Kim du Toit has an excellent post on how massive databases are developed and used. I hadn't realized he was such an expert on the topic, but he is. It's a good read, to go with the posts by Froggy two items down.
There's quite a debate in the comments of Froggy's second post, by the way. That's good, although I'm a little astonished at Allan's remarkable suggestion that former-SEAL/Special Agent Froggy is part of UBL's fifth column. OSO has some interesting objections that are worth reading.
At this poing in the debate, reading these things is important not to verify what you already believe, but to inform yourself for the slog forward. There are three separate questions, and if you read these posts you'll be in a better position to think about all of them:
1) How, and how well, would such a system work?
2) What rights and protections apply to each part of the process?
3) Is the program legal, and if not, should it be?
You'll be smarter about all of that if you read those links.
DB Kim
Lawn Mowing Prop
Here's an idea I have to reduce American reliance on oil, reduce air polution, reduce noise polution, and generally improve American life. Let's ban gasoline lawn mowers.
A small engine may not use much gas to mow your lawn, but consider how much gasoline it takes to mow every lawn in America. If we saved all of that gasoline, it would produce a small but noteworthy drop in American fuel consumption. Reducing demand, we'd reduce the price of gasoline at the pump.
More, the lawn mowing needs doing mostly during the summertime. That's when gas prices are usually highest. So, this ban would improve pump prices at the most critical moment.
Similarly, gasoline lawn mowers are very noisy, and spew foul-smelling vapor. All those problems, solved at a stroke! American neighborhoods would be quieter, happier, and better-smelling.
There are two objections I can think of: first, won't mowing with a manual rotary mower be a pain? And second, what about the landscaping industry? Wouldn't this destroy them?
In answer to the first point, I can say that I used a manual rotary mower last year, and found it to be as good as any power mower. It takes just a little more physical effort, and the blades do have to be sharpened on occasion, but the cut is as clean as or cleaner than you get with a 4.5 horsepower mower. The process of mowing is more enjoyable, because your arms aren't being vibrated off, and you don't have to wear hearing protection.
In addition, the slight increase in physical effort would help address our obesity problem here in America. Not to mention any names, but I can think of a few people who would't be hurt by a slight increase in their physical exercise.
As to the landscaping industry, we would have to give a moment's thought to its protection. I suggest a buy-back program for their gasoline mowers, whereby we provide them with a small number of rotary mowers based on the size of the mower they're turning in. Yes, this would be expensive the first year, but after that we'd be free of the gasoline lawnmower menace forever.
The landscapers, meanwhile, would find that those people who weren't willing to undertake the slight extra work would provide them with new clients, thus increasing the size and power of their industry. More jobs, too!
We could have all these social benefits for only the small cost of helping the landscaping industry retool. Less dependence on foreign oil, lower gas prices, less air polution, less noise pollution, less obesity, and more jobs! That's quite a list of things we could get in trade for the evil lawn mower -- who knew it was such a parasite on our culture?
Well, now you know. Write your representatives today.
Links
Froggy, posting at BlackFive, has a series of posts on the new NSA leaks (here, especially here, and also here). Froggy wasn't just a SEAL (to paraphrase one of Subsunk's recent post titles), but also a Special Agent for Customs working against international drug rings. He's therefore seen the classified side of this process from both the military and the law-enforcement perspective. His understanding is therefore enlightening.
Andi's group "Sew Much Comfort," operating at Walter Reed, got a visitor of some note.
The Belmont Club points out one of the most deadly naval battles in years has taken place, between suicide attackers from LTTE and the Sri Lankan navy. The LTTE (or "Tamil Tigers") are, as I recall, the only non-Islamist group to field suicide bombers. Here they managed fifteen boats to attack a naval detachment, sinking a warship and damaging a transport ship.
In addition to the problems this demonstrates for navy operations, Wretchard points out that the troop carrier seems to have been the primary target. It was carrying a truce monitor. Wretchard explains how this fits in with a general collapse of protection of diplomats from terrorists.
The COUNTERCOLUMN borrows a photo and caption from the New York Times. It asks the Times, "When are you going to get some veterans in the newsroom so you don't embarrass yourselves like this?"
See if you can spot the error. If not, well, I'll be surprised if any of you can't spot it. That kind of incompetence takes a professional journalist.
Uncle Jimbo's latest web-TV appearance conveys the story of... er... well... it conveys a story of young Afghan lads and, ah, older Afghan fighters.
Jimbo cites an Afghan proverb in the piece. I remember a similar sentiment from my studies of ancient Greece -- you can read in Edith Hamilton on the subject of how Greeks of high education passed their evenings before great battles. Perhaps there's something to The Man Who Would Be King, after all? Sure looks that way.
Guns Test II
Doc has a good post up on the problems with studies of this type. He explains some of the problems with the "scientific method" as it's being practiced in medicine today, and some bigger problems -- namely, what would it mean if the conclusion was actually true?
This pseudoscience-with-a-press-release is becoming a real problem. I remember the Geek with a .45 had a top-notch post on the subject back in February. If you missed it, it's worth looking over. It shows some of the warning signs that you ought to look for, before you say, "Hey! We should change the laws to suit this new study!"
Cassidy has two strong posts today, remembering the fallen and scorning those who dishonor them. Russ Vaughn mails a link to his latest work, which by chance is on the same topic.
As she promised in the comments here, Cassidy wrote in part on the subject of our friend from Boston, who feels the POW flag is really about how "we ourselves have become the prisoners of war; it is our own government that has taken us captive." On which topic, you might enjoy (h/t Sage) reading a little of this entry from Egyptian blogger Alaa. It begins:
Today it hit me, I am really in prison.An object lesson on just how extraordinarily stupid so much of this political discourse from the Left has become.
UPDATE: I talked to Sovay on the phone this evening (Saturday, 13 May), and she asserts she hasn't heard of the Globe piece on the POW flag. Hopefully this and certain other recent signs I've seen (particularly a certain bumpersticker) are just 'the work of isolated extremists,' rather than signs of a growing anti-military movement on the Left.
SA
Patti at SA sends.
You are receiving this email, because I have heard from many deployed troops this week,As the MilBlog Emma Peel notes, May means poor -- for a number of reasons. Still, at $2.50 apiece, I'd like to think we here at Grim's Hall could support a couple of squads. I don't want to put anyone on the spot, so don't declare your donations or anything -- but if you'd like to help, the donation button is at the top left of the Soldiers' Angels page.
everyone has the same thing to say,
IT IS HOT!! It is hard to think...
I would like to get cool scarf to every hero on our list, THE TEMPERATURES IN IRAQ ARE WELL OVER 100 DEGREES, and will stay that way till September.
The cooling scarf is a great way to beat the heat. These cooling scarves comes from hundreds of tiny hidden non-toxic polymer crystals that hold many times their weight in water. By soaking your cooling scarf in cool water for 15 minutes, these crystals become "energized" and become a comfortable, portable evaporative cooler that can lower body temperature by several degrees! So, not only will you FEEL cooler, you will actually BE cooler!
The Cooling scarf is great for any activity that raises body temperature to an uncomfortable level. Golf, Tennis, Hiking, Biking...anything! Stay cool and comfortable during these activities. The cooling scarf will contiue to keep you cool for up to 15 hours.
We have over 12,000 heroes on this fourth deployment.
The scarves cost 1.20 and the shipping is 1.12, about 2.50 ea.
So in order to do this we need 25,000 dollars, not a small feat but these scarves help to keep their brains cool and offers comfort to our heroes.
Please help me to help them,
Love
Patti
Guns & Testosterone
Via FbL at the Castle, a New York Times story on evidence that handling guns raises testosterone levels in men. FbL points to certain less-than-manly types who regard this as reason to restrict gun ownership.
Sorry, but that's a rank misreading. As Daniel points out it's not a bug, it's a feature. We need more testosterone in the American man. Seriously -- the odd shift in hormone balance is something scientists have been tracking for nearly fifteen years, and seems to be having a real effect on the population in the US and Europe.
Guns: there's no social problem they can't help solve!
HuT
Not every statement hits the high notes. Unlike the Iranians, Hizb-ut Tahrir didn't manage quite the right tone in their communication to the West. In this interview with the Christian Science Monitor, they try to explain how innocent their approach is:
"[President] Bush says that we want to enslave people and oppress their freedom of speech," says Abu Abdullah, a senior member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Party of Liberation. "But we want to free all people from being slaves of men and make them slaves of Allah."Oh, well, that's all right then. Wait, though -- who decides what Allah wants from his slaves, on a day to day basis? Men, right?
Square one.
I hope that HuT didn't describe their plan for re-creating the Caliphate in quite these terms, either:
But unlike Al Qaeda, Hizb ut-Tahrir believes it can recreate the Caliphate peacefully. Its activists aim to pursuade Muslim political and military leaders that reestablishing the Caliphate is their Islamic duty. Once these leaders invite Hizb ut-Tahrir to take power - effectively staging a military coup - the party would then repeat the process in other countries before linking them up to form a revived Caliphate.So, it's a nonviolent military coup they're planning? One in which the military then "invites" them to take power?
I think I see a possible snag in the plan.
One more quote:
"Islam obliges Muslims to possess power so that they can intimidate - I would not say terrorize - the enemies of Islam," says Abu Mohammed, a Hizb ut-Tahrir activist.So, to sum up: men should be slaves of Allah, not slaves of men (but men will interpret for Allah); Hizb-ut Tahrir will come to power without using violence (because the soldiers who do use the violence will then kindly invite them in); and the power they envision Muslims wielding will only be for "intimidation," not "terrorism."
I'm glad we got all that cleared up.
UPDATE: Ok, just one more.
"In the beginning, the Caliphate would strengthen itself internally and it wouldn't initiate jihad."Now I really feel beter about their intentions.
"But after that we would carry Islam as an intellectual call to all the world," says Abu Mohammed, a pseudonym. "And we will make people bordering the Caliphate believe in Islam. Or if they refuse then we'll ask them to be ruled by Islam."
And after that? Abu Mohammed pauses and fiddles with his Pepsi before replying.
"And if after all discussions and negotiations they still refuse, then the last resort will be a jihad to spread the spirit of Islam and the rule of Islam," he says, smiling. "This is done in the interests of all people to get them out of darkness and into light."
The Letter
The English translation of Iran's letter to the United States proves to be an astonishing and remarkable document. It is astonishing because it is nothing like it was described to be. "Some American officials have said the letter appeared to be aimed at disrupting talks on Iran this week among top envoys of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China," the New York Times tells us, and that's correct: we were told this was intended as a ploy, a bit of gamesmanship by the Iranians. Since the possibility of direct negotiations was open, the Russians and the Chinese could plausibly claim that UN Security Council action was not needed.
If that was indeed the reading of the professional diplomats, we are poorly served by their insights. The letter is not a negotiating ploy. If our best thinkers can misread this so badly, they need to be replaced root and branch.
The letter has two clear antecedents in world politics: the American Declaration of Independence, and the Communist Manifesto. This is a document of that type, and if we are not careful, it will be remembered for as long.
Like the Declaration and the Manifesto, the letter spends much of its time with a list of grievances. These grievances serve the same purpose in all three documents: they purport to demonstrate that the existing system is a moral failure, and that it has create affronts which can only be addressed by its overthrow. The American Declaration limited itself to the removal of the King's government from the colonies; it was only later, in Woodrow Wilson's time, that we began to think of American democracy as a universal human value. The Manifesto assumed a worldwide revolution from the start. In its summation, following sixteen pages of grievances, the Iranian letter proposes the same:
Liberalism and Western style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democraticAnd there we have it. Liberalism and Western style democracy have led to war and invasion; international institutions that do not protect the people; many various abuses of human rights which are detailed; and a departure of mankind from the revealed design of God, as shown to us primarily through Koran, but also reflected in the other Abrahamic religions.
systems.
We increasingly see that people around the world are flocking towards a main focal point – that is the Almighty God. Undoubtedly through faith in God and the teachings of the prophets, the people will conquer their problems. My question for you is: “Do you not want to join them?”
Mr President,
Whether we like it or not, the world is gravitating towards faith in the Almighty and justice and the will of God will prevail over all things.
We are invited to join this progress to a world in which the will of God prevails over all things. That is the beginning and the end of the outreach: we may submit. Won't you, Mr. President, accept this invitation?
In addition to being a declaration of open defiance, the letter is a cunning first strike. We have heard much discussion of funding or reaching out to the Iranian opposition groups, in an attempt to exploit cracks in Iranian society that might lead to internal discord and disruption. Much discussion, but we have done nothing.
The Iranians have not only spoken, but acted. This letter could not be clearer in its attempts to exploit the cracks in Western society: between Europe and America, between Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, pro-Israeli and anti-Israeli; it calls libertarian and human rights advocates, Christians and even Jews, to join Iran in defiance of the Western failures to perfect the human condition. It references every claim made by any dissident organization against America's policies in the world. It works them together, and almost makes it sound rational to believe that the Iranian way -- and the Taliban's way! -- could point to a better world, with fewer evils, than this nasty abusive democracy.
This is a call to arms not just for those who might think Allah the enemy of America, but for those within the West who think America is the enemy of Europe, of their social program, of their politicis -- even to those, within America, who would oppose Bush. It is a call for an end to Western style democracy and liberalism, and the transition of the world to the service of God. It is at once a declaration and a manifesto, an attack and a defense, a statement of principles for Islamists and a stroke designed to shatter the West along our fault lines.
My respects to a master of the art. We shall see if we have any who are wise enough to reply. Or even, to understand.
POW-MIA
Greyhawk points to an article from the Boston Globe against the POW-MIA flag. Hawk notes that the article attempts to paint the flag as being a kind of mechanism to demonize the left so the right can win elections.
The article ends on a note of conspiracy:
No wonder the grief-struck flag refuses to go away. When we Americans behold that silhouetted bowed figure -- the prison tower, the barbed wire -- we may feel the pointed shame anew, but now we recognize the unknown image. We ourselves have become the prisoners of war; it is our own government that has taken us captive. The black flag at last belongs to all of us.I suppose the author doesn't know anyone who actually flies one of these flags, or he wouldn't dare say such a thing. I know a few men who do: some Vietnam veterans, some bikers, and families of those who did not come home. I don't think they'd much like him saying that the figure on the flag represents "all of us," we poor suffering Americans imprisoned by our evil government.
I think they only wish that their missing loved ones, or friends, were here to suffer with us.
This kind of rhetoric is exhausting. I'm tired of hearing Hollywood stars gripe about how dissent is stifled, as they give another anti-war, anti-administration speech and then go to cash their next million-dollar paycheck. I'm tired of hearing professors gripe about the crushing of their freedom to criticize the government, which criticisms still end up crossing my desk every single day, while their authors are punished with tenure and gold-plated benefits plans. I'm tired of hearing US Senators, who are paid fortunes out of the public dole to do nothing but talk, complaining about how hard it is to express opinions that draw criticism from the public. And I'm tired of journalists like this guy whining about how he 'understands' what it's like to be a POW, because he has to live in Bush's America.
Dissent can be -- not necessarily is, but can be -- patriotic. Whining is neither patriotic nor acceptable. Good gracious, people. Grow some perspective.
CENTCOM Sends
Sgt. Gehlen has another message he'd like to bring to your attention. CENTCOM has released new translations from captured insurgent documents on its "What Extremists Are Saying" website. You can read them here.
Cooking Out
The last few days I've been eating elk steaks. No, sadly, I didn't find time to go hunting out West. I got a whole bunch of elk from a friend. It's good stuff.
I never stopped cooking over an open fire all winter, but with the Spring here I'm back to doing it almost daily. By summer, I prefer to cook outdoors as a way of keeping the heat out of the house. In the spring, though, it's just for the sheer pleasure of being outside under the blue sky.
Edward Abbey wrote, "It's true: Every time you kill an elk, you're saving some cow's life." It is true. Elk can be used almost exactly like beef, but (like bison) is much leaner. Game meats (like skirt or flank steak) do reward extra preparation, however. If you're not used to cooking with them, here's some advice:
Take some time to score both sides of the meat in a cross-hatch fashion, so that both cuts go against the grain of the muscle. That is, find the grain of the muscle, turn your knife 45 degrees, and cut that way. Then, cut at right angles to your first cuts. With game, you want deep scoring and lots of it.
You'll want to marinate the meat in something that will break down the fibers further, so it will be tender and delicious rather than tough. Lemon or lime juice works well; garlic isn't bad. Any marinade you use on fajitas will work well; so will most barbecue marinades. Here are a couple that I like:
Marinade #1: Make a paste of minced garlic and black pepper, cut with lime juice to keep it just a little fluid. Once you've scored the meat, work the paste into the scoring. Marinate 2-4 hours or overnight as you prefer.
Marinade #2: 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1 cup of your favorite barbecue sauce, extra garlic to taste. Pour over steak, then turn the steaks over and brush the extra into the scoring on the top side. Marinate 4-5 hours or overnight.
Either or do, or many others. The key is to get some sort of acid in there, to break down the muscle fiber.
I grilled elk steaks two days ago, using something like Marinade #2. The leftover steaks got cut up into fajitas, which I've almost finished off now. Elk goes well with pale ale, or most any kind of richly flavored beer. You'll have to ask someone else for a wine selection.
CA Done
If any of you were interested, Kim du Toit has posted the results for his Crossing America II game. Here are the results for knives, handguns, and long guns.
Doc and I both wanted a levergun and single-action revolver in .45 Long Colt, and differed on the knives. It appears that the "standard" choice was a Marlin levergun in .44 Magnum, with a matching S&W or Ruger revolver (double-action by preference, but with the Ruger Blackhawk coming in stronger than my own Vaquero/New Vaquero choice). Kim himself went with a levergun/revolver combo, in .357 Magnum.
My final thoughts on the subject:
.44 Magnum is a fine choice, at least as good as my own choice of .45 LC. The .44 Magnum is one of the most versatile rounds available: you can get it in super-stiff, big-game hunting cartridges, or in stepped-down versions (like Winchester Silvertips) that are suitable for human foes. With a wise selection of ammunition, you could address anything from grizzly bear and buffalo to white-tailed deer or violent enemies.
.45 Long Colt is almost as versatile, and in fact isn't that different from .44 Magnum in most respects. (Here's a discussion from the Firing Line on the subject of just how similar the two are.) Either is a good choice for an all-around firearm. If you're planning on following the thought experiment out to the point of "picking the only two guns you'll ever need," .44 Magnum may be a better choice because it's easier to find commercial loads to suit you; but on the other hand, it's harder to carry a S&W M29 concealed than a Ruger New Vaquero. I'll stick with .45 Colt.
Finally, Kim's choice of the Uberti replica Winchester '73 decided something for me. I didn't pick an Uberti because I've never fired one, but according to Kim's description it's just what I'd want in a rifle. The next time I can afford a long gun, I will be buying a '73 in .45 Colt. It sounds precisely right.
Hope you had fun.
12:10
A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.To me, the best meaning of that has always been that "You can best know a man by meeting his dog." Or by watching a dog meet him.
Yet, tonight, I remember the other meaning. See comment four.
Life & Death
I returned to Shenandoah National Park today. Bruce Dearborn Walker wanted to know if last week's missing hiker was found. He was: they located him shortly after I broke contact with Search & Rescue, but it took four more hours to get him out of the forest and to a hospital. The rangers tell me he's recovering.
While in the park, I took the Limberlost trail. "The Limberlost" is the name that was given to a stand of giant hemlocks that were saved from loggers when the park was created in the 1920s and 1930s. These giant hemlocks, some three hundred years old, are mentioned in the signs that describe the trail to prospective hikers. Three hundred years! And we are a nation of but two hundred and thirty.
So said the signs. The website is more up to date:
The trail passes through forest and a stand of mountain laurel - stunningly beautiful when it blooms in June. The forest is ever-changing! Once tall hemlocks and oaks shaded this trail, but most have been killed by insect invaders: the wooly adelgid and the gypsy moth. Recent storms have felled many of the dead trees. Today, notice what lives, including birches, maples, white pines.Whistling past the graveyard, that business: "The forest is ever-changing! Notice what lives!"
The most prominent feature of the trail is still the hemlocks. They have not left. There lays a massacre, corpses sawn apart and heaped together to clear a trail. Living trees cling to the distant edges of the mounds, a shocked and silent crowd. Green things grow among the fallen giants, but only children: weeds, shoots, and little more.
Other things shelter in the fallen trees, insects and hungry birds. I watched a dark-winged one rustling among the dead branches, having worked his way to earth to feed, and now battering his way through the dried and brittle bars that kept him from the wide sky. He was hungry, and did not mind how he found his dinner.
The hemlocks were a treasure of the park, and of the nation. We saved them because we loved them. We defended them with the might of our laws, and the wealth of our treasury. Nothing that the United States of America could do for them was ever left undone.
In the end, all we could do was saw up their fallen trunks, push them aside, and hope for their children. The forest reclaims its own, and we know it grows anew. We shall have another such grove: in three hundred years.
This morning, this item on the BBC caught my eye:
Builders who drank a barrel of rum at a house in southern Hungary had a nasty surprise when they got to the bottom and found a pickled corpse.
--Uh, guys, this is an old urban legend, variations on which, you can see here at Snopes.com.
I remember reading about this one in college in Jan Brunvand's book, "The Baby Train and Other Lusty Urban Legends."
My in-laws send me stories like this all the time. Cheap enough entertainment, I suppose.
Amnesty
Amnesty International is one of those organizations I really want to like, but find I can't take seriously. I want to, because I think they are trying to point to serious issues that we need to address more effectively than we have done. Their recent report claiming widespread US torture is an excellent example of the problems that afflict them.
I'm not an advocate of torture, or inhumane treatment. Far from it: I think the perpetrators of the Abu Ghraib crimes should have been executed by firing squad, a position I've held since the story broke. The Geneva Conventions, I believe, are a shield that protects us as much as our enemies -- they shield our souls.
They also permit the summary execution of several classes of persons, including unlawful fighters such as terrorists. They are entitled to have their status lawfully determined first, but after that, they may be shot. So may spies (i.e., fighters who abandon uniforms or other heraldry, to hide themselves among the population they wish to harm -- men like, say, Moussaoui).
Amnesty isn't interested in applying the Conventions as they stand, but in pursuing an agenda that I would describe as, "Opposition to all forms of cruelty at all." That's really sweet and noble, honestly, and I find it a genuinely touching idea. It is not, however, an ideal that can be achieved or that should be pursued in the practical reality in which we live.
It's not just that they can only find 34 suspected cases of criminal deaths, out of tens of thousands of people America has had to detain in the process of fighting two insurgencies on two continents over nearly five years. Amnesty begins its report, "Evidence continues to emerge of widespread torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees held in US custody in Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Iraq and other locations." Right off the bat, we're in trouble: "Torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment" means that what is widespread isn't "torture," but "torture, or several other things we're going to conflate with torture even though they really aren't torture at all." Things like isolation of prisoners.
Power & Wishful Thinking
By all means, let's have a debate about whether or not we want the US government to engage in waterboarding, or sleep deprivation, or psychological operations against prisoners. Let's have an honest debate about it: Do we want our government doing these things? Of course not. I don't think anyone reading this actually desires to fund a government that practices such techniques.
Do we want to leave our soldiers vulnerable to plots these people may know about, however, simply because we'd rather not have the government deprive them of sleep, or use dogs to frighten (but not hurt) them? Do we want to leave our families vulnerable? Do we want to be able to crack militant rings that could, left intact, lead to the destabilization of our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the waste of our dead soldiers' sacrifice, a return to tyranny over the lives of the innocent in those regions? Well, no, we very much don't want that either.
That debate is still very much worth having, and I think we should pursue it in a fuller way than we have managed so far. Unfortunately, we've ended up with the debate disengaging just as it was begun, and most participants retreating into one of three Wishful Thinking camps:
Wishful Thinking Camp #1: I choose to believe that the United States only approves techniques that are morally appropriate to be used whenever they are used.
Wishful Thinking Camp #2: I choose to believe that these various techniques aren't effective or reliable, and so that we suffer no penalty for outright forbidding their use.
Wishful Thinking Camp #3: I choose to believe that our moral purity, should we set aside these distasteful practices, would be persuasive to enough to non-Americans that we would win the GWOT by default.
None of these are useful.
Camp #1: We ought to be genuinely bothered by creating and paying for a government that uses even psychological force to break the will of men. America is about freedom of conscience if it's about anything. You ought to be free to be whom you want: "Drunk or sober, just as he has a mind," as John Wayne put it in The Alamo. It's one thing to kill a man who has elected to be your enemy: you're letting him live out his life just the way he chose.
It's another thing to break his will. If you're not bothered by the idea of masked US government operatives breaking a man's spirit to compel his cooperation, you should be. We may have to do it sometimes, but we ought to be thoughtful and careful about when and how.
Camp #2: The actual evidence runs strongly against the idea that torture is not effective. Froggy described an actual waterboarding operation at his blog; separately, he asserts that it is 100% effective as an interrogation technique. Soldiers of the French government won in Algeirs through a policy described by a French military officer as "systematic torture."
It would be easier if the truth was that torture didn't work. Sadly, it does.
Camp #3: There is no evidence that our enemy can be persuaded by our moral purity, because it does not have the same standards for judging ethics. Aristotle pointed to the problem of comparitive ethics when he spoke of the absolute necessity of a proper upbringing to even understand the terms of the debate. Put more broadly, if you were raised in a distinctly different culture, you won't see the same things as moral or immoral that we do. When I was in China, I was outraged to see how women -- especially pregnant women -- were shoved out of the way by thoughtless, swaggering men. The men were deeply insulted when I would insist on my way of doing things -- they felt it was an insult to all Chinese manhood that I would give my seat on a crowded bus to a pregnant lady, when there were men who could sit down.
By the same token, what some of us interpret as high-mindedness will be interpreted as weakness by our enemies. It will be interpreted as weakness and damnable weakness by those we should care about trying to persuade: the populations being terrorized by the Taliban and al Qaeda in Iraq. They will not be pleased to know that we have been letting terrorists go, the day after another VBIED goes off in a street filled with their children. They will want to know why we didn't torture and kill, if that was what was necessary to protect their families.
On Solutions
In order to flesh out its report, which would be rather short if it stuck to the military cases, Amnesty moves to America's civil prison system. Doubtless this is a genuine problem afflicting America; I have been bothered by it for years. I was a little shocked, however, to see the following item listed as 'practices amounting to torture':
10. Long term isolation in super-maximum security confinement.We are thinking right now about the Moussaoui case. Amnesty, naturally, is opposed to the death penalty. It turns out they are just as opposed to supermax prisons. What shall we do with people like Moussaoui? We are told that we cannot morally kill them, and we cannot morally isolate them.
Thousands of prisoners, many of them mentally ill, continue to be held in long-term isolation in "super-maximum security" facilities, sometimes referred to as Security Housing Units (SHU Units) or Extended Control Units (ECU).(121) At least 30 states and the federal government operate more than 50 such facilities which include entire prisons or units within prisons.
What, then? Peggy Noonan's fears were right:
I hope he doesn't get to use his hour a day in general population getting buff and converting prisoners to jihad. I hope he isn't allowed visitors with whom he can do impolite things like plot against our country. I hope he isn't allowed anniversary interviews. I hope his jolly colleagues don't take captives whom they threaten to kill unless Moussaoui is released.I'm sympathetic to a lot of the problems Amnesty identifies -- the shackling of pregnant women, the moral issues of isolation. What is needed, though, is not an identification of ethically troubling issues. It is some solutions to those issues.
If we cannot kill these men, they will continue to work against us in large ways and in small. If we cannot isolate them, the ways open to them will be larger. If it is immoral to do either, what must we do? Set them free? That creates even larger opportunities for them to harm us, our families, and our nation; and the families and nations we are trying to help stabilize, so that they will not become breeding grounds for future terrorists.
It is enough to say that a man should do nothing wrong, and that he should seek atonement when (because of human nature) he does anyway. It is not enough to say that a nation should do nothing wrong. In national matters we must seek the greatest good among many unavoidable evils, and particularly in war -- a war we did not choose, but which has been prosecuted against us for a generation by Islamist fighters from Iran to Beruit to 9/11, to future battlefields not yet named.
No, I don't like torture either. Nor waterboarding, nor isolation of prisoners, nor the existence of prisons. I'm opposed to all those things, also.
But we do not get to choose whether or not there will be evil in the world. The world hates us; evil is native to it, and to that part of us that belongs to it. All we get to decide is how to try to minimize the evil afflicting us.
You can engage that discussion, or waste your breath.
Juan Cole
I'm sure most of you have been following the Hitchens / Cole fight. An interesting question arising from it is this: Juan Cole presents himself as a "real expert" on Farsi. Is he one?
Winds of Change has a lengthy comment from an Iranian blogger questioning Cole's competence.
Another interesting question: Cole speaks for himself and his friends when he says that, "We are not going to let you have a war against Iran." How, precisely, does he mean to stop one? It won't be with an argument like the one he posts at his site -- one that combines accusations that America is murderous and violent with photographs selected to portray American soldiers as torturers or victims of bombs. Take that argument before the American electorate, and you'll be lucky if you're not tarred and feathered. You certainly won't be capturing Congress with it.
His advice to his opponents is, "Sit down and shut up." That would be a little on the arrogant side even for a professor addressing a problem student from the lectern. This while supposed excellence in the professorship, we must remember, is Cole's claim as to why his arguments should be weighted as more important than others'.
If such an argument would barely do in a classroom, it certainly won't do in a democracy. "My opponents should shut up" isn't very persuasive, even when it's true. Combined with "America is a weak and evil country and we should be ashamed of her," I expect that Cole-as-spokesman would be a disaster for the anti-war movement.
So -- how exactly is he going to stop anything?