Back Talk

Thoughtful Obama vs. Snarling Cheney

2009-05-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

Against a veritable mountain of evidence showing a liberal media bias, I recently came across one piece of evidence suggesting that, somehow, the photographs that appear with news stories indicate a conservative bias. I can't find the link, but I just wanted to say that the photograph that is currently on the front page of CNN probably won't help to substantiate that claim:

Barack Obama's Greatest Accomplishment (so far)

2009-05-21T08:25:00.000-07:00

That would be restoring George Bush's national security credentials, and it is an impressive accomplishment, indeed. He has basically adopted all of Bush's policies, with the notable exception of embracing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. On that subject, Bush was thoughtful and analytical (as always, in spite of what you mistakenly think), whereas Obama was as intellectually superficial as he was morally pompous. He still is.

Don't believe me? Consider these comments from George Bush from way back in 2006:

Press Conference of the President
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 14, 2006

The Rose Garden
...
Q Thank you, Mr. President. You expressed serious concern when you learned about the Guantanamo suicides, and you and your aides immediately called allies. I'm wondering, how concerned are you about the U.S. image abroad, based on this incident and the ongoing investigation in Haditha and Abu Ghraib and other incidents? And, also, why shouldn't Guantanamo be closed now?

THE PRESIDENT: I'd like to close Guantanamo, but I also recognize that we're holding some people that are darn dangerous, and that we better have a plan to deal with them in our courts. And the best way to handle -- in my judgment, handle these types of people is through our military courts. And that's why we're waiting on the Supreme Court to make a decision.

Part of closing Guantanamo is to send some folks back home, like we've been doing. And the State Department is in the process of encouraging countries to take the folks back. Of course, sometimes we get criticized for sending some people out of Guantanamo back to their home country because of the nature of the home country. It's a little bit of a Catch-22. But we're working through this.

No question, Guantanamo sends a signal to some of our friends -- provides an excuse, for example, to say the United States is not upholding the values that they're trying to encourage other countries to adhere to. And my answer to them is, is that we are a nation of laws and rule of law. These people have been picked up off the battlefield and they're very dangerous. And so we have that balance between customary justice, the typical system, and one that will be done in the military courts. And that's what we're waiting for.

Eventually, these people will have trials, and they will have counsel and they will be represented in a court of law. I say, "these people," those who are not sent back to their mother countries. You know, we've sent a lot of people home already. I don't think the American people know that, nor do the citizens of some of the countries that are concerned about Guantanamo.

That is, by 2006, Bush believed that America had been safe for long enough that it was finally time to close Guantanamo Bay. But, as he saw it, we had better have a thoughtful plan in place before we do, and coming up with such a plan was not trivially easy.

Fast forward to January of 2009. A new president is in power, and, by God, he's going to restore our moral authority throughout the world by just closing the Guantanamo Bay detection facility once and for all:

January 22, 2009

Obama signs order to close Guantanamo Bay facility

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Promising to return America to the "moral high ground" in the war on terrorism, President Obama issued three executive orders Thursday to demonstrate a clean break from the Bush administration, including one requiring that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year.

During a signing ceremony at the White House, Obama reaffirmed his inauguration pledge that the United States does not have "to continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals."

If you mistook Obama's gratuitous moral grandstanding for intellectual depth of analysis (as many in the media did), then you probably celebrated this shining moment in the history of our great nation. But if you engaged your higher brain centers, you were likely less impressed. In fact, you might even have recognized that Obama's comments were ungracious and were beneath the dignity of the high office he holds because they imply that Bush was taking the moral low road and that he compromised our ideals in an effort to make us safe. Those are cheap shots that fail to recognize that reasonable people of good character can disagree about the hard choices that face a president who is trying to keep America safe (the kind of cheap shots that George Bush never ever took).

Either George Bush or Barack Obama is misguided about what it takes to close Guantanamo, and the evidence continues to pile up that it is our current commander-in-chief, not our previous one, who needs an education on the subject:

WASHINGTON — In an abrupt shift, Senate Democratic leaders said they would not provide the $80 million that President Obama requested to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The move escalates pressure on the president, who on Thursday is scheduled to outline his plans for the 240 terrorism suspects still held there.

In recent days, Mr. Obama has faced growing demands from both parties, but particularly Republicans, to lay out a more detailed road map for closing the Guantánamo prison and to provide assurances that detainees would not end up on American soil, even in maximum security prisons.
...
“Guantánamo makes us less safe,” the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said at a news conference where he laid out the party’s rationale for its decision, which is expected to be voted on this week. “However, this is neither the time nor the bill to deal with this. Democrats under no circumstances will move forward without a comprehensive, responsible plan from the president. We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States.”
...
“In looking at the position of the House, that was more logical,” Mr. Reid said. “We have clearly said all along that we wanted a plan. We don’t have a plan. And based on that, this is not the bill to deal with this.”

Say what? George Bush wanted to close Guantanamo Bay, but he was thoughtful and reflective enough to realize that a plan had to be in place first (because it is a complicated issue). Usually, that's the order in which things are done: make a plan first and take action second. By contrast, Obama seemed frighteningly unaware of the basic facts of the matter, so he simply engaged in moral posturing on the day after he took office by taking bold action, but without a plan. Unfortunately, basic facts like this one, need to be addressed first:

1 in 7 Freed Detainees Rejoins Fight, Report Finds

By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: May 20, 2009

WASHINGTON — An unreleased Pentagon report concludes that about one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad from the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has returned to terrorism or militant activity, according to administration officials.

The conclusion could strengthen the arguments of critics who have warned against the transfer or release of any more detainees as part of President Obama’s plan to shut down the prison by January. Past Pentagon reports on Guantánamo recidivism have been met with skepticism from civil liberties groups and criticized for their lack of detail.
...
Two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the report was being held up by Defense Department employees fearful of upsetting the White House, at a time when even Congressional Democrats have begun to show misgivings over Mr. Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo.

Mustn't upset Obama's moral grandstanding by revealing facts that illustrate why the decisions about Guantanamo are actually difficult. Instead, some apparently believe that it would be better to let the White House act as if it is a simple choice between doing what the morally depraved wished to do vs. doing what the morally enlightened would rather do. That's the superficial stance of many of Obama's supporters, but it is intellectually vacuous. It might be best to close the facility, as both Bush and Obama want to do, but it is just downright silly to pretend that it is easy and needs no plan. The choice we face is between closing Guantanamo with a plan or closing it without a plan. Bush chose the former; Obama the latter.

Here is another reason to plan first and then act second (not the other way around):

FBI chief worried about Gitmo detainees in U.S.

Mueller says prisoners could radicalize others at high-security prisons

WASHINGTON - FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress on Wednesday that bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States could pose a number of risks, even if they were kept in maximum-security prisons. Responding to FBI concerns, Attorney General Eric Holder said the Obama administration would not put Americans at risk.
...
At the start of Wednesday's hearing, Mueller was asked what concerns the FBI has about the release of Guantanamo detainees.

"The concerns we have about individuals who may support terrorism being in the United States run from concerns about providing financing, radicalizing others," Mueller said, as well as "the potential for individuals undertaking attacks in the United States."

"All of those are relevant concerns," Mueller said.

The FBI chief said he would not discuss specific individuals. He said there were also potential risks to putting detainees in maximum security prisons.

Except for Guantanamo Bay (and harsh interrogations of high-level al Qaeda detainees), Obama is coming around to Bush's position on everything. Karl Rove has noticed:

Barack Obama inherited a set of national-security policies that he rejected during the campaign but now embraces as president. This is a stunning and welcome about-face.
...
These reversals are both praiseworthy and evidence that, when it comes to national security, being briefed on terror threats as president is a lot different than placating MoveOn.org and Code Pink activists as a candidate. The realities of governing trump the realities of campaigning.

Even the New York Times has noticed:

News Analysis

Obama After Bush: Leading by Second Thought

By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: May 15, 2009

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s decisions this week to retain important elements of the Bush-era system for trying terrorism suspects and to block the release of pictures showing abuse of American-held prisoners abroad are the most graphic examples yet of how he has backtracked, in substantial if often nuanced ways, from the approach to national security that he preached as a candidate, and even from his first days in the Oval Office.

Mr. Obama’s opening gambits as president were bold declarations of new directions, from announcing the closing of the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to sweeping restrictions on interrogation techniques. He advertised both as a return to traditional American values, after the diversions taken by George W. Bush to the detriment of America’s image abroad and of itself.

But as he showed this week in the way he dealt with those two hard cases, Mr. Obama has begun to scale back. Faced with the choice of signaling an unambiguous break with the policies of the Bush era, or maintaining some continuity with its practices, the president has begun to come down on the side of taking fewer risks with security, even though he is clearly angering the liberal elements of his political base.
...
But the bottom line is that Mr. Obama’s course corrections have real-life consequences. Mr. Bush kept saying that he wanted to close Guantánamo Bay but could not find an effective replacement for it. So he never acted. Mr. Obama began with that action, and now discovers it is more difficult to accomplish than it seemed a few months ago.
...
“These issues are always more difficult in practice than they are in the environment of a campaign,” Samuel R. Berger, who served as President Bill Clinton’s national security adviser, said Friday. “In the end, what you have to remember is that President Obama is going to close Guantánamo and he is going to end torture. But I think everyone admits that doing so has proven to be more difficult than anyone anticipated.”

The reality is that the second 100 days of this presidency are bound to be filled with course corrections. Announcing departures from the Bush-era practices was, as one of Mr. Obama’s national security aides put it recently, “grabbing the low-hanging fruit.” Writing the rules for the next four years, or eight, requires lawyers, compromises and, inevitably, disappointments for those who discover that cleanly breaking with the past always sounds more appealing than living with the consequences.

Leading by second thought, and not by just any second thought. Barack Obama is leading by adopting George Bush's thoughts. When both Karl Rove and the New York Times notice the same thing, you can pretty much take it to the bank.

But on Guantanamo Bay, Obama's speech today suggests that he still appears to be stuck in moral grandstanding mode:

He defended his decision to eventually close the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, saying the prison has "set back the moral authority that is America's strongest currency in the world."

Would you stop with the superficial moral grandstanding already? Remember, the choice is to close Guantanamo Bay with a plan (the Bush option) or without a plan (the Obama option).

At least Obama is being a bit more gracious about his predecessor now that he is learning how hard it can be to deal with these issues:

After September 11, "faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions," Obama said.

"I believe that many of these decisions were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people. But I also believe that all too often, our government made decisions based on fear rather than foresight; that all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions."

Fine, but if that isn't an example of the pot calling the kettle black, I don't what is. Obama is a the one who made a hasty decision to close Guantanamo Bay on his second day in office, and he did so to fit ideological predispositions. But I believe that his decision was motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people, and I'm glad he recognizes that this is true of Bush as well. But he still has no plan, and that's remarkable to me:

Obama said his administration was in the process of studying each of the remaining Guantanamo detainees "to determine the appropriate policies for dealing with them."

"Nobody has ever escaped from one of our `supermax' prisons which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists," Obama said.

Obama disclosed that administration lawyers had approved 50 detainees at Guantanamo for transfer to other countries.

Even so, it was not clear how many countries were prepared to take them.

Obama used the speech as an effort to try to retake the initiative on the matter. He spoke a day after the Senate, at the behest of majority Democrats, followed the lead of the House and voted decisively to deny his request for $80 million to close the prison. Lawmakers said they would block the funds until he gave a more detailed accounting of what would happen to the detainees.

He sought to do that in his speech, but stopped short of offering a clear answer on the key question of what to do with detainees who won't be tried for war crimes but are likely to be held indefinitely.

He described this group as those "who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people."

"I want to be honest: this is the toughest issue we will face," Obama said.

He said that the his administration would "exhaust every avenue that we have" to prosecute detainees but there would still be some left "who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes" yet remain a threat.

Among these, he said, are prisoners who have expressed allegiance to Osama bin Laden "or otherwise made it clear they want to kill Americans."

The main concern is not that detainees will escape from supermax prisoners. Didn't Obama listen to the director of the FBI? Obama does not know which foreign countries will take the prisoners he wants to send abroad. He did not explain what to do with detainees who won't be tried for war crimes but are likely to be held indefinitely. He still has no plan. It makes no sense to take bold action first and then start thinking about the plan. You have to do things the other way around. I hope that, in time, Obama will come around to Bush's way of doing things on this issue, too (as he has with most other national security issues).

Emote Less; Think More

2009-05-18T08:24:00.000-07:00

The difference between a reasonable liberal and reasonable conservative is that a reasonable liberal leans a bit one way, whereas a reasonable conservative leans a bit the other way. By the time relatively minor policy differences bubble up to the superficial coverage provided by the mainstream media, they become greatly magnified and seem vastly more consequential than they really are. Setting aside a few hot button issues where compromise can be hard to find (e.g., abortion), the battle is fought between the 40 yard lines (as Charles Krauthammer once put it), not from one end-zone to the other. But that's not how it seems when people get politically hysterical, which they often do. Nowhere was this more apparent than when people were angrily accusing George Bush of "trampling on the Constitution" with his "imperial presidency."

If you really believed that the last election was about fundamental change -- as opposed to a fairly reasonable liberal moving the line a tad farther to the left -- then you should really take a tour through the many ways in which Obama is just like Bush. And when you do, you should think about what it means for your own proclivity to descend into spasms of anger and hysteria over George Bush's national security policies. There is a lesson in the stories summarized below, and the lesson is that no matter how smart you think you are, if you were beside yourself with anger as you watched George Bush trample on the Constitution over the last 8 years, then you are a relatively superficial thinker when it comes to politics. You don't think so? Then look at how Obama is behaving, and take it as an invitation to emote less and think more:

1. Rendition:

Obama preserves renditions as counter-terrorism tool

The role of the CIA's controversial prisoner-transfer program may expand, intelligence experts say.

By Greg Miller
February 1, 2009
...
Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.
...
The European Parliament condemned renditions as "an illegal instrument used by the United States." Prisoners swept up in the program have sued the CIA as well as a Boeing Co. subsidiary accused of working with the agency on dozens of rendition flights.

But the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.
...
The decision to preserve the program did not draw major protests, even among human rights groups. Leaders of such organizations attribute that to a sense that nations need certain tools to combat terrorism.

"Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place" for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "What I heard loud and clear from the president's order was that they want to design a system that doesn't result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured -- but that designing that system is going to take some time."

2. Indefinite detention:

MAY 14, 2009

Obama Considers Detaining Terror Suspects Indefinitely

By EVAN PEREZ

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is weighing plans to detain some terror suspects on U.S. soil -- indefinitely and without trial -- as part of a plan to retool military commission trials that were conducted for prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The proposal being floated with members of Congress is another indication of President Barack Obama's struggles to establish his counter-terrorism policies, balancing security concerns against attempts to alter Bush-administration practices he has harshly criticized.
...
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, at a hearing last month, hinted at the administration's deliberations, saying that there were "50 to 100 [detainees] probably in that ballpark who we cannot release and cannot trust, either in Article 3 [civilian] courts or military commissions."

3. Military tribunals:

Obama to Revamp Military Tribunals

Stance Is Reversal on Trials for Detainees

By Michael D. Shear and Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 16, 2009

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama offered himself as a clear alternative to Bush-era anti-terrorism policies. Governing has proven muddier.

Yesterday, President Obama announced that he will revamp, rather than reject, the system of military tribunals that President George W. Bush created to try terrorism suspects. Earlier in the week, Obama indicated that he will fight the release of photos depicting alleged abuse of detainees during Bush's tenure.

The reaction has been fierce. The American Civil Liberties Union accused the president of "stonewalling tactics and opaque policies" after the photo decision. And yesterday, the group threw Obama's words from the campaign back at him: "You can't put lipstick on a pig," it said of his efforts to revamp the commissions. Human rights groups vowed to fight Obama in court.
...
Yesterday's announcement was a unmistakable reversal for a man who, as a candidate, had promised to shelve the military commissions and called their use under Bush an "enormous failure."

4. Warrantless wiretapping:

MARCH 6, 2009, 10:37 P.M. ET

Obama Channels Cheney

Obama adopts Bush view on the powers of the presidency.

The Obama Administration this week released its predecessor's post-9/11 legal memoranda in the name of "transparency," producing another round of feel-good Bush criticism. Anyone interested in President Obama's actual executive-power policies, however, should look at his position on warrantless wiretapping. Dick Cheney must be smiling.
...
The Obama Justice Department has adopted a legal stance identical to, if not more aggressive than, the Bush version. It argues that the court-forced disclosure of the surveillance programs would cause "exceptional harm to national security" by exposing intelligence sources and methods. Last Friday the Ninth Circuit denied the latest emergency motion to dismiss, again kicking matters back to Judge Walker.

More on this topic from back in 2008, while Obama was still on the campaign trail:

Fri July 11, 2008

Obama's surveillance vote spurs blogging backlash

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama's vote for a federal surveillance law that he had previously opposed has sparked a backlash from his online advocates, who had energized his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
...
In October, Obama had vowed to help filibuster an update of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that gave telecommunication companies that had cooperated with President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program immunity from lawsuits.

After 9/11, Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop, without the mandated warrant from a federal court, on electronic communication involving terrorist suspects.

Critics said Bush's Terrorist Surveillance Program was a violation of civil liberties.

The Senate voted Wednesday on the bill updating FISA -- which had a provision to shield telecommunications companies that had cooperated in the surveillance. Obama joined the 68 other senators who voted to send the bill to the president's desk.
...
Bush signed the bill into law on Thursday, saying the bill "will help us meet our most solemn responsibility: to stop another attack."

5. Pakistan:

January 23, 2009

President Obama 'orders Pakistan drone attacks

Missiles fired from suspected US drones killed at least 15 people inside Pakistan today, the first such strikes since Barack Obama became president and a clear sign that the controversial military policy begun by George W Bush has not changed.
...
The operations were stepped up last year after frustration inside the Bush administration over a perceived failure by Islamabad to stem the flow of Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters from the tribal regions into Afghanistan.

6. Iraq:

Surge 'Suceeded Beyond Our Wildest Dreams,' Obama Now Says

Friday, September 05, 2008
By Susan Jones, Senior Editor

The troop surge in Iraq has “succeeded beyond our wildest dreams,” Sen. Barack Obama conceded in an interview with Bill O'Reilly that aired on the Fox News Channel Thursday night.

Obama not only opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, he also opposed the troop surge and predicted it would not work. Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, was a strong supporter of the troop surge.

Conservatives and Liberals Need Each Other

2009-05-13T08:39:00.000-07:00

I'm increasing struck by the idea that conservatives and liberals need each other. As I see it, you need some people who take patriotic pride in their country, but you also need them to be balanced by people who take personal pride in their willingness to criticize their own country and who focus on what their country could be (not what it is now). Unbalanced and unchecked, either one of those two attitudes could lead to an ugly state of affairs. If you tend to take pride in your country and see it as a force for good in the world (more so than any other country, as I do), this can be hard to accept. But I have come to accept it.

Conservatives and liberals also differ in the degree to which they are willing to update their thinking as times change. Conservatives tend to prefer things as they are; liberals tend to more readily embrace what they perceive to be updated thinking. Again, it's hard to accept that you need both kinds of people, but my feeling is that one without the other would lead to a mistake-ridden state of affairs. That is, whereas Republicans make the mistake of not changing when they should (e.g., they once favored the status quo for women even when thinking had evolved), Democrats make the mistake of changing when they shouldn't (e.g., when the opinion polls changed, they favored surrendering to al Qaeda in Iraq at the very height of sectarian violence, despite the God forsaken genocidal bloodbath that would have ensued). The reason why you need people who think in different ways is that those on the other side will always shine a bright spotlight on the mistakes that your side would rather ignore. If you think that we could do just fine without that corrective force, then you differ from me.

I tend not think like a Democrat these days, but I don't hold their changing views against them. Having said that, I think it is fair to say that, in recent years, the Democrats have behaved in particularly unimpressive fashion by maliciously attributing their shifting views to inappropriate and immoral behavior on the part of Republicans (instead of accepting responsibility for the fact that they had it wrong and have now changed their minds in light of new evidence). This is partly because, when Democrats shift with the wind, Republicans accuse them of flip-flopping. To me, that's not a malicious accusation; instead, it's just rough-and-tumble politics. What the Democrats do to avoid this accusation, by contrast, is unconscionable.

Back when it was politically inconvenient to do otherwise, many Democrats voted to give Bush the authority to go to war with Iraq. When the war encountered difficulties and public opinion shifted, they turned against the war. That's fine. That's just shifting with the wind, and that's what Democrats do (more so than Republicans anyway). Shifting with the wind is not objectionable. However, what was objectionable was the lengths to which many Democrats went to avoid the "flip-flopper" charge. Instead of simply accusing the Republicans of being too stubborn or too bone-headed to adjust to the changing reality on the ground in Iraq (which would have been the rough-and-tumble political response), they made up a story of having been intentionally misled about pre-war intelligence. Then they went further and claimed that Bush misled not just them but the entire country in order to start a war (so that Halliburton could make money from no-bid contracts or some such thing). Because most people in America don't pay attention to the details, this malicious lie caught on and became politically advantageous to the Democrats. Politically advantageous or not, it was an unconscionable thing to do.

Anyone who pays attention to the details knows that the malicious accusation made by the Democrats about Bush is untrue. Before the war, the Democrats had the same intelligence information about Iraq's WMDs and ties to terrorists that Bush did, and they interpreted that information in the exact same way. In case you have forgotten, here is John Edwards -- Democratic vice-presidential candidate and former member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence -- telling it the way it really was (he stopped talking like this when political expediency became more important than the obvious truth of the matter):

I mean, we have three different countries that, while they all present serious problems for the United States -- they're dictatorships, they're involved in the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction -- you know, the most imminent, clear and present threat to our country is not the same from those three countries. I think Iraq is the most serious and imminent threat to our country.
...
And they do, in my judgment, present different threats. And I think Iraq and Saddam Hussein present the most serious and most imminent threat.

Edwards called Iraq an imminent threat (Bush never did, but that's another story). In another interview, Edwards was specifically asked whether or not he was misled by Bush:

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about-Since you did support the resolution and you did support that ultimate solution to go into combat and to take over that government and occupy that country. Do you think that you, as a United States Senator, got the straight story from the Bush administration on this war? On the need for the war? Did you get the straight story?

EDWARDS: Well, the first thing I should say is I take responsibility for my vote. Period. And I did what I did based upon a belief, Chris, that Saddam Hussein’s potential for getting nuclear capability was what created the threat. That was always the focus of my concern. Still is the focus of my concern.

So did I get misled? No. I didn’t get misled.

Of course he did not get misled, and the Democrats in Washington know this very well, but it doesn't matter (to them). The Democrats wanted political cover for their shifting positions on the war, but instead of simply accusing the Republicans of being too set in their old-fashioned, bone-headed ways to update their thinking based on new evidence, they pushed their "Bush lied!" story (e.g., John Kerry said: "I will not have my commitment to defending this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they had a chance and I will not have it questioned by those who misled this nation into war in Iraq"). They should have simply admitted that they once accepted the idea that an invasion of Iraq might be necessary but later changed their views about that. That would have been the honorable thing to do, but many Democrats chose a dishonorable path instead.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence conducted the most detailed inquiry into intelligence on pre-war Iraq. It was a bipartisan effort, and it was unanimously endorsed. You will not find a more authoritative document on the subject anywhere, and it contains a truth that is vastly more interesting that the "Bush lied!" nonsense. Here is the truth, in a nutshell:

The Intelligence Community (IC) suffered from a collective presumption that Iraq had an active and growing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program. This "group think" dynamic led Intelligence Community analysts, collectors and managers to both interpret ambiguous evidence as conclusively indicative of a WMD program as well as ignore or minimize evidence that Iraq did not have active and expanding weapons of mass destruction programs. This presumption was so strong that formalized IC mechanisms established to challenge assumptions and group think were not utilized.
...
The roots of the IC's bias stretch back to Iraq's pre-1991 efforts to build WMD and its efforts to hide those programs. The fact that Iraq had repeatedly lied about its pre-1991 WMD programs, its continued deceptive behavior, and its failure to fully cooperate with UN inspectors left the IC with a predisposition to believe the Iraqis were continuing to lie about their WMD efforts. This was compounded by the fact that Iraq's pre-1991 progress on its nuclear weapons program had surprised the 1C. The role this knowledge played in analysts' thinking is evident in the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate's (NIE) introduction which said, "revelations after the Gulf War starkly demonstrate the extensive efforts undertaken by Iraq to deny information. The revelations also underscore the extent to which limited information fostered underestimates by the Intelligence Community of Saddam's capabilities at that time." This bias was likely further reinforced by the IC's failure to detect the September 11th terrorist plot and the criticism that the Community had not done all it could to "connect the dots."
...
The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.
...
The Committee found that none of the analysts or other people interviewed by the Committee said that they were pressured to change their conclusions related to Iraq's links to terrorism. After 9/11, however, analysts were under tremendous pressure to make correct assessments, to avoid missing a credible threat, and to avoid an intelligence failure on the scale of 9/11. As a result, the Intelligence Community's assessments were bold and assertive in pointing out potential terrorist links.

Get the picture? Intelligence analysts were on guard to avoid missing threats of the kind they had missed in the past. When you are on guard to avoid missing a real threat, you'll have a tendency to mistakenly detect a threat that is not real. Generally speaking, when you guard against making one kind of mistake, you'll tend to make the opposite mistake. That's the interesting truth of the matter. Pretending instead that Bush lied is for small minds that prefer uninteresting an un-nuanced fantasy to an interesting and nuanced reality.

Today, we see the same dynamic on the issue of harsh interrogations. In the aftermath of 9/11, Democrats and Republicans alike were informed about the harsh interrogation techniques that were to be used (and that were being used). As I am sure you know, Nancy Pelosi heard all about these techniques and did not protest. Now that the political winds have shifted as a result of 8 years of safety, the Democrats are pretending to be shocked that the Bush administration condoned "torture." If you really believe that Pelosi was in the dark, read this story (and this one, too, not to mention this one). In essence, it's the same tactic that the Democrats used with respect to the war in Iraq. They were OK with waterboarding in a time of crisis (and it doesn't make Pelosi evil), but now that the winds have shifted, they've shifted, too. It is not the shifting with the political winds that is the problem; it's the malicious pretense that the Republicans misled everyone that is the problem.

Despite my complaints, I truly believe that we need a party that changes with the times (or shifts with the wind, if you want to put it that way). That the Democrats are that way (more so than the Republicans) does not seem arguable to me. In fact, that attitude extends all the way to the Democratic philosophy on how Supreme Court justices should rule. Unlike what the Republicans think, Democrats believe that the justices should shift with prevailing views (instead of being overly constrained by the Constitution). That's why, for example, the Democrats like the idea of our Supreme Court justices factoring into their decisions what European judges think about issues like the death penalty and Geneva Convention rights for terrorists. Generally speaking, Democrats embrace the concept of a living constitution:

The Living Constitution is a concept in American constitutional interpretation which suggests that the Constitution should be seen as continually evolving with the society that implements it. The idea is associated with views that societal progress should be taken into account when interpreting key constitutional phrases.[1]

While the arguments for the Living Constitution vary, they can generally be broken into two categories. First, the pragmatist view contends that interpreting the Constitution in accordance with long outdated views is often unacceptable as a policy matter, and thus that an evolving interpretation is necessary. The second, relating to intent, contends that the constitutional framers specifically wrote the Constitution in broad and flexible terms to create such a dynamic, "living" document. Opponents of the idea often argue that the Constitution should be changed through the amendment process, and that the theory can be used by judges to inject their personal values into constitutional interpretation.

A prominent endorsement of the Living Constitution concept was heard in the 2000 presidential campaign by the Democratic candidate, Al Gore. One of its most vocal critics is Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

To me, the "living constitution" is not a completely crazy notion even though it does not seem as intellectually defensible as the conservative view. The conservative view is that legal decisions about what is constitutional is dictated by what is in the Constitution and that if the Constitution needs to change with the times, you change it by the amendment process (not by taking guidance from how European judges think, for example). But, if you are liberal, you might think that the provisions for changing the constitution are too strict -- so strict, in fact, that the rights of minorities could be trampled for generations following the realization that an injustice needs to be corrected.

Democrats shift with the wind, and that's a good thing, not a bad thing. We need some Supreme Court justices to be that way, and we need others who stand on the time-invariant principle that decisions about what is and is not constitutional is dictated by what is and is not in the Constitution. After all, as sensible as it might seem that decisions about what is constitutional should be based on what is written in the constitution, many Americans disagree:

While 82% of voters who support McCain believe the justices should rule on what is in the Constitution, just 29% of Barack Obama’s supporters agree. Just 11% of McCain supporters say judges should rule based on the judge’s sense of fairness, while nearly half (49%) of Obama supporters agree.

We can't just ignore that strong current of thinking in America. This is why I am actually happy that Obama will be naming Supreme Court justices in the years to come. Souter's retirement caught me by surprise. He is a liberal, and the next two to go are also likely to be far left liberals (Ginsberg, who is 75 and has pancreatic cancer, and Stevens, who must be almost 90). The Supreme Court is fairly balanced now, and I would not want 3 Scalia's replacing these three liberals even though I tend to agree with the crisp and compelling logic of the conservative justices (whereas the reasoning of liberals often seems tortured -- precisely because such reasoning attempts to justify on constitutional grounds what is not really in the constitution).

It's not an easy thing to do (in fact, it is downright unnatural), but liberals and conservatives should work harder than they do now to accept the proposition that they are better off with each other than without.

Can Reasonable People Disagree with You about Gay Marriage?

2009-05-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

I guess everything that needs to be said about this has been said already, but I'd just like to add my voice to those who are puzzled by the flap over Miss California's response to a judge's question in the Miss USA pageant. Basically, if you haven't heard, some gay celebrity asked Carrie Prejean about same-sex marriage, and she responded by saying that she believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman. That's it. That's the "controversy."

I do not oppose gay marriage, and I recently voted against a proposition that sought to ban gay marriage in California. I don't oppose it even though I do not resonate to the arguments favored by many on the left, who see it as an issue of "equality" or "civil rights." I don't see it that way at all, and in that respect, I am like a lot of blacks:

In a recent poll, 65 percent of blacks opposed same-sex marriage, although other surveys have shown strong support for laws banning discrimination against gays. What offends most black people is the comparison between the gay-marriage struggle and the black struggle for civil rights.

Like many blacks, I also do not equate these two struggles, but I can see how others might (i.e., I can see how reasonable people would see things differently than I do). Perhaps it is because I do not frame the issue in the way that social progressives do that I am having trouble understanding why the comments made by Carrie Prejean are even slightly controversial, much less hugely controversial. Maybe I have something wrong in my line of thinking about this issue, and if I do, I hope someone can straighten me out. Here is my line of reasoning:

1. a judge (not Carrie Prejean) came up with the question

2. Prejean answered the question honestly (not dishonestly)

3. She gave an answer that corresponds to the views of the majority of people in her home state, to the majority of Americans, and to the majority of blacks. It is also the view held by President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden (and Hillary Clinton, I believe). John McCain holds that view as well.

All that said, I don't see anything even slightly controversial here. A view that is that widely held cannot be regarded as inherently controversial. If a reporter wants to characterize it as a controversy, shouldn't an explanation be provided for those of us who don't have the liberal reflexes of the mainstream media? I guess not. In response to Prejean's answer, the media has relentlessly portrayed this as a controversy without ever saying why it is a controversy. Now, CNN is excitedly abetting a malicious attempt by some unprincipled purveyors of a web site to attract traffic by "slowly rolling out" racy photos of Prejean. That seems pathetic to me. I realize that to most reporters (most of whom hail from the left), her views on gay marriage are not just wrong but are downright illegitimate (that how it seems to people on the left), but that doesn't mean they should try to delegitimize someone with whom they disagree. Unfortunately, that's what they are doing, and I am guessing that many on the left who favor gay marriage (and who have a strong tendency to demonize their political opponents) are enjoying the spectacle.

In any case, the CNN story has this line:

The 21-year-old Miss USA contestant has been the center of controversy since she declared her opposition to same-sex marriage in a response to a question on the national pageant stage last month.

But what is the controversy, exactly? That's my question. Can anyone help me out here? Perhaps Prejean planted the question in order grandstand about her views on gay marriage. If so, then I'd understand. Or perhaps people believe that, when surprised by the question, Prejean should have lied through her teeth instead of being honest. Is that why this is controversial? I just don't know.

Unless I have my facts wrong (e.g., unless she planted the question), then CNN should have said this:

The 21-year-old Miss USA contestant has been the center of a mainstream media firestorm since she declared her opposition to same-sex marriage in a response to a question on the national pageant stage last month. Unlike most Americans and unlike the president of the United States, reporters generally consider her view to be as illegitimate as the long-discredited view that blacks do not deserve the same rights as whites.

That's what lies at the root of this "controversy," so far as I can tell.

Can Reasonable People Disagree with You about what Constitutes Torture?

2009-05-03T07:32:00.000-07:00

With regard to interrogation techniques, all reasonable people agree that polite questioning is not torture, whereas gouging out an eye is. If you consider waterboarding (of the kind practiced by the CIA) to be torture, do you also believe that it is so transparently obvious that it belongs in that category (much like gouging out an eye) that reasonable people cannot disagree about it? If so, I can see why you'd want Bush and Cheney (and others) to be prosecuted for authorizing that method of interrogation. But it's creepy to think that people like you exist.

Let's change the topic to abortion. All reasonable people agree that a contraception method that prevents an egg from being fertilized does not amount to murder, whereas suffocating a full-term infant who was born just moments ago does. If you consider abortion to be murder (which is a reasonable position if you believe that human life begins at conception), do you also believe that it is so transparently obvious that it belongs in that category (much like suffocating a newborn baby) that reasonable people cannot disagree about it? If so, I can see why you'd want abortion doctors to be prosecuted for performing even early term abortions. But, again, it's creepy to think that people like you exist.

On the tough questions, reasonable people can disagree. That's precisely what makes them tough questions, and that's an idea that seems lost on the progressive liberal mob seeking to criminalize the actions of government officials with whom they disagree. This idea also seems lost on Barack Obama who does not just disagree with George Bush about where to draw the line when it comes to the interrogation of a few high-level al Qaeda detainees in a time of crisis; in addition, he accuses Bush and others of having "lost their moral bearings." Can you imagine Bush ever characterizing his liberal opponents of, for example, having lost sight of their moral duty to protect the American people? Of having lost their moral bearings because they support embryonic stem cell research? I can't, and in that respect George Bush was vastly more impressive than Barack Obama is today. Bush understood that people who disagree with him are not necessarily morally corrupted even if he also believes that their preferred policies will make America less safe (leading to the unnecessary deaths of many innocents) or that they result directly in the destruction of innocent human life (in the case of embryonic stem cell research). Barack Obama should consider elevating himself to that level.

It's not entirely clear where to draw the line defining when harsh interrogation becomes torture, just as it is not entirely clear where to draw the line defining when an embryo (or a fetus) becomes a human life. With regard to the former, I'd say that torture begins with interrogation techniques that are harsher than waterboarding. With regard to the latter, I'd say that murder begins with abortions performed after the onset of some criterion level of brain activity (not at conception). On both questions, my mind is sufficiently flexible to appreciate that reasonable people can disagree with me, and I never feel any desire to see my political opponents prosecuted for the crime of not seeing things my way. I'd like to think that I wouldn't experience prosecutorial fury even if a president's well-meaning stance against "torture" resulted directly in another tragedy like the one we experienced on 9/11.

If you believe that (a) waterboarding is torture (a defensible position that nevertheless seems quite wrong to me), (b) that reasonable people cannot disagree about this (i.e., that the correctness of your position is so transparently obvious that the details need not even be debated), and (c) that those responsible for the harsh interrogation tactics used by the CIA against 3 high-level al Qaeda detainees in the aftermath of 9/11 should be prosecuted, then I submit that your position is as intellectually primitive and as mentally inflexible as those who want to prosecute doctors for performing abortions. That's not where you want to be, but that's where you are.

UPDATE: Sensible lefty Kevin Drum weighs in on torture in the way that many on the left are doing these days:

I don't care about the Geneva Conventions or U.S. law. I don't care about the difference between torture and "harsh treatment." I don't care about the difference between uniformed combatants and terrorists. I don't care whether it "works." I oppose torture regardless of the current state of the law; I oppose even moderate abuse of helpless detainees; I oppose abuse of criminal suspects and religious heretics as much as I oppose it during wartime; and I oppose it even if it produces useful information.

Got it. I agree. Most people do, so the impassioned stance seems unnecessary. Nobody is talking about gouging out eyes or burning skin to get detainees to talk. Everybody is passionately opposed to using such methods (even on a few high-level al Qaeda detainees during a time of crisis and uncertainty).

But the relevant question is this: can reasonable people disagree about what constitutes torture? The question is not "should we torture detainees?" Drum (like many others) addresses the second question. No one in the Bush administration ever argued that detainees should be tortured. Instead, they argued that, in a time of crisis, harsh interrogation techniques that fall short of torture should be used on a limited number of high-level al Qaeda detainees to protect the American people from another attack like 9/11. The fact that you (or Drum) thinks that the approved techniques amount to torture does not mean that Bush agrees with that characterization or that he authorized anyone to use torture. He did not. Instead, he disagrees that the techniques amount to torture. That's why no bones were broken, no skin was burned and no eyes were gouged out. Torture was disallowed; harsh interrogation was not.

It seems to me that implicit in Drum's moral argument is the claim that no reasonable person could disagree with him about whether or not waterboarding (for example) constitutes torture -- much like no reasonable person could disagree that gouging out an eye is torture. Is that what Drum really believes? Is that what everyone on the left believes? If so, it would be helpful for them to say so explicitly. That is, not only do they believe that waterboarding is torture but they also believe (apparently) that no reasonable person could possibly disagree. As things stand, I think that's what Drum is saying, but it would be clarifying to know that I have that right.

[a further note: I somehow initially missed the following statement in the passage I quoted from Drum: I don't care about the difference between torture and "harsh treatment." But how can you not care about that distinction and then say that you are opposed to torture? Are you also opposed to harsh treatment even though you don't care about the distinction? Does the distinction not exist (as if yelling in one's ear is also torture)? I believe that is what Drum is saying. That is, there is no distinction, it's all torture, and no reasonable person could disagree. I wonder if I have that right?]

Our Occasionally Ungracious President

2009-04-30T06:34:00.000-07:00

In a speech to the National Academy of Sciences the other day, Barack Obama said a lot of things that we in the science business really appreciated. It was a great speech, and the man's view of science is worthy of praise. For me, though, his speech was badly tainted by a few words that the audience apparently liked a lot:

Next, we are restoring science to its rightful place. On March 9th, I signed an executive memorandum with a clear message: Under my administration, the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over. (Applause.) Our progress as a nation -- and our values as a nation -- are rooted in free and open inquiry. To undermine scientific integrity is to undermine our democracy. It is contrary to our way of life. (Applause.)

Accusing Bush of placing ideology ahead of science is beneath the dignity of the office of the President. It is entirely unnecessary, and it suggests to me that Obama is, to some degree at least, a petty partisan. Even if he believes that Bush is the one who put ideology ahead of science (and that those who claim that we are at a "tipping point" in the fight against global warming are not the ones doing that), there is no need to say so now. Only someone who is momentarily in the grips of petty partisanship would do that.

Perhaps Obama has already received a lot of flak for making this comment. If not, I'd like to use my lowly blog to register an objection to this unnecessarily partisan (and ungracious) statement that I regard as conduct unbecoming the office of the President.

Can you imagine George Bush ever saying such a thing about his political opponents? Didn't he always acknowledge that the issues he was dealing with were difficult and that reasonable people could disagree with him? Did he ever say that politically motivated scientists were perverting their profession by misuing science to push a radical environmentalist agenda? On any topic, did he ever insult his political opponents?

Perhaps he did, but I cannot remember an example. If you can, will you please cite one? My criticism of Obama in this regard has nothing to do with his position on science (which I really like). I'm with the Democrats, not the Republicans, on this one. But I would never lower myself to New-York-Times-like superficiality by refusing to acknowledge that reasonable people could disagree with me about the morality embryonic stem cell research and about the ability of climate scientists to accurately predict the future 100 years from now (and so on). Although I, a mere citizen, would not do that, Obama -- our President -- reduced himself to that level. If George Bush ever did, I'd criticize him for doing so as well. But all I can recall are statements from him acknowledging that people of good faith strongly disagree with him about the liberation of Iraq (and about whether or not we should allow embryonic stem cell research). I wonder if my memory is selective? Perhaps Bush also diminished the office of the President by insulting his political opponents even before his first 100 days were out. If so, I'd like to know. If you hate Bush, I expect you'll respond by citing other things that Bush did that you regard as far worse offenses than taking cheap political shots. But I wonder if I can keep you on topic for just a moment and have you quote Bush questioning the integrity of those with whom he disagrees. He may have done so even though I can remember no such thing. If he did, he certainly deserves to be criticized for it as well.

It's Not Torture, and it Does Work

2009-04-28T06:38:00.000-07:00

There are two main issues in the debate over harsh interrogations, and my perception is that many on the left do not understand them. The first, which several of my recent posts have emphasized, is that the debate is not about whether or not to torture high-level al Qaeda detainees. Many otherwise very intelligent lefties miss this key point when they blithely assert that, in the aftermath of 9/11, the U.S. government decided that torture was an acceptable interrogation method. In truth, the Bush administration always disallowed torture. What they did instead was to adopt harsher interrogation techniques than had been used in the past that fell short of torture. Most on the left believe that these methods crossed the line into torture (as if waterboarding and gouging out eyes are basically one and the same), but because it appears that way to them does not make it so. That's why it is wrong to say that the U.S. government decided to condone torture. In truth, the disagreement is about where to draw the line, not whether or not to torture. Everyone already agrees that we should not torture detainees. What we disagree about is what interrogation techniques amount to torture. Everyone agrees that gouging out eyes is torture. The disagreement comes in when we start talking about vastly gentler techniques, such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation. There is a real debate to be had about that, but many on the left will have none of it.

The second dimension of this debate is about whether harsh interrogation (or "torture," if you must call it that) works to elicit useful information. If you are inclined to label the harsh interrogation methods approved by the Bush administration as torture, then I don't even have to ask whether or not you believe that torture is effective. Instead, I can already say with a fairly high degree of certainty that you believe that torture is not effective (e.g., that it merely leads to false confessions, not the truth). My own semi-psychoanalytic interpretation of this state of affairs is that you willingly adopt that point of view (backed up by nothing more than a few choice quotes from John McCain and a couple of other former intelligence agents) because it simultaneously quiets your mind and allows you demonize your intellectual opponents. It quiets your mind because it allows you to believe that your point of view is the one that adheres to the principle of doing no harm to humans (something everyone aspires to). If harsh interrogation methods "worked," you'd suddenly be denied this comfortable mind set because, all of a sudden, your principled stance against waterboarding high-level terrorists could directly result in the gruesome deaths of thousands of innocent American lives. That's not a very comfortable way to think. Indeed, if harsh interrogation worked, one could not climb so very high up on that moral high horse. Instead, one would have to actually accept the possibility that this is a tough issue (and that reasonable people can disagree about it). But that would require a degree of mental flexibility that many on the left do not have, and it would also deny them the glorious opportunity to demonize their intellectual opponents. After all, who but a monster could favor "torturing" detainees if it doesn't work anyway? Frank Rich of the New York Times is the lefty "go to guy" when it comes to demonizing those with whom he disagrees:

The Banality of Bush White House Evil

On Tuesday, it will be five years since Americans first confronted the photographs from Abu Ghraib on “60 Minutes II.” Here, too, we want to cling to myths that quarantine the evil. If our country committed torture, surely it did so to prevent Armageddon, in a patriotic ticking-time-bomb scenario out of “24.” If anyone deserves blame, it was only those identified by President Bush as “a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values”: promiscuous, sinister-looking lowlifes like Lynddie England, Charles Graner and the other grunts who were held accountable while the top command got a pass.

We’ve learned much, much more about America and torture in the past five years. But as Mark Danner recently wrote in The New York Review of Books, for all the revelations, one essential fact remains unchanged: “By no later than the summer of 2004, the American people had before them the basic narrative of how the elected and appointed officials of their government decided to torture prisoners and how they went about it.” When the Obama administration said it declassified four new torture memos 10 days ago in part because their contents were already largely public, it was right.

Yet we still shrink from the hardest truths and the bigger picture: that torture was a premeditated policy approved at our government’s highest levels; that it was carried out in scenarios that had no resemblance to “24”; that psychologists and physicians were enlisted as collaborators in inflicting pain; and that, in the assessment of reliable sources like the F.B.I. director Robert Mueller, it did not help disrupt any terrorist attacks.

The newly released Justice Department memos, like those before them, were not written by barely schooled misfits like England and Graner. John Yoo, Steven Bradbury and Jay Bybee graduated from the likes of Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Michigan and Brigham Young.
...
Still, it’s not Bybee’s perverted lawyering and pornographic amorality that make his memo worthy of special attention. It merits a closer look because it actually does add something new — and, even after all we’ve heard, something shocking — to the five-year-old torture narrative. When placed in full context, it’s the kind of smoking gun that might free us from the myths and denial that prevent us from reckoning with this ugly chapter in our history.

Note both liberal tricks at work here. First, the interrogation techniques are labeled "torture" (and the recently released memos are called the "torture memos"), as if the debate about what constitutes torture simply does not exist. Second, Rich asserts that torture does not work, from which it naturally follows that the Bush White House is "evil" and Baybee's position is "perverted" and amounts to "pornographic amorality."

What is alarming to me is that otherwise very intelligent people can fall into this superficial way of thinking without even realizing that have applied none of their analytical abilities to the issue. If you ever find yourself demonizing your political opponent (e.g., if you think Barack Obama wants to ruin America in a left wing power grab), then it's a sure sign that you are taking the easy way out.

Finally, I must say that, if you are like many on the left, you simply cannot be convinced that harsh interrogations (what you call "torture") works. That is, your mind is closed, and you are impervious to evidence. The reason you can't be convinced is that you will almost certainly take an interesting escape route from having to grapple with the uncomfortable possibility that it does work (for semi-psychoanalytic reasons explained above). In this regard, the Washington Post has an unusually balanced report on the effectiveness of harsh interrogation. It is balanced in that it uses the phrase "harsh interrogation" instead of "torture" in the headline, which is itself a somewhat surprising acknowledgement that the real debate is over the question of how harsh interrogation techniques should be. It is also balanced in that it acknowledges that critical information was elicited from high-level al Qaeda detainees when they were exposed to harsh interrogation. However, it also basically argues (and this is the escape that any liberal can always take) that we can't really know for sure that we actually needed to use the harsh methods. Perhaps had we given the traditional methods a bit more time, they would have worked just as well. In other words, until we (in effect) conduct a randomized Phase III clinical trial in which half the high-level detains are assigned to the harsh interrogation group and the other half are exposed to the traditional interrogation group, we can't know with certainty that the harsh interrogation worked:

Effectiveness of harsh questioning is unclear

Top U.S. detainee likely to have faced few traditional tactics

During his first days in detention, senior al-Qaeda operative Khalid Sheik Mohammed was stripped of his clothes, beaten, given a forced enema and shackled with his arms chained above his head, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. It was then, a Red Cross report says, that his American captors told him to prepare for "a hard time."

Over the next 25 days, beginning on March 6, 2003, Mohammed was put through a routine in which he was deprived of sleep, doused with cold water and had his head repeatedly slammed into a plywood wall, according to the report. The interrogation also included days of extensive waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning.

Sometime during those early weeks, Mohammed started talking, providing information that supporters of harsh interrogations would later cite in defending the practices.
...
But whether harsh tactics were decisive in Mohammed's interrogation may never be conclusively known, in large part because the CIA appears not to have tried traditional tactics for much time, if at all.

And there you have it. You can continue to believe that torture does not work because you have placed an unattainable burden of proof on those who would claim that it has worked (as those reporters for the Washington Post essentially claim). It's a good trick, but it is not a serious attitude. In fact, it is as unserious as just labeling the CIA's harsh interrogation methods as amounting to torture without thinking through the issue at all. Unfortunately, we now have a superficial mob mentality characterizing the issue, and the mob is in charge. And I fear that the fevered mind of the mob will not be calmed until someone is prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

Be Brave (and Be Serious): Draw the Torture Line

2009-04-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

As I watch the renewed debate about torture unfold, I get the strong feeling that most people do not understand what the real issue is. This is particularly true of those on the political left, many of whom seem to feel that the way to go about understanding this issue is as follows:

1. Listen to a description of an interrogation technique (e.g., waterboarding) or look at a picture of an interrogation method

2. if what you see or what you hear shocks your conscience, denounce the method as amounting to torture

3. once you decide that torture has occurred, demand that those responsible for the use of such interrogation techniques be brought to justice and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law

A much more intelligent way to approach the issue is to first consider the fact that methods of interrogation cover the full range of harshness. That being the case, step 1 is to establish the endpoints of the scale. To make this easier to understand, I made an illustration:

On this harshness scale, I have set "questioning the detainee" to 0. That means that this method is the least harsh of all of the methods of interrogation that we might consider. On the other end of the harshness scale, I have set "severing limbs" to 100. That means that this method of interrogation is among the harshest that one could contemplate (and it comes from the al Qaeda torture manual). In between, I have set waterboarding to 50. You might want to put it at 80 or 20, but the point is just that it is far more harsh than simply questioning the detainee and far less harsh than severing the detainee's limbs (so it goes somewhere in between those two methods). No reasonable person could argue that point.

Now that we have the interrogation techniques arrayed on the harshness scale, a question arises, and, in this debate, it is the only question: where do we draw the line? A liberal draws the line well short of waterboarding, as in the illustration above. By contrast, a conservative sees it this way:

That is, to a conservative, waterboarding is not so harsh as to be labeled "torture." Many liberals now want to criminalize drawing the line at a higher point on the scale than seems appropriate to them 8 years after al Qaeda last attacked America. To me, that reflects a fairly primitive mind set. Demanding that the line be set lower than it was during the Bush administration is one thing (and it is an honorable thing to do, even though I do not agree with it); demanding that political opponents be thrown in jail because, in the wake of an unprecedented attack, they drew the line at a higher point than a liberal would today draw it today seems downright creepy. But that seems to be where we are heading.

Now here is one more key point: in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when fear of another attack was running very high and knowledge of enemy capability was running very low, liberals had their line drawn at a higher point on the scale than they do today. However, after 8 years of no further attacks, their line has dropped back down. Safety has a way of doing that. The conservative line has probably moved in the same direction since 9/11, such that some conservatives would now be willing to characterize waterboarding as torture. Again, I don't think any reasonable person could dispute the fact that the "torture" line has shifted to a lower point on the harshness scale after years of feeling safe. For example, does anyone really believe that when Democratic leaders in the House and Senate were briefed on harsh interrogation methods that they stood up in principled opposition and asserted that anyone who authorized such techniques should go to jail? Of course not. At the time, they were just as scared as the rest of us, and they were willing to go along with harsher methods of interrogations to keep Americans safe. With that in mind, it is doubly creepy that Democrats are now not only calling for softer methods of interrogation but are also calling for their political opponents to be jailed (as if no reasonable, law-abiding person, even in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, could condone an interrogation technique as harsh as waterboarding).

Defining "torture"

2009-04-24T07:29:00.000-07:00

In the context of today's renewed debate over torture and waterboarding, I thought I'd again share my thoughts on what I consider to be the critical issue. Many people would say that the critical issue is this: should we torture detained terrorists or not? Many people also believe that the Bush administration decided that we should, indeed, torture detainees, and that the primary method of torture was waterboarding. Many further believe that torture doesn't work. If not, why use it? It follows that Bush, who favors torture, is either a fool or a devil.

If that's how you think, then I think you need thinking lessons. You might have the same opinion about me, and you may conclude that I, too, am a hopelessly misguided fool (at best) or a sadist (at worst). But if you read the rest of this post (which is a slightly edited version of a prior post on this subject), you may come to believe that people can disagree with you on this issue without being either misguided or evil. Odds are that you can't do that because it would also mean allowing for the possibility that George Bush is neither misguided or evil. For a lot of people, that's really hard to do, but why not give it a try?

I think it was Wittgenstein who once said that language can bewitch the intelligence, and it is certainly that way with respect to the language of torture. Words do not have meanings in and of themselves. Instead, they have meaning to the extent that we agree on the word's referent. Everyone pretty much agrees on what the word "table" refers to, but if we went out for a picnic and placed our food on a flat rock, it would be quite silly to spend all day arguing over whether or not that rock really constitutes a table. Words do not bring meaning to objects or activities. Instead, objects or activities bring meaning to words. To the extent that we agree to use the word "table" to refer to a man-made flat surface elevated a few feet off the ground, the word is useful. Its meaning derives from that agreement -- and nothing else. If we don't agree that a flat rock is actually a table, then the word "table" loses its utility in the picnic situation. If the large majority of people at the picnic do not agree that the flat rock is a table, then you can't say "please put this basket on that table over there" because the person might respond by saying "there is no table over there, just rocks."

With that in mind, let's consider the use of the word "torture." The word obviously has meaning and is useful for purposes of communication because everyone agrees that techniques such as those described in the al Qaeda interrogation guidebook constitute torture. Here are a few examples:

Whether you are a liberal champion of social justice or a war-mongering, profiteering conservative, you undoubtedly agree that the word "torture" applies here. Thus, in a conversation, instead of detailing out the exact methods used by al Qaeda to extract information from their detainees, we can, with greater efficiency, use a verbal shorthand and simply say that they torture prisoners to get information from them.

What about waterboarding? Arguing about whether or not that interrogation method constitutes torture is like arguing about whether or not a flat rock is a table. The problem is that there are good arguments as to why this technique should not be lumped in with the methods described in al Qaeda's interrogation manual and some good arguments (I guess) as to why it should be. But just as a flat rock does not magically become a table if we force others to suppress their opposition to using the word in that fashion, waterboarding does not magically become torture if we shame everyone into remaining silent about their objections to using the word "torture" for that method of interrogation.

Words do not derive their meaning because some higher power dictates what the word will refer to. That's not how language works. Words acquire meaning through a natural process of consensus-building that no one controls. I can google the word "torture" because someone once used the word "google" as a verb and then it caught on. Everyone now agrees that "to google" means to conduct a search on the internet using the google search engine. If that consensus had not emerged on its own, no government mandate would have made it happen.

The meanings of words have fuzzy boundaries. At the boundaries, it really isn't profitable to argue endlessly over whether or not the word truly applies. It kind of does, and it kind of doesn't. Obviously, waterboarding is qualitatively different from the techniques that al Qaeda likes to use (which everyone agrees is torture). Just as obviously, waterboarding causes causes much more discomfort than polite questioning (which everyone agrees is not torture).

In cases like this, and there are many, there is no right answer. Even so, as a legal matter, the line needs to be drawn. Drawing the legal line is the job of our elected representatives. That's why I consider George Bush to be a serious participant in this debate and consider most Democrats to be nonserious hysterics. From the beginning, George Bush has been clear that he supports the use of harsh interrogation techniques like this, that he does not consider these techniques to be torture, that he understands how others could disagree, and that he wants congress to clearly draw the line so that CIA interrogators would know what techniques they could use without placing themselves in legal jeopardy. Until now, however, Democrats were much more interested in pointing the accusing finger at Bush and portraying him as supporting "torture." They wanted to apply the word "torture" to waterboarding so they could then accuse Bush of being "no better than the terrorists." That political game works (i.e., in a time of war, the Democrats succeeded in their effort to tarnish their own president in the eyes of the nation and the world), but it is not a serious approach to the problem. Obviously, drawing the line at waterboarding is infinitely better than drawing the line at "severing limbs."

What would a more serious approach involve? It would involve defining the harshest interrogation techniques that the CIA is permitted to use. That is, it would involve drawing a different line than the line that was drawn during the Bush administration. We already have the memos that clearly describe where the CIA drew the line during the Bush years. The line was drawn to allow harsh interrogation techniques that fell light years short of al Qaeda's torture methods, but many think they were still too harsh (and they jump at the chance to label those techniques "torture," as if they should be in the same category as applying a hot iron to a detainee's skin).

Wouldn't you love to see the new memos detailing what the CIA can and cannot do in the aftermath of a mass-casualty attack on US soil (when fear is running high that another -- perhaps even worse -- mass casualty attack is right around the corner)? That memo (the one that guides CIA interrogators today, I suppose) would allow us to have the debate that we should have: where do you draw the line? But Democrats will never take that step because, the moment they do, they will be accused of condoning torture by the far left elements of their own party. And accusing others -- Republicans in particular -- of condoning torture is an essential part of the liberal experience (which, as a said before, requires a villain).

The Share of Federal Taxes Paid by the Rich and Poor

2009-04-22T07:19:00.000-07:00

I'm too swamped to blog lately, but I did want to get these links down so that I can think through the issue in more detail later. Ari Fleischer weighed in with this provocative piece last week:

Everyone Should Pay Income Taxes

It's bad for our democracy to exempt half the country.
...
A very small number of taxpayers -- the 10% of the country that makes more than $92,400 a year -- pay 72.4% of the nation's income taxes.
...
As a result of the 2001 tax cuts enacted by a bipartisan Congress and signed by President George W. Bush, the share of taxes paid by the top 10% increased to 72.8% in 2005 from 67.8% in 2001, according to the latest data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
...
According to the CBO, those who made less than $44,300 in 2001 -- 60% of the country -- paid a paltry 3.3% of all income taxes. By 2005, almost all of them were excused from paying any income tax. They paid less than 1% of the income tax burden.
...
When you make almost 26% of the income and you pay only 0.6% of the income tax, that's a good deal, courtesy of those who do pay income taxes. For the bottom 40%, the redistribution deal is even better. In 2001, these 43 million Americans, who earn less than $30,500, made 13.5% of the nation's income but paid no income tax. Instead, they received checks from their taxpaying neighbors worth $16.3 billion. By 2005, those checks totaled $33.3 billion.

Today, Mr. Obama and many congressional Democrats want the "wealthy" to pay even more so there is more money for them to redistribute. The president says he wants the wealthy to pay their "fair share." Who can argue with that? But he never defines what that means. Is it fair for 10% to pay 70% of the income tax? Does he believe they should pay 75%, or 95%, or does fairness mean they should pay it all? It's clever politics to speak like that, but it is risky policy.

Mr. Obama is adding to this trend with his "Make Work Pay" tax cut that means almost 50% of the country will no longer pay any income taxes, up from a little over 40% today.

I did not realize that such a large percentage of the country pays no federal taxes. In fact, I'm shocked by this revelation.

One response to this is that although the bottom 50% will pay no federal taxes, they will pay other taxes (social security and medicare taxes, sales tax, etc.). However, they don't pay federal taxes, and one might ask how much say they should have in how federal tax money is spent by the government. Of course, in practice, there is no reasonable way to prevent them from having a say, and no one would actually want to deny them their right to vote for politicians who promise to raise federal taxes on the taxpaying class in order to send even more federal money to the bottom 50% who do not pay federal taxes. But it's interesting to think about whether it should be this way. Instead of trying to deny them a say in how federal money is spent, perhaps they should have to pay at least some federal taxes.

Would it be reasonable to suggest that the share of federal taxes paid should match the share of income earned? This is separate from the overall tax rates. Whether overall tax rates are low (more likely when we have a Republican president) or high (more likely when we have a Democratic president), one might argue that the share of taxes paid should roughly match share of income earned. This could apply to state taxes as well (but not to social security and medicare, which you are supposed to get back later in life).

On the surface, this principle makes sense to me, but I have not had time to think through it. Perhaps it is a badly flawed idea. And I note dissenting views here and here that I will have to think through. I read their arguments, but I don't quite get their main point yet. In any case, I was really struck by the fact that, soon, 50% of the nation will not pay federal taxes. It's a statistic that caught me by surprise and one that needs to be discussed a lot more.

Americans are Extremely Dissatisfied with Health Care they Receive

2009-04-11T15:42:00.000-07:00

Or maybe not:

More than eight in 10 Americans questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday said they're satisfied with the quality of health care they receive.

And nearly three out of four said they're happy with their overall health care coverage.

To be honest, I don't understand this result because other surveys seem to suggest a high degree of dissatisfaction with health care in America. Lately, I've been looking through the results of the Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey. I just came across this powerpoint presenting the results of the 2007 survey of adults (not sick adults, as some of their other surveys focus on). Look at these results:

Whereas the CNN poll seems to show quite a high level of satisfaction, this poll suggests that, in the U.S., 48% say that fundamental changes are needed and another 34% say we need to rebuild our health care system completely. The other countries in the survey seem more satisfied with the care they receive (although no one seems overjoyed with it).

The Long Waits and Low Costs of Nationalized Health Care

2009-04-09T07:48:00.000-07:00

People who favor nationalized health care often say that Canadians (for example) don't face cost barriers to receiving medical treatment like Americans do. People who oppose it say that Canadians face long waits to get the care they want, unlike Americans (who have shorter waits). According to the Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey of 2002, both are right. As I mentioned in my last post, this was a cross-national telephone survey of adults with health problems. The countries included were Canada (CA), New Zealand (NZ), United Kingdom (UK), the United States (US), and Australia. Here is a Powerpoint presentation from which I selected two tables showing that sick adults face longer waits for medical care in Canada compared to the US:

And here is a table showing that Americans more often forgo medical care because of cost:

What I don't know is how often Americans did not get medical treatment because they were advised to get an expensive procedure (or an expensive drug) that (a) would not even be avaialble in the other countries and (b) insurance companies refused to cover. I believe that is a real issue with respect to new cancer drugs (which tend to be outrageously expensive and also tend to be available in the US before they are available in other countries), but I don't yet know if that issue generalizes to other forms of medical treatment. I also don't yet have a complete picture of how much of this cost/access problem is due to Americans who are uninsured.

How Americans View Health Care in America

2009-04-08T06:55:00.000-07:00

Because Barack Obama is contemplating sweeping changes in how health care is managed in America, I thought I would look into that complex issue. In reading through various published articles that seem to have shaped the opinions of many who weigh in on the subject, I noticed that people often cite the results of the Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey. I went looking for the results of those surveys and found 3 of them (conducted in 2001, 2002 and 2003). Today, I'm just going to show you some fascinating results from the 2002 survey. This was a telephone survey of adults with health problems. The final sample sizes were 750 in Canada (CA), New Zealand (NZ), United Kingdom (UK) and the US, and 844 in Australia. I like the idea of polling people with health problems (as opposed to everyone) because they are, by definition, the people who are most in need of medical services. Thus, one would like to know how they perceive the medical care they are receiving. Here is a Powerpoint presentation from which I selected two tables that, in my mind, sum it all up. The first table presents what are perceived to be the two biggest problems with the health care system in each nation:

In the US, the main problem is cost. That is, medical services in the US cost too much, which people tend to notice because their medical insurance doesn't cover everything. However, shortages and waiting times are not a problem at all in America. In addition, sick people definitely do not think that more government funding is needed to bring down the cost of health care. In the other nations, you see the opposite pattern. That is, cost is not a big problem (after all, the government pays for everything), but shortages and waiting times clearly are. In addition, a much higher percentage of the population in these nations believe that more government spending is needed to solve those problems.

The second table shows more specifically what people in each nation believe that government should do:

In the US, people want the government to find ways to reduce costs (perhaps by increasing competition between insurance companies?). In the other nations, people want the government to spend more money (perhaps hoping that their taxes are raised to pay for it?).

It is well known that medical care in America costs more than medical care in other countries, so it is not surprising that Americans flag cost as a key issue. But why is medical care so expensive here? I found this interesting discussion about that in an article by Spithoven (2009, Int J Health Care Finance Econ 9:1–24) that compared medical costs in the US vs. Canada:

The different factors that explain the difference in health care expenditure primarily seem to be a manifestation of the national cultures. The U.S. has a strong belief in individualism and limited government,while Canada attaches great value “to communal obligations and a robust public sector” (Inglehart 2000). American culture14 is more concerned about responsibility for one’s own life or in other words about “microeconomic efficiency”, “freedom of choice for consumers” and “appropriate autonomy for providers” than that it is concerned about adequacy and equity in access”, “income protection” (that is, “patients should be protected from payments for health that represent catastrophic threats to their income or wealth”) and macroeconomic efficiency” (that is, cost control) (Hurst 1991). In other words, the market is the dominating governance structure in U.S. health care while regulation of health care is the more dominating governance structure in Canada.

That seems more or less consistent with the survey results that I presented above. Finally, I found this interesting assessment by Blendon et al. (2001, N Engl J Med, Vol. 344, No. 9 · March 1) of the election of George Bush in 2000:

The election of Bush as president has brought a different focus and tone to health policy in the United States. Clinton was one of only four presidents in the post–World War II period — the others were Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon — who proposed major reforms of national health care. Even after his proposed program had been defeated, Clinton advocated a larger federal role in addressing specific problems with the health care system.

President Bush has a very different view of the government’s role in health care. He emphasizes individual responsibility in making decisions about health care and in paying for it, as well as the positive role of the private marketplace. Bush also believes that local charities should be encouraged to provide needed health care services, that state governments should assume the primary role in many areas of health care policy, and that the federal role should be smaller. Thus, even with a divided Congress, the change in the views of the executive branch with regard to health care is substantial.

In the coming months and years, it will be interesting to see if views of Americans have become more like the views of Canadians. Barack Obama certainly seems to think more like a Canadian than George Bush did. Perhaps Americans in general do, too, but only time will tell.

How to Think About Global Warming

2009-04-06T07:17:00.000-07:00

To think about the relationship between CO2 emissions and global warming, the most important step to take is to imagine that scientists had never invented climate models that presume to predict the future. In the absence of those models, what would you think about CO2 emissions? That's the question.

The reason to drop the climate models from consideration is that models of complex systems cannot predict the future in any area of science, so climate models should not be trusted until they are uniquely shown to be able to do that. So far, the models have not passed any serious test, and the excuse given is that, in the short term, unpredictable weather variations can mask predictable long-term climate trends. In the long-term, the argument goes, the models may be shown to be right after all. But get back to me in the long term because, for now, I have no reason at all to believe that the models are accurate (and neither do you).

Scientists who are infatuated with their own climate models seem to have a different view, namely, that the models should be trusted until those models are proven wrong. By definition, this cannot happen in the short term (because of unpredictable weather), so the models are protected from disconfirmation until decades go by. That's not a reasonable view because, in light of the general predictive utility of complex-system modeling, the odds are very high that the climate models are incorrect.

Once you take the models out of consideration, you realize that all of the alarmism and all of the "tipping point" hysteria come from believing that the models are true. Thus, if you remove the models from your own global warming thinking, you won't be an alarmist and you won't run around the world trying to convince everyone to take immediate and drastic action to reduce CO2 emissions before it is too late. However, just because you would not be a hysterical alarmist does not mean that you would not take the issue seriously. Jim Manzi at the NRO Corner seems to have his head on straight in this regard:

Yes, it’s true that it is very difficult to assign material historical damages to AGW, and global temperatures have been pretty much flat for a decade, and global climate models have not demonstrated that they can pass falsification trials for prediction of temperature change on a decadal scale. But on the other hand, no respectable scientist disputes that CO2 redirects long-wave radiation but not short-wave radiation. At some point, with high enough concentration in the atmosphere, it will create severe problems. There are trade-offs involved around how much wealth we sacrifice today in order to reduce by some hard-to-quantify amount the chance of large losses in the future.

That is a vastly more sensible way to think about the issue than the way our Nobel-Prize-winning, globe-trotting former vice president thinks about it. If you approach the issue in this manner, you won't be a global-warming alarmist or a head-in-the-sand flat-earther. And if everyone approached the issue in this manner, it would not be politicized, and scientists would not be injecting themselves into polarized politics. What a wonderful world that would be.

Obama's Foreign Policy Reflects (Political) Multiple Personality Disorder

2009-04-02T07:35:00.000-07:00

I'm still trying to get a feel for Obama's approach to foreign policy, and it finally occurred to me that it resembles the approach you might expect from someone suffering from multiple personality disorder. With regard to Iraq and Afghanistan, he might as well be George Bush. With regard to the rest of the world, he might as well be Jimmy Carter. Consider, for example, this:

Dismay at Obama plan to leave 50,000 US troops in Iraq after 2010

Thursday 26 February 2009 02.35 GMT

Democratic Congressional leaders have expressed dismay that President Barack Obama is planning to leave as many as 50,000 US troops in Iraq even after the long-awaited withdrawal of combat troops next year.

Obama, on a visit to a military base in North Carolina today, will announce plans to make good on his campaign pledge to withdraw US combat troops from Iraq. There are about 145,000 US troops in Iraq and Obama is expected to say that most of the combat troops will be withdrawn by August next year.

The president called Congressional leaders to the White House yesterday to inform them in advance of his plan.

But the Congress members, most of whom were opposed to the war, expressed regret afterwards that so many, between 35,000 and 50,000, are to be left behind.

According to one congressional official, lawmakers were told that General David Petraeus, head of US Central Command, and General Ray Odierno, the top commander in Baghdad, believed the plan presented moderate risk but supported the 50,000 figure.

Democratic leaders are dismayed, but General Petraeus thinks that the plan presents only a moderate risk. That works for me, and it's a lot like things were under Bush. What about Afghanistan? Consider this:

For those of you scoring at home, here’s who doesn’t like President Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy: John Murtha and Bill Ayers. Here’s who does: John McCain and Bill Kristol.

One place where President Obama has followed through on his post-partisan promise is foreign policy. With centrist national security Cabinet picks, he built on the success of the surge in Iraq and managed to depolarize the most divisive debate of our decade. Now he’s doubled down on Afghanistan, committing 21,000 new troops and extending the effort to Pakistan, all in an effort to root out al Qaeda and the resurgent Taliban. It’s a long-term commitment by a resolute new president that scrambles old political labels and brings a welcome bipartisan focus to the global conflict formerly known as “the war on terror.”
...
“On Afghanistan and Iraq, I think he’s been good,” Kristol told me in a pre-conference interview. “Gates, Clinton, Jones, Obama, Biden, Holbrooke—these are serious people. They’re trying to do the right thing and they’re not being diverted much by day-to-day politics… I’m heartened by the first two and half months of the Obama administration because I do think that some of the crazed partisanship and bitterness of the Bush years seems to have receded.”

On Afghanistan and Iraq, Barack Obama is George Bush, and I could not be happier about that (so far). But everywhere else, Barack Obama is Jimmy Carter because he seems to actually believe that if you are just nice to terrorist nations, they'll be nice to you. Perhaps Obama is right about that, but the early returns are not overwhelmingly favorable. First, we have North Korea and its soon-to-be-fired rocket:

April 1, 2009

North Korea is fueling rocket, U.S. military says

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- North Korea has begun fueling its long-range rocket, according to a senior U.S. military official.

The fueling signals that the country could be in the final stages of what North Korea has said will be the launch of a satellite into space as early as this weekend, the senior U.S. military official said Wednesday.
...
Pentagon officials worry less about the payload and more about the launch itself, saying that any kind of launch will give the North Koreans valuable information about improving their ballistic missile program.

The United States believes that the North Koreans have the technology to hit Alaska or Hawaii with a missile and that the country is working on advancing that technology so it could hit the west coast of the United States.

Not only are they going to launch this rocket (apparently), they are not being very nice about it:

N. Korea threatens to shoot down U.S. planes
Pyongyang accuses U.S. of spying on site of an impending rocket launch

April. 1, 2009

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea accused the United States of spying on the site of an impending rocket launch and threatened Wednesday to shoot down any U.S. planes that intrude into its airspace.

North Korea says it will send a communications satellite into orbit on a multistage rocket between April 4 and 8. The United States, South Korea and Japan suspect the reclusive country is using the launch to test long-range missile technology, and they warn Pyongyang would face sanctions under a U.N. Security Council resolution banning it from ballistic activity.

Well, that's one rogue nation. What about Iran? Will Obama's nice-guy approach be all that it takes to cause the Ayatollah to unclench his fist? Not likely:

Iran's supreme leader dismisses Obama overtures

March. 21, 2009

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's supreme leader rebuffed President Barack Obama's latest outreach on Saturday, saying Tehran was still waiting to see concrete changes in U.S. policy.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was responding to a video message Obama released Friday in which he reached out to Iran on the occasion of Nowruz, the Persian new year, and expressed hopes for an improvement in nearly 30 years of strained relations.

Khamenei holds the last word on major policy decisions, and how Iran ultimately responds to any concrete U.S. effort to engage the country will depend largely on his say.

In his most direct assessment of Obama and prospects for better ties, Khamenei said there will be no change between the two countries unless the American president puts an end to U.S. hostility toward Iran and brings "real changes" in foreign policy.
...
Khamenei said there has been no change even in Obama's language compared to that of his predecessor.

"He (Obama) insulted the Islamic Republic of Iran from the first day. If you are right that change has come, where is that change? What is the sign of that change? Make it clear for us what has changed."

Obama has vowed to be persistent in his nice-guy attitude, but it is worth noting that Iran has been persistent in their response to this attitude as well. For example, remember when everyone was arguing that George Bush should hold unconditional talks with Iran? In response, Iran had other ideas:

2008-10-12

Iran's Vice President Sets Two Preconditions for Talks with US

TEHRAN (FNA)- Vice President for Media Affairs Mehdi Kalhor said on Saturday that Iran has set two preconditions for holding talks with the United States of America.

In an exclusive interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency, he said as long as U.S. forces have not left the Middle East region and continues its support for the Zionist regime, talks between Iran and U.S. is off the agenda.

It is the Americans who are in dire need of reestablishing ties with Iran, he underlined.

Iran is not obliged to reestablish ties with the U.S., he said.

"If they take our advice, grounds for such talks would be well prepared," he said.

It is stupidity to hold talks without any change in U.S. attitude, he underlined.

In other words, back then (like today), Iran said that sweet talk is not enough. Abandon Iraq and throw Israel under the bus; then we'll talk. They said the same thing back in 2006. I think it will take more than the nice-guy approach to affect Iran's behavior, but I guess we'll see. In the meantime, at least Obama's new approach will make the Europeans happy.

How is Obama's new attitude working with respect to the Taliban? Like this:

US peace offer lunatic, say Taliban
2 Apr 2009
REUTERS

KABUL: Taliban insurgents rejected on Wednesday a US offer of “honourable reconciliation” as a “lunatic idea” and said the withdrawal of foreign troops was the only way to end the war in Afghanistan.

“This matter was also raised in the past,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, referring to comments by Obama who spoke of reaching out to moderate Taliban. “They have to go and find the moderate Taliban and speak to them. This is a lunatic idea,” Mujahid said by telephone.

I just think that if you are persistently nice to terrorists, they will persistently spit in your face. Still, I am an empiricist, and I will happily change my mind if Obama's approach results in concrete gains. For the time being, it looks to me like the man is acting like someone suffering from political multiple personality disorder. Sometimes he's George Bush, and sometimes he's Jimmy Carter. Not perfect, but much better than I expected during he campaign.

UPDATE: An interesting article in the New Republic weighs in on Obama's approach to Iran:

Charm Offensive

You could almost hear the international sigh of relief that greeted President Obama's videotaped message to Iran last week. After eight years of bluster and threats, an American president civilly addressed both Iran's people and its leaders; he spoke of mutual respect, of Iran's role in making the world "a better and more beautiful place," of "shared hopes" and "common dreams." The buzz among ordinary Iranians inside and outside Iran was overwhelmingly positive. But I couldn't help but think of an instant message I received from a young journalist in Iran the day Obama was elected. "When is your olive branch coming," he wrote sardonically, "so we can reject it?"

Sure enough, the response to Obama's remarks from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the head of the Iranian state and the commander of its armed forces, was swift and negative. Khamenei told a crowd in Mashhad on March 21 that America's extended hand looked like an iron fist encased in a velvet glove. Recalling American support for Iraq in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, and the United States's accidental shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane in 1988, Khamenei wondered aloud if Obama was changing America's policy or only its rhetoric:

Did you release Iran's frozen assets? Did you lift the sanctions against us? Did you give up slandering and broadcasting negative propaganda against our nation? Did you give up your unconditional support for the Zionist regime? ... In any case, all the American officials as well as other people must know that the Iranian nation will not be deceived or intimidated.

With that, Khamenei laid dead the notion that the problem between the United States and Iran could be resolved simply through outreach, however gracious, on the part of an American president. There was a dignity to the leader's message: He would not be flattered by superficial niceties, like the show of familiarity with Persian tradition. He would believe change when he saw it.

And an earlier article in the New Republic highlights the fact that the new approach is much like an old approach that did not work. In 2000, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave a speech that basically apologized to Iran for past offenses. The Ayatollah was not very impressed back then, either:

The question is, what good will this admission do us?... What good does this admission - that you acted in that way then - do us now?.. An admission years after the crime was committed, while they might be committing similar crimes now, will not do the Iranian nation any good...

Obama's Evolution in Thinking about Iraq

2009-03-31T07:42:00.000-07:00

History seems likely to regard January of 2007 as a critical turning point in the war in Iraq. At the time, Iraq had descended into a state of savage sectarian chaos (deliberately engineered by al Qaeda's relentless suicide bombing campaign against Shiite Muslims), 3000 civilians were dying every month (more than the current annual civilian casualty total in Afghanistan), and the American people had given up on the war and were ready to bring the troops home (troops who were dying at a rate of at least 70 per month). But instead of adopting the Vietnam-like abandonment of our allies that virtually all Democrats and many Republicans favored (despite knowing the genocidal slaughter that would have followed), Bush stood almost alone and ordered a troop surge to quell the violence, deliver a death blow the al Qaeda in Iraq, and set the stage for political reconciliation.

As you might imagine, Barack Obama has had much to say about all of this, and in this post, I trace the evolution in his thinking on the subject. In a nutshell, he initially predicted with high confidence that the surge wouldn't work. Later, after it had been underway for a short period of time, Obama announced with high confidence that it had failed. Still later, as the eventual drop in casualties could no longer be denied, he suggested that the "failure" in question concerned the effect of the surge on political compromise in Iraq (not its effect on violence in Iraq). At no point did he acknowledge the crucial role played by al Qaeda in Iraq, and rarely did he acknowledge the crushing defeat suffered by al Qaeda there. But times have changed. Now, Obama basically views Iraq as the fulfillment of the neocon dream. It is an amazing and welcome evolution of thinking.

Let's start with an audio address that Obama gave at the critical time (namely, as the troop surge was being announced), which I found using the wayback machine here:

January 3, 2007

...I couldn't help but follow the debate that has been taking place around the president's consideration of deploying additional troops to Iraq in the desperate hope of securing what is emerging as a fierce civil war there. I have to say that it is a chilling prospect -- the notion that we would send tens of thousands of additional American young men and women to compound the tragic mistake that has already been made over the last 4 years.
...
In the face of this quagmire, the notion that we would put tens of thousands more young Americans in harm's way without changing our fundamental strategy -- a strategy that has failed by almost every imaginable count(?) --- makes absolutely no sense.

This assessment is as liberal as it gets. In Obama's view, Iraq was a "quagmire," it had fallen into a "civil war," and al Qaeda was too insignificant to even be mentioned.

In that same critical month, Obama said this on MSNBC:

I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse. I think it takes pressure off the Iraqis to arrive at the sort of political accommodation that every observer believes is the ultimate solution to the problems we face there. So I am going to actively oppose the president's proposal.... I think he is wrong, and I think the American people believe he's wrong.

That is, he predicted that the troop surge would make sectarian violence worse, not better, because it would prevent (not set the stage for) political reconciliation. This is important because, in later months, it would be suggested that Obama only predicted that the surge would not facilitate political accommodation, not that he ever doubted the ability of our troops to reduce the violence. Obviously, he did doubt their ability to do that. That is, he predicted that the troop surge would not lead to political accommodation, and that's why sectarian violence would just get worse (not better).

Later in the year (in July of 2007), a mere one month after the surge became operational, Obama flatly declared that it had already failed:

July 20, 2007

Obama says there's no reason to give the president's troop surge more time.

"Here's what we know. The surge has not worked. And they said today, 'Well, even in September, we're going to need more time.' So we're going to kick this can all the way down to the next president, under the president's plan."

Obama's high level of confidence in his own opinions is well known, and it is on display here. He does not think that the surge is failing; instead, he knows it. At the time, I found this attitude to be somewhat frustrating because his high confidence was not matched by the kind of detailed analysis that might support it. Instead, his analysis was invariably superficial. If you don't believe me, then look for the in-depth analysis; the one, for example, that explains his view of the role (if any) played by al Qaeda in Iraq. You won't find it, yet the man's confidence that the surge had failed one month after it started was amazingly high. Obama is obviously intelligent, but he does not always apply his intellect to a problem. Sometimes, he just goes with his liberal reflexes.

In the statement quoted above, Obama was referring to the upcoming appearance by General Petraeus, who was scheduled to testify to Congress in September 2007. During that testimony, Hillary Clinton implied that Petraeus was lying when he indicated that the troop surge was making progress in Iraq (she thought that one had to "suspend disbelief" to accept the general at his word). Ironically, it turns out that it was that exact month -- September of 2007 -- that causalities in Iraq plummeted (and they have stayed low ever since).

As the military situation improved from that point on, the debate over Obama's judgment shifted more fully to the issue of political reconciliation. Here is what Obama had to say in an op-ed for the New York Times:

My Plan for Iraq

BARACK OBAMA
Published: July 14, 2008
...
In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda — greatly weakening its effectiveness.

But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true. The strain on our military has grown, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and we’ve spent nearly $200 billion more in Iraq than we had budgeted. Iraq’s leaders have failed to invest tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues in rebuilding their own country, and they have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.
...
But this is not a strategy for success — it is a strategy for staying that runs contrary to the will of the Iraqi people, the American people and the security interests of the United States. That is why, on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war.

At least he mentioned al Qaeda here (now that it seemed that they had been defeated), but he also emphasized that Iraq's political leaders "...have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge." As such, he was still keen on withdrawing our troops as quickly as possible. Despite the almost unbelievable military success that no one confidently predicted would happen (not even George Bush), many Democrats took their cue from Obama and were still perfectly happy to characterize our intervention in Iraq as a complete failure because political accommodation had not yet been achieved. In the standard liberal view at the time, peace between Shiites and Sunnis was a pipe dream (after all, they have been at it for centuries); by contrast, peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians was the realistic goal that we should be concentrating on. The idea that peace between Shiite and Sunni Muslims is unachievable, whereas peace between Jews and Arabs is attainable, is not one that I ever understood.

In any event, at about this time, we had a CNN fact check that asked this question:

Fact Check: Did Obama say the Iraq troop 'surge' could not work?

The Facts
...
In Congress, Obama was one of many lawmakers who spoke against the plan. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse," he said in a response to Bush's speech. On at least some occasions, Obama — who has campaigned on a promise to end the war in Iraq — said he wasn't questioning the ability of U.S. troops, but the long-term political impact the surge would have.
...
In a September 4 interview this year, Obama said the military surge "succeeded beyond our wildest dreams," but that goals laid out by Bush, including turning over control of all Iraqi provinces to that nation's security forces, have not been achieved. "There's an underlying problem with what we've done," Obama said. "We have reduced the violence, but the Iraqis still haven't taken responsibility."

The Verdict: True, but incomplete. While acknowledging the surge's military success, Obama says the political goals it was meant to secure have not been met.

This verdict should read like this: True, period. However, Obama later confused the issue by suggesting that the surge would fail to achieve political goals (as if that's what he was referring to when he said that the troop surge would worsen sectarian violence). I don't think that any honest person could disagree with this (revised) verdict.

Fast forward to the present. About a month ago, Obama weighed in with this assessment of the war in Iraq:

Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery
Responsibly Ending the War in Iraq
Camp Lejeune, North Carolina
Friday, February 27, 2009

To understand where we need to go in Iraq, it is important for the American people to understand where we now stand. Thanks in great measure to your service, the situation in Iraq has improved. Violence has been reduced substantially from the horrific sectarian killing of 2006 and 2007. Al Qaeda in Iraq has been dealt a serious blow by our troops and Iraq's Security Forces, and through our partnership with Sunni Arabs. The capacity of Iraq's Security Forces has improved, and Iraq's leaders have taken steps toward political accommodation. The relative peace and strong participation in January's provincial elections sent a powerful message to the world about how far Iraqis have come in pursuing their aspirations through a peaceful political process.
...
And so I want to be very clear: We sent our troops to Iraq to do away with Saddam Hussein's regime - and you got the job done. We kept our troops in Iraq to help establish a sovereign government - and you got the job done. And we will leave the Iraqi people with a hard-earned opportunity to live a better life - that is your achievement; that is the prospect that you have made possible.

I'd just like to add what he doesn't say: in addition to our troops, George Bush also made that possible -- over the strong objections of our current commander-in-chief.

Our troops removed Saddam Hussein, they dramatically reduced violence from the horrific sectarian killing of 2006 and 2007, al Qaeda has been dealt a serious blow, and Iraq's leaders have taken steps toward political accommodation. It's basically a neocon dream, and this how our liberal president assesses the current situation. A lot of conservative bloggers have suggested that Obama is a flip-flopper for his changing views on Iraq, but give the man credit for finally aligning his views with empirical reality. Better late than never.

The Enigma of America's Opinion of the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment

2009-03-27T07:38:00.000-07:00

Gov. Bill Richardson's decision to abolish the death penalty in New Mexico reminded me of a mysterious trend in the answer Americans give to this question: Does the death penalty serve as a deterrent to murder? America's views on that question have changed dramatically over time according to Gallup polls:

In the 1980s, people strongly believed that the death penalty deters would-be murderers. During the 1990s, opinions reversed such that now Americans strongly believe otherwise. In fact, you probably believe otherwise, as I once did.

The reason why this is an enigma is that when opinions were shifting one way, "the science" was going the other way. Even the New York Times eventually reported this news:

Does Death Penalty Save Lives? A New Debate

By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: November 18, 2007

For the first time in a generation, the question of whether the death penalty deters murders has captured the attention of scholars in law and economics, setting off an intense new debate about one of the central justifications for capital punishment.

According to roughly a dozen recent studies, executions save lives. For each inmate put to death, the studies say, 3 to 18 murders are prevented.
...
The studies, performed by economists in the past decade...

What could possibly explain the wrong-way shift in the opinion of Americans about the deterrent effect of capital punishment?

I don't really know, so I have to speculate. For starters, the media has rarely mentioned "the science" when it comes to this issue. This New York Times article -- published only in 2007 -- is the exception, not the rule. Against a smattering of articles like this is a veritable tsunami of articles on, for example, how lethal injections constitute cruel and unusual punishment, how certain people on death row have been exonerated by DNA evidence, how countries in Europe need to abolish the death penalty if they want to be part of the EU, how eliminating the death penalty just reflects "an evolving standard of decency," and so on. Compared to all of that, "the science" of capital punishment is just not very interesting to reporters (though I congratulate the New York Times for finally breaking the news to people in a single article).

I just searched google news using the phrase "death penalty." I turned up articles on restricting the use of the death penalty in Maryland, on repealing the death penalty in New Hampshire, on Nevada lawmakers hearing arguments on ending executions, on the fact that the Governor of Illinois is refusing to lift the death penalty moratorium there, and on how Montana is considering ending capital punishment. In addition, I spotted at least 6 editorials on the subject -- all urging an end to the practice.

From this brief survey, it's pretty clear what the media finds intensely interesting. I assume that the media's passionate and relentless coverage of the negative side of this issue is what explains why, as "the science" went one way, American opinion went the other way.

New Mexico Abolishes the Death Penalty

2009-03-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

I was interested in this news from the other day:

New Mexico governor repeals death penalty in state

March 18, 2009

(CNN) -- New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson signed a bill Wednesday repealing the death penalty in his state, his office confirmed.

"Regardless of my personal opinion about the death penalty, I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime," Richardson said in a statement Wednesday.

He noted that more than 130 death row inmates have been exonerated in the past 10 years, including four in New Mexico.

"Faced with the reality that our system for imposing the death penalty can never be perfect, my conscience compels me to replace the death penalty with a solution that keeps society safe," he said.
...
New Mexico currently has two men on death row and has executed one person -- convicted child killer Terry Clark, in 2001 -- since the United States reinstated the death penalty in 1976. As the legislation is written, it will not affect current death row inmates.

"Throughout my adult life, I have been a firm believer in the death penalty as a just punishment -- in very rare instances, and only for the most heinous crimes. I still believe that," Richardson, a Democrat, said.
...
Local and state law enforcement associations opposed the bill. Richardson agreed the death penalty is a tool to deter crime, but said it was not the only tool.

"For some would-be criminals, the death penalty may be a deterrent," he said. "But it's not, and never will be, for many, many others."

The logic of death penalty opponents always fascinates me. Richardson is far more honest than most in that he acknowledges that capital punishment may serve as a deterrent to murder (as both common sense and all recent evidence suggests is the case). But since it only deters only some would-be murderers (not all), Richardson is not terribly impressed. The overriding issue for him is that the state may inadvertently execute an innocent person. I assume that he'd favor the death penalty if it deterred 100% of would-be murderers, but since it only deters some, it's not worth it given the risk of occasionally executing an innocent person.

I learned a little more about his reasoning in this story:

Richardson said he has long believed — and still does — that the death penalty was a "just punishment" in rare cases for the worst crimes. But he said he decided to sign the repeal legislation because of flaws in how the death penalty was applied.

"More than 130 death row inmates have been exonerated in the past 10 years in this country, including four New Mexicans — a fact I cannot ignore," he said.

"Even with advances in DNA and other forensic evidence technologies, we can't be 100 percent sure that only the truly guilty are convicted of capital crimes."

I agree that the fact that 130 death row inmates have been exonerated in the past 10 years cannot be ignored. However, refusing to ignore that fact and abolishing the death penalty are not one and the same. In any case, if I understand his position, the justice system must be 100% accurate, and the death penalty must deter all (or virtually all) would-be murderers for capital punishment to be warranted.

Fine. That's one view. A problem with that view is that the justice system simply cannot be 100% accurate. This is so obvious one wonders why he ever supported the death penalty in the first place. Another problem is that even if the death penalty deters only some would-be murderers, it would save many, many innocent lives. That is the key point that is overlooked by many who feel a sense of moral superiority in their opposition to the death penalty.

About 16,000 people are murdered every year in the United States. If a mere 2% of murderers were deterred by the death penalty, that would translate into 320 innocent lives saved every year. Only about 60 convicted murderers are executed each year in the United States. Of those, probably fewer than 1 per year, on average, is innocent. Thus, one way to summarize Richardson's position is like this: it is better to sacrifice perhaps 320 innocent lives (every year) than it is to tolerate perhaps 1 innocent person being executed by the state every few years. Viewed in that light, it is not so obvious that a death penalty opponent is a paragon of moral virtue. That being the case, what do you suppose explains this?

Europe’s human rights watchdog today hailed the decision as "a victory for civilization."

How does that celebration go, exactly? "Hallelujah! Instead of the state mistakenly executing 0 or 1 innocent people per year, 320 innocent people -- including children -- will suffer violent and painful deaths at the hands of murderers!" It's hard for me to get similarly excited about that. Both outcomes are clearly tragic, and taking a firm position on this matter is a hard call.

Let's make this a little more concrete. In one of the stories cited above, it was noted that the last person executed in New Mexico was convicted child killer Terry Clark, in 2001. I looked him up in Wikipedia, and this is what I found:

Terry Doug Clark (May 17, 1956 – November 6, 2001) was convicted of the murder of nine-year-old Dena Lynn Gore. He was executed by the State of New Mexico by means of lethal injection. He became the first and (as of 2009) only person to be executed in New Mexico since 1976 when the death penalty was reinstated. In fact, it would remain until March 18, 2009, when Governor Bill Richardson signed the death penalty abolition bill into law.

Terry Clark was convicted of kidnapping and raping a six-year-old girl from Roswell in 1984. Pending appeals in that case, he was released on bond. While out on bond, Clark drove to Artesia on July 17, 1986 and kidnapped Dena Lynn Gore. He then raped her and finally killed her by shooting her in the back of her head three times. A few days later, Clark was taken into custody and, while in jail, he confessed to a minister.

This is what you are saying should be allowed to happen more often if you oppose the death penalty and if you accept that it deters "some murderers" (as Bill Richardson does). It's something to keep in mind if you, like human rights "watchdogs" in Europe, find yourself celebrating Bill Richardson's decision as a victory for "civilization."

The Spiraling Cost of Higher Education

2009-03-22T07:34:00.001-07:00

As a professor working at a public institution, you'd think I'd have a pretty clear understanding of this phenomenon:

Part of the explanation for the increased cost of a college degree at public institutions is that states have steadily reduced the percentage of their budgets devoted to higher education as they seek to accommodate demands for more spending in other areas (e.g., to cover expanding prison populations):

In California, the percentage of general funds going to higher education declined from nearly 18 percent in 1978 to slightly more than 12 percent in 1998, and from 1970-71 to 2004-05, the portion of California’s general fund going to UC shrank from 7 percent to 3.5 percent.

So, the share of California's budget devoted to higher education was down to 12% in 1998. If I am reading the correct chart from the California state budget web site, that percentage will be down to 9.7% next year:

As state support for higher education drops, student fees go up. That provides at least part of the explanation for increased fees at public institutions, but what explains the big increase at private institutions? You'd think I'd know, but I honestly don't.

57% of Americans Believe that it was Right to Depose Saddam Hussein

2009-03-21T08:19:00.000-07:00

A new CBS poll considers how Americans view our intervention in Iraq:

March 19, 2009

Poll: Americans Come Full Circle On Iraq

Six years after the start of U.S. military operations in Iraq, American optimism about the situation in Iraq has returned to levels last seen in 2003, according to a new CBS News poll.

Still, most Americans continue to believe the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq in the first place. And Americans are now far more pessimistic about the situation in Afghanistan than they are the war in Iraq.

Sixty-four percent of Americans now say U.S. efforts to bring stability and order to Iraq are going at least somewhat well. That’s the highest percentage since December 2003, shortly after the U.S. capture of Saddam Hussein.

Just one year ago, only 43 percent described things in Iraq as going well. In June 2007, the percentage who said as much was just 22 percent. Americans began feeling more positive about the situation in Iraq last fall.

Despite the increased optimism, more than half of those surveyed – 55 percent – maintain the U.S. should not have entered the country.

On this last point, the reporter has it wrong because the truth is that more than half of those surveyed believe that the U.S. should have deposed Saddam Hussein. To appreciate this, consider how the respondents answered another, more specific question (detailed pdf of poll results can be found here):

That is, 29% + 28% (which comes to 57%) believe that we should have deposed Saddam Hussein, whereas only 42% believe that we never should have invaded in the first place. Even so, the reporter says "...most Americans continue to believe the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq in the first place." Not really. Only 42% fall into that category.

The story does not attempt to hide this news because it later includes this paragraph:

Asked what the U.S. should have done about Iraq, just 29 percent say the U.S. strategy of removing Saddam and rebuilding Iraq was the best plan. A nearly identical percentage – 28 percent – say the U.S. should have removed the Iraqi leader and then left; another 40 percent say the U.S. should not have gotten involved at all.

Thus, the story contradicts itself. If only "40 percent say the U.S. should not have gotten involved at all" (the number is actually 42%), how could it be that "...most Americans continue to believe the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq in the first place?" Only 42% believe the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq in the first place.

Of the 57% who believe that we should have deposed Saddam Hussein, about half think we should have left the country at that point, but that does not mean that they think it was wrong to invade. Why, then, do 55% of Americans say "no" when asked "Did the U.S. do the right thing going to war in Iraq?" Apparently, it's because people are unsure whether "going to war in Iraq" means "going to war in Iraq and then leaving after deposing Saddam Hussein" or "going to war in Iraq and then staying to rebuild the country." If you are someone who believes that we should have deposed Saddam but who also hates the fact that we stayed to rebuild the country, you might say "no" to this question, and your "no" would mean "no, the U.S. did not do the right thing going to war in Iraq and then sticking around to quell their civil war." But when you ask the question in a way that removes the ambiguity, it turns out that 57% of Americans believe that deposing Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do, whereas only 42% believe otherwise. That's newsworthy, and I only wish that this reporter (whose job it is to report the news) had been clearer about this.

The Geneva Convention and al Qaeda Terrorists

2009-03-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

In recent years, there was a raging controversy over the issue of whether or not the provisions of the Geneva Convention apply to captured al Qaeda terrorists. My own, possibly incomplete, understanding of the issue is that the Geneva Convention basically holds that soldiers who conduct themselves in such a way as to protect innocent noncombatants (e.g., by wearing uniforms to set themselves apart, by engaging in combat away from civilian populations so far as possible, etc.) deserve to be treated humanely when they are captured by enemy forces. Article 4 makes this clear:

Article 4

A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:

1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

(c) That of carrying arms openly;

(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

In other words, those who fight by the rules are protected by the Convention when they become prisoners of war. It follows that those who don't play by the rules are not covered. Obviously, al Qaeda terrorists are dedicated to behaving in a way that is the exact opposite of what was intended. They deliberately target innocent noncombatants; they dress like noncombatants so they can hide among the innocent; and they deliberately place themselves among innocent noncombatants so as to maximize casualties among them when civilized forces attack.

Why, then, would anyone ever suggest that al Qaeda terrorists should be protected by the Geneva Convention? It makes no sense. My speculation is that people who believe that the Geneva Convention should apply to al Qaeda terrorists believe that al Qaeda terrorists should be treated humanely no matter what the Geneva Convention says. That is, they believe that the U.S. should take the "high road" and set an example for all the world to see (and to emulate). They further imagine that this what lies at the heart of the Geneva Convention, so they simply assume that its provisions apply to terrorists and that those who think otherwise have no intellectual case to make but are simply morally depraved.

But how do those on the left, including our Supreme Court, actually convince themselves that the Geneva Convention applies to terrorists? It has to do with Article 3:

Article 3

In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:

1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) Taking of hostages;

(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;

(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

It seems obvious to me that this provision was included to protect captured members of a militia that has taken up arms against their own government. That's a conflict "not of an international character." But how does this provision lead to al Qaeda terrorists being protected by the Geneva Convention even though they so obviously and intentionally flaunt the rules of combat that the Convention specifies? After all, al Qaeda terrorists are clealy engaged in armed conflict of an international character. For example, this chart from the New York Times shows where the suicide bombers of Iraq came from:

Al Qaeda's leaders in Pakistan orchestrating the movement of suicide bombers from all over the Muslim world into to Iraq in order to provoke a civil war there is conflict of an international character in my book.

Unless, that is, you need the Geneva Convention to apply to terrorists. In that case, you will (as the Supreme Court did) define "armed conflict of an international character" to mean "armed conflict between recognized nations." Since al Qaeda is not a recognized nation, the provisions of the Convention apply to them after all. American soldiers have to wear uniforms and avoid civilian casualties because they come from a recognized nation (yet are tortured with far worse then waterboarding when captured by al Qaeda terrorists), but al Qaeda terrorists can flaunt the rules by not just endangering but actually targeting innocent civilians, yet they are to be treated humanely merely because they don't come from a recognized nation (as if that should be a special protected class). To me, this looks like a prime example of judges making up a story to fit their preconceived notions regardless of what the original document intended.

In any case, regardless of what the Geneva Convention means, there is the separate question of whether or not we should be obliged to treat captured al Qaeda terrorists in the same way that we treat captured prisoners who fought for armies that followed the rules (e.g., by wearing uniforms, by not targeting innocent noncombatants, etc.). To me, it's an easy call. Terrorists who hide among and deliberately target innocent noncombatants simply do not deserve the same treatment when they are captured as those who do follow the rules (which is not to say that the captured terrorists should be tortured). In this regard, I was pleased (and quite surprised) that the editors of New York Times agreed with my position not so very long ago (note the date):

Denied: A Shield for Terrorists

Published: Tuesday, February 17, 1987

President Reagan has faced more important but probably no tougher decisions than whether to seek ratification of revisions to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. If he said yes, that would improve protection for prisoners of war and civilians in wartime, but at the price of new legal protection for guerrillas and possible terrorists. He decided to say no, a judgment that deserves support.

The 1949 Geneva Convention on laws of war needs updating. The lines have blurred separating civilians and combatants and regular and irregular troops. In 1977, a protocol packed with valuable additions was signed by a hundred nations, including the United States, pending Senate ratification. The new provisions strengthen procedures for extraditing and prosecuting terrorists, make it easier to punish the taking of hostages and the indiscriminate use of force, enhance rights to check on troops missing in action and prisoners of war, and add protection for medical personnel.

Article 1 of the protocol, however, says that the provisions apply to nations and ''peoples'' who ''are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination.'' Nice words, but also possible grounds for giving terrorists the legal status of P.O.W.'s. The protocol also provides that regional groups like the Organization for African Unity and the League of Arab States could decide which ''peoples'' constituted a legitimate party in armed conflict.

Nowadays, I feel sure that the editors of the New York Times would, indeed, favor giving terrorists the legal status of P.O.W.'s. But it's nice to know that they once understood that there was another side to the argument and that those on the other side are not morally reprehensible.

Iraqi Public Opinion, Then and Now

2009-03-16T07:30:00.000-07:00

1. Here are some results from a BBC Poll conducted back in September of 2007:

US surge has failed - Iraqi poll

10 September 2007

About 70% of Iraqis believe security has deteriorated in the area covered by the US military "surge" of the past six months, an opinion poll suggests.
...
Between 67% and 70% of the Iraqis polled believe the surge has hampered conditions for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic development, according to the August 2007 findings.

Only 29% think things will get better in the next year, compared to 64% two years ago.

2. And here are some results from the latest poll:

Iraqis 'more upbeat about future'

16 March 2009

Violence and insecurity are no longer the main concern of most Iraqis, for the first time since the 2003 US-led invasion, an opinion poll suggests.
...
Its findings show striking shifts in opinion since the last poll in March 2008.

On security, 85% of all respondents described the current situation as very good or quite good - up 23% on a year ago

I guess the title of this story could have been "US surge has succeeded - Iraqi poll," but I'm not sure that the BBC readership would appreciate that very much.

Are the Iraqis ready for democracy? Many argued strenuously that they are not. Here is what the Iraqis themselves have to say about it:

I only wish that these pollsters had retained an extremely informative question that they dropped from their survey a while ago. That question asked about life now compared to life under Saddam Hussein. The results from that question were getting worse over time as Iraq descended into sectarian fighting, but, amazingly, the Iraqis never said that life was better under Saddam:

The 2007 results shown here come from a BBC poll conducted in March of 2007 (back when violence in Iraq was still completely out of control), and I've combined the "somewhat better" and "much better" numbers into a single "better" category (same for "worse"). Even then, more people considered life to be better compared to the Hussein era than thought it was worse. That gives you some indication of how bad things really were under Saddam Hussein. If the pollsters asked that question again today, I suspect that the results would be overwhelmingly in favor of life being better today. To many, that might not matter, but to me it does.

Barack Obama Lives in the Real World

2009-01-10T07:01:00.000-08:00

I just returned from an extended trip during which I unexpectedly had virtually no access to the internet. But I'm not sure I would have blogged all that much even if I had been able to log on. With the war in Iraq essentially over (not because we abandoned our allies there to the wolves of al Qaeda but instead because the U.S. military defeated its enemies -- as history will undoubtedly record) and with a new president who is nothing at all like the man he appeared to be (instead, on both national security and the economy, he has assembled a team of advisors that reflects moderate conservative views rather than radical left wing views), my motivation to blog has dropped a bit. I mean, it's just one thing after another:

WASHINGTON (AP) — As President-elect Barack Obama assures intelligence officials that his complaints are with the Bush administration, not them, there are growing hints from Democratic Senate allies that spy agency veterans will not be prosecuted for past harsh interrogation and detainee policies. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein told The Associated Press in an interview this week that there is a clear distinction between those who made the policies and those who carried them out.

Once again, we don't see any evidence of the left wing fanatic that Obama's rhetoric and his history suggested that we might be seeing right about now. Instead, he merely talks the talk:

WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama said Friday his administration would not compromise its ideals to fight terrorism, adding at a press conference to announce his CIA and national intelligence nominees that he has told them to honor the Geneva Conventions.

"I was clear throughout this campaign and was clear throughout this transition that under my administration the United States does not torture," Obama said, when asked at the news conference whether he would continue the Bush administration's policy of harsh interrogation. "We will abide by the Geneva Conventions. We will uphold our highest ideals."

Of course, this is essentially Bush's position as well.

Text of order signed by President Bush on Feb. 7, 2002, outlining treatment of al-Qaida and Taliban detainees:
...
a. I accept the legal conclusion of the Department of Justice and determine that none of the provisions of Geneva apply to our conflict with al-Qaida in Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout the world because, among other reasons, al-Qaida is not a High Contracting Party to Geneva.

b. I accept the legal conclusion of the attorney general and the Department of Justice that I have the authority under the Constitution to suspend Geneva as between the United States and Afghanistan, but I decline to exercise that authority at this time. Accordingly, I determine that the provisions of Geneva will apply to our present conflict with the Taliban. I reserve the right to exercise the authority in this or future conflicts.

c. I also accept the legal conclusion of the Department of Justice and determine that common Article 3 of Geneva does not apply to either al-Qaida or Taliban detainees, because, among other reasons, the relevant conflicts are international in scope and common Article 3 applies only to "armed conflict not of an international character."

d. Based on the facts supplied by the Department of Defense and the recommendation of the Department of Justice, I determine that the Taliban detainees are unlawful combatants and, therefore, do not qualify as prisoners of war under Article 4 of Geneva. I note that, because Geneva does not apply to our conflict with al-Qaida, al-Qaida detainees also do not qualify as prisoners of war.

3. Of course, our values as a nation, values that we share with many nations in the world, call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those who are not legally entitled to such treatment. Our nation has been and will continue to be a strong supporter of Geneva and its principles. As a matter of policy, the United States Armed Forces shall continue to treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.
...
5. I hereby reaffirm the order previously issued by the secretary of defense to the United States Armed Forces requiring that the detainees be treated humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.

The difference between this policy and the one announced by Obama appears to be that in those few cases where military necessity dictates harsh interrogation (e.g., to elicit time sensitive information from a high-level al Qaeda detainee that could save thousands of innocent lives), Barack Obama will allow the innocents to perish in order to uphold our ideals, where Bush would not. That's a legitimate stance even though I side with Bush (wretchedly evil non-defender of "social justice" that I am).

I feel sure that, soon, Obama will deal with an issue that no anti-torture hysteric ever addresses, namely, the harshest interrogation technique that should be allowed when seeking to elicit time-sensitive information from high-level al Qaeda detainees. People who choose to emote (not to think) believe that the whole debate is about "torture vs. no torture" or "inhumane treatment vs. humane treatment." Actually, that's what the irrelevant self-aggrandizing rhetoric is about. In the real world, you have the draw the line (how harsh is too harsh?). And despite all that he said during the campaign, Barack Obama appears to be living in the real world. This continues to amaze me, and it will probably cause me to blog less as time goes on. We'll see, I guess.

UPDATE: More evidence that Obama lives in the real world comes from his appointment of John Brennan as an advisor in the war on terror. Self-aggrandizing anti-torture activist Andrew Sullivan discusses Brennan like this when he was being considered as director of the CIA by the realist Barack Obama:

21 Nov 2008 11:48 am

No Way. No How. No Brennan.
...
The simple answer to the question - what length do we want to go? - is to abide by the rule of law. Why is that so hard to understand? And yet Brennan and Tenet didn't. They authorized clear torture sessions. Why is such a man even considered for the post under Obama? This man cannot end the taint of Bush-Cheney. He was Bush-Cheney. In fact, if Obama picks him, it will be a vindication of the kind of ambivalence and institutional moral cowardice that made America a torturing nation. It would be an unforgivable betrayal of his supporters and his ideals. It would be an acknowledgment that Tenet himself is not a war criminal, while the facts indisputably prove that he was.
...
The least we know is that Brennan is ambivalent about this. Ambivalence on this matter is unacceptable. We haven't fought for decency and reform and a return to American values for so long to be turned back now. We didn't work our butts off to elect Obama only to get Bush another four years at CIA. If Brennan emerges as the pick, those of us against the continuation of war crimes and the prosecution of war criminals will have to oppose him strenuously in the nomination process. We will, in fact, have to go to war with Obama before he even takes office.

To me, it's important to have presidential advisores who cause Andrew Sullivan to react like that. If every advisor received the Andrew Sullivan seal of approval, I start to worry. Fortunately for all of us, Barack Obama lives in the real world (to my unceasing amazement).

How to be an Anti-Torture Hysteric

2008-12-18T07:52:00.000-08:00

If even Dick Cheney approves of Obama's foreign policy team, you know the president-elect has done an unexpectedly good job on that front:

Cheney lauds Obama's national security team

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney is calling President-elect Barack Obama's national security lineup "a pretty good team."

In a wide-ranging interview with ABC News with 35 days left in the Bush administration, Cheney also again vehemently defended going to war in Iraq, said waterboarding of suspects in the war on terror was justified in some instances and opposed closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"I must say, I think it's a pretty good team," Cheney said of Obama's national security choices, in a segment of the interview broadcast Tuesday on "Good Morning America."

I'm with Cheney on this, and I don't know a single ardent fan of Barack Obama (or a single detractor, for that matter) who predicted that we'd end up with a national security team like the one we now have. And Obama keeps going out of his way to prove that meant it when he said he'd rise above partisanship:

Calif. evangelist to give inaugural invocation

Obama's choice of Rick Warren is an olive branch to religious conservatives

Barack Obama has selected the Rev. Rick Warren, the evangelical pastor and author of “The Purpose Driven Life,” to deliver the invocation at his inauguration, a role that positions Mr. Warren to succeed Billy Graham as the nation’s pre-eminent minister and reflects the generational changes in the evangelical Christian movement.

Some of the left are having a conniption fit over this, but some of the left are prone to that kind of reaction.

Barack Obama will soon pick his intelligence team, but we've already learned one important fact about our president-elect on this front as well. The fact we have learned is that he is not the left wing hysteric that he appeared to be on the campaign trail:

Obama faces delicate task with CIA

Caught between desire to break from Bush, alienating the agency

WASHINGTON - For two years on the presidential campaign trail, Barack Obama rallied crowds with strongly worded critiques of the Bush administration’s most controversial counterterrorism programs, from hiding terrorism suspects in secret Central Intelligence Agency jails to questioning them with methods he denounced as torture.

Now Mr. Obama must take charge of the C.I.A., in what is already proving to be one of the more treacherous patches of his transition to the White House.

Last week, John O. Brennan , a C.I.A. veteran who was widely seen as Mr. Obama’s likeliest choice to head the intelligence agency, withdrew his name from consideration after liberal critics attacked his alleged role in the agency’s detention and interrogation program.

Brennan withdrew his name, but the fact that Obama wanted to have that man lead the CIA pretty much proves that Obama fully appreciates the fact that there is a rationale debate to be had about interrogation techniques. This sets him apart from left wing hysterics who emotionally frame the issue as a debate between pro-torture vs. anti-torture advocates. The actual debate is over the harshness of interrogation techniques that should be allowed under particular circumstances. How harsh a technique should be allowed for a low-level al Qaeda operative who probably knows nothing of any importance? How harsh a technique should be allowed for a high-level al Qaeda detainee who is thought to have time-sensitive information about an impending mass-casualty attack on innocent and unsuspecting men, women and children? Adults debate that issue, and most agree that torture is not an option. Where they disagree is on the question of what constitutes torture and how harsh the interrogation technique should be (short of torture).

Popular liberal bloggers approach the issue in an entirely different way. They consider it to be self-evident that harsh interrogation techniques amount to torture (so the issue need not be further analyzed) and that such techniques are ineffective anyway. That being the case, anyone who supports the use of, say, waterboarding for a high-level al Qaeda detainee must be either wretchedly evil or colossally stupid (or, most likely, both). This level of thinking is what you often see in low-budget movies in which the bad guy is evil through and through, whereas the good guy is as pure as the driven snow.

Like the use of the death penalty for murder, what makes the issue difficult is that moral imperatives collide. If you are mainly concerned with self-aggrandizement, you'll instead frame the issue as one of good vs. evil (with you as a champion of the good, of course). People are free to do that, but, to me, it is a sign that they are fixated in an adolescent stage of development.

With regard to the death penalty, it seems immoral for the state to take the life of someone who has committed a grisly murder of a young child, but it also seems immoral not to take that life if it might deter many similar crimes in the future. To avoid that debate, many liberals simply assert that the death penalty cannot possibly deter murder. The problem is that much evidence suggests otherwise. The same attempted end-run is seen in the debate over torture. Anti-torture fanatics instinctively realize that their position is not the obviously moral one if the use of harsh interrogation stands any chance of saving many innocent lives. To avoid dealing with that possibility like an adult, they hysterically classify all harsh interrogation techniques as "torture" and then simply declare that "torture doesn't work" (and then they quote someone like John McCain as saying so, as if that settles the debate). Well, if all harsh interrogation techniques amount to torture, and if torture doesn't work anyway, then those who favor the use of waterboarding for high-level al Qaeda detainees must be wretchedly evil or colossally stupid (or both). That's how you argue on the far left.

How do anti-torture hysterics on the far left avoid answering the one key question, which is this: setting aside the issue of torture, what is the harshest interrogation technique that should be allowed for high-level al Qaeda detainees thought to have information about an impending mass-casualty attack on civilians? No anti-torture champion ever addresses that question, and the way they avoid it to say something like "I'm for what's in the Army Field Manual." But that's not a moral or ethical position. It's just a way to dodge the hard debate so that you can set yourself up as a champion of virtue (and simultaneously characterize your opponents as pathologically evil). Well, not everyone on the left is this way, I am glad to say:

But even some senior Democratic lawmakers who are vehement critics of the Bush administration’s interrogation policies seemed reluctant in recent interviews to commit the new administration to following the Army Field Manual in all cases.
...
But in an interview on Tuesday, Mrs. Feinstein indicated that extreme cases might call for flexibility. “I think that you have to use the noncoercive standard to the greatest extent possible,” she said, raising the possibility that an imminent terrorist threat might require special measures.

You don't say. And what's the principle that should followed in deciding how harsh those "special measures" should be? That's the question, and no anti-torture hysteric on the left will ever come close to touching it. The moment they do, it ruins their game (i.e., they would be doing the hard work of drawing the line instead of taking the easy way out by accusing their intellectual opponents of being morally bankrupt). So far, it seem to me that, in light of the fact that he wanted John Brennan to head the CIA, Barack Obama is not going to play this game. Time will tell.