The Dish

I’m amazed that, in the context of what we now know this president has authorized for the CIA, and wants to retain for use by the CIA, an obvious connection has not been made more forcefully. When you look at the photographs from Abu Ghraib, what do you see? You see exactly the "alternative methods" this administration is trying to preserve: long-time standing, nakedness, degradation, stress positions, sleep deprivation – and much worse as well that will now be clearly banned: rape and murder. (Worryingly, sexual abuse short of penetration seems to be a gray area in the proposal.) It strains credibility to believe that these images were not related by clear signals from the very top that the "gloves were off" and that the president and defense secretary gave torture and abuse cover and approval.

Now the Los Angeles Times has a serious investigation into yet more sickening practices by Special Forces in Afghanistan. Again the bottom line is that abuse and torture were widespread:

The Times has since reviewed thousands of pages of internal military records showing that prisoner abuse by Special Forces units was more common in Afghanistan than previously acknowledged.

More than a year before the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal broke in Iraq, top officers worried that harsh treatment and excessive detentions could lead to criminal prosecutions. In one November 2002 correspondence, a high-ranking Special Operations official said military police were detecting "an extremely high level of physical abuse" of detainees transferred from Special Forces field bases to a prison in Bagram….

Early in 2003, the chief Special Forces intelligence officer in Afghanistan warned in a note to the task force commander, Col. James G. "Greg" Champion, and his top aides: "As you are all aware, alleged assaults and kidnapping [have] been occurring for quite some time. Again, I want to emphasize, this is not isolated."

The compound at Gardez, then occupied by ODA 2021, was portrayed as one of the worst. Detainees there alleged they were beaten, kicked, doused with cold water and deprived of sleep for days at a time.

"Doused with cold water" and "deprived of sleep for days at a time." Sound familiar? One point we must repeat insistently is that the torture bill being unwisely rushed through the Senate may well legalize many of the abuses at Abu Ghaib, Bagram, Camp Cropper, Camp Nama, and many in the dozens of sites of torture and abuse in this war for … democracy and human rights.

Remember how you felt when you first saw some of those photographs. Remember the shame. Now remember we may be about to legalize and endorse some of it as American policy. Should we not take the time to get it right?

(Photo of an "alternative interrogation method": Reuters.)

In some parts of America, freedom isn’t being restricted. It stands a chance of flourishing. More on the Nevada Marijuana Regulation Initiative here. I love the fact that opponents of regulating the legal use of marijuana say they are defending Nevada’s "respectability." Er: check the barn door, guys.

Military honor still counts for something in the South.

I mean literally. Juan Cole notes that Moqtadr al-Sadr is aligning himself with Ahmadinejad on the imminent return of the Twlefth Imam, a Shiite sign of the Apoclaypse. Money quote:

Al-Zaman reports that the young nationalist Shiite cleric maintained that the US Department of Defense has compiled an enormous file on the hidden Twelfth Imam, that is virtually complete save that it lacks his photograph.

[For Shiite Muslims, the Twelfth Imam or Imam Mahdi is a little like Jesus Christ for evangelical Christians. Shiites believe that the Imam was translated by God into a supernatural realm, from which he secretly rules the world and from which he will one day return to restore the world to justice.]

Al-Sadr said during his Friday prayer sermon in Kufa that "The United States has been preparing for ten years a rapid reaction force against the awaited Imam Mahdi and the US provoked the Gulf War so as to fill the region with military outposts for this purpose."

The good news is: al-Sadr urged non-violent resistance to the U.S. Heh.

(Photo: Ali Jarekji/Reuters.)

Will they never learn?

First we read this:

According to two conservative websites, White House political strategist Karl Rove has been promising GOP insiders that there will be an "October surprise" before the midterm elections.

"In the past week, Karl Rove has been promising Republican insiders an ‘October surprise’ to help win the November congressional elections," reports Ronald Kessler for Newsmax.

The we hear this:

The daily newspaper for the Lorraine region in eastern France printed what it described as a confidential document from the French foreign intelligence service DGSE citing an uncorroborated report from Saudi secret services that the leader of the al-Qaida terror network had died.

The contents of the document, dated Sept. 21, or Thursday, were not confirmed by French or other intelligence sources. However, the DGSE transmitted the note to President Jacques Chirac and other officials, the newspaper said.

Hmmmm. Of course, we know how bin Laden really died.

(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty.)

Check out the bottom of this post, and check the ad directly below. So far, he’s gotten away with it. I think I may have just blown his cover.

"I don’t know what the CIA has been doing, nor should I know," – Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama.

Two days after the Senate compromise, it appears pretty clear that few know exactly what it prohibits, allows or changes. Some of this is inevitable. It’s a very complicated legal balancing act. But some of it is deliberate: obfuscation as a way to give the executive complete lee-way. Under these circumstances, it seems clear to me that, barring absolute clarity from both sides, this bill should be shelved till the next session. No bill this complex and this unclear and this important should be rushed into law.

I might add that this position, regardless of your take on the underlying issue of torture, is the politically conservative one. The quintessential conservative virtues are not moral certainty and instant legislation but prudence and deliberation, not faith but doubt, not a rush-to-legislate but careful checks and balances. Yes, I know we’re told national security is at stake. We always are. But national integrity is also at stake. And that is not something you cram down the Senate’s throat in 24-hour sessions, when no one is quite sure what is being made into law. This should be the Democrats’ position. It should be the Republicans’ position. Why do I fear it won’t be?

I’ve posted about how the American Prospect effectively froze out Brendan Nyhan for posting criticism of the left; but, of course, this kind of policing goes on on both sides. Money quote:

I have to mention that a conservative publishing house which had previously been very enthusiastic about my book "Media Whores" and signed me to a book contract did a 180 and paid me to go away when they learned that I was targeting Bill "Al Qaida has marked me for death!" O’Reilly, Michelle "Fiver" Malkin and a few others in addition to the various left-wing figures on the whores list.

Depressing.

Dallas, Texas, 4.15 pm.