Year: 2005

HIV and I have had a relatively civil union these past twelve years. For eight of those years, I was on heavy-duty anti-HIV medication; three years ago, I decided to take a break from the meds, as their side-effects were taking a toll and I had unconsciously begun to miss some dosages. Amazingly, the virus never really bounded back, and my immune system maintained a very stable balance. (For the initiated, my viral load bobbed between 15,000 and 40,000 viral particles per milliliter of blood; and my CD4 cell count stayed in the 500 – 600 range. People without HIV have a count between 500 and 1500, with the majority around 1000. But you only get AIDS if you dip below 200). Until now, that is. My latest numbers show an all-time low for my immune system, 380 CD4 count, and an all-time high for the virus, clocking in at 140,000. It’s one data point, and I’ll get another before I go back on meds. But it seems to me that after three years, the virus has broken back out of its no-fly zone. Not too surprising.

THE CHANGING CLIMATE: But a couple of things struck me talking this through with my doc. First off, my new med regimen may well amount to a mere two pills once a day. Just two pills. By this fall, the drug companies will have simplified the regimen to one pill once a day. The side-effects are predicted to be minimal (I’ll keep you posted). Compared with what we pozzies were taking in the mid-1990s, this is an astonishing improvement. I was once taking up to 40 pills a day with crippling side effects. The broader point: Yet another disincentive to getting HIV has evaporated. How are you supposed to scare people when the treatment is this simple, this effective and this easy? Compare the kind of medical ramifications of testing positive for Type 2 diabetes with testing positive for HIV. Your life is not as definitively shortened with HIV as it is with diabetes; the treatment is far less onerous; the lifestyle changes are fewer, compared with daily injections, monitoring your diet, and so on. All of this poses a big challenge to those trying to craft safer sex messages. When the costs of infection are this low and the sexual benefits as immediate and attractive as they always are, the current strategy of scaring people to death won’t work. We have to find a better, more positive way to encourage safer sex.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “The ends never justify the means, because even if we do win in a fit of religious righteousness, ‘it will be a Pyrhhic victory.’ It will fundamentally tear away the wonderful secular and democratic protections the founders designed. As observers like Gary Hart have noted, the moral superiority of our ideals and values – the ‘fourth power’ as he calls it – is what will be the decisive factor in this war against Islamic fundamentalism. That power is the belief that all humanity, regardless of their allegiance to a particular God or any god, deserves basic and elemental protections because one’s own freedom and ability to believe in anything is not derived from the divine, but from the natural.
One of the reasons why I believe fascism fell without much of an attempt to rise again is that at Nuremberg the ethos was clear: even though your crimes are among the most vile ever recorded, you will be afforded a transparent process through which we will try your actions. This offered no legitimacy to the ideology of the Third Reich, but instead made a powerful statement to the rest of the world that even a systematic campaign to exterminate a group of people could not undermine the idea of justice.
And yet, what I am struck by the conception of justice borne out by Guantanamo and Bagram and Abu Ghraib and the logic of Yoo, Gonzales, and all the rest, is that our idea of justice ipso facto has been undermined. We are so fearful of legitimizing the ideology of al Qaeda, and in some way feel they have escaped the throws of humanity itself, that all of this is justified in so far as it all contributes to the “big war” against terror.
For my part, I’m not so sure. I think you have it exactly right. Osama and al-Zawahiri want this, precisely, because they cannot have a morally superior enemy, just as Hamas cannot accept the idea of a decent Israeli citizen. We, and they, are all pigs. It isn’t true of course, but exactly how do we make that case in the Middle East when this idea of justice has been taken to mean that the US can apprehend anyone, anywhere and then do anything with them without any due process or judicial oversight? How do we even make that case at home?
It all plays out like some Faustian tragedy.”

Bill Kristol and Stephen Schwartz get it right, I think. I should say that Bill Kristol has been pretty exemplary in the war on terror, with a few lapses. He hasn’t dismissed the abuse and torture allegations; he hasn’t turned a blind eye to Rumsfeld’s mismanagement of the post-war; he has kept an eye on the broader battle of ideas; he has backed a bigger military; and he has demanded more accountability from the Bush administration for its mistakes. No doubt he will soon be tagged as an anti-American lefty for these laudable criticisms. He wins kudos in my book.

Dan Drezner has the latest on the looming French referendum on the new EU constitution.

He has already scored a major victory for the perpetrators of minor-molestation. The proximate cause is that he has simply closed down the investigation into Father Maciel, very credibly accused of molestation in Mexico. The victory is that the press has barely noticed. The news was released on a Friday afternoon (yes, the Vatican has spin doctors too), and largely disappeared from view over the weekend. Even more remarkable, no reasons were given for the end of the inquiry, no judgments were made about the accusers or the accused. It was just an exercise of papal power in protecting the core leaders of the new ultra-orthodoxy. Money quote:

In Mexico, where the case against Maciel began, word about the end of the investigation made headlines in most daily newspapers over the weekend, and several victims many of them prominent professionals said they were incredulous that the Vatican would drop the case. Juan Vaca, one of men who accused Maciel, now an adjunct professor of psychology and sociology at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., said that the Vatican investigator, Monsignor Charles Scicluna, had told him and other victims he was convinced they were telling the truth.
“He even said, ‘The church owes you a public apology, because we failed to protect you,’ ” said Vaca, a former priest. “This will end the credibility of the Vatican, from the pope down. I don’t believe they are going to do such damage to the credibility of the Vatican.” In its news release, the Legionaries said that Maciel had “unambiguously affirmed his innocence.” Asked whether the Vatican’s decision not to bring legal proceedings amounted to an exoneration, Jay Dunlap, the communications director for the Legionaries North American region, said, “That’s what it sounds like to us.”

Maciel is a major voice in the burgeoning conservative nexus in Rome, the founder of the Legion of Christ, a Francoite body of far right views. That new power structure evidently matters more to this Pope than the victims of priestly abuse. This was always going to be a test-case. Benedict has failed – or succeeded – depending on your point of view. My point of view is that of the victims.

“Might it be that some conservatives are hesitant to say anything critical of the war-effort for fear that they will be perceived as ‘unconservative,’ as traitors to their cause and their philosophy? If this is so, the fact should give conservatives pause. It is possible for a movement to have too much esprit de corps; nor should conservatives fancy themselves immune from the intellectual stultification that has overwhelmed other orthodoxies during a spell of power. Success – political influence, well-connected donors, handsome endowments, elegantly provisioned awards dinners – is a mixed blessing for any movement that values intellectual suppleness, spontaneity of debate, and purity of spirit; and the vigorous iconoclasts, the prophets, and revolutionaries, of one phase of a group’s history may all too easily degenerate into the party-line hacks of another.” – Michael Knox Beran, in National Review online. Kudos to NRO for printing a vital essay. My concern is that in wielding our power, we may have become too impressed with our own rightness, too convinced of our own moral superiority. We may well have allowed practices and methods that, in effect, undermine our own moral position and thereby our ability to win this war. This war is both military and ideological. We cannot let prisoner abuse undermine the cause we are fighting for: democracy, secularism, freedom. We cannot become like the enemy. If we do, we will have denied ourselves victory. You can see the essence of the temptation in this passage from the Belmont Club blog:

Not only the treatment of the enemy combatants themselves, but their articles of religious worship have become the subject of such scrutiny that Korans must handled with actual gloves in a ceremonial fashion, a fact that must be triumph for the jihadi cause in and of itself.

No; no; no. It is insane to believe that maintaining America’s long-held respect for others’ religion, especially when those others are in the custody of the U.S., is somehow a victory for Jihadism. It is the opposite. It is a victory for our values that we do not stoop to their depraved understanding of what morality is. It is a victory for Jihadism to turn this battle into a fight between Islam and Christianity, or to watch our own military descend into the religious bigotry and intolerance we are fighting against. It is so sad to watch decent people like Glenn Reynolds or Wretchard descend into this moral abyss, even though their motives are doubtless good ones. They want to win the war. But if we win it the way they want us to, it will be a Pyrhhic victory. With great power comes great responsibility. Generations of American soldiers demand that we exercise it now, when the temptations of expediency are greatest.

Some fun with the amazing troops working in Iraq. It goes without saying, doesn’t it?, that criticisms of policies of abuse are designed not to undermine the war but to support the vast majority of ethical soldiers who do great work in incredibly tough circumstances. Well, in this case, they seem to be having a blast.

Rapist marries her former victim. And she has a constitutional right to do so that no government can take away. A faithful married lesbian couple in Maryland – together for decades? The Republicans won’t even let them visit each other in hospital.

From the Daily Telegraph, noticed by Sup Specie Aeternitatis blog. Money quote:

He enjoyed sexual innuendo, and teased the late Michael Wishart for describing Ali Khan as a great lover, pointing out that Khan’s idea of sex reminded him of Father Christmas: “He came but once a year,” and adding that any girl “not in a multi-orgasmic mood” would end up feeling “like Michelangelo after a hard day’s work on the Sistine Chapel ceiling”. Wishart was furious. Of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll’s memoirs, Forbes ventured: “Her father may have been able to give her some beautiful earrings, but nothing to put between them.”

More jolly fun about a dead guy here.

KEEPING UP THE PRESSURE: I’m glad to read this post decrying the abuses in Afghanistan. Joe Gandelman also makes the following points about his site:

# This writer has supported the war.
# This writer has been steadfast in condemning Newsweek’s report due to the poor confirmation.
# This writer doesn’t belong to either party and has to say in no uncertain terms that allegations of this kind of behavior must be investigated and if proven true prosecuted to the absolute fullest extent of the law – including up the chain of command if necessary. Those who try to defend it or dismiss it as soldiers blowing off steam or minimize the gravity of it deserve nothing but contempt from those from both parties who militantly believe in and cherish long-held American ideals.

Each of those statements also applies to me. The ACLU document dump on the latest abuses is one I’m spending the weekend poring over. The documents are previously classified appendices to the various military reports I reviewed here. I want to read them all before I comment, but after a mere hour, the picture is in line with much of the previous evidence. This really does go all the way up to the very top. Money quote from the ACLU’s summary:

This latest document supports detainees’ accounts that American soldiers routinely used religious symbols to degrade and humiliate them. In a lawsuit brought by the ACLU and Human Rights First against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, one Iraqi detainee charged that soldiers taunted him by having a military dog pick up the Koran in its mouth. Another Iraqi detainee claimed that soldiers threw the Koran on the floor and stepped on it. In addition, in a set of documents released by the FBI in response to the ACLU’s FOIA in December, a Guantánamo detainee alleged that a guard told him he beat him because the guard was a Christian and the detainee was a Muslim.

It just gets better, doesn’t it? The damage all this has done to our cause among moderate Muslims and democratic allies is incalculable. I’m sorry but throwing Laura at the problem is a pathetic response.

THE PURGE CONTINUES: Another writer for a Jesuit newsletter is fired – for urging a dialogue with homosexuals in order to better understand their experience and thus inform theology. Dialogue with those on the margins of society? What on earth is this guy thinking of? This is Benedict’s church. There shall be no dialogue with the “objectively disordered.” Isn’t that the whole spirit of the Gospels?

It has gone chronologically something like this: “It’s not true. It’s not true. It may be true but it’s not torture. Okay, it’s torture, but isn’t official policy. It may be true and official policy, but we changed the policy and we uncovered the abuses ourselves. It may be true, it may have been widespread, but we’ve punished the culprits. It may be true, it may have been widespread, it may still be happening, but all these reports are old news.” Well, give these guys points for effort. How about: it is true; it should never have happened; the people responsible for the policy as well as the criminals should be punished. Ah, but that would mean taking responsibility, wouldn’t it? And we don’t do that in this administration, do we? Even at the expense of hurting the war effort and staining the reputation of countless great soldiers in a noble cause.

GIULIANI AND THE CARDINALS: One of the most interesting and revealing upcoming political events will be Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to run for president as a Republican. He’d be a great candidate in many ways – he has impeccable terror-fighting credentials, good executive skills, and so on. I have no idea whether he’d survive the scandals that might dog him, and the Bernie Kerik kerfuffle wasn’t too encouraging in that respect. But he probably won’t stand a chance because of his moderate positions on abortion, gay rights, stem cell research, etc. The Catholic hierarchy will also, i think, be far tougher on Catholic candidates than in the past, demanding adherence to all of Benedict XVI’s views on matters of public importance. With Giuliani, it’s just beginning. Cardinal Keeler has unleashed the first warning shot. It will be the first, I think, of many. The Catholic pillar of Karl Rove’s coalition, cemented in Rome last month, will be stronger in the U.S. than ever – and the politicization of Catholicism will become as intense as that of evangelical Protestantism. Welcome to the new popular front.

“Bush Promises Probe Into Saddam Underwear Pictures,” – from Yahoo, now amended.