Month: May 2009

That Arrested Teen

I linked to the story here. Not a function of the Patriot Act, it appears:

While there’s plenty to criticize in that post-9/11 law, it doesn’t contain any provision that abrogates a defendant’s right to a trial. It’s also not responsible for making it illegal to phone in a bomb threat. That’s been a federal crime since 1939. The boy’s mother, Annette Lundeby, has even acknowledged in interviews that her son has been formally charged, has a court-appointed attorney, and has already made appearances in front of a judge.

Rosen Re-States

Money quote:

"Sotomayor is an able candidate–at least as able as some of the current Supreme Court justices–and if Obama is convinced she is the best candidate on his short list, he should pick her."

Read the whole thing. Beutler:

A Sotomayor supporter who once clerked on the second circuit for a different judge disputes that interpretation. "I was…shocked by his implication that because prosecutors dislike her it means she isn't fit — in fact, it should be the reverse," the source said. "If prosecutors have a low opinion of a judge it's probably because she challenges them, rather than rubber stamping their allegations as many judges do."

Animals Don’t Torture?

A reader writes:

Unfortunately, we are not the only species that willfully causes suffering.  Cetaceans (killer whales, dolphins) have been observed toying with their prey quite a bit. National Geographic had some amazing footage of a pod of killer whales that had isolated a seal, and spent some time flipping it to each other with their tails, tossing it like a ball.  After exhausting the thing, one of them crunched it.  Chimps have been observed maiming a member of another tribe, then letting it go. Unfortunately, it's a base instinct at some level, and natural selection has not found a way to get rid of it yet.

Torture, it stikes me, cannot be a base instinct. We cannot know what is going on in the consciousness of whales or dolphins as they appear to torture. Some scientists have observed it as a kind of play, or training for the young. Cruelty? It requires human consciousness, so far as can know at this point. The same applies to the feline angle:

You don't own a cat, do you?  I know your beloved beagles would never engage in the sort of barbarism I am about to describe, but cats take their sweet time with a captive mouse, bird, etc.  It can take one of my very pampered housecats well over an hour to finally do in the little squeaker.  The mouse is batted about the room; there are are stress positions and (un)intentional dismemberment – it's not pretty.  Eventually, the cat might eat the remains – or she might not.  They are arbitrary and essentially un-empathetic creatures.   I can't say that their actions are meant to inflict pain, per se, and they certainly aren't getting any valuable information or false confessions from the mouse (that I know of) but they sure are enjoying themselves while doing it.  Which is the real dehumanizing danger in allowing torture for any purpose, under any circumstances. You just don't want to let humans go down that road – some of them might get to like it.

“Inhuman” Ctd

Of course I am not the first to make this point. Here's Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov describing acts of brutality far more sadistic than anything authorized by Bush

"People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that's all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it. These Turks took a pleasure in torturing children, too; cutting the unborn child from the mothers womb, and tossing babies up in the air and catching them on the points of their bayonets before their mothers’ eyes.

Doing it before the mothers’ eyes was what gave zest to the amusement. Here is another scene that I thought very interesting. Imagine a trembling mother with her baby in her arms, a circle of invading Turks around her. They've planned a diversion: they pet the baby, laugh to make it laugh. They succeed, the baby laughs. At that moment a Turk points a pistol four inches from the baby's face. The baby laughs with glee, holds out its little hands to the pistol, and he pulls the trigger in the baby's face and blows out its brains. Artistic, wasn't it? By the way, Turks are particularly fond of sweet things, they say."

Israel’s Nukes

Joe Klein joins the debate with Noah Pollak. Is Israel always the victim of threats? And Iran always the belligerent?

How about Israel's constant threats of military action against Iran's nuclear program? How about the disproportionate bellicosity Israel visited upon Iran's Hizballah surrogate in 2006? Which is not to say that Hizballah is anything other than a group of extremist thugs–but southern Lebanon and, more recently, Gaza are the battlefields where Israel's rivalry with Iran has been playing out. (Add: Indeed, given the state of hostilities–for which Iran is almost totally responsible–the very existence of Israel's nuclear arsenal can be seen as an existential threat to Iran.)

I want Israel to survive and prosper. I just don't think treating it as an exception to every other rule we apply to the world helps in the long run. I want the Iranian regime to fall. I just don't think pushing the entire country into a corner helps in the short run. Maybe Iran will give us no choice (although there are some hopeful signs that Obama is already scrambling internal Iranian politics). But even so, a less cloying and franker relationship with Israel will be good for all parties.