Month: April 2006

The great hope for Shiite moderation in Iraq, Ayatollah Sistani, has a representative in the U.S.: one Fadhel Al-Sahlani. He’s both a Holocaust-skeptic and someone who believes that Israel should not exist. Just noticing the actual content of Muslim moderation in Iraq.

This story, reported by Radley Balko, has to be read to be believed. Money quote:

The police are attempting to get the illiterate man to sign an admission of guilt without telling him what it says. They beat him, over and over, hook electrodes up to testicles and shock him, threaten to kill him, and threaten to go after his family. Early news accounts reported that the torture continued well beyond the end of the recording. After the tape ran out, the same deputies apparently repeatedly submerged the guy’s head in a fish tank and a bath tub, threatening to drown him unless he confessed. This guy at worst was a small-time drug dealer. He had no history of violence.

The only reason this has been proved is because the victim’s wife secretly recorded the torture session. Listen if you can bear it. The five cops are now mercifully in jail, but only for, at most, seven years. I guess when the president has endorsed torture by the CIA, it’s hard to put low-level cop-torturers in jail for life. Radley believes this kind of atrocity is more common than we might believe. I have no way to know. What I do know is that when the government launches an ill-defined "war" on a "thing", rather than an explicit foreign enemy, and when you have an administration as profoundly hostile to American liberty as this one is, all sorts of abuses will necessarily follow. And they have.

Most people in America are unaware of the Euston Manifesto. It’s an important British-based statement of left and liberal principles in the new era of fundamentalism. Last week, I had dinner in London with Johann Hari and Nick Cohen, two supporters of the project. Norm Geras, an inspiration to many, was a guiding force behind it. In some ways, it’s very compatible with Peter Beinart’s call for the Democrats to revive their anti-fascist roots, and to fight Islamism with the tenacity of Truman and integrity of Orwell. There is much in the manifesto to celebrate. But here’s one passage that struck home to me:

Drawing the lesson of the disastrous history of left apologetics over the crimes of Stalinism and Maoism, as well as more recent exercises in the same vein (some of the reaction to the crimes of 9/11, the excuse-making for suicide-terrorism, the disgraceful alliances lately set up inside the "anti-war" movement with illiberal theocrats), we reject the notion that there are no opponents on the Left. We reject, similarly, the idea that there can be no opening to ideas and individuals to our right. Leftists who make common cause with, or excuses for, anti-democratic forces should be criticized in clear and forthright terms. Conversely, we pay attention to liberal and conservative voices and ideas if they contribute to strengthening democratic norms and practices and to the battle for human progress.

On Iraq, the signers make the critical, inescapable point:

The founding supporters of this statement took different views on the military intervention in Iraq, both for and against. We recognize that it was possible reasonably to disagree about the justification for the intervention, the manner in which it was carried through, the planning (or lack of it) for the aftermath, and the prospects for the successful implementation of democratic change. We are, however, united in our view about the reactionary, semi-fascist and murderous character of the Baathist regime in Iraq, and we recognize its overthrow as a liberation of the Iraqi people. We are also united in the view that, since the day on which this occurred, the proper concern of genuine liberals and members of the Left should have been the battle to put in place in Iraq a democratic political order and to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, to create after decades of the most brutal oppression a life for Iraqis which those living in democratic countries take for granted ‚Äî rather than picking through the rubble of the arguments over intervention.

Those of us who are to the right of these thinkers – on domestic policy, at least – should not corral all of those to our left into the Michael Moore camp. Many liberals are on our side against Islamist threats, and we must support them. Equally, we have to make sure that our criticism of Bush and his dreadful, criminal defense secretary does not mean a capitulation to the anti-Americanism, moral relativism and defeatism of the cut-and-run left. We must fight that tendency as relentlessly as we must fight Christianism and Islamism. But a new coalition is forming – against all these isms. For freedom. For the West.

One great British comic duo, "Little Britain"’s David Walliams and Matt Lucas, parodies another great British pop duo, the Pet Shop Boys. Since I worship both, I loved the video that you can view here. If you’ve never heard of either, it might be a little opaque. If you know either, it’s Very Fundamental, Actually.

"The true defeatists today are not those who call for recognizing the facts on the ground in Iraq. The true defeatists are those who believe America is so weak that it must sacrifice its principles to the pursuit of illusory power.

The true pessimists today are not those who know that America can handle the truth about the Administration’s boastful claim of ‘Mission Accomplished’ in Iraq. The true pessimists are those who cannot accept that America’s power and prestige depend on our credibility at home and around the world. The true pessimists are those who do not understand that fidelity to our principles is as critical to national security as our military power itself.

And the most dangerous defeatists, the most dispiriting pessimists, are those who invoke September 11th to argue that our traditional values are a luxury we can no longer afford," – John Kerry, last Saturday, uttering the words he never found when it mattered. I guess the 2004 focus-groups told him to stay silent. But better late then never.

A reader dissents:

You write: "Do we want to revisit their and our own traumas as entertainment?" Clearly, no. But I suspect this movie is not about entertainment. It’s about education. I suppose some could say that Schindler’s List is entertainment, but it’s not.  Schindler’s List is a story of heroism and that one man can make a difference in the lives of thousands of others. That is a story that needs to be told again and again, not because it is entertaining, but because it is important that people know that true heroes are still out there.  That heroic acts are still possible.

I suspect United 93 is that kind of story.

I doubt I will see the movie.  But I would venture that, if done correctly, it could be one of the most important films in years. It could stand as a testament to heroism and the futility of terrorism so long as heroes are among us.

Well, I hope so. For my part, I’ll be attending the premiere of the documentary, "Saint of 9/11," about that remarkable American and Catholic, Mychal Judge, the fire-fighter’s chaplain who died serving his flock. I saw a rough cut a while back, and if it’s even better than it was, it’s an astonishingly powerful movie. Ian McKellan narrates it. But Judge is the focus – or, rather, the great and humble faith that made this man a son of God.

As Karl Rove prepares another rhetorical bashing of gay couples for the summer (it’s been a two-year ritual since 1996, with diminishing electoral returns), the world carries on. Part of that world is the ubiquity of gay adoption, a socially beneficial activity that is also replicated throughout the animal world. The latest example comes from the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge, England. Two pink flamingoes (apparently unaware of my Ptown co-resident, John Waters) have been busy raising three generations of flamingo chicks, in a committed relationship lasting five years now. I do not, of course, endorse their adoption methods. But no one disputes their parenting skills. Money quote:

Nigel Jarrett, WWT Aviculture Manager explains:

"Carlos and Fernando have been together now for five years and seem perfectly happy together. Both of them take on the male roles during the courtship ritual which involves preening, strutting and waving their heads vigorously from side to side with their necks at full stretch. Their parental instincts are also very strong prompting them to raid the nests of other couples in the flock. They have been known to fight the heterosexual birds and there is usually a ‘handbags at dawn’ moment where they will fight with another couple before stealing their egg. They are both large adult males so as a partnership they are quite formidable and are afforded more respect from the other birds. They are also very good parents and behave just as the heterosexual birds do when rearing their young."

For the first 3 or 4 weeks young flamingos are fed on crop milk a pink nutritious liquid produced by both parents so Carlos and Fernando have no problem feeding their adopted young and have so far raised three chicks.

Memo to Robbie George: there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

I caught the trailer of United 93 online and found myself once again with a lump in my throat and a lurch in my stomach. My feelings about the movie opening tonight are complicated. Of course, I have no issue with someone’s First Amendment right to make such a movie, even after so short a time, and even if it was a stand-in for "The Bourne Supremacy". Part of me is glad they did. The story of that flight is a transcendent one of self-government and self-defense; it’s a metaphor for ordinary folks taking back their destiny from evil; it’s an inspiring parable for democracy itself, and the genuine martyrdom it only recently demanded. I still wonder what would have happened to the American psyche if those monsters had successfully attacked the capitol, the symbol of democratic government. Whenever I think of that remarkable flight, my admiration for the men and women involved surges. (I’m particularly proud that someone who was openly homosexual helped save his country, and show once again that gay people are integral to any society as moral leaders.)

And yet, I will not see this movie, whatever its merits. The trauma is still too close. That day is still etched in me, as in all of us. It was a specific, unique trauma for those heroes on the plane; but it was also an emotional devastation for anyone who loves this country. Do we want to revisit their and our own traumas as entertainment? Perhaps this is cowardice, then, that I feel; and seeing it again would stiffen my spine against terror, and remind me of what we still owe the victims and the heroes of that day. But the years since, and the atrocities still committed by the Jihadists, have not diminished my or, I suspect, many other people’s desire to fight our enemy with vigor and precision. My spine hasn’t softened against al Qaeda. If anything, I want to defeat what they represent more now than ever.

So why the resistance to seeing it? Perhaps it’s a religious impulse. In some ways, I regard the acts of those men and women to be an almost sacred moment in the history of America and of freedom. And sometimes, the sacred is best respected through silence. Sometimes, the greatest deeds, like the most monstrous acts, are best left unrepresented. They stand alone. They demand to be left alone. One day, commemmorate. But do not so swiftly represent. Shakespeare often left the greatest moments in his plays off-stage. They have more power there.

Another former general calls on Rumsfeld to resign – on Fox News, for added piquancy. On the plane back from England, I tuck into Cobra II. I’d put it off, thinking it would be important but tedious homework. In fact, it’s a really riveting, readable narrative of the Iraq war, its origins and its unfolding. Gordon and Trainor actually do what Bob Woodward is reputed to do (and doesn’t). They give you an inside account of matters of state that is fair and devastating. I haven’t finished yet, but already the evidence is simply overwhelming that this (in my view) noble, important and necessary war was ruined almost single-handedly by one arrogant, overweening de facto saboteur. That man is Donald Rumsfeld. It’s actually hard to fathom how one single man could have done so much irreparable damage to his country’s cause and standing; and how no one was able to stop him. He makes McNamara look inspired. This is not to exonerate Bush and Cheney, who enabled and enable him. And it’s not to argue that the military shouldn’t always ultimately defer to civilian leadership. But when that leadership has been this incompetent, this bull-headed, this reckless and malevolent and petty, the generals have a patriotic duty to speak out. Until this man is removed, we can have no confidence in the conduct of the war; and no confidence in the president as commander-in-chief. It’s really as simple as that.

The Republican base focuses on important matters again – in South Carolina. (Hat tip: Wonkette.)