“I made a very big mistake once,” said Harriet, “as I expect you know. I don’t think that arose out of a lack of interest. It seemed at the time the most important thing in the world.”
“And yet you made the mistake. Were you giving all your mind to it, do you think? Your mind? Were you really being as cautious and exacting about it as you would be about writing a passage of fine prose? (…) One always makes surface errors, of course. But a fundamental error is a sure sign of not caring.”
— Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night
I have always thought that this statement is both true and very important, though there are two exceptions to it. First, it is true of some things (like philosophy) that getting the fundamentals right is very difficult, and in those cases, I don’t think it’s true that if you really care about something, you won’t make fundamental errors. You just won’t make careless ones.
Second, and more interestingly, I think that there are some people who just don’t see that really caring about something requires thinking about it very, very clearly. Admittedly, it’s hard to see how someone could not see that unless there were a deep problem with his understanding of his relationship to the world; but there are people who have such problems. Imagine, for instance, someone who, as a child, got everything he wanted just by screaming, and who was either sufficiently incurious not to want things he couldn’t get this way, or sufficiently impatient not to stick with the actual thinking long enough to get what he wanted. A person like that might just not see that when you really, really want to achieve something, you really need to think clearly about how to get it. In him, “wanting something” would involve not bending all his effort and his will to achieving it, but screaming more and more loudly at the world.
We could debate whether or not to say that such a person is capable of caring about anything; and that debate would be, in certain respects, like one I used to have with my co-workers when I used to work at the battered women’s shelter, about whether or not many abusive husbands loved their wives. On the one hand, they certainly felt something towards them, and that feeling had something in common with love. They could be wildly romantic; they needed their wives desperately; they were terrified of losing them. On the other hand, however, there was the plain fact that no feeling that regularly results in a man’s slamming his wife’s head into the wall could possibly be love. We usually ended up concluding that they felt something that was the closest thing to love that they were capable of feeling; but that it wasn’t close enough. I feel similarly about people whose version of “caring about things” does not involve at least trying to think clearly about them.
Otherwise, however, I think that it is absolutely true that if you really want something, you will not make fundamental or careless mistakes about it. And this is a test of how much people do want something: are they careless about the task of getting it, or do they work for it as carefully, as thoughtfully, and as hard as they possibly can?
With that as preface, I want to turn to Charles’ claim that “success [in Iraq] ultimately depends on our will to prevail”. I have always thought that transforming Iraq from a dictatorship into a functioning democracy would be incredibly difficult under the best of circumstances, and therefore that however much will and resources we brought to the table, we would also need an awful lot of luck. But I also think that we have had several tremendous failures of will. If we fail, these will be a very large part of the reason. If we succeed, it will be despite the fecklessness of those who “fear not defeat, nor dishonor, nor an Iraq under the terrorist heel” (to quote Josh Trevino.)
So herewith, a catalog of some of the failures of will that got us to this point.
Yo!
You know you want to. So be brave! Dare to donate!.
Department of Huh?
by hilzoy
Haymaker
You are one of life’s enjoyers, determined to get the most you can out of your brief spell on Earth. Probably what first attracted you to atheism was the prospect of liberation from the Ten Commandments, few of which are compatible with a life of pleasure. You play hard and work quite hard, have a strong sense of loyalty and a relaxed but consistent approach to your philosophy.
You can’t see the point of abstract principles and probably wouldn’t lay down your life for a concept though you might for a friend. Something of a champagne humanist, you admire George Bernard Shaw for his cheerful agnosticism and pursuit of sensual rewards and your Hollywood hero is Marlon Brando, who was beautiful, irascible and aimed for goodness in his own tortured way.
Sometimes you might be tempted to allow your own pleasures to take precedence over your ethics. But everyone is striving for that elusive balance between the good and the happy life. You’d probably open another bottle and say there’s no contest.
What kind of humanist are you? Click here to find out.
— Excuse me? It’s a really fun quiz, and it asks really interesting questions, and, yes, I did choose a vacation in a large house in Tuscany with a pool and all my friends and family over retracing Darwin’s voyage to the Galapagos, and no, my idea of the perfect garden is not rectilinear, and yes, I do have fun, but: this is the most inaccurate summary of my personality anyone has ever come up with. I was not attracted to atheism, or anything else, by the prospect of liberation from the Ten Commandments. If I don’t see the point of abstract principles, I’m not sure who does. I mean, for heaven’s sake, I’m a Kantian moral philosopher! I loathe both Shaw and Brando (well, maybe not the very young Brando.) But my favorite actor is Alan Rickman, and as for people I admire, there are lots of them, but tinny playwrights with thin reedy philosophies are not among them.
Sheesh.
On the other hand, do you think the sexiest man alive would be more likely to appear in my living room if I were a haymaking Kantian? If so, I’ll just have to curl up with Saint Joan.
Consider this an open thread.
Bush Has Lied
by Edward
UPDATE: Apologies to Hilzoy for not realizing earlier I was using the same article she deconstructed in her excellent post here to illustrate my point.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What any thinking person watching the debate over the veracity of how the Iraq invasion was sold must conclude at this point is that, as Wolfowitz suggested, what we’re really debating is a matter of emphasis. If you believe all the talk of mushroom clouds is fair rhetorical game, then you’ll probably insist the President didn’t lie. He merely overdramatized the case. If on the other hand, you believe sending troops into battle is not something a president has the wiggle room to be "technically" or "arguably" correct about, but rather should aspire to a much higher standard, then you’ll probably insist the President did lie. He knew he was overselling the case, but did it anyway.
The White House has recently taken to saying that the "Democrats have lied" (video) about Bush lying in the lead up to the war. This lets them turn the charge around in a short, pithy sound bite. Whether it will play or not remains to be seen. But since the White House itself has started calling people liars, let’s look at whether calling Bush a "liar" is libel or simply calling them like we see them?
We’ve beaten selling the war to death, with most folks who support Bush insisting it’s time to move on and win the war (although I’d still love to hear what that will look like). But we’re still fighting the war, so both sides should agree that how we’re fighting it is fair game for debate. I’d hope both sides would also agree that whether the President is lying about how we fight it is important as well.
A report by ABC out today suggests what any thinking person watching must conclude at this point is that no manner of emphasis will clear the President from charges that he lied to the public about whether or not the US tortures people:
False Economies
by hilzoy Suddenly, the Republicans have decided that all new spending has to be paid for in budget cuts. So what new spending have they decided to delay? From Reuters, via Effect Measure: “World health experts said they expected to see more human bird flu infections in China, even as the U.S. Congress stalled funding … Read more
Still More Torture
by hilzoy
From ABC (h/t Katherine):
“Harsh interrogation techniques authorized by top officials of the CIA have led to questionable confessions and the death of a detainee since the techniques were first authorized in mid-March 2002, ABC News has been told by former and current intelligence officers and supervisors.
They say they are revealing specific details of the techniques, and their impact on confessions, because the public needs to know the direction their agency has chosen. All gave their accounts on the condition that their names and identities not be revealed. Portions of their accounts are corrobrated by public statements of former CIA officers and by reports recently published that cite a classified CIA Inspector General’s report. (…)
The CIA sources described a list of six “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” instituted in mid-March 2002 and used, they said, on a dozen top al Qaeda targets incarcerated in isolation at secret locations on military bases in regions from Asia to Eastern Europe. According to the sources, only a handful of CIA interrogators are trained and authorized to use the techniques:
1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.
2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.
3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.
4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.
5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.
6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.
According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda’s toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.
“The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law,” said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.”
Great. And, as others have said before, it doesn’t even work:
I Guess There’s A First Time For Everything…
by hilzoy But I never, ever thought there would be a first time for this: I agree with one of People Magazine’s picks for ‘Sexiest Man Alive’. Until today, my track record for finding these picks incomprehensible was unbroken. Mel Gibson? Feh. Tom Cruise? Please. This year’s top pick, Matthew McConaughey? Eww. I thought it … Read more
Murtha’s Loser-Defeatist Policy
by Charles
First off, Congressman John Murtha is a veteran who served his country honorably. I assume he loves the United States of America every bit as much as I do. So in this criticism–and it’s a rigorous criticism–I am not questioning his patriotism. What I am questioning is his judgment. More specifically, his political judgment. Not just what he said, but when he said it. Murtha is wrong. Dead wrong. Horrendously wrong. Calamitously wrong.
Murtha raised the white flag over eighteen months ago when he said this war was unwinnable. Instead of employing the sustained will necessary for victory, Murtha embodies the sustained wilt that leads to failure. The stakes could not be higher. A defeat in Iraq would be monumentally worse than our bust in Vietnam. We as a country cannot allow defeat to happen and I cannot allow Murtha’s words go without challenge. Why is he wrong? There are many reasons.
Amazing
by hilzoy NYT: “A North Carolina man who was charged yesterday with accepting kickbacks and bribes as a comptroller and financial officer for the American occupation authority in Iraq was hired despite having served prison time for felony fraud in the 1990’s. The job gave the man, Robert J. Stein, control over $82 million in … Read more
Let’s Rock And Roll!
by hilzoy
Enough with the serious stuff. Here, via Steve Clemons, is the worst right-wing rock I think I have ever heard. It’s called ‘Bush Was Right’, by, well, the Right Brothers. You must, must, listen to the sample. Just do it. I’ve posted the lyrics on the flip, so you can sing along. And you will surely want to. Heh heh.
Seriously, though, I think the left writes much better right-wing music than the right does. Just think of the songs in Bob Roberts: the wonderful ‘thump-ada thump-ada’ bass behind these lyrics:
“Some people are rich
Some people are not
But they complain and complain and complain and complain and complaaaaaaiin!”
Or the plaintive, Stevie-Nicks-imitates-Joan-Baez folkie singing:
“We are marching for the children
We are marching for the poor
We are marching for self-interest
We’ll march forever more…”
(if you haven’t seen Bob Roberts, you must. The world-view is a bit wacky and conspiratorial for my taste, but the music is great. Plus, you get to see Alan Rickman, playing a campaign manager accused of swindling an S&L and a charity while running drugs for the CIA, decline to answer questions about this, and then bark: Excuse me; I have to go pray.”)
So here’s the deal: if anyone wants to write a parody right-wing rock song, do it. Better still, if anyone wants to record a parody right-wing song (paging xanax), do it, put it on the web somewhere, and post the link. If you don’t have space, email the music file to me (within reasonable limits), and (since I have some space on my .mac account) I’ll host it and link to it here. We cannot allow the unintentional self-parodies of the right to go unanswered. Best entry wins a virtual gold star.
Requiem
by hilzoy
As Katherine noted last night, the Senate approved the compromise Graham/Levin/Kyl amendment that she wrote about the night before. Like Katherine, I don’t know what to make of it, beyond the following obvious points. First, it’s a lot better than the original Graham amendment. I think that this improvement had a lot to do with the pressure brought to bear by people who were outraged. Anyone who called or wrote contributed to this, and can feel proud, as can those who worked behind the scenes in other ways.
This is how democracies are maintained: not just by having (for instance) a bill of rights and a democratic constitution, but by having free citizens who work to protect those rights even when they are not personally affected. By working to block this amendment, all of you have helped to make it true that we are not a country where fundamental rights can be stripped away without anyone bothering to raise his or her voice. Moreover, I would imagine that each of us has learned something about what habeas corpus is and why it matters. (I know I have.) This makes it that much less likely that the next time around, people will be able to succeed in curtailing it. And this matters immensely: democracies are maintained by the free choices of free citizens to protect the freedoms they enjoy, and everyone who fought this has acted as free citizens should.
On the other hand, this bill is worse than the status quo ante, since it strips the detainees of habeas corpus. Habeas petitions were not “clogging” the court system: if our courts are so fragile that fewer than two hundred petitions can bring them to their knees, then we really, really need to appoint more judges. And habeas matters. It matters a lot. As a sort of requiem for this whole thing, I’m going to write what would have been my next post in the series had I not been incredibly busy for the last two days, as the last of my habeas stories.
In the comments to an earlier post, someone thought that I was using O.K. as a “poster boy” for habeas corpus. I wasn’t: I was tracking down the stories Graham used, and in O.K.’s case I tried to make it clear that he was accused of doing serious things, and that his goodness or badness seemed to me to have nothing to do with whether or not his allegations should be investigated. The case I am about to describe, however, is a poster child for habeas corpus. The detainees involved have been found innocent by the government’s own tribunals. They are asking the government to explain why they are still being detained. This is exactly what habeas corpus is all about. It is also a case that cannot be brought under the new compromise bill; and that is a disgrace.
The Case for Victory
by Charles While it’s important to revisit errors past in order to not repeat them, we are where we are. The place we’re at right now is the middle of rebuilding Iraq, trying to defeat terrorists and Sunni paramilitary squads and trying to usher in a free, peaceful, non-theocratic representative republic. Improvements to our strategy … Read more
World’s Greatest Deliberative Body
by Katherine
At 12:06 today the Senate voted down Bingaman’s revised amendment, 44-54. Republicans voting for: Specter, Smith, Sununu, Chafee. Democrats voting against: Bayh, Conrad, Lieberman, Ben Nelson. Not voting: Alexander, Corzine.
At 12:30 today the Senate approved the Graham-Levin-Kyl substitute amendment, 84-14. I originally assumed when I saw the count that the 14 votes were the hard core outraged-by-the-outrage crowd, since after all this substituted for an even worse amendment. I was wrong about that. If you look at the list–Baucus, Biden, Bingaman, Byrd, Dayton, Durbin, Feingold, Harkin, Kennedy, Lautenberg, Leahy, Rockefeller, Sarbanes, Specter–it’s clearly a protest vote by senators who simply would not put their names on any bill to strip habeas.
Last night I mentioned six senators as being especially engaged and trustworthy on the torture issue: Bingaman, Durbin, Feingold, Kennedy, Leahy, Levin. I said that when you didn’t really know what was going on, you could do worse than following their and their staffs’ leads. Five of them seem to have felt they could not support this amendment, even though it replaced an even worse one. The other is Levin, and I guess he felt that he had to vote for the compromise he arranged.
At 12:50 today the Senate passed S. 1042, the defense appropriations bill that all these amendments concerned, unanimously.
So. What the hell happened? And what will it mean for the people in Guantanamo?
No one seems to know. I mean that quite literally: I don’t think there is a single person in the country who could tell you with any confidence what effect this bill will have. Marty Lederman lists just a few of the open questions here.
Most of the people who could make the best guess at what this will mean don’t want to talk about it. It’s too late to fix it now. If they point out how it could be worse, the conference commitee will make it worse. If they point out how bad it could be, the administration will use their arguments against them later on in court, when it’s arguing for the most draconian interpretation possible.
The standard cliche at this point is to talk about how making laws is like making sausages–you’ll feel a lot better if you don’t see how it actually happens. But according to my Joy of Cooking,
If sausage has the vestiges of a murky reputation in this country, it is probably because of our long-held (and usually mistaken) belief that sausage is made from "parts"–not just various internal organs but the ears, lips, or tails of animals. Most of what is available in America today, no matter what its ethnic origins, is made from nothing more than meat, fat, and spices–and the commercial sausage industry is highly regulated.
So, apparently the comparison would be unfair to sausages. People are looking for other imagery. The prize so far goes to Gita Gutierrez of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who told Newsday: "On the back of a cocktail napkin they have tossed aside protections of individual liberty that have been in existence for centuries."
The Case for War (Sans Smoke and Mirrors)
by Edward
Take out all the rhetoric…take out the insinuation…take out implied connections and hyperbole, and what do you have left? What exactly was the case for invading Iraq? If the administration had made the case for war without any exaggeration, what would they have had at their disposal to convince the nation to back an invasion?
To compare what we heard with what we now know was known at the time, here’s an honest effort to provide the facts as understood by the administration about the time Bush made his speech outlining the threat and laid the groundwork for his case for war at the Cincinnati Museum Center (October 7, 2002), a point at which it’s clear he thinks we should invade. There are possibly some anachronistic "facts" in here, but I don’t think so.
What would we have heard had Bush made the case for war using the cold-hard truth? Perhaps something like this…
McCain Emergent
by Charles Because the president has been an Occasional Communicator, he has painted himself into a political corner, especially now that he has lost degrees of support from conservatives, myself included. Harriet Miers was the latest ratchet in my movement of separation from George W. Bush. He gets some credit for recently standing up and … Read more