Amen, forward 'leaning' leadership that drafted these sorts of inhuman policies should NOT be leading and making more poor decisions that shame us.

Posted by: Dornar at January 26, 2005 04:45 PM

The jewel on this issue in the blogosphere today is a top rated diary over on Daily Kos from Hunter.

The committee vote was encouraging, in that the 8 Dems ALL were on board. I can dream we lose 45-55 on the Senate floor, but I fear several D jackasses are going to 'support the President', similar to how Lieberman spoke in support of Rice earlier this week.

Posted by: JD SoOR at January 26, 2005 05:02 PM

I don't want to get slammed here but just to put a slightly different light on the topic I'm reminded of a recent Mark Steyn column in which he points out that,

"To be covered by Geneva, a combatant has to have (a) a commander who is responsible for his subordinates; (b) formal recognizable military insignia; (c) weapons that are carried openly, and (d) an adherence to the laws and customs of warfare.

Islamist terrorists meet none of these conditions, and extending the protection of the conventions to them would simply announce to the world that, from a legal point of view, there's no downside to embracing terror. Blow up a nightclub or a schoolhouse or a pizza parlor and you'll still get full POW status."

Posted by: rclifford at January 26, 2005 05:20 PM

This blog has instructions on how to click your way through a letter to your Senators to protest the nomination of Gonzales:

http://www.anti-everything.us/weblog/archives/2005/01/easy_activism_a.html

Who would have thought that they could have found some one worse than Ashcroft?

Posted by: jcklsgk at January 26, 2005 05:20 PM

I dunno if my opinion counts or not cos I'm irish so tell me its none of my business if you want. Ireland and america have always shared a close relationship so i want to add my bit in cos basically i like the country and its people... this is long but a worth while comment so apologies if im taking up too much space...

Earlier tonight I was looking over pictures I had up on my buzznet account. One of the pictures was of Bill Clinton's first visit to Ireland where hundreds of thousands of people turned out to celebrate his visit here. An american presidential visit in ireland is always treated almost like a public holiday with a kinda st patricks day type atmosphere. This was in stark contrast to President Bush's visit last May. The usually welcoming irish once again turned out in thier droves, however this time there was no celebrations, no public holiday, no st patricks day feeling. This time unfortunately, the atmosphere of the irish people was one of protest. In the biggest security set up that ireland has ever seen, our government spent over 50 million for the mere two day visit to set up what was described as a ring of steel around Dublin. The question that americans should be asking is if the irish who normally love the hell out of america are protesting against the president then there must be something radically wrong. (not that we are always right either)

Prior to Sept 11th, the american administration was respected the world over by most democratic countries. Even though we did not always agree on everything, we knew that our opinion would at least be listened to and most international decisions were made with agreement or at the very least consultation of other democratic counties.

Post Sept 11th, we see that the american admisitration has shut its self off from the rest of the world opinion. Examples are abundant such as the backing out of the koyoto agreement for the environment, disregarding the Missle treaty with Russia, making the UN ineffective, blatantly defying the geneva conventions, allowing the peace process in northern ireland to stall due to lack of intrest... etc... where has it gone so wrong in just 4 short years??

Despite the best intentions of the current adminisration, the people who carried out the attacks on sept 11th, have effectly done what they have wanted to do in first place... to change world opinion of america. The aim of any terrorist act is to change the way people live and think. I would love for the american administration to stand up and say that they want to return to the way things were before sept 11th and wont be bullied by one single terrorist act into changing the american way of life but unfortunately I think the rest of world can count that next four years will be very similar to the last.

P.S. Im not anti-bush I just dislike the way he's running things.

Posted by: Noel Burke at January 26, 2005 05:31 PM

rclifford: the larger issue for me has much less to do with the Geneva Conventions. I'm concerned that if Gonzoles is confirmed, it will affirm that as a country (because the Senate is supposed to represent the American people) we all think that torture is just fine and dandy. As I said in my blog, if we seek to defeat our enemy, we must not become him.

Take a look at theRed Cross report on Abu Ghraib: they estimated that 70-90% of the detainees were innocent civillians. How many of those people were tortured because Alberto Gonzales gave President Bush the legal cover to do it?

Posted by: Wil at January 26, 2005 05:33 PM

Oh, and you shouldn't get "slammed" here. One of the things I really miss from the old days of WWdN is the interaction and discussion in the comments. Hopefully we can bring that back. :)

Posted by: Wil at January 26, 2005 05:35 PM

Hey Wil..
it's good to see you saying something about this..i watched CNN today, and it looked as though they were trying to label the D's as just spoil sports...trying to ruin the Republicans picnic...

torture is wrong.
i can't think of anything worse than to see the US becoming what it used to oppose.
it's a truly sad thing.

cheers wil
Tyson

Posted by: Tyson at January 26, 2005 05:47 PM

I defintely think that once a week you should put up your view on some current hot topic. It'd definetly get a debate going in the comments section and its always a good read to see what the others think. (once people dont go too far and act like jerks i guess) only a suggestion though!

Posted by: Noel Burke at January 26, 2005 05:50 PM

I don't follow politics too much; just on the major issues and things of that nature.

But just by reading about Gonzales, I'm gonna have to agree with you as well. Torture is definatly not a nice thing.

Posted by: beau99 at January 26, 2005 05:56 PM

RClifford, you are exactly right that the Geneva conventions most likely don't apply to the terrorists. However that doesn't mean it should become policy of the US government and Armed Forces. We have survived for the past 200+ years without resorting to it and should continue to avoid such practices.

We shouldn't open ourselves up to the not too foreign possibilities that such declarations on our part could lead to others using such practices on our own troops. We need to be able to scream bloody murder if our troops are mistreated by their captors and not have the rest of the world go, "Yeah. Now they complain."

Alberto Gonzalez is, in my opinion unfit for the office of Attorney General.

Posted by: Paraboombo at January 26, 2005 06:14 PM

While it is vital that we defeat our enemies, we must not become them in the process. As a nation, we must stand united against Albert Gonzales and everything he represents. Torture is not an American value.

ghods yes. I keep thinking that... this is no longer America, this is no longer my country. I protested during 'Nam, but never felt that things couldn't be made better. Now... *sighs*

Posted by: glinda at January 26, 2005 06:15 PM

Wil, sometimes I feel really powerless to do much of anything. It doesn't seem like our current administration listens to anyone, even its own people. My college friend, Greg Goodrich, was killed in Iraq, and it makes me so angry. His death was such a waste. I guess ultimately, I blame Bush for it, even though Greg signed up for the Reserves and seemed proud to serve his country. And the news today... One of my students wrote a very good entry about war in his blog: http://www.livejournal.com/users/nadavspi/2005/01/07/ (I am the English teacher he references in the entry).

Posted by: Dana Huff at January 26, 2005 06:28 PM

It seems to me that we're painting all issues with the same brush. What we may be doing down at Gitmo, and whether or not some of the items in the Geneva Convention treaty are still relevant today, are two seperate things.

Sending our enemy's 'POW's' back to their home countries after cessation of hostilities is impossible when the soilders arent representing any particular country while attacking ours, and also when there was no official declaration of 'war' from either side. Hostilities could conceiveably continue ad infinitum.

Actions of physical torture against people we have in our custody is abhorent. To do that is to lower ourselves to the level of our enemy. But to define 'torture' in such a way so as to force us to 'coddle' our prisoners, in an attempt to avoid that definition, is equally as absurd. Prisoners are not supposed to have all the comforts of home. These people left their homes to force their ideas and beliefs, violently, upon us in our homes. By doing so, they have forfeited the comforts of theirs.

The quoted story above doesn't mention the context in which The President was advised that the Constitution doesn't apply to him. As Commander in Chief it does not necessarily apply, when he's acting as the leader of our armed forces during a conflict against non-citizens in foreign lands. That statement drips with out-of-context spin and rhetoric.

The story also makes the statement:

"The policies for which Gonzales provided a cover of legality...inexorably led to abuses that have undermined military discipline and the moral authority our nation once carried."

That's a ridiculous leap. It's like inferring that smoking causes mass genocide, because Hitler enjoyed cigars. To assert that Gonzales undermined several hundred years of military discipline, and an entire nation's moral authority with a few penstrokes is an insult to the American people's intelligence.

There will always be a right and there will always be a wrong, but their definitions will most certainly change over time. I haven't caught any good duels lately on the street walking to the market, but 150 years ago I might have - and it would have been a perfectly acceptable way to settle a major dispute. In this day and age we as a society have agreed to settle our disputes less violently. I don't believe this makes us any more or less moral than our ancestors. Times change, and we need to realize that the world is changing very quickly. Maybe throwing out antiquated treaties and starting over isn't the beginning of the apocalypse. Perhaps some of our citizens need to change the bong water, and wake up to the reality that there are millions of people who have sworn to kill us and change the very way we live our lives.

Are we afraid that men like Mr. Gonzales are single-handedly unweaving the fabric of our morality? Or is he just trying to shift our paradigms fast enough to defend against these new attackers, and what we're really afraid of is that we arent' strong enough to hold on to our morals in the process?

Posted by: MouseBeast at January 26, 2005 06:29 PM

Gonzales bothers me, but he's a hell of an improvement over Ashcroft.

Posted by: Greg at January 26, 2005 06:46 PM

Hey Wil,

I have to say that although I am not typically a political person, I agreed with the issues you have with this. I was thinking the same thing because I feel that the people we elect SHOULD represent good! (And I totally see how defeating our enemies does not mean becoming them.) How can we elect officials that will abandon our most cherished policies, and advocate throwing away the fair and humane ways we TRY and deal with things as a nation?

I commend you for this post, and we do need to fight for things like the Geneva Convention and our Constitution.

Posted by: Quincey at January 26, 2005 07:47 PM

Amen.

Am I the only one who thinks it's time for another American Revolution?

Posted by: Eric in PA at January 26, 2005 07:54 PM

MouseBeast: "But to define 'torture' in such a way so as to force us to 'coddle' our prisoners, in an attempt to avoid that definition, is equally as absurd. Prisoners are not supposed to have all the comforts of home."

Yes, because not electrocuting, waterboarding, sicking attack dogs on and/or any other number of abuses is "coddling" and not having that done to you is just a "comfort of home".

Are you really saying there is no grey area... say... NOT TORTURING THEM... while still being tough on them? The absense of grey and the black and white mode of thinking is what's wrong with our leaders today.

Posted by: Jason (xtra-rant.com) at January 26, 2005 08:17 PM

Mousebeast..
while some of your thoughts are intriguing, they are still fundamentally flawed.
"millions of people sworn to kill us and change the very way we live our lives"?
who exactly?
Iraq was invaded. Not the United States.
a war is going being waged.
again, in other countries, not your own.
the states was attacked.yes. but not by Iraq.

there certainly is an aggressor here. no doubt about that.
care to take a guess who it is?

seems to me, that the millions you speak of are Americans and the way of life they seek to change is that of the islamic nations.

now, i don't hold any special love for radical islam, but then again, i don't hold any strong feelings for hypocrisy either. (not you dude..i mean US foriegn policy)

the facts speak for themselves man...
your way of life has indeed been changed..but it was done by your own countrymen...
take a good hard look at the patriot act.

it sure looks a lot like the kind of thing we used to see a lot of behind the Iron Curtain..

hear that? it's the sound of your personal freedoms being stolen from you..
and not by the islamic boogeymen, but by the neocons you have let run your foriegn policy..
the same nuts that lead you to believe it's ok to entertain the idea of a 'little harmless torture..oh, no..not the bad stuff...just a little 'diet-lite torture' c'mon.how bad can a beating really be?...

i like to think america can be better than that...
i certainly think that the americans i've met are better than that..
but i'm begining to lose hope for your country.

like Neil Young said..
it's like being in an out of control SUV with your drunken uncle at the wheel.

anyhow..you're certainly entitled to your beliefs, and i agree with wil, no one on this comments section should be chastised for what they think...
but what you should do, is really think hard about some things..
primarily, why the hell your country is in Iraq...
torture, unfortunetaly is just one tiny detail in this whole horrific mess

Posted by: Tyson at January 26, 2005 08:37 PM

Jason: The absense of a grey area is exactly my point. One sentence previous I denounced physical torture, because that is definately on one extreme of the black/white spectrum. 'Coddling' would be on the opposite end. We shouldn't be refraining from physical torture merely because some document decrees it as 'wrong'. We should refrain from it because our collective 'moral authority' doesn't allow us to stoop to that level.

I am not claiming to be any sort of expert on Mr. Gonzales or his policies, but from what I have read he's merely trying to wipe some of the slate clean; to darken some of the areas painted bright white by the pacifist minority in this country. To err too far on either side has definate consequences. Either our enemies trample over top of us due to our complacency, or we sacrifice the very morals we're fighting for in order to stop them. Moderation is key.

I am by no means a war monger, but the current enemies of our country do not fit the mold that the previous treaties were cast from. To not have faith that our current leaders - fellow Americans - will not find that grey area, is proof of what our enemies have already accomplished...and of how afraid we truly are.

Posted by: MouseBeast at January 26, 2005 08:50 PM

Hear Hear! Nice to see you speak out against torture. Let's hope that the democrats, and even some republicans will vote no against this facsist. We don't need the world viewing us as another dangerous country.

Posted by: Rook at January 26, 2005 09:21 PM

First of all: Wil, I hope that these comments here embody the spirit of 'interaction and discussion' that you mentioned. Exchange and debate of ideas, in the few good forums that exist, is the best thing left on the internet (aside from the gigabytes upon gigabytes of free, streaming, midget porn! *zing!*...but i've said too much...)

I don't feel slammed at all here, but I feel that I must point out a few things.

Not once did I mention Iraq, or our American foreign policy. I suppose our treatment of prisoners sits partially under the shadow of 'foreign policy', but probably more under 'moral policy'. Whether or not we had any good reason to invade, and to this day occupy Iraq, is a completely seperate issue from whether or not an Al Qaida fighter picked up after shooting a Marine somewhere in Kashmir has a fuckin' prayer mat in his detention cell in Cuba. Everytime America's efforts to thwart terrorism go on trial, it seems that any action we take involving muslims, or muslim nations, becomes fair game in an ad hominem attack against those efforts. I prefer to debate on a more specific, and relevant level.

Having said that, I completely agree with you on the fact that we are indeed trying to change the way of life of the Iraqi people. Depending on which cable news channel you watch, the Iraqi people may or may not be super-excited about this intrusion into their way of life. This does not, however, detract from the fact that there still are millions of people who are currently engaged in jihad against Americans. Both realities, in my opinion, are completely true...and neither are kosher. (I just used the words 'jihad' and 'kosher' in the same breath...boo yah!)

As for our personal freedoms, let me just say one thing. Some people wake up suddenly in the middle of the night after dreaming of falling (and, I assume, landing hard). Some people also awaken in a cold sweat after having dreams where they are drowning, or burning alive, or re-living a painful childhood experience. My nightmares have a both a name, and a face...A 300+ word document called the United States Patriot Act. Enough said.

Da Svidanya

~~(__)8>

Posted by: MouseBeast at January 26, 2005 09:30 PM

well said mousebeast.
i still disagree with you on a few things..but your last post was pretty on point..
the stuff about 'enemies' and "millions of people who are currently engaged in jihad against Americans" well...i dunno dude....the rest of your thoughts are pretty well layed out, but that stuff is a touch weak.

still tho, most of your points are pretty strong...

i encourage you to read a bit of noam chomsky..
:)

cheers mousebeast
tyson

Posted by: Tyson at January 26, 2005 09:40 PM

Also: The Constitution does NOT have a national security clause. We can't let fear act as an excuse to abandon our core beliefs as a nation.

Posted by: Wendy May at January 26, 2005 09:41 PM

Being both a UK and a US citizen. I *like* to think that I have a good grasp on things.

However, totally flame me if I'm wrong.

I don't think that torturing people gets us anywhere. Torturing someone to make things "better" isn't very logical.

How much hatred stems from this sort of news? A lot more than the good that stems from the information we get from these prisoners.

Posted by: heyjude at January 26, 2005 09:45 PM

My comment has nothing whatsoever to do with torture...please don't read that into it.

Using the practices/tactics of an enemy to gain a tactical advantage over that enemy is _not_ the same as becoming that enemy. To think it is the same is overly simplistic and naive.

Turnabout is fair play. Ye shall sow what ye reap. Also overly simplistic, and just as valid or invalid as thinking we are becoming our enemy by choosing to actually fight them versus rolling over and playing dead.

No other comment, and I take no issue with Wil's stance. Just with that notion.

Posted by: James in S.D. at January 26, 2005 10:07 PM

Thank you Tyson for your kind words. I have probably admired dozens of Chomsky quotes throughout my adult life, but never picked up any of his books. I shall definately be hitting my nearest bookstore soon (right after my my copy of Just A Geek arrives, and after I get done laughing my way through 'America - The Book')

Miss Wendy May makes an interesting point regarding the constitution. In my original post I was merely trying to make the case that 'War is Hell'..blah blah blah, and shit happens (I admit it was kind of weak, although the Kos story was spewing just pure rhetoric at that point...but I digress). I do think, however, that there is a difference between 'Civil Liberties' and 'Human Rights', and that line keeps getting blurred everytime prisoner torture is debated.

Wendy May hit the nail squarely on the head, I believe, by pointing out that it is fear that will drive the American people toward the further erosion of our core beliefs and rights as citizens.

But don't worry too much about it. Soon, N. Korea or Iran will give us something totally different to shit our pants in fear over.

~~(__)8>

Posted by: MouseBeast at January 26, 2005 10:10 PM

One more comment, a somewhat negative one...contrary to what Wil said in a subpost, I don't think the Senate represents the American people any more than the president or House does. These people, once elected, work for just one thing - to get reelected. They'll do anything necessary to achieve that goal, such is the system we've set up for them.

To those who think otherwise, then if the Senate _does_ confirm this guy, shouldn't that be enough for you? That a Senate elected by America chose to do something should be enough, in a democracy, to get people to move on and look forward.

Posted by: James in S.D. at January 26, 2005 10:16 PM

Gonzales es un hombre malo, but he is a (silent, but in the literature, legitimate) Affirmative Action supporter and ruled against the Texas law requiring parental consent for minors getting an abortion.

He really is better than Ashcroft, but that doesn't mean we should settle for him.

Posted by: tim at January 26, 2005 10:17 PM

i agree

Posted by: Jessie at January 26, 2005 10:38 PM

For over two hundred years the usa has always stood for truth, justice and equal rights it was only lately that of countrys values have be thrown out the window and instead of understand why were hated around the world, we just give them more reasons to hate us.
After world war2 we were looked upon by the world of what should be right, but thanx to the current leadership all is ruined and damaged
unfortunatly John Kerry was the right choice either, but what is need is a fresh face and new untained washington style person to lead us from these days to bring us back to the light and let us hold our heads high again cause after what bush is done were all damned

Posted by: Nick Notarangelo at January 26, 2005 11:16 PM

I am forced to agree with Wil. This man should not be in this position.

Posted by: Termite at January 27, 2005 03:14 AM

Copy-Pasted from my blog (it's under the LJ-cut.)

Before I get into the meat of my rant, a thought: Why is it, that when the media lists interrogation tactics with regards to "torture" they list "playing loud music?" What, are they playing Limp Bizkit? When I think torture I think the rack, I think iron maiden, I think electrical shock to the neither regions, I think cheese graters and salt/lemon juice/hot sause. I don't think about playing rock music very loudly when it comes to torture.

I'm hoping that the abuses that lead to the infamous abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay (god that reads redundantly, but I couldn't come up with a better phrase) are in the minority, when it comes to means of interrogation used against captured terrorists (things can get blown out of proportion both in the mainstream and independant media). As it is, while some Terrorist groups may consider themselves to be soldiers (the IRA and ULA come to mind) this does not mean that being a terrorist makes you a soldier.

Furthermore, in order to take down terroist groups like the ones trying to stop the Iraq election we need HUMINT (Human Intelligence) as much if not moreso than SIGINT (Signals Intelligence). Typically there are 3 ways to get this, the three Is:

1. Infiltration - get someone into the groups and have them sending out information.
   
2. Informants - Either people on the inside, or people watching.
   
3. Interrogation - Get someone to talk.

Due to the nature of islamic extremism, 1 is out. 2 will be very difficult as the terrorists have been striking hard against those who collaborate with the Iraqui government and US forces. Guess what that leaves us with. And asking nicely or even just asking rudely probably won't get answers. Also, there's a reason we're shipping some of our captives to nations that support real torture. Why? Because, for all intents and purposes, every Middle Eastern Nation engages in practices that, to our more "enlightened" western eyes, would be torture. People are dying from terrorist attacks weekly in Iraq, and I'm not just talking from US troops. Now, I admit, leaving would make the terrorist attacks stop, but that would be because the entire Iraqui government we're trying to put togeather would be dead, as would the police force, and there would be an ultra-conservative government put into place in Iraq, again, possibly helmed by Saddam Hussein, again. (And don't say he was elected in a fair election. If that was a fair election, then so were the ones that kept Stalin in power.) However, that is besides from my point.

Using the tactics you see at Abu Ghraib does repulse me. Same with the ones at Guantanimo Bay. We are supposed to be the good guys here, after all. However, just sticking someone under a hot light while drinking from a penguin shaped water cooler (bolded so the text doesn't mess with the flow or over emphesize the statment) won't work either. We're going to need a balance. Now, while Alberto Gonzales's statements regarding torture have been considered too vague and allow carte blanche with regards to torture, getting too specific can be, um, how to put this tactfully, counter-productive. So, as I've said, I abhore the tactics used at Abu Ghraib, but I haven't heard any alternatives.

However, I am open to suggestions.

Disclaimer: In the last election I was registered as a Democrat. Next election I'm probably going to register Independant because I can't find a party that fits my leanings (Moderate)

Posted by: Alexander Case at January 27, 2005 05:54 AM

I agree Alberto Gonzalez is a poor excuse for a human being, but if his nomination is rejected Bush will simply pick a different yes-man for the post. Gonzalez will continue to advise the president, regardless.

I think progressives need to save our energy for some of the more critical fights we will face over the next four years.

Posted by: FNRThomas at January 27, 2005 08:23 AM

Wil, I couldn't agree more. I am a Canadian not an American, but watching things unfold over the last few years has really left me wondering about many things. I am a fan of Babylon 5 and I tell you, when the "Homeland Security" deal was started, I immediately saw a relationship with "Nightwatch" from that show.

I think the war has been a sham from the start, and the more people that get into positions with higher authority, the worse it will be for America, and the world. I recently posted in my own Blog about the proposed $80 Billion dollar budget Bush wants to extend this war for two years... Most people probably don't get it, but they could use that money and literally build a new house for EVERY person that was left with nothing but the recent disasters in Asia.

Pathetic.

Posted by: Glyn Evans at January 27, 2005 08:50 AM

I'm a socially liberal fiscal conservative (which leaves me with zero in common with this administration) with no party affiliation, and I can see valid points on both sides of this argument. However, when I hear stories of waterboarding and testilectrocution (wheee), view the Abu Ghraib photos, and listen to pundits split hairs about what is or isn't "technically torture", my gut (which I can usually trust) wants to barf up lunch. It's a very visceral reaction which I'm certain stems from believing at my core that the U.S. must humbly conduct itself from a certain moral high ground that cannot be abandoned, no matter the circumstances. My inner pragmatist sometimes scoffs at this, calling it quaint and obsolete, but I keep returning to my initial gut reaction when the Abu Ghraib story broke, which was "well thanks a whole farking bunch for doing this in my name, you filthy asshats". Since Gonzales is one of the central asshats in this whole mess, I say no confirmation for him. Overly simplistic? Perhaps, but it feels right.

Posted by: vlad at January 27, 2005 08:50 AM

Gonzales and the things people in America seem willing to give up simply scares me.

Have you checked out the new Not In Our Name statemet:

http://www.nion.us/

Posted by: Unearthed Ruminator at January 27, 2005 09:00 AM

"While it is vital that we defeat our enemies, we must not become them in the process."



I keep getting stuck on this sentence. I've bounced back five times already this morning (I'm in New York) to re-read Wil's post. Each time this sentence gets me.



Must we indeed defeat our enemies? Perhaps my confusion lies in an unclear definition of "enemy". Who are my enemies? Why must I defeat them? Shouldn't I only need to defend myself from an enemy? Or, indeed, isn’t it possible that enemies can co-exist? Must there be a champion?



Is an enemy defined only as those who are actively engaged in trying to harm me? If so, I have no enemies at present. When faced with one, I'll probably endeavor to defeat him/her.



If I broaden the definition to people who wish to harm me, or want to harm or destroy what I stand for, or what I believe in, isn't defense against said harm sufficient? Must I really defeat these people? If I can keep these enemies from defeating me or my ideals, isn't that enough?



If I broaden the definition further to people who detest me and/or what I believe in, and who consistantly wish ill upon me and those like me, I can find no reason to combat these folks at all! There are people I detest, upon whom I wish the greatest of ills, yet I can't believe that they would be justified in attempting to defeat me for feeling this way or thinking these thoughts.



I'm being somewhat purposely obtuse in my willfully limited interpretation of Wil's comment, but I'm been so for a reason. I think we take for granted the idea that there are large numbers of people actively involved in planning and attempting to carry out harm upon us. We fear an unknown mass of people who are different from us, and who we think hate us because we are different from them and, most importantly, that this hatred will implicitly result in them committing violence against us. (This is eerily similar to the racial discrimination within our own country--I seems important to mention that.) It's just not true. Yes there is a terrorist threat to our status quo, but there has been for thousands of years in hundreds of civilizations, and there will continue to be. The belief that we have somehow just become the special case in the history of the world and that we must overhaul our offensive fronts to eradicate a new enemy is nonsense, and dangerous. The number of people sincerely committed to causing violence and death in the United States did not change from September 10th to September 12th. We cannot let our awareness of a problem inflate its realistic magnitude or significance.



We certainly don't need to defeat our enemies; I don't know if one ever truly could defeat an enemy. Defeat engenders conflict anew. We need to know who our enemies actually are and why they are our enemies. A fundamental paradigm shift to that goal might be protection enough in itself.

Posted by: Kristen at January 27, 2005 09:08 AM

PS: Sorry about the double carriage returns above. Like that post wasn't long enough as it was, huh?

Posted by: Kristen at January 27, 2005 09:10 AM

I think what a lot of you, including our lovely site owner here, are failing to mention is that fact that you can pass the buck as far up the chain as you want. The fact remains however that those soldiers did not refuse the unlawful orders. As a soldier who was serving during that time, I can tell you that every soldier is trained from day 1 in basic training what to do with an unlawful order. Those soldiers had no more right to do what they did than the Nazis did, but they had every right to say no. They didn't, and that's why they are going to jail. Point at those in charge all you want, but in point of fact they weren't the ones performing the torture.

Posted by: Notthesameguy at January 27, 2005 09:13 AM

Again, this is not about soldiers. This is not about following or not following orders.

This is about Alberto Gonzales, the man who would be Attorney General. As Hunter said at Daily Kos:"Alberto Gonzales, key player in the effort to provide a legal cover and justification for the torture of prisoners of war, including women and children, by American forces, and the decision that the United States of America would no longer be bound to the standards of worldwide law described by the Geneva Conventions, as Attorney General of the United States."

Posted by: Wil at January 27, 2005 09:51 AM

On the torture topic, I agree that the soldiers (undertrained national guard or not) are responsible for performing the acts and for failing to recognize and refuse unlawful orders, but I disagree that "pointing at those in charge" isn't warranted. The fact that there were intel personnel giving orders at Abu Ghraib is worthy of a full-blown investigation, IMO.

As far as Gonzales goes, he appears to be yet another Bush Buddy, one who will likely work to facilitate the same creepy fascist agenda that Ashcroft did, without attracting as much attention (e.g., weird fears of calico cats, burkhas on statues, let the eagle soar...yikes). It's interesting that Gonzales intervened on Bush's behalf to excuse the then-governor from jury duty, which allowed Bush's DUI conviction to remain undisclosed. The administration is crawling with that sort of loyal-old-boy-network type, and Gonzales' lawyerly evasions during his confirmation hearing only solidifies my distrust. I understand that all politicians should be assumed to be liars from the start, but I don't think that means that we should give a free pass to Gordon Gekko when he pops up.

Posted by: vlad at January 27, 2005 10:59 AM

Dana Huff wrote above: "The quoted story above doesn't mention the context in which The President was advised that the Constitution doesn't apply to him. As Commander in Chief it does not necessarily apply, when he's acting as the leader of our armed forces during a conflict against non-citizens in foreign lands. That statement drips with out-of-context spin and rhetoric."

You need *context* to comprehend that telling the President that it's legal for us to torture prisoners and that "that the Constitution doesn't apply to him" is *wrong*?

Speaking of when the Constitution applies, I've been wondering this for a while... Where does it say in the Constitution that the principles stated in it so clearly yet elegantly *only apply to natural-born citizens of the USA*? If we hold those truths to be self-evident, then why doesn't the right not to be detained by the government apply to those being held in Guantanamo Bay? Aren't we just saying that, if we're holding prisoners somewhere OFF the continental US that it's okay to torture them and hold them for YEARS without a trial? Why don't the rights in the Constitution apply to them too?

I know, they hate our guts and would kill us if they could. But isn't this why we're better? Because we DO (or should) follow the Constitution?

Posted by: pbarnes7 at January 27, 2005 10:59 AM

I just recently found this site and I love it! I put pictures of you from teen magazines on my wall when I was younger. But, anyway, ahem.

While I totally agree with you, I don't think what the average American does at this point will do this much good. The Bush Administration, and congress, has already sent a very clear message that it really doesn't care what the almost-majority (49%) of voters thinks. (http://www.rampantchaos.org does a good job of pointing this out) We watch every day as more and more crimes are committed by our country and more and more of our rights are siphoned away from us in the name of preserving freedom.

I would write a letter but as it is I feel powerless against our government (and not only because I am a genuine Florida disenfranchised voter).

Take care!
Helen

Posted by: HelenAngel at January 27, 2005 12:06 PM

Tyson, and of course Wil.
thank you for saying it so well!

Posted by: dave at January 27, 2005 01:13 PM

I'm trying to figure out what exactly an 'almost-minority' is. Sounds alot like a bitter 'absolute minority'.

Posted by: MouseBeast at January 27, 2005 01:40 PM

I’m not one for rhetoric. It ticks me off when I see it. It all started many murky years ago. The exact moment, I don’t recall. I just have a vague recollection of watching a commercial on TV, and listening to the ad-blurb when I realized…the commercial was lying.

There was no direct lie. In fact the specific statement seemed to have no meaning. None at all. Yet it was also clear to me that the commercial was trying, with words and imagery, to convince me that this product did something that it could not possibly do. I also realized that the ad was crafted in such a way as to make it difficult to call the advertisement on the lie. They never said they could do the impossible. That I thought they did must be a simple misinterpretation of their message, right?

As I said, I don’t recall the commercial, but given what I have to say later, I should provide an example. “Natural Male Enhancement.” We’ve heard that one. We think we know what it means; “safe/healthy means to a bigger wang.”

But it’s a lie. Natural does not equal safe and healthy, but we tend to think it does. Crude oil is natural, so is cyanide. I wouldn’t call them safe or healthy. Male Enhancement is really meaningless, but the advertiser could get into serious legal trouble if they tried to sell something on a totally empty phrase. In this case, it means “robust erection”

Natural Male Enhancement says to the consumer “Safe way to make your unit bigger”, but it really means “non-synthetic supplement to boost erection quality”. Can anyone who has seen those commercials really claim they are trying to tell you what their product really does?

Political rhetoric is no different. We’ve all watched politicians, from all parties, utter words that meant nothing. I’ve read more than one opinion piece that tried to assert opinion as fact and ignored everything else (the recent flack of Porter Goss and his memo to the CIA staff comes to mind). Most activism sites don’t bother with the facts of the matter, The anti-Gonzales quote above stands among them.

As far as I’m aware, the US has no policy to abandon the Geneva Convention. As has been pointed out, the Convention does not apply to unlawful combatants. It may seem inhumane, but the Convention is only weakly a humanitarian treaty. The Convention was developed for many reasons. One idea was to prevent the country capturing prisoners from attempting to use said prisoners as a source of intelligence.

That bears reiteration: to use said prisoners as a source of intelligence.

I’ll get back to that. The Convention defines who is a “lawful combatant” and who is an “unlawful combatant”. One reason was to prevent spies from claiming POW status. Any country, ANY, can use the Convention to determine if a combatant is covered under the Convention and use apply it or not as the case may be. Of course, in free countries the people are allowed to debate the reasoning.

In this particular case, Mr. Gonzales advised the President about a point of international law, and he did so rightly. Treating terrorists under the Convention sets a legal president that, by extension grants the terrorists organizations the same status as a Nation. Returning to the above point, it also means the US would have to truly violate the Convention in order to question any captured terrorist about their organization or plans.

Does this make Gonzales a saint? Nope. Indeed, it doesn’t make anything else he might have said or advised “right”. It is simply proof that the Anti-Gonzales campaign is lying. They may even believe their lie, but it doesn’t make it less of one.

To be frank, I don’t agree with policies of the Bush Administration. I often agree with their goals. Saddam had to go. (You are free to disagree with that assertion, that’s a nice thing about America). We need better security. We need to protect our economy and the rest of the world needs to strengthen their markets. To me those things are self-evident. I don’t know if there’s a better way to stabilize the unrealistic currency gap that over strengthens the US Dollar. I know that one of our leading security experts sees our efforts as ineffective and wasteful. I know that lying about our reasons for going into Iraq is bad policy. I just feel that if you are going to oppose lies and deceit, you should probably not use lies and deceit. Indeed, I feel that if you want to campaign for (or against) anything, you should avoid rhetoric and stick to the facts. The facts do have power, and they allow the people to decide. As I understand it, that’s what democracy is all about.

Again, I’m not defending Gonzales. I haven’t been able to wade through the rhetoric deeply enough to find the truths that would let me support him, and I doubt there are enough of them anyway. I’m just too moderate for the Bush Whitehouse.

Activism should be about informing the people and helping them make informed choices, but it’s usually about disinformation. Advertising. Advertising is about mind control. Mind control and democracy seem oppositional to me.

Or maybe I’m just a cynic.

Posted by: Maverick at January 27, 2005 01:40 PM

Blast, multi-posting. Sorry.

To pbarnes7:

I suppose we did “hold these truths to be self-evident”. Unfortunately we did not write that into any laws. It is from the Declaration of Independence, which -- while an interesting historic document -- is not a legal paper.

The Constitution only applies to US citizens. The reason for this is the fact that we can’t really run around enforcing its codes on those who are not US citizens (or non-citizens with-in the US to a lesser extent). We could try, but we’d fail. I recall some ongoing attempts toward extending those moral ideals (most of them found in the first 10 amendments) to China. The effort has been less than stellar.

We DO have a moral obligation to uphold those ideals, in my opinion, but it isn’t a law.

A few other points:

I’ve seen a few overly rose tinted statements from the left here. Given my feelings on rhetoric I’ve got too take issue with some of them.

“The question that americans should be asking is if the irish who normally love the hell out of america are protesting against the president then there must be something radically wrong.”
Honestly, most of the world dislikes the US government. I’ve asked around online. People like the US, but dislike our government. This time it really isn’t a policy issue. Bush just has this magical ability to tick people off. There is often much ado about the message the US sent by re-electing Bush. The message we sent wasn’t so much one of support, but on of “John Kerry is a weak candidate”. I realized he was weak when he tried courting McCain as a running mate (not that that was a bad idea).

“Take a look at the Red Cross report on Abu Ghraib: they estimated that 70-90% of the detainees were innocent civillians. How many of those people were tortured because Alberto Gonzales gave President Bush the legal cover to do it?”
That’s what we call an unfounded accusation. Even the most rabid of Leftwing politicos haven’t gone so far as blame the Abu Ghraib incidents on the administration.

“We have survived for the past 200+ years without resorting to it and should continue to avoid such practices.”
Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War

Adopted on 12 August 1949 by the Diplomatic Conference for the Establishment of
International Conventions for the Protection of Victims of War, held in Geneva
from 21 April to 12 August, 1949

Entry into force 21 October 1950

Not exactly 200+ years. 54+ years, assuming there’ve been no violations we haven’t heard about.

Yes, I’m picking a few nits. I still believe facts have more power than spin.

Posted by: Maverick at January 27, 2005 02:32 PM

So many people seem to forget that the Iraqi prisoners have nothing to do with the initial "War on Terror" induced by the 9-11 attacks. The lie about WMDs was used to get into Iraq, and now these prisoners are classified as "unlawful combatants"...
They are neither terrorists nor unlawful combatants. They are freedom fighters or innocent. If China demanded the US was to remove all of their WMDs (really scares me that thought) and invaded the US, then anyone taking up arms to defend their country would be an unlawful combatant and could be locked away in a Chinese prison for nothing??? Bah. I would like to hear what all of the people who blindly stand up for these lies would have to say then.

Posted by: Glyn Evans at January 27, 2005 03:48 PM

I wish I had thought of this trite Chinese prison analogy before I wrote 'smoking equates to genocide', in illustrating a ridiculous, off-topic leap in thought.

Posted by: MouseBeast at January 27, 2005 04:10 PM

I know that this post was about torture and the fact that we should not be engaged in it, but to back off that issue the problem come for where we've put ourselves in the world.

Thomas Jefferson once said, "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations -- entangling alliances with none."

Unfortunately, we are all twisted up in "entangling alliances" up the wazoo. Take the Iraqis for instance. We allied with the Iraqi people but not the "terrorist" Iraqis.

The Saudis are another example: friend, right? However, most of the terrorists on the planes on September 11 were Saudis.

Pakistan: former foe but convenient friend for the moment.

We are also allied with Israel. However, I'm going to take a guess that most Iraqis, Pakistanis, and Saudis don't like Israel. We will conveniently look the other way about that (for now).

In addition, in the 1990s, Russia went from communist to democratic, which means enemy to friend, but is slowly becoming the enemy again, but not when it comes fighting terrorism. So you can call them "enemy-friend" if you want.

Then there is Europe: long time friend, but really pissed off at us for the moment...er well, some of them. The Brits are still our friend (unless you talk to most of the British people).

The point I'm making is that we've spent so much effort to be the world's policeman that we don't know who is friend or foe anymore, which brings me back to the original quote. I will repeat it:

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations -- entangling alliances with none."

There is a reason that our founding fathers felt this way, but we've forgot it along the way. Unfortunately, I'm going to venture to say that today we now have more "entangling alliances" than "friendships."

Posted by: hunahpu at January 27, 2005 04:12 PM

Mouse... thanks. Actually it is on-topic as far as I am concerned. Most of these prisoners were not fighting against America until America invaded their country.

Posted by: Glyn Evans at January 27, 2005 04:22 PM

i am with you here...this administration seems to shrug of atrocities...by promoting those who condone them...this is not my america.

Posted by: d. burr at January 27, 2005 04:36 PM

I agree that these prisoners wouldnt be there if we had not invaded their country. But we did. They lost. Now they are in our custody. This is the nature of war. Why are so many people blowing smoke over the 'poor Iraqi people' we're detaining? It sounds to me like misdirected anger toward us even being there in the first place, which everyone has a right to feel. Clouding that issue with nonsense about how certain elements of combat actions are 'unfair' sounds both silly, and niave.

Posted by: MouseBeast at January 27, 2005 04:55 PM

TO Glyn Evans:

The prisoners at Gitmo...Guantánamo Bay, Cuba...are classified as unlawful combatants, as are the insurgents (who according to reports aired on the left leaning news services (and not just Fox News) are largely from outside Iraq. We call them terrorists, and rightly so. The war is over. They lost.

I see your point, I hope you see mine. If we fought this (unlikely*) conventional war with China, and they won, and resistance fighters would be considered unlawful combatants under the Geneva Convention and those nations who signatory to it would tend to agree. Doing otherwise would allow those "freedom fighters" who might fight against their own governemts a path to legitimacy.

The prisoners at Abu Ghraib, at least those who were the target of the abuse WERE prisoners of Coalition Military Government, which is why the US soldiers who were involvd have been, and are being, prosecuted. They were not subject to protection of the Constitution or the Geneva Convention, and they will (if they haven't already) become the responsibility of the Iraqi government.

To my knowledge, the US Attorney General did not scantion what happened at Abu Ghraib. The Attorney General's Staff did not sanction it. The President of the United States did not sanction it. The United States Army did not sanction it.

And most importantly, the Army put a stop to it. The whole idea of the "evil" military getting caught with its collective pants around its ankles is so much fun that people like to ignore the name of Specialist Joseph M. Darby.

Look him up. He blew the whistle, to his CO. He took a risk, not knowing if the Army was sactioning this or not. not knowing what it could do to his military and civilian career. Knowing he had a family back home. He took that risk because what he saw was not right. And when step forward, the Army investigated, arrested, and filed charges.

Yes, the Army did not come clean right away, and it resulted in a juicy scoop. The news got to report on how the Army was holding back on news of abuse they had already stopped. Let's be frank, though. If it wasn't the army, but your business, or your family, would you want the rest of the world to know?

They might have tried to sweep it under the rug, if they thought they could. The damage was done, and the wrong doers would face justice... no need for a circus. Or, and this seems more likely, they might have waited until the trials were done, so that they could say "Yes, this happened, and we made it stop. The criminals will be punished."

What they did not do was let it slip by.

The lie, at least in reference to Iraq, is in the information that lead you to believe that the US Army was pursuing a poslicy designed to foster abuse, which te investigating Major General, Antonio M. Taguba, called criminal, sadistic and wanton, in his report. I can hardly call my expose of the facts in these matters "blindy stand[ing] up."

There are problems. The fact is we are holding, without charge or trial, human beings. They may be terrorists who want nothing more than to see you and everyone you know die screaming, but they are humans. We are exploiting a loophole in the law that arose from the fact that we have never really dealt with terrorists as our enemies until now. thus our laws are designed for domestic crime and military action. Terrorism fall between the two.

In my opinion, protesting the President's selection for Attorney General is a waste of time an energy. Go to the source. The Attorney General is a member of the executive branch. He doesn't make the law, he interprests and uses it. Separation of powers. Congress makes the law. If the Law has a loophole, it's up to Congress to plug it.

Take this grass roots effort and campaign to have loophole closed. Write your congress-persons every day. Get others to write them.

CC the media when ever you can. And if they ignore you, don't re-elect them. A good chunck of congress is up for re-election every year. Democracy can work more often than every 4 years.

Posted by: Maverick at January 27, 2005 04:58 PM

To Wil:

I want to take a slight break from pontificating on facts, and say this:

Back in November your comments had the tone of man who'd lost faith. (Not religious faith. I may be conservative, but not because God told me to be. Faith in your fellow Americans, the system and our ability to weahter any stoms, including bad Presidents.) I didn't like that. I don't really agree with your politics, being a moderate conservative, but since my friend started linking you on IRC I've have come to respect you as a writer and a man.

You are thoughtful and passionate. I think that, above all else, is what draws people here to read what you write. I call myself a writer, and it burns me when I get drawn into one of your narratives. I wish I wrote half as well.

America needs thoughtful and passionate people. I may think you have the wrong idea, but I am glad to see that you haven't given up.

Posted by: Maverick at January 27, 2005 05:26 PM

Phew, I am home from work and fed now so I can think straighter it would seem!

To Mouse:
Maybe you are right on that count. I think I am angry at the misdirection we have been fed and how people associate the original intent of the "War on Terror" with the Iraq War. Forgive me. Please continue the discussion!

To Maverick:
You are also a very well spoken man. I humbly agree with you about Wil's writing as well :D

Now you have said this:
"There are problems. The fact is we are holding, without charge or trial, human beings. They may be terrorists who want nothing more than to see you and everyone you know die screaming, but they are humans. We are exploiting a loophole in the law that arose from the fact that we have never really dealt with terrorists as our enemies until now. thus our laws are designed for domestic crime and military action. Terrorism fall between the two."

I agree halfways. And this was my original point about holding these people. We do not *know* they are terrorists. Many of the people *may* be innocent, but are being held with no charges, trial or anything. A government that sanctions this is bad news.

A recent comment I received on my own Blog about this says (in regard to some new British anti-terror legislation):

"Quote: The new control orders will be used, without a trial, where intelligence suggests an individual is a danger. Mr Clarke will be able to order any Briton to be detained at home, subjected to curfew or electronic tagging, or banned from meeting people or using the internet or a mobile. No evidence need be aired in court and some detainees may not know what they are accused of."

In my opinion, this is very similar to some of the occurences that are being *allowed* by the US Administration and people like Mr. Gonzales. My arguement is not with the US Military or it's personnel. There will always be a few "bad apples" in any scenario. The military is doing it's job over there. I pity them and what they are enduring, mainly because of the reasons they are there.

Wow, I have strong political interest it would seem, though I never thought I would get emroiled so deeply in it! I think as opposed to being an avid political debater, I simply like to call what I see. Naturally, you may disagree or agree, that is what freedom and choice is all about...

Posted by: Glyn Evans at January 27, 2005 06:23 PM

pbarnes7, you misquoted me above. I didn't say that. That was MouseBeast. The poster's name and other information about the comment appears under it, not over it. I probably didn't need to clear that up -- everyone could go back and read it and see, but it bugged me.

Posted by: Dana Huff at January 27, 2005 06:23 PM

Will, I'm a fan, but give me a break.

You ask "where is my mind?" I have an idea. Same place as your head. Up your ass! Wake up and come back from the deep frontier and back into reality.

Posted by: lsutiger at January 27, 2005 07:06 PM

so much for my Star Trek humor. That should be "final frontier"

Posted by: lsutiger at January 27, 2005 07:08 PM

Glyn,

Now we're almost on the same page. I don't totaly agree with your reasoning, but that's just splitting hairs. This issue is abuse of power. Keeping people under arrest based on the ABSENSE of law is wrong. We have due process so that (in theory) the innocent can be freed.

Link to your blog? I'm always looking for more ways to abuse the company internet.

Posted by: Maverick at January 27, 2005 07:38 PM

I really want to say something rude to Isutiger.

Let's not. The rest of us can stay on the level of thought debate, ne?

Posted by: Maverick at January 27, 2005 07:42 PM

Maverick:

Good call on the rude fella... Some folks.
I have an MSN Space which can be bad as you need a passport to comment and such, but I write about many different things :D

http://spaces.msn.com/members/zaphodsheads/

I trackback the odd post of Wil's as well. I am new to the whole blog thing, so I am thrilled with any responses or ideas :)

Posted by: Glyn Evans at January 27, 2005 08:01 PM

I agree with Tom Tomorrow's take on this whole thing:

I noticed that in this wacky satire, written a couple of years back, I have my outrageous conservative saying, "I suppose YOU want to CODDLE the terrorists, DON'T YOU? Well, I think we should STRAP THEM DOWN and TORTURE THEM!" (Or something close to that--I'm paraphrasing from memory.) This was written before the Abu Ghraib revelations. It was meant as over-the-top satire, a ludicrous exaggeration. Once again, reality outpaced satire. What once seemed unthinkable is now commonplace....it's getting hard to satirize the world any more when real life is so crazy.

For his full blog entry see:
http://www.thismodernworld.com/weblog/mtarchives/week_2005_01_16.html#002007

I still can't believe Bush won (well, I mean, I know he did, but I'll never understand it.) Oh well.

Posted by: Chuck at January 27, 2005 09:09 PM

Glyn,
Thanks. I may never comment (me no likie passport) but I've got ye on me RSS list, so I'll prolly drop by. Anyone who writes a post on the trials and tribulations of the poor Redshirts deserves a look see.

These are my rules...I make 'em up!

Posted by: Maverick at January 27, 2005 09:29 PM

Maverick,
Thanks! I update often except maybe the odd weekend.

Posted by: Glyn Evans at January 27, 2005 09:54 PM

and the number one reason for opposing Gonzales... the man has a lovely singing voice, and its a sad waste to stick him away in the dept of justice instead of american idol.

Posted by: drow at January 27, 2005 10:45 PM

Hey,

Just letting you know I emailed the guys at Creation to have you at the next Pasadena show. I got a reply back from Adam saying they love you and will try to get you on. And now I'm sitting next to the daughter of another one of the main guys there who will daughter pressure her dad for it :) So, hopefully I'll see you there...whenever it happens

Posted by: AnthonyM83 at January 27, 2005 11:27 PM

I cannot believe how blind some of these people are! "Oh, you're wrong about so and so." Wake up, people! We're dangerously walking down the road to Fascism and no one seems to care! But then again, the Germans were saying the same thing before Hurricane Hitler swooped down and pulverized Germany.

Don't say that we didn't warn you!!!

Posted by: Scott T at January 27, 2005 11:59 PM

FYI..............

Some sobering insight to our life and times....

Published on Thursday, January 27, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Tell Them, 'Because our Fathers Lied'
by Gilbert Jordan

"The master class has always declared the wars;
the subject class has always fought the battles...."
- Eugene Debs

Almost two years after our invasion of Iraq - an occasion that was to be 'a piece of cake,' one that would be celebrated by Iraqis strewing flowers before our troops - it is well past the point when we should recognize that the Iraq War has become the Vietnam of the 21st Century. As in Vietnam, The Mexican War, the Spanish American War, the pretext for going to war was manufactured by misrepresenting facts and whipping up public fury, usually a simple task when that well known toxin - patriotism - is in the air.

Many years ago Rudyard Kipling wrote in his Epitaphs of the War:

'If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.'
At the same time, one of England's most promising poets of WWI, Wilfred Owen, wrote a famous anti-war poem. After presenting a series of ghastly images relating to the death of a soldier by mustard gas, Owen tells us that if we could witness such scenes, then

'My friend, you would not tell with such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory. The old lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro Patria Mori.'
For those of us without an Oxford education, the translation of the Latin is, "It is sweet and fitting that you should die for your country."
President Bush and his minions are not unique in riding to war on the back of lies. Presidents Polk, McKinley, and Johnson, among others, were equally guilty. In each case, these presidents embarked on wars that were based not on self-defense but naked aggression and a desire to expropriate what belonged rightfully to others. To mask such pillaging, it is always accompanied by an appeal to nationalism and soaring flights of rhetoric. With Iraq, President Bush kept inventing new rationales for the invasion, all of them evoking some noble purpose. And in his second inaugural speech just delivered, more of the same was dished up supposedly in the service of liberty and justice for all of the world's citizens. Of this tactic, columnist Molly Ivins would say, "It's like putting lipstick on a pig."

While the President can endlessly resort to Pollyanna summaries of the "catastrophic success" of our engagement in Iraq, the truth puts the lie to all of these fictions.

On our side, there have been 1,417 Americans killed in this debacle, with thousands more grievously wounded, many of those facing severely diminished lives from this time on. The cost of the war, according to the ticking meter on the internet, is $152 billion dollars, with another $80 billion requested for the immediate future. Since there is no end to the war in sight, there will be no end of the hemorrhaging treasure to support it. And all of this coincides with staggering budget and trade deficits, a disappearing middle class as jobs are exported to other countries, growing poverty, and a flow of world investment to the Euro as more and more creditors lose confidence in the American dollar. Add to that the insidious erosion of liberties under the Patriot Act. But most distressing is our apparent willingness at the highest levels of government to condone torture as a means of gaining intelligence. With such a departure from international norms, it is not difficult to see that in fighting our "barbaric" enemies, we become more like them with every passing week.

On the other side - yes, there is another side, although from coverage in American media, you would scarcely realize it - it is estimated that 100,000 Iraqis have been killed and far more than that made homeless, jobless, and futureless. Two years after 'Mission Accomplished' the country has descended into unspeakable chaos. In Baghdad, electricity is available only part of the day, clean water is scarce, sewage floods the streets. Fallujah has been reduced to rubble, turning about 100,000 civilians into refugees. The coming election will be meaningless, since violence has forced candidates to remain anonymous, and the act of voting itself is the equivalent of playing Russian Roulette. An assured electoral victory by the Shiite majority is an invitation to civil war, which will make the current misery in that hapless country seem pale by comparison. All the happy talk by the Bush administration does not change these facts. The Washington wrecking crew has created its own tsunami and all of us (Americans and Iraqis) are paying the price of their imperial ambitions.

In Dwight Eisenhower's final speech to the nation in 1953, he warned us of the power of the military-industrial complex:

'Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children....This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from an iron cross.'
We, with our deluded belief that God is on our side and that our new manifest destiny is to control the world and all its assets, must reassess our priorities. Is this ill-fated adventure in Iraq (with hints of Iran to follow) worth the agony it is causing? Do we really want to bankrupt the nation and sacrifice our youth by pouring our resources into wars of folly? Do we really want to leave the rest of the world shaking their heads as they see this country diminishing itself by paying lip service to its Constitution and Bill of Rights but, at the same time, violating the very essence of those documents? It is time for us to awake from a long sleep, take a serious look at the world and this country's place in it, and recognize that we have been manipulated by an unscrupulous band of miscreants who have been following their own agenda. And that agenda has nothing to do with democracy and liberty, at least for all of us living below the tiny sliver of privileged and tax-free aristocrats occupying the top of society's pyramid.

A good place to start our examination is to recognize that Kipling and Owen pulled back the curtain from myths and lies that promote wars. In a real democracy, we should demand transparent government and accountability. Until we do, we are in danger of sacrificing our 225 year old experiment in self-rule. There is a very thin line between democracy and despotism and at the moment we are standing on the razor's edge.

Gilbert Jordan is a retired English Professor from Monroe Community college, Rochester, NY and has been active in the anti-war movement. He resides in in Wyoming, NY. Gilbert can be reached at gfjordan@frontiernet.net.

###

Posted by: Scott T at January 28, 2005 12:29 AM

I guess what I'm stuck on is, "What do you hope to accomplish?" If Gonzalez is kept out, what makes you think his replacement will be any different?

Alberto Gonzalez was just a flunky following orders. He didn't suddenly jump up in class, waving his hand and shouting "Oooh! Oooh! I've got a great idea!" He merely completed the assignment he was given.

He is the symptom, not the disease.

Posted by: FNRThomas at January 28, 2005 02:40 AM

OK, I can accept you're against his confirmation. But instead of bitching about it, offer an acceptable solution.

Posted by: Rich at January 28, 2005 08:08 AM

“He is the symptom, not the disease.”

This is why I could never succeed in advertising. That sums up my argument beautifully. Go after the root of the problem… Congress. Make Congress work for you. I salute you, FNRThomas

Now, for a return to FACT CHECK MODE!!!!!!!

Scott T wrote: “it is well past the point when we should recognize that the Iraq War has become the Vietnam of the 21st Century.”

This is an emotional card that folks just love to play. I am back in fact check mode because I find it personally offensive. My father and my Uncle fought in Vietnam. Both were wounded in action, and both suffered the scars that come from war. They, like our boys in Iraq, were not draftees. They volunteered to serve, because in their day this country, that so many here suggest was pristine before Bush Jr., wasn’t all that fair or accommodating to young black men.

So lets have some facts here.

Iraq: a war begun under false pretexts, which the President may or may not have known about. It has become increasingly clear that the Coalition nations based a lot of their reasoning on bad intel. Information generated by Iraqi expatriates who had ulterior motives. Additionally I suspect confirmation of the bad intel may have been hinted at by the Mossad. Let face some facts, here. Israel has one of the world’s best intelligence services, and had pretty much crippled Saddam’s nuclear program all by themselves. They had an on again off again mission to KILL Saddam that was only shelved when a training accident killed a number of the commandos tapped for the job. The Mossad had reason to mislead us. They are surrounded by enemies. The only reason they have a country now is the fact that they are hardcore, and will do whatever it take to win.

Of course Bush had his motives. Bush has an ego and clearly reacts emotionally to his political opponents. Saddam tried to have his father killed. Frankly I wouldn’t put it past our president to start looking for an excuse to end Saddam either. Beyond that, OPEC has been being stingy with the oil of late, and freeing Iraq has the natural effect of driving prices down simply by freeing demand.

One way to free up Iraqi oil was to lift UN Sanctions, but Saddam never complied with UN inspections. He pushed and pushed until there was a threat of War, and even under that threat he didn’t cooperate. Like many in the Middle east he thought we Americans lacked the will to finish the job we started in 1991. (Keep in mind that that war never officially ended, because Saddam never fully complied with the terms of the surrender).

History will look at these as 2 different Wars, and it will tend to ignore the fact that war in Iraq is over, and the US really is battling insurgents.

For all of this, the Iraq war had a clear goal. Remove Saddam and install a new government.

During this period of War + Insurgency, which has lasted just shy of 2 years, the US has lost some 1421 personnel, while the Coalition, in total has suffered 1582 losses. Granting that you data may have been old, I like to note that you seem to ignore the deaths in our Allies forces.

The LARGEST (and thus likely in error) civilian loss total is 17723, while the smallest is around 15000. Splitting the difference gives us something that is likely closer to the truth, or a total of about 16400 civilians killed.

Other Nations only distantly fund the insurgency in Iraq. Such funding is likely to dry up quick if US is able to trace the money trail. Prime funding is from Terrorist Organizations. Prime source of materials is Iraqi Military Weapons. Iraqi insurgents really do deserve the name Terrorists as that don’t even try to restrict themselves to attack our forces. They will blow up nearly anyone, anywhere. They have no regaurd for the lives of people they are trying to “Free” from our “tyranny”.

Vietnam: The so-called Vietnam War (which was a war, but not officially) began with the end of the French Indochina War. Vietnam, formerly a French colony was granted independence from France and under the terms of the Geneva Accord that ended that war was portioned into two nations, which the UN hopped could be consolidated into on democratic nation by 1956. President Eisenhower, and the leaders of the two Vietnams (Ho Chi Minh, and Emperor Bao Dai [Later Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Deim]) had no interest in allowing this to happen, each “side” fearing the influences of the other. Ho Chi Minh wanted to avoid democratic influences while the others feared communism.

After Ho Chi Minh solidified communist power in the north, his National Liberation Front (know to the US as the Viet Cong) began guerilla warfare into the south. US forces began sending military advisor to the area.

The US truly entered the war when Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 7, 1964. The first US troops arrived on March 8, 1965 (3,500 United States Marines). By 1968, over 500,000 troops were stationed there, and the toll of American soldiers killed, as reported every Thursday on the evening news, was over 100 a week.

As the war dragged on it became clear that there was no way to determine when it was over. There was no victory condition. The US had to reach the nebulous goal of stopping the NVA and the Viet Cong from controlling the south. Because of clear Chinese and Soviet support for the North, the US restricted operations to the South. Some thought we could “beat back” the attackers without resorting to invasion, but as the war dragged on it became increasingly clear that the US could not win. The skyrocketing death toll continued to erode support on the home front.

US forces did eventually force a peace agreement in early 1973. As part of the agreement US forces left Vietnam in mid 1973.

Shortly afterward the military situation began to crumble. Richard Nixon was unable to build support for further defense of the South while dealing the Watergate fall out. But 1975 Congress had suspended all aid to South Vietnam (little of that aid was going to defense efforts at the time). In early 1975 the North again invaded. They consolidated control of Vietnam on July 2, 1976. The country remains under communist rule.

The US lost 58226 as dead, or MIA. There were approximately 400 Australians killed and 38 New Zealanders. Vietnam claims, as of 1995, Four MILLION civilian losses and one million soldiers. Using the lowest (and obviously false) claims from Vietnam arrives at 1.5 million. Again splitting the difference, returns 3.25 million deaths.

In terms of time Vietnam lasted some 5 years, verse Iraq’s 2 and climbing, currently 250% more time based on the date of first official battle by US forces. In Vietnam the US suffered a staggering 4097.54% greater volume of lost personnel than in Iraq. Presently accepted civilian death tolls were some 22569.54% greater in Vietnam than Iraq.

At current casualty rate the Insurgency in Iraq would have to last another 39 years to match the US death toll in Vietnam. The conflict would have to continue for some 223 years to match the civilian losses.

Iraq isn’t even in the same ballpark as Vietnam. Unless the insurgents get at least 25 times more effective, it never will be.

Given the amount of respect Kipling enjoys in military circles, please, next time you quote an excerpt, link to the whole thing.

Posted by: Maverick at January 28, 2005 08:47 AM

Rich:OK, I can accept you're against his confirmation. But instead of bitching about it, offer an acceptable solution.

Is this a new RNC talking point? I've been reading and hearing this "if you think it's so bad, why don't you tell us how to fix it" mantra an awful lot this week.

I'm not being a dick -- I'm genuinely curious. I think it's too much of a coincidence that this sentiment has suddenly exploded all over the place.

To answer: It's not my job to come up with an alternative. That's President Bush's job. I have laid out the reasons I oppose Gonzales, and why I believe the congress should not confirm him. It's not my responsibility to offer a replacement nominee.

Posted by: Wil at January 28, 2005 09:24 AM

Oh, and if you've got something really long to quote, or reference, would you please quote a small bit and link the rest?

I can't tell you all how happy I am that this thread is actually useful to read. Good on ya.

Posted by: Wil at January 28, 2005 09:25 AM

In WW2 it was the hanging tree. The Nazis strung up partisans. Later, partisans hung traitors from this tree. It was left standing as a monument to those injustices. After April 25, 1986 the steam explosion which blew a 1,000 ton cap off a nuclear containment vessel in Chernobyl, the tree became a memorial for that tragedy. It has since fallen and was replaced with an aluminum tree, kinda like a shrine to things that never die...like mass stupidity.

Check these new allegations out at the Guantanamo prison.

Posted by: TheEmperfect at January 28, 2005 10:11 AM

Wow, thread, look at you! They grow up so fast.

I honestly can't tell where this discussion stands at the moment, but I noticed a bit of a comment by Maverick that I'd like to address. Maverick, please don't get the idea that I'm picking on you; I only pursue this because I've seen the same thing stated in many other places.

Maverick said "The prisoners at Gitmo...Guantánamo Bay, Cuba...are classified as unlawful combatants, as are the insurgents (who according to reports aired on the left leaning news services (and not just Fox News) are largely from outside Iraq. We call them terrorists, and rightly so."

That the "insurgents are largely from outside Iraq" appears to be a widespread misconception, as noted in this AP article from May 04, and also in this article at globalsecurity.org, which states that, out of 40K "hard core fighters" and 200K "part-time fighters and volunteers", "roughly 1,000 foreign Islamic jihadists have joined the insurgency". Granted, those are estimates from various sources, but it's safe to say that the insurgents are largely from inside Iraq. Many are former Saddam loyalists, and many are apparently young people with no jobs or prospects because the majority of the rebuilding work has been outsourced.

Anyway, the war in Iraq is covered by Geneva. The majority of the "insurgents" (man I hate that word. what makes someone an "insurgent", anyway?) are Iraqis, so they're not "unlawful combatants". Whether or not you want to call them terrorists is up to you, I guess.

Posted by: vlad at January 28, 2005 10:42 AM

Wil: I think you're absolutely right that it is not our job to come up with an alternative. It's the elected administration's job to appoint these folks. This is why we have the elected body; to make these decisions on behalf of the citizens they represent.

They are elected by a majority, and their decisions usually relfect the will of that majority. Unfortunately, with the country so closely divided, that majority is pretty slight. This is leaving an almost equal amount of citizens who feel disparaged by most of the administration's decisions.

The prevalent response from the right sounds pretty damn weak to me as well. If I were sitting in the majority, defending one of their decisions, I wouldnt throw up a weak-ass statement like "Well, why dont you find a solution? Nyah Nyah Nyah!" There's no 'solution' to be found. The majority is merely trying to appoint their 'solution', and it's a shame that so many people have a problem with it.

~~(__)8>

Posted by: MouseBeast at January 28, 2005 10:56 AM

Sorry about the length. Verbose isn’t my middle name, but it was considered.

Wil wrote: “To answer: It's not my job to come up with an alternative. That's President Bush's job. I have laid out the reasons I oppose Gonzales, and why I believe the congress should not confirm him. It's not my responsibility to offer a replacement nominee.”

Agreed. And by organizing or joining an organization in opposition to the nomination you’ve taken a step. My contention remains that the step is not enough.

I agree with the IDEAL found in the concept of "if you think it's so bad, why don't you tell us how to fix it?" I disagree with sentiment or spirit of it as you may have heard it. We really should think of alternatives when possible and suggest them to our representatives. They are “Representatives” they can’t represent us if we simply wait for them to make suggestions.

Obviously, that doesn’t always apply. The Chief Executive is NOT our representative in this matter. That is not the job the Constitution gave him in this area. So expecting you to suggest a better Attorney General is not right. To beat my dead horse a bit more, CONGRESS is where our reps are on this one. You should continue to speak out, gather like-minded souls and hammer your desires home to Congress.

If they fail to listen, make them pay. Vote them out.

It’s not about blaming Congress. It is about the fact that you can’t directly influence the President. The nature of the 4 year term means you can’t do much to him unless he’s caught committing a crime. Further, this President has nothing lose. He can’t be re-elected. Congress is different. Every year parts of Congress face re-election.

I’m not talking about a one off letter campaign against Gonzales, but a continuous tide of public opinion. Encourage people to write their Senators and Representatives. Organize groups like the one above and make sure EACH MEMBER WRITES a letter. Send them by post, by e-mail, by carrier pigeon. Copy the Whitehouse and the media. Bury them in your wishes.

In fact, I will make this pledge. I, being a moderate conservative - and at worst - ambivalent about Gonzales, will join you in opposing him, if you will join me in flooding D.C. with American voices and demands for accountability.

I don’t care if every letter you write expresses exactly the opposite view from mine. I just want your voice to be heard, and I want the big wigs behind the Beltway to learn that they do, in fact, serve us!

What say you? What say you all?

Posted by: Maverick at January 28, 2005 11:08 AM

On a lighter note, Dick would rather be ice fishing. You can take the boy out of the UP, butcha can't take da Yooper outta da boy, eh? Aw jeez, you betcha.

Posted by: vlad at January 28, 2005 11:13 AM

SIDE NOTE:

I cant help but point out something I just saw on a cable news channel (to remain anonymous).

A dem strategist was asked why she thought the democrats in congress were putting up so much of a fight against Condi Rice's appointment. The person figured that these people were obviously going to be of like mind to the president, and that if he wanted to surround himself with that, it was his business. I guess on some level I tend to agree with that.

The strategist's response was the typical, weak-ass, non-sequtor, democratic response. She immediately pointed out a common opinion that Dr. Rice was one of the architects of the misinformation that led to our invasion in Iraq. Her response had nothing to do with the question. She just deflected the question and responded instead with a shot. Apparantly neither side can stick to the 'facts' anymore. I fear that this whole country is just 'spinning' off into infinity.

I figure that if i'm going to discuss a weak-ass Republican talking point, I might as well point out a Democratic one as well. Fair and balanced, I always say...oops...so much for the 'anonymous' thing.

~~(__)8>

Posted by: MouseBeast at January 28, 2005 11:20 AM

Interesting point Vlad. I dropped the ball on that one. But that's why I love these little opportunites. It helps me to find the holes in my knowledge and stregnthen my reasoning.

The next question is: Are Iraqi "combatants" actually covered by the Convention? I proposed, based on my interpretation of the text that I linked to earlier, that they aren't. They lack a governing body and clear chain of command. Still the Convention may have provisions that I missed.

The question that follows that is: Are Iraqi fighters being shipped to Gitmo? This one I don't have an answer for. I'll have to see what I can dig up.

Posted by: Maverick