Month: February 2006

Not so fast, Concerned Women for America. Get the real story here.

A reader makes a good point:

"Earlier today you quoted General Miller on the necessity of treating detainees "like dogs." Dogs have a long pedigree in interrogation, esp. in CIA-supported intelligence operations like the one in Egypt during the Cold War. But Miller’s comment is curious because in Iraq the dogs don’t appear to have been treated as badly as the prisoners.
Were the dogs psychologically abused to the point of tearing out their own fur? Were they bloodied and bruised and denied medical treatment? I know of no dog owner who rides his dogs, hoods them, attaches eletrodes to him, beats him to death, hangs him palestinian-style, or does anything else close to what our military did to those prisoners. If Miller’s assertion were actually followed, the detainees would’ve been given plenty of water and decent food, kept in a reasonably climate-controlled environment, let outside to exercise and (extending the absurdity of it) petted and rubbed and made to feel safe and loved. I know this point has been made before, but it deserves being made so long as sadists like Miller and those above him condone and encourage the torture of prisoners. Someone should ask General Miller how he treats his dogs."

If I found someone who treated dogs the way Miller treated many innocent human beings, I’d report him to the police.

I was struck by this passage in another memorable essay by gay Catholic theologian, James Alison, a convert from Protestantism:

"Part of this induction into being Catholic has been the discovery of the secret presence of Our Lady, permeating everything. For many of those of us brought up in Protestant backgrounds, it takes a long time to begin to make sense of what can come across as a psychological weirdness with which it is difficult to identify, which doesn’t seem to strike chords in us. But I have come to rejoice in and love Our Lady and the difference which she constitutes in the Church. For it is she who makes it impossible for the Church successfully to turn itself either into an ideology or into a moralistic enterprise. She can never quite be co-opted into standing for something other than what she is."

Alison is a rich resource for gay Catholics, trying to reconcile their own deep and often profound faith with the hostility of the hierarchy. His book, "Faith Beyond Resentment," was extremely helpful to me, and may be to others.

"Terrorism is not the only new danger of this era. Another is the administration’s argument that because the president is commander in chief, he is the "sole organ for the nation in foreign affairs." That non sequitur is refuted by the Constitution’s plain language, which empowers Congress to ratify treaties, declare war, fund and regulate military forces, and make laws ‘necessary and proper’ for the execution of all presidential powers. Those powers do not include deciding that a law — FISA, for example — is somehow exempted from the presidential duty to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’" – George Will, today.

Slowly, but inexorably, conservative resistance to many aspects of this administration builds.

Enough with the Kaus-bashing. This meme is the Mickster at his best, which is very hard to beat.

Well you can’t accuse them of bias. A reader notices:

"What’s interesting about how Cheney’s interview is playing out tonight over the airwaves is that Fox News is not releasing the video to other networks yet, only a transcript and a still image. All the broadcast evening news shows, and all the cable chat shows on CNN and MSNBC are only able to put up quotes next to a little box photo of Cheney. Far from humanizing him, viewers who didn’t get home early enough to see Hume’s show (and the vast broadcast audience) are not getting the calming effect of Cheney speaking, but the disembodied effect of a rather sinister old file photo next to quotes."

Embargo the news; embargo the interview.

Well, I just watched the veep. He has a calming demeanor and an under-rated TV presence. But two things he dodged. The first was the question of whether he had been following the usual hunting protocols. I have no clue what those are and defer to others. But his formula of taking full responsibility, and giving the bottom line as "I shot the gun," doesn’t answer the question of whether he was negligent in the way he was hunting. I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt his old friend; and I’m sure his friend won’t hold it against him. But it does make a difference if this was an accident that could happen under perfect hunting protocols or not. Thirty yards seems pretty close to me. Whittington was wearing the right gear. Well, you can see what I’m getting at; and hunters will no doubt come up with an answer. Violating basic hunting procedures makes this a little more embarrassing than a pure accident. I’m not saying Cheney did. I’m just saying he dodged that question. Why?

As for the press strategy: completely unconvincing. He waited, he argued, for accuracy’s sake. First reports are always wrong, he claimed. So what? He knew that he’d shot someone accidentally; that person was seriously wounded and taken to hospital; and that’s all he needed to report to the national media. As soon as the family had been informed, the press should have been called. It’s a no-brainer. It’s the press’s job to get the details and determine what happened in greater detail. The White House clearly thought that was the right approach, as Cheney said. But Cheney, apparently, trumps the White House on a big story like this when it involves him. So the mystery is not solved, and may never be. Look: this is not a big deal, although it’s fascinating in a way. It’s just a small deal of dodging, arrogance, and weirdness. Like a lot of stuff related to Cheney. Just ask Scooter.

This reader is onto something:

"I’m not a paranoid lefty who ascribes the worst motives and monster qualities to Bush/Cheney/Rove. So I’d never say they shot someone on purpose. However, it’s worth noting that this Cheney debacle has provided cover and substantially diverted attention from some otherwise very icky news stories this week: Congress close to deep-sixing any investigation into the NSA spying program; Chertoff and HSA getting slammed by a new Katrina report and hearings; new Abu Ghraib torture photos; the Shays hearings; Rice getting grilled by members of her own party over lack of progress in Iraq, etc.

On balance, if I were a Bush flack I’d take a bizarre hunting accident over those more terrible news stories any day. In fact, now’s the time to release names or reports or legislation or bill signing statements or nettlesome employees while we’re fixated on the fact that the Vice President shot a man in the face on his way to confirming once and for all how awful his judgment is."

My only quibble is that the pretty good economic news was drowned out.

Many people are still under the illusion that the abuses documented again today at Abu Ghraib were entirely improvised by a handful of people on the night shift, rather than a matter of widespread practice and policy. Here are two interviews with two former interrogators, Roger Brocaw and Tony Lagouranis. Since the president has declared himself immune from the McCain Amendment, this issue still needs addressing. Alas.

"You have to treat the prisoners like dogs. If you treat them, or if they believe that they’re any different than dogs, you have effectively lost control of your interrogation from the very start. So they have to earn everything they get. And it works," – Major General Geoffrey Miller, sent by Donald Rumsfeld to Abu Ghraib in order to "Gitmoize" the facility.

That’s from a first-hand account by the woman he was talking to, Brigadier Janis Karpinski. Miller has never been disciplined. Here’s someone following Miller’s instruction: