Left2Right

Comments

Posted by: Mona

Hmmm, well, I do not think it is reasonable -- or honest -- to deny any credit to Bush regarding the wave of democracy fever spreading in the Middle East. As to renditions, I am conflicted. (And was this policy not initiated during the Clinton Administration?)

My understanding is that Al Queda and other terrorist groups are trained in the ways of Western interrogation techniques, and to know that regardless of what might be threatened, no real pain will be imposed. If a terrorist suspect with that knowledge is found to have on his computer, say, elaborate architectural and other data on NYC's Grand Central Station, I'd sure want to know why. If he won't say, well, what are we to do?

I don't mean that question rhetorically. It seems like a very vexing moral conundrum to me.

Posted by: Mona | Mar 6, 2005 12:37:54 PM

Posted by: CDC

"One CIA man says to another: "If the dictatorships in the Mideast really go democratic, where are we going to send suspects to be tortured?""

That is the shallowest of wise-cracks so it must have appeared on the Times editorial page.

"Whether or not the administration should get credit for recent liberalizing developments, a matter on which reasonable people may disagree,.."

That disagreement would be a lot of fun. May I suggest it as a thread?

"...I hope no one will suggest that the policy of renditions has helped lead to them."

I'd say that it is possible. If we get actionable intel from captured enemy cadre our operations are more successful. I love a happy ending.

"To the contrary, it encourages cynicism, that we don't really mean what we say and that we are relying on some of the most repressive aspects of the regimes to which we send suspects."

Is this the famed "Arab Street" that is supposed to be perpetually on the verge of rising against us? Opinion there seems to be breaking our way.

Posted by: CDC | Mar 6, 2005 12:57:05 PM

Posted by: Mona

Even the NYT figures Bush has something to do with what is happending in the Middle East:

Young protesters have been spurred by the rise of new technology, especially uncensored satellite television, which prevents Arab governments from hiding what is happening on their own streets. The Internet and cellphones have also been deployed to erode censorship and help activists mobilize in ways previous generations never could.

Another factor, pressure from the Bush administration, has emboldened demonstrators, who believe that their governments will be more hesitant to act against them with Washington linking its security to greater freedom after the Sept. 11 attacks. The United States says it will no longer support repressive governments, and young Arabs, while hardly enamored of American policy in the region, want to test that promise.

WholeThe New York Times piece.

Posted by: Mona | Mar 6, 2005 1:08:34 PM

Posted by: LPFabulous

"Whether or not the administration should get credit for recent liberalizing developments, a matter on which reasonable people may disagree..."

That depends on what you mean, I think. If your statement is "should get all or a majority of the credit", then you're right. Reasonable people may disagree. If your statement is "should get any credit", then I think you're not right. Reasonable people actually can't disagree about that. People who say Bush should get no credit aren't reasonable people.

Posted by: LPFabulous | Mar 6, 2005 1:12:51 PM

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely

As Reagan ("That idiot!") had little or no effect on the demise of the Soviet Union, clearly Bush ("That idiot!") has had little or no positive effect on the Middle East. Or at least reasonable people can disagree. Right? Right?

Herewith, another perspective.

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely | Mar 6, 2005 1:17:02 PM

Posted by: J.S.

Sorry to comment on something unrelated, but I'm trying to get a dialogue going between the religious and non-religious since this largely parallels the gap between Left and Right in this country- if anyone is interested please check out:

http://voicesofreason.info

Thanks,
J.S.

Posted by: J.S. | Mar 6, 2005 1:21:46 PM

Posted by: Mona

Echoing the piece which Mr. Ridgely links to, here is a quote from Mark Steyn, responding to drivel in The Guardian. (Fair use excerpt; entire thing can be accessed only by registering, so no link from me.)

Very big of you, pal. And I guess that's as near as a mea culpa as we're going to get: Even though Bush got everything wrong, it turned out right. Funny how that happens, isn't it? In a few years' time, they'll have it down pat -- just like they have with Eastern Europe.
Oh, the Soviet bloc [the Middle East thugocracies] was bound to
collapse anyway. Nothing to do with that simpleton Ronnie Raygun
[Chimpy Bushitler]. In fact, all Raygun [Chimpy] did was delay the inevitable with his ridiculous arms buildup [illegal unprovoked Halliburton oil-grab], as many of us argued at the time: See my 1984 column ''Yuri Andropov, The Young, Smart, Sexy New Face Of Soviet Communism'' [see the April 2004 column ''Things Were Better Under Saddam": "The coalition has destroyed Baathism, says Rod Liddle, and with it all hopes of the emergence of secular democracy'' -- which was published -- really -- in the London Spectator.]

Posted by: Mona | Mar 6, 2005 1:29:34 PM

Posted by: detached observer

LPFabulous,

You are absolutely right. But it seems to me that the post clearly refers to Bush getting "all or a majority of the credit," using your terminology. After all, when we say "X should get credit for Y" we don't mean that X should get some credit for Y - we mean X to be the prime mover behind Y.

Posted by: detached observer | Mar 6, 2005 4:32:23 PM

Posted by: Sam

Specifics, please. If some are going to argue that Bush should be credited with what is transpiring now in Lebanon, please give us the specific causal logic, not just some airy assertion. How exactly has the influence happened? And, moreover, what exactly is going on in Lebanon right now? This is the lead paragraph of a story up on WaPo:
"The leader of Hezbollah, the militant Syrian-backed Shiite Muslim movement that for weeks has stood largely on the sidelines of Lebanon's political upheaval, called for national demonstrations against what he called foreign intervention in Lebanese affairs."
By "foreign intervention" Hezbollah means the US. So, it appears that one of the most powerful political forces in Lebanon (yes, a organization with terrorist ties) is going to resist the creation of a government unfriendly to Syria in Lebanon. What does this mean for democracy in Lebanon and US interests in the region?

Posted by: Sam | Mar 6, 2005 5:53:45 PM

Posted by: Mona

Sam, some more airy assertions for you:

Jumblatt knows that if the opposition is going to win, it's going to have to find a modus vivendi with Lebanon's Shiites, a plurality of the population that has tended to ally itself with Syria. To do that, he'll have to come to terms with Hizbullah. Lebanese see the "Party of God" as a heroic militia that fought Israeli occupation. Washington brands it an international terrorist organization. "They have their legitimacy," says Jumblatt. "They have their institutions. They are in Parliament. Maybe their military role, if they accept, will be reduced, will be over. But they are really part of Lebanon."

Jumblatt is a survivor, and if you want to know the way the treacherous political winds are blowing, he's a good man to keep an eye on. He knew that the Syrians murdered his father in 1977, but he worked closely with Damascus anyway throughout much of the Lebanon war, fighting bloody battles mainly against Lebanese Christians. A year and a half ago, Jumblatt's was one of the most bitter voices raised against the unpopular U.S. invasion of Iraq. When a dozen rockets hit the Baghdad hotel where Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was staying in November 2003, Jumblatt said he wished they'd killed "this virus wreaking corruption in the Arab land of Iraq." (Jumblatt's visa to the United States was pulled after that.)

Now Jumblatt has been in indirect contact with Wolfowitz, and says he re-grets some of his previous rhetoric. Wolfowitz, who always preached the spread of democracy as part of a grand American design for the Middle East, told Lebanese television he's not holding a grudge. Jumblatt, he said, has "shown a lot of courage."

"I think the Middle East is changing," Jumblatt told NEWSWEEK. "The Arab people want to join the rest of the civilized world. They want freedom. I have denounced the American invasion of Iraq, but I also admit that the Iraqi people are now free."

The rest of the Newsweek article here

Posted by: Mona | Mar 6, 2005 6:15:11 PM

Posted by: CDC

On one side the Syrians and Lebanese see, what, an armored division, a couple of cav regiments, the best part of a Marine division, an elite light infantry division and an air force that can - unaided - shred them in one fast round. On the other they see the mighty sixth(?) fleet with air, ground and indirect fire assets that can pound to peanut butter anything they could possibly put into Lebanon. The Lebanese see Iraq's elections and want that kind of control of their political institutions. They also see that the American people put Bush back in power and that we will protect them. They think that, going eyeball to eyeball with Bush, Assad will blink or he will die. They are right.

Posted by: CDC | Mar 6, 2005 6:18:51 PM

Posted by: Tad Brennan

Hmmm...Mona's first post was at least on topic, i.e. it involved torture. Since then, posters have mostly been distracted by one clause in Darwall's piece about "credit". Could we get back to the topic?

When people want to argue in favor of torture, they put forward "ticking time-bomb" scenarios, as in Mona's first post. You can make torture look more reasonable by telling stories in which it is simply given that the victim is clearly guilty, is clearly a terrorist, clearly caught in flagrante, and that torture will clearly produce actionable info that will save lives.

But remember that every attempt to get a handle on the actual numbers involved in America's latest flirtation with torture has shown that many of the victims were not terrorists, and were in fact simple victims of mistaken identity, as is the case with El-Masri.

So it seems rather beside the point to justify torturing the guilty, when the question is about torturing the innocent.

Furthermore, the policy of 'renditions' adds another level of complexity to the question, because it involves govt agencies circumventing our own laws. If someone wants to stand up and say that we should start torturing people, then the way to do this is to propose legislation. If the American people really felt gung-ho about torture, we wouldn't be using the practice of 'rendition' to skirt our own laws. That's another point at the center of Darwall's post, which I don't think is being addressed by commenters on this thread.

I don't know what to think about these issues, but the pro-torture lobby seems to me insufficiently deferential to one body of people who have thought a lot about the issues, and whose views I respect: the military lawyers. They have come down *uniformly* against the use of torture, and this seems to me a viewpoint worth listening too. These are career soldiers; they aren't pacifists or hippies or any of your other favorite leftist villains. And they are against torture because it jeopardizes U.S. servicemen and women. It endangers our troops by eroding the moral authority of the U.S. on these very issues.

This isn't me making this up; you can read a variety of news accounts of the Navy JAG's and other Pentagon lawyers who fought the torture memos at every step, and did so for these reasons.

I think their viewpoint deserves some respect. I at least think that a consideration of their views would keep this thread on topic.

Posted by: Tad Brennan | Mar 6, 2005 6:36:29 PM

Posted by: Mona

Tad Brennan writes: Hmmm...Mona's first post was at least on topic, i.e. it involved torture. Since then, posters have mostly been distracted by one clause in Darwall's piece about "credit". Could we get back to the topic?

One of the problems there will be with that is that this blog has discussed torture ad nauseum in previous months, certainly more than once, and with fulsome comments. I know I just don't have that much more to say on the subject.

By contrast, we have not had discussion here of the merits of Bush's foreign policy in thewake of the dynamic, pro-democracy changes taking place in the ME and the concurrent change in some opinions that began to emerge after the Iraqi elections. So, raising the question of whether Bush deserves credit and tying that to the issue of rendition, is likely to draw more original (and pent-up) comments on the credit issue than the is the well-worn ground of torture and rendition.

Posted by: Mona | Mar 6, 2005 6:56:28 PM

Posted by: Sam

Mona,

The text of your last message seemed to be saying that Jumblatt is an opportunist. So, his statements on Iraq must be taken in that light, no? The Newsweek article you linked to had this to say:

"In fact, expectations are rising much faster now than anyone anticipated, encouraged by White House rhetoric but triggered by uncontrollable events like the death of Arafat in November and the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in February. Even in Iraq, it was Ayatollah Ali Sistani, not the Americans, who insisted on elections sooner rather than later. "When you look at the streets you realize we're just playing catch-up," says one State Department official. ""

So we can credit Bush with encouraging local processes and playing "catch-up"? I might be willing to go along with that. But I suspect other posters might want to say Bush has done more than that.

Posted by: Sam | Mar 6, 2005 7:16:31 PM

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely

So we're all agreed, then: torturing good people is bad, torturing bad people is usually not good but just might be good once in a while and it's hard to tell which is which before the torturing begins, oursourcing torture isn't quite on a par with outsourcing other jobs (except that the liberal position probably includes the claim that it's bad for the economy -- "Aren't there Americans who should be doing our torturing for a living wage?"), no one really knows what the hell is happening or will happen in the Middle East next but something sure as hell is happening ("...and you don't know what it is, do you... Mr. Jones?") and any pot-stirring by the Bush Administration might just be the Grandfather of all post hoc, ergo propter hocs.

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely | Mar 6, 2005 7:58:07 PM

Posted by: CDC

""When you look at the streets you realize we're just playing catch-up," says one State Department official. """

No, no,...the pencil necks at STATE are playing catch-up. As I posted on another board before the invasion, the status quo was unacceptable so Bush was intentionally yanking a grapefruit from the bottom of the pile. Once things started happening, things were bound to happen fast. There are so many dependencies in this system that no one can possibly know exactly how events will break. But we should do okay.

Posted by: CDC | Mar 6, 2005 8:02:27 PM

Posted by: Tom

Tad,

Now I'm confused. I thought that we were the ones doing the torturing in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, but now we're being told that we're outsourcing torture. So are we doing both, neither, or one but not the other?

I agree that from a moral standpoint, we should never condone the torture of anyone. However, I can see how a soldier would effect some type of physical or psychological stress that would be deemed as torture in a court of law in an effort to insure that other lives were saved. The only thing that I can say, is that I feel for that soldier for he will have to live with the consequences of his actions for the rest of his life. On the other hand, our enemies - and some of our 'allies' in the WOT - have no conscience, nor do they value human life as we do. Saddam and his Baathist clan seemed to rather enjoy the acid vats, execution style killings, and electric shock therapy. That is what makes us different.

If we end up inflicting what many believe to be torture to a few people in an attempt to spread some of our values to parts of the world that don't value life the way we do, I'm willing to look the other way. And that means whether we end up doing it or our 'allies' end up doing it.

Posted by: Tom | Mar 6, 2005 8:07:59 PM

Posted by: Sam

CDC,

So, if Iraq goes to hell in a handbasket - no consitution, Kurds declare independence, Sunnis keep fighting, Shites hold out for sharia - then you would be willing to admit that this was due to Bush's grapefruit picking skills? Or are only the good things Bush's?

Posted by: Sam | Mar 6, 2005 8:09:59 PM

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely

Ummm, that would be returns to hell in a handbasket, wouldn't it? And what, exactly, would be the problem with Kurdish independence aside from stirring the pot in Turkey?

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely | Mar 6, 2005 8:14:13 PM

Posted by: Tom

Sam,

Here's what I'd admit:

Bush enabled the conditions so that Iraqis could make their own choices with respect to self-government. He didn't cast all the votes in Iraq, nor is he imposing his will on the Iraqi
Assembly/political process. He's simply watching from the sidelines - like the rest of us (albeit with more intel and perhaps more influence) - hoping that things go well.

We will have made a hell of an effort that is likely to lead to many other changes in the Middle East, regardless of what happens in Iraq. At least the tin horn dictators like Assad, the Saudi Royal Family, Gaddafi, and the Mullahs in Iran know that if they screw with America on this President's watch, they just stepped in a serious pile of doo doo.

Posted by: Tom | Mar 6, 2005 8:17:09 PM

Posted by: Sam

D.A.,

Yes, Kurdish independence would be good for Kurds. My only worry is what it would inspire in others. I assume that Arabs will fight for Kirkuk (though maybe they will back off) and will try to keep as much of the oil for themselves as they can. A Kurdish independence without a larger civil war might be very nice; but if it sparks that war, it could impose a very high cost.

Posted by: Sam | Mar 6, 2005 8:21:35 PM

Posted by: Sam

Tom,

But what if Bush turns out to have enabled Iraqis to embark on a civil war? Doesn't the enabler bear some responsibility? Or are we back to war with no responsibility? (I thought Republicans were supposed to be all about taking responsibility...but not when things go bad?).

Posted by: Sam | Mar 6, 2005 8:26:25 PM

Posted by: Perseus

If military lawyers were more favorable to the practice of torture, most liberals would discount their views as being reactionary, militaristic, etc. What's more, military lawyers do not have a superior claim to knowledge about either morality or foreign policy, so I see no reason to be especially "deferential" to their views on the practice. Indeed, the very fact that they are lawyers, who are concerned with due process guarantees by virtue of their profession, makes me attentive to a possible bias in their views.

Posted by: Perseus | Mar 6, 2005 8:51:04 PM

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely

Sam:

Agreed. We don't know what will happen and that is frightening. But for most of my life the U.S. was properly castigated for supporting a laundry list of despots around the world as we played Cold War brinkmanship with the Soviets. I'm far from a Bush apologist (and hardly a Republican, by the way), but at the moment I find myself wanting to cheer more than wring my hands.

For what it's worth, I remain pessimistic if only because of the history of the region. My probable best-case scenario is a liberated, quasi-open and only vaguely democratic Arab world that still ends up hating America's guts. (After all, why should they be any different?) But I think it's disingenuous to deny or seriously doubt that, warts and all, Bush's policies have started what might well be, dare I say it, a positive domino effect in a region where the status quo has been a disaster. Civil war in Iraq and elsewhere are also possible and would also be a disaster. I don’t rule out the possibility nor deny that Bush and the U.S. would shoulder much of the responsibility. But at the moment, I like what I see.

Posted by: D.A. Ridgely | Mar 6, 2005 8:56:51 PM

Posted by: CDC

Sam: If things go wrong, every one will indeed blame Mr. Bush. If they go right, "We" will have won a great victory. Success has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan. Same stuff, different day.

Posted by: CDC | Mar 6, 2005 9:08:43 PM

Post a comment