Month: July 2005

In Al Jazeera no less:

Al-Qaida is also a revival of the radical currents that surfaced in Islamic history from time to time only to be defeated by moderate mainstream Islam led by the Ulama (scholars). In particular, they appear to be a continuation of Kharijite thought with its dualistic puritanical conception of the world and the community of Muslims and of Gnostic underground organisations like the Assassins and Qaramita, who sought to disrupt the stability of Muslim societies through acts of terrorism.

Al-Qaida would be best seen as a mixture of these political and ideological strands. Apart from the ideological justifications it takes recourse to, one would, indeed, be hard put to find much that distinguishes it from Latin American anarchist groups. Their acts share the same destructive ferocity, the same absurdity. The difference is that where one finds its ideological legitimacy in Marxism, the other seeks it in the Islamic religion.

(Hat tip: Don Surber.

We have new evidence that president Bush’s suspension of the ban on torture under the Geneva Conventions and under American law was ordered over the objections of the judge advocate generals (JAGs) for the Army, Air Force and Marines. Money quote:

A law enacted in 1994 bars torture by U.S. military personnel anywhere in the world. But the Pentagon working group’s 2003 report, prepared under the supervision of general counsel William J. Haynes II, said that “in order to respect the President’s inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign … [the prohibition against torture] must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority.” Haynes — through Daniel J. Dell’Orto, principal deputy general counsel for the Defense Department — wrote a memo March 17 that rescinded the working group’s report, and Dell’Orto confirmed that withdrawal yesterday at the hearing. According to a copy of the memo obtained by The Washington Post, the general counsel’s office determined that the report “does not reflect now-settled executive branch views of the relevant law.”

Notice how broad the original exception was. It legalized torture anywhere for any POWs – not just enemy combatants – if the president so ordered. And we now have a precedent that would permit even legitimate U.S. POWs to be tortured in retaliation. We had a president declaring himself above the law, and he got his legal lackey, Alberto Gonzales, to rubber-stamp it. Does any sane person really believe that president Bush’s personal suspension of the law against torture had nothing to do with the abuses that followed in every single theater of the war on terror? Or that his decision hasn’t put U.S. soldiers now and in the future at greater risk even in conventional combat? Notice also how the military’s legal representatives opposed it. The secretary of state opposed it. This was Bush’s choice. The line from Abu Ghraib and Gitmo to the White House is perfectly straight. And people are fixating on Karl Rove?

SPEAKING OF WHICH: Here’s an important quote from George Orwell, writing in the middle of the Second World War, on October 12, 1942. He was responding to a very similar argument to that proferred by today’s American right that the depravity of our enemies exempts us from our historic decency toward prisoners, that their barbarism makes maintaining Geneva standards “quaint.” Here’s Orwell’s reflection:

“May I be allowed to offer on or two reflections on the British Governments’ decision to retaliate against German prisoners, which seems so far to have aroused extraudinarily little protest?

By chaining up German prisoners in response to similar action by the Germans, we descend, at any rate in the eyes of the ordinary observer, to the level of our enemies. It is unquestionable when one thinks of the history of the past ten years that there is a deep moral difference between democracy and Fascism, but if we go on the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth we simply cause that difference to be forgotten. Moreover, in the matter of ruthlessness we are unlikely to compete successfully with our enemies. As the Italian radio has just proclaimed, the Fascist principle is two eyes for an eye and a whole set of teeth for one tooth. At some point or another public opinion in England will flinch from the implications of this statement, and it is not very difficult to foresee what will happen.

As a result of our action the Germans will chain up more British prisoners, we shall have to follow suit by chaining up more Axis prisoners, and so it will continue till logically all the prisoners on either side will be in chains. In practice, of course, we shall become disgusted with the process first, and we shall announce that the chaining up will now cease, leaving, almost certainly, more British than Axis prisoners in fetters. We shall have thus acted both barbarously and weakly, damaging our own good name without succeeding in terrorising the enemy.

It seems to me that the civilised answer to the German action would be something like this: “You proclaim that you are putting thousands of British prisoners in chains because some half-dozen Germans or thereabouts were temporarily tied up during the Dieppe raid. This is disgusting hypocrisy, in the first place because of your own record during the past ten years, in the second place because troops who have taken prisoners have got to secure them somehow until they can get them to a place of safety, and to tie men’s hands in such circumstances is totally different from chaining up a helpless prisoner who is already in an internment camp. At this moment, we cannot stop you maltreating our prisoners, though we shall probably remember it at the peace settlement, but don’t fear that we shall retaliate in kind. You are Nazis, we are civilised men. This latest act of yours simply demonstrates the difference.”

At this moment this may not seem a very satisfying reply, but I suggest that to anyone who looks back in three months’ time, it will seem better than what we are doing at present and it is the duty of those who can keep their heads to protest before the inherently silly process of retaliation against the helpless is carried any further.”

Notice also that the practice Orwell was abhorring was merely the chaining of prisoners of war. Just the shackling! And his enemies were genocidal maniacs. Can you imagine what he would think of suspending legal bans on torture? Or forcing detainees into near-suffocation through drowning? If we kept our heads against the Nazis, why can we not remain sane and moral against today’s fascists?

David Goodhart, in the Guardian, sees no there there. Money quote:

Under Labour the first Muslims were elected to the House of Commons and appointed to the Lords. Muslim organisations lobbied for and won state funds for Muslim schools, a question in the census on religious faith, and criminalisation of religious hate crimes. The huge rise in public spending and focus on improving delivery in the poorest areas will have particularly benefited Muslims alongside other disadvantaged groups. And since 9/11 the government has sought out bright young Muslims for senior civil-service jobs and introduced innovations such as the hajj information unit for those making the pilgrimage to Mecca.

None of this shifts the Muslim community leadership’s constant victimization-line, an argument that certainly doesn’t help defuse the kind of deranged anger behind the London massacre. (Mad props: Clive Davis.)

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I have been in Sana’a, Yemen working on an English language magazine and I felt the need to tell you that the climate here is angry. I read your blog daily and have the highest esteem for your intellectual pursuits. But, you’ve got it wrong about the “war is good because it stops the breeding of terrorists” thing. It’s only making it worse – much, much worse. The U.S. is seen in a terrifically unenthusiastic light and all the war in Iraq seems to be doing is creating a culture of furious, uneducated 13 year olds who have to prove their manhood. The U.S. was something made up to them before this war. It was a far off place of blonde girls in bikinis and dudes who blow-dry their hair five times a day. Now, it’s real and it’s cramping their style. All the work our soft power did to create positive relations in the Arab world is becoming moot. Democracy is something a nation has to want, something a nation has to want so much they will shed blood for it. And the Arab world wants democracy as much as they want a hole in the head. They don’t get it, they don’t care to get it and it seems to be making life particularly shitty for their Iraqi brothers. I don’t care what Bush or Wolfowitz or any of that crew have to say, people are not going to embrace this imposed “freedom.” I am here, you aren’t.” And those millions of Iraqis who risked their lives to vote last January? They wanted democracy like they wanted a hole in the head? It sure didn’t look like that from here – or among any of the direct witnesses at the time.

I can well understand the urge of some to find one of the most powerful and ruthless men in Washington to be a liar or a criminal. But I have to say there’s no incontrovertible evidence yet of either, although his lawyer seems to have tied himself up in knots. We seem to know, thanks to Newsweek and now the NYT, that Rove confirmed to both Matt Cooper and Bob Novak that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. We do not know that Rove disclosed her name precisely, or knew that she was under-cover. We are also told so far that the calls were initiated by the reporters, not the other way round. The Cooper call seems unremarkable to me. As Mike McCurry points out in HuffPuffnStuff:

Rove was making a late week heads up call to the White House news magazine reporter and, believe me, that is not the time or place to dish major strategy. A two-minute call such as the one now reported is basically to get the signals straight — green, yellow, red. Rove seems to have been telling Cooper that the yellowcake story was a flashing yellow and he needed to be cautious.

McCurry is no GOP spinner. The interesting question is how Rove knew of Plame’s identity and role. Confirming something raised by reporters or warning a reporter off a hot story is not the same thing as criminal disclosure of an undercover identity. Rove may have known he was flirting with danger – hence the “double super secret” background. But we have no smoking gun yet; and someone else may be the real guilty party. It is a longstanding practice of this administration to deflect the press away from a real scandal by allowing them to get their panties in a twist over a minor one. It would be prudent for journalists and Democrats to hold their fire and wait until we have solid facts about an affair that remains cloudy before rushing to premature judgment.

Our main hope against the Islamo-fascists is that their evil will alienate the people on whose behalf they claim to speak. That may no longer be merely a hope. There’s also growing support for democracy. That’s why, for all the legitimate criticisms, I still favor the Iraq war and the attempt to replace a brutal dictatorship with a democratic space in the Muslim world. And that’s also why I’m still prepared to praise and support Bush and Blair for pioneering the policy.

THE MORAL CURVE: A sobering point from a reader:

“At the beginning of WWII, Roosevelt and Churchill were outraged and disgusted at the way the Nazis bombed civilian populations. Bomber Command made a few attempts at low-level daytime raids but the cost in men and planes was horrific, and so they too soon switched to “area bombing,” at night and from high altitude. By 1943 we were launching “Operation Gomorrah” which killed perhaps 50,000 in Hamburg, almost entirely civilians. Nearly 100,000 would die similarly in Tokyo, and then of course there were Fat Man and Little Boy, which were in a practical sense “terror” weapons designed to frighten the Japanese out of fighting to the bitter end.
The use of these weapons did not turn us into the Soviet Union which would in coming years use tanks to crush democratic revolutions, or for that matter the Russia which in the last decade used a WWI-style artillery barrage to suppress the Chechens in Grozny. Indeed, our bombs are now the most discriminating in the world. There is no morality or ethics within the casing of an artillery shell, but only within the hand that directs its course.”

I hope I have not given the impression that I do not understand the predicament the administration is in. I just find their secret drift toward the endorsement of torture-in-all-but-name to be worrying, unnecessary, immoral and counter-productive. We need new laws that clearly delineate clear guidelines for humane, effective interrogation of terror suspects. The Congress needs to step in. Soon.

THE ‘DETERRENCE’ OF TORTURE: Another emailer makes a pertinent point:

Is your correspondent suggesting that “aggressive interrogation techniques” deter terrorism? Has he missed reports of the dramatic increase in the number of incidents of terrorism since Abu Ghraib went public? Or, does he believe that the insurgents in Iraq, the suicide bombers in Great Britain and the regrouping Taliban in Afghanistan are all so ignorant or so disconnected from the world that they have no idea how we have behaved, in Guantanamo, in Iraq and elsewhere? Does any criminal ever think he’s going to be caught? Do suicide bombers consider deterrence when strapping on explosives? Hey, if I were a suicide bomber, I might just think that the only thing better than dying for my beliefs would be getting caught and interrogated by the US government. Unpleasant, sure – but damned fine publicity for the cause!

I’m not sure these fanatics are deterrable in any sense. But I do know that evidence of detainee abuse has severely undermined support for the war among our allies, and undoubtedly alienates the middle ground of Muslim opinion where we need support.

I guess I prompted some emails from those who disagree with the Bush policy on abusive and degrading treatment of detainees. Here’s an email that takes a different view:

Sorry to hear that emails are running in favor of torture. Count me on the opposing side. I am in favor of the war in Iraq. I can reluctantly concede the necessity to risk our young people’s lives in our defense. But I cannot think that it is right for us to ask that they sacrifice their souls. Forget about what the torture does to the detainees. I cannot accept what it does to us. These incidents will be the things that haunt these soldiers forever.

And another pertinent question:

Would even one person who currently defends such treatment continue defending it, if it were being inflicted on Americans?

Since, according to the Schmidt report, the incidents and techniques cited are now part of the field manual and cover even Geneva-protected POWs, then this becomes not an academic question. But my question is a more simple one: if you were shocked by the images from Abu Ghraib, why are you not shocked by the evidence from Gitmo? In some ways, Gitmo is worse – because the policies charted by the Bush administration which migrated to Abu Graib were developed and practised by professionals under the strictest supervision. They do not even have the excuse of being un-trained, overwhelmed and in a war-zone. Meantime, it’s worth asking Don Rumsfeld directly at his next press conference: could he elucidate the practice or “pouring water” over an inmate’s head “regularly”? What was it designed to do? How is it different from the “water-boarding” practised by the French in Algeria? Does he believe, as the Schmidt report asserts, that it is “humane” treatment? Is it now legal for U.S. interrogators to do such a thing? The report is somewhat vague. Rumsfeld should clarify.

Emails are running overwhelmingly in favor of the “abusive and degrading” treatment of detainees, as cited in the Schmidt report. And they are in favor of narrowing the definition of torture to the extremes that the Bush administration has done. Here’s a typical email:

“McCain is right — it’s our reputation that matters here.
And, if you’re fighting fanatical terrorists, it’s good to have a reputation for aggressive interrogation techniques. As long as it’s within the law, JUST DO IT. That’s what the Administration has done, and more power to them. Degrading treatment and aggressive interrogation techniques designed to open hearts and minds are all admissible under the law, as long as it’s not torture, and that’s as it should be.
Welcome to America, Andrew. I think you’ll find that a vast majority of the American people want our lawyers to tell us the limits of the law. Americans don’t want the French or the Swedes or the Germans to define the limits for our interrogation techniques during GWOT. Nor do they want those limits to be defined by the liberal salons in NYC and San Francisco, or their silly liberal op-ed writers. And torture has a legal definition which should not be allowed to be dumbed down by the sensitivities of talking heads, bloggers, literati, and glitterati. That’s American, and it’s good.
Short of torture, I’m glad that they’re doing what they can and should to break these awful men. That’s a good reputation to have in the Arab world — screw the cultural sensitivities of the European softies. They’re not with us in this war, so bother them all.
Soon, I think the Paki-bashers in merry old England will blow up a mosque or two. And they will do that because they don’t have any faith in their authorities taking a hard line on English terrorists. I don’t think that will happen in America, but it may if we get attacked too.

I fear this is the popular view. America is not the America it once was. But a couple of points: much of this is against the law, unless you believe that the president can change the law as he sees fit in wartime. Most do. As another emailer put it, “The Bush Administration will not be harmed by these reports of torture. The country has spoken and it does not mind. The pictures and actions are very American.”

Can we manage it, asks Andy Borowitz?

A fabulous flash protest against the Blair government’s plans to provide every Briton with an identity card. Very British.

TNR’s Ryan Lizza follows the recent contortions of Karl Rove’s lawyer.