You’re probably all already familiar with Judith Miller, from The New York Times.  She’s the one who posted most of the bogus Iraq weapons stories and later did time for refusing to talk about her involvement in the Scooter Libby and Valerie Plame incident.

Now she’s involved in this case, backing up the Shin Bet in its claim that it didn’t torture Mohammed Salah.  What a strange career this woman has.

More later on how these things are connected…

Pete DeWan

In what seems to be the first case of its kind, a man was convicted for defaming Muslims in Germany.  Surprisingly, this was not big news.  Among other things, the businessman, known as Manfred van H., printed toilet paper with KORAN written on it.  He received a one year suspended sentence and 300 hours of community service.

Also in Germany, the pressure is on to ban the big-budget Turkish thriller Valley of the Wolves — Iraq, which features a heroic Turkish intelligence officer playing vengeance against American soldiers, who are shown slaughtering civilians.  By my count, that makes the score Hollywood — 472, Istanbul — 1.

In a bizarre twist, Gary Busey plays a Jewish doctor preying on Iraqis  for organs to sell on a world market.  Billy Zane also makes an appearance as a “peacekeeper sent by God.”  Good work if you can get it, I guess.

Pete DeWan

For a bit of fun, Mark Fiore’s new comic is worth a gruesome laugh.

Pete DeWan

It’s been a grim week.  What’s to say about Iraq?  To Rush Limbaugh’s glee, Tom Friedman says:

If we defeat them in the heart of their world, in collaboration with other Arabs and Muslims, by putting together some kind of decent democracy in Iraq, that will have an enormous impact, an enormous resonance in the region and be a terrible defeat. So what you’re seeing now is in many ways acts of unspeakable violence. I mean, going into a mosque, blowing it up, one of the most prominent Shi’ites shrines, the reason they’re doing that is actually because in some ways they’ve been losing. The process of Iraq coming together has been happening. And I believe that the most dangerous point for America, as with Iraq, is the closer we actually get to producing a decent outcome there, the crazier our opponents are going to get, because they know if they lose, it’s strategic.

If we turn just one more corner in Iraq, the project will be done.   Who knew we were building a big, exploding, origami swan with torture chambers, death squads, and ethnic cleansing?  

Pete DeWan

As Mimi says, the protests over the cartoons have gone way over the top.  They have traveled far from the worries of the Muslim minority in Europe and seem to now represent a much broader anger and fear in the Muslim world.  

However, the other free speech news from western Europe is worth noting.  David Irving was convicted in Austria for Holocaust denial.  Despite my being somewhat of a free speech absolutist, I can see why some European countries might think about criminalizing anti-Jewish statements.  I don’t agree, but I can understand it.

However, consider how you would feel if you were a member of Europe’s most beleagured minority, the immigrant Muslim.  Malicious anti-Muslim cartoons can be described as an assertion of “western values” while Holocaust denial is a crime.  (Although it’s not every country that imposes a three-year prison sentence.)

As an American, I tend to think the solution is more free speech, not less.  Tony Blair is apparently not so certain.

Pete DeWan

Last week, the story was that America and Israel were going to cooperate on undermining Palestine’s new Hamas-led government.  It seemed they figured that if they made it difficult for Hamas to govern, that would make them lose support among the Palestinians.

Someone must have spoken up at a meeting down in Foggy Bottom.  “Gee, uh, Condi, um, maybe I’m going out on a limb here, but do you think maybe Hamas will blame Israel and America for any problems it has?  Maybe conspiring against them could make them stronger?  Oh, and please don’t tell anybody in Cheney’s office I said that.  I like to keep my phone calls private, and you know how that last guy got shot in the face.”

So, it does seem that minor amounts of common sense have infiltrated U.S. policy.  This week, they’re warning Israel not to take too drastic of steps, with the obvious subtext that it could strengthen Hamas.

Pete DeWan

An Australian television station is showing new photos of abuse, torture and murder at Abu Ghraib. The Pentagon says it’s already been investigated, and everybody responsible has been brought to justice.  What this means is that the GIs who were identifiable in the published photos were tried for it, along with a few of the low-level people in charge.  That’s it.  This means that we’re supposed to believe that in those photos with fifteen people looking on, none of the others were responsible.  Despite what the Red Cross says, the published photos apparently show every significant incident.

So that’s not a plausible story.  But so what, who cares?  America is now a torture state.  We all know it.  For a few days it will be minor news, with a brief blurb or two on some programs and then on to whatever’s next.

In fact, talking about it is irresponsible and probably unpatriotic because it might upset those irrational Arabs.  “The department believes that the release of all of these images will further inflame and cause unnecessary violence in the world,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman says.

Just don’t think about it too much, and everything will be okay.

Pete DeWan

This month in The Atlantic, everybody’s favorite liberal hawk Kenneth Pollack comes through with a summary of a Brookings Institute pow-wow on Iraq.  Apparently a group of experts with a “wide range of beliefs and politics” got together to figure it all out.  With this fine seven-step program, it will be possible to salvage our great adventure.

Now I’m not a credentialed expert like these guys, so I have a few questions.

Pollack starts.  “December’s elections once again demonstrated the desire of Iraqis for a prosperous, pluralist, and pacific country.”  Was this shown by an election in which nearly everybody voted for an ethnic or sectarian party?

Step one is protecting civilians and infrastructure.  He recommends a system of checkpoints, patrols, and security searches at least partially manned by Americans.  This is supposed to make the Iraqi people feel safe.  Might an Iraqi waiting to be searched by American soldiers be reminded of some other situation in the Middle East?  Does Pollack read the other articles in The Atlantic?

Step two is a move from a primarily offensive focus against the insurgency to a more defensive posture.  This is buttressed by step three, which suggests that the effort should be focused on the reasonably safe areas rather than the more hostile.  When the Iraqis say they want Americans out, do they really mean they want more Americans to come into their neighborhoods to displace the militias they voted for?  

Pollack also recommends leaving the Kurds alone, since they are doing relatively better under the protection of the Pesh Merga, the Kurdish militia.  What makes some militias okay?  Might the existence of a Kurdish militia provide some motivation to other groups to maintain their own?

Step four is to train the Iraqi forces properly, engendering effective units with high cohesion.  This sounds pretty good.  It seems it was a lack of training (read fear) which led to the Iraqi soldiers, many of whom are members of the militias, melting away when asked to kill other Iraqis.  Were they maybe taking orders from someone else?  How loudly did they profess their loyalty to the Iraqi government over their sectarian interests?

Step five is to create a unified command structure for the Americans with a leader “something like a Roman proconsul.”  Is this the right metaphor for dispelling the perception of imperialism?

Step six is to decentralize power and revenues to the local governments to compensate for the weakness and corruption of the center.  In history class I learned that America once had a weak and ineffective central government.  Alexander Hamilton got the federals to take over state debts to cement the financial and political power of the center.  Was he wrong?

Finally, in step seven, they recommend bringing in the international community.  What has previously prevented the rest of the world from showing their eagerness to work with Bush at a dangerous and possibly hopeless task?  Can we count on the administration continuing their thoughtful and pragmatic diplomacy?

It seems Iraqis just need a little help to recognize the fundamental benevolence of the American effort.  It’s all in their interest.

Are you an American?  Do you believe this?  Good.  I’m sure it’s just a matter of time for an Arab population under military occupation by the authors of Abu Ghraib.

Pete DeWan

Some of us in the vast left-wing conspiracy have been asking what’s the matter with Kansas, some what’s the matter with the Democrats, and others go meta and ask what’s the matter with what’s the matter with Kansas.  I want to ask a different question.  What the hell is the matter with the Republicans?

Last week, Pat Roberts, the Senator from Kansas since 1996 and Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote a letter supporting Bush’s illegal wiretapping and agreeing to the preposterous claim that Congress cannot regulate where the President claims war powers, no matter how specious the claim.  In Judiciary Committee hearings on the matter, the Republican members fought hard to ensure that Attorney General Gonzalez would not be under oath.  Orrin Hatch simply walked Gonzalez through the talking points, and Jon Kyl and Charles Grassley affirmed that breaking congressional statutes was an inherent power of the presidency.  Grassley actually admitted to phoning Gonzalez prior to the hearings to help set up his presentation.

Now, to become a Senator, you need to be an ambitious person.  It’s a powerful position and one that is hard to attain.  Think of all the back-stabbing and back-room deals it takes, how many lesser people had to be stomped underfoot.  Watch C-SPAN some time and you’ll see the level of self-importance characteristic of these guys (and they are almost all guys).  The Senate is supposed to be the premier deliberative body in the American government, and so they probably have good reason to think of themselves as important.

What they are doing here is simply handing over virtually unlimited power to the President.  Once they do that, they aren’t going to be too important any more.

The administration asserts that it has constitutional authority to do anything it wishes that is related to national defense.  It gets to determine what is related to defense and what tactics it wants to use, and nobody, not the courts, not Congress, can intervene.  As Dick Cheney says, “We have all the legal authority we need.”  Congress can suggest changes, but “we’d have to make a decision, as the administration.”  Cheney said we’d all just be better off if Congress didn’t know too much about it.  Secrecy and security, you know.

These are not war powers.  Congress did not declare war, and no matter what the rhetorical strategy of the Bush regime, America is not legally at war.

The Republican senators are assisting the administration in a claim that it gets to decide what the Constitution means and who it applies to.  This also means that they can decide about any other laws as well.  If this seems like going too far, the President has asserted the authority to do any searches it sees fit (Fourth Amendment), imprison without due process (Fifth Amendment), hold without access to counsel and ability to confront witnesses (Sixth Amendment), decide on military rules (Article I), and to ignore treaties (Article VI).  That’s just a start.

The Democrats are having a hard time coming up with an effective rhetorical and organizational strategy.  People in Kansas seem to vote in ways counter to their economic interests.  Thomas Frank’s analysis probably understates the importance of symbols.

The Republican party is selling our constitution down the river to a bunch of petty, authoritarian incompetents.  And that really matters.

Pete DeWan

“The fact is that liberty, in any true sense, is a concept that lies quite beyond the reach of the inferior man’s mind.”

— H.L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

Way back when Mencken wrote this, it was a biting commentary by a powerfully intelligent cynic.  He thought the vast majority of people really were inferior sorts and that the Palmer raids, Scopes trial and Prohibition were pretty convincing evidence.  Probably most people believed it was an overstatement.

As polling techniques developed over the next 30 or so years, it turned out that maybe it wasn’t going too far at all.  It didn’t take long to find out that most Americans were perfectly happy with taking away the Bill of Rights for communists, atheists, and whoever else they considered bad.  Seminal academic works by Herbert McClosky and Samuel Stouffer established what would become rather widely accepted knowledge.  Most citizens simply don’t understand and have little attachment to the politics of rights, liberty, and law.  We depend on a narrow group of intellectual and political elites to maintain our freedom and form of government.

This is important to keep in mind as the hearings on NSA spying ramp up over the next few weeks. Glenn Greenwald, a civil liberties lawyer with an extremely well-written blog, is the best resource on this.  He’s been articulating the outrage so many of us feel at the administration’s theory that it simply does not have to follow any laws.  Recently, he created a list of questions for Alberto Gonzalez that will be forwarded to the Senate Judiciary committee. The theory of all this is that if we can just get the true story out, it will be possible to create public pressure.  If Americans only understood the outrageousness of what is happening, how the Bush regime is subverting our constitutional system, they would rise up in protest.

This theory is probably just wrong.  If Bush is unpopular enough, it might be possible to make a scandal stick.  This won’t happen because of the nature of the scandal, though, but from an emotional reaction.  No amount of reasoned explanation is likely to do it.

Mencken later would say that “if the American people really tire of democracy and want to make a trial of Fascism, I shall be the last person to object. But if that is their mood, then they had better proceed toward their aim by changing the Constitution and not by forgetting it.”  

Terrible as this sounds, it may end up being the best we can do.  As Tristero said on Digby’s Blog, “Another president like Bush and even the most cautious amongst us will be forced to conclude that the project of American democracy — or at least the version of it I learned about and, yes, admire — is over.”

I’m sorry to be so hopeless today.  But, as H.L. said, “The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake.”

Pete DeWan

Recently I was sitting in a room with a number of friends, and they went off on a political discussion, as my friends are wont to do.  In my circles, this means a lot of lefty rhetoric.  “Isn’t it great how Harry Belafonte called Bush a terrorist?”  “Bush hates black people.”  “Those people delaying the mosque in Roxbury are a bunch of racists.”

You’ve heard it all before, so there’s no need to repeat any more.

When I came home, I read up a bit about the NSA wiretapping story.  Basically, this involves the president asserting that he has the right to determine what is legal and that the courts and the legislature really have no say.  This is a pretty serious claim.  Sadly, it hasn’t lead to much serious conversation.  As far as I can tell, the right-wing justification for their lawbreaking consists of calling critics soft on terror.  This substitutes for a meaningful answer no matter what the question.  Do you believe that the president has the legal right to suspend the fourth amendment?  They are doing what is necessary to protect you, and your criticism endangers national security.

You’ve heard all that before as well.

I began to think a bit about what passes for political discourse.  And I began to think it all sounded a lot like the argument against the witch in Monty Python’s The Holy Grail.

Why do witches burn?  
Because they’re made of wood.  

How do we tell whether she is made of wood?  Does wood sink in water?  
No, it floats.  

What also floats in water?  
Very small rocks.  Ducks.  

So, logically, if she weighs the same as a duck, she’s made of wood.

That’s an abridged version, but you all can probably remember the scene as well as I do.

As I was thinking about this, my mind filled with anger and apprehension and admittedly a little resignation about the latest Bush escapade; I wished I knew a right-winger I could argue with.  But I don’t.  Conversations immediately degenerate into something like The Holy Grail.  And it is the same with my lefty friends.  Just as I don’t get into discussions with right-wingers, I avoid saying anything around lefties either.

And I like political discussions.

So today, I would like to make a plea.  It’s not an ideological one.  It’s not a moral one.  It’s merely practical.

I want to stand up for reason.  I want you to stand up for reason.  Just as Habermas claims, it’s the only thing that allows all of us to live together without our hands on each other’s throats all the time.  It’s what makes conversation possible between people with contradictory moral positions.

Next time you’re having a political discussion, think about what your postulates are.  Does your conclusion follow from them?  If somebody gave you evidence against these, would you change your conclusion?  Could you talk to someone with a different ideology and determine where exactly the disagreement lies?  Are your political positions even explicable in these terms?

Right or left, we all need reason.  If it declines into parody, we imperil our government, our society, and even our lives.

Pete DeWan

Bernard Lewis is probably the most prominent academic speaking about Islamic fundamentalism.    The articles “What Went Wrong?” and “Roots of Muslim Rage” in The Atlantic framed the debate in America.  He has made regular forays into the White House to explain his theory that the Muslim world is responding to the sense of inferiority it has nurtured at least since the Reconquista.  

Lewis tends to discount the importance of current grievances and implicitly assumes that people are mostly motivated by things that happened hundreds of years ago.  It may be that there is more historical awareness in the Muslim world than in America, but ancient history is not what makes so many Muslims sympathetic to Osama bin Laden.  Specifically, Lewis refuses to recognize the importance of American support of Israel, which most Muslims see as the driving force behind the radicalism.  He has even agreed with the ludicrous neo-conservative idea that local governments create anti-Israel sentiment to draw attention from their own repression.

Although Lewis’ Orientalism makes him distasteful to many people, his ideas are still helpful.  It is easy to believe that Muslims have a vague understanding of the historical dominance of Muslim culture over Christianity and that this contributes to a persistent unwillingness to accept subordinate status.  However, this does not directly lead to the ideology.  A reasonable person would listen when someone says they harbor resentment over the imposition of Israel, the support of repressive regimes, and the innumerable problems left over from colonialism.

What Lewis gives us is the long historical perspective, which helps explain why the effects of these betrayals were so uniquely dramatic in the Muslim world.  Some cultures become demoralized by their subordinate position, as has happened in much of Latin America.  If the society has no organizing ideology, it can’t mobilize to change the situation and slough off the dominators.  Some societies do develop ideological responses, as both Japan and Germany did.  To Lewis’ credit, nobody would think to explain the rise of the Nazis or Japanese militarism without some historical perspective.   However, it would be quite wrong to leave out the Treaty of Versailles or the Great White Fleet.

The Arab world particularly, but joined by other related Muslim cultures, has been engaged in a battle for its destiny for much of the last century — maybe longer.  The structure of international politics and economics has placed them in an inferior position.  The imposition of Israel against their will and several catastrophic defeats in the wars to retake the land confirmed it beyond any doubt.  In response, the Arab world has generated two major ideological movements.  Pan-Arab nationalism was a vital force until the disastrous miscalculation of the 1967 war against Israel.  The Baath, pseudo-nationalist rulers in Iraq and Syria, lived on as the carcass of this movement.  Radical Islamists who have taken up the banner will likely one day fail their own substantial test.  But unless the entire Muslim world is forced into demoralization and an acceptance of defeat, there will continue to be ideologies of resistance.

Pete DeWan