The Dish

Language is the first victim of an attempt to insist on ideology over reality. Orwell memorably described this. Here’s an update.

For the first time, a conservative publication tackles the scandal of the American torture regime. Money quote from James Bovard in the "American Conservative":

The Bush team is exploiting fears on national security to practically guarantee the use of tortured confessions. The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to prohibit defendant Majid Khan, a former Catonsville, Md. resident who was nabbed in Pakistan, from revealing to anyone -even his defense attorney -the interrogation methods he endured. A Justice Department spokeswoman claimed that letting Khan discuss his interrogation with his lawyer “is inadequate to protect unique and potentially highly classified information that is vital to our country’s ability to fight terrorism.” Thus, the feds can use whatever Khan said against him while hiding the methods that made him squeal.

The MCA creates procedural biases akin to a 1938 Moscow show trial. Defense attorneys can ‚Äúchallenge the use of hearsay information obtained through coercive interrogations in distant countries only if they can prove it is unreliable,‚Äù the Washington Post noted.  But it will be almost impossible to disprove an accusation when a defense lawyer is not allowed to question or perhaps even know who made the charge.

One day, Rumsfeld will be as leery of taking vacations in England as Pinochet was.

A reader writes:

I don’t agree with James Baker or Professor Ferguson that the United States can flip Syria by appealing to pan-Sunni identity. The professor states:

"Rather, as he explained to the press this week, it is to ‘flip the Syrians’ by appealing to Sunni solidarity… In other words: get the leaders of all Iraq’s neighbours into the same room and play ‘spot the Shia’."

In reality, although the majority of common Syrians may be Sunni, the top Syrian leadership is dominated by Alawites. The Alawites are a sect of Shia Islam and have no great love for Sunnis. The Alawites claim to be Twelvers and have historically been regarded as extremists. It is no surprise then that the Alawites, including the Assad dictators, have supported Hizb’Allah and Iran during these apocalyptic times (for Shias).

Evangelical Christians in the U.S. military have been appearing in promotional videos for evangelizing groups without a disclaimer that they speak solely for themselves and not for the military as a whole. The military is not immune from outside social pressures, one of which is the new power and intransigence of evangelical Christianity, especially in the South. Among other recent distressing developments have been open proselytizing at the Air Force Academy for evangelical Cristianity in a multi-faith enivronment, and the appalling remarks of General Boykin, a Christianist fanatic who put his own beliefs before his duty to a secular commander-in-chief. The few military officials who backed the Rumsfeld torture policy were also often Christianists. The secular nature of the U.S. military, representing a secular government, is integral to the successful defense of the U.S. The damage is easily reparable, but under this president, the damage has been great.

A withering take-down by Karen Tumulty. Money quote:

"A profile in courage can become a profile in unrestrained ambition," says former Reagan White House chief of staff Ken Duberstein, who was one of the few G.O.P. establishment figures to support McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign. "He has to remember who his friends are and not spend his integrity on one-night stands with those who will never fully trust him."

(Photo: Christopher Morris VII for Time.)

Here’s one:

"I don’t read a lot of books (any actually) that have the words "conservative" or "liberal" on the cover but "The Conservative Soul" is not a fire-breather or a back-slapper or a bunch of anecdotes strung together to mock the other side. [It’s] a f**king book with a capital f**king B.

I think a lot of people in America are going to be better for reading it. I know I am."

That’s from South Park co-creator Matt Stone. Now if one of the Pet Shop Boys emails me with a rave, I can die and go to heaven.

Huntington, New York, 6.35 am.

"The [Baker-Hamilton] plan itself won’t work. As the BBC’s eloquent and curiously underrated Washington correspondent, Justin Webb, put it on the radio this week, "it is the tone" not the detail of Baker’s report that is important and new.

That‚Äôs true. The tone says: "We’ve lost." The tone says: "We should have seen this coming." The tone says: "All we can do now is play a losing hand." General Sir Mike Jackson, former Chief of the General Staff, missed the point magnificently this week when he worried aloud that the trouble with a set deadline (of 2008) was that we might have to quit without having achieved our war aims. Poor, upright, soldierly Sir Mike has not realized that that is the whole idea.

But Mr Baker has, and furious neocons realize it too. The term realpolitik has become a clich√© in media treatment of the ISG report this week but the irony is this: Baker’s conclusions are anything but realistic: they represent unrealism of the most fanciful kind. His route map is to La-la Land. He knows it. His report is the sugar. The pill is Defeat." – Matthew Parris, in the Times of London.

A stirring indictment of this evil murderer and torturer. Jonah finds a way to sympathize with Pinochet. Hey, Pinochet only ever used "coercive interrogation techniques."

The most vibrant, crowded and magnificent display of American Catholicism is in full swing – and barely no one writes about it or covers it. Except for Rocco Palmo, of course.