Category: Old Dish

The final word in the torture debate rightly belongs to Marty Lederman, who patiently dissects Heather Mac Donald’s latest brief for the administration and shows it to be … well, make your own mind up.

“I don’t just see light at the end of the tunnel, I see light at the start and throughout the tunnel,” – Mohammed Hanash Abbas, an Iraqi in Baghdad. If they can hope, why can’t we?

AND AT MECCA: The chief Imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Sheikh Abdulrahman Al-Sudais, gives an annual sermon decrying extremism and terror. Money quote:

“Islam is the religion of moderation. There is no room for extremism in Islam,” he said. He called on Muslims to “protect non-Muslims in the Kingdom and not to attack them in the country or anywhere. Islam is a religion of peace that abhors attack on innocents.” Militants were using misguided interpretations of Islam to justify violence, he added. “Because Muslims have strayed from moderation, we are now suffering from this dangerous phenomenon of branding people infidels and inciting Muslims to rise against their leaders to cause instability,” Al-Sudais said. “The reason for this is a delinquent and void interpretation of Islam based on ignorance … faith does not mean killing Muslims or non-Muslims who live among us, it does not mean shedding blood, terrorizing or sending body parts flying.”

Is there some reason this didn’t get more play? It strikes me as important.

Critics of the president’s inaugural speech are, I think, misunderstanding it. It’s not a program; it’s not a New Year’s Resolution that will revolutionize America’s relationship with every major country. It was a thematic speech. That’s all. It’s an attempt to provide the president’s own melody to the chorus of his administration. A brief look at the Bush administration’s first four years does not reveal naive utopianism with regard to unfree countries. Fareed Zakaria usefully points this out:

The president said in his speech to the world’s democrats, ‘When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.’ But when democratic Taiwan stood up to communist China last year, Bush publicly admonished it, siding with Beijing. When brave dissidents in Saudi Arabia were jailed for proposing the possibility of a constitutional monarchy in that country, the administration barely mentioned it. Crown Prince Abdullah, who rules one of the eight most repressive countries in the world (according to Freedom House), is one of a handful of leaders to have been invited to the president’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. (The elected leaders of, say, India, France, Turkey and Indonesia have never been accorded this courtesy.) The president has met with and given aid to Islam Karimov, the dictator of Uzbekistan, who presides over one of the nastiest regimes in the world today, far more repressive than Iran’s, to take just one example.

And grown-ups – even idealistic grown-ups – know this is inevitable. The problem with Bush is not his ideals. It’s his ability to put those ideals into practice. In the series of screw-ups that was the Iraq war, Bush would have done better to think less about the idea of liberty and more about the nuts and bolts of how to build a nation. Just one.

BLOGGING FOR FREEDOM: A blog that keeps up with bloggers in unfree countries. Check it out.

WHATEVER, HE SMILED: When a sister loses her brother to AIDS, a world cracks. And now, a blog can express the grief and peer forward in hope. Hang in there, Lizzie. Keep the faith. Do you know Leonard Cohen’s song, “The Anthem”? It helped me get through my own AIDS deaths.

“In your TNR post on Larry Summer’s most recent public skewering for speaking a likely truth, you wrote that ‘Summers is putting his finger on one of liberalism’s great contemporary problems: how to reconcile the moral equality of human beings and the political equality of citizens with increasingly accurate scientific discoveries of aspects of human life that reflect our innate, biological inequality.’ Lincoln addressed this directly in his Springfield address of June 26, 1857 when he said:

In some respects she [a black woman] certainly is not my equal; but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands without asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others.

and

I think the authors of that notable instrument [the Declaration] intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did consider all men created equal—equal in ‘certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’

Lincoln was addressing the widespread (and probably false) belief that variance in intelligence has a racial component, but the same reasoning can apply to the many other (probably true) biological differences we are discovering exist among human beings. That is, a Liberal would assert that, despite the obvious biological variation that exists among human beings, they share an essential equality that entitles them to equality in certain rights. This is, of course, exactly the idea you articulated in your TNR essay, but I thought you might enjoy finding its parent in Lincoln, if you weren’t already aware of it. I also think it’s interesting that Lincoln picked a black woman for his comparison, deliberately choosing the individual that the white men in his audience (the ones who could vote) would be least likely to see as their equal and least able to empathize with.” – More feedback on the Letters Page.

DOBSON VERSUS SPONGE-BOB: Why pile on? Here’s the best take. What’s interesting to me is that what Dobson is objecting to is not gay sex or gay relationships or gay identity, or any legislative or judicial proposal. What he objects to is tolerance of gay people, or teacjhing children that gay people deserve respect. That’s SpongeBob’s crime! Revealing, no? Now, recall that this man is the most powerful social conservative in Bush’s Republican party.

That VW ad is a hoax. A great one though. I thought no major corporation would have the balls to do it. Oh well.

Dan Savage’s Stranger in Seattle has a priceless Inauguration cover.

You expect the homophobic Weekly Standard to run tasteless cartoons about gay people, playing to stereotypes, ridiculing serious study of homosexual history. But the Nation? I’d say their cartoon of “Babe Lincoln” is worse than the Standard, and the responsibility doesn’t lie with the cartoonist, Robert Grossman (with whom, by the way, I worked happily for many years at The New Republic). It’s an editorial decision and the editors of that allegedly “progressive” magazine won’t offer anything but a weasel apology. Doug Ireland has the cartoon. Here are the complaints. More proof that prejudice knows no ideology.

An encouraging poll from Iraq revealing how determined most Iraqis still are to vote in the elections. Money quote:

“I think people will be shocked,” said an official of another international organization deeply involved in preparing Iraq’s nascent political class for the ballot. The official, who insisted that neither he nor his organization could be identified because of security concerns, said most Iraqis remain intent on exercising their right to elect a government after decades of dictatorships. “I think the real story of this election is what’s gone on beneath the radar,” the official said. “They may not know what they’re voting for. But I think they recognize it’s something called democracy.”

There are many reasons to be worried about Iraq – the dangers of a civil war, the remaining lack of reconstruction, the persistence of the insurgency, the failure to train a sufficient number of Iraqi troops, etc etc. Just read Juan Cole if you want to get the smart pessimist’s view. I’m not one to dismiss the problems, as some supporters of the war are. But I do believe one thing: given a chance, people vote for a sane future. The elections have the potential to be a catalyst for broader change. We have lost windows of opportunity before. Let’s not lose this one.

DOMA SAILS THROUGH: Here’s a significant legal development in the marriage battle. The Defense of Marriage Act easily survived its first Constitutional test. Money quote:

US District Judge James S. Moody disagreed. Moody, an appointee of former president Bill Clinton, sided with outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft, who had argued in court filings that the government has a legitimate interest in permitting states to ban same-sex marriages, namely to encourage “stable relationships” to raise children with both biological parents. Moody ruled that the law was not discriminatory because it treats men and women equally, and that the government had argued compellingly in favor of allowing marriages to form only between men and women. Moody said he could not declare marriage a “fundamental right,” as lawyers for the women had urged him to do. Moody cited past legal cases as establishing states’ rights to regulate marriages. “The legislatures of individual states may decide to overturn its precedent and strike down” the law, Moody wrote. “But, until then, this court is constrained to hold [the law] and the Florida statutes . . . constitutionally valid.”

It’s the right decision. Civil marriage law should be left to the states, where it belongs. And the attempt by some gay activists to push this further and demand immediate national recognition of marriage rights is as strained constitutionally as it is foolish politically. What we need to do now is win the political and legislative fight in Massachusetts so that equality in marriage there can be seen as a democratic choice as much as a judicial decision. And we have to keep up the educational task of explaining why this reform makes sense. You can read a PDF of the judge’s decision here. (Meanwhile, Brazil also makes a move toward equal marriage rights. This truly is a global movement.)

HOW TO BEAT A CAR BOMBER: Volkswagon fights terror – with advertizing.

A BLOGGER ON HIS OWN: Here’s a profile of the ornery, independent, and often vicious blogger, Bob Somerby. I’m glad people like Somerby still exist. They are what the blogosphere is for.

Here are a couple of emails worth sharing on the question of what we are doing to detainees we suspect of being insurgents in Iraq or terrorists anywhere:

Hate to sound flip, but relax. What was being done (and perhaps continues to be done) is not torture by any conventional definition. It only has become ‘torture’ because the pious among us have chosen to redefine the term without any sense of perspective. At worst we ‘waterboard’. At best, they behead. I’m sorry, but these are new times with a truly evil enemy that is determined at any cost to kill as many of us as possible by any means. I just don’t have a problem with making these people uncomfortable.

“Uncomfortable” in five certified cases means dead at the hands of American interrogators. 23 others have died in U.S. custody and their deaths are under investigation. Oh well. Then there’s this angle, suggested to me by a reader:

Since you want to continue to wallow in the Abu Ghraib “torture” allow me to point out a number of observations. Firstly, I pride myself on a skill that involves the dissection of pictures that would appear to portray certain things. I’ve looked carefully at the Abu Ghraib human “pyramid” and my assessment is that the prisoners in that particular picture are complicit in this so-called “torture”. I see a scenario wherein the guards say; “Hey, lets have some fun, you guys get naked and get into a pile and we’ll get some pictures”. Some say absolutely not and do not participate. Others say “Okay but we need to hide our faces”. Hence the pictures depict hooded prisoners.

You understand from this email how democracies can become police states. Because we look away.

SPEAKING OF WHICH: Heather Mac Donald continues to write about what the official formal policy was for Gitmo, as if the administration’s cover for what they sanctioned is proof of their innocence. She doesn’t mention the gaping loophole in Bush’s memo that allows deviation from the formal rules against torture for “military necessity.” She still appears not to have read the major government reports that cite top government decisions as leading to the abuses. She doesn’t address any of the non-Abu Ghraib torture incidents – in almost every branch of the military in Iraq. She doesn’t answer why the administration has itself renounced its own torture memo from 2002. If it had nothing to do with the problem, why did it need to be rescinded? Her final point is worth addressing frankly:

What is ultimately at stake in this debate is the validity of the administration’s decision not to confer Geneva Convention prisoner of war status on terrorists. Mr. Sullivan refuses to explain why he thinks that terrorists who aim to massacre as many civilians as possible, hide in the civilian population, and fail to carry arms openly or wear uniforms, should be granted status as lawful combatants. Nor does he explain how such a decision would lead to a safer, more law-abiding world.

I disagree that that is what is at issue. Even if the alleged terrorists (and remember they include non-Qaeda captives in Iraq, according to Gonzales) are unlawful combatants, they still, according to U.S. law, should be free from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment that would “shock the conscience.” I fail to see why those who support this war, those who are principled conservatives, those who believe that the government should never be above the law, should still be finding pathetic excuses for this stain on the honor of the United States and its rightly revered armed forces.

BUSH ON GAYS: He’s not a homophobe, according to Lanny Davis. I never thought he was. In fact, that’s why his extraordinary attack on gay relationships and citizens is so dispiriting. It’s also counter-productive. Imagine if Bush had made a speech or remarks in which he had expressed his own view of the dignity of gay people and their relationships, even while believing that civil marriage should not be granted to them. Wouldn’t that have helped him? But the far right prevents him from saying that, because they believe that gay people are either sick or sinful. In order to win and hold power, he has to cater to homophobes, who have succeeded in obscuring the real Bush. This will hurt him. Note this interesting fact from the USAToday poll:

On domestic issues, Americans are more concerned about education and health care costs than they are about Social Security. They worry more about jobs, the deficit and poverty than they do about taxes, another focus for Bush. Protecting the environment ranks above curtailing lawsuits against doctors, the first major legislative proposal the president plans to pursue this year. Among 18 issues, same-sex marriage – the subject of heated debate in the election – comes in last when Americans are asked to rate their concerns.

Over to Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council:

“I believe there is no more important issue for the president’s second term than the preservation of marriage.”

Can Bush square that circle? No wonder he wants to put all the burden of resisting the FMA on the Senate.

A reader notes something else:

As the President raised his hand to take the oath of office, Rick Santorum’s face was framed perfectly for the camera between the President’s hand and his ear. Such an image was at once startling and telling – a vivid reminder of who will be looking over the his shoulder as he works to “preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States.”

Yes, I did notice that. And, yes: gulp.