The Dish

Manning Dodges A Bullet

As we mentioned earlier today, Bradley Manning was found guilty of violating the Espionage Act while acquitted of the separate charge of “aiding the enemy.” The former Army private now “faces a possible maximum sentence of more than 130 years in military jail after he was convicted of most charges on which he stood trial.” Paul Waldman and Jaime Fuller’s take:

It’s one thing to have only limited sympathy for Manning—after all, he didn’t just leak evidence of government malfeasance, he leaked hundreds of thousands of documents, most of which showed no one doing anything wrong, and the indiscriminate dump surely did damage to American diplomatic efforts. But if he had been convicted of “aiding the enemy,” it would have set an extremely dangerous precedent. National security leaks happen all the time—those who report on the topic wouldn’t be able to do their jobs without them—and if every time someone in the Pentagon passed a tidbit to a reporter they could be charged with something akin to treason, the chilling effect would be, well, chilling.

Manning was many things—you can call him misguided, overzealous, or foolish if you like. But had the court called him a traitor, we would have entered territory we don’t want to visit.

Fred Kaplan, who called it a “moderate” verdict, is on the same page:

Had the judge accepted the argument and found Manning guilty of the [“aiding the enemy”] charge, the implications would have been profound. By such a verdict’s logic, The New Yorker could have been accused of aiding the enemy for publishing Seymour Hersh’s article about the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib. Hersh’s intention may have been to call attention to war crimes being committed by U.S. officers in Iraq, but a prosecutor could certainly have argued that the story served al-Qaida’s interests; and it’s certainly true that the revelations over Abu Ghraib were used as recruitment tools by jihadists worldwide.

Though Manning dodged the “aiding the enemy” charge, Dan Gillmor still worries about press freedom:

By finding Manning guilty of five counts of espionage, the judge endorsed the government’s other radical theories, and left the journalism organization that initially passed along the leaks to the public, Wikileaks, no less vulnerable than it had been before the case started. Anyone who thinks Julian Assange isn’t still a target of the US Government hasn’t been paying attention; if the US can pry him loose from Ecuador’s embassy in London and extradite him, you can be certain that he’ll face charges, too, and the Manning verdict will be vital to that case.

DJ Pangburn wants us to revisit the Espionage Act:

How could an act written in 1917 possibly address or, rather, handle the complexity of a whistleblower of Manning’s scale and intent? The fact is that the Espionage Act of 1917 was never written with Bradley Manning in mind. Its goal was not to address whistleblowing at all, but the delivery of intelligence to foreign governments. …

Now, it is one thing to create the legal mechanism to prosecute spies who deliver information to the enemy. But it is quite another to prosecute a soldier, or any American for that matter (journalists, for instance) for publishing documents that shine a light on shameful deeds. Manning wasn’t paid for his work by any foreign nation or agent. He wasn’t working on anyone’s behalf apart from his countrymen. All of this is to say that the Espionage Act needs to be amended to make room for whistleblowers. Because, as it stands, any whistleblower is at the mercy of the law, and the President’s particular whistleblower policies.

Looking back, Peter Walker runs through all the secret information we now know as a result of Manning’s leak.

(Photo: US Army Private First Class Bradley Manning leaves a military court facility after hearing his verdict in the trial at Fort Meade, Maryland on July 30, 2013. Colonel Denise Lind found Manning guilty of 20 of 22 counts related to his leaking of a huge trove of secret US diplomatic cables and military logs to the WikiLeaks website. She said she would begin sentencing hearings on July 31 at the Fort Meade military base outside Washington where the trial was held. By Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

Cameron’s Online Porn Crackdown, Ctd

Peter Jukes says the prime minister’s anti-porn move is smart political posturing:

Hard to enforce and easy to circumvent, Cameron’s plans to censor internet porn has much more to do with the populist optics than any practical policy. With a moribund flat-lined economy, the Labour Party, under new leader Ed Miliband, has established a double-figure poll lead for almost two years. However, with the help of a controversial Australian lobbyist and political strategist, Lynton Crosby (“the Wizard of Oz”), the Tories have managed to claw that deficit back to single figures in recent weeks.

Most of this was achieved through classic Rovian tactics: red meat to the right on issues like immigration and welfare, and—shooting UKIP’s fox—promising a referendum on continued EU membership. Meanwhile other moves, such as the successful passage of much-trumpeted legislation on same sex marriage (against the wishes of most his party) helps keep some of Cameron’s “compassionate conservative” credentials alive. Internet porn is another twist in these kind of triangulations.

Still, it doesn’t seem like Cameron is handling these triangulations very well. First he irritated feminists by declining to support their campaign against Page Three. Then it came out that the controversial firm Huawei – linked to the Chinese government and deemed a “threat to national security” by the US – will control the filter. Then the Open Rights Group found that the filter will be designed to block by default “esoteric material,” “web forums,” “violent material,” “smoking,” and “alcohol”, among other topics.

In protest, the blogger Sicksad built a filter to block everything but the naughty bits.

(Image via Google search)

It’s So Personal: Monoamniotic Twins

Dustin Rowles, who wrote the Pajiba post mentioned by a reader in our earlier post on After Tiller, recently went through a harrowing ordeal with his wife after doctors determined she was pregnant with monoamniotic twins:

The doctor told us that if we went forward with the pregnancy, if one fetus died in utero it would probably leave the other baby severely brain damaged. He said if that happened, we could make a plan to go to one of two states in the country — Florida or Colorado — that still have individual Doctors providing late-term abortions. Kansas used to be an option, we were told, but the Doctor who conducted procedures to terminate the pregnancies of severely brain damaged and deformed babies with no chance of a decent quality of life had been shot and killed. Ain’t that America.

We decided to terminate. It was the most difficult, most agonizing decision either my wife or I had ever made. We both are pro-choice, but when it comes to abortion, in the typical scenario, you decide to terminate a pregnancy you don’t want. We had made a decision to terminate the potential lives of two babies that we did want. That we wanted very badly.

However, we felt that the risks were too high and that it would be irresponsible to risk not only our future but that of our son, who was four. We didn’t want him to have to grow up in a home with parents that had to devote all their emotional and financial resources to profoundly disabled siblings. More than that, we didn’t want to bring beings into the world that would have to spend a lifetime suffering, who might have a severely low quality of life.

The thing is, there was no one from whom we could solicit advice. There’s not even a lot of anecdotal information with which to work when you’re pregnant with monoamniotic twins. There is one major support page online, but there is a lot of self-selection in posters, and most of the people who write have had a positive outcome that has either confirmed or bolstered their religious convictions. Many of the posts make clear that termination was never an option — and/or should not be an option — for others in this situation, which we totally disagreed with. What we were aiming to do was make the right choice for us — a rational, logical decision that an objective couple in our situation would make. We were relatively young. We could still have more children. We could wait a few months or a couple of years and try again.

The more we thought about it, the more sense it made to end the pregnancy. We felt — and we still feel — that this is a fundamentally personal decision, and we were shocked at the politicization of this medical issue, when of course nobody else can tell you what is right for your family. It is a decision that has the potential to fundamentally alter the entire course of your life, and until you are personally faced with something like this, there is no way to know how you are going to react or what the right course of action will be.

Rowles and his wife subsequently changed their minds and opted to continue the pregnancy. Mercifully, though their twin girls were born premature, they both beat the odds and survived with no ill effects. You can read the rest of his story here. And to read all the late-term abortion stories from Dish readers, go here.

Mental Health Break

For when you need to shred more than paper:

One commenter suggests:

Now throw one of those machines in that machine.

Update from a reader:

I did a bit of a double take when I saw today’s MHB, mostly because I’ve seen it before … sort of. It’s the exact same video, only in reverse:

Now it’s a miraculous machine that can make anything!

Another offers:

Today’s MHB isn’t all that impressive once you’ve seen an entire car shredded:

Prisoners For Peace?

Goldberg condemns Netanyahu for agreeing to release 104 Palestinian prisoners as a precondition for the Kerry-mediated talks that started yesterday:

Two of the men set to be released, according to the Washington Post, are Jumaa Adem and Mahmoud Kharbish, who killed a mother and three of her children in 1988, along with an Israeli soldier who tried to save them. Another is Mohammad Adel Daoud, who killed a pregnant woman and her 5-year-old son in a 1987 firebomb attack. Members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, and many other Israelis, opposed the release, but the prime minister, mindful of pleasing the American government, rammed it through. …

The real tragedy here is that the prisoner release is unnecessary. The Palestinian side was looking for any number of concessions. The Israeli government wouldn’t have been forced to release these murderers from prison had it agreed to a full freeze on the growth of Jewish settlements. … So there you have it. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu would sooner release murderers from prison than stop building apartments on the West Bank.

Shmuel Rosner provides two interpretations of Bibi’s move:

Approving: Yes, it is heartbreaking and enraging to see those cold-blooded killers released. But Netanyahu prefers to pay this emotionally high price rather than pay a price that has strategic meaning. Agreeing in advance to the freeze or to the 1967 line would have much graver consequences than releasing some killers – it would weaken Israel’s position in negotiations, and would weaken the only card it has as it talks to the Palestinians, the land card.

Critical: Yes, agreeing to the 1967 line would be a strategic mistake. But mixing the line and the freeze is a political trick.

In fact, Israel has already agreed to a freeze in the past and it had no serious ramifications. A temporary freeze could have been the wiser choice – and Netanyahu didn’t go for the freeze because he wasn’t sure if he has the votes necessary to approve it. In other words: you aren’t happy with the release of murderers? Blame the coalition, blame hawkish Likud members of Knesset and the Habait Hayehudi party.

Brent Sasley figures the even if the moral cost of releasing the prisoners is high, the actual security risk is low:

[T]he Israeli security clampdown on the West Bank, the security barrier, the siege on Gaza, the Palestinian Authority’s own security measures, and broader stability in the West Bank seem to have removed both the incentive and the opportunity for a renewal of violence and terrorism. The stipulation that those most likely to engage in violence again be deported to Gaza or outside Israel/West Bank only reinforces the importance of this consideration.

In light of this, then, it’s easy to see why Netanyahu decided that releasing these prisoners was the best way to go in order to persuade Palestinians to return to talks. The security and political price was relatively small and easily absorbable. In his analysis [Shin Bet head Yoram] Cohen continued that the release of these prisoners would also lead to “calm” in the West Bank, dampening dissatisfaction with the process and undermining the motivation for a broader uprising. The release is also to take place over stages, and can be stopped any time Israel decides the Palestinians are not meeting their own obligations. And there is probably a sense that many who might engage in terrorism will get caught by normal counter-terror operations anyway.

Olga Khazan notes the popularity of the release in the Palestinian Territories:

[J]ust as Israelis believe passionately that the prisoners are terrorists, Palestinians view them as heroic crusaders, and most see their release as essential to the renewal of talks. According to a recent Gallup poll, the prisoner release was the top precondition for peace negotiations for Palestinians, with 93 percent saying it should be a precondition and 99 percent saying it was a “top priority.”

Previous Dish on the potential of the new talks here and here.

The Western Is Undead

Michael Agresta pities the state of the Western, which “finds itself in the ironic position of needing a hero to save it, and quick”:

If the genre in this era can be said to have a unifying aim, it’s to divest itself and its audiences of a strictly white, male, heterosexual perspective on history, and by extension on present day conflicts. Cowboys & Aliens is a cynical attempt at a post-racial Western–just take the Indians out of the equation so we can be good guys again!–but with more sincerity, True Grit, Django Unchained, and now The Lone Ranger have all put non-male, non-white perspectives front and center. (Two other notable movies from the past 15 years, the wonderful Brokeback Mountain and the awful Wild Wild West, also fit this model.) It’s worth pointing out, however, that all of these examples (except Brokeback Mountain) were directed by white men, and The Lone Ranger has Tonto played by an actor with only the slightest claim to American Indian ancestry.

Meanwhile, Paul Cantor thinks the zombie film has taken the Western’s place as a cultural touchstone. Millman objects:

If we are uncomfortable with the traditional western because of the role it assigns to the aboriginal Americans, and this is because we recognize the massive injustices committed by our nation and our government in the course of our conquest and settlement of the continent, well and good. But it might be that we’re uncomfortable for the opposite reason – that we prefer to see our enemies as truly non-human. As orcs, or zombies.

And we still do have enemies, after all. But those enemies are human, with human, comprehensible motivations.

Orgies In The Islamic Republic of Iran

In an excerpt from her book Plays Well In Groups: A Journey Through The World Of Group Sex, Katherine Frank spotlights anthropologist Pardis Mahdavi’s research into Iranian sex parties:

When talking about their weekend adventures, some of Mahdavi’s informants focused on the recreational aspect of the parties: “[There is] alcohol, there is sex, there is dancing, there is—it’s just fun! It’s what we do for fun!” Others viewed the parties as a representation of “all things Western,” a way of gaining status and claiming a cosmopolitan identity; some also expressed ideas about sex as freedom that harked back to ideas underlying the sexual revolution in the United States. Still others claimed parties offered escape and “eased the pain” of living in Iran. As one man said, “Sex is the main thing here; it’s our drug, it’s what makes our lives bearable, that’s what makes parties so necessary.” “If we don’t live like this, we cannot exist in the Islamic Republic,” a woman declared. “We hate our government, despise our families, and our husbands make us sick. If we don’t look fabulous, smile, laugh, and dance, well then we might as well just go and die.”

But the new sexual culture in Iran, Mahdavi believes, is not simply an embrace of Western consumerism and morality nor merely an escapist hedonism, a “last resort.” Urban young adults, the focus of Mahdavi’s inquiry, made up about two-thirds of Iran’s population; they were mobile, highly educated, underemployed, and dissatisfied with the political regime at the time. Some were directly involved in politics. Many used the Internet to make connections, blog about their frustrations, and peer into youth cultures elsewhere around the world. Willingly taking risks with their social and sexual behavior, as these Iranian young people were doing, was viewed as a step toward social and political reform—not just a means of escape and excitement. After all, the consequences of partying in Tehran were different from in Los Angeles, despite similarities in flashy dress, electronic music, and group sex.

Previous Dish on sex in the Islamic Republic here, here, here, and here.

The Most Important American Author Right Now?

Lauren Sarner makes the case for Khaled Hosseini:

Hosseini writes about a region of the world that many Americans don’t understand, but desperately need to. Among other things, he explores people living ordinary lives in Afghanistan, and how war and oppressive religion shape those lives. Hosseini depicts the culture without encouraging the reader to pass judgment; he simply presents it to us in clean, matter-of-fact language. By presenting their lives in such a straightforward, almost Hemingway-esque fashion, the cultural practices seem no stranger than Hem’s protagonists going hunting. And, through it all, Hosseini infuses his stories with humanity and warmth. His books could easily stray into melodrama, yet he keeps them firmly anchored in gritty realism. …

Hosseini’s first two books, “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” have occasionally garnered criticism for being simplistic, akin to fairy-tales; with characters who are either Good or Bad. However, there is an important distinction to be made here: in fairy tales, good always triumphs over evil. Hosseini’s books, then, can be seen as fairy tales for adults. They prepare us for a world in which the man who shoots an innocent child gets to walk away with his gun returned to him — quite relevant in the wake of the verdict regarding America’s most recent media circus trial.

(Hat tip: Book Riot)

The Puritanism Of Progressive Parents, Ctd

A reader quotes the previous one:

To me the idea of adding medicines to drinking water seems to be the nanny state operating at its finest (there is no other reason for adding fluoride to water beyond the prevention of tooth decay). If I want to use fluoride, then it’s super simple for me to just buy a fluoridated toothpaste, giving me a degree of choice and control over what I put into my body that federally-mandated fluoridation just doesn’t give me.

This statement is so full of naivety that I barely know where to start. Does the reader also oppose all other federally-mandated water requirements? Does she realize how many chemicals (or medicines) are required to get water treated and safe? Why are they not nanny-state? Why not abolish those? People are perfectly able to buy bottled water in the supermarket, no? Or would that not be possible because most bottled water is just tap-water from elsewhere, and you need some standards to keep that safe?

Another reader:

The post from your Seattle correspondent could have been drafted by my lesbian sister and her naturopath wife. Nothing that wasn’t organic ever crossed their daughter’s lips and she was never sick. Until she had nine cavities. And until she was diagnosed with leukemia. It nearly killed her parents to subject my niece to general anesthesia for dentistry and chemotherapy for cancer, but now she is healthy and thriving.

Ignorance of science and medicine is a luxury that is great so long as you’re basically healthy. When you’re really sick, however, you’d better toss all that alternative crap out the window.

Another:

It never ceases to amaze me how oblivious self-identified “progressive liberals” are to the defining characteristic they share with the Tea Party: nostalgia for a world that never existed.

When in American history did everyone – rich or poor, white or black – “have access to nutritious food grown in proper soil by local farmers”? Is this the same “earlier simpler world” as the unvaccinated utopia where no one was ever crippled by polio or killed by the measles?

I especially like the repetitive linking to an advocacy website reliant upon selective quotation and interpretation of scientific literature. It’s a perfect example of how the simultaneous blind reverence for and total ignorance of science permeates so much of this community.

Another piles on:

I can’t believe we’re still talking about this crap. Are there legitimate concerns about fluoride? Possibly. Should our diets contain less sugar and processed junk? Yes. But the bottom line is that fluoride is great for those among us, especially children, who can’t afford to go to the dentist. In a perfect world we wouldn’t need fluoride because everyone would receive basic healthcare despite their ability, or lack thereof, to pay for it. Maybe we’re working on creating that kind of world, but we’re not there yet, and fluoride is something that even the smallest municipalities can do right now. The fact that the citizens of Portland couldn’t find it in their hearts to think of the welfare of their least fortunate community members (who are not so gradually being pushed into the suburbs by gentrification anyway) instead of a bunch of reactionary pseudo-science is a travesty.

It’s So Personal On The Silver Screen

A reader writes:

I hope you are still curating the long-running thread on suicide as you did for abortion. Around the web, I still see the abortion thread linked to, as recently as yesterday, when a commenter over at Pajiba did so regarding the trailer for a new documentary, After Tiller, about America’s late-term abortion providers.

I look forward to the film: the trailer states there are now only four doctors in the country who can perform late-term abortions. Four. “I can’t retire; there aren’t enough of us.” Keep in mind that it seems likely (film unseen, of course) that the four people so described are the only four of whom the public is aware, because they operate in clinics whose services are publicly known. This makes me angry, since whatever legal restrictions anti-abortion people enact, the same conditions won’t apply to rich women, who have access to money, privacy, and lawyers – power unimaginable for poor women. What was the birthrate for Congressional wives before Roe v. Wade? Before contraception? What does “preferential option for the poor” mean anymore?

The reason to continue the suicide thread is the same as for abortion: until we hear the stories behind life-and-death decisions, we base our judgments on abstracts and absolutes, missing the human part of the equation. We need these points of view.

Agreed, and we will continue both threads as best we can. From what Katie Walsh says in her review of After Tiller (a clip seen above), the film seems very much in the spirit of our anonymous “It’s So Personal” series:

[The film’s] heartbreaking stories [of those considering late-term abortion] are sensitively captured by [filmmakers Lana Wilson and Martha Shane], who chose not to show any of the patients’ faces to cloak their identities but also as a stylistic choice, and as they tell their stories in counseling sessions, the camera rests on a shoe fidgeting, or a hand clutching a tissue. Just focusing on their voices and stories is such a powerful thing within the film, listening to the women as the doctors and counselors listen to them. This gentle approach is what “After Tiller” does so well in its treatment of this tough material.

The doctors and nurses themselves are gentle and compassionate, and Wilson and Shane are wise to mirror that in their filmmaking. While the sight of anti-abortion protestors may inspire a certain reaction from an audience member depending on their personal beliefs, there is nothing in the film’s presentation to vilify or ridicule them. They are presented as part of the reality and struggles, the obstacles that these doctors must face in order to do their work, but the film also allows their voices to be heard in this debate.

The full trailer: