Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The McClatchy Torture Series
In some of the best reporting on torture yet to emerge, and nicely timed shortly after last week's SCOTUS's Boumedienedecision, McClatchy News has published a series of reports by Tom Lasseter about Guantanamo and US interrogation and imprisonment policy there and in other military-run confinement centers. They've put together a very nice page full of links not only to the stories but to the documentary evidence.
Sands on Torture
Phillipe Sands, international human rights lawyer extraordinairre, has written a piece in Vanity Fair that complements his new book on US torture policy. The piece lays out the administration's case regarding suspected torture, and systematically dismantles it. Sands concludes with a warning to top administration lawyers to plan their international travel accordingly:
It would be wrong to consider the prospect of legal jeopardy unlikely. I remember sitting in the House of Lords during the landmark Pinochet case, back in 1999—in which a prosecutor was seeking the extradition to Spain of the former Chilean head of state for torture and other international crimes—and being told by one of his key advisers that they had never expected the torture convention to lead to the former president of Chile’s loss of legal immunity. In my efforts to get to the heart of this story, and its possible consequences, I visited a judge and a prosecutor in a major European city, and guided them through all the materials pertaining to the Guantánamo case. The judge and prosecutor were particularly struck by the immunity from prosecution provided by the Military Commissions Act. “That is very stupid,” said the prosecutor, explaining that it would make it much easier for investigators outside the United States to argue that possible war crimes would never be addressed by the justice system in the home country—one of the trip wires enabling foreign courts to intervene. For some of those involved in the Guantánamo decisions, prudence may well dictate a more cautious approach to international travel. And for some the future may hold a tap on the shoulder.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
HRC and History
So what’s up Bob Somerby’s craw?
Recently, on the advice of a dear friend, I’ve started to read the Daily Howler—a web page ostensibly devoted to playing gadfly to the US press corps. I’ve got to say that I was initially impressed; Someby’s posts are often more thoughtful than much of what passes for liberal thought in the blogosphere. He’s also dependably entertaining, and I noticed that he’s even earlier run a weekly segment devoted to philosophy—surely a worthy cause, especially so in the realm of political discourse.
That said, he’s been a bit hit-or-miss lately. Of course, that’s understandable—he does fairly elaborate posts each day, and I admire his discipline. All that said, I really don’t understand precisely why he’s been so bent-out-of-shape by the coverage of HRC’s recent gaffe about RFK. He devotes two longish posts to taking a number of journalists to task for, well, misrepresenting HRC’s quote, intentionally printing mischaracterizations of her words, and generally being unfair.
Some of this is undoubtedly right, and I’d be the first to admit that the press coverage of HRC has been less than flattering. But I’d like to focus here on one particular charge that Somerby makes. After quoting one of the reader response letters printed in the Washington Post, Somerby writes:
Rather than engaging in the less-than-rewarding job of critiquing letters to the editor, I’d like to address the questions that Somerby here implies, but never directly addresses: There are, I think, at least two questions here: First, what did she say? Second, and arguably more importantly, what did she mean?
The first question is a matter of public record. Here’s a longer transcript of the remark:
Now, as it turns out, this wasn’t the first public reference by Clinton to the assassination of RFK. Here’s the earlier remark, from the March 6 edition of Time:
Now for a bit of reconstruction. In the more recent discussion, Clinton has asserted that “people have been trying to push [her] out of this [nomination race] ever since Iowa.” I’ll leave it up to others to decide whether this particular charge is true. It rings a bit exaggerated to my ear, but there is a basic structure to what follows. Clinton is asked to explain why “her opponent and some in the media” have been pressuring her to drop out of the race, and her answer is informative. First, she claims that pressuring a candidate to drop out of a nominating race is historically unprecedented. Further, the “urgency” to end the race is “a bit of a mystery.” Then the editorial board mentions the “party unity” argument, which Clinton rejects without any specific discussion. Now her most revealing remarks are about history. But there is some unavoidable ambiguity of her specific examples.
On the more charitable reading, her contention—let’s call it “A”—is the simple one that the nomination process has often lasted until June. This is the clear import of the Time statement. However, Clinton’s elucidation of the examples to the editorial board follows directly on the heels of the mention of the “party unity” argument, so she could reasonably be understood to be arguing that [B] historically, when the nominating process has lasted until June, the party has remained unified. Now, of course, A is true, but by itself uninformative. To see whether or not it helps her case would require looking at similar historical circumstances in which the nominating process has lasted until June. Of course, B, if true, would be more supportive of her continued candidacy. As I hope is obvious, whether in fact she is asserting A or B, her case would be best bolstered by examples of historical nominating processes that both lasted until June, and generated positive general election results for Democrats. And as it turns out, Clinton does provide two pieces of putative evidence for her claim—the examples of both the 1992 and the 1968 Democratic presidential nominations. Both cases (at least) technically satisfy A—both processes lasted well into June. Further, the 1992 primary season might provide good evidence for B, since it also (directly or indirectly) resulted in the election of a democratic president. But instead of resting there, let’s look a bit deeper into these putative supporting cases. In what follows, I will simply ignore the assassination remark.
First, the 1992 nomination. The claim, recall, is that Bill Clinton did not “wrap up the nomination” until sometime in June, when he won the California primary. As it turns out, this claim is highly suspect. In fact, the Clinton camp began running their national campaign strategy on March 20, shortly after the chief rival, Paul Tsongas, suspended his campaign. By that point, Clinton had a 7-1 delegate lead over the only rival left on the field, Jerry Brown, and was close to winning a majority of the delegates needed for the nomination. In halting his campaign, Tsongas, in addition to citing monetary troubles, claimed in his announcement that staying the race would amount to playing the “spoiler” candidate. As reported in the March 20 New York Times by Robin Toner:
Still worse for Clinton’s example, Jerry Brown, the only remaining candidate on the field after Tsongas stepped down, had already privately agreed not to run any television ads in the California primary, and had previously, on April 7, come in third at the New York primary, behind both Clinton and Tsongas, who had stopped campaigning more than two weeks prior.
Before drawing any lessons, let’s look at the other example, the 1968 race. Why Clinton would choose to bring up the 1968 race really is something of a mystery. It’s widely thought that this was the most bitterly contested nominating processes in the party’s history, and notably resulted in a nasty, brokered convention, and an anti-war candidate who was simply trounced, and by the unforgettable Richard Nixon (and his supporting cast), no less. Of course, it’s true that the nominating process lasted until June, but this was (duh!) before the rules changes enacted in 1972 to make the democratic nominating process, well, less democratic. As many people seem to have forgotten, the nomination process didn’t even begin until March in 1968, and only thirteen states even held democratic primaries. An added difficulty is that the party had a sitting president, Lyndon Johnson, who withdrew from the race on March 31, making that date, for all intents and purposes, the beginning of the actual nominating process. Here, too, history matters. In the Time interview, Clinton claimed that “Primary contests used to last a lot longer,” but of course, “last” extends in both temporal directions. This year’s primary season began in January, meaning that by the time June rolls around, it will have “lasted” for a good five months, and that’s excluding the months-long run-up to Iowa. In June of 1968, the much shorter primary season had only been realistically open to challengers for two months.
Now recall that HRC’s argument was ambiguous between the A and B readings. The difference between them, to be a tad more precise, is that while A made a simple fact claim (“primaries have historically lasted through June”), B made a normative claim (“primaries lasting through June isn’t bad for party unity.”) Now, having quickly reviewed Clinton’s examples, it should be clear that they actually work at cross purposes. The 1992 example might technically satisfy B, since it resulted in a slim democratic victory, but it succeeds as a fact claim only on a technicality, since the nomination process was basically conceded in late March. The 1968 example succeeds as a fact claim—the nominating process was strongly contended well into June, but of course the results of that process were disastrous for the party—irrespective of which particular events of that process caused this bad result.
Finally, we should note that all of this is more than a little ironic. HRC’s purported explanation of the push to end her candidacy amounts to little more than a charge of historical ignorance. In contrast to her opponents, HRC has “been around long enough” to know better. In a rather sad way, that’s probably right—she’s been around long enough to know that nobody will challenge the case on the merits—that probably nobody will attempt to construe the claim as an accurate historical description, instead taking every pronouncement as sheer rhetoric. And because HRC is not an ignoramus, she also probably knows the history a lot better than her examples would indicate, so the attempt to treat them as well-intended, accurate historical portraits does, on reflection, turn out to be sadly misguided.
Recently, on the advice of a dear friend, I’ve started to read the Daily Howler—a web page ostensibly devoted to playing gadfly to the US press corps. I’ve got to say that I was initially impressed; Someby’s posts are often more thoughtful than much of what passes for liberal thought in the blogosphere. He’s also dependably entertaining, and I noticed that he’s even earlier run a weekly segment devoted to philosophy—surely a worthy cause, especially so in the realm of political discourse.
That said, he’s been a bit hit-or-miss lately. Of course, that’s understandable—he does fairly elaborate posts each day, and I admire his discipline. All that said, I really don’t understand precisely why he’s been so bent-out-of-shape by the coverage of HRC’s recent gaffe about RFK. He devotes two longish posts to taking a number of journalists to task for, well, misrepresenting HRC’s quote, intentionally printing mischaracterizations of her words, and generally being unfair.
Some of this is undoubtedly right, and I’d be the first to admit that the press coverage of HRC has been less than flattering. But I’d like to focus here on one particular charge that Somerby makes. After quoting one of the reader response letters printed in the Washington Post, Somerby writes:
Truly, that’s insane. The Post published one letter defending Clinton—and the letter grossly misstates “the point” she was making. If you read the Washington Post, you will read no letters—none at all—which accurately describe what Clinton said. The one letter published in her “defense” grossly misstates what she said.
Rather than engaging in the less-than-rewarding job of critiquing letters to the editor, I’d like to address the questions that Somerby here implies, but never directly addresses: There are, I think, at least two questions here: First, what did she say? Second, and arguably more importantly, what did she mean?
The first question is a matter of public record. Here’s a longer transcript of the remark:
Clinton: This is the most important job in the world. It’s the toughest job in the world. You should be willing to campaign for every vote. You should be willing to debate anytime, anywhere. I think it’s an interesting juxtaposition where we find ourselves and you know, I have been willing to do all of that during the entire process and people have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa and I find it…
EB: Why? Why?
Clinton: I don’t know I don’t know I find it curious because it is unprecedented in history. I don’t understand it and between my opponent and his camp and some in the media, there has been this urgency to end this and you know historically that makes no sense, so I find it a bit of a mystery.
EB: You don’t buy the party unity argument?
Clinton: I don’t, because again, I’ve been around long enough. You know my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere around the middle of June
EB: June
Clinton: We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. Um you know I just I don’t understand it. There’s lots of speculation about why it is.
Now, as it turns out, this wasn’t the first public reference by Clinton to the assassination of RFK. Here’s the earlier remark, from the March 6 edition of Time:
Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn`t wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June, also in California. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual. We will see how it unfolds as we go forward over the next three to four months.
Now for a bit of reconstruction. In the more recent discussion, Clinton has asserted that “people have been trying to push [her] out of this [nomination race] ever since Iowa.” I’ll leave it up to others to decide whether this particular charge is true. It rings a bit exaggerated to my ear, but there is a basic structure to what follows. Clinton is asked to explain why “her opponent and some in the media” have been pressuring her to drop out of the race, and her answer is informative. First, she claims that pressuring a candidate to drop out of a nominating race is historically unprecedented. Further, the “urgency” to end the race is “a bit of a mystery.” Then the editorial board mentions the “party unity” argument, which Clinton rejects without any specific discussion. Now her most revealing remarks are about history. But there is some unavoidable ambiguity of her specific examples.
On the more charitable reading, her contention—let’s call it “A”—is the simple one that the nomination process has often lasted until June. This is the clear import of the Time statement. However, Clinton’s elucidation of the examples to the editorial board follows directly on the heels of the mention of the “party unity” argument, so she could reasonably be understood to be arguing that [B] historically, when the nominating process has lasted until June, the party has remained unified. Now, of course, A is true, but by itself uninformative. To see whether or not it helps her case would require looking at similar historical circumstances in which the nominating process has lasted until June. Of course, B, if true, would be more supportive of her continued candidacy. As I hope is obvious, whether in fact she is asserting A or B, her case would be best bolstered by examples of historical nominating processes that both lasted until June, and generated positive general election results for Democrats. And as it turns out, Clinton does provide two pieces of putative evidence for her claim—the examples of both the 1992 and the 1968 Democratic presidential nominations. Both cases (at least) technically satisfy A—both processes lasted well into June. Further, the 1992 primary season might provide good evidence for B, since it also (directly or indirectly) resulted in the election of a democratic president. But instead of resting there, let’s look a bit deeper into these putative supporting cases. In what follows, I will simply ignore the assassination remark.
First, the 1992 nomination. The claim, recall, is that Bill Clinton did not “wrap up the nomination” until sometime in June, when he won the California primary. As it turns out, this claim is highly suspect. In fact, the Clinton camp began running their national campaign strategy on March 20, shortly after the chief rival, Paul Tsongas, suspended his campaign. By that point, Clinton had a 7-1 delegate lead over the only rival left on the field, Jerry Brown, and was close to winning a majority of the delegates needed for the nomination. In halting his campaign, Tsongas, in addition to citing monetary troubles, claimed in his announcement that staying the race would amount to playing the “spoiler” candidate. As reported in the March 20 New York Times by Robin Toner:
Without adequate money to win, Mr. Tsongas said, "the alternative was to play the role of spoiler." 'That Is Not Worthy'
"That is not what I'm about," he continued. "That is not worthy. I did not survive my ordeals in order to be the agent of the re-election of George Bush."
Still worse for Clinton’s example, Jerry Brown, the only remaining candidate on the field after Tsongas stepped down, had already privately agreed not to run any television ads in the California primary, and had previously, on April 7, come in third at the New York primary, behind both Clinton and Tsongas, who had stopped campaigning more than two weeks prior.
Before drawing any lessons, let’s look at the other example, the 1968 race. Why Clinton would choose to bring up the 1968 race really is something of a mystery. It’s widely thought that this was the most bitterly contested nominating processes in the party’s history, and notably resulted in a nasty, brokered convention, and an anti-war candidate who was simply trounced, and by the unforgettable Richard Nixon (and his supporting cast), no less. Of course, it’s true that the nominating process lasted until June, but this was (duh!) before the rules changes enacted in 1972 to make the democratic nominating process, well, less democratic. As many people seem to have forgotten, the nomination process didn’t even begin until March in 1968, and only thirteen states even held democratic primaries. An added difficulty is that the party had a sitting president, Lyndon Johnson, who withdrew from the race on March 31, making that date, for all intents and purposes, the beginning of the actual nominating process. Here, too, history matters. In the Time interview, Clinton claimed that “Primary contests used to last a lot longer,” but of course, “last” extends in both temporal directions. This year’s primary season began in January, meaning that by the time June rolls around, it will have “lasted” for a good five months, and that’s excluding the months-long run-up to Iowa. In June of 1968, the much shorter primary season had only been realistically open to challengers for two months.
Now recall that HRC’s argument was ambiguous between the A and B readings. The difference between them, to be a tad more precise, is that while A made a simple fact claim (“primaries have historically lasted through June”), B made a normative claim (“primaries lasting through June isn’t bad for party unity.”) Now, having quickly reviewed Clinton’s examples, it should be clear that they actually work at cross purposes. The 1992 example might technically satisfy B, since it resulted in a slim democratic victory, but it succeeds as a fact claim only on a technicality, since the nomination process was basically conceded in late March. The 1968 example succeeds as a fact claim—the nominating process was strongly contended well into June, but of course the results of that process were disastrous for the party—irrespective of which particular events of that process caused this bad result.
Finally, we should note that all of this is more than a little ironic. HRC’s purported explanation of the push to end her candidacy amounts to little more than a charge of historical ignorance. In contrast to her opponents, HRC has “been around long enough” to know better. In a rather sad way, that’s probably right—she’s been around long enough to know that nobody will challenge the case on the merits—that probably nobody will attempt to construe the claim as an accurate historical description, instead taking every pronouncement as sheer rhetoric. And because HRC is not an ignoramus, she also probably knows the history a lot better than her examples would indicate, so the attempt to treat them as well-intended, accurate historical portraits does, on reflection, turn out to be sadly misguided.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Secular Philosophy Blog
So a group of philosophers, including Colin McGinn, Daniel Dennett, and others have teamed up on a new Secular Philosophy web site. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be putting much energy into the page. The page does sport some interesting content, though, especially for people who are generally interested in recent critical thought surrounding religion.
They've attached a blog to the site. While there's plenty of good fodder for people interested in bashing the delirious aspects of religion (mostly in the US), I'm sad to say that I haven't found the posts at the site very sophisticated, and have taken particular umbrage at a some of the posts by Mark Rowlands. For those interested in the controversy, see here and here.
It was, in any event, good of Mark to respond, especially since my first response was, admittedly, a bit harsh.
They've attached a blog to the site. While there's plenty of good fodder for people interested in bashing the delirious aspects of religion (mostly in the US), I'm sad to say that I haven't found the posts at the site very sophisticated, and have taken particular umbrage at a some of the posts by Mark Rowlands. For those interested in the controversy, see here and here.
It was, in any event, good of Mark to respond, especially since my first response was, admittedly, a bit harsh.
Iraq in Der Spiegel
So the often very good German weekly, Der Spiegel, has run a very good piece assessing the current situation in Iraq, especially against the five-year anniversary speech made this week by Bush. The piece is entitled "Wie Bush der Wirklichkeit trotzt," which means, more or less, "How Bush Defies the Truth." Here's the opening blurb:
Funny thing, though. The English site at Der Spiegel ran, more or less contemporaneously, another story, entitled "Life in Baghdad after the Fall of Saddam."
The heading here is informative:
Just the change in tone is pretty remarkable. It's unfortunate that the editors at this magazine choose to offer different sets of stories to their English and German readers.
"Nobel", "notwendig", "gerecht" nennt US-Präsident Bush den Irak-Krieg zum fünften Jahrestag. Und blendet das Desaster im Land einfach aus: Kein Wort zu den enormen Kosten, der politischen Zerrissenheit, den vielen Toten - die Schönfärberei nehmen ihm auch die meisten Amerikaner nicht mehr ab.
Funny thing, though. The English site at Der Spiegel ran, more or less contemporaneously, another story, entitled "Life in Baghdad after the Fall of Saddam."
The heading here is informative:
Five years after the US invasion, no one misses Saddam, but some Baghdadis are nostalgic for the relative freedom and stability they had before the Americans came.
Just the change in tone is pretty remarkable. It's unfortunate that the editors at this magazine choose to offer different sets of stories to their English and German readers.
Sam Harris on the Obama Speech
Given the truly childish tone of most public remarks on religion (and race) of late, it was really quite refreshing to hear Obama's recent speech. Although there have been many gushing editorials about it of late, the best I've seen by far is that of Sam Harris, who goes the additional step of putting the speech in the context of the lunacy surrounding it.
Well done, Sam.
Well done, Sam.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Chalmers Johnson on Military Keynesianism
The third installment of Chalmers Johnson's Blowback trilogy, entitled Nemesis, has just come out in paperback. A preview of the type of argument that he makes there can be found here.
Johnson's is one of the clearest voices I've heard about the current military-fiscal crisis facing America. I'll post a clip from a recent interview with him momentarily. Here's an excerpt from his essay:
Johnson's is one of the clearest voices I've heard about the current military-fiscal crisis facing America. I'll post a clip from a recent interview with him momentarily. Here's an excerpt from his essay:
The military adventurers of the Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups of men thought that they were the "smartest guys in the room," the title of Alex Gibney's prize-winning film on what went wrong at Enron. The neoconservatives in the White House and the Pentagon outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination.
As a result, going into 2008, the United States finds itself in the anomalous position of being unable to pay for its own elevated living standards or its wasteful, overly large military establishment. Its government no longer even attempts to reduce the ruinous expenses of maintaining huge standing armies, replacing the equipment that seven years of wars have destroyed or worn out, or preparing for a war in outer space against unknown adversaries. Instead, the Bush administration puts off these costs for future generations to pay -- or repudiate. This utter fiscal irresponsibility has been disguised through many manipulative financial schemes (such as causing poorer countries to lend us unprecedented sums of money), but the time of reckoning is fast approaching.
There are three broad aspects to our debt crisis. First, in the current fiscal year (2008) we are spending insane amounts of money on "defense" projects that bear no relationship to the national security of the United States. Simultaneously, we are keeping the income tax burdens on the richest segments of the American population at strikingly low levels.
Second, we continue to believe that we can compensate for the accelerating erosion of our manufacturing base and our loss of jobs to foreign countries through massive military expenditures -- so-called "military Keynesianism," which I discuss in detail in my book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. By military Keynesianism, I mean the mistaken belief that public policies focused on frequent wars, huge expenditures on weapons and munitions, and large standing armies can indefinitely sustain a wealthy capitalist economy. The opposite is actually true.
Third, in our devotion to militarism (despite our limited resources), we are failing to invest in our social infrastructure and other requirements for the long-term health of our country. These are what economists call "opportunity costs," things not done because we spent our money on something else. Our public education system has deteriorated alarmingly. We have failed to provide health care to all our citizens and neglected our responsibilities as the world's number one polluter. Most important, we have lost our competitiveness as a manufacturer for civilian needs -- an infinitely more efficient use of scarce resources than arms manufacturing. Let me discuss each of these.
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