Author: Andrew Sullivan

“I think it is inappropriate and illegitimate for an international civil servant to second-guess the conduct that we’re engaged in in the war on terror, with nothing more as evidence than what she reads in the newspapers.” – John Bolton, our U.N. ambassador.

Bolton is surely aware that the evidence that the U.S. has engaged in torture, and “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of detainees may be found in more than just the newspapers. Has he read his own briefs? He could also read the Schmidt Report, the Jones-Fay Report, the Taguba Report, the Schlesinger Report, the Bybee memo, the Yoo argument, the reports from the International Red Cross, and on and on. His own government has provided ample evidence of its own violation of American law and basic human rights. What you find in Bolton is something democratically repulsive, but one that is very close to the view of Dick Cheney. That view is that the public should never second-guess its own government in the conduct of a war. I wish we didn’t have to. But when you have bungled a war this badly, and committed war-crimes in the process, what would Bolton have us do? Trust, sadly, is no longer an option. It no longer became an option the minute looting broke out in Iraq and the secretary of defense, responsible for maintaining order in a country he had just invaded, shrugged his shoulders. From that moment of complete and proud dereliction of duty, we were on notice that these people couldn’t be trusted.

My response to Charles Krauthammer is now posted.

More analysis of her contorted, distorted, meaning-free, pre-packaged, lawyered, Orwellian assertions that the United States doesn’t torture anyone.

A return for my old college friend and former Tory leader, William Hague, as shadow foreign secretary in David Cameron’s Tory shadow cabinet. Great news. Hague has far too much talent to be wasted on the back benches or on the rubber-chicken circuit. The British conservatives are coming back. At last.

Another beaut.

Condi seems to have signaled a shift in administration policy on allowing “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of detainees. I’m going to wait for confirmation. The key thing to realize is that the last three years have proved beyond any doubt that no one in this administration can be trusted to enforce that without clear legislative back-up. They’ve lied before. They can lie again. Pass the McCain Amendment. No exceptions. No immunity – especially for those who signed the memos and warrants that ordered the illegal torture of detainees.

“No religious agency should be forced to act against its principles in the name of charity.” – Catholic Action League of Massachusetts Executive Director C.J. Doyle. A Catholic group acting on the basis of “charity”? What kind of Christian concept is that? There are far higher principles for Catholics than what St Paul called “caritas” or “agape.” Homophobia, for one. At least under this Pope.

Brian Riedl crunches the numbers on the Republican party’s continuing destruction of the fiscal health of the United States. It’s a grim picture.

BUSH VERSUS CHRISTMAS: So here’s a great test for Bill O’Reilly. Will he now include the president on his hilariously relentless campaign to “save” Christmas from all those evil secular, liberal, humanist, ACLU-type, anti-American traitors? Or will he decide to beat up on Wal-Mart instead? The Bush family’s liberal secularism seems genuine, by the way. The Washington Post has the following item today:

Laura Bush, ducking into the Georgetown Pottery Barn yesterday for barely five minutes, wearing a bright blue suit and wishing shoppers “Happy Holidays” in a very perky way. Didn’t buy anything — maybe just making her wish list?

She’s a heathen, I tell you. A disgusting liberal heathen.

A reader notices something:

I’m currently reading Willard Sterne Randall’s biography of Thomas Jefferson. In it, he quotes a letter to Patrick Henry from Jefferson in early 1779 regarding the treatment of English prisoners during the Revolution:

“I would not endeavor to show that their lives are valuable to us, because it would suppose a possibility that humanity was kicked out of doors in America and interest only attended to … But is an enemy so execrable that, though in captivity, his wishes and comforts are to be disregarded and even crossed? I think not. It is for the benefit of mankind to mitigate the horrors of war as much as possible. The practice, therefore, of modern nations of treating captive enemies with politeness and generosity is not only delightful in contemplation but really interesting to all the world, friends, foes, and neutrals.”

Considering how much conservatives like to fawn over the States’ Rights supported by Jefferson, what do they do with this enlightened view? Or is it aiding the enemy to even ask?

It’s aiding the enemy. Our duty is to shut up. At least, that’s what the vice-president appears to believe.

The best news for the U.S. in a long time in Europe was the defeat of Gerhard Schroder in the recent German elections. Finally, the U.S. had a new Chencellor in a critical country in central Europe, eager to repair relations. And on the first trip to greet her, what does the U.S. secretary of state have to do? She has to spend almost her entire time dealing with suspicion, even among pro-American Europeans, that the U.S. lies and covers up detainee abuses usually found in dodgy autocracies. Here’s a pro-American British Tory:

“It’s clear that the text of the speech was drafted by lawyers with the intention of misleading an audience,” Andrew Tyrie, a Conservative member of Parliament, said … Parsing through the speech, Mr. Tyrie pointed out example after example where, he said, Ms. Rice was using surgically precise language to obfuscate and distract. By asserting, for instance, that the United States does not send suspects to countries where they “will be” tortured, Ms. Rice is protecting herself, Mr. Tyrie said, leaving open the possibility that they “may be” tortured in those countries.

Read the European press. If this is the view of the pro-Americans, you can imagine the field day the anti-American left is having with this stuff. What this administration is succeeding in doing is deepening an already profound gulf between European democracies – especially their electorates – and the U.S. We cannot win the war on terror without their full cooperation and trust. We are throwing both away by our torture policies. Pass the McCain Amendment. No deals. No retroactive immunity for the criminals who sanctioned torture or those who carried it out. Just a return to American honor – and a process of accountability for every official who helped make torture U.S. policy.