Category: The Dish

That’s one interpretation of the message this morning from none other than Ramesh Ponnuru. Supporting the Party of Death? For pragmatic purposes? Oh well. We all do what we must. May I extend a warm welcome to the resistance?

A group of retired military generals is lobbying to prevent a War Crimes Act that would reject the baseline standards for detainee treatment under Geneva:

"There is nothing good about it," John Hutson, former judge advocate general of the Navy, said about the authority to conduct harsh interrogations codified in the Bush plan. "It is not effective in terms of gaining good intelligence. It is not good for the U.S. in terms of being a world leader. And it is not good for U.S. troops in terms of being the victims of it or perpetrating it."

I agree with Senator McCain, a former military detainee himself and subjected to torture by the enemy:

"On the detainee-treatment issue. Senator Warner and I and Senator Graham and others are not going to agree to changes in the definitions in Common Article 3, because that then sends the message to the world that we are not going to adhere fully to the Geneva Conventions. And we worry about, in the future, other nations maybe deciding to interpret Common Article 3 to their own purposes."

Nevertheless, the analyst whose judgment I’ve come to trust best on this issue is deeply worried about the Graham-McCain bill in parts. Marty Lederman’s must-read plea to McCain and Graham can be read here. His concern is how the Bush administration has said it will interpret the plain meaning of Article 3 – and the evidence suggests they will interpret it to allow Bush’s favorite euphemism: "alternative methods." Money quote:

If this is not what Senator McCain intends – and it appears from his public statements that it is not – then he should do one of two things: Either (i) retain Common Article 3’s basic ban on all "cruel treatment and torture" as a subset of crimes under the War Crimes Act; or (ii) amend the legislation to specify that the McCain Amendment itself categorically prohibits such "alternative" techniques.

On the political front, I hear that the use of 9/11 families to promote the war crimes bill has been delayed a little, after worries in the White House that it might backfire so soon after the anniversary of 9/11.

I find it quite remarkable that the Pentagon arranges a telephone news conference with the Anbar general who said we need more troops in Anbar … and he still won’t play along with the Rumsfeld line:

"For what we are trying to achieve out here I think our force levels are about right," [Marine Maj. Gen. Richard C. Zilmer] said. Even so, he said the training of Iraqi soldiers and police had not progressed as quickly as once expected.
"Now, if that mission statement changes — if there is seen a larger role for coalition forces out here to win that insurgency fight — then that is going to change the metrics of what we need out here," he added.

So we do not have enough troops to win against the insurgency, just to "stifle" it. Fire. Rumsfeld. Now. Although you know what’s going to happen now, don’t you? They’re probably going to fire Zilmer.

Bangalore, India, 11 am.

A reader writes:

Although I hesitate to read too much of a Freudian slip into what Bush says, it did seem telling when Bush said to Matt Lauer that if he had the mastermind of 9/11 in custody, the American people would say ‘Why don‚Äôt you see if you can‚Äôt get information out of him without torturing him, which is what we did.’

This statement can be read two different ways, one of  which is a plain admission of torture.

Also, when pushed on the techniques used against KSM, Bush says ‘I told our people ‘get information without torture.” What a truly bizarre thing to have claimed to have said! Can you imagine Ken Lay on the stand, testifying ‘I told my people at Enron to make the company as profitable as possible, but not to use any kind of illegal or off-balance sheet accounting.’? The courtroom would have erupted in laughter. You would only ever say something like that unless you knew that was already going on.

It seems indisuptable to me that a) Bush has authorized "water-boarding"; b) he told his lawyers to come up with a formulation declaring this was legal (they did, finding Serbian precedents); c) his public strategy is to use euphemisms and make the ludicrous argument that he cannot discuss "specifics" because it could tip off the enemy. Does he really think that al Qaeda doesn’t know KSM was waterboarded? It was in the New York Times, confirmed by his own aides. Lauer made a good start. Now we need a journalist to call the president on this guff and get him to answer simply whether he believes "water-boarding" is torture or not. A simple question in the abstract. And very simple for a Christian to answer.

According to this report in the Times of London, Sunni tribes want American arms to help fight al Qaeda jihadists, who are fast taking over Anbar province in Iraq:

Mr Samarrai said that leaders from al-Anbar had made several proposals to the Americans, including arming the tribes to fight al-Qaeda, providing teams of bodyguards for tribal leaders, clerics and politicians who opposed al-Qaeda and making an intense recruitment push to build an indigenous army and police force.

Mr Samarrai predicted that extremist groups such as al-Qaeda would be defeated in a few months if the Americans acted on any of the al-Anbar proposals. Many leaders in al-Anbar believed that the Americans wanted the chaos to continue and were deliberately helping al-Qaeda, he said.

Nah. It’s probably just incompetence, wouldn’t you say?

"Maybe that’s because right-wing, knuckle-dragging Republicans like myself took over Congress in 1994 promising to balance the budget and limit Washington‚Äôs power. We were a nasty breed and had no problem blaming Bill and Hillary Clinton for everything from the exploding federal deficit to male pattern baldness. I suspected then, as I do now, that Hillary Clinton herself had something to do with ‘Love, American Style’ and ‘Joanie Loves Chachi.’ And why not blame her? Back then, Newt Gingrich felt comfortable blaming the drowning of two little children on Democratic values. Hell. It was 1994. It just seemed like the thing to do," – Joe Scarborough, in the Washington Monthly, on the early seeds of today’s conservative implosion. Still, at least, back then, Republicans believed in balancing the budget. Since 2000, they have added over $20 trillion to the debt the next generation will have to pay – more than double the unfunded liabilities they inherited.

"As long as the War Crimes Act hangs over their heads, they [interrogators] will not take the steps necessary to protect [Americans]," – president Bush at an on-the-record briefing with Kate O’Beirne and Rich Lowry (tough crowd).

Well, one way to get the war crimes act from over their heads is to instruct them not to commit war-crimes. But that doesn’t seem to have occurred to the president.

Amherst, Massachusetts, 6 am.

My old boss and friend, Marty Peretz, was almost designed for blogging. TNR’s new editor, Frank Foer, has had the sense to give him one. I guess Mickey can now accuse me of complete unctuousness. But Marty knows I mean it; and I don’t have a major reputation for sucking up. In five years of editing his magazine, I had my fair share of Marty quarrels (and plenty of agreement). Marty gets razzed a lot (yes, Jack, I’m talking about you) – for his passionate defense of Israel, his passionate quarrels with fellow Democrats, his passionate guidance of The New Republic. But there are many worse things than passion. Along with a spine, Marty also has a great heart. He has done more to nurse young talent and to stand up to smelly orthodoxies than most people I know. Now the blogosphere will have to deal with him. Good luck, blogosphere.