July 4th, 2008 by BRIJ KHINDARIA, International Columnist
An air strike by Israel on Iran’s nuclear facilities will shatter both Washington’s credibility in world affairs and its own long term security.
The intensified chatter that Israel may act before the November election or soon afterwards should be cause for consternation to all its supporters.
Whatever Teheran’s rhetoric of peace, we should work on the premise that it is covertly developing nuclear warheads capable of reaching as far as Western Europe within 5-15 years. Undoubtedly, that threatens Israel’s existence.
But an Israeli solution patterned on the 1980s strike against Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactors would be folly. This is not because Israel may fail to cripple the facilities but because the level of fear under which it lives currently will increase manifold.
It is hubris to expect that nearly 30 years after that strike, Israel’s enemies remain so intimidated by its military that they will not seek revenge repeatedly.
Were Israel at peace with all its neighbors, Iran would be too isolated diplomatically to retaliate. Instead, Israel’s neighbors are bitter enemies encouraged by its military’s confused performance against the Hezbollah militia which had no air power. They also see its inability to halt suicide bombers and artisanal rockets fired from Gaza and the West Bank.
They have seen the failures of Israel’s allies in Washington and NATO to suppress insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, who confront those ultra sophisticated armies with light weapons and improvised explosive devices.
The debilitating effects of lengthy wars of attrition should not be discounted. They have repeatedly turned the strong into footnotes of history.
At this time, many governments around the world are Israel’s friends and it is a rich and respected country. However, it is well to remember that the American people are Israel’s only real protectors.
Almost all of Israel’s other friends will stand on the sidelines, whatever their sympathy with its arguments about the justice of its preemptive attack on Iran.
Lumbered by national debt and interminable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even the American people may be incapable of giving sustained support in the aftermath when Muslim terrorist vengeance rains upon Israelis week after week for years.
In the short term, nobody has the stomach for another major war if Iran retaliates as promised by blocking the Hormuz Straits through which 40% of Western oil arrives. It may also widen attacks through proxies on US assets in the Gulf kingdoms, Iraq and elsewhere, including Pakistan, Africa, Indonesia and Malaysia.
In international affairs, it is normal for countries, including allies, to take advantage when the powerful start to weaken. Both Israel and America have many rivals waiting for signs of weakness to make economic, diplomatic and, when possible, territorial gains.
Turkey, which is veering towards Islam, may refuse use of its territory despite NATO membership as it did for the invasion of Iraq. It may also cause trouble in Iraq’s Kurdish region to disarm rebels and in oil-rich Kirkuk to prevent Kurds from dominating Turkmen.
Syria will certainly take advantage of Israel’s predicament to retake the Golan Heights and perhaps more. Hezbollah’s Shia militants could grab the superb prize of Beirut, which they almost did a few weeks ago. They may also probe into Israeli territory in the south.
Hamas could break out of Gaza to depose American and Israeli-backed Fatah in the West Bank. Arms smuggling by sea and overland from Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon may become uncontrollable.
On how many fronts could Israelis fight on their own, regardless of their wealth and leading-edge military technologies? In the end, wars are about people and Israel does not have too many of those. In any case, it is populated by human beings not warrior supermen.
Voters in European NATO countries are hardly likely to approve support for an Israeli request for military protection, if it launches an undeclared war of choice by attacking Iran.
Russia, China and India would certainly not enter such a venture. The Sunni Gulf states may quietly withdraw from any secret agreements they have currently with the US to contain Iran.
In the best case scenario, a strike may give Israel some breathing space and may not trigger a wider regional war. But it certainly will not strengthen Israeli security or stop the birth of vengeful enemies.
Judging from the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, even a crushing defeat may fail to install a new system in Iran. So, Israeli hawks should think through a more candid lens about the legacy they wish to leave to their children.
In any case, politics is an unpredictable process. Perhaps the current Israel-hating Mullahs will have changed by the time Iran develops its nuclear bomb. Then its weapon may become as acceptable as that of Pakistan, India or Israel itself.
There is something rather unusual about our national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner“. We only sing part of it, and the last words of the part we commonly sing are a question:
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
It makes sense in the context of why it was written by Francis Scott Key, but most national anthems are solely about literally singing the praises of the country.
Think about the question asked, though, especially through the lens of experience of the last seven years.
Think about it in light of the massive surveillence that the federal government is undertaking in the name of “fighting the terrorists.”
Think about it in light of interpretation of the Constitution by some on the Supreme Court as only granting the rights listed explicitly, despite the numerous writings of the founders that the Bill of Rights was to explicitly protect rights, not limit them.
Think about it in light of all the actions taken by our government in the last seven years, including indefinite imprisonment of both citizens and non-citizens, torture, warrantless wiretapping, national securitly letters, and other offenses against the guiding principles of the founders of our country.
Many say they love their country. Once I said it, too. Now I say I love the principles upon which our nation was founded, but my country no longer follows them.
Does that star-spangled banner yet wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Freedom requires courage, yet we have allowed fear to govern us.
We need to consider that question when we sing our national anthem today.
I actually got a head-start on the holiday because I read the July 4 issue of that great military newspaper, the Stars and Stripes, on July 3. You see, because of the time difference, the Middle East edition of the Stars and Stripes is published around 2 PM Central Standard Time, in effect “the day before.“
In the July 4 issue there is an opinion piece, “In foot-in-mouth contest, Clark is swiftest,” by Jay Ambrose, in which Ambrose takes retired Gen. Wesley Clark to task for remarks he made about John McCain. Ambrose quotes Clark saying, “riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down” is no qualification to be president. Ambrose continues, “ and the immediate accusation was that he was guilty of “swift boating.”
First, let’s put Clark’s remarks in context.
In a question-and answer session with Bob Schieffer on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Clark praised McCain‘s service and sacrifice as a prisoner of war: “I certainly honor [McCain’s] service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces, as a prisoner of war,” and on his service in the Senate: “He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee and he has traveled all over the world,” but, Clark continued, “he hasn’t held executive responsibility” “That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded — that wasn’t a wartime squadron.”
Actually, back in March, in a conference call with reporters, Clark did a much better job of articulating his criticism of McCain and of putting his views in context. He then said: “Everybody admires John McCain’s service as a fighter pilot, his courage as a prisoner of war. There’s no issue there. He’s a great man and an honorable man. But having served as a fighter pilot — and I know my experience as a company commander in Vietnam — that doesn’t prepare you to be commander in chief in terms of dealing with the national strategic issues that are involved. It may give you a feeling for what the troops are going through in the process, but it doesn’t give you the experience first hand of the national strategic issues.”
Second, as to the accusation that Clark “was guilty of ‘swift boating.’ I say “hogwash,“ because that is patently ridiculous and because I am not aware of any “immediate accusation that [Clark] was guilty of ‘swift boating’” in any serious media.
I say it is a patently ridiculous accusation–and I will add disingenuous and manufactured–for the following reasons:
1. General Clark’s remarks by no stretch of the (objective) imagination rise to the level of the despicable tactics used by those who conducted the defamatory media blitz against John Kerry four years ago and, as a result, gave the term “swift boating” such an odious connotation.
2. Democrats would not use such a term to characterize the remarks of a fellow Democrat, especially those of a distiguished retired General.
3. Republicans and Conservatives are trying to put that heinous episode behind them, and–as Ambrose himself would agree–attempting to reclaim the good name “Swift Boat,“ and would not themselves continue to perpetuate its odious connotation by using it to characterize Clark’s remarks.
Finally, a reason for Ambrose to use such a term to describe Clark’s remarks, might have been to be able to launch into a discourse against what he calls “Disgrace Number Two” which, according to him is “the use of the word ‘swift boating‘ to describe mendacious slurs on a political candidate.”
After first–pardon the expression–swift boating General Clark’s military record, Ambrose quotes from a June 30 New York Times article (“Veterans Long to Reclaim the Name ‘Swift Boat’”): “’Swift boat’ has become the synonym for the nastiest of campaign smears.” He then says, “But the real smear is against the honorable Vietnam veterans of swift boat service who raised serious, responsible allegations against Democratic nominee John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.”
Ambrose then goes on to rehash, and to try to justify, many of the same accusations that made “Swift Boat “ “the “synonym for the nastiest of campaign smears“ to begin with.
Glaringly absent from Ambrose‘s primer on “Swift boating” is the following, still from the same New York Times article:
By the association’s count, about 3,600 men served aboard Swift boats in Vietnam, 600 officers and 3,000 enlisted. About 200 signed the letter that became the basis of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign in 2004. In advertisements, a best-selling book and extensive news media appearances, they accused Mr. Kerry of fabricating exploits to win his military decorations and a discharge just four months into a yearlong tour.
And,
Navy documents contradicted many of their accusations, but the claims undermined what Democrats had hoped would be Mr. Kerry’s strength. Regardless of what they thought of Mr. Kerry, many Swift boat veterans objected to the attacks. “It was unconscionable,” said Stan Collier, who served as an officer in charge on a boat based in Qui Nhon. “I thought those boys struck a new low.”
And, continuing with Stan Collier:
Mr. Collier considers himself a conservative and did not agree with Mr. Kerry’s politics, but he voted for him to protest the Swift boat campaign. “We’ve all been attributed to the sleaziness that those guys assigned to Kerry,” he said. “I think we’ve all been demeaned.”
I do agree with Ambrose on one thing. It is a shame that a name associated with so many brave veterans–especially the ones who had nothing to do with the attack on Senator Kerry–has become a political pejorative, and that these heroes should get their good name back. Especially, as the Times says, “the good names of the men not lucky enough to come home alive.”
It is hoped that more and more of these heroes will come forward to disassociate themselves from the group that has brought them so much grief. Harlan Ullman, a Swift boat driver in Vietnam and a Pentagon consultant has written: “It is time to ban a word that is at once offensive, demeaning and obscene both to and for anyone serving in the naval profession. That word is ‘Swiftboating.’”
And,
…as Americans get to know more and more about those 3,400 brave people who did not participate in the besmirching of good men and women for purely political reasons, the quicker the original shine will be returned to the name Swift boaters.
From the people of WORLDMEETS.US to all the readers of and contributors to The Moderate Voice, HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY.
Today we’ll be covering the global reaction to the Fourth of July, starting with an editorial of thanks to America from Australia’s Gold Coast:
“THIS being the birthday of the United States of America, it is worth remembering that the Land Of The Free still is Australia’s greatest ally in an increasingly uncertain and turbulent world. … This nation should never forget that US lads died in their thousands in the Pacific War to help defend this nation from Japanese aggressors. Nor should we forget that the US dispatched one of their top warriors, General Douglas MacArthur, to Brisbane to help us when Britain was concentrating on its own defense.”
From the Canada Free Press, take the U.S. Independence Day quiz and see how you stack up in terms of Revolutionary American history. For example, “What colony did George Washington represent when he signed the Declaration?”
And from the BBC, an article about how American Independence was not inevitable, despite claims by John Adams to the contrary.
July 4th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
In India many boys of my generation in school grew up on a staple diet of American/British comic books (to the great annoyance of our parents who felt we were neglecting our textbooks). I was delighted to read The Independent report that comic/graphic books are emerging stronger and gaining popularity in view of the failure of the media to satisfy public thirst for information regarding the raging conflicts, including the Iraq war.
Here is what The Independent writes: “They’re a far cry from Spiderman and the Incredible Hulk. A daring new generation of graphic novelists is using the conflict in Iraq to explore America’s relationship with the rest of the world – and itself.”
But what is this ‘graphic novel’? The term ‘graphic novel’, in the Comic Books genre, was first coined by Richard Kyle in 1964, mainly as an attempt to distinguish the newly translated works from Europe which were then being published from what Kyle perceived as the more juvenile subject matter that was so common in the United States. More here…
The Independent continues:“Today’s broad countercultural coalition in the US is often motivated by frustration at the news coverage of the Iraq conflict and its aftermath from traditional media outlets. In such a climate, comic books thrive by reflecting the public bad mood, and they remain streets ahead of many of their rivals in the creative industries.
“While authors and filmmakers have taken their time preparing fictional responses to the war, comics are a relatively immediate form. In theory…’you can write and draw a comic and see it on the stands three months later. A movie can take years’.” More here…
Update: The anticipated overreaction is happening, but it seems to be most flagrant in the MSM. As a result, Barack Obama has given another press conference, and has issued an email confirming that he has, in fact, been very consistent. Some reaction from the blogosphere has been added after original post.
A question: Why would the MSM be spinning this up so baldly?
–
For months now, I’ve been writing that Obama was not the hard-core liberal the far left wanted (and the far-right hoped for). This was true on nearly everything from NAFTA to the death penalty, and it’s only on FISA that I’ve been surprised.
As the general election campaign has gotten underway, and various issues have become more fleshed out, there have been gasps of horror from various corners. Imagine (I’ve thought and discussed) what will happen when Obama’s carefully nuanced Iraq position finally moved into the light. Here it comes:
FARGO, N.D. – Senator Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot sustain a long-term military presence in Iraq, but added that he would be open to “refine my policies” about a timeline for withdrawing troops after meeting with American military commanders during a trip to Iraq later this month.
Mr. Obama, whose popularity in the Democratic primary was built upon a sharp opposition to the war and an often-touted 16-month gradual timetable for removing combat troops, dismissed suggestions that he was changing positions in the wake of reductions in violence in Iraq and a general election fight with Senator John McCain.
“I’ve always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability. That assessment has not changed,” he said. “And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies.”
It’s true. He’s said this all along, and as I wrote earlier today, he’s also said that he’d listen to commanders on the ground.
But I’m absolutely sure that a large portion of his supporters weren’t listening. So what will they do with this, I wonder? Will it blow up as big as FISA has? I hope not, but there’s certain to be an uproar.
For me, though, bringing some light to this subject is a relief. I’ve wondered when he’d start to clarify for those many folks who’ve not read past the headlines and soundbites.
FWIW, I agree completely with his approach, and I always have. Had I thought Obama was going to completely ignore current conditions in Iraq when he took office; that he would simply start pulling troops in complete disregard for their safety, or the safety of the Iraqis, I would not have been able to support him.
That would have been incredibly irresponsible, perhaps even criminally so. More than that, though, it would have indicated a rigid mind, and there’s nothing I want less in a president.
But I never thought Obama suffered from rigidity, or even ideological purity.
Once folks who missed the nuance recover from the shock of a responsible approach to withdrawing from Iraq, I hope they’ll agree with me.
And I hope they recover before November.
* * * * *
Some reactions from various parts of the blogosphere:
All Obama is doing here is defusing the GOP argument that he’d withdraw recklessly and preserving flexibility for himself as commander in chief. These journalistic errors are matters of nuance. But nuance is hugely important here.
AllahPundit at HotAir agrees that Obama’s consistently left some wiggle room. However:
I’m not going to rub his face in it. The important thing is to make the right decision and he’s nearer to that now than he’s ever been. Yeah, it’s almost certainly for cynical political reasons, but so long as the progress continues and public opinion improves, those cynical political reasons will continue to steer him right.
This may not be a flip-flop by the technical definition of the term, but it certainly is a substantial walk back on perhaps the defining issue of the election that will draw fire from both the right and the left.
I suspect the ruckus is just getting going. Many more opinions at memeorandum, here.
As anyone who regularly visits the Moderate Voice or WORLDMEETS.US knows by now, the world’s attention is riveted on the U.S. election campaign. And in every nation, different lessons - some of them cautionary - are being drawn.
Writing for Brazil’s Estadao, Lourdes Sola explains why American election campaigns - particularly this one - create so much emotion in the ‘other three corners of the world’ and how the way Americans choose their leaders proves the resiliency and health of U.S. democracy. Sola then outlines the lessons that people in other nations, particularly Brazilians, should glean from the U.S. presidential race.
“American democracy shows the enormous capacity of institutions to absorb and filter change in society without resulting challenges to the law. The dispute in the Democratic Party between ‘a woman’ and ‘a Black,’ leads to an institutional question: Why and by what mechanisms were Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama chosen as the most competitive electoral candidates? The same question can be posed about the nomination of John McCain since it also reflects a shift in the value system of the Republican Party on immigration, the environment and secularism. Taken together, this is a “change in season” in the sphere of politics and reflects a profound transformation in that society’s system of values and criteria for political legitimacy.”
“Societies today are exposed to global processes of political interaction and a dissemination of values over which nations and party leaders have little control. Apart from changes in the axis of global power and the role of the major emerging countries, it is the force and vitality of American democratic institutions - and not its economy - that the election campaign brings to the fore of the international debate. Confronting the successive “shocks of reality” to which U.S. society has been subject - from the losses associated with the war in Iraq to the subprime crisis - the process of regenerating American social life has begun in the political realm rather than through any particular policies. This will now play out in the contest between Obama vs. McCain.”
By now we’ve all heard how the surge strategy in Iraq has been a great success. Which raises the question whether the things that have made this “success” possible can be applied to problems in our own country. Here are a few tips in that regard.
So-called “Awakening Councils” in Sunni areas of Iraq where we used to encounter fierce resistance have been largely pacified. How? We simply put the guys who were killing our soldiers and marines on the American payroll. We pay them regular salaries, arm them, and train them.
So why not apply the same principle to street gangs in places like Los Angeles? We could pay gang members with public funds, arm them and train them in advanced fighting techniques. And all we would ask in return is that they stop shooting up their neighborhoods and be less public about dealing drugs. A great deal all around, no?
To lessen the damages done by exploding truck bombs in Iraq, we have built blast walls that separate ethnic neighborhoods, and placed armed guards at the only entrances and exits through these walls. This has worked wonders in cutting down civilian casualties.
Why not do the same thing to separate ethnic neighborhoods in American cities like Washington? Officials there are already stopping and searching vehicles going into some neighborhoods. And heaven knows, there are literally thousands of gated communities around the country that separate the well-off from those who are less financially desirable. Blast walls are thus a natural extension of what we’ve been doing in this country for some time—with the added benefit that constructing them would provide infrastructure jobs for the wall builders.
And then, of course, is the glorious success that we’ve had in Iraq by hiring mercenaries (oops, contractors) to do the work of regular military personnel. Sure, these hirelings cost six figure salaries each and seem surprisingly detached from ordinary rules governing the regular military. But their deaths don’t make the papers and they stretch a regular military that doesn’t attract enough men and women to do the jobs they are currently assigned because these jobs have so little popular support.
We could easily create a variant of this approach in our own homeland. Armed, highly trained and paid vigilantes who do the dirty crime-stopping jobs and aren’t held back by silly legal piccadillos.
If this transference of ideas and approaches from our Iraq venture strikes you as a good way to go, let your Congress person know. After all, what could be fairer than doing unto ourselves what we have so egregiously done unto Iraqi others?
As you know if you are a reader of this or any number of other blogs, The New York Timesbroke a biggie yesterday in reporting that the Pentagon knowingly employed torture techniques that the Communist Chinese used on U.S. airmen during the Korean War to extract false confessions from them.
But if your diet is heavy with right-of-center blogs you probably wouldn’t have read a peep about this latest revelation regarding one of the darkest chapters in the history of a country that will be celebrating its 232nd birthday tomorrow. That is the embrace of torture at the highest levels of the Bush administration and its subsequent efforts to cover up something it knew to be wrong and then to justify it.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen has stated that a strike against Iran would be ‘extremely stressful’ for the US. I’ll say it would — though of course, he’s talking about a different sort of stress.
There have been a number of reports lately (and significant evidence) suggesting that Israel is gearing up for a strike against Iran. Just to take one example, more than 100 F-15 and F-16 fighters recently participated in exercises over the Mediterranean which were apparently intended, among other things, to send the message that Israel is ‘prepared to act militarily if diplomatic efforts to stop Iran from producing bomb-grade uranium continued to falter.’ (International Herald Tribune)
As BBC News’ Justin Webb notes, it seems apparent that Adm. Mullen does not want an attack on Iran at this time, and is fighting hard behind the scenes to prevent it. While Mullen believes that Iran ‘is on a path to get nuclear weapons and…that’s something that needs to be deterred,’ he thinks that ‘the solution still lies in using other elements of national power to change Iranian behaviour, including diplomatic, financial and international pressure.”‘ (BBC News)
Like many others who are concerned with the looming debacle, he wants ‘a dialogue’ between the US and Tehran. (BBC News) While he believes that Iran ‘is on a path to get nuclear weapons and…that’s something that needs to be deterred,’ he thinks that ‘the solution still lies in using other elements of national power to change Iranian behaviour, including diplomatic, financial and international pressure.”‘ (BBC News)…. Did I mention he recommends a dialogue between the US and Tehran?
“We have created a system of corruption far more corrupt than anything that existed during Saddam Hussein’s regime, and which is unprecedented in Iraqi history.”
“In essence, the prevailing corruption is due to America’s mismanagement in administering Iraqi affairs, and the emboldening of corrupt leaders who prey on the public interest.”
How significant is it that Kim Jong-il has agreed to destroy his nuclear facilities in a place called Yongbyon? According to a man that knew him well - not very.
According to Hwang Jang-yop, the highest-ranking defector in North Korean history - a man who was once Kim Jong-il’s teacher and the former Chairman of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly, the cooling tower and facilities that the North destroyed was “junk,” but nevertheless, the Dear Leader wouldn’t have the nerve to use a nuke in the first place.
“The Yongbyon nuclear complex is an obsolete piece of junk … But the Yongbyon nuclear reactor has already produced enough plutonium to make nuclear weapons. Indeed, it has already produced all the [nuclear weapons] it needs.”
It seems that under the Bush Administration, Chinese interrogation methods designed to elicit false confessions during the Korean War became the basis for the training of interrogators at Guantanamo (NYT).
It seems there was a certain chart used in training the interrogators came to light during June 17 hearings by the Senate Armed Services committee.
The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”…
What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force
study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners…..The only change made in the chart presented at Guantánamo was to drop its original title: “Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance.”(NYT)
Christopher Hitchens — whom I have always perversely gone on liking, even though I often find him grievously mistaken and frequently cruel when defending his wrong views — decided to experience waterboarding first-hand to find out whether it is torture and if so, how long he could endure it. (Vanity Fair). His conclusion? It is. As Justin Gardner says, good to see he gets it.
You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered. This was very rapidly brought home to me when, on top of the hood, which still admitted a few flashes of random and worrying strobe light to my vision, three layers of enveloping towel were added.
An East Jerusalem Palestinian hijacked a bulldozer today and began attacking buses, cars and the people in them. A few people were killed and around 60 were wounded. Fortunately, the terrorist was quickly killed.
While BBC Online currently covers the story “Bulldozer rampage hits Jerusalem,” this was not the original headline. Offering a glimpse into the BBC’s warped journalism, the initial headline read “Israel bulldozer driver shot dead”.
I am appalled to see that CNN is writing “terrorist” and MSNBC is writing ‘terrorist’ when these are TERRORISTS without quotation marks or apostrophes.
Credit for some of these links goes to Rabbi David in Iowa.
The more we learn about the Bush torture regime, the more apparent it becomes that there is an interconnectivity between what once seemed random acts and events: False confessions are coerced from tortured detainees using Chinese Communist techniques perfected on U.S. fliers during the Korean War. Ethnic Muslims considered by the Chinese to be enemies of the state are held indefinitely by the U.S. and worked over at the request of Beijing’s interrogators. And so on and so forth.
But first a little . . . er, light comedy:
It is safe to say that the wheels have come all the way off the Bush administration’s legal wagon regarding the justification for indefinite detentions of alleged terrorist suspects when a three-judge appeals court panel with one of the most conservative judges in the land resorts to quoting Lewis Carroll.
In ruling that accusations against Huzaifa Parhat, an ethnic Uighur from a Muslim region of western China held for over six years were based on unverifiable claims, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia compared those claims to the absurd declaration of a character in Carroll’s poem “The Hunting of the Snark:
“I have said it thrice: What I tell you is three times true.”
Please click here to read more at Kiko’s House and here for an index with links to previous torture-related posts.
Is Barack Obama’s honeymoon with Europe over already?
After months of the most effusive and unrestrained praise for America’s first serious Black presidential candidate, some of Obama’s most energetic European backers - the Germans - are growing skeptical.
“In the end, a disappointment is a deceit. So it’s for the best that we cast a serous German glance in the direction of the American Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama. He has called for the death penalty for child rapists, defends the right to possess firearms and is the first candidate since the Watergate scandal to reject public financing of his election campaign in favor of private, unlimited contributions. ‘Hey,’ some on this side of the Atlantic now ask, ‘we thought he was one of us?’ Far from it.”
“The facade of the wise, eloquent and charming golden boy has begun to crumble. There is a second - other Obama. And he’s about to be discovered: unscrupulous, selfish, and overambitious.’
“Who is the real Obama? Nobody knows for sure. For now because of his vagueness, it’s still possible to project various expectations onto him, in USA as well as in Europe. But here and there the impatience is growing: Obama, perhaps the first Black President, must not only be flexible, he has to take a stand.”
In a USA Today story, “Price of Power: McCain accepts ex-Swift Boaters’ donations,” we learn that Senator John McCain, who four years ago condemned the “Swift Boat’s” attacks on Vietnam veteran John Kerry as “dishonest and dishonorable,” has now accepted nearly $70,000 from the top donors of this group.
According to USA Today,
That’s nearly four times the amount McCain received from those donors in the 14 years before launching his current campaign at the end of 2006, campaign finance records show. In 2004, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (later called SwiftVets and POWS for Truth) bankrolled ads charging that Kerry had lied about the incidents in Vietnam that led to his military decorations. The group included former members of the Navy who served in the same kind of river patrol boats as Kerry.
And,
McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said in an e-mail that McCain accepted the money because the donors are “interested in supporting (his) agenda of reform, prosperity and peace.”
Just a couple of observations.
First, is it morally and ethically correct for a presidential candidate to accept campaign contributions from, say, the most heinous organizations or people, just because they support his or her agenda?
Second: Of course, John McCain has every right to accept such contributions from the group that he condemned four years ago for smearing his fellow Vietnam War veteran, John Kerry. Just like he will have every right to –after having pocketed their contributions–once again condemn the group when and if its Swiftboating of Barack Obama begins.
On a related note, The New York Times in an article yesterday (June 30), “Veterans Long to Reclaim the Name ‘Swift Boat’,” describes how “Swift boat” “has become the synonym for the nastiest of campaign smears, a shadow that hangs over the presidential race as pundits wait to proclaim that the Swiftboating has begun and candidates declare that they will not be Swiftboated,” and how the true “Swift boat veterans — especially those who had nothing to do with the group that attacked Senator John Kerry’s military record in the 2004 election — want their good name back, and the good names of the men not lucky enough to come home alive.”
Again, just two observations.
First, it is good to hear from those Swift boat veterans who had nothing to do with one of the most vicious and shameful smear campaigns in recent political history. By their Association’s count, only about 200 of the approximately 3,600 men who served aboard Swift boats in Vietnam, signed the letter that became the basis of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth smear campaign in 2004. It is truly a shame that the actions of a relatively few have so gravely damaged the reputation of so many brave men.
As one of their own–Stan Collier, who according to the Times, served as an officer in charge on a boat based in Qui Nhon–says, “It was unconscionable,” “I thought those boys struck a new low.” And, “We’ve all been attributed to the sleaziness that those guys assigned to Kerry,”. “I think we’ve all been demeaned.”
Second, it is hoped that more and more of these heroes will come forward to disassociate themselves from the group that has brought them so much grief. Harlan Ullman, a Swift boat driver in Vietnam and a Pentagon consultant has written: “It is time to ban a word that is at once offensive, demeaning and obscene both to and for anyone serving in the naval profession. That word is ‘Swiftboating.’ ”
While it is unlikely that the word “Swiftboating” can or will ever be banned, one way for such an “offensive, demeaning and obscene” connotation to gradually diminish may be when and if those who initially brought about such an association discontinue such activities.
But, as Americans get to know more and more about those 3,400 brave people who did not participate in the besmirching of good men and women for purely political reasons, the quicker the original shine will be returned to the name Swift boaters.
Analyst Barnett Rubin has an eye-opening assessment of developments in Afghanistan. Well worth the read. He notes that despite optimistic accounts from the likes of Ann Marlowe and David Ignatius, the Department of Defense recently revealed that attacks have risen 40% in eastern Afghanistan over the last year. Even Khost province, what some have called the “crown jewel in the American counterinsurgency,” isn’t quite the peaceful Switzerland that it’s been made it out to be. As Rubin writes:
My source reports 269 attacks so far this year in Khost, up 22 percent from last year’s total of 220. So the greatest achievement of U.S. counterinsurgency in Afghanistan has been to hold the escalation in violence in Khost to a bit more than half of the national level of increase….Counter-insurgency is not graded on a curve; not succeeding is failing. So far, that’s still where the indicators point.
I don’t want to totally downplay what’s been happening in Khost, however, since the trend is moving in the right direction; and, for that, American COIN tactics apparently deserve some credit. The big question, though, is whether or not this movement — extremely modest though it may be — can be replicated in other provinces. Hypothetically, let’s say that American forces were to take over military operations from their less COIN-savvy NATO counterparts and implement their approach on a nation-wide scale. Would the country trend towards greater calm? Rubin, for his part, is pessimistic about the possibilities:
I doubt it, because Khost [is] such a small place with a relatively high level of education (it was called “Little Moscow” under the communists), and, second, the forces for such an expansion are not available, because the U.S. is stuck in a disastrous war in Iraq.
Debates like this one are largely missing from the foreign policy discourse in Washington. Thanks in large part to some world-class negligence from the American media, Afghanistan continues to slide off the map. To really dig into this kind of analysis, you have to comb the blogs and the web for a taste of what’s going on. Mainstream print media is going to be of only irregular assistance. Nor will cable news be of much help. Consider these numbers and weep - or scream, if you prefer:
Coverage of the war in Afghanistan has increased slightly this year, with 46 minutes of total coverage year-to-date compared with 83 minutes for all of 2007. NBC has spent 25 minutes covering Afghanistan, partly because the anchor Brian Williams visited the country earlier in the month. Through Wednesday, when an ABC correspondent was in the middle of a prolonged visit to the country, ABC had spent 13 minutes covering Afghanistan. CBS has spent eight minutes covering Afghanistan so far this year. (New York Times)
Eight minutes. Jesus. Maybe it’s time for the media to start giving a damn.
The more we learn about the Bush torture regime, the more apparent it becomes that there is an interconnectivity between what once seemed random acts and events: False confessions are coerced from tortured detainees using Chinese Communist techniques perfected on U.S. fliers during the Korean War. Ethnic Muslims considered by the Chinese to be enemies of the state are held indefinitely by the U.S. and worked over at the request of Beijing’s interrogators. And so on and so forth.
