Category: Old Dish

Gary Rosen wonders if the Jihadists aren’t defeating themselves. Here’s hoping.

There is a troubling aspect to the otherwise laudable campaign to provide basic civil and legal equality to gay citizens in this country and around the world. That aspect is the attempt to prevent or even criminalize the expression of hostility to homosexuality, or gay rights, or indeed any other form of anti-gay speech. This is inimical to the principles of freedom on which the campaign for gay rights must rest. For centuries, the First Amendment was the only security for gay people; without freedom of speech, there would have been no gay rights movement. The idea that that movement would now attempt to restrict the rights of our opponents is truly disgraceful. You see it in Canada, and there is a recent grotesque example in England. It seems to me that gay groups need to end their silence about this and rigorously defend the free speech rights of our opponents, as well as their right to practice their religious faith in any way they see fit, and to proselytize within the law as aggressively as they want. We need to defend the free association rights of groups like the St Patrick’s Day parade organizers and even the Boy Scouts, however repugnant their views of gay people. Words cannot harm people; in fact, because those in favor of gay equality are telling the truth, we have every incentive to magnify and extend the debate. Silencing opponents is a sign of weakness, doubt and intolerance. Gay groups can and should do better.

Mark Levin is in such denial it’s almost painful to read. He describes my attempt to educate him about the widespread abuse and torture of military detainees as a series of “looney” links. Those links are to four government reports, the Red Cross, the New Yorker, the Washington Post, CBS News, the Guardian, and the New York Times. I know that the right believes all those organizations are now officially “looney,” especially the Red Cross, but really. Levin goes further and accuses me of lying. I’ll take just one outrageous charge – that I have been

“falsely contending that interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay found their way to Abu Ghraib (as if those convicted of mistreating prisoners at Abu Ghraib, including putting underwear on a prisoner’s head, were tutored by honorable soldiers interrogating terrorists at GITMO), and on and on.’

Well, he hasn’t read the reports and doesn’t want to. But let me quote from the Schlesinger Report, ordered up by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld:

We noted earlier that migration of interrogation techniques from Afghanistan to Iraq. Those interrogation techniques were authorized only for Operation Enduring Freedom [the Afghanistan campaign]. More important, their authorization in Afghanistan and Guantanamo was possible only because the President had determined that individuals subjected to these interrogation techniques fell outside the strict protections of the Geneva Conventions.”

My italics. There is also a direct link from the abuse and torture authorized at Guantanamo and that at Abu Ghraib: General Geoffrey Miller, who was sent from Cuba to “Gitmoize” Abu Ghraib, where he told Janis Karpinski to treat detainees “like dogs.” Memos exist detailing commands to “break” the prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Miller has never been disciplined. He was doing what Rumsfeld told him to do – which is why Rumsfeld’s own profession of “shock” at Abu Ghraib was itself a shocking piece of dishonesty or, again, denial. These are simply the facts, as reported by the Bush administration itself. Levin must withdraw his assertions that I am “falsely contending” anything, and his depraved attempt to argue that what happened at Abu Ghraib amounted to no more than a few panties on a few heads. He also asserts that Ronald Reagan authorized the torture of military detainees. That is a slander against the former president, which Levin must also withdraw. The strange thing is that I really think he believes what he’s writing. That level of denial and ignorance is necessary to keep a certain cognitive dissonance alive. But it has nothing to do with journalism; and even less to do with reality.

Politics and the Wallaces. Painful.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: “Tony, that is a recipe for losing this war. We are fighting against an idea – jihadi fundamentalism – and at the heart of this philosophy is the idea that democracy is a fiction, a sweet sugar-coating that quickly melts away to reveal a torture chamber. Over the past three years, your buddy George Bush has made this claim ring true in every home in the Muslim world. So why are you cowering on a runway below a CIA flight, holding your hands in your ears, humming Condy’s denials until the plane – and the screams of its passengers – are far, far away?” – Johann Hari, fierce defender of the war on terror, but horrified by the Bush administration’s deployment of torture.

Brent Bozell says I’m no “conservative.” Enjoy. Label debates are silly. But I should say, for the record, that I favor the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, have been horrified by the incompetence of the occupation, but have been trying to make constructive arguments for how to win for quite a while now. Yes, I oppose the torture and abuse of military detainees. I’m a little stunned that this is now something that now requires one to be seen as a “liberal.” I support almost all of Bush’s tax cuts (I support the estate tax) but also believe in balanced budgets and spending restraint (heretic!); I oppose affirmative action; I oppose hate crime laws; I respect John Kerry’s military service; I believe all abortion is morally wrong and that Roe vs Wade was dreadful constitutional law (but I do favor legal first trimester abortions); I support states’ rights, especially in social policy, such as marriage; I oppose the expansion of the welfare state, as in the Medicare prescription drug plan; I supported John Roberts’ nomination and Sam Alito’s; I believe in a firm separation of religion and politics, but I certainly take faith seriously and wrestle with my own. As regular readers know, I’m no fan of the far left. At some point, I have endorsed every single Republican president in my adult life. All of that makes me a “liberal.” Imagine what it now takes to be a “conservative” in Brent Bozell’s eyes.

READING IN THE JOHN: Ok, well maybe papers are going to die after all:

Your reader appears to make a strong point with his “pooper paper” argument, yet reveals himself as little more than a lavatory Luddite when he somehow neglects to consider the widespread impact of Blackberries and Sidekicks on media consumption and pooping patterns. Like you, I happily (well, sometimes more happily than others) read the Economist, the NY Times and the rest on the John, except that I’m on economist.com and nytimes.com and I’m reading them on my Sidekick. Not only that, but using the built-in AOL Instant Messenger, I can instantly communicate my views on the news to other tech-savvy bowel movers. The only paper I need in the bathroom is the TP itself. Except, I should note, when I’m trying to access AndrewSullivan.com – for some unknown reason (an abundance of etiquette on your part, let’s just say) the Daily Dish will not load onto my Sidekick.

There’s even data to back this up. When we move to Time.com, I’m sure you’ll be able to coordinate my political movements with your other ones. Until then …

Mark Levin has apparently not read any of the government reports about torture or the Red Cross reports. I have. They do indeed deal with Abu Ghraib, the worst of which we have yet to see, but they also cover the broader issue of how the abuse occurred, how techniques used at Guantanamo Bay “migrated” to Abu Ghraib, and how legal decisions made at the very top of this administration played a part in compounding a horrible problem. The Red Cross reports document horrifying abuse and torture in every theater of combat. Levin asks for more specifics. Has he ever heard of the “Salt Pit” in Afghanistan? The murder at Bagram? The CIA directives for “waterboarding,” now apparently authorized against eleven detainees, according to the Washington Post? Levin can read my now-dated summary here. Or he can read the excellent source for my review, Mark Danner’s compilation of all the Bush administration memos permitting torture, as well as the abundant reports of real cases. More published reading material can be found here. The press reports are too voluminous to compress here, but they show a consistent pattern of abuse and torture, followed by non-punishment or nominal investigation. Levin can read about a few of these incidents and cases here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. There’s much more, but I presume my own obligation to improve Levin’s access to the facts has been fulfilled. I recommend Google as well.

“I’m interested in the news, I’m not all that interested in the opinions,” – president Bush on what he reads (and doesn’t).

The Powerline partisans oppose McCain for the usual reasons. (And there are legit reasons to differ with McCain, and I’ve gotten into a few arguments with him myself). But they haven’t called him “pro-terrorist,” as an email from GOPUSA did. If you oppose torture, you are, of course, in favor of terrorism. Welcome to today’s Republican activists.

Here’s a reason submitted by a reader:

I agree with Don Graham’s assessment that news is moving online, but I’m going to degrade myself and defend the paper version for one simple reason: “the pooper paper”.
If and when all newspapers move to an online form, I’ll simply have to stop going to the bathroom. Every day, I get the news online, but I get detailed news in the bathroom. Every paper has editorials, special reports about local families, even bizarre classified ads from women who want to do things no other human wants. So, for the sake of humanity, there is always going to be a paper version of the news. I’ve tried reading a laptop in the bathroom and it’s just not the same.

Ah, yes, the bog-read. That’s where I absorb the NYT Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, Commonweal, and the Economist. Dead trees still have their uses. And in my recent case of what turned out to be food poisoning, I read a lot.

The fight continues. Background here.

FRYING RICE: Ivo Daalder tries to make sense of her latest op-ed.