Month: February 2007

The Obama Honeymoon

It’s over:

Obama’s about to endure a going-over that would make a proctologist blush. Why has he sometimes said his name is Arabic, and other times Swahili? Why did he make up names in his first book, as the introduction acknowledges? Why did he say two years ago that he would ‘absolutely’ serve out his Senate term, which sends in 2011, and that the idea of him running for president this cycle was ‘silly’ and hype ‘that’s been a little overblown’?

In interviews, strategists in both parties pointed to four big vulnerabilities: Obama’s inexperience, the thinness of his policy record, his frank liberalism in a time when the party needs centrist voters, and the wealth of targets that are provided by the personal recollections in his first book, from past drug use to conversations that cannot be documented.

Inevitable, I guess. But I wish Obama the best. He’s a fresh voice, apparently sincere, with an ability to speak bravely about tough issues with civility and insight. That’s not en endorsement, I hasten to add. But it is a hope.

Another Torture Victim

From the WaPo:

The lead interrogator at the DIF had given me specific instructions: I was to deprive the detainee of sleep during my 12-hour shift by opening his cell every hour, forcing him to stand in a corner and stripping him of his clothes. Three years later the tables have turned. It is rare that I sleep through the night without a visit from this man. His memory harasses me as I once harassed him.

Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.

American authorities continue to insist that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident in an otherwise well-run detention system. That insistence, however, stands in sharp contrast to my own experiences as an interrogator in Iraq. I watched as detainees were forced to stand naked all night, shivering in their cold cells and pleading with their captors for help. Others were subjected to long periods of isolation in pitch-black rooms. Food and sleep deprivation were common, along with a variety of physical abuse, including punching and kicking. Aggressive, and in many ways abusive, techniques were used daily in Iraq, all in the name of acquiring the intelligence necessary to bring an end to the insurgency. The violence raging there today is evidence that those tactics never worked. My memories are evidence that those tactics were terribly wrong.

C’mon, Jonah, C’mon, Steyn. C’mon, JPod. Have a good laugh. It’s fucking hilarious, isn’t it?

Faith in Faith

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A reader writes:

As a faithless former altar boy, I love your colloquy with Sam Harris. I think it will be a colloquy without resolution, however, as trying to rationally describe the mystery of faith is like trying to unzip fog. In fact, when the expression of faith becomes codified in a liturgy it becomes leaden, earthbound, and encourages rote recitation. It dies a little. Nothing creeps me out like hearing the thoughtless, unfeeling droning of the Nicene Creed at Mass. Beautiful words, rendered dead. I did it myself without thinking for years, until I began to feel like some kind of body-snatched cultist. Like I said, I was once a pious little altar boy, but I no longer believe. But here’s the thing: I find myself living in the limbo of not believing in God, but rather having a fervent belief in faith. I deeply envy faith. Funny world, huh? And no place in the world offers me the solace of a semi-darkened, stain-glassed cathedral, with statuary of saints and a hint of incense.

I was raised to believe that we must believe these things because they have inherent power and meaning, and that is why I eventually fell away, because my faith was too weak to stand up to the challenges of the rational world. What I now believe is the obverse: that because we believe in these things they take on a very real power and meaning. And no less powerful or meaningful than what I believed as a child. The Obama quote you cited yesterday afternoon really resonated with me for that reason, as he entered into his life of faith by choice, and not by revelation.

(Photo: Barack Obama by Jeff Haynes/AFP.)

Friendly Fire

It happens in wartime; it’s tragic; it’s embarrassing. But why did the Pentagon have to lie about it? It’s the lying that undermines alliances, not the incidents. The Telegraph rightly vents here:

It is the Pentagon’s resistance to assisting in L/Cpl Hull’s inquest that is the most disturbing aspect of the case. As the United States’ most loyal ally, frankly we deserve better. The Ministry of Defence has presented a feeble spectacle, wringing its hands but unwilling to press the issue with Washington. Then, out of the blue, the video is leaked to a Labour-supporting tabloid (which, to its credit, defied Pentagon threats and published it). If it proves to be the Government that leaked it in an attempt to bounce Washington into action, what a depressing reflection that is on New Labour’s methods – and our alleged special relationship with Washington.

Clive Davis notices similar spluttering at the conservative Spectator:

There is little grasp in Washington of the resentment felt in this country by people who are instinctively pro-American but also rightly reluctant for Britain to be treated as the 51st State, a ploddingly dependable Delaware off the coast of mainland Europe … Each time America treats its most trusted ally in this way, the harder it becomes for Atlanticists to take a stand against those who, in increasing numbers, would like to see Britain put some distance between itself and the US.

Bush and Cheney have managed to lose even the British Tories. And they hope to win over the world’s Muslims?