Month: January 2005

“I know the Geneva Conventions, better than anyone else in my company. And we were called upon to violate the Geneva Conventions.” – Charles Graner, the sadistic monster of Abu Ghraib. I’m not so much shocked as intrigued by the relatively light sentence. It would be hard to find or invent a more graphic example of evil than that perpetrated by Graner in Abu Ghraib. And yet, he received only 10 years, rather than the maximum fifteen. Why? Could it have something to do with this:

Graner named a series of Army officers, ranking from lieutenant to full colonel, who gave orders, he said, to mistreat prisoners — particularly those described as “intelligence holds” who were believed to have information about the Iraqi insurgency that grew up after the fall of Baghdad. Those he named included Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade in charge of the prison; Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, the senior Military Intelligence officer; Capt. Donald J. Reese, commander of the 372nd Military Police Company; Capt. Christopher Brinson, platoon leader; and 1st Lt. Lewis Raeder, platoon leader in the military police command. Several of the officers he named were also cited in sworn testimony during Graner’s trial, the first full-scale court-martial stemming from the Abu Ghraib scandal.

Graner is a brutal psychopath who deserves censure and no exoneration because he was following orders. But I don’t believe he acted alone, or without any guidance, support or encouragement. Did the jury agree? Money quote:

Even Army Spec. Joseph Darby, the whistle-blower who has been praised by Rumsfeld for his efforts to stop the Abu Ghraib abuse, said on the witness stand that he did not trust the Army chain of command in Iraq. Darby testified that he thought the abuse should be stopped but did not get a satisfactory response from his superiors.

Without the photos, the administration might still be pretending there wasn’t a problem. Just a reminder of one email from a captain in military intelligence from August 2003:

The gloves are coming off gentlemen regarding these detainees [those allegedly not protected by Geneva], Col Boltz has made it clear that we want these individuals broken. Casualties are mounting and we need to start gathering info to help protect our fellow soldiers from any further attacks… MI ALWAYS OUT FRONT!”

If all the abuses were, as the White House claims, the acts of rogue individuals completely out of line, why do emails like that one exist? And how many more exist that we don’t know about? The jury wasn’t dumb. What they didn’t do is just as instructive as what they did.

“Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you know forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness” then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.” – Martin Luther King Jr, in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

HOPING FOR THE BEST: My take on Bush’s second-term inauguration. The Middle East could be transformed in the next four years – because of Bush. No, he shouldn’t be left off the hook for his errors. But nor should he be denied credit for his tenacity in the war against Islamist terror.

Here’s the money quote:

The Post: Do you plan to expend any political capital to aggressively lobby senators for a gay marriage amendment?

THE PRESIDENT: You know, I think that the situation in the last session — well, first of all, I do believe it’s necessary; many in the Senate didn’t, because they believe DOMA [the Defense of Marriage Act] will — is in place, but — they know DOMA is in place, and they’re waiting to see whether or not DOMA will withstand a constitutional challenge.

The Post: Do you plan on trying to — using the White House, using the bully pulpit, and trying to —

THE PRESIDENT: The point is, is that senators have made it clear that so long as DOMA is deemed constitutional, nothing will happen. I’d take their admonition seriously.

The Post: But until that changes, you want it?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, until that changes, nothing will happen in the Senate. Do you see what I’m saying?

The Post: Right.

THE PRESIDENT: The logic.

The Senate is right, of course. There is no need for the FMA in any conceivable sense while DOMA is in place; and DOMA itself merely underlines the existing reality that no state is obliged by law or the constitution to recognize the civil marriages in any other state. I’m extremely relieved. The FMA has gone unmentioned by Bush since the election – and it appears more and more like a pre-election ploy rather than a principled stand. (Of course, that’s a relief but it’s also an indication of how bald-faced a political maneuver this was in the first place). But this piece of sanity from the President deserves praise and reciprocation from those of us who support equality in marriage. We should refrain from any constitutional or legal challenge to DOMA for the foreseeable future (something I’ve urged for a long time now). We should also refrain from any attempt to force any state to recognize a gay marriage from another state (of course that’s different from a state voluntarily recognizing such marriages). We should practise moderation, just as the Senate is practising moderation. We already have civil marriage rights in one state. Massachusetts. Very soon, it will be clear that Massachusetts’ judicial decision will be endorsed by its own legislature, making this case a matter not simply of judicial activity but democratic legitimacy. And then we should bide our time and let the example of Massachusetts set in. I’m convinced that once the reality of this reform sinks in, fears will recede. The president has given us this opportunity. It would be crazy not to reciprocate. But for the record: thanks, Mr president.

First off: I agree with Hugh Hewitt about both Armstrong Williams and DailyKos. But there’s a big distinction. Kos clearly disclosed his payola from the Dean campaign. Williams never told anyone he was on the take from the Education Department. That makes a huge difference. Maybe Kos should have made more of a deal about it, but that’s a quibble, not a major concern. (I’m leaving out any conflicts of interest that we don’t yet know about. Maybe Kos is worse – but we can’t know that right now. And we know that Kos, like Hewitt, is a rabid partisan.) Hewitt defends himself against this obvious point by writing that “defenders of Kos are glossing over the fact that I brought up the Kos disclosure on O’Reilly and then deemed it inadequate.” But this is what Hewitt actually said on O’Reilly: “Now Daily Kos says, this is one of the bloggers from the left, says he disclosed it, but not to the satisfaction of anyone who watches him. I didn’t know.” But Kos doesn’t just say he disclosed it; he did. “Not to the satisfaction of anyone who watches him?” So whence his defenders? I put this glitch down to Hewitt’s partisan blinders. When you treat politics as religion, this is what happens to you.

A NEW IRAQ BLOG: Some great observations here. One of the most striking: how amazing most of the U.S. soldiers are there. We really owe them a huge amount of gratitude and support. Of course, it’s precisely because these guys deserve the highest of praise that we shouldn’t stint in punishing the few bad apples and insane policy directives.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “[W]atching the Williams case unfold makes it feel like someone finally shined a light on a murky old swamp. Media figures have been ‘selling’ themselves to people in government for years. But the pay the toadies traditionally get in return for their supportive opinions isn’t actual money. It’s access, invitations to fancy parties, phone calls from movers and shakers — the feeling of power.” – Bill Powers, National Journal.

IN THE WILL: Annie Leibovitz is second in line only to Susan Sontag’s son, according to the New York Daily News. In Virginia, Leibovitz would, of course, have to fight for this in court. In all those states with bans on civil marriage and civil unions, Sontag’s bequest could be challenged by Sontag’s relatives as well, if they so chose. Still, since Leibovitz and Sontag were just good friends, why should anyone worry?

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “Long time reader, sometime responder, frequent tipper, left-coast lesbian. I don’t read Malkin because I don’t agree with her opinions on a personal and political basis. I read your blog this morning and clicked onto the link and was quite disturbed at the abuse and the scope of the VENOM that is directed toward her. I’m not a gifted writer so what I’m trying to express may not be well worded. The content of the abuse … the sexual objectification of her as a minority/Asian/Phillipina in order to diminish her opinion … the threat of sexual dominance over her in order to silence her opinion…it’s outrageous and disgusting. And, reading it again, I don’t know that this garbage comes from the right. I think my liberal brothers and sisters are letting me down.” I think so too. These kinds of smears are beyond left or right. More feedback on the Letters Page.

If you’re feeling blue about Iraq, check this story out in the Washington Post. Made my lunch-hour. The elections are vital. The very fact of their occurrence could help transform the situation. Remember that 80 percent of Iraqis want them to succeed. “It’s one of my wishes to die at the gate of the polling station. I want to be a martyr for the ballot box,” says one Iraqi. A martyr in the Muslim world – for democracy! That’s new. And deeply hopeful.

My own issues with Michelle Malkin have to do with her occasional rhetorical excesses and her hard-right politics. But she’s often a brave writer, even when I disagree with her (which is a lot of the time). And I have to say the kind of abuse she has received for being a minority conservative is truly vile and upsetting. It is, however, to be expected. It comes from right and left. The web seems to empower it. My favorite email this week:

Sodomite, Tom Delay isn’t doing anything the Democrats haven’t done in Texas since the Civil War. You being a Lymie non citizen of this country so consumed with the fact that you have an disease that you will die of from taking it in the ass too many times. Andy Sullivan, the laughing stock of the blogosphere, even Jonah Goldberg and Glen Reynolds are sick of you. Excitable Andy Sullivan. HIV.

I like that last almost desperate acronym. It’s like the guys who hang out on my block who sometimes yell “faggot” when I walk by. Duh.

Of course, the non “Judeo-Christian” cultures that have sustained democracy include the first ever democracy, in Athens. And, in recent times, Japan. And South Korea. We also have plenty of examples of “Christian” cultures supporting dictatorship.

Another must-read from Marty Lederman on the pirouettes Scott McClellan now has to perform to prevent the obvious conclusion that the administration supports the use of torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of some detainees. McClellan’s point is that the administration resisted the idea of a Congressional ban on cruel, inhumane and degrading practices for the CIA outside U.S. territory because it was already banned and the legislation was superfluous. Yet Condi Rice’s letter at the time stated that she opposed the new restrictions because they would “provide legal protections to foreign prisoners to which they are not now entitled under applicable law and policy.” So it would change things but was also redundant? I don’t get it. Poor Mclellan. It’s only going to get worse.

NRO’s Denis Bowles says that the entire substance of the hundreds of cases of abuse and torture can be summarized thus:

Is there any substance to [Human Rights Watch’s] complaints? Well, yes – you should not make terrorists stay up late listening to Ratt and you should not make Iraqi convicts get naked and then laugh at them. If you’re an American soldier doing these kinds of things, you’ll be punished, even as others also try to punish your fellow soldiers and your country.

The only word for this is denial. Please, Denis, read the reports. At least thirty inmates have died after “coercive techniques” in U.S. custody. The government itself has conceded that the U.S. has tortured five inmates to death. Hundreds more have been hospitalized or permanently physically scarred. Even if you radically restrict your analysis to the night shift in Abu Ghraib, the abuses far outstrip forcing people to listen to music or laughing at nakedness. What has happened to American conservatism when it is reduced to ridiculing genuine and important issues of human rights?

Jon Rauch has, as always, a very perceptive piece on the president’s social security reform plans. Money quote:

The 2004 exit polls suggested, to many conservatives, that “moral values” won the election for Bush. It may seem odd, then, that his boldest post-election priority is not abortion or gay marriage or schools, but Social Security. The key to the paradox is that Social Security reform is not, at bottom, an economic issue with moral overtones. It is a moral issue with economic overtones.

It’s about transforming a culture of dependency into one of self-reliance. That’s partly why I support it. But this impending fiscal crisis stuff with regard to social security is not plausible. I wish they’d talk that way about Medicare. But they’ve made that real crisis far worse.