Year: 2005

The disgraceful conduct of the secretary of defense continues. It is perfectly clear that he is a major obstacle to success in Iraq. Just read yet another story that shows that with more troops, we could have done so much better these past few years. Bush should replace Rumsfeld with Lieberman after the December 15 elections. We need a defense secretary who actually wants to win this war, not one whose main skill is in finding increasingly glib excuses for our losing it.

NOW WHAT? James Alison, one of the most lucid and subtle Catholic thinkers out there, reflects on the fall-out from the Vatican ban on gay seminarians and teachers.

Greg Djerejian notes that Saddam’s son engaged in a little Wall-Street-Journal-approved “water-boarding” too.

Judith Klinghoffer makes some interesting points (but I disagree with her on abuse of detainees).

Yes, the season of good will is at our throats once again. This basically sums up my view of the “war on Christmas” debate. The perspective-free purists who object to department stores saying “Merry Christmas” are about as likable as the fish-in-a-barrel-with-an-AK-47 bloviators like Bill O’Reilly. I just wish both groups would find a very small, sound-proof room somewhere, shut the door tight and yell at each other for a while. Then the rest of us can continue to love Christmas or hate it for our own individual reasons. For my part, I pretty much hate it. But I sure as hell don’t mind seeing a creche on public property. I mean, c’mon, ACLU. Get a grip. (Hat tip: Glenn.)

If you want to see where the future of Iraq war politics is, check out Hillary Clinton’s evolution. My take in the Sunday Times.

DOUTHAT CONCEDES: Ross now agrees that the new Vatican policy is a ban on all gay priests, celibate or not, and that this is a “mistake”. But he says he doesn’t “agree with Andrew’s interpretation of the document’s implications.” I’d be grateful if he could spell that difference out. The shift away from the distinction between homosexual acts and homosexual personhood seems very clear when you compare the current document and its quasi-official interpretation in “L’Osservatore Romano.” John Allen reports that many bishops in many countries are simply saying that the instruction doesn’t say what it says. I’m relieved that they will be directly disobeying Benedict’s ban on all gays, but that doesn’t mean the ban doesn’t exist. Allen then quotes a Vatican insider, saying that we’re not supposed to take any of this seriously; and that mature, adjusted gay priests and seminarians will continue to be ordained and serve God. Here’s hoping. I should say, perhaps, that in so far as any new Instruction is genuinely and narrowly aimed at preventing heterophobic networks among gay priests, or seminaries where cliquishness rather than seriousness is the norm, then it is a very good thing. But part of what may have contributed to disturbing sub-cultures in clerical contexts is the kind of closet and secrecy that expresses itself in camp and irony. Take the secrecy away and you can clear the air.

TWO SEMINARIAN CANDIDATES: Let me put that another way. You have two seminary candidates in front of you. One seems uptight, and says he may have had transitory gay feelings a while back, but they’re gone now, or briskly denies any same-sex attraction at all and says he finds gayness repulsive. The other is a young man who clearly tells his superiors that he is indeed gay, but understands the Church’s teachings on sexual expression, and has no more intention of violating his commitment to celibacy than if he were straight. Which one is less likely to act out sexually in self-destructive or immature ways? It seems to me that if the Vatican were really serious about its own doctines about gay sex, it would want many openly gay priests. Those priests would serve as role models of chastity, while also being the least likely to act out from some repressed impulse. They could also help gay Catholic lay people grapple with the Church’s teachings on sexuality. Wouldn’t that be a much healthier situation than the one we have today? And a more Christian one?

An emailer asks why we didn’t deploy torture during the Cold War, when our entire existence was on the brink:

Is there any evidence that torture actually generates a net positive effect for the side doing the torturing? It is easy to spin out scenarios about terrorists with nuclear weapons, etc., but scenarios are not evidence.

Consider the Cold War. Here was a lengthy struggle with a determined and ruthless adversary. Intelligence gathering was a big part of the struggle. Certainly, the risks to both sides were far greater in that struggle than in the current “war on terror.” And clearly torture was used (e.g., against American prisoners of war in Korea and Vietnam). Yet I am unaware of even a single instance from the beginning of the Cold War through the end, where torture generated any valuable information for anyone. I would like to challenge torture proponents to point to even one authenticated example.

By contrast, if you look at the most effective spies on both sides, the ones who did the most damage (or good, depending on your perspective), you will see that they were motivated by two forces: idealism and money. And if you look at the really effective spies, it was mostly idealism. (I’m thinking, for example, of Kim Philby on their side and Oleg Penkovsky on ours).

Now I can’t think of anything better calculated to prevent an idealistic young Arab who might want to cooperate (at the risk of his life and his family’s lives) with our side in this current struggle from doing that than the knowledge that the torture of young Arabs is approved American policy. So what our current policy stance amounts to is weakening or throwing away a method in the gathering of intelligence that has proven in the past to be of enormous value in favor of a method that has proven to be of no value. As Talleyrand once said, that is “worse than a crime; it’s a blunder.”

No, it’s a crime first and a blunder second.

CATHOLICS, DRUNKS, GAYS: An emailer adds a little more nuance to the debate:

Regarding your “translation” posted on Friday that “if you’re straight and had some fleeting same-sex desires in adolescence…you’re ok,” please do not forget the other examples of “transitory” homosexual tendencies given by Cardinal Grocholewski in his interview on Vatican radio:

“For example, some curiosity during adolescence or accidental circumstances in a state of drunkenness, or particular circumstances like someone who was in prison for many years.”

“Accidental circumstances in a state of drunkenness?” So if you’re a repressed alcoholic man who only acts on his same sex desires when drunk, you’re eligible to be a priest, but if you’re a well-adjusted celibate gay man, you’re not? By the way, what on earth does “accidental” mean? You accidentally pulled your dick out and got it sucked by another man? Or accidentally put your mouth on another man’s dick? Or accidentally jerked someone off? What on earth is the Cardinal talking about?

How about “Someone who was in prison for many years??” So if you’re a felon who only got buggered in jail you’re morally superior to a law-abiding openly gay man? Besides making not a lick of sense, the Vatican is resurrecting the most cliched stereotypes imaginable regarding homosexuality. I spent years trying desperately to believe that my sexuality amounted merely to “some curiosity during adolescence,” and found plenty of books in my public library that reassured me that my desires would pass as soon as I reached full adulthood. No doubt all those books were written by straight people.

One day, the Church will get serious about ministering to gay people as they actually are. But we have to get past all this denial and prejudice first.

A fascinating piece in the NYT. Here’s Communist China’s legal definition of “torture”:

The authorities ban only the sort of torture, called kuxing in Chinese, that meets a narrow definition of violent punishment leaving a lasting impact, like scars or disability, Mr. Nowak said. Officials have not done enough to outlaw physical or psychological abuse that does not produce a visible injury, Mr. Nowak said.

Notice that this is more expansive than that proffered by the Bush administration’s John Yoo, who now works at AEI, and who legally defined torture only as something that would lead to imminent death or major organ failure. Of course, China’s torture policies extend to Chinese ‘citizens’ as well as ‘enemy combatants,’ and that’s an important distinction. But what the administration actually allows to be done to other human beings in its custody is now no better, and legally, even worse than Communist China. Here’s the most general kind of torture used by the Chinese government:

He said his investigation showed that such techniques include hooding and blindfolding, beating by fellow prisoners, use of handcuffs and ankle fetters for long periods, exposure to extreme heat or cold, being forced to maintain awkward postures for long periods and the denial of medical treatment. Sleep deprivation, he said, is perhaps the most common violation of what he called international standards of prisoner treatment.

In other words: no different than America’s standards under George W. Bush for military detainees. Just remember that when the Wall Street Journal next editorializes about repression in China, they have already conceded that China doesn’t endorse “anything close” to “torture.”

My other half stumbled across the beagle-mutt below two weeks ago. She was given up to the local animal shelter and was about to be euthanized. He fell in love with her. And so our family now has four members. She’s utterly unlike our other beagle, Dusty. Dusty’s a Snoopy-style beagle. Her usual facial expression consists of something along the lines if: “And your point is …?” – usually after ransacking the garbage, or puking on the couch, or rolling in a dead fish on the beach. Eddy, as we’re calling the new adoptee, just flings her love around, knocking anything and anyone out of the way. I gave in to my DP’s request, because he’s always wanted another dog, and he’s a very shrewd judge of dogs. He was right about this one. Dusty hasn’t been too ornery about her new sister, and her aloofness is softening a little. Anyway, in a pretty depressing time, I thought I’d post something a little cheerier. As I write, the DP is yelling “Drop it!” in the background. What else?

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “AIDS has become a huge industry that has made careers, fame and fortune for many. But the rush over the corpses and voices of people with HIV in the pursuit of power, institutionalization and fundraising has been disgraceful. Part of the reason is because of the lessened presence on these boards by people who were fighting for their own lives. We did some research at POZ last week to see how people with HIV were represented on the boards of major AIDS organizations today. What we found is disturbing: GMHC: 13 on the board, only 2 HIV+; God’s Love: 26/1; APLA: 20/1; Chicago AIDS Foundation 40/2; Whitman Walker 42/4; SF AIDS Foundation 16/6; Amfar: 25/1.” – Sean Strub, AIDS activist and founder of Poz magazine. By the way, the claimed donated cost of the massive celebrity media campaign to tell the world that Will Smith has AIDS (when he doesn’t) is $600 million.

Mark Blumenthal investigates where we are.

Money quote:

The United States can win this global war without employing torture. That we will not resort to what comes so naturally to Islamic terrorists also defines the nobility of our cause, reminding us that we need not and will not become anything like our enemies.

I don’t agree with everything in Hanson’s piece, and believe he has failed to grasp how torture in our current war is different than that which has occurred sporadically in the past, because today, torture is legal policy, approved by the president. To give a simple example, American troops have improvised “waterboarding” in the past. On the two documented occasions before the Bush torture era, the men involved were subsequently court-martialed. Today, they are given legal cover by the Justice Department. But Hanson is always worth reading; and he grasps the deep importance of the moral component of this war. My health is returning and my own response to Charles’ thoughtful piece is forthcoming.