Sebastian

Political Health Care Rationing

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–by Sebastian I realize that the UK has different ideas about free speech than the US.  So it doesn’t come as a complete shock to me that someone might be jailed for a month for sending allegedly offensive pictures of aborted fetuses to hospital staff.  (I presume that katherine wouldn’t be thrown in jail for … Read more

130% of the Whole

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–by Sebastian It is primary season in California.  As a result I have been treated to many campaign ads smashing candidate (and state treasurer) Angelides for wanting to dramatically raise taxes.  In these ads, Westley takes what is normally the Republican anti-tax position and drives it home with a long and pricey list of separate … Read more

Drug War Atrocity

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Don’t have time for an extended comment, but I’m not kidding when I use the word "atrocity".  My view on torture in general is here.  I think we ought to all be able to agree that it has no place in our society.  That said I can at least see where those who support it … Read more

Protesting for Unemployment

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The French government’s attempt to change some workplace rules has triggered some street protests.  The right-wing analysis on the issue is obvious–while some workplace rules are necessary, France takes hiring and firing flexibility to a damaging height which causes severe economic inefficiencies including high unemployment.  You can see that argument just about anywhere you read … Read more

Free Speech and Other Stuff

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–by Sebastian Holsclaw David Irving was recently sentenced to three years in prison for Holocaust denial.  The man is a moral idiot.  He is a Holocaust denier, racist and a modern Nazi sympathizer.  But he ought not be in jail.  I say that not because I respect his views in any way–they are intellectually and … Read more

Blasphemy and Religious Tolerance

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I know we have talked almost endlessly about the militant-Muslim cartoon issue.  But since I never know when to stop, I’m willing to tackle it from a slightly different angle.  Joshua Marshall, whom I almost never agree with, has an interesting take on the issue here: In any case, there is a hint of the … Read more

Pet Peeve #278

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I have a pet peeve.  I really don’t like seeing statistics misused.  They are often subtle and tricky, so I suspect that most misuse is unintentional but it still irks me. I am especially annoyed when I come across a discussion that would otherwise be interesting but which relies on sketchy statistics.  I came across … Read more

In which I propose a solution

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Kevin Drum had an interesting post about a subject I know things about: Today’s lecture on Republican pandering to special business interests concerns the soon-to-be-extinct legal doctrine known as "equitable subrogation." You’re excited already, aren’t you? Here’s the nickel explanation. Suppose you’re in a car accident and you suffer a bunch of damages: medical bills, … Read more

Narrowing the Issues on FISA

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Having read dozens of discussions on the recent NSA/FISA/Monitoring issue, I have seen all sorts of responses–both measured and wild.  I think it would be helpful to try to narrow the issues.  To help do that, I’m going to posit some hypotheticals and see if we can get agreement on them.  I’m labelling them alphabetically, … Read more

Maye and the problem with Agressive Search Warrants

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The latest compilation of research on the Maye case can be found at this post on TheAgitator.  This case solidifies my dissatisfaction with the drug war and how it has peeled away our civil rights.  A number of things really bug me about this case.  I’m not going to discuss it purely as a matter … Read more

Travesties of the Death Penalty and the Drug War

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I don’t have any moral qualms about the death penalty as a concept.  It may make me seem callous or monstrous to some, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with some vicious murderers being punished by losing their own lives.  That said, it is important to realize the extreme nature of the punishment.  … Read more

Why Lawsuits Cost Businesses Big Bucks

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–Sebastian This post is inspired by, but not directly a response to, this WashingtonMonthly post on a book by Tom Baker.  Whenever a discussion about the costs of legal insurance comes up, I get really frustrated because the focus is typically on settlements and verdicts.  Tom Baker writes: Fourth, we know that “undeserving” people sometimes … Read more

The US and Torture

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–by Sebastian Holsclaw

It has become increasingly clear that the current administration has taken a disturbingly permissive attitude toward torture.  (See here or here for further exploration of the topic).

Though it is crass to quote yourself, I’m going to reprint most of my open letter to my party, the Republican Party, from here anyway.  Then I’m going to discuss more recent developments:

There has been a drip, drip, drip that we have mostly ignored.  It does us no credit to continue.  There are many sources for this information, but the New Yorker has an excellent overview.  The Bush administration has engaged in a very troubling pattern of legitimizing torture by dramatically expanding the practice of "extraordinary rendition".  This practice essentially amounts to sending people to other countries to be tortured.  An excellent blog source for information on this practice is available on a section of ObsidianWings.  It has gotten to the point where it is obvious that this is more than a bad agent or two and it has expanded to far beyond just a few of the most hardened and obvious Al Qaeda operatives. 

I wish I could just mention the program and assume that I didn’t have to argue against it.  Unfortunately I’m not entirely sure that is true.  So before I get to what Republicans should do to stop it, I’m going to briefly outline why we should act to stop it:

Torture is wrong.  The practice of extraordinary rendition began as a classic Clintonian hairsplitting exercise in the mid 1990s to avoid the clear letter of the laws which prohibit America from using torture.  This is the kind of avoidance of the law and ridiculous semantics that we decried when employed by the Clinton administration.  It has gotten no more attractive just because Bush has decided to continue the program. 

We are torturing non-terrorists.  Perhaps some people would be willing to torture Al Qaeda members.  I’m not one of them, but perhaps some are.  The problem with that mindset is that we aren’t just torturing Al Qaeda members.  It is becoming completely obvious that some of the people being tortured are innocent.  See especially the ObsidianWings link above.  That is crazy.  There isn’t any information we are getting that could possibly justify the torture of innocent people. 

Torture is ineffective.  Torture isn’t ineffective at getting information per se. It is ineffective at getting useful information.  That is because the victim either snaps completely, or starts trying to mold his story to fit what the torturer wants to hear.  There is evidence that we have relied on information obtained through torture, only to find that it was very wrong. 

Torture also opens us up to the legitimate criticism that we are acting out the very barbarism that we want to fight.  I think as Republicans we have heard that charge so many times employed against practices where the analogy was completely inappropriate, that we have become inured to the charge when properly employed.  This is a case where the charge has force.   Go watch the Nick Berg Beheading Video and then imagine the blood pouring from his neck being just like the blood oozing from the fingers of an innocent torture victim sent to his fate by the CIA.  That is the barbarism we are fighting, and that is the barbarism we must not become a part of.  I know we have heard the charge that we are acting "just like them" thrown at us over trivial concerns like suggesting that we pay a bit more attention to visa-holders from other countries.  This is NOT THAT CASE.  This is the case of saying we are acting just like them because we are torturing people–acting just like them. 

Therefore extraordinary rendition is a moral sinkhole, which is being employed on people we are not sure are guilty, and which doesn’t even get good information.  It cannot be continued.

The Republican Party has spent so many years in the minority that sometimes I think we have not adjusted to the fact that we are in power.  We are in power now.  We control both Houses of Congress and we have our people throughout the administration.  We don’t need to wait for the Democrats to raise this issue.  We can’t hide behind the worry that exploring our practices is going to get a President elected who is going to retreat from Iraq.  We are the party which leads the most powerful country in the world.  And lead it we must.  President Bush must be shown that the Republican Party is not willing to stand for the perversion of our moral standards.  The Republican-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House can close the loophole which allows for extraordinary rendition and can loudly reaffirm that torture is not something we do.  We are the majority party, and we claim to be a party that cares about the moral health of the nation.  We are damning ourselves if we sit back and let it continue.  This practice is foolish in the proverbial sense of the word–it perverts our moral core and gains us nothing but the illusion of doing something important.

Since I wrote this, we have more proof that torture isn’t effective at getting good intelligence, and can in fact obtain dramatically misleading misinformation.  This is especially true because we have been copying the torture techniques of Communist countries:

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Paris is Burning

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There seems to be something nasty going on in Paris right now: "Order and justice will be the final word in our country," said Villepin, who met with top Cabinet ministers and mayors from the affected communities. "The return to calm and the restoration of public order are the priority, our absolute priority." But after … Read more

Accidental Counterpoint

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I planned this post yesterday, but the discussion it spurs might provide an interesting counterpoint to hilzoy’s most recent post.  There is an interesting paper by Jonathan Klick entitled "Mandatory Waiting Periods for Abortions and Female Mental Health".  It suggests a correlation between waiting periods for abortion and a decrease in women’s suicide.  The correlation … Read more

More New Orleans Revelations

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–Sebastian This story is old news by the standards of the current news cycle but is well worth looking into as the investigation continues (from the LATimes): The levee breaches along two major canals that flooded New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina resulted from massive soil failures under concrete storm walls, not from hurricane surges that … Read more

Now That Is Class

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Daniel Drezner should need no introduction from me, but in case you somehow missed him his excellent economics/international relations blog can be found here.  But he isn’t just brilliant, he is deeply classy.  He was just denied tenure and his response to an outpouring of condolences is here. He structures it around a great passage … Read more

Diplomacy In Action!

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–Sebastian There is talk of the diplomatic breakthrough at the recent 6-party North Korean talks.  I suspect that this deal is indeed a diplomatic model for how the world intends to deal with Iran.  Unfortunately this is another example of the modern practice of diplomacy.  Diplomacy never fails–you just let expectations free-fall until whatever you … Read more

Two Quick Thoughts

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After about 2:00 tomorrow (West Coast time) I’ll be out of touch for 4-5 days because my grandfather (blood relative, not my Japanese grandpa) died and I’m flying to Bozeman, Montana for the funeral.  You wouldn’t believe how few flights there are into Bozeman.  So just two quick thoughts one serious and one amusing: 1.  … Read more

Aim to the Middle

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The current "Able Danger" story is interesting, but I have resisted commenting on it for the same reason I don’t comment on reports that bin Laden has been captured–initial reports on sensational subjects may differ greatly from final reports (see also "we found WMD").  But I was reading this comment thread at crookedtimber and one … Read more

Explanations and Terrorist Attacks

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–Sebastian I generally agree with Hilzoy’s recent post on justification and explanation but something vaguely nags me about it.  So of course rather than talking about what I agree with I want to talk about what I don’t agree with.  Unfortunately I can’t quite put my finger on it, so this post is going to … Read more

Balance

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–Sebastian One of my key watchwords is "balance".  For instance I believe that temperamental conservatives and temperamental liberals both have excellent things to add to society and that they need each other to be most effective.  I’m not all about splitting the middle, I’m often quite sure that there is a right and wrong answer, … Read more

Just Want to Head Off a Misunderstanding

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At washingtonmonthly, Kevin Drum writes: As a Reagan White House attorney in 1984, John G. Roberts criticized three Republican congresswomen for supporting the "radical" idea of "comparable worth" to create pay equality between men and women. ….The memo was among 5,393 pages of records released yesterday….The records showed heavy screening by the White House, with … Read more

My Last Word On Sheehan

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Smearing the mother of a killed soldier is not only awful, it is also counterproductive.  You can look at what she says–it discredits her without anything else needed: MATTHEWS:  All right.  If your son had been killed in Afghanistan, would you have a different feeling? SHEEHAN:  I don’t think so, Chris, because I believe that … Read more

NARAL Attack Ad

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NARAL has come out with the first attack ad against the Roberts nomination to the Supreme Court.  The transcript of the ad is: Narrator: Seven years ago, a bomb destroyed a women’s health clinic in Birmingham, Alabama. Emily Lyons: “The bomb ripped through my clinic and I almost lost my life. I will never be … Read more

Roberts–Interesting TidBit

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Here is an interesting bit about Supreme Court nominee Roberts: Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. worked behind the scenes for gay rights activists, and his legal expertise helped them persuade the Supreme Court to issue a landmark 1996 ruling protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation. Then a lawyer specializing in … Read more

ICE-Worth Passing On

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–Sebastian Here is a little tidbit that I’m happy to pass on even though I don’t have a cell phone (yes I know that is very disappointing Mom, but it’s still true).  The idea is that you put ICE in front of the entry of the person in your cell phone who should be contacted … Read more

This Is What Terrorists Can Do

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One of the most advantageous things about large sections of the EU is that citizens can travel from many countries to many others without having to deal with serious border controls (this is technically a non-EU function governed by the Schengen Agreement.  Open borders are great for economic trade, and as we know from the … Read more

Music Open Thread

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I’m a big fan of the Depeche Mode sound-alike band Cause & Effect.  For a number of years I’ve had a song, Illumination which I thought was Cause & Effect.  It is one of my favorite songs, but I’ve recently discovered it was really performed by a group called "Red Flag".  Anyone know anything about … Read more

Tied Directly to Al Qaeda?

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This is an interesting story: Officials tell ABC News the London bombers have been connected to an al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in the Pakistani city of Lahore. The laptop computer of Naeem Noor Khan, a captured al Qaeda leader, contained plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway system, … Read more