Month: June 2004

“Terrorists are not POWs by ANY international legal precedent. ALL of the prisoners at Gitmo AND Abu Ghraib fail the test. They are not uniformed members of organized State-sponsored regular military units with an established recognizable chain of command. In World War II and Korea such free lancers were routinely treated to summary execution as saboteurs, spies and provocateurs. And what you think you see in those photos from Abu Ghraib are MOSTLY humiliation techniques — albeit done gleefully by oafish ghouls who are being punished. You seem to mistake this for a law enforcement endeavor like most Democrats. Containment did not end the Cold War and has not served us well in the War on Terror. Preemption is the only viable strategy for success. Humiliating a few cutthroats in order to preempt the death of another Westerner does not bother me in the least. The enemy repeatedly refers to this as a jihad. You need to understand what that means for your kith and kin. You can’t be a hawk on the war and then selectively shrink from the bloodshed inflicted by our side, and from the non-violent coercive means of extracting useful information from TERRORISTS. You are not in a position to critique the proceedings from any base of personal experience; and your knowledge of military history is apparently nil. But there you go trying to hamstring the experts. Makes you a chicken hawk from where I sit.” My favorite phrase from this email is “non-violent coercive means.” Like what happened to Sean Baker in an exercise? And even “unlawful combatants” are supposed to be treated humanely. Murdering them doesn’t fall into that category, in my book. But what do I know? And yes, I can support a war but criticize illegal torture – which ultimately undermines that war. And no, it’s difficult to be a “chicken-hawk” when the military bars any gay patriots from serving in the first place.

You can’t sum up Gallic indifference to reform in the Arab world better than this:

“There is no ready-made formula for democracy readily transposable from one country to another. Democracy is not a method, it is a culture. For democracy to take root solidly and durably in the Arab world, it must be an Arab democracy before all else.”

And where would the model for that be? Of course, the model for Arab democracy has to be imported to some extent. I think Chirac is getting worried that Iraq might blaze a trail. And what would that say about France’s historic support for tyranny and colonialism in the region?

The lame responses by John Ashcroft to the evidence in leaked memos that the Bush administration condoned torture with the personal approval of the president are damning. It’s even more damning that Ashcroft will not release a critical memo, prepared by his department, making the point that some forms of torture, if approved by the president, would not be illegal. I’m hoping to write at length about this, but let me say one thing. I should have spoken up earlier. The signs were there – including the decision to ignore the Geneva Conventions with regard to al Qaeda in Guantanamo. In a very small number of cases, this might have been a debatable question. But what we have clearly seen is a green light from the very top condoning at best mistreatment and abuse of prisoners of war in a whole slew of cases. We’ll see as more facts emerge what the truth is. But the brutality of U.S. forces against prisoners in their care and custody is now public record – and a permanent mark of shame for the United States.

BAKER AND ASHCROFT: Take the case of Specialist Sean Baker. He was permanently wounded by other U.S. soldiers in a simulated exercize where his fellow soldiers assumed he was an Iraqi or a terrorist. Here’s what happened:

“They grabbed my arms, my legs, twisted me up and unfortunately one of the individuals got up on my back from behind and put pressure down on me while I was face down. Then he – the same individual – reached around and began to choke me and press my head down against the steel floor. After several seconds, 20 to 30 seconds, it seemed like an eternity because I couldn’t breathe. When I couldn’t breathe, I began to panic and I gave the code word I was supposed to give to stop the exercise, which was ‘red.’ … That individual slammed my head against the floor and continued to choke me. Somehow I got enough air. I muttered out: ‘I’m a U.S. soldier. I’m a U.S. soldier.'”

Baker went on to have seizures and permanent brain injury. The military, after lying, now concedes that his injuries were a result of intentional physical violence. Now ask yourself: what if he were not a U.S. soldier? Would he be dead like several other prisoners under U.S. supervision? The evidence of American-sanctioned torture and abuse of prisoners is mounting. It seems to me that those of us who support this war should be most outraged. This administration has violated the Geneva Conventions – not just in a few cases, but across the board. It has erased some of the distinction between who we are and what the enemy is, a distinction central to the moral case for this war. It has done so secretly and with no public debate, resting on the notion that presidents are somehow above the law (or can get legal advice from a pliant Justice Department telling them that the law doesn’t count). Ashcroft still won’t release unclassified documents pertinent to the matter. Why not? What is he hiding?

KERRY’S LEAD WIDENS: I don’t think this has anything to do with Kerry. It has to do with a collapse of confidence in the president’s competence. I’m unsurprised.

Sorry to continue about this, but I just got sent the following transcript of a press conference by Larry Speakes, presidential spokesman, on October 15, 1982. It speaks for itself:

Q: Larry, does the President have any reaction to the announcement from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases?
MR. SPEAKES: What’s AIDS?
Q: Over a third of them have died. It’s known as “gay plague.” (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it’s a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the President is aware of it?
MR. SPEAKES: I don’t have it. Do you? (Laughter.)
Q: No, I don’t.
MR. SPEAKES: You didn’t answer my question.
Q: Well, I just wondered, does the President …
MR. SPEAKES: How do you know? (Laughter.)
Q: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?
MR. SPEAKES: No, I don’t know anything about it, Lester.
Q: Does the President, does anyone in the White House know about this epidemic, Larry?
MR. SPEAKES: I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s been any …
Q: Nobody knows?
MR. SPEAKES: There has been no personal experience here, Lester.
Q: No, I mean, I thought you were keeping …
MR. SPEAKES: I checked thoroughly with Dr. Ruge this morning and he’s had no – (laughter) – no patients suffering from AIDS or whatever it is.
Q: The President doesn’t have gay plague, is that what you’re saying or what?
MR. SPEAKES: No, I didn’t say that.
Q: Didn’t say that?
MR. SPEAKES: I thought I heard you on the State Department over there. Why didn’t you stay there? (Laughter.)
Q: Because I love you Larry, that’s why (Laughter.)
MR. SPEAKES: Oh I see. Just don’t put it in those terms, Lester. (Laughter.)
Q: Oh, I retract that.
MR. SPEAKES: I hope so.
Q: It’s too late.

Nothing I could write could be more damning than this, could it?

WILL SAUDI ARABIA SURVIVE? A useful analysis from the indispensable Belmont Club.

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “The rhetoric is principally used by political and religious leaders to galvanize resistance to what Palestinian Arabs consider to be the patent persecution of their people by Jewish immigrants to the Middle East… As unquestionably hate-filled and thus morally reprehensible as such language is, when Palestinians refer to Jews as ‘descended from apes and swine’ or encourage support for those who ‘kill Jews,’ they do so with the reasonably justifiable self-image of victim and persecuted, not of victimizer and persecutor.” – Scott Alexander, a Chicago researcher in Mideast studies, in expert testimony in the trial of Fawaz Mohammed Damra, a Muslim cleric in Cleveland.

P.J. hits some homers in his latest Atlantic piece. Money quote:

[Ann] Coulter begins her book thus:

“Liberals have a preternatural gift for striking a position on the side of treason. You could be talking about Scrabble and they would instantly leap to the anti-American position. Everyone says liberals love America, too. No they don’t. Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy.”

Now, there’s a certain truth in what she says. But it’s what’s called a “poetic truth.” And it’s the kind of poetic truth best conveyed late in the evening after six or eight drinks while pounding the bar. I wasn’t in a bar. I was in my office. It was the middle of the day. And I was getting a headache.

Ah, yes. Modern populist conservatism. O’Reilly is another case. When I listen to him blather on, I’m reminded of a drunk Irish uncle at Christmas, who can’t shut up and cannot be argued with. Switch him off.

WRITERS’ BLOCK: A lovely Joan Acocella essay in the current New Yorker. I certainly think “writer’s block” is essentially b.s. But then I have written a quarter of a million words on this blog this year alone. I’m sure there are plenty of you out there who wish I had a bit of writers’ block. Sorry, guys.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “The email you got about mini bottles in South Carolina was absolutely incorrect. I lived in SC, too, and can tell you that, ironically, the use mini bottles there originated with the intent to limit free pours. It was the temperance crowd that wanted them. The great irony now is that the same folks want to get rid off them because, as the emailer pointed out, mixed drinks are so strong in SC since entire mini bottles are used in them, effectively meaning much more alcohol than usual in, say, your black russian. You can find this history easily with a quick search, but here’s one source.
Anyway, the laws were NOT designed to protect the drinker, but to limit consumption. Why the bother over the details? Well, I went to Bob Jones University and the attending the school practically drove me away from Christianity. I know how much the religious right affects things there, having lived there for a good 15 years.
I lived in Greenville, SC, which I believe is still the only city in the United States which denies its county employees the right to celebrate MLK day.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.

The last couple of words. Here’s an email from Bob Roehr, one of the best gay journalists who has long covered HIV:

To my mind, the important questions concern whether the role that the President plays or doesn’t play has a long-term impact on the course of the epidemic. I think that in most cases it does not.
In the 1980s activists made the case that Presidential leadership, a greater sense of urgency, and the spending of more money could have a dramatic impact on the course of the epidemic. Their arguments were focused on “a cure” for those already infected, with prevention being a decidedly secondary note. From the perspective of time, and with different leadership and the expenditure of vast sums of money, it has become clear, at least to me, that the crucial issues with regard to a cure and an all-important vaccine are scientific ones that still have not been resolved despite applying all of that time, effort, and resources to them. I have little reason to believe that a different course of action by Reagan would have significantly altered the scientific state of knowledge. And those who continue to throw those charges against him only do that, they build no plausible scientific case.
The one area where leadership has made a difference in selected countries is in prevention activities, and the Reagan administration can be faulted there. BUT that was not the core of the activists’ case against Reagan, it was the “cure.” Furthermore, knowledge of HIV and how to avoid contracting it has been widespread within American society for a very long time, dating at least from the mass mailing by Reagan Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, yet people still continue to become infected. We all know that there is a very large element of personal responsibility in the transmission of new infections, a fact that too many activists continue to downplay.
If the activist case against Reagan were valid, then it would be equally valid to lay medical successes at the feet of the sitting President. When was the last time that Eisenhower got credit for the miraculous polio vaccine? The fact is, we give credit to those who actually do the work or significantly impede it. With the benefit of a longer course of history, it is clear that Reagan did little of either. I feel that the news coverage is largely justified.

I tend to agree. For the record: Reagan didn’t give me HIV. Another gay man did, with my unwitting consent. I did practise safer sex, but it obviously failed. That is my responsibility and bad luck – no one else’s. But it is equally true that Reagan’s silence for so long was inexcusable. He was silent because he and Bill Bennett and Gary Bauer believed that gay lives were not worth as much as straight ones. There is no other explanation. If an epidemic had broken out affecting, say, elderly women, is it conceivable Reagan would have said nothing for four and a half years? Nope. In my practical defense of the Reagan administration, I do not mean to provide a moral defense. As even Jesse Helms came to realize, there is none.

A mystery deepens. “Got To Get You Into My Life” was about pot?

IN DEFENSE OF GLUTTONY: A truly wonderful little gem of moral reasoning – buried in the New York Times Magazine.

Bunnified in 30 seconds. If you need to procrastinate …

“As a yankee who lived in South Carolina for almost four years, I find the idea of a theocratic republic of South Carolina – especially one with stricter liquor laws – quite amusing (since of course I don’t take it seriously).
Did you realize that SC is the only state in the union where liquor laws are designed to protect the drinker? At least as of five years ago, when I lived there —
SC was the only “mini bottle” state. This means when you order a mixed drink at a bar, it’s poured not out of a fifth bottle, but from an airplane-style mini bottle. That’s so you know you’re getting a full draw of non-diluted spirits. (Actually, more than full: a mini bottle holds more than a shot of alcohol, so your G&T will be extra heavy on the G.)
Also, SC was the only state where there is no per se limit on blood alcohol content for DWI. Which means that if you can keep it together while blowing a 1.5, say, then you aren’t breaking the law. (The problem here, of course, is your SC state trooper, who may or may not have it in for you. As much as I dislike per se limits, especially combined with random traffic stops, I’m not sure I trust the discretion of the police more.)
I’m reminded of Petigru’s famous statement about SC’s secession from the Union:

James L. Petigru (1789-1863), a staunch South Carolina unionist, reportedly responded to the Palmetto State’s actions by saying that his state was ‘too small for a country and too large for an insane asylum.'”

Well, no one said the Bible Belt was consistent.

In the wake of the U.N. resolution backing the new government in Iraq, it’s useful to remember that this will only intensify the violence against us. That violence is not entirely indigenous. And it is being directed and supported by the theo-fascists in Tehran. We are at war with those mullahs, even if we do not want to believe it. Or rather: they are at war with us, and with any chance that liberal democracy can take root in Iraq. Here’s a fascinating interview with some of the Iranian elite. Khameini is particularly revealing:

[T]he Americans are convinced that they will easily win the war in Iraq. But they will not see that day. As the Imam [Khomeini] said, ‘One day the U.S. too will be history.’ In light of what happened in Iraq, we can see now that he is right, because such events move the U.S. down the slope, and they will taste the bitterness of sure defeat.”

And Khameini will do all he can to ensure that defeat, won’t he? (Hat tip: Tim Perry.)