The Dish

Some truths that were once not disputed by civilized people:

The media usually characterize the practice as "simulated drowning." That’s incorrect. To be effective, waterboarding is usually real drowning that simulates death.

That is, the victim experiences the sensations of drowning: struggle, panic, breath-holding, swallowing, vomiting, taking water into the lungs and, eventually, the same feeling of not being able to breathe that one experiences after being punched in the gut. The main difference is that the drowning process is halted. According to those who have studied waterboarding’s effects, it can cause severe psychological trauma, such as panic attacks, for years.

The United States knows quite a bit about waterboarding. The U.S. government — whether acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial or as part of the world community — has not only condemned the use of water torture but has severely punished those who applied it.

So "quaint" this idea of the rule of law. So nebulous this concept of American decency.

Yesterday, I asked rhetorically:

Can you imagine Senator Clinton defending "homosexuals" in front of a non-gay crowd?

It occurs to me I might be wrong. Can anyone out there find an instance in which Clinton specifically mentions and defends gay rights – using the g or h word – in front of a non-gay crowd? Extra points if it’s in front of a black audience. I’d like to be fair. Has it ever happened?

I confess to being somewhat stumped by recent events in Pakistan. It seems to me that the last thing we should learn from the past six years is that we should always be supporting democracy regardless of the consequences in the Muslim world. But obviously, Musharraf’s increasing and now total abandonment of democratic pretense runs the danger of actually increasing the popularity of Islamists in his country. Musharraf has, moreover, failed rather conspicuously, in reining in the terrorists in Waziristan. Now run the "wth us or against us’ check list: Pakistan has weapons of mass destruction, an Islamist insurgency, and a base for al Qaeda on its territory. And yet we do very little. And we can do very little.

It’s easy to mock the discrepancy between the Bush Doctrine and Bush Policy under these circumstances. But I don’t see any happy or easy alternatives right now. Meanwhile, this recent Josh Hammer primer from the Atlantic is worth a look. Larison adds his a couple of cents here. The Economist makes a useful point:

The coup that General Pervez Musharraf, the country’s president, launched on Saturday November 3rd, was in fact something new. His first coup, in 1999, was designed to restore order after civilian misrule. Now General Musharraf wants to shore up his own unpopular, and perhaps illegal, government.

He has suspended the constitution—a step the government has inaccurately described as constituting a state of emergency—and sacked most of the Supreme Court’s judges. This includes the chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, a champion of swelling opposition to the general. The courthouse in Islamabad is now sealed off by barbed wire and armed police. Private television news channels, foreign and Pakistani, have been hauled off-air.

So does Der Spiegel:

Most observers agree that Musharraf’s move had little to do with the growing threat from Islamic militants and everything to do with a last-ditch effort to hang on to power. With the country’s Supreme Court set to rule this week on the constitutionality of his re-election as president last month, rumors had been circulating that the court, led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry — whose firing in March was the beginning of a rapid decrease in Musharraf’s popularity — would rule against Musharraf.

My concern is that we simply do not know what serves the interests of Islamists at this point: Musharraf’s continuation in power or a period of more democratic instability? And does this change in the short or medium term?

(Photo: Pakistani riot police beat a lawyer (C) during a protest in Lahore, 05 November 2007. Pakistani police fired tear gas and baton-charged lawyers rallying against President Pervez Musharraf’s emergency rule, as the United States suspended key talks with its regional ally. Several lawyers were wounded and dozens more arrested as protests erupted outside courtrooms in a number of cities, in the first major show of public anger since Musharraf declared a state of emergency on 03 November. By Arif Ali/AFP/Getty.)

Saner than most now in the GOP. He actually understands federalism – and if forced to pick between Christianism and federalism, he’ll pick federalism. He’s growing on me – fast:

Well, if Peggy Noonan and yours truly represent anyone but ourselves. Which we probably don’t.

"Anyone who knows what waterboarding is could not be unsure. It is a horrible torture technique used by Pol Pot and being used on Buddhist monks as we speak. People who have worn the uniform and had the experience know that this is a terrible and odious practice and should never be condoned in the U.S. We are a better nation than that," – Senator John McCain, on Michael Mukasey’s refusal to state that waterboarding is torture.  Rudy Giuliani’s defense of waterboarding as not torture.

It tells you everything you need to know about what has happened to the Republican party that this good man is now ignored on a subject on which no other Senator has comparable authority. But Dick Cheney, a man who never served his country in uniform, now gets to define the meaning of American honor down. For him, as for the Khmer Rouge, waterboarding is a "no-brainer". Actually, it’s a no-souler.

My friend, Bruce Bawer, writes:

Every time that my partner and I fly to the US and I have to fill out a customs declaration form, it galls me to have to write "0" under "Number of family members traveling with you" given that my partner is, in fact, under the law of Norway, not only my family but my next of kin.  So on one recent trip, I wrote "1."  At passport control in Newark, the woman asked me where the other member of my family was.  I explained that he was a Norwegian citizen and had therefore gotten in line with other non-US citizens.  She asked what our relationship was.  I explained that we were domestic partners.  She spat out, in a vicious tone: "THAT’S NOT FAMILY!"  I replied, in a civil tone, "It is in Norway."  She said nastily, "Well, it’s not here," and, grabbing a pen, changed my "1" to a "0."  Not wanting to jeopardize my partner’s chances of getting into the country, I chose not to argue with her.

Every one of my closest friends here in Oslo has had at least one unpleasant experience at US passport control.  One of them, a musician who has twice won the Norwegian equivalent of the Grammys and who is an entirely civilized and presentable person, was once asked by an immigration officer: ”What drugs are you taking?  When was the last time you were in prison?”  I’ve lost track of the number of Europeans whose most disagreeable memories of the US are of their treatment by these people.  I spend a lot of time defending America from unfair criticism by Europeans, but this situation is indefensible.

Scott Horton relays a nugget of history I never knew. Today is Guy Fawkes Day, when the British commemmorate the foiling of a religiously-inspired terrorist plot to blow up the House of Commons in 1605. Eventually, it became a holiday fused with anti-Catholic propaganda, and the way in which Fawkes was needlessly tortured, and the monarchy fanned fear of Catholic terrorism to entrench absolute power tarnished the meaning of the holiday. So George Washington banned its celebration in the United States:

America was involved in a struggle for its liberty, and the commemoration of Guy Fawkes stood for the opposite: government by fear, oppression of a minority, a celebration of arbitrary power. Guy Fawkes Day was the abnegation of the essential values of the Revolution. So the original George W. put it in an order: no more Guy Fawkes Day.

Order in Quarters issued by General George Washington, November 5, 1775:

As the Commander in Chief has been apprized of a design form’d for the observance of that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the Effigy of the pope–He cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be Officers and Soldiers in this army so void of common sense, as not to see the impropriety of such a step at this Juncture; at a Time when we are solliciting, and have really obtain’d, the friendship and alliance of the people of Canada, whom we ought to consider as Brethren embarked in the same Cause. The defence of the general Liberty of America: At such a juncture, and in such Circumstances, to be insulting their Religion, is so monstrous, as not to be suffered or excused; indeed instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to these our Brethren, as to them we are so much indebted for every late happy Success over the common Enemy in Canada.

America, it was settled, would mark the old Guy Fawkes Day with a new tradition: the exercise of the Democratic Franchise. It was to be the day on which the rulers are held accountable to the people.

From revulsion against torture, liberal democracy was born. And by acquiescing in torture, liberal democracy will die.

He recalls how American soldiers treated Iraqi captives during the Iraq war he waged. I think he understands what his son has done to this country’s honor. Weeping is the natural response of a father and a patriot.

Ron Paul is celebrating Guy Fawkes Day with an online fundraiser. You can check his running total here. If you want to help rescue conservatism from the authoritarians, torture-supporters, law-breakers and massive spenders of the current GOP elite, you know what to do.