Lindsey Graham has long been at the top of my list. In a town where you can’t swing a dead lobbyist without hitting a hypocritical gasbag, Graham take hypocrisy to a new level. I think it’s the combination of hypocrisy and sanctimony with breathtaking duplicity that give him the nod. Graham’s dissembles very pleasingly and convincingly about his love of liberty and the rule of law, while quietly and tirelessly working to subvert both. His well established MO is to look tough and ‘independent’ in public and quietly vote the party line (90.6% of the time during his years in the Senate, according to the American Conservative Union).
Take, for example his work to deprive detainees of habeas corpus rights.
“It must never be forgotten that the writ of habeas corpus is the precious safeguard of personal liberty and there is no higher duty than to maintain it unimpaired.”
Chief Justice Hughes (Bowen v. Johnston, 306 U.S. 19 (1939))
To deny that this "precious safeguard" applied to enemy combatants, Graham pretended that the right to petition for habeas corpus is conferred upon persons by virtue of their American citizenship:
“If you want to give a Guantanamo Bay detainee habeas corpus rights as a U.S. citizen, not only have you changed the law of armed conflict like no one else in the history of the world, I think you are undermining our national security ….”
“Of all the people in the world who should enjoy the rights of an American citizen in federal court the people at Guantanamo Bay are the last that we should confer that status on.”
“To me, it is absurd that an enemy combatant, non-citizen terrorist has habeas corpus rights, and the reason they do is because we are giving no guidance to the courts about how we want these people treated.”
"Did we ever intend for enemy combatants captured on the battlefield to be given the same rights as U.S. citizens in our federal courts?"
The right to file a habeas corpus petition is not a right of citizenship, but a right conferred on anyone, citizen or not, by virtue of the fact that they are a prisoner of the United States. The constitution assumes that those detained by the United States have habeas corpus rights, and famously mentions the right only to make clear the 2 very limited conditions under which it may be suspended: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it."
Senator Graham also actively promoted the fiction that habeas corpus is the source of frivolous, court-clogging lawsuits:
“There are 400 and something lawsuits filed against our guys complaining about the food, the TV access, all kinds of crap. Prisoners of war don’t sue their captors.... Habeas rights came about because the Bush administration took such a hard line.”
“It is not fair to our troops fighting in the war on terror to be sued in every court in the land by our enemies based on every possible complaint.”
A petition for habeas corpus has only one purpose: to compel those who hold the petitioner to prove to an impartial judge that they do so lawfully. If they cannot, the petitioner is entitled to be set free.
"Although in form the Great Writ is simply a mode of procedure, its history is inextricably intertwined with the growth of fundamental rights of personal liberty. For its function has been to provide a prompt and efficacious remedy for whatever society deems to be intolerable restraints. Its root principle is that in a civilized society, government must always be accountable to the judiciary for a man's imprisonment: if the imprisonment cannot be shown to conform with the fundamental requirements of law, the individual is entitled to his immediate release."
Justice William J. Brennan
Graham’s work in the Graham Amendment to the 2006 Defense Appropriations Bill, and the language of the amendment subsequently incorporated into The Military Commission Act of 2006 stripped the right to petition for habeas corpus from those we hold in prisons around the world, and to any “enemy combatant” in our custody. The America of Lindsey Graham denies the root principle of civilized society set forth by Brennen. We would now teach fledgling democracies about ‘liberty’ in ‘civilized society’ by denying those we hold captive a right “inextricably intertwined with the growth of fundamental rights of personal liberty.”
In his first inaugural address Jefferson lists among "the essential principles of our government" along with "equal and exact justice to all men," freedom of religion and freedom of the press, "freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus."
"These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."
Give me this road to liberty and safety. Let Graham and his cohort travel alone along the path of error and alarm.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Tick, Tick, Tick...
A bomb is set to explode in a public place in a matter of hours or days. We have captured someone who knows how to stop the bomb. He won’t volunteer what he knows, is it OK to torture him to get the life-saving information? Those who invoke the “ticking bomb” (TB) scenario seem to think that it defines a narrow range of circumstances where torture is acceptable. I don’t think it does. So before Jack shoots anyone in the knee-cap, we should tease out the conditions that the TB scenario is supposed to define where torture is permissible.
The ticking bomb scenario suggests torture is permissible when three conditions are met:
(1) There is a clearly defined imminent threat to (many) innocent lives (like a ticking bomb).
(2) We have in custody someone we know has information that will let us end that imminent threat.
(3) Torture is the only way to get that information.
Or expressed as a single guiding principle:
(4) Torture is justified if it is the only way to get information necessary to prevent the imminent loss of (many) innocent lives.
In the real world, satisfying condition (3) is always a problem. Is torture ever the only way to extract accurate, actionable information in a timely way? Granted, it's probably the fastest way to get someone to say something, but that’s not what we need when the bomb is ticking down. But set this larger problem aside for the moment.
Another problem that arises is how, in practice, we are to know when (2) is satisfied. How do we know the guy we want to torture has the details we need? Perhaps we have a letter from the terrorist’s colleague thanking him for recently recounting all the details of the plot? How do we know that letter to be genuine?
To apply in the real world, condition (2) will have to be something weaker:
(2a) We have in custody someone we have good reason to believe has information that will let us end the imminent threat.
If we are justified in believing that damning letter is real, (2a) is satisfied.
But in light of the changes to (2), condition (3) must be altered too. We may have good reasons for believing x knows what we want, but clearly, despite due diligence on our part, our belief can be wrong. Built into (2a) is the possibility that torture will reveal that x does not, in fact, have the details we thought he might. In which case the situation no longer satisfies (4). The torture of x is not justified if x doesn’t know the necessary live-saving information because it obviously cannot reveal that information. Thus (3) must be adjusted if we are to derive a general guiding principle from the TB scenario:
(3a) Torture is the only way to get the information needed to end an imminent threat to innocent lives, or the only way to determine if someone has such information.
Adjusting (4) in light of the changes to (2) and (3) gives us:
(4a) Torture is justified if it is the only way to get information needed to prevent the imminent loss of innocent lives, or it is the only way to determine if someone has such information.
So from ticking bomb cases two general principles regarding torture emerge:
(A) Torture is justified if it is the only way to get information needed to prevent the imminent loss of innocent lives
(B) Torture is justified if it is the only way to determine if someone has information needed to prevent the imminent loss of innocent lives.
(A) is what people who find justification for torture in TB scenarios want to take away them, but if we think such scenarios justify torture to save innocent lives, we must accept that they also justify torturing those who, as it turns out, cannot help us save any innocent lives at all.
(B) opens the door to a broader application of torture than is usually allowed to be acceptable by those invoking TB scenarios: Are terrorist hatching plots right now that threaten innocent lives? Are some of these plots close to fruition? It’s Bush administration gospel that they are. Isn’t it desirable to find out about these plots, and find out how to stop them, as soon as possible? Well, if we torture, say, a Guantanamo detainee just to see if he happens to have details that can end a threat we don’t yet know about, and we find out he does, isn‘t that better than not finding out and suffering mass casualties? It’s this kind of “speculative” torture that (B) seems to legitimize. X claims not to know about any plots, but he's a godless, freedom-hating terrorist, let’s torture him to see if, in fact, he does know how to stop a plot already underway to take innocent lives. We just might find out he was lying and save a lot of people.
The ticking bomb scenario does not define a narrow range of circumstances where torture is clearly permissible. Rather, a justification of torture based on TB scenarios opens the door to a broad, unacceptably broad I would argue, application of torture in the name of protecting innocent lives.
The ticking bomb scenario suggests torture is permissible when three conditions are met:
(1) There is a clearly defined imminent threat to (many) innocent lives (like a ticking bomb).
(2) We have in custody someone we know has information that will let us end that imminent threat.
(3) Torture is the only way to get that information.
Or expressed as a single guiding principle:
(4) Torture is justified if it is the only way to get information necessary to prevent the imminent loss of (many) innocent lives.
In the real world, satisfying condition (3) is always a problem. Is torture ever the only way to extract accurate, actionable information in a timely way? Granted, it's probably the fastest way to get someone to say something, but that’s not what we need when the bomb is ticking down. But set this larger problem aside for the moment.
Another problem that arises is how, in practice, we are to know when (2) is satisfied. How do we know the guy we want to torture has the details we need? Perhaps we have a letter from the terrorist’s colleague thanking him for recently recounting all the details of the plot? How do we know that letter to be genuine?
To apply in the real world, condition (2) will have to be something weaker:
(2a) We have in custody someone we have good reason to believe has information that will let us end the imminent threat.
If we are justified in believing that damning letter is real, (2a) is satisfied.
But in light of the changes to (2), condition (3) must be altered too. We may have good reasons for believing x knows what we want, but clearly, despite due diligence on our part, our belief can be wrong. Built into (2a) is the possibility that torture will reveal that x does not, in fact, have the details we thought he might. In which case the situation no longer satisfies (4). The torture of x is not justified if x doesn’t know the necessary live-saving information because it obviously cannot reveal that information. Thus (3) must be adjusted if we are to derive a general guiding principle from the TB scenario:
(3a) Torture is the only way to get the information needed to end an imminent threat to innocent lives, or the only way to determine if someone has such information.
Adjusting (4) in light of the changes to (2) and (3) gives us:
(4a) Torture is justified if it is the only way to get information needed to prevent the imminent loss of innocent lives, or it is the only way to determine if someone has such information.
So from ticking bomb cases two general principles regarding torture emerge:
(A) Torture is justified if it is the only way to get information needed to prevent the imminent loss of innocent lives
(B) Torture is justified if it is the only way to determine if someone has information needed to prevent the imminent loss of innocent lives.
(A) is what people who find justification for torture in TB scenarios want to take away them, but if we think such scenarios justify torture to save innocent lives, we must accept that they also justify torturing those who, as it turns out, cannot help us save any innocent lives at all.
(B) opens the door to a broader application of torture than is usually allowed to be acceptable by those invoking TB scenarios: Are terrorist hatching plots right now that threaten innocent lives? Are some of these plots close to fruition? It’s Bush administration gospel that they are. Isn’t it desirable to find out about these plots, and find out how to stop them, as soon as possible? Well, if we torture, say, a Guantanamo detainee just to see if he happens to have details that can end a threat we don’t yet know about, and we find out he does, isn‘t that better than not finding out and suffering mass casualties? It’s this kind of “speculative” torture that (B) seems to legitimize. X claims not to know about any plots, but he's a godless, freedom-hating terrorist, let’s torture him to see if, in fact, he does know how to stop a plot already underway to take innocent lives. We just might find out he was lying and save a lot of people.
The ticking bomb scenario does not define a narrow range of circumstances where torture is clearly permissible. Rather, a justification of torture based on TB scenarios opens the door to a broad, unacceptably broad I would argue, application of torture in the name of protecting innocent lives.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Alan Dershowitz on Ticking Bomb Torture
Alan Dershowitz seems to think that “ticking bomb” (TB) cases end the discussion about whether torture is justified. All that's left to discuss is whether we are to torture covertly or openly:
“Although I am personally opposed to the use of torture, I have no doubt that any president--indeed any leader of a democratic nation--would in fact authorize some forms of torture against a captured terrorist if he believed that this was the only way of securing information necessary to prevent an imminent mass casualty attack. The only dispute is whether he would do so openly with accountability or secretly with deniability.”
Obviously, if a leader believes that torture is “the only way of securing information necessary to prevent an imminent mass casualty attack” they might authorize torture. The question, of course, is should they believe it? Is it, in fact, true? An authorization of torture based on a false belief in its efficacy would warrant not only the moral commendation Dershowitz’s personal opposition to torture would presumably bring, but legal condemnation as well.
Declarations to the contrary aside, there is a dispute about whether torture is ever the only way, or even the most expeditious way, to secure accurate, actionable information in a ticking bomb scenario. Dershowitz does not address these larger questions. In the only example of a real world TB case that he offers the vital information that averts imminent danger is not obtained by torture. After recounting it, Dershowitz asks: ‘what if lawful interrogation hadn’t worked in this case?’ Well, what if it hadn’t? It is hardly self-evident that we should default to torture just because it’s all that’s left. Dershowitz gives us no reason to think authorizing torture would be justified if this were so, he only offers this tilt at a straw man:
“There are some who claim that torture is a non-issue because it never works--it only produces false information. [Who?] This is simply not true, as evidenced by the many decent members of the French Resistance who, under Nazi torture, disclosed the locations of their closest friends and relatives.”
Clearly, torture can produce accurate information. That alone will hardly serve as a justification for authorizing it, any more than the fact that the Nazis produced useful medical information via experimentation on unwilling human subjects would justify authorizing that practice.
While torture can work, the overarching practical problem for torture, a problem heightened in TB cases where time is of the essence, is always how to winnow what’s true from what’s said in an attempt to end the torture. Dershowitz apparently has this problem in mind when he offers this distinction:
[Torture applied in a TB situation] “ …is not designed to secure confessions of past crimes, but rather to obtain real time, actionable intelligence deemed necessary to prevent an act of mass casualty terrorism. The question put to the captured terrorist is not "Did you do it?" Instead, the suspect is asked to disclose self-proving information, such as the location of the bomber.”
By invoking the idea of "self-proving information" in his distinction between torture for confession and torture in TB cases, Dershowitz seems to be suggesting that the general unreliability of information obtained by torture (e.g., the unreliability of confessions obtained by torture) can be offset by the use of questions that elicit this kind of information.
But what is “self-proving information"? Dershowitz seems to have in mind statements like: “the bomber is at 123 Main St.,” which suggests that “self-proving” is nothing more than “verifiable.” Statements such as “the code to defuse the bomb is 3451” obtained under torture are clearly verifiable. If you enter it, and its really the detonation code, the resulting explosion will neatly verify that the statement is false.
There’s no reason whatsoever to think that because the questions asked in a TB case are different from those asked when torture seeks a confession, the information obtained is somehow more reliable.
Under what circumstances, if any, would a leader be justified in authorizing torture to save innocent lives? Merely being confronted with a TB scenario isn‘t enough, as Dershowitz’s own real world TB case shows: no torture was necessary to resolve it. The fact that torture can work isn’t enough either. If that alone were sufficient justification all torture would be permissible and a leader would be justified it authorizing it carte blanche. If anything justifies authorizing torture in a TB case it is a well-founded conviction that torture is, in fact, the only interrogation technique capable of producing the accurate, actionable information necessary in the time available.
But upon what would a leader base this conviction? The almost universal consensuses among interrogators seems to be that statements obtained by torture are less reliable than those obtained by conventional techniques. Misleading talk about “self-proving” statements aside, there is no easy way to quickly separate truthful statements obtained by torture from lies told to end torture. Quickly obtaining the least reliable information is not what ticking bomb cases require.
But even if torture is generally unreliable, when all else fails, and the bomb is still ticking, wouldn’t a leader be justified in authorizing torture as the only remaining way to prevent mass casualties?
First, lets be clear in a way Dershowitz is not that such authorization could never be based on the fact that casualties will be prevented by torture. At best, torture offers a slim hope that they might be prevented. But if torture in general isn’t justified simply because it might work, then torture in TB cases in particular is not justified simply because it might work. Appeals to the number of victims that might be saved verses one terrorist who will be tortured won’t work either. If torture in general isn’t justifiable simply because it is cost-effective in terms of lives and/or suffering, then torture in TB cases isn’t justified for that reason alone either.
Authorizing torture as a “Hail Mary,” just because it might work, is morally indefensible. If allowed to justify, say, waterboarding this way, the same argument (“it might work, and if it does, many will be saved“) could be used to justify the most barbarous extremes. (“Captured terrorist Al Badgai swears he’ll reveal the location of the ticking nuke if I behead Dick Cheney in front of him. I have every reason to believe he’s sincere, so it just might work….”)
Authorizing torture in a TB case based on the mistaken conviction that torture is more, not less, likely to produce reliable, actionable information, or because torture is all we have left, is wrong.
“Although I am personally opposed to the use of torture, I have no doubt that any president--indeed any leader of a democratic nation--would in fact authorize some forms of torture against a captured terrorist if he believed that this was the only way of securing information necessary to prevent an imminent mass casualty attack. The only dispute is whether he would do so openly with accountability or secretly with deniability.”
Obviously, if a leader believes that torture is “the only way of securing information necessary to prevent an imminent mass casualty attack” they might authorize torture. The question, of course, is should they believe it? Is it, in fact, true? An authorization of torture based on a false belief in its efficacy would warrant not only the moral commendation Dershowitz’s personal opposition to torture would presumably bring, but legal condemnation as well.
Declarations to the contrary aside, there is a dispute about whether torture is ever the only way, or even the most expeditious way, to secure accurate, actionable information in a ticking bomb scenario. Dershowitz does not address these larger questions. In the only example of a real world TB case that he offers the vital information that averts imminent danger is not obtained by torture. After recounting it, Dershowitz asks: ‘what if lawful interrogation hadn’t worked in this case?’ Well, what if it hadn’t? It is hardly self-evident that we should default to torture just because it’s all that’s left. Dershowitz gives us no reason to think authorizing torture would be justified if this were so, he only offers this tilt at a straw man:
“There are some who claim that torture is a non-issue because it never works--it only produces false information. [Who?] This is simply not true, as evidenced by the many decent members of the French Resistance who, under Nazi torture, disclosed the locations of their closest friends and relatives.”
Clearly, torture can produce accurate information. That alone will hardly serve as a justification for authorizing it, any more than the fact that the Nazis produced useful medical information via experimentation on unwilling human subjects would justify authorizing that practice.
While torture can work, the overarching practical problem for torture, a problem heightened in TB cases where time is of the essence, is always how to winnow what’s true from what’s said in an attempt to end the torture. Dershowitz apparently has this problem in mind when he offers this distinction:
[Torture applied in a TB situation] “ …is not designed to secure confessions of past crimes, but rather to obtain real time, actionable intelligence deemed necessary to prevent an act of mass casualty terrorism. The question put to the captured terrorist is not "Did you do it?" Instead, the suspect is asked to disclose self-proving information, such as the location of the bomber.”
By invoking the idea of "self-proving information" in his distinction between torture for confession and torture in TB cases, Dershowitz seems to be suggesting that the general unreliability of information obtained by torture (e.g., the unreliability of confessions obtained by torture) can be offset by the use of questions that elicit this kind of information.
But what is “self-proving information"? Dershowitz seems to have in mind statements like: “the bomber is at 123 Main St.,” which suggests that “self-proving” is nothing more than “verifiable.” Statements such as “the code to defuse the bomb is 3451” obtained under torture are clearly verifiable. If you enter it, and its really the detonation code, the resulting explosion will neatly verify that the statement is false.
There’s no reason whatsoever to think that because the questions asked in a TB case are different from those asked when torture seeks a confession, the information obtained is somehow more reliable.
Under what circumstances, if any, would a leader be justified in authorizing torture to save innocent lives? Merely being confronted with a TB scenario isn‘t enough, as Dershowitz’s own real world TB case shows: no torture was necessary to resolve it. The fact that torture can work isn’t enough either. If that alone were sufficient justification all torture would be permissible and a leader would be justified it authorizing it carte blanche. If anything justifies authorizing torture in a TB case it is a well-founded conviction that torture is, in fact, the only interrogation technique capable of producing the accurate, actionable information necessary in the time available.
But upon what would a leader base this conviction? The almost universal consensuses among interrogators seems to be that statements obtained by torture are less reliable than those obtained by conventional techniques. Misleading talk about “self-proving” statements aside, there is no easy way to quickly separate truthful statements obtained by torture from lies told to end torture. Quickly obtaining the least reliable information is not what ticking bomb cases require.
But even if torture is generally unreliable, when all else fails, and the bomb is still ticking, wouldn’t a leader be justified in authorizing torture as the only remaining way to prevent mass casualties?
First, lets be clear in a way Dershowitz is not that such authorization could never be based on the fact that casualties will be prevented by torture. At best, torture offers a slim hope that they might be prevented. But if torture in general isn’t justified simply because it might work, then torture in TB cases in particular is not justified simply because it might work. Appeals to the number of victims that might be saved verses one terrorist who will be tortured won’t work either. If torture in general isn’t justifiable simply because it is cost-effective in terms of lives and/or suffering, then torture in TB cases isn’t justified for that reason alone either.
Authorizing torture as a “Hail Mary,” just because it might work, is morally indefensible. If allowed to justify, say, waterboarding this way, the same argument (“it might work, and if it does, many will be saved“) could be used to justify the most barbarous extremes. (“Captured terrorist Al Badgai swears he’ll reveal the location of the ticking nuke if I behead Dick Cheney in front of him. I have every reason to believe he’s sincere, so it just might work….”)
Authorizing torture in a TB case based on the mistaken conviction that torture is more, not less, likely to produce reliable, actionable information, or because torture is all we have left, is wrong.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Ignoring 1,000,000 Dead
More than 1,000,000 Iraqis have died since the war began. So the British based research firm OBR reported this September in a study that corroborates the work of Gilbert Burnham et.al. of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who reported in “Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey” (1) that as of July 2006, approximately 600,000 Iraqis had met violent deaths.
The American civil war killed 1.4% of the American population. According to these two studies, twice that percentage of the Iraqi population has been killed in the Iraq war. So why aren’t these figures more widely reported and accepted?
In a testament to the power of disinformation when coupled with an incurious press, the 2006 peer-reviewed mortality study publish in The Lancet is still labeled “disputed” in popular reporting. This label seems to derive almost exclusively from a remark made by George Bush after the study originally appeared: "the methodology is pretty well discredited."
The survey method used by the study, far from being discredited, is one used now in american political surveys. It has previously been used to give accepted mortality estimates in Kosovo, the Congo and Darfur, among other places.
"While the Lancet numbers are shocking" says Rebecca Goldin in The Science of Counting the Dead "the study’s methodology is not. The scientific community is in agreement over the statistical methods used to collect the data and the validity of the conclusions drawn by the researchers conducting the study."
Dan Murphy of the CSM quotes Richard Garfield, public health professor at Columbia University on the president‘s remark:
“I loved when President Bush said 'their methodology has been pretty well discredited,' That's exactly wrong. There is no discrediting of this methodology. I don't think there's anyone who's been involved in mortality research who thinks there's a better way to do it in unsecured areas. I have never heard of any argument in this field that says there's a better way to do it."
The majority of the criticism not based on Bush’s unsupported, and in fact false, claim about methodology seems based on the observation that this study's numbers don’t jibe with the numbers compiled by Iraq Body Count (IBC).
The authors address this “problem” in their “The Human Cost of the War in Iraq: A Mortality Study, 2002-2006”:
“The IBC uses passive surveillance techniques, which depend upon available reports from the news media, in contrast to an active search for dead bodies. This brings about the possibility of gross underestimations. A significant number of deaths are not reported by the media, especially ones that occur in less populated or well known areas. In addition, the IBC methodology is conservative and excludes data that do not meet their set standards. Marc Herold, an economist on the IBC team, believed that the count is
likely too low because thousands of deaths may go unreported due to lack of media coverage.”
The same article includes this graphic which plots the deaths recorded by IBC the DOD and the authors' household survey:
The authors note: “Although the numbers we estimate through population-based methods are substantially greater than the numbers of deaths counted by the other two, the figure shows that over time the trends are almost identical. This is clear evidence that the three studies have measured the same events, and further reinforces the results of the population based data. This difference in numbers but similarity in trends is typical of the differences between active and passive public health surveillance seen in many conditions.”
It is important to keep in mind that IBC does not measure civilian deaths in Iraq. IBC tracks media reports of civilian deaths in Iraq. Period. If civilian deaths are under-reported in the media, IBC's numbers will not accurately reflect the true number of civilian casualties.
Is there reason to think under-reporting happens? Absolutely, and not only in environments actively hostile to journalists. One of the study's authors, Les Roberts, noted in an interview: “When in 2005, a UN survey reported that 90 per cent of violent attacks in Scotland were not recorded by the police, no one, not even the police, disputed this finding.”
According to Human Rights Watch, Saddam Hussein may have killed as many as 290,000 people over 24 years. Add to this another million or so killed in the war with Iran to arrive at a figure of 1,290,000 deaths attributable to Saddam Hussein.
The OBR estimates 1,220,580 Iraqis have been killed since the beginning of the war. Extrapolation from the Lancet Study figure of 600,000 in 2006 results in a similar figure. The best evidence, including the only peer-reviewed evidence, suggests that in the space of 5 years the Iraq war has killed as many Iraqis as Saddam did in 24 years.
(1) “Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey” was written by Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy and Les Roberts.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Echoes of the Master
Noting a parallel between Bush Administration rhetoric about the GWOT and German propaganda from the 1940’s is nothing new. Since Goebbels perfected modern political propaganda, perhaps it is inevitable that all recent instances echo, to some extent, the master. It is still disturbing, though, to actually do the exercise of blending Bush and Goebbels and to see how seemlessly the language of latter fits into a Bush speech, and how familiar the results still sound. Bush’s affinity for the language and imagery of German propagandists like Goebbels when he is selling the "war on terror" doesn’t make him another Hitler or 'just as bad as the Nazis,' but it should give us pause. All modern political propaganda may echo Goebbels, but we should be asking why, in Bush's language about his wars, the echo is so loud and so clear.
Here a contraction of a Bush 9/11 anniversary address to the nation, with additional content from two speeches by Joseph Goebbels [bold print]:
Good evening. Five years ago, this date – September the 11th – was seared into America’s memory. Nineteen men attacked us with a barbarity unequaled in our history. They murdered people of all colors, creeds and nationalities – and made war upon the entire free world. Since that day, America and her allies have taken the offensive in a war unlike any we have fought before. Today, we are safer, but we are not yet safe.
Since the horror of Nine-Eleven, we have learned a great deal about the enemy. We have learned that they are evil and kill without mercy – but not without purpose. We have learned that they form a global network of extremists who are driven by a perverted vision of Islam – a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance, and despises all dissent. The enemy has committed every conceivable crime against humanity, culture and civilization. They are in fact so spiritually corrupt as to boast about it in public. The war against this enemy is more than a military conflict, ... it is a battle for the world. A sinister conspiracy is attacking the foundations of human society. Whether humanity will be saved or whether it will collapse depends wholly on us. The enemy is using every possible base and cynical method to divert us from our mission, to tire us out, to weary our souls, to shake our hearts. We will not allow this to happen. America will stay in the fight. Everything comes to an end eventually, even war. We must be sure that its end is a happy one. We can best ensure that by remaining calm and steadfast.
Our nation is being tested in a way that we have not been since the start of the Cold War. We face an enemy determined to bring death and suffering into our homes. America did not ask for this war; this is a defensive war. It was forced upon us by our enemies, who wish to destroy the possibility of life and growth for our nation. If we do not defeat these enemies now, we will leave our children to face a Middle East overrun by terrorist states and radical dictators armed with nuclear weapons. The goal of our government and military leadership is [an Iraqi] nation that can live freely in all important areas. Our generation must secure this through battle and hard work. It cannot be postponed until later. Either we do it, or it will never be done. We are in a war that will set the course for this new century – and determine the destiny of millions across the world.
I am often asked why we are in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the Nine-Eleven attacks. It [is] unfair and destructive of the general welfare to spread rumors that force the government to speak about matters important or even decisive in the war. This can only help the enemy and harm our nation. [My administration] is doing the best it can. Often it cannot reveal the reasons for its actions without giving valuable information to the enemy. That means even those of good will often do not understand its actions. That is why it must have the confidence of the people, confidence it has earned by its courage, cleverness, farsightedness, as well as its past successes.
In the first days after the Nine-Eleven attacks, I promised to use every element of national power to fight the terrorists wherever we find them. One of the strongest weapons in our arsenal is the power of freedom. The only thing we cannot afford to lose in this war is our freedom, the foundation of our life and our future. Everything else can be replaced, even if only through years of hard work. But a loss of our freedom would mean the loss of all our other material and cultural possessions, both for the nation as a whole and for each individual. This struggle has been called a clash of civilizations. In truth, it is a struggle for civilization. We are fighting to maintain the way of life enjoyed by free nations. This is no war of governments or armies, it is a war of peoples. And we are fighting for the possibility that good and decent people across the Middle East can raise up societies based on freedom, and tolerance, and personal dignity.
Across the broader Middle East, the extremists are fighting to prevent such a future. The enemy wants to win as much as we do. Yet America has confronted evil before, and we have defeated it – sometimes at the cost of thousands of good men in a single battle. We must suffer much to reach our goal, but the goal will be reached despite everything if only we hold true to all our virtues and are ready, if necessary to sacrifice everything in this war to guarantee the nation’s freedom and its future. In Iraq, Afghanistan, and other fronts in the war on terror, the men and women of our military are making great sacrifices to keep us safe. Some have suffered terrible injuries – and nearly 3,000 have given their lives. America cherishes their memory. We pray for their families. And we will never back down from the work they have begun. Everything is possible in this war, save that we capitulate and bow to the power of the enemy.
Throughout our history, America has seen liberty challenged – and every time, we have seen liberty triumph with sacrifice and determination. Nothing is too valuable to be sacrificed for freedom. All we possess we won as a free people. Without our freedom, it would have no purpose, meaning or endurance.
We will continue to give the men and women who protect us every resource and legal authority they need to do their jobs. No one has the right to complain about limitations on his personal freedom caused by the war. What significance do these have in view of the fact that countless men, even woman and children, have died!
Our Nation has endured trials – and we face a difficult road ahead. We hardly want to deny that the enemy has caused us great difficulties, or that he will continue to do so in the future. That is how war is. But the enemy is not in the position to rip the tools of victory out of our hands. Winning this war will require the determined efforts of a unified country. So we must put aside our differences, and work together to meet the test that history has given us. This war brings countless dangers and risks, as does any war. Each must remember that every danger and risk can be overcome if a great nation like [America] with a capable and determined leadership uses all its strength and every resource to deal with it. We will defeat our enemies … we will protect our people ... and we will lead the 21st century into a shining age of human liberty
Dangerous enemies have declared their intention to destroy our way of life. They are not the first to try – and their fate will be the same as those who tried before. An old trick of warfare is to split a people from its government, leaving it leaderless and therefore defenseless. This is the only trick with which the enemy could defeat us. The attacks were meant to bring us to our knees, and they did – but not in the way the terrorists intended. Americans united in prayer ... came to the aid of neighbors in need ... and resolved that our enemies would not have the last word. The spirit of our people is the source of America’s strength. And we go forward with trust in that spirit, confidence in our purpose – and faith in a loving God who made us to be free. We are God's instrument today, fulfilling a great historical mission. It cannot be postponed. We must do it, or humanity will collapse. We all know this. This is a struggle between light and dark, between truth and falsehood, between true humanity and inhuman barbarism. [America] carries the banner. All the oppressed and tortured peoples look to us in hope, because they expect from us alone a new order and the salvation of the world.
Thank-you, and may God save us all
(Amen.)
Bush content from his 9/11 speech:
Joseph Goebbels content from:
"30 Articles of War for the German People," Sept. 26, 1943:
And "The New Year," Jan 2, 1944
Here a contraction of a Bush 9/11 anniversary address to the nation, with additional content from two speeches by Joseph Goebbels [bold print]:
Good evening. Five years ago, this date – September the 11th – was seared into America’s memory. Nineteen men attacked us with a barbarity unequaled in our history. They murdered people of all colors, creeds and nationalities – and made war upon the entire free world. Since that day, America and her allies have taken the offensive in a war unlike any we have fought before. Today, we are safer, but we are not yet safe.
Since the horror of Nine-Eleven, we have learned a great deal about the enemy. We have learned that they are evil and kill without mercy – but not without purpose. We have learned that they form a global network of extremists who are driven by a perverted vision of Islam – a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance, and despises all dissent. The enemy has committed every conceivable crime against humanity, culture and civilization. They are in fact so spiritually corrupt as to boast about it in public. The war against this enemy is more than a military conflict, ... it is a battle for the world. A sinister conspiracy is attacking the foundations of human society. Whether humanity will be saved or whether it will collapse depends wholly on us. The enemy is using every possible base and cynical method to divert us from our mission, to tire us out, to weary our souls, to shake our hearts. We will not allow this to happen. America will stay in the fight. Everything comes to an end eventually, even war. We must be sure that its end is a happy one. We can best ensure that by remaining calm and steadfast.
Our nation is being tested in a way that we have not been since the start of the Cold War. We face an enemy determined to bring death and suffering into our homes. America did not ask for this war; this is a defensive war. It was forced upon us by our enemies, who wish to destroy the possibility of life and growth for our nation. If we do not defeat these enemies now, we will leave our children to face a Middle East overrun by terrorist states and radical dictators armed with nuclear weapons. The goal of our government and military leadership is [an Iraqi] nation that can live freely in all important areas. Our generation must secure this through battle and hard work. It cannot be postponed until later. Either we do it, or it will never be done. We are in a war that will set the course for this new century – and determine the destiny of millions across the world.
I am often asked why we are in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the Nine-Eleven attacks. It [is] unfair and destructive of the general welfare to spread rumors that force the government to speak about matters important or even decisive in the war. This can only help the enemy and harm our nation. [My administration] is doing the best it can. Often it cannot reveal the reasons for its actions without giving valuable information to the enemy. That means even those of good will often do not understand its actions. That is why it must have the confidence of the people, confidence it has earned by its courage, cleverness, farsightedness, as well as its past successes.
In the first days after the Nine-Eleven attacks, I promised to use every element of national power to fight the terrorists wherever we find them. One of the strongest weapons in our arsenal is the power of freedom. The only thing we cannot afford to lose in this war is our freedom, the foundation of our life and our future. Everything else can be replaced, even if only through years of hard work. But a loss of our freedom would mean the loss of all our other material and cultural possessions, both for the nation as a whole and for each individual. This struggle has been called a clash of civilizations. In truth, it is a struggle for civilization. We are fighting to maintain the way of life enjoyed by free nations. This is no war of governments or armies, it is a war of peoples. And we are fighting for the possibility that good and decent people across the Middle East can raise up societies based on freedom, and tolerance, and personal dignity.
Across the broader Middle East, the extremists are fighting to prevent such a future. The enemy wants to win as much as we do. Yet America has confronted evil before, and we have defeated it – sometimes at the cost of thousands of good men in a single battle. We must suffer much to reach our goal, but the goal will be reached despite everything if only we hold true to all our virtues and are ready, if necessary to sacrifice everything in this war to guarantee the nation’s freedom and its future. In Iraq, Afghanistan, and other fronts in the war on terror, the men and women of our military are making great sacrifices to keep us safe. Some have suffered terrible injuries – and nearly 3,000 have given their lives. America cherishes their memory. We pray for their families. And we will never back down from the work they have begun. Everything is possible in this war, save that we capitulate and bow to the power of the enemy.
Throughout our history, America has seen liberty challenged – and every time, we have seen liberty triumph with sacrifice and determination. Nothing is too valuable to be sacrificed for freedom. All we possess we won as a free people. Without our freedom, it would have no purpose, meaning or endurance.
We will continue to give the men and women who protect us every resource and legal authority they need to do their jobs. No one has the right to complain about limitations on his personal freedom caused by the war. What significance do these have in view of the fact that countless men, even woman and children, have died!
Our Nation has endured trials – and we face a difficult road ahead. We hardly want to deny that the enemy has caused us great difficulties, or that he will continue to do so in the future. That is how war is. But the enemy is not in the position to rip the tools of victory out of our hands. Winning this war will require the determined efforts of a unified country. So we must put aside our differences, and work together to meet the test that history has given us. This war brings countless dangers and risks, as does any war. Each must remember that every danger and risk can be overcome if a great nation like [America] with a capable and determined leadership uses all its strength and every resource to deal with it. We will defeat our enemies … we will protect our people ... and we will lead the 21st century into a shining age of human liberty
Dangerous enemies have declared their intention to destroy our way of life. They are not the first to try – and their fate will be the same as those who tried before. An old trick of warfare is to split a people from its government, leaving it leaderless and therefore defenseless. This is the only trick with which the enemy could defeat us. The attacks were meant to bring us to our knees, and they did – but not in the way the terrorists intended. Americans united in prayer ... came to the aid of neighbors in need ... and resolved that our enemies would not have the last word. The spirit of our people is the source of America’s strength. And we go forward with trust in that spirit, confidence in our purpose – and faith in a loving God who made us to be free. We are God's instrument today, fulfilling a great historical mission. It cannot be postponed. We must do it, or humanity will collapse. We all know this. This is a struggle between light and dark, between truth and falsehood, between true humanity and inhuman barbarism. [America] carries the banner. All the oppressed and tortured peoples look to us in hope, because they expect from us alone a new order and the salvation of the world.
Thank-you, and may God save us all
(Amen.)
Bush content from his 9/11 speech:
Joseph Goebbels content from:
"30 Articles of War for the German People," Sept. 26, 1943:
And "The New Year," Jan 2, 1944
Starving The Beast: War Works
I have assumed that Bush wants to pass on the Iraq war to the next president, presumably a democrat, for purely self-serving reasons: to ‘spread the poison’ of the war to another president and try to salvage some kind of positive legacy. But there is an overarching reason for (neo)conservatives in general to be in no rush to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Continuing the wars into the next presidency, and perhaps starting a new one with Iran, will force the continuation, even the acceleration, of the core conservative strategy of “starving the beast:” reducing government revenues and amassing crippling debt to force cuts in expenditures for social programs.
Some seem to think that Karl Rove’s vision of a conservative lock on government ended with his resignation. Hardly. With forced economic overreaching, the kind of spending that fighting 2 or 3 wars compels, Rove’s dream is fast becoming reality. The perverse genius of Bush-style economic self-devastation is that it fosters future cuts in what conservatives like to call “non-essential” social programs no matter who is in power. Hillary isn’t giving us universal health care, for example, paid for by repealing Bush tax cuts, if Iraq, Afghanistan and perhaps Iran are draining away hundreds of billions a year in government revenues and growing a massive deficit.
So why bother to look for an exit strategy when not having one is advancing your core political objectives so efficiently? When, in fact, it is making these objectives ‘election proof ’ - - - by forcing conservative spending practices on future democratic administrations? Why, for that matter, be concerned about the veracity of the reasons for going to war? No matter why it starts, a war is the single most effective tool for “starving the beast.” It even has a gruesome ‘cost effectiveness’ : the flu kills about 36,000 Americans a year, car accidents about 41,000, while the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan together average a "mere" 800 killed a year.
Look out Iran.
Continuing the wars into the next presidency, and perhaps starting a new one with Iran, will force the continuation, even the acceleration, of the core conservative strategy of “starving the beast:” reducing government revenues and amassing crippling debt to force cuts in expenditures for social programs.
Some seem to think that Karl Rove’s vision of a conservative lock on government ended with his resignation. Hardly. With forced economic overreaching, the kind of spending that fighting 2 or 3 wars compels, Rove’s dream is fast becoming reality. The perverse genius of Bush-style economic self-devastation is that it fosters future cuts in what conservatives like to call “non-essential” social programs no matter who is in power. Hillary isn’t giving us universal health care, for example, paid for by repealing Bush tax cuts, if Iraq, Afghanistan and perhaps Iran are draining away hundreds of billions a year in government revenues and growing a massive deficit.
So why bother to look for an exit strategy when not having one is advancing your core political objectives so efficiently? When, in fact, it is making these objectives ‘election proof ’ - - - by forcing conservative spending practices on future democratic administrations? Why, for that matter, be concerned about the veracity of the reasons for going to war? No matter why it starts, a war is the single most effective tool for “starving the beast.” It even has a gruesome ‘cost effectiveness’ : the flu kills about 36,000 Americans a year, car accidents about 41,000, while the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan together average a "mere" 800 killed a year.
Look out Iran.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Impeach Now or Impeach Later
Nancy Pelosi seems perfectly happy to carry over unlawful presidential powers into a likely democratic presidency. But taking impeachment off the table now, for whatever reason, only heightens the constitutional crisis, it doesn‘t avoid it. If the issue of unchecked presidential power is not resolved now, then impeachment is back on the table with a vengeance in 2009.
Pelosi’s actions raise the prospect of having to censure or impeach, for the salvation of the republic, a democratic president for exercising the same unconstitutional powers that have earned Bush impeachment. And that’s a very real prospect. This is one of the scariest sentences I’ve read in the recent news:
“If elected president in 2008, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton would consider giving up some of the executive powers President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have assumed since taking office.”
I don’t want another president who thinks following the dictates of the constitution and the law is merely something to “consider.”
Because a Republican minority has proved stronger than a Democratic majority, what Pelosi has taken off the table, the Republican minority leader will soon have back on it if a Democratic president exercises the same exaggerated powers Bush now claims for the executive. Can’t you hear a sanctimonious Lindsey Graham now, dusting off Clinton impeachment oldies like this:
“The president of the United States sets atop of the legal pyramid. If there’s reasonable doubt about his ability to faithfully execute the laws of the land, our future would be better off if that individual is removed.”
Many, I include myself, will be put in the terrible position of having to endorse an action, the justified impeachment of a President exercising unconstitutional powers, that is driven by the same calculated and thoroughly hypocritical outrage Republicans mustered for Clinton. “Defenders of the constitution” like Lindsey Graham will crawl out from under every rock, and I will have to hold my nose and side with them.
What is the alternative? It’s simple: Let the President who claimed unlawful powers be the one from whom they are stripped. Is there something short of impeachment that can check burgeoning executive power? I don’t see it. So impeach now or impeach later. Impeach the President who deserves it, or be forced to support the justified impeachment of a successor to protect the Constitution from the same subversion.
Pelosi’s actions raise the prospect of having to censure or impeach, for the salvation of the republic, a democratic president for exercising the same unconstitutional powers that have earned Bush impeachment. And that’s a very real prospect. This is one of the scariest sentences I’ve read in the recent news:
“If elected president in 2008, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton would consider giving up some of the executive powers President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have assumed since taking office.”
I don’t want another president who thinks following the dictates of the constitution and the law is merely something to “consider.”
Because a Republican minority has proved stronger than a Democratic majority, what Pelosi has taken off the table, the Republican minority leader will soon have back on it if a Democratic president exercises the same exaggerated powers Bush now claims for the executive. Can’t you hear a sanctimonious Lindsey Graham now, dusting off Clinton impeachment oldies like this:
“The president of the United States sets atop of the legal pyramid. If there’s reasonable doubt about his ability to faithfully execute the laws of the land, our future would be better off if that individual is removed.”
Many, I include myself, will be put in the terrible position of having to endorse an action, the justified impeachment of a President exercising unconstitutional powers, that is driven by the same calculated and thoroughly hypocritical outrage Republicans mustered for Clinton. “Defenders of the constitution” like Lindsey Graham will crawl out from under every rock, and I will have to hold my nose and side with them.
What is the alternative? It’s simple: Let the President who claimed unlawful powers be the one from whom they are stripped. Is there something short of impeachment that can check burgeoning executive power? I don’t see it. So impeach now or impeach later. Impeach the President who deserves it, or be forced to support the justified impeachment of a successor to protect the Constitution from the same subversion.
Waterboarding is (still) Illegal
Evan Wallach in “Drop by Drop: Forgetting The History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts” carefully documents the unwavering conviction in American criminal law, and in American prosecutions of war criminals in various international tribunals, that waterboarding is torture and illegal:
“Historical analysis demonstrates U.S. courts have consistently held artificial drowning interrogation is torture which, by its nature, violates U.S. statutory prohibitions.”
American prosecutors successfully argued that the use of waterboarding by the Japanese was a war crime and won convictions on that basis. English and Norwegian prosecutions of Japanese and Nazi practitioners of waterboarding also won war crimes convictions . Domestic prosecution of a Sheriff and his deputies in Texas in 1983 for waterboarding prisoners resulted in 4 year prison sentences on that count alone for the guilty Sheriff and deputies.
I refer readers to Wallach’s well-documented article for further detail. Suffice it to say there is simply no precedent in American criminal justice for condoning the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique. It is and has been illegal at home, and in every international prosecution of those who used waterboarding against Americans, American prosecutors have argued it is torture and illegal.
Attempts to prevent the prosecution of Americans for war crimes like waterboarding (such as the explicit denial in the Military Commissions Act of 2006 of a right by detainees to claim Geneva Convention protections against war crimes) should (and I hope will) fail because of the bright path already blazed by in American law by decent Americans who recognized torture when they saw it and held the torturers accountable.
The Leading State Sponsor of Terror
In ramping up for another nice distracting war, Bush brands Iran "the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism." Too bad all the evidence shows our "friend" Saudi Arabia is the rightful holder of that title. It is, by a large margin, the principle source of foreign fighters in Iraq: 45% to second place Syria's 15%. Hundreds of billions of state dollars are channeled year after year into supporting anti-western, anti-American Wahhabism worldwide. The token, publicity-friendly Saudi government "crackdowns" Bush likes to point to are overwhelmed by the overt participation of government officials in protecting and fostering terrorism:
"In November 2004, 26 Saudi clerics, 21 of whom are government officials, issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to join the jihad in Iraq. The leading figure behind the fatwa, Sheikh Salman bin Fahd Al-Odah, has heavily financed Saudi insurgents in Iraq and other locations.
Al-Odah has three television programs that serve as a forum for his extremist views. One of these programs is on the official Saudi government Channel 1. The sheikh commands a wide audience and is influential in matters beyond Saudi Arabia and Iraq. On Dec. 27, 2006, al-Odah appeared on Al-Jazeera to urge Saudis to travel to Somalia and join the Islamic Courts Union in their war against the legitimate Somali government.
Beyond al-Odah, the highest ranking Saudi official to openly support terrorism is Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaidan, chief of the Saudi judiciary [!]. In April 2005, the Institute for Gulf Affairs (then called the Saudi Institute) gave NBC a tape of al-Luhaidan instructing Saudis to send money and men to Iraq in order to aid then-al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. NBC confirmed the authenticity of the tape by calling al-Luhaidan. To this date, al-Luhaidan remains in his government position without censure."
The leading state sponsor of terrorism today, as it was at the beginning of the war in Iraq, is Saudi Arabia. Naturally, therefore, the appropriate thing to do is give them 20 billion in weapons, and invade Iran.
"In November 2004, 26 Saudi clerics, 21 of whom are government officials, issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to join the jihad in Iraq. The leading figure behind the fatwa, Sheikh Salman bin Fahd Al-Odah, has heavily financed Saudi insurgents in Iraq and other locations.
Al-Odah has three television programs that serve as a forum for his extremist views. One of these programs is on the official Saudi government Channel 1. The sheikh commands a wide audience and is influential in matters beyond Saudi Arabia and Iraq. On Dec. 27, 2006, al-Odah appeared on Al-Jazeera to urge Saudis to travel to Somalia and join the Islamic Courts Union in their war against the legitimate Somali government.
Beyond al-Odah, the highest ranking Saudi official to openly support terrorism is Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaidan, chief of the Saudi judiciary [!]. In April 2005, the Institute for Gulf Affairs (then called the Saudi Institute) gave NBC a tape of al-Luhaidan instructing Saudis to send money and men to Iraq in order to aid then-al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. NBC confirmed the authenticity of the tape by calling al-Luhaidan. To this date, al-Luhaidan remains in his government position without censure."
The leading state sponsor of terrorism today, as it was at the beginning of the war in Iraq, is Saudi Arabia. Naturally, therefore, the appropriate thing to do is give them 20 billion in weapons, and invade Iran.
What's Really Preventing Another 9/11
“We are successfully preventing terrorist attacks like 9/11 because another one hasn’t happened.”
It should go without saying that the fact that something hasn’t happened doesn’t prove that the championed cause is the reason it hasn’t. The claims about the success of the surge illustrate this perfectly. Any reductions in violence attributed to the surge are as plausibly accounted for by sustained ethnic cleansing: Kill or remove the potential victims of violence and violence must go down.
Of the above claim about preventing terrorist attacks, suffice it to say it is as well justified today as a similar claim would have been on Sept 10 2001: “The fact that there has been no terrorist attack since the Trade Center bombing in 1993 proves that we are successfully preventing such attacks.”
The fact that another 9/11 hasn’t happened is far more plausibly explained by pointing out that no objective of Bin Laden and Co. would be met by one. Americans are being killed and maimed in Iraq and Afghanistan in numbers that exceed the toll of 9/11. The US military is being systematically weakened fighting two wars with inadequate manpower. The economy is unable to sustain the 2 billion dollar a week drain of two wars, and has become beholden to foreign lenders to a greater extent than at any time in American history. Basic American principles are being eroded and personal liberties lost, something no foreign enemy of America could achieve with an attack on our soil. When not attacking us is bringing this kind of undreamed of success for our enemies, there is simply no reason for another 9/11.
It should go without saying that the fact that something hasn’t happened doesn’t prove that the championed cause is the reason it hasn’t. The claims about the success of the surge illustrate this perfectly. Any reductions in violence attributed to the surge are as plausibly accounted for by sustained ethnic cleansing: Kill or remove the potential victims of violence and violence must go down.
Of the above claim about preventing terrorist attacks, suffice it to say it is as well justified today as a similar claim would have been on Sept 10 2001: “The fact that there has been no terrorist attack since the Trade Center bombing in 1993 proves that we are successfully preventing such attacks.”
The fact that another 9/11 hasn’t happened is far more plausibly explained by pointing out that no objective of Bin Laden and Co. would be met by one. Americans are being killed and maimed in Iraq and Afghanistan in numbers that exceed the toll of 9/11. The US military is being systematically weakened fighting two wars with inadequate manpower. The economy is unable to sustain the 2 billion dollar a week drain of two wars, and has become beholden to foreign lenders to a greater extent than at any time in American history. Basic American principles are being eroded and personal liberties lost, something no foreign enemy of America could achieve with an attack on our soil. When not attacking us is bringing this kind of undreamed of success for our enemies, there is simply no reason for another 9/11.
Co-Equal At Last
Why would the democratic majority in Congress, judged by a majority of citizens to be a failure, nevertheless persist in a campaign of thinly veiled (and sometimes naked and undeniable) enabling of Bush? Nancy Pelosi explained it to Wolf Blitzer. She wants to shove the Iraq war across the isle, point to republicans and say: “its yours!”
“ . . . the republicans in the Senate have now taken ownership of the war in Iraq. It's President Bush's war. And now it is the republicans in Congress' war. . . .”
It’s hard to say with any convincing moral authority “it’s your war” when democrats consistently vote with republicans to fund it. So why do they? Wolf asked her:
BLITZER: But you could in the House of Representatives use your power of the purse, the money, just to stop funding the war if you really wanted to.
PELOSI: I wish the speaker had all the power you just described. I certainly could do that. That doesn't bar the minority from bringing up a funding resolution. They have their parliamentary prerogatives, as well.
If only the Speaker of the House had the power to determine what resolutions make it to the floor of the House for debate . . . Oh wait, she does. And, of course, even if she didn’t, nothing compels democrats to vote for these resolutions.
What best explains the democrats’ “inability” to resist the republican juggernaut is a calculated helplessness: ‘If we can make it seem that we are unable to alter the course of events, the republicans will be blamed.’ Pursuing such a strategy, with a disingenuousness (“I wish the speaker had all the power you just described” ) and a manipulative condescension to voters that would make Tom Delay proud, makes them at last the co-equal of the executive: they are now as much to blame for the continuation of the bloody disaster in Iraq as he is.
“ . . . the republicans in the Senate have now taken ownership of the war in Iraq. It's President Bush's war. And now it is the republicans in Congress' war. . . .”
It’s hard to say with any convincing moral authority “it’s your war” when democrats consistently vote with republicans to fund it. So why do they? Wolf asked her:
BLITZER: But you could in the House of Representatives use your power of the purse, the money, just to stop funding the war if you really wanted to.
PELOSI: I wish the speaker had all the power you just described. I certainly could do that. That doesn't bar the minority from bringing up a funding resolution. They have their parliamentary prerogatives, as well.
If only the Speaker of the House had the power to determine what resolutions make it to the floor of the House for debate . . . Oh wait, she does. And, of course, even if she didn’t, nothing compels democrats to vote for these resolutions.
What best explains the democrats’ “inability” to resist the republican juggernaut is a calculated helplessness: ‘If we can make it seem that we are unable to alter the course of events, the republicans will be blamed.’ Pursuing such a strategy, with a disingenuousness (“I wish the speaker had all the power you just described” ) and a manipulative condescension to voters that would make Tom Delay proud, makes them at last the co-equal of the executive: they are now as much to blame for the continuation of the bloody disaster in Iraq as he is.
The Very Least The Next President Must Do
No president should have the powers George Bush has. The remedy, censure or impeachment, if not applied to the president who earned it, may have to be applied to his successor. To permit these powers to stand for another president’s term all but assures that they will never be checked.
I never thought I would find myself siding with the odious Bob Barr about anything, but he is among the sponsors of the American Freedom Agenda whose ten point ‘Freedom Pledge’ embodies the very least a new president must do to avoid the necessity of impeachment to curb executive power. No candidate has pledged carry out this agenda. (Dodd and Kucinich have expressed views that suggest sympathy with many of the 10 points.) So far as I know, no candidate has even endorsed the much weaker “American Freedom Pledge” championed by, among others, Naomi Wolf.
With no candidate pledged to do even the very least that must be done to restore american democracy, it is tragically clear that the hour has not produced the man, or woman, the country needs.
I never thought I would find myself siding with the odious Bob Barr about anything, but he is among the sponsors of the American Freedom Agenda whose ten point ‘Freedom Pledge’ embodies the very least a new president must do to avoid the necessity of impeachment to curb executive power. No candidate has pledged carry out this agenda. (Dodd and Kucinich have expressed views that suggest sympathy with many of the 10 points.) So far as I know, no candidate has even endorsed the much weaker “American Freedom Pledge” championed by, among others, Naomi Wolf.
With no candidate pledged to do even the very least that must be done to restore american democracy, it is tragically clear that the hour has not produced the man, or woman, the country needs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
