http://coldfury.com/reason/?p=536
NO SYMPATHY FOR ANY OF THEM, NONE AT ALL
As regular readers here know, although I recognize that we have genuine enemies who need to be defeated (which requires that we narrowly target the threats we face), I am profoundly opposed to Bush's purposely never-defined "War on Terror" and his plans for "benevolent hegemony" via endless war, with nation-building as an inextricable and crucial part of his strategy. A brief review of the relevant history reveals that such delusions have always led finally to the destruction of the nation that attempts to put such plans into operation.
With that brief prefatory note in mind, I will say that I view it as an unqualifiedly good thing when those who enthusiastically support Bush's foreign policy begin to fight among themselves. With regard to all such internecine battles, I emphatically join our president in saying: Bring it on! So in many ways, the current feud involving Reynolds, Sullivan, various denizens of The Corner and assorted other hawks is altogether a delight to behold, and balm to the soul.
Given Sullivan's abhorrence in reaction to torture and abuse meted out by U.S. troops, some might think that I would take Sullivan's side. They would be wrong, for reasons I explained at length here. These are a few key passages:
It is true that Sullivan provides a good overview of the barbaric torture story here and here?-but so have any number of other people. And in his U.K. Times article, he indulges himself in a truly repellent practice, one which is habitual to him. What seems to concern Sullivan just as much as the barbarity of torture or the disaster in Iraq is the exquisite agony that Bush's failures have visited upon his, Sullivan's, precious soul. In fact, the Torments of Sullivan as endlessly detailed by Sullivan himself for all the world to witness?-assuming, without any grounds to do so, that any sentient being actually gives a damn?-appear to be of considerably greater moment to him than the sufferings visited upon many thousands of people because of the policies he so endlessly championed.
...
And if you consult his blog (assuming you have a much stronger tolerance for this kind of melodramatic self-dramatizing than I do), you will find many more instances of this adolescent self-examination. Here's a news flash for Sullivan: an endless number of people, Americans, Iraqis and others, have suffered genuine agony and injury?-and are now dead?-because of people like you, and as the direct result of your unquenchable desire for absolute safety, which in your view requires "benevolent American hegemony" exercised over the entire world by means of military force. Never mind that this fatal Utopian delusion has never led to anything other than death and destruction; you're scared, you want to feel safe, and you will see the world destroyed before questioning the absolutely mistaken ideas that you treat as axioms never to be challenged.
And Sullivan's crimes are even worse than this: it was Sullivan (along with many other warbloggers) who fatally poisoned the cultural atmosphere after 9/11, with his interminable rants about the "fifth columnists" who allegedly are enemies as dangerous to us as foreign terrorists. Recall that those "fifth columnists" included anyone at all who failed to embrace George Bush and his program for world domination in the manner that Sullivan himself did. But now?-now that everything that many of those opposed to the Iraq war predicted before the fact has come to pass, and now that the details of abuse and torture have surfaced?-now Sullivan is having a few second thoughts.
But there is a deeper problem here?-namely, that Sullivan's second thoughts do not go nearly far enough. Sullivan has not given up the program he endorses at all?-or even seriously questioned it. He still believes "in this war as a war of liberation and increased security." This, too, fails to pass the sanity test. Sullivan apparently has never read the numerous articles by any number of experts on terrorism (genuine experts, I emphasize, not dilettantes who blog in between jaunts to Provincetown and walking the dog)?-all of whom have pointed out at great length that the invasion and occupation of Iraq, as well as every other aspect of Bush's "War on Terror," have only served to increase the actual dangers we face.
But none of this for Sullivan. (None: "I've long admired Bush's recognition of the life-and-death struggle against Islamist fascism as the central task of his presidency. And it's hard not to value his grit in pursuing what will, I think, eventually be regarded as critical wars in the defense of freedom and democracy in the Middle East. He comes across as a genuinely kind and warm man, of solid values and clear objectives.") Sullivan still wants his American Empire (with his other hero, Tony Blair, as a very junior partner), he still wants American hegemony, and he still wants us to impose "freedom" by force on countries that have no history or culture to support a political system modeled on ours. He's still an apocalyptic crusader, seeking to create a new world through sacred violence and death just like his hero, Bush.
He just doesn't want any of the mess. Here's another news flash for Sullivan: if you want empire and military domination of large swathes of the world in an endless, woefully defined "War on Terror," lifelong detentions and torture are an inseparable part of what you're going to get. That kind of mess (and much worse) is woven into the very fabric of the program you so enthusiastically supported?-and which you still support.
Of course, to understand that brutality, cruelty, torture, death, the disregard of individual rights, and the undermining of what are supposedly "American values" inevitably accompany the drive to empire requires that one is capable of grasping the lessons of history, that one can engage in meaningful and accurate analysis of political and cultural dynamics?-and that one can think.
It also assumes that a person understands that he cannot continually express admiration and support for the political equivalent of Al Capone?-and then recoil in shock when he sees that blood has been spilled on his immaculate carpet. Oh, the horror! His carpet has been soiled, and his soul is tormented?-while countless other people are maimed or dead.
In addition to everything else that is so deeply repellent about his writing and "thinking," Sullivan's sense of priorities is so fundamentally twisted and perverse that no regrets he expresses at this point deserve even a moment of sympathy. He made his bed, and he deserves to lie in it. That's the very least he deserves.
Therefore, in one very limited sense (and leaving aside the lunacy of other aspects of these comments), Reynolds is correct when he says:
When Andrew was a champion of the war on terror, writing about martial spirit and fifth columns composed of the "decadent left," did he believe that nothing like Abu Ghraib would happen, when such things (and much worse) happen in prisons across America (and everywhere else) on a daily basis? If so, he was writing out of an appalling ignorance.
However, for the reasons explained in the essay excerpted above and in many others here, I obviously think both Reynolds and Sullivan are wrong, and not just wrong but gravely, hopelessly wrong.
With regard to a few more minor points, I will note that John Podhoretz has revealed a degree of ugliness and hatred which is truly sickening to contemplate. There was this post ("If he's going to go all camp on us, couldn't the Sullied One have quoted Mae West or Joan Crawford or Bette Davis or something?"), and then this one. Podhoretz's view of what is "clever" is as shallow and disgusting as is his complete inability to appreciate the gravity of the issues raised by the allegations of torture. And his treatment of Sullivan is utterly despicable, regardless of Sullivan's own many sins.
The fact that National Review tolerates and even seems to encourage this kind of naked hatred and bigotry places that once somewhat respectable magazine beyond the pale, for all time as far as I'm concerned. This is the territory inhabited by mindless, violent thugs, consumed by hatred and lashing out at anyone who disagrees with them, no matter how well-founded those disagreements might be. And these are the people who would see the world consumed by nuclear clouds, rather than ever admit they might be wrong.
All in all, it's a thoroughly sickening display. As my headline says: no sympathy for any them, none at all. I only wish that there might be some way that this squabbling in the prowar ranks might translate into a weakening of Bush's drive toward empire and perpetual war. But, alas, indications of any such weakening are scant to non-existent. Even though the signs of disaster mount day by day, as was true of Vietnam?-which constituted a national tragedy from which we now see we learned absolutely nothing?-we will not have second thoughts and change our direction until the costs become thoroughly unsustainable, and until a sufficient number of Americans become disgusted and fed up, and threaten retribution on their elected political leaders.
May that day come very, very soon.
JTT wrote:Ticomaya wrote:
Ubiquitous?
The reports of the IRC are the accounts of the terrorists I'm referring to. Who do you think reported to the Red Cross?
You could float an aircraft carrier thru the holes in your arguments, Tico.
Why don't you try and do so?
[quote]Could you check and see for me how many of these Red Cross sources have been convicted of being terorists?
AMMAN, JORDAN -- Laura Bush is showing her independent side and contradicting the White House.
Newsweek magazine should not be solely blamed for deadly protests in the Middle East, the First Lady said Friday. And her husband should have been interrupted to be told about an airplane scare that sent her rushing to an underground bunker.
Bush's candid remarks -- at the outset of a trip to the Middle East -- showed anew her willingness to step out more boldly in her husband's second term. Usually deferential to her husband and rarely controversial, she has veered off the White House message only rarely in the past.
But there was no mistaking that her views were at odds with White House officials as she chatted with reporters while flying across the Atlantic.
The White House has defended the decision not to stop President Bush on a bike ride last week to tell him of an emergency evacuation at the Capitol and the White House. The scare was triggered by a small plane flying into restricted airspace. The president was not informed until he finished his ride in Maryland, about 50 minutes after the evacuation began.
"I think he should have been interrupted," the First Lady said, hastening to add, "but I'm not going to second-guess the Secret Service that were with him."
Asked about her comment, presidential spokesman Trent Duffy said, "I think the president and the First Lady have both said they have full confidence in the Secret Service. He feels that the protocols were followed."
The First Lady said she hoped her trip would help improve the U.S. image in the Arab world after the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal and the now-retracted Newsweek report that U.S. interrogators desecrated the Qur'an, the Muslim holy book.
Bush said Newsweek can't be held solely responsible for the rioters' violence. "You can't excuse what they did because of the mistake -- you know, you can't blame it all on Newsweek," she said.
Bush: Photos won't inspire insurgents
President Bush said he didn't think the images would energize the insurgents, thought to be led by Sunni Arabs who were favored under Saddam's regime but largely excluded from the new Shiite-dominated Iraqi government.
"I don't think a photo inspires murderers," Bush said. "These people are motivated by a vision of the world that is backward and barbaric."
Later, however, White House press spokesman Trent Duffy said the photos could be perceived by members of the insurgency in much the same way as revelations of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Karzai 'Shocked' Over U.S. Abuse Report
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 21, 2005
Filed at 8:26 a.m. ET
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghanistan's president on Saturday demanded ''very, very strong'' action by the United States against any military personnel found to be abusing prisoners, after a newspaper report alleged maltreatment of detainees at the main U.S. base here.
President Hamid Karzai said he will bring up the issue when he meets American leaders during a four-day visit to the United States starting Saturday.
The abuse allegations were in a New York Times report Friday that cited a 2,000-page confidential file on the Army's criminal investigation into the deaths of two Afghans at the Bagram base north of the capital, Kabul, in December 2002.
''It has shocked me totally. We condemn it. We want the U.S. government to take very, very strong action to take away people like that working with their forces in Afghanistan,'' he told reporters before leaving Kabul. ''Definitely ... I will see about that when I am in the United States.''
But he added that the actions of those responsible for the abuse should not be seen as reflective of all Americans.
''The people of the United States are very kind people,'' he said. ''It is only one or two individuals who are bad and such individuals are found in any military in any society everywhere, including Afghanistan.''
The U.S. military, responding to the allegations, defended its treatment of detainees, saying it would not tolerate maltreatment.
Bush was briefed by senior aides Friday morning about the photos' existence, and "strongly supports the aggressive and thorough investigation that is already under way" that seeks to find who took them, White House press spokesman Trent Duffy said.
The White House (search) declined to say what decisions news organizations should make about disseminating the photos. "That's your job," he said.
With the inquiry ongoing, he also would not comment on how the pictures may affect the U.S. image abroad. But the president downplayed the importance of the photos in stirring up the Iraqi insurgency.
"I think the insurgency is inspired by their desire to stop the march of freedom," Bush said...
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, said Rumsfeld was informed of the photos' publication and told that the matter is being "aggressively" investigated by U.S. officials in Iraq.
"We take seriously our responsibility to ensure the safety and security of all detainees," a Pentagon statement released Friday read.
Yes Tico you are behaving like a prat and posting like a neocon apologist. "My political party, and its military deeds, right or wrong" is a disgraceful misuse and perversion of your intellect.
This morning monkeys flew out of my butt. It was pleasurable, and the monkeys seemed to enjoy it as well.
The BS on this board never ceases to amaze.
Dozens Have Alleged Koran's Mishandling
Complaints by inmates in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba emerged early. In 2003, the Pentagon set a sensitivity policy after trouble at Guantanamo.
By Richard A. Serrano and John Daniszewski
Times Staff Writers
May 22, 2005
WASHINGTON ?- Senior Bush administration officials reacted with outrage to a Newsweek report that U.S. interrogators had desecrated the Koran at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility, and the magazine retracted the story last week. But allegations of disrespectful treatment of Islam's holy book are far from rare.
An examination of hearing transcripts, court records and government documents, as well as interviews with former detainees, their lawyers, civil liberties groups and U.S. military personnel, reveals dozens of accusations involving the Koran, not only at Guantanamo, but also at American-run detention facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Pentagon is conducting an internal investigation of reported abuses at the naval base in Cuba, led by Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt. The administration has refused to say what the inquiry, still weeks from completion, has found so far.
But two years ago, amid allegations of desecration and hunger strikes by inmates, the Army instituted elaborate procedures for sensitive treatment of the Koran at the prison camp. Once the new procedures were in place, complaints there stopped, said the International Committee of the Red Cross, which monitors conditions in prisons and detention facilities.
The allegations, both at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, contain detailed descriptions of what Muslim prisoners said was mishandling of the Koran ?- sometimes in a deliberately provocative manner.
In one instance, an Iraqi detainee alleged that a soldier had a guard dog carry a copy of the Koran in its mouth. In another, guards at Guantanamo were said to have scrawled obscenities inside Korans.
Other prisoners said Korans were kicked across floors, stomped on and thrown against walls. One said a soldier urinated on his copy, and others said guards ridiculed the religious text, declaring that Allah's words would not save detainees.
Some of the alleged incidents appear to have been inadvertent or to have resulted from U.S. personnel's lack of understanding about how sensitive Muslim detainees might be to mishandling of the Koran. In several cases, for instance, copies were allegedly knocked about during scuffles with prisoners who refused to leave their cells.
In other cases, the allegations seemed to describe instances of deliberate disrespect.
"They tore it and threw it on the floor," former detainee Mohammed Mazouz said of guards at Guantanamo Bay. "They urinated on it. They walked on top of the Koran. They used the Koran like a carpet."
"We told them not to do it. We begged. And then they did it some more," said Mazouz, a Moroccan who was seized in Pakistan soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Recently released, he described the alleged incidents in a telephone interview from his home in Marrakech.
Ahmad Naji Abid Ali Dulaymi, who was held at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq for 10 months, singled out a soldier or noncommissioned officer known to detainees only as "Fox." He said prisoners were forced to sit naked, were licked by dogs, and were soaked in cold water and then forced to sit in front of a powerful air-conditioner.
"But frankly," he said, "the worst insult and humiliation they were doing to us, especially for the religious ones among us, is when they, especially Fox, tore up holy books of Koran and threw them away into the trash or into dirty water.
"Almost every day, Fox used to take a brand new Koran, and tear off the plastic cover in front of us and then throw it away into the trash container."
The hunger strikes erupted in 2002 at Guantanamo when word swept the camp that Korans were being desecrated. In response, the Defense Department's Southern Command, which oversees the prison, issued four pages of guidelines instructing soldiers in the proper way of "inspecting and handling" Korans.
In essence, the books are generally to be handled only by Muslim chaplains working for the military, and guards were instructed not to touch the Koran unless absolutely necessary.
Muslims revere the Koran as the word of God and have rules for handling it. It is always kept in a high place with nothing on top of it. A ritual ablution is required before touching a copy, which must be held above the waist. Some Muslims hold that nonbelievers must not touch the holy book.
At that time, the Red Cross was fielding similar complaints from prisoners, and with the January 2003 written policy the problems seemed to cease.
"The ICRC believes the U.S. authorities did take corrective measures," said Simon Schorno, a spokesman in Washington.
Other sensitivity training is continuing. At Ft. Lewis in Washington state, guards and other soldiers headed to Guantanamo Bay and other facilities go through classes and exercises to increase awareness of Arab and Muslim customs, said Lt. Col. Warren Perry. Much of the training deals specifically with the Koran.
"Don't step on it, don't bump it, don't disrespect it," he said.
When handling a Koran can't be avoided, Perry said, soldiers are taught "to wash hands or put on sterile gloves before you touch."
But several military officials suggested it was ridiculous to think guards and interrogators would bother to desecrate the Koran in an environment as dangerous as a military prison.
"There were scuffles, there were problems, the prisoners were not happy," recalled Army Lt. Col. Raymond A. Tetreault, a Catholic priest and chaplain at Guantanamo Bay during 2002.
He said prisoners sometimes physically resisted when being removed from cells and belongings such as the Koran would be inadvertently knocked around. Other times the books had to be opened and inspected by guards to make sure weapons or other contraband were not hidden inside, he said.
"The guards were trying to do their job, and the detainees were not happy being there," Tetreault said.
Acknowledging that detainees continue to raise allegations of Koran mistreatment, the chaplain said, "Well, it's human nature to embellish a little bit."
Some reports on alleged Koran desecration have suggested it was sometimes a tactic to get prisoners to talk, but four interrogators interviewed by The Times said they never saw intentional mishandling of the Koran, or even its use as a prop during an interrogation.
"We never took the Koran into an interrogation or used it in any way against them," said Paul Holton, a chief warrant officer with the Army National Guard in Utah who questioned high-level Iraqi military officers after the U.S.-led invasion.
"It was just understood that that was off-limits." It was also considered counterproductive, he said.
"We figured it was going to bring about additional anger and hatred toward us," Holton said. "With certain fanatical and religious types, you don't want to inflame them and give them further reason to dislike us, even in an interrogation. They just become more firm, more staunch and more resistant."
An interrogator who served at Guantanamo Bay said he received no formal sensitivity training, and that there were miscues that offended Muslims.
When Korans were delivered to the prison, he said, guards issuing the holy books "would put them on the floor and a lot of the devout Muslims went nuts right away."
Later, guards allowed detainees to cradle their Korans in surgical masks hung from the mesh walls of their cells. The soldiers called them "Koran hammocks."
The recent furor began after Newsweek magazine reported in its May 9 issue that Schmidt and his investigators "have confirmed" several infractions, including an incident where a Koran was flushed down a toilet.
The news item was blamed for a series of protests overseas. At least 14 people died in rioting in Afghanistan and protests were held in several other countries.
On May 15, Newsweek acknowledged that there were errors in the story, saying its source had backed away from an assertion that military investigators had concluded that a Koran had been flushed down a toilet. The next day the magazine retracted the story. "Based on what we know now," said Editor Mark Whitaker, "we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay."
Newsweek also apologized and expressed regret about the violence. But the anger in the Muslim world ?- and in the White House ?- has not dissipated.
On Friday, about 500 British Muslims prayed and chanted anti-U.S. slogans like "Desecrate today, die tomorrow," in front of the U.S. Embassy in London.
Martin Mubanga, a Zambian who was detained at Guantanamo Bay, participated in the rally. In an interview with The Times, he said two guards made him kneel and held his wrists in locked positions while others searched his cell. His Koran was thrown to the floor; "I saw it in the corner of my eye," he said.
As the protests continued over the last two weeks, Bush administration officials sought not only to denounce Newsweek, but also to state that the Pentagon did not deem the allegations credible. At the Pentagon, chief spokesman Lawrence Di Rita repeatedly dismissed them as untruths.
"We anticipate, and have seen, in fact, all manner of statements made by detainees," he said, "many of whom as members of Al Qaeda were trained to allege abuse and torture and all manner of other things."
The allegations have come in many forums.
Five former prisoners have told The Times of Koran desecration. Jamal Harith, a British Muslim, said interrogators at Guantanamo often kicked or knocked his Koran around. He said guards once deliberately targeted his holy book while hosing down his cell.
"Everybody was upset, but when you are in Cuba you learn to accept," Harith said after his return to Britain. "You accept it as the norm when you are in there."
Other accounts from former detainees have been posted on the Internet. Tarek Dergoul, another British Muslim who was held at Guantanamo Bay, recalled soldiers insulting Islam.
"They used to read the English translation of the Koran with their feet up, mocking, for example saying, 'There are more questions in it than answers,' " he said.
Other times, Dergoul said, they "ripped up" Korans. When some soldiers were rotating out of Cuba they would write obscenities in the Korans.
And some allegations are contained in lawsuits, such as one filed against Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld by seven men held in Iraq and Afghanistan.
One of the plaintiffs is Arkan M. Ali, who was held by U.S. authorities in Iraq for nearly a year, part of that time at Abu Ghraib.
Ali listed 11 incidents of torture and abuse. He said he was twice beaten unconscious during interrogations. He said his arm was stabbed and sliced, his forearm shocked and burned. He said he was locked for several days in a wooden coffin-like box, sometimes naked except for a hood over his head.
But it is his 11th and final allegation that in today's clamor over the Koran that stands out. Ali said U.S. soldiers repeatedly desecrated the Koran in front of him and other prisoners, "including having a military dog pick up the Koran in its mouth."
So much talk about the killing over there in Afghanistan, about how "Newsweek Lied and People Died." But honestly, have these people taken the find to check out who did this killing that they're so up in arms about? Well, OK, it was Muslims.
Our Muslims.
Most of the dead -- the killings that have sparked also the hysteria back here in the U.S. -- are people shot and killed by troops or police loyal to the government of Hamid Karzai, our ally!
Let's review the mythology of the Afghan riots that were caused by Newsweek. Remember, facts are stubborn things. It was Ronald Reagan himself who said so.
1. Most of the deaths were caused by pro-U.S. Afghan forces, firing bullets at rioting protestors. Here's "the scoop" from an early Newsday (Not Newsweek, heaven forbid!) account, one of the best:
Afghan police and troops, who have been hastily trained, seemed uncertain what to do, witnesses said. At times they stood by, but eventually they fired on the crowd, witnesses told journalists there, killing four people and injuring dozens more.
2. As alluded to above, Afghan troops are poorly trained, as noted in this Times of London report and elsewhere. Had the United States continued to make Afghanistan the main focus of the war on terror after 2002, few doubt that more money and more emphasis would have been placed on such training -- but instead billions of dollars were diverted to Iraq.
Here's what Carlotta Gall of The New York Times told NPR on May 12 (from Nexis, no link) after "the Newsweek riots":
I think it's true in that the police don't have much training in riot control, and what they do is fire in the air to try and disperse the crowds and that doesn't always end up very successfully. And, in fact, yesterday we had a lot of people, over 60, injured, many of them, I think, from flying bullets. It's not the ideal way of crowd control, and the police are just acting in any way they can.
3. While we agree that the Newsweek report (and we won't re-hash here the debate over its accuracy) played a role in sparking the riots, so did many other things that had nothing to do with the Newsweek article, including intrusive nighttime raids by American forces and U.S. plans to locate bases in the Muslim nation.
Again, from the Newsday story:
In any case, the violence in Jalalabad was a warning that the U.S.-led effort to stabilize Afghanistan is facing a largely hidden well of public anger, Afghan and Western analysts said. "This is not simply about Qurans," said Alain de Bures, the Jalalabad-based director of Madera, a European aid agency working to rebuild agriculture in eastern Afghanistan. "This was an explosion of anger by people who are, frankly, fed up with the behavior of American troops."
By DAVID S. CLOUD and CARLOTTA GALL
Published: May 22, 2005
WASHINGTON, May 21 - United States officials warned this month in an internal memo that an American-financed poppy eradication program aimed at curtailing Afghanistan's huge heroin trade had been ineffective, in part because President Hamid Karzai "has been unwilling to assert strong leadership."
Darko Zeljkovic for The New York Times
Two Afghan workers scraped opium paste from a field of poppies near Kandahar. The U.S.-backed poppy-eradication program has had little effect.
A cable sent on May 13 from the United States Embassy in Kabul, the Afghan capital, said that provincial officials and village elders had impeded destruction of significant poppy acreage and that top Afghan officials, including Mr. Karzai, had done little to overcome that resistance...
A copy of the three-page cable, which was addressed to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, was shown to The New York Times by an American official alarmed at the slow pace of poppy eradication.
