Legacy

After eight years of denigrating human rights and weakening our country's principles when we ought to have been strong, Dick Cheney doesn't know when to leave well enough alone:

"He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won't be at war," Cheney said in the statement. "He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of 9/11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won't be at war. He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won't be at war."

None of this would be relevant - Cheney is plainly a despicable human being committed to atrocities and empire-building in the name of false freedom - were it not for White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer's comments on the matter, which solidify something that many of us have been thinking for some time:

"Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country," Pfeiffer said. "And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the president."

Pfeiffer also took issue with Cheney's contention that Obama was pretending no U.S. war with terrorists existed, saying the president and members of his administration have referred to being at war with al Qaeda several times.

"The difference is this: President Obama doesn't need to beat his chest to prove it, and -- unlike the last Administration -- we are not at war with a tactic ("terrorism"), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies," Pfeiffer wrote.

Cheney's comments represent nothing more than the last snarl of a dog fleeing a property with its tail between its legs, the final whimpering relics of an international philosophy of justified brutality that ought to have taken its last breath by now. Let's see that it stays that way, desperate justifications notwithstanding.

"Without racism, soldiers would realize that they have more in common with the Iraqi people, than they do with the billionaries who sent us to war."

Two videos in a row, though this one consists of so much unfiltered truth and poetic appeals to brotherhood that it cut through the malaise of my currently flu-addled brain:

The hawk fallacy - how "protecting" America could lead to its downfall

Glenn Greenwald is soon becoming one of my favorite civil libertarians. In today's Salon he does a fantastic job of summing up the malady affecting neoconservatives in our modern era - the stunning hypocrisy of purporting to be the unabashed saviors of democracy and freedom while in fact working against those ends in both domestic and international policy.

Using a Weekly Standard rant on the ACLU's well-known support of due process for U.S. prisoners he poses the question:

Between (a) an organization that works tirelessly for basic due process and Constitutional liberties for everyone and (b) a political movement which demands their rejection, does it really take any effort to see which side is vigorously defending core American principles and which side is waging war on them? And given how due-process-free imprisonment is one of the most potent recruiting tools for Islamic extremists (as reported by David Rohde, Johann Hari, Gen. McChyrstal, and even the Pentagon's own 2004 Task Force) -- to say nothing of the endless aggressive wars cheered on by The Weekly Standard's play-acting warriors -- does it take any effort to see who Al Qaeda's "useful idiots" and stalwart allies truly are?

Hawks on national defense who treat human rights loosely have proven time and time again that protecting the United States from "terrorism" in the name of "freedom" results mainly in the continued application of terror in our name against freedom, human rights and Constitutional government. Every time The United States proves itself willing to resort to illegal and inhumane practices, it weakens our nation and its laws in very real ways and leads to a perpetuation of external terrorism around the globe.

The recent conservative outrage against Obama's bow to the Japanese emperor - an action which does not demean the one bowing but shows respect - seems to remove any question: much of the modern Right sees U.S. courtesy and diplomacy as a weakness, somehow damaging in and of itself, while excusing blatant assaults against liberty under the guise of pragmatism. The pillars of modern hawkishness - illegal, indefinite detention of prisoners without charges, torture and inhumane treatment and frequent, half-justifiable action against foreign nations in these circles is seen as strength, while the rule of law, respect for human rights and diplomacy is seen almost as treason, actions taking to weaken the nation rather than bolster its image and shake the message of anti-American terrorists around the globe.

Rather than see "terrorists" as human beings recruited to a misguided, foolish cause, this type of policy sees them as a force of nature, one that cannot be reasoned with or made to see the benefits of freedom by its actual application. No, by treating insurgents (even ones who have perpetuated terror attacks) as less than human and unworthy of the treatment we give even our worst citizens, we reinforce our image around the globe as the enemy of Islam in the minds of those misguided enough to see this as a holy war. By waging endless wars without end we become what we purport to fight against, and the noble goals of our nation's founding serve no purpose unless they are actually lived up to.

No, a hawkish, violent and arrogant foreign policy appeals mainly to those without the subtlety to appreciate virtue, relish ideals and respect the founding U.S. principles of populism, human rights and liberty. As Greenwald states powerfully in his closing paragraph (which I won't summarize here because this powerful article is powerful reading), the very people who have championed themselves the saviors of America are, through their hubris, leading quite directly both to its moral and physical destruction.

Read the article

Torture, hypocrisy and self-denial

Boingboing links to an awesome Science Daily article on the psychological effects of torture on onlookers:

The rationale behind torture is that pain will make the guilty confess, but a new study by researchers at Harvard University finds that the pain of torture can make even the innocent seem guilty.

Participants in the study met a woman suspected of cheating to win money. The woman was then "tortured" by having her hand immersed in ice water while study participants listened to the session over an intercom. She never confessed to anything, but the more she suffered during the torture, the guiltier she was perceived to be.

The research, published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, was conducted by Kurt Gray, graduate student in psychology, and Daniel M. Wegner, professor of psychology, both in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

...

"Our research suggests that torture may not uncover guilt so much as lead to its perception," says Gray. "It is as though people who know of the victim's pain must somehow convince themselves that it was a good idea -- and so come to believe that the person who was tortured deserved it."

Not all torture victims appear guilty, however. When participants in the study only listened to a recording of a previous torture session -- rather than taking part as witnesses of ongoing torture -- they saw the victim who expressed more pain as less guilty. Gray explains the different results as arising from different levels of complicity.

This study is essential, though of course it's merely an offshoot of what people who have any idea of human nature already suspect - people create the reality that is most comfortable to them. We demonize people we need to demonize, as the alternative is to confront ourselves for misbehavior, callous treatment or shortsightedness. The use of strong torture methods in dictatorial, brutal regimes, and even in justifying more recent U.S. mistakes were strongly tied to a belief in the infallible nature of the torturer to presume guilt or innocence.

link

Telling information about "indefinite detention"

This comment from Constitutional lawyer Wells Dixon sheds a little light on the process of "indefinite preventative detention," or lifelong imprisonment without charges or proof of people the government deems may be a danger to the U.S.:

“When the government does something to [an individual] that they say is classified, they have disclosed to him classified information. But since he doesn’t have a security clearance, there is nothing that prevents him, unlike me, from saying to the outside world: ‘This is what they did to me.’ Nothing prevents that — except for the fact that he is physically in custody.”’

The “logical conclusion,” Dixon says, is that [this person] “must be detained for the rest of his life — regardless of whether he is ever charged with a crime — because if he was ever released, nothing would prevent him from disclosing this information.

Government using incarceration as a political tool rather than a way of dealing with criminals? Why, what a novel idea for a democracy!

link

Indefensible - Lowlights from the Inspector General Report

After writing and rewriting this introduction dozens of times, I realized that I've already opined on torture at length so it may be best to let this reading speak for itself.

Those who defend the use of torture as "enhanced interrogation" should read the selections posted by Salon's Glenn Greenwald of actual methods used by CIA interrogators.

The entire article reads like a sort of twisted set of Mad-Libs. Remember, "terrorists" (really just a blanket term for Arabs in many circles) couldn't destroy our freedom or our values no matter how much they supposedly hate them. Still, we've done a pretty good job of making the whole war moot by trying to beat them to it.

Further readings:

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Five Things You Should Know About the ‘Torture’ Memos

Musicians to press Obama on end to "sonic torture"

Gitmo detainees released with sneaky, infuriating language

Yoo've got it coming (Sorry)

This isn't really comedy, of course, but it is a form of activism, and making John Yoo mildly uncomfortable for a few minutes seems appropriately ironic in light of the material in question.

EDIT: And yes, I'm fully aware the embedded video makes my page look all kinds of ugly.

Just a little frightening. . .Obama to allow Gitmo executions without trials

From the New York Times:

The Obama administration is considering a change in the law for the military commissions at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that would clear the way for detainees facing the death penalty to plead guilty without a full trial.

The provision could permit military prosecutors to avoid airing the details of brutal interrogation techniques. It could also allow the five detainees who have been charged with the Sept. 11 attacks to achieve their stated goal of pleading guilty to gain what they have called martyrdom.

The proposal, in a draft of legislation that would be submitted to Congress, has not been publicly disclosed. It was circulated to officials under restrictions requiring secrecy. People who have read or been briefed on it said it had been presented to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates by an administration task force on detention.

Obama's already outlined his procedure of "indefinite preventative detention," a fascinating, scary way of saying "illegal imprisonment without trial or sufficient evidence." It's already too late for Obama to become the human rights President, and I suspect that our country is already on a path where a respect for the rule of law and the Bill of Rights is no longer considered an asset in political circles. Naturally, the terrorists won when we began to compromise our own ideals and values on a massive scale in the name of keeping America "safe." No good American should want this kind of "safety." It's largely imaginary in the first place and requires the destruction of nearly everything that makes our country great and unique.

The proposal would ease what has come to be recognized as the government’s difficult task of prosecuting men who have confessed to terrorism but whose cases present challenges. Much of the evidence against the men accused in the Sept. 11 case, as well as against other detainees, is believed to have come from confessions they gave during intense interrogations at secret C.I.A. prisons. In any proceeding, the reliability of those statements would be challenged, making trials difficult and drawing new political pressure over detainee treatment.

In a nutshell, President Obama wants to allow "evidence" obtained under illegal and unreliable torture methods to be considered statements of guilt worthy of execution (read note below), without any semblance of a lawful trial. Obama, having taken steps to begin closing Gitmo purely as a formality, has decided to turn it into an illegal execution factory.

NOTE: It seems that executions will not occur based solely on evidence obtained under torture, but a guilty plea on the part of the "defendant." This is still frightening as an inmate incarcerated for several months, often subject to inhumane or illegal torture and techniques for breaking them down, cannot be considered a reliable source for information. Allowing the government to execute based on a mere confession obtained through whatever methods they decide are legal is questionable at best, a prelude to totalitarianism at worst (and that's no exaggeration).

Sean Hannity makes idle promise to be waterboarded for charity. . .

Oh, mercy me. Transcript from the Huffington Post:

"[Charles] GRODIN: You're for torture.

HANNITY: I am for enhanced interrogation.

GRODIN: You don't believe it's torture. Have you ever been waterboarded?

HANNITY: No, but Ollie North has.

GRODIN: Would you consent to be waterboarded? We can waterboard you?

HANNITY: Sure.

GRODIN: Are you busy on Sunday?

HANNITY: I'll do it for charity. I'll let you do it. I'll do it for the troops' families."

Leaving aside the question of what exactly is going on in Hannity's brain ("Troops' families! Ollie North! RONALD REAGAN!!!"), obviously this will probably never happen. Still, the fact that Hannity's BFF Ollie North has done it might make give us a faint possibility of seeing something that will surely turn out to be entertaining for us and deservedly humiliating for the conservative icon. Christopher Hitchens lasted about ten seconds when he was waterboarded, and Hannity's going to have a tough time spinning his inevitable sputtering concession as a positive. After all, in real waterboarding they don't stop when the prisoner gives the signal.

Snarky bit warning:

Still, the idea of Hannity being kept awake at all hours of the day and night by high-decibel rap music and maybe held in a corner as snarling dogs bark in his face has a certain appeal. After a few months maybe he'd have the moral authority to wish it on others.

Obama to continue secret CIA "renditions" - secret abductions and transfers of prisoners

NOTE: READ UPDATE BELOW

Well, I was excited about the closing of Guantanamo Bay and other reforms (I still am, actually, very much), but Obama's recent decision granting approval to the CIA for the continuation of their "extraordinary renditions" program has me thinking he may just be rearranging the deck chairs on our nation's moral Titanic.

Renditions - secret CIA abductions and transfers of government prisoners to "friendly nations" (where they are sometimes tortured) have been understandably controversial. When torture occurs following a rendition, it allows our government to avoid directly participating in the torture process while looking the other way and allowing it to happen. As a commenter said following DailyKos's report that members of Bush's rendition team were heading Obama's intelligence transition team : "We've got someone who can make our torture look better. That's the change we need, right?"

If we really believe in God-given human rights, we will do our best to make certain that people aren't tortured on our watch. The fact that we won't always be the ones doing it is of dubious comfort.

Obama preserves renditions as counter-terrorism tool (LA Times)

Related links:

The agonizing truth about CIA renditions (Salon)
Americans in opposition to torture
Why torture is ineffective

UPDATE: When writing this post I did not make a distinction between the practice of openly shuttling a prisoner to another country for purposes of law enforcement - also termed a "rendition" - and renditions in which subjects have been secretly shuttled away for long periods or tortured. The term "extraordinary rendition" connotes torture and the Obama Administration has explicitly banned renditions which may result in torture. Of course we are not the only nation on Earth which has stake in prosecuting terrorists, and there may be a variety of reasons that a prosecution in another nation may be more appropriate. Nevertheless, we are responsible to assure that prisoners we transfer or allow to be transferred are treated humanely.

The Daily Show - Gitmo's World

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Gitmo's World - Death to America

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Beneath this ostensibly silly riff on the closing of Guantanamo Bay is some pretty profound commentary. As Stewart points out, the lack of any guarantee of safety is a price of living in a free society.

UPDATE: Bill O'Reilly on the inauguration speech: "I didn't like the line in the speech [saying] we don't have to compromise our values to protect ourselves. I think sometimes we do." Cute.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What do you call a "value" that you discard at the earliest possible opportunity?

Even a loaded ABC poll finds Americans in opposition to torture

Despite being phrased in "the most pro-torture manner possible," a new ABC poll finds Americans in favor of the rule of law and in opposition to torture by a wide margin. Glenn Greenwald of Salon illuminates on the poll results:

Q. Obama has said that under his administration the United States will not use torture as part of the U.S. campaign against terrorism, no matter what the circumstance. Do you support this position not to use torture, or do you think there are cases in which the United States should consider torture against terrorism suspects? (Greenwald's emphasis)

The question, posed in that "ludicrous, 24-clichéd 'ticking time bomb' excuse" found 58% of Americans responding that the U.S. should never torture, no matter the circumstances.

A majority of Americans also favors the closing of Guantanamo Bay, and a slim majority even favors investigation into the legality of Bush administration policies regarding the treatment of detainees, asking that they be tried in U.S. courts.

Greenwald's analysis flies in the face of both the "conservative America" thesis of Republican talking heads, as well as their concept of the "liberal media":

What's most remarkable about the fact that a majority of Americans favor investigations is that one has to struggle to find even a single politician of national significance or a prominent media figure who argue that position. The notion that Bush officials shouldn't be criminally investigated is about as close to a lockstep consensus among political and media elites as it gets, and yet, still, a majority of Americans favor such investigations.

...

Our political elites endlessly deny these facts -- and insist that Americans don't care about the rule of law and Constitutional values -- because that's how they excuse their own violations and their refusal to hold themselves accountable: "We can't investigate Bush because the public wouldn't tolerate it; we can't abide by Constitutional norms because we'll lose elections if we appear soft on terror." But those claims are false. There may (or may not be) reasonable grounds for arguing against constitutional protections and imposing consequences on those who violate them, but the fact that public opinion won't permit such actions is quite clearly not one of those grounds.

New poll on torture and investigations negates Beltway conventional wisdom (Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com)

Musicians to press Obama on end to "sonic torture"

Hey - whatsa matter? You some Moozlim-lovin pussy?

Man, there's so much to fix with the upcoming administration. Why does it feel like a sheepish sort of revolution, with talk of secret prisons closing and abuses of government being corrected?

According to the copyright restrictions it so zealously preserves, the United States still owes royalty payments on the hours and hours (and hours) of music it has used to torture prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq. But their lax enforcement of U.S. law while breaking international law is more indicative of their bad attitude than the main focus when torture is concerned.

From Wired:

Reprieve, a British human rights law group that represents over 30 Guantanamo Bay detainees, is planning to work with musicians to lobby President-elect Barack Obama to end the practice of sonic torture by military interrogators.

Earlier this month, Reprieve and the U.K. Musicians Union launched Zero dB, a "silent protest" over the use of music in interrogations. According to Reprieve, many of its clients have been subjected to hours of music played at deafening volume -- sometime for days or even weeks on end. And the BBC has reported on a particularly insidious practice: using the theme songs from Sesame Street and Barney [as well as to break the will of prisoners.

This has musicians furious. Last week, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails even suggested he might pursue legal action to stop the practice.

A partial list of some of the interrogators' favorite tracks is telling (emphasis added):

• “Enter Sandman,” Metallica.
• “Bodies,” Drowning Pool. [Whose idiot bassist said "I take it as an honor to think that perhaps our song could be used to quell another 9/11 attack or something like that."]
• “Shoot to Thrill,” AC/DC.
• “Hell’s Bells,” AC/DC.
• “I Love You,” from the “Barney and Friends” children’s TV show.
• “Born in the USA,” Bruce Springsteen. [I guess "Kidnapped to Cuba" isn't as catchy]
• “Babylon,” David Gray.
• “White America,” Eminem. [Way to be subtle, ya little skinheads] • “Sesame Street,” theme song from the children’s TV show.”

I prefer the term "sonic torture" over "music torture" or whatever idiot term our guvmint has probably invented (probably something like "aural interrogation") because it's not music these people are familiar with, or "music" in any way that you'd normally experience music. It's just sound blasted at a body, and after a half-dozen hours I'm certain it all coalesces into a thick sludge of despair and tuneless garbage that destroys you more than it makes you want to cooperate with anybody.

Anybody who says that this isn't torture obviously hasn't ever felt their body, mind and soul fall apart from stress or lack of sleep. It's much, much worse than having a fingernail pulled out.

Hey - so maybe "Drowning Pool" isn't such a bad choice after all!

Rockers to Press Obama on Music Torture (Wired)

Bush shoe-thrower 'tortured into writing letter of apology'

Photo Credit: Welt Online

The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush was tortured into writing a letter of apology, his brother said today.

Muntazer al-Zaidi was wrestled to the ground after throwing his shoes during a news conference held by the US president and the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, on 14 December.

The investigating judge in the case said last week that Zaidi, who will stand trial on 31 December, was beaten around the face and eyes. Zaidi's brother, Uday, said the journalist suffered worse injuries, including a missing tooth and cigarette burns to his ears, and would sue.

In the interest of verity, al-Zaidi's brothers have previously said that he suffered a broken arm in jail, a statement that for whatever reason turned out to be false.

But what damage could possibly be done to the new Iraqi government and the United States when it comes to light that agents of the new regime tortured a journalist for a semi-violent, yet ultimately harmless gesture directed at the U.S. President? (After all, he's only being charged with "insulting a foreign leader" and not "attempted murder." My roommate points out that this may be one of the few brushes with reality ol' Dubya has ever been confronted with.) And how suspicious are Prime Minister Maliki's further statements regarding the "investigation"?:

Maliki said Zaidi admitted in the letter that a terrorist had induced him to throw the shoes. "He revealed … that a person provoked him to commit this act and that person is known to us for slitting throats," Maliki said, according to the prime minister's website. The alleged instigator was not named.

"A terrorist!" Golly!

Former Army interrogator's treatise on torture

Returned Army interrogator Matthew Alexander, who served in the Air Force for 14 years and later worked as a senior interrogator in Iraq, offers a succinct debunking of torture as a method of obtaining information:

I refused to participate in [Guantanamo-style torture methods], and a month later, I extended that prohibition to the team of interrogators I was assigned to lead. I taught the members of my unit a new methodology -- one based on building rapport with suspects, showing cultural understanding and using good old-fashioned brainpower to tease out information. I personally conducted more than 300 interrogations, and I supervised more than 1,000. The methods my team used are not classified (they're listed in the unclassified Field Manual), but the way we used them was, I like to think, unique. We got to know our enemies, we learned to negotiate with them, and we adapted criminal investigative techniques to our work (something that the Field Manual permits, under the concept of "ruses and trickery"). It worked. Our efforts started a chain of successes that ultimately led to Zarqawi.

Over the course of this renaissance in interrogation tactics, our attitudes changed. We no longer saw our prisoners as the stereotypical al-Qaeda evildoers we had been repeatedly briefed to expect; we saw them as Sunni Iraqis, often family men protecting themselves from Shiite militias and trying to ensure that their fellow Sunnis would still have some access to wealth and power in the new Iraq. Most surprisingly, they turned out to despise al-Qaeda in Iraq as much as they despised us, but Zarqawi and his thugs were willing to provide them with arms and money. I pointed this out to Gen. George Casey, the former top U.S. commander in Iraq, when he visited my prison in the summer of 2006. He did not respond.

...

I know the counter-argument well -- that we need the rough stuff for the truly hard cases, such as battle-hardened core leaders of al-Qaeda, not just run-of-the-mill Iraqi insurgents. But that's not always true: We turned several hard cases, including some foreign fighters, by using our new techniques. A few of them never abandoned the jihadist cause but still gave up critical information. One actually told me, "I thought you would torture me, and when you didn't, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That's why I decided to cooperate." (Source: Washington Post)

This is a very, very good article and the second page in particular is quite powerful. If we lose our moral character and respect for humanity as a nation then we've lost the only thing the terrorists can truly take from us. I have a very firm karmic (one might say Christian) belief regarding the actions of government and its employees: if we do the right thing, things will work out. Understanding what leads an individual to become a terrorist by shattering their notions of what it means to be an American seems to be an appropriate way of turning people against militant Jihadism. Torture only creates terrorists, leading us up the inevitable war against the Arab world that so many black-and-white misguided moralists see as inevitable. It's more like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Roger Cohen: Gitmo detainees released with sneaky, infuriating language.

Well, with the most recent administration who believed that inalienable rights don't apply to non-Americans on its way out, what of those being released from Guantanamo Bay? Roger Cohen of the godless, koolaid pinko left rag The New York Times gives a wonderful rundown on the collapse of due process under the Bush Administration and the smug, self-righteous confidence that led to abominations like Gitmo. If there's anything that gets me excited about Obama, it's his already manifest desire to appoint some of his critics to high positions in the next cabinet to keep him in touch with reality:

"But back to the law, which is what defines the United States, for it is a nation of laws. Or was until Bush, in the aftermath of 9/11, unfurled what the late historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called 'the most dramatic, sustained and radical challenge to the rule of law in American history.'

There is no need to rehearse here the whole sordid history of the Bush administration’s work on Vice President Dick Cheney’s 'dark side:' the 'enhanced' interrogation techniques in 'black sites' outside the United States justified by invocation of a 'new paradigm' that rendered the Geneva Conventions 'quaint.'

...

Of the 770 detainees grabbed here and there and flown to Guantánamo, only 23 have ever been charged with a crime. Of the more than 500 so far released, many traumatized by those “enhanced” techniques, not one has received an apology or compensation for their season in hell.

What they got on release was a single piece of paper from the American government. A U.S. official met one of the dozens of Afghans now released from Guantánamo and was so appalled by this document that he forwarded me a copy.

Dated Oct. 7, 2006, it reads as follows:

'An Administrative Review Board has reviewed the information about you that was talked about at the meeting on 02 December 2005 and the deciding official in the United States has made a decision about what will happen to you. You will be sent to the country of Afghanistan. Your departure will occur as soon as possible.'

That’s it, the one and only record on paper of protracted U.S. incarceration: three sentences for four years of a young Afghan’s life, written in language Orwell would have recognized.

We have 'the deciding official,' not an officer, general or judge. We have 'the information about you,' not allegations, or accusations, let alone charges. We have 'a decision about what will happen to you,' not a judgment, ruling or verdict. This is the lexicon of totalitarianism. It is acutely embarrassing to the United States."

I'll go on the record that I care more about civil liberties (meaning the Bill of Rights) and our country's moral track record and attitude than higher taxes and reduced financial freedom under Obama. Here's hoping our country gets back on track in that regard over the next four or eight years. I'll have more than my share of disagreements with Obama's policies but I doubt I'll have that same sick feeling in my heart while having them.

How We're Destroying Ourselves: A Post of Humor and Mirth

For all that I want to call him a jackass, he actually looks sort of cool.

My college paper ran a cover story three days ago, on the seventh anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks and subsequent destruction, titled "We Will Never Forget." I realized the intended heartwarming nature of the message, but I found it disheartening. (And it's not just the fact that it's a lazy and shiftless excuse for a cover story, a fact we won't even get into here.)

9/11 was a tragedy, yes, as is any incident of human barbarism toward others (not to mention the 3,000 some-odd deaths incurred by the 19 hijackers). But much of the tragedy of 9/11 stems from what we did afterward rather than from the attacks themselves.

After all, deaths aren't the sole measure of tragedy. In the year 2001 in the United States 16,242 died from emphysema, 42,443 from automobile accidents and 157,400 from lung cancer alone (that last number was built from projections but the specific count isn't important).

And to judge from the reactions of our leaders, economic destruction doesn't dictate whether something is tragedy. Nor is destruction of U.S. land and property a shame as long as it doesn't happen in a major economic center.

And the bills that we've signed into law over the last few years have proven that man's inhumanity to man isn't such a big deal, as long as we're being barbaric to the right people. Nor is abduction without charges or due process something to cry over. And the terrorists' "assault on our freedoms?" It's nothing compared to what we're already doing to ourselves (link1) (link2) (link3). And let's not worry about the right of an honest American to feel secure in their daily actions, ok?

The Trade Center attacks have given us license to grant the already powerful among us more power, destroy our checks and balances, hate those who are different from us who we won't even bother to try to understand, bash two countries to the ground, continue to occupy them with soldiers and private firms (and are we doing anything but teaching Iraqis that the big and powerful will always run things?), detain more people without warrants, tread on the Bill of Rights and otherwise muck up our own nation.

This started out as a funny sort of satirical post. I was going to propose that we adopt a new scale of measurement for foreign disasters and deaths, one that measures them in American lives so that we could feel honest in acting the way we do regarding foreign tragedy and domestic tragedy that doesn't involve Muslims. For example, twenty times as many people died in the Sichuan earthquake of China four months ago than on 9/11/01. Seventy-six times as many died in the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and subsequent tsunami than 9/11. The idea was that we could muster up an actual equation to figure out just how much we should care about such destruction. Factoring in proximity, ethnicity, government type of affected country and damage to U.S. interests, for example, we might estimate that the Indonesian tsunami cost the world the equivalent of about 300 American lives. That's American Life Units, or A.L.U.'s for short. If we decided that the Sichuan earthquake only cost the world about 30 A.L.U.'s, for example, we could consider ourselves intellectually honest for still urging people to remember the 3,000 A.L.U.'s lost in the attacks of 9/11 seven years ago.

All of a sudden I decided it wasn't funny anymore. Can you tell why? Look - all of you who think that American lives and interests are more important than anybody else's had better think about what's happened in our country as a result of 9/11. And that's something we'd better not forget.

EDIT: Again, it's not the fact that atrocities have happened in Iraq (isolated individuals will sometimes do terrible things when you give them a gun), but the absolute lack of responsibility being taken in response which causes more of these things to happen. Excuses, lies and trigger-happy mercenaries don't spread freedom.

McCain Was NOT Tortured According to Bush's Definition

Much as some of you may hate the site, I read Daily Kos for interesting points like this. From a paraphrase of an illuminating article by Andrew Sullivan (emphasis and relevant links added):

In all the discussion of John McCain's recently recovered memory of a religious epiphany in Vietnam, one thing has been missing. The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?

According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet. In the one indisputably authentic version of the story of a Vietnamese guard showing compassion, McCain talks of the agony of long-time standing. A quarter century later, Don Rumsfeld was putting his signature to memos lengthening the agony of "long-time standing" that victims of Bush's torture regime would have to endure. These torture techniques are, according to the president of the United States, merely "enhanced interrogation."

No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the "intelligence" we have procured from "interrogating" terror suspects. Feel safer?

I don't intend this as a specific hit against McCain (though it's clear Sullivan has a position on the veracity of his wartime claims), whose record on torture is appropriately condemnatory, but as scathing commentary on the lax nature of the current administration's attitude toward torture. Personally, I'd rather have a couple of fingernails torn out rather than suffer systematic sleep deprivation, or any of the other psychological torments that Bush and Cheney find perfectly humane.