Bush Says Abuse Charges by Rights Group Are "Absurd"
Here is the latest report from the White House:
President Bush called a human rights report "absurd" for criticizing the United States' detention of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and said Tuesday the allegations were made by "people who hate America."
"It's absurd. It's an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world," Bush said of the Amnesty International report that compared Guantanamo to a Soviet-era gulag.
After all of Bush's distortions and dishonesty, what source is more credible at this point: Amnesty International or the president? Has anyone ever said before that Amnesty International hates America? How often have we used Amnesty International's reports to criticize and pressure other countries?
Does the president now say, speaking for our country, that Amnesty International hates us and all those other countries, too? Is Amnesty International just another propaganda tool? Well, Bush says, it used to be for us and now it's against us, so it must be an enemy.
Japan recently said, after the demonstrations in Beijing and elsewhere, that China is a scary country. When is someone going to say that this is a scary president? Well, I've said it. When is someone important going to say it? When is someone going to believe it?
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Blog for America: Memorial Day Note from Jim Dean
Blog for America:
"I hate war, as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." - Dwight David Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States
"I hate war, as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." - Dwight David Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States
Monday, May 30, 2005
America, a Symbol of . . . - Bob Herbert
America, a Symbol of . . . - New York Times:
From Herbert's article:
William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in an interview last week that it's important to keep in mind how policies formulated at the highest levels of government led inexorably to the abusive treatment of prisoners. "The critical point is the deliberateness of this policy," he said. "The president gave the green light. The secretary of defense issued the rules. The Justice Department provided the rationale. And the C.I.A. tried to cover it up."
In the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, most of the world was ready to stand with the U.S. in a legitimate fight against terrorists. But the Bush administration, in its lust for war with Iraq and its willingness to jettison every semblance of due process while employing scandalously inhumane practices against detainees, blew that opportunity.
In much of the world, the image of the U.S. under Mr. Bush has morphed from an idealized champion of liberty to a heavily armed thug in camouflage fatigues. America is increasingly being seen as a dangerously arrogant military power that is due for a comeuppance. It will take a lot more than Karen Hughes to turn that around.
From Herbert's article:
William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in an interview last week that it's important to keep in mind how policies formulated at the highest levels of government led inexorably to the abusive treatment of prisoners. "The critical point is the deliberateness of this policy," he said. "The president gave the green light. The secretary of defense issued the rules. The Justice Department provided the rationale. And the C.I.A. tried to cover it up."
In the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, most of the world was ready to stand with the U.S. in a legitimate fight against terrorists. But the Bush administration, in its lust for war with Iraq and its willingness to jettison every semblance of due process while employing scandalously inhumane practices against detainees, blew that opportunity.
In much of the world, the image of the U.S. under Mr. Bush has morphed from an idealized champion of liberty to a heavily armed thug in camouflage fatigues. America is increasingly being seen as a dangerously arrogant military power that is due for a comeuppance. It will take a lot more than Karen Hughes to turn that around.
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Ground Zero Is So Over - New York Times
Ground Zero Is So Over - New York Times: "But there is another, national narrative here, too. Bothered as New Yorkers may be by what Charles Schumer has termed the 'culture of inertia' surrounding ground zero, that stagnation may accurately reflect most of America's view about the war on terror that began with the slaughter of more than 2,700 at the World Trade Center almost four years ago. Though the vacant site is a poor memorial for those who died there, it's an all too apt symbol for a war on which the country is turning its back."
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Listen to My Wife - Matt Miller
Listen to My Wife - New York Times:
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world," wrote George Bernard Shaw. "The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world," wrote George Bernard Shaw. "The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
Monday, May 23, 2005
Democracy and Occupation, and the Last Battle
The standard line is that the car bombs and the rest of the insurgency are directed toward preventing the establishment of democracy in Iraq. Why isn't it possible that the main reason is the reason the insurgents give: to end the occupation? We won't acknowledge that motive, though, because it would lay bare the obvious choice: defeat the insurgency, which we've proven we cannot do, or get out. Because we can't face that choice, we say that we're there to help Iraq form a democracy and train its own security forces. You tell me if state-building under these circumstances is something we want to pour our blood into.
Mark this prediction: historians will say that the Iraq war, not 9/11, was the turning point, the point where our decline began. Rather, the two events together form the pivotal point in the history of our leadership. September 11, that obscene attack, created conditions ideal for leadership: the whole world, except for our declared enemies, ready to follow us and work with us. With the Iraq war, we turned against the world, told the people ready to help us that we didn't want their help, that we would pursue an illegal war rather than the one they wanted to help us fight. Remember that Muslims too wanted to help us fight the war against radical Islam. Not any more.
We can't even recruit Americans to fight anymore. Would you have predicted, back in the fall of 2001, that we couldn't maintain an all volunteer force in 2005 because no one wanted to join? Do you remember the sense of patriotism and unity that existed during that fall? Everyone wanted to do what they could. Now the Iraq war has destroyed our unity, and a mother rightly says, "Why should I send my boys to die in Baghdad?" Who's going to join the army when the whole community says, "Don't do it"?
So our government can't lead the country any longer, and the country can't lead the world. By their fruits you shall know them. I know incompetence and dishonesty when I see it. What this administration is good at is making people think they know what they're doing. That's the purpose of propaganda: to deceive, distort, dissimulate and altogether degrade discourse the point where people who try to say the truth are squashed by the true believers. True believers are people who truly believe, not people who believe in the truth.
A long time ago, C. S. Lewis wrote a parable about evil in The Last Battle. An ape named Shift dressed up a donkey to look like Aslan, God's spirit on earth, and people believed him. He told the citizens of Narnia to give him power, to do all sorts of bad things, and when people asked him why, he replied, "Because Aslan says so." The people believed him. Only a civil war, the last battle, deposed Shift and his donkey.
Now ask if Karl Rove doesn't have the cleverness of Shift, and if George Bush doesn't look like a donkey to you. He comes in the name of God and he acts like a fucking donkey. I'm not making fun of his big ears here. I also have to say that he has political skills and shrewdness that far exceed the donkey's in The Last Battle. But in the end, he doesn't know what he's doing: he's a callow rich guy who never outgrew his prodigal past, who never acquired the jugdment necessary to lead a great nation. You can see the results: a nation destroyed, and a world at war with itself. When you think about 9/11, when you read about the latest car bomb in Baghdad, note the distance we've descended in the last three years. Remember you've only seen the beginning of this, the last battle.
How's that for an apocalyptic vision, those of you who believe we're in the end times?
Mark this prediction: historians will say that the Iraq war, not 9/11, was the turning point, the point where our decline began. Rather, the two events together form the pivotal point in the history of our leadership. September 11, that obscene attack, created conditions ideal for leadership: the whole world, except for our declared enemies, ready to follow us and work with us. With the Iraq war, we turned against the world, told the people ready to help us that we didn't want their help, that we would pursue an illegal war rather than the one they wanted to help us fight. Remember that Muslims too wanted to help us fight the war against radical Islam. Not any more.
We can't even recruit Americans to fight anymore. Would you have predicted, back in the fall of 2001, that we couldn't maintain an all volunteer force in 2005 because no one wanted to join? Do you remember the sense of patriotism and unity that existed during that fall? Everyone wanted to do what they could. Now the Iraq war has destroyed our unity, and a mother rightly says, "Why should I send my boys to die in Baghdad?" Who's going to join the army when the whole community says, "Don't do it"?
So our government can't lead the country any longer, and the country can't lead the world. By their fruits you shall know them. I know incompetence and dishonesty when I see it. What this administration is good at is making people think they know what they're doing. That's the purpose of propaganda: to deceive, distort, dissimulate and altogether degrade discourse the point where people who try to say the truth are squashed by the true believers. True believers are people who truly believe, not people who believe in the truth.
A long time ago, C. S. Lewis wrote a parable about evil in The Last Battle. An ape named Shift dressed up a donkey to look like Aslan, God's spirit on earth, and people believed him. He told the citizens of Narnia to give him power, to do all sorts of bad things, and when people asked him why, he replied, "Because Aslan says so." The people believed him. Only a civil war, the last battle, deposed Shift and his donkey.
Now ask if Karl Rove doesn't have the cleverness of Shift, and if George Bush doesn't look like a donkey to you. He comes in the name of God and he acts like a fucking donkey. I'm not making fun of his big ears here. I also have to say that he has political skills and shrewdness that far exceed the donkey's in The Last Battle. But in the end, he doesn't know what he's doing: he's a callow rich guy who never outgrew his prodigal past, who never acquired the jugdment necessary to lead a great nation. You can see the results: a nation destroyed, and a world at war with itself. When you think about 9/11, when you read about the latest car bomb in Baghdad, note the distance we've descended in the last three years. Remember you've only seen the beginning of this, the last battle.
How's that for an apocalyptic vision, those of you who believe we're in the end times?
Sunday, May 22, 2005
How Many More...?
How many more signs do we need before we see that this effort in Iraq is a failure? How many more things do we have to try there before we try the only right thing: get out?
And where are the voices of leaders who are willing to tell the truth about what we've done? Since the election and the inauguration, Bush's critics have not been as vocal as they were during the campaign. No one among the opposition can imagine that such an endorsement of poor leadership could occur. Someone has to tell the truth: the war is a crime, the torture that we've used against our prisoners is a crime, and the people responsible have to pay.
We say that crime does not pay, but what happens to that belief when leaders who commit crimes are reelected? I said in a past article that people are scared - that explains why we follow someone like Bush. But there could be more involved than that. It could be that 9/11 so hurt our national pride, that we were ready to punish anybody for it. Somebody had to pay for the World Trade Center attack, for the 3,000 lives lost there, and Hussein was the easy target. People were ready to follow someone who had the guts to go after him.
But guts don't make a man moral, and neither does Bush's profession of belief in God. His leadership is a reminder that there's no connection between religious faith and honesty. There's also no discernible connection between family background and competence. In Bush we have a leader who has politics in his blood, and a strong, supporting faith in his heart. Yet he is the most dishonest and incompetent leader we've had in my lifetime. Perhaps he's just evil, but I'm not willing to say that yet. The historians who write the history of our times will say it.
Time to sign off tonight. Send your e-mail to steveng AT TechWritePublishing.com. I'd like to print your letter in the TLJ journal.
And where are the voices of leaders who are willing to tell the truth about what we've done? Since the election and the inauguration, Bush's critics have not been as vocal as they were during the campaign. No one among the opposition can imagine that such an endorsement of poor leadership could occur. Someone has to tell the truth: the war is a crime, the torture that we've used against our prisoners is a crime, and the people responsible have to pay.
We say that crime does not pay, but what happens to that belief when leaders who commit crimes are reelected? I said in a past article that people are scared - that explains why we follow someone like Bush. But there could be more involved than that. It could be that 9/11 so hurt our national pride, that we were ready to punish anybody for it. Somebody had to pay for the World Trade Center attack, for the 3,000 lives lost there, and Hussein was the easy target. People were ready to follow someone who had the guts to go after him.
But guts don't make a man moral, and neither does Bush's profession of belief in God. His leadership is a reminder that there's no connection between religious faith and honesty. There's also no discernible connection between family background and competence. In Bush we have a leader who has politics in his blood, and a strong, supporting faith in his heart. Yet he is the most dishonest and incompetent leader we've had in my lifetime. Perhaps he's just evil, but I'm not willing to say that yet. The historians who write the history of our times will say it.
Time to sign off tonight. Send your e-mail to steveng AT TechWritePublishing.com. I'd like to print your letter in the TLJ journal.
Reagan's Voice
Here's a quotation about Reagan from one of Lou Cannon's books. Cannon quotes a gentleman named Roger Rosenblatt about how Reagan sounded to people: "His voice was his great gift. It was a voice, wrote Roger Rosenblatt, which 'recedes at the right moments, turning mellow at points of intensity so as to win you over by intimacy.... He likes his voice, treats it like a guest. He makes you part of the hospitality.'"
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Neither Fools Nor Cowards: The Wall Street Journal
"The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards."
- Sir William Francis Butler, quoted by Eliot Cohen
- Sir William Francis Butler, quoted by Eliot Cohen
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Springtime
In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out." - John Milton
Human Greatness
"What is a great man who has made his mark upon history? Every time, if we think far enough, he is a man who has looked through the confusion of the moment and has seen the moral issue involved; he is a man who has refused to have his sense of justice distorted; he has listened to his conscience until his conscience becomes a trumpet call to like-minded men, so that they gather about him and together, with mutual purpose and mutual aid, they make a new period in history." - Jane Addams
Monday, May 09, 2005
Laura Bush's Mission Accomplished - Frank Rich
Laura Bush's Mission Accomplished - New York Times: "Infotainment has reached a new level of ubiquity in an era in which 'reality' television and reality have become so blurred that it's hard to know if ABC News's special investigating 'American Idol' last week was real journalism about a fake show or fake journalism about a real show or whether anyone knows the difference - or cares. "
Saturday, May 07, 2005
'Assassination Vacation,' by Sarah Vowell - The New York Times - Book Review - New York Times
'Assassination Vacation,' by Sarah Vowell - The New York Times - Book Review - New York Times: "Vowell attributes what she calls ''this whole morbid assassination death trip'' to, in part, her anger at the current president and his policies, particularly the war in Iraq -- to which she draws a parallel with McKinley's elective attack on Spain. (This isn't just a lefty reflex: Karl Rove is also said to be fond of McKinley-Bush parallels.) Her ''simmering rage'' at the president alarms her:
''If I can summon this much bitterness toward a presidential human being, I can sort of, kind of see how this amount of bile or more, teaming up with disappointment, unemployment, delusions of grandeur and mental illness, could prompt a crazier narcissistic creep to buy one of this country's widely available handguns. Not that I, I repeat, condone that. Like Lincoln, I would like to believe the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Then again, he said that before he got shot.'' "
''If I can summon this much bitterness toward a presidential human being, I can sort of, kind of see how this amount of bile or more, teaming up with disappointment, unemployment, delusions of grandeur and mental illness, could prompt a crazier narcissistic creep to buy one of this country's widely available handguns. Not that I, I repeat, condone that. Like Lincoln, I would like to believe the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Then again, he said that before he got shot.'' "
The One Thing We Haven't Tried
We've tried a lot of things now, and they haven't worked. The one thing we haven't tried is getting out.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
War, What Is It Good For?
Back in the sixties we say, back in the sixties. We had another war then, and without a doubt that war colors our thinking about this one. The lyrics of one anti-war song went, "War, hoough, what is it good for? Absolutely nothin'." The refrain is memorable because it's delivered so forcefully. Whenever I heard it, I thought that war is good for some things - some over-simplification is evident here. But in fact this war in Iraq is good for absolutely nothin'. Good men are dying over there, and it's all for nothing.
We need an answer to the question, "Why don't we disengage our troops from the fighting in Iraq right now?" President Bush says that we have work there left to do: hard, nation-building work. You might remember what President Bush said about committing our armed forces to nation-building in his campaign against Al Gore in 2000. He was right then and he's wrong now.
What nation-building goals do we have in Iraq that we've made demonstrable progress toward? Turning over sovereignty and holding an election don't really count as progress when you've started a civil war you can't do anything about. By all the measures that count with normal people, we have not done any of the things we said we were going to do, except get rid of Saddam Hussein, which we did in the first three weeks. Two years later, we've caused a lot of unnecessary deaths, among our own armed forces and among the people of Iraq. We've accomplished some other things, too, most of it in line with the position that this war was wrong from the start.
So we keep asking, "How could people have voted for the leader who started this war?" "People are scared," the answer comes back, and it seems to be true. You talk to people about the war, and it doesn't seem as if they've analyzed it much. People trust their president. Their thinking actually goes beyond trust: they feel that in wartime, they owe the president their support. People don't believe the president could make a mistake this huge. Many Germans suffered a lot of deprivations during the Second World War, but they didn't understand that their nation's leader had made huge mistakes until the Russian forces rolled into Berlin. When China takes over Taiwan and we're the only member of the United Nations to speak against it, do you think people will know that we've made a mistake here? I'm doubtful.
I talked with a colleague over lunch not long ago, and repeated the argument I made in Ugly War and elsewhere. China was destined to take over world leadership from us eventually, but I didn't think it would happen during my lifetime. Now people will be shocked at how fast it can happen. My colleague said without hesitation, "It already has." I didn't think anyone thought that! He explained what signs we have that the transition has occurred:
(1) Ability to force others to do what they might not otherwise do, or to prevent them from doing what they'd like to do.
(2) Ability to prevent others from interfering with your plans.
(3) Ability to get others to go along with you, to support you in your goals.
By all three of these measures, China is doing better in world leadership than we are. We just don't recognize it yet.
I want to finish with a story from this Sunday's worship service at my church. I came late, and noted a young soldier at the rail in the front during communion. He was so well turned out for the occasion: perfect haircut, uniform perfectly pressed, boots as shiny as could be. He was so young, so handsome and sincere. I admired him. When I returned to my seat after communion, my thoughts went to him, and I became sentimental. My eyes teared up. Why? That's what happens when feelings you've repressed come out. Part of it is patriotism, that's for sure. But it's patriotism mixed with such sadness that we've sent our young men over to Iraq to be killed and maimed day after day, and it's for nothing. What a waste. We've asked them to do a job that is not theirs to do. They signed up to serve in order to protect us, and they're not doing that over there.
After the service, I told someone I know in the congregation about my thoughts on seeing the young man in uniform. My friend said that earlier in the service, he received two rounds of applause from all the people there. It turns out that the soldier does serve in Iraq, and that he's home on leave. He'll return to his unit over there soon. He's the nephew of one of the church members. All the people there that morning rightly regarded him as a hero, and they wanted him to know they appreciate what he's doing. I told my friend about my thoughts after communion, how sad it made me to think what this war has done to our armed forces. I told him I'd been in the Navy; he had served in the army reserves. When he understood that my sadness grew from opposition to the war, he looked away, clearly a bit uncomfortable. "Whatever you think about the war," he said, "you have to appreciate what our soldiers are doing over there." Naturally I agreed readily.
But now I need to return to memories of the sixties, and the war we fought then. Why does that war cast such a long shadow? Because we lost it? Because we lost so many soldiers there? Because it took so long to recover from its effects? We don't want to think that we've become involved in another war that's pointless, pointless in light of our best and true interests. Reagan said about Vietnam that in truth ours was a noble cause, and the anti-war people in the seventies gasped. How can this man say such things? Well, he was right in a way, just as our cause in Iraq is a noble one. But a noble cause - good intent - doesn't make something right. It doesn't mean we should do it. Human action doesn't translate like that.
The reasons you have for undertaking an action don't tell the whole story. The moral content of an action encompasses much more than that. It encompasses more than the actual consequences of the action, too. These two areas, intentions and consequences, are the beginning of moral reasoning, not the end. When we clap for a soldier home on leave, or cry, that's good. But don't send that young man so far away from his family to fight a war we shouldn't fight.
We need an answer to the question, "Why don't we disengage our troops from the fighting in Iraq right now?" President Bush says that we have work there left to do: hard, nation-building work. You might remember what President Bush said about committing our armed forces to nation-building in his campaign against Al Gore in 2000. He was right then and he's wrong now.
What nation-building goals do we have in Iraq that we've made demonstrable progress toward? Turning over sovereignty and holding an election don't really count as progress when you've started a civil war you can't do anything about. By all the measures that count with normal people, we have not done any of the things we said we were going to do, except get rid of Saddam Hussein, which we did in the first three weeks. Two years later, we've caused a lot of unnecessary deaths, among our own armed forces and among the people of Iraq. We've accomplished some other things, too, most of it in line with the position that this war was wrong from the start.
So we keep asking, "How could people have voted for the leader who started this war?" "People are scared," the answer comes back, and it seems to be true. You talk to people about the war, and it doesn't seem as if they've analyzed it much. People trust their president. Their thinking actually goes beyond trust: they feel that in wartime, they owe the president their support. People don't believe the president could make a mistake this huge. Many Germans suffered a lot of deprivations during the Second World War, but they didn't understand that their nation's leader had made huge mistakes until the Russian forces rolled into Berlin. When China takes over Taiwan and we're the only member of the United Nations to speak against it, do you think people will know that we've made a mistake here? I'm doubtful.
I talked with a colleague over lunch not long ago, and repeated the argument I made in Ugly War and elsewhere. China was destined to take over world leadership from us eventually, but I didn't think it would happen during my lifetime. Now people will be shocked at how fast it can happen. My colleague said without hesitation, "It already has." I didn't think anyone thought that! He explained what signs we have that the transition has occurred:
(1) Ability to force others to do what they might not otherwise do, or to prevent them from doing what they'd like to do.
(2) Ability to prevent others from interfering with your plans.
(3) Ability to get others to go along with you, to support you in your goals.
By all three of these measures, China is doing better in world leadership than we are. We just don't recognize it yet.
I want to finish with a story from this Sunday's worship service at my church. I came late, and noted a young soldier at the rail in the front during communion. He was so well turned out for the occasion: perfect haircut, uniform perfectly pressed, boots as shiny as could be. He was so young, so handsome and sincere. I admired him. When I returned to my seat after communion, my thoughts went to him, and I became sentimental. My eyes teared up. Why? That's what happens when feelings you've repressed come out. Part of it is patriotism, that's for sure. But it's patriotism mixed with such sadness that we've sent our young men over to Iraq to be killed and maimed day after day, and it's for nothing. What a waste. We've asked them to do a job that is not theirs to do. They signed up to serve in order to protect us, and they're not doing that over there.
After the service, I told someone I know in the congregation about my thoughts on seeing the young man in uniform. My friend said that earlier in the service, he received two rounds of applause from all the people there. It turns out that the soldier does serve in Iraq, and that he's home on leave. He'll return to his unit over there soon. He's the nephew of one of the church members. All the people there that morning rightly regarded him as a hero, and they wanted him to know they appreciate what he's doing. I told my friend about my thoughts after communion, how sad it made me to think what this war has done to our armed forces. I told him I'd been in the Navy; he had served in the army reserves. When he understood that my sadness grew from opposition to the war, he looked away, clearly a bit uncomfortable. "Whatever you think about the war," he said, "you have to appreciate what our soldiers are doing over there." Naturally I agreed readily.
But now I need to return to memories of the sixties, and the war we fought then. Why does that war cast such a long shadow? Because we lost it? Because we lost so many soldiers there? Because it took so long to recover from its effects? We don't want to think that we've become involved in another war that's pointless, pointless in light of our best and true interests. Reagan said about Vietnam that in truth ours was a noble cause, and the anti-war people in the seventies gasped. How can this man say such things? Well, he was right in a way, just as our cause in Iraq is a noble one. But a noble cause - good intent - doesn't make something right. It doesn't mean we should do it. Human action doesn't translate like that.
The reasons you have for undertaking an action don't tell the whole story. The moral content of an action encompasses much more than that. It encompasses more than the actual consequences of the action, too. These two areas, intentions and consequences, are the beginning of moral reasoning, not the end. When we clap for a soldier home on leave, or cry, that's good. But don't send that young man so far away from his family to fight a war we shouldn't fight.
Dowd: All That Glistens Is Gold
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: All That Glistens Is Gold: "Shakespeare's lesson from 'The Merchant of Venice': 'Gilded tombs do worms infold.'"
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Kristof: Day 113 of the President's Silence
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Day 113 of the President's Silence: "President Kennedy: 'The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality.'"
