alternative hippopotamus

In retrospect, I don’t know why I’ve assumed that water boarding was another of a series of “agressive” tactics used to obtain information. Information which can then be used to apprehend more terrorists. Information that could be used in scenarios where time is of the essence, and where lives are at stake. That’s what it’s for, right?

This David Corn post argues no, at least as far as water boarding is concerned:

The similarity between practices used by the Khymer Rouge and those currently being debated by Congress isn’t a coincidence. As has been amply documented (”The New Yorker” had an excellent piece, and there have been others), many of the “enhanced techniques” came to the CIA and military interrogators via the SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape] schools, where US military personnel are trained to resist torture if they are captured by the enemy. The specific types of abuse they’re taught to withstand are those that were used by our Cold War adversaries. Why is this relevant to the current debate? Because the torture techniques of North Korea, North Vietnam, the Soviet Union and its proxies–the states where US military personnel might have faced torture–were NOT designed to elicit truthful information. These techniques were designed to elicit CONFESSIONS. That’s what the Khymer Rouge et al were after with their waterboarding, not truthful information.

Why would confessions be the point, and not information? You can dress it up, but what it comes down to is propaganda. As a result of the Bush-McCain-Spector partnership, evidence obtained through torture can be used to obtain a conviction. If someone is convicted of a crime, he’s presumed to be guilty. Which brings us to today’s tautology: we don’t torture innocent people. We torture people who are guilty, but haven’t yet confessed. And when they confess, they’ll be guilty.

I think it’s also important to reflect on how torture was used in 1984, the first draft for Orwell’s greatest work, Bush 43. The purpose of torturing Winston Smith wasn’t to obtain information. It was to get him to betray Julia. It was to get him to betray himself. It was to beat that spark of rebelliousness out of him that made him yearn for the underground Brotherhood.

I think this remark says a lot about how Bush sees himself in relation to the country:

BIRMINGHAM, Sept. 28 — In his sharpest partisan attack of this election campaign, President Bush denounced Democratic critics of his Iraq policy on Thursday and said “the party of FDR and the party of Harry Truman has become the party of cut and run.”

Seeking to rebut Democrats who say a new intelligence report indicates that Iraq is fueling terrorism rather than helping to counter it, Bush said voters face a choice “between two parties with two different attitudes on this war on terror.”

Republicans “understand the nature of the enemy,” he said. “We know the enemy wants to attack us again,” whereas Democrats “offer nothing but criticism and obstruction and endless second-guessing.”

When I first read that, my reaction was: I can’t believe he said that. That’s not merely partisan. It’s language that paints half of this country as treasonous. It’s one thing for Ann Coulter to speak that way. She’s created a market out of hating the left. Plus, let’s face it: she’s crazy.

When Bush speaks this way, he ceases to have any moral authority- though that horse may have left the barn years ago. He becomes instead a second-rate High School football coach, demonizing the other team before the big game.

You be the judge.

Vincent David Jericho, a conservative talk-radio host on Springfield, MO station KSGF, gives his thoughts on foreign policy to mixed reviews:

Although Jericho garnered thunderous applause when describing America as “the greatest country in the world,” he drew fire after suggesting the U.S. is also “morally superior.”

Moderator Bob Ranney had to ask the audience to refrain from catcalling after several other comments from Jericho, including his contention that “Jesus wasn’t some velveteen wuss, he was a man …”

Jericho characterized the current war on terror as a religious war and defended past statements by the president that American soldiers are “Christian crusaders.”

“The Bible isn’t a book of peace,” Jericho said. “Never has been, never will be.”

Doesn’t advocating “religious war” make Jericho a terrorist? And, by giving him material support, doesn’t that make station KSGF a terrorist organization?

It sounds to me like Jericho is practicing just the sort of violence mongering that today’s detainee legislation was designed to fight.

Excerpt from an upcoming 60 minutes interview:

President Bush is absolutely certain that he has the U.S. and Iraq on the right course, says Woodward. So certain is the president on this matter, Woodward says, that when Mr. Bush had key Republicans to the White House to discuss Iraq, he told them, “I will not withdraw, even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me.”

I think it’s interesting in this off-the-cuff remark, that he mentions just Laura and Barney. Are his daughters not so much in agreement with him? Of course, that means Mrs. Beasley (the other dog) doesn’t see snout-to-snout with him either.

Somedays, rinsing away the foul after-taste of the Bush administration can be a chore.

For those times, may I suggest local DC band The Machines. Here’s one of my favorites: I Hate the Beach.

William Arkin writes on Early Warning that both the Right and the Left are Wrong (but he, of course, is certain that he’s on the money):

The simplistic story line that the Democrats are pushing is all about and solely about Iraq: withdraw U.S. forces, defeat the Republicans, tidy up foreign policy by giving human rights to prisoners and being nicer in the world, and voila, terror subsides.

This is a poor summary of the positions expressed by Senator Biden and Ambassador Galbraith (aka, partitioning). A decent summary here. It’s also a poor summary of Murtha’s position (strategic redployment). A modified version of Murtha’s strategic redeployment is summarized in this TomPaine.com article.

These two plans represent mainstream Democratic thought on moving forward in Iraq. Most readers will find that it’s very different from “giving human rights to prisoners and being nicer in the world.”

I’m not sure what Arkin used as a basis for “The Left”. A cartoon based on a Free Republic parody of a Michael Moore film? The voices in his head?

Not only is withdrawal (or “cut and run” as Arkin would likely put it) a Democratic proposition, it’s also an Iraqi proposition. As this WaPo article notes, cutting and running would be okay by the Iraqis:

BAGHDAD, Sept. 26 — A strong majority of Iraqis want U.S.-led military forces to immediately withdraw from the country, saying their swift departure would make Iraq more secure and decrease sectarian violence, according to new polls by the State Department and independent researchers.

Does Arkin think the Iraqis are also wrong? Or, perhaps he believes that the Bushies fondness for benevelont global hegemony trumps what Iraqis want?

Jeff Gannon never ceases to amuse me:

Another classified document “leaked” to the New York Times and the Washington Post that is damaging to the Bush administration. Democrats seize on the information for political gain. The administration can’t fight back becasue the document is still classified. Every time this happens, I wonder if Americans have figured out that these are fraudulent political stories. After a succession of phony stories beginning with Rathergate, the trustworthiness of the Old Media is as low as it’s ever been. That suggests Americans are onto the game.

Of course, lovers of logic everywhere know that the media being untrustworthy does not imply anyone knows that they’re untrustworthy. In fact, the premise of the Emperor’s New Clothes was that people had lied to themselves (in the case of the story, so that others wouldn’t know that they were unfit for their posts, like certain right-wing columnists that we know). The repetition of that lie had created an alternative reality not unlike the one Ron Suskind famously wrote about. It was the kind of imaginary world where a guy who ran an escort service was treated like a journalist.

I just find it ironic that Jeff Gannon, liked the Emperor, worked naked.

Over at the American Prospect Charles Pierce notes these lines from Sunday’s Clinton/Wallace Heavyweight/Bantamweight match:

I think the question is, what’s the best way to do it? I think also the question is, how do you educate people about democracy? Democracy is about way more than majority rule. Democracy is about minority rights, individual rights, restraints on power. And there’s more than one way to advance democracy

Touche. It’s clear what Clinton means. He means that Bush goes around saying we should export democracy abroad, while he expends his political capital to reduce civil rights, minority (party) rights at home. Pardon me while I go take my BDS meds.

From one of the doughiest pantloads that has ever walked the planet, comes one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read:

A Brief Dissent [Jonah Goldberg]
Folks, regardless of the details of the NIE controversy can I just say that I’m not particularly troubled by the NIE’s alleged finding that the Iraq war has increased terrorism. I mean, doesn’t that make sense? I think Bush is mistaken to dismiss this criticism as factually absurd when in reality the absurdity lay in some folks’ interpretation of the facts. He said in his August 21, press conference that the notion the Iraq war stirred up a “hornet’s nest” “just doesn’t hold water as far as I’m concerned.” He added, “The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.”

That’s all fair enough. But, why shouldn’t we think that the Iraq war has increased terrorism in the world, or at least the risk of it? The hornet’s nest analogy is apt, albeit clichéd. We were stung — and stung badly — well before the Iraq war. And after the multiple stings of 9/11 we decided to take the fight to nests.

If my backyard is festooned with hornet nests, I will likely be safer from a sting on any given day if I do nothing than I will be on the day or days I begin destroying them. Since when is any large, important, task required to show positive results at every stage? Declaring war on Japan increased the threat of war from Germany dramatically. And waging war on both countries, obviously, made things less safe for Americans in the short run. As I wrote a long time ago, lots of things go badly until they go well.

Yes, I suppose if Iraqis were actually behind 9.11, and terrorist cells were literally wasps…

You know, some arguments are so stupid that to deconstruct them is an insult to deconstructionism.

Keith Olbermann:

To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past.

That was one of the great mechanical realities Eric Blair—writing as George Orwell—gave us in the book “1984.”

The great philosophical reality he gave us, Mr. Bush, may sound as familiar to you, as it has lately begun to sound familiar to me.

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power…

“Power is not a means; it is an end.

“One does not establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.