Month: February 2010

Marc Lynch posts a photograph that has caused quite a stir in the Arab media showing a handshake between Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and former Saudi intelligence chief Turki al-Faisal. Why it matters:

It's a common mistake to assume that only the private views of leaders or only public discourse matters. Both levels matter, the private Realpolitik of Arab leaders and the real passions of the Arab public. The depth of the gap between the private views of Arab leaders and the predominant views of the Arab public explains much of the vitriol of the current "Arab cold war". Many Arabs are worried about Iran, no doubt about it, and many in the official camp are deeply hostile to Hamas, Hezbollah, and most other forms of populist opposition. But most also continue to be genuinely outraged by Israeli policies and reject any public relationship. It's a cliche to say so but also true: don't expect the much-predicted Arab-Israeli alliance against Iran to ever live up to its hype (at least publicly) without real movement towards Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Scott Lucas is keeping tabs on an "extraordinary" report:

… Rafsanjani had asked the Supreme Leader to arrange for the release from prison of Alireza Beheshti, Mir Hossein Mousavi’s advisor and the son of the late “martyr” Ayatollah Beheshti. This evening, whether or not it was because of Rafsanjani’s intervention, Beheshti was freed. There was more, however. Rah-e-Sabz claimed that Rafsanjani had given an “ultimatum” to Ayatollah Khamenei to act against the post-election abuses.

We are still treating the story with caution; however, an EA correspondent has considered the implications if the report is accurate.

Iowans are unfazed by marriage for all:

The Des Moines Register conducted a poll of Iowans asking, “The state Legislature can address large and small issues during the course of the session. For the following issues, please tell me if you think the issue does or does not deserve the Legislature’s limited time.” Banning gay marriage did not make the cut; only 36% thought it was worth the time discussing.

Not only was it not deemed worthy of legislative time, of the six issues that Iowans were questioned about, addressing gay marriage concerned them the least. Iowans were more concerned about payday loans and puppy mills than there were about whether same-sex couples married.

Rothenburg, Germany, 12 pm.

The book, The View From Your Window, with 200 of the best window views published by the Dish over the last three years, beginning at dawn and ending at dusk with a foreword by Andrew Sullivan, can be previewed here and ordered here.

A reader writes:

As a former Marine infantryman I can say that I found "The Hurt Locker" to be generally accurate in terms of military culture, all the way down to stupid drunken wrestling matches in the middle of the night.  More, I know some people (US Army) who are in Iraq right now, and they love the movie, considering it the most accurate depiction of what it's like over there.  Yes, there are things in the movie that don't make sense in terms of actual practice (e.g. the guys never call for backup or close air support – the scene at the desert bunker would have been the perfect opportunity for that). Yes, the lead character is a loose cannon who you imagine being busted, NJP'd (non judicial punishment), and reassigned. But just because these things are improbable doesn't mean they are impossible.

Keep in mind that this film was based on reportage by a journalist who was embedded with these teams for months.  Therefore, however much a veteran as myself might find it implausible, there likely was a factual basis for most of the story.  Furthermore, I found the film anti-war: the Colonel who orders triage on a shot insurgent by killing him, the frequent dead civilians, the constant encirclement of frowning Arabs staring at the trio, the little kids throwing rocks at the Humvee at the end – all raise the question as to how any of this is justified.

Harvey Mansfield makes his case against Obama and health care reform:

What every progressive wants is to put the particular issue he espouses beyond political dispute. Obama wanted, and as his first State of the Union address showed still wants, to put health care beyond politics so that he can be the last president to be concerned with it.

He did concede in that speech “philosophical differences” between the parties, “that will always cause us to part ways.” But he did not say what these differences are and seemed to assume that they would only infect “short-term politics” by serving the ambitions of party leaders. True leadership in Republicans would require them to cooperate in the reform despite their ambitions and their philosophy. Once the bill is enacted, health care need only be administered by experts whose main task will be to adjust (i.e., expand) its extent and to cover its costs. The principle will have been decided. It becomes an entitlement that is no longer open to political controversy; it is secure from second thoughts prompted by reactionaries.

William Galston replies:

[T]o say, as Mansfield does, that the president’s belief in the ability of government to improve our health care system reflects a preference for progress over liberty only obscures what is really at stake. The president’s stance threatens neither political liberty nor individual liberty. His argument does not remove—and was not intended to remove—the issue of health policy beyond the bounds of political argument. It seeks, rather, to ground his proposals in considerations that most citizens would regard as weighty if not dispositive. And his proposals reflect an understanding of individual liberty in the modern state that has far more to commend it than does the understanding to which Mansfield appeals.

Douthat challenges liberals:

A liberal version of the Ryan roadmap could be written pretty easily. But it wouldn’t look like the current Democratic legislation, and it certainly wouldn’t claim to balance the budget just by finding efficiencies throughout the existing health-care system. It would propose tax hikes, and significant ones — enough to take the government’s share of G.D.P. to 25 percent, 30 percent, or beyond.

In the end, this the choice we’re facing: Tax increases, spending cuts, or some combination thereof. To the consternation of some of his more risk-averse colleagues, Ryan has offered up a serious small-government approach, painful cuts and all. His liberal critics should take up his challenge, and tell us just how high they’re willing to see taxes rise instead.

A-fucking-men. This is a two-way street, guys. And the Dems and libs need to own up to their own fantasies and cowardice as well.

Gallup has

If you're a Cheneyite, this is bad news. If you believe soft power matters alongside hard power, this is one aspect of the change we hoped for that has truly happened. Of course, it was from a crushingly low base.

Matt Yglesias and Marc Thiessen have been fighting over Matt's calling waterboarding a technique used during the Spanish Inquisition. Yglesias:

I suppose the natural question to ask..is why these kind of comparisons to the Spanish Inquisition and the Khmer Rouge and the Korean War-era People’s Liberal Army seem to bother torture advocates so much. The basic point made by torture advocates (when they’re not quibbling about whether or not you should call techniques poached from a torture resistance manual “torture”) is that the problem with liberals is that we’re not sufficiently willing to engage in brutal treatment of prisoners in order to compel their cooperation. But do you know who really didn’t shy away from brutal treatment of prisoners? The Spanish Inquisition! The Khmer Rouge! These are people who knew how to get the job done and it strikes me as deeply hypocritical of torture fans to turn around and get all squeamish and liberal when they hear that the inquisitors added a garrote or two into the torturing fun. The core element of the water torture is the same, even though different iterations of it are conducted in somewhat different ways—that’s the point of the Inquisition comparison.

Thiessen responds:

[If Yglesias] had read Courting Disaster, he would also know that the CIA never “forced water” down the throats of terrorists. (He even includes a picture alongside his post of Inquisitors forcing a device down the throats of a man to fill his innards with water). This is a technique called “pumping” that was employed by Imperial Japan and other despotic regimes. They would force water into their victims until their internal organs expanded painfully (the Japanese even fed them uncooked rice first which then expanded inside their bowels when it made contact with the water), and the victims passed out from the pain. The torturers would then jump on the victims’ stomachs to make them vomit — reviving them so they could then start the process over again. The CIA never did anything even remotely like this. A few seconds of water being poured over the mouths of terrorists, never entering their stomach or lungs, does not compare to these tortures. Yet Yglesias and his ilk want you to believe the CIA did the same thing. They are either deeply uninformed or intentionally lying.

…[C]ritics like Yglesias really do themselves a disservice by insisting that the CIA and the Spanish Inquisition used the same techniques. It just makes them seem ridiculous. Few Americans really believe that the United States employed the same techniques as the Spanish Inquisition, or Nazi Germany, or the Khmer Rouge. That they stake their ground on this specious argument shows how vapid their case is.

Thiessen is correct when he says that

Few Americans really believe that the United States employed the same techniques as the Spanish Inquisition, or Nazi Germany, or the Khmer Rouge.

They cannot believe that because it does not square with their whole concept of America. What they don't fully understand is how radically Bush and Cheney and Thiessen assaulted the core idea of America in their period in office.

And, yes, there are distinctions between water-boarding and water-torture. So far as we now, the CIA didn't force large amounts of water into someone's stomach. But the principle of using water as a torture tactic is the same, along with the sensation of drowning. What's indisputable is that Thiessen backs the Khmer Rouge version, memorialized below in Cambodia's museum of torture. It is exactly the same as the CIA's, with a cloth over the face so that no water actually goes down into the lungs, but tricks the body into feeling that it does. The same tilted board, the hands and feet bound, and repeated up to 183 times. There is simply no moral, historical, legal debate that this is now and always has been torture. Nor is there any debate that it is a war crime:

 

And here is the Gestapo's version of "enhanced interrogation techniques," or Verschaerfte Vernehmung, which I exposed at length years ago now. The Gestapo was indeed more humane than some of the Thiessen-approved techniques. I apologize for not having had the time to read Thiessen's book yet. It's obviously not because I have time on my hands. I will in due course. But on this basic point in his public posts and utterances about his disgraceful book, he is simply wrong.