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Fear, With Good Reason

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Last week, Dahlia Lithwick had a terrific piece in Slate in which she ponders America's "Terrorism Derangement Syndrome." America does seem to be in the grip of morbid fear, doesn't it? KSM could irradiate Manhattan if he's given a trial there... terrorists can melt the walls of supermax prisons... the Underwear Bomber is so diabolically clever he would laugh off traditional interrogation methods. With all this terror, you might even think... I don't know, that terrorism is working pretty well.

Lithwick attributes some of the cause of TDS to Republican fear-mongering and to Democratic acquiescence in GOP scare tactics. I agree -- but I think there's something more fundamental going on, something that explains both the fear and the fear-mongering.

Something like... our own policies.

I believe some deep-seated part of our national consciousness is aware there will be consequences for what we've done, and continue to do. The wars, and kidnappings, and illegal imprisonment, and off-the-mark Predator strikes, and, most of all, torture -- we sense a reckoning for all this, a conflagration waiting to engulf the combustible materials we insist on piling recklessly, relentlessly higher. Our tactics worsen the danger. The worse the danger, the more scared we get. The more scared we get, the less capable we are of rational policies. As our rationality deserts us, we embrace more tightly primitive tactics. And the more primitive we become, the worse we make the danger. And so on.

So yes, we're afraid. After all, we understand revenge, don't we? Revenge is a human need so powerful that, if necessary, we'll attempt to satisfy it by proxy, the way we satisfied our need for 9/11 vengeance against al Qaeda by attacking Iraq, instead. We know payback is coming because by God, if there were a country kidnapping Americans and imprisoning them and torturing them in secret prisons, and if that country constantly threatened to bomb us and sometimes actually did so, and if the bombs often missed and massacred women and children and funerals and wedding parties, we would not -- we could not -- rest until that country came to rue the day it even considered fucking with the United States of America.



That's how it would be if the shoe were on the other foot -- in fact, that's how it was. And you don't have to be psychic, or even exceptionally empathetic, to know that's how it is with other cultures, too. A little imagination and intuition are more than enough.

Imagination and intuition, as it happens, is the same combination that makes us sure Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. Our own National Intelligence Estimate claims otherwise, but we don't believe the NIE because what would we do if we were subject to the kind of bellicose rhetoric our politicians and press level at Iran? What would we do if we were Iran, and America had invaded our neighbors east and west? We wouldn't rest until we had nukes, so we know Iran is after them, just as we would be. Anyone who suggests otherwise must be wrong.

As I wrote over a year ago:

It's common for rightists to justify America's embrace of the "dark side" by claiming President Bush has kept the country safe. The claim strikes me as remarkably simplistic. If the temporal frame of reference begins on 9/11, and we ignore the unsolved anthrax attacks that came shortly after, and the geographical frame of reference is the territorial United States alone, then one might accurately claim America has been safe up until now. Whether the correlation between "the dark side" and our safety up until this point has a causal connection is far more debatable. Regardless, to me, "has kept us safe up until this point" has far too much the ring of Neville Chamberlain's "peace in our time." It also makes me think of a parent who seems to be an excellent provider because he's financing all those provisions on a dozen maxed-out credit cards. The temporary comfort he's afforded his family will inevitably be wiped out by the unpayable bill they're all soon to receive. Watching these documentaries, you can't help but feel that bill is out there, and that soon enough, it will be horrifically presented to us. Even if you believe "the dark side" offers benefits, and you're willing to ignore what the dark side has cost us in terms of our own ideals and our image in the world, that bill, when it comes, will represent the dark side's true price.

What every American needs to understand about torture and the rest of the "dark side" is this. Not only has our embrace of the dark side violated our laws and profaned our values. And not only have we received no safety in exchange for our willingness to cash in our national ideals. No, the real irony, the real tragedy is that war and secret prisons and torture and the rest have created and continue to create a new generation of Muslim extremists intent on revenge. We know this. We try to stopper our minds, but our intuition won't be silenced. It's why we're so afraid.

P.S. You can also find this piece cross-posted at Truthout, where there are already some interesting comments.

Torture Tales

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There are various factors behind America's growing embrace of torture, but among them, largely overlooked, is a brilliant campaign of cross-promotion between right-wing ideologues and right-wing entertainment.

First, the right reduced the entirety of torture to a simple talking point: "Can you really say torture never works?" And then answered the question through thriller novels and television shows.

There's a reason Glenn Beck so assiduously hawks what he calls the "conservative porn" of novelist Vince Flynn. When Flynn's series character, covert operator Mitch Rapp, saves the day through torture, his deeds vindicate the authoritarian worldview Beck advocates. Beck even has a list of his top ten thrillers at Borders, with Flynn and another rightist thriller writer, Brad Thor, in the top two slots. Nor is Beck alone: he is joined in his promotion of pro-torture novels by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Hugh Hewitt. And of course the right loves no one so much as Jack Bauer, the "24" operative whose defense of America always depends on torture -- a love the show returns in kind.

All of which raises an important question: why? Given that expert interrogators like the Air Force's Matthew Alexander and Steven Kleinman and the FBI's Ali Soufan and Jack Cloonan agree not only that torture is unnecessary, but that, by producing false leads and creating new jihadists, it has made America less safe; given the existence of scientific evidence demonstrating why and how torture produces false information; and given that there is no reliable evidence that America's resort to torture foiled any jihadist plots, we have to ask, why does the right continue to promote it?

Because fictional questions about torture's efficacy obscure real questions about its criminality. The UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment, signed by Ronald Reagan and ratified by the Senate, not only prohibits torture, but categorically rules out all exceptions. By Article VI of the Constitution, the UNCAT is the supreme Law of the Land (because the treaty also requires party nations to investigate and prosecute credible allegations of torture, President Obama is himself now in violation).

It's surprising the left has been so feckless in its response. True, the left is no marketing juggernaut. After all, this is the movement that chose the stunningly vague and uninspiring product name "the public option" for its make-or-break health care rollout. But because the best thrillers are the most realistic, the form is ideally suited to dramatically examine the actual motivations behind torture (panic, incompetence, proxy revenge). Or to make plain the real fruits of torture (new jihadist recruits and increasingly radicalized Muslims). Or to show how torture, once permitted in military and intelligence circles, metastasizes to civilian law enforcement and otherwise. Or to detail the way torture brutalizes our society and destroys the psyches of the young men and women we encourage to do it in our names. And yet some of the most commercially successful thrillers are those whose take on torture is the most cartoonish.

If the leftwing mass media continues to ignore political thrillers, this important means of shaping the public debate on torture and other critical issues will remain the exclusive weapon of the Glenn Becks of the world. Worse, as reviewers like Kirkus go under and newspapers and magazines curtail their book coverage, writers and publishers, aware that the best means of publicizing their thrillers will be an appearance on Beck or Limbaugh, will shape their stories to please the talking heads whose ministrations they increasingly crave. There's already an orthodoxy among some publishers that the audience for thrillers is largely conservative, an understandable (though mistaken) conclusion caused by the fact that the only mass media hawking thrillers today is rightwing. And with the sad recent news about the demise of Air America, that mistaken orthodoxy is likely set to deepen.

Those of us who value the rule of law and the blessings of liberty in America need to wake up. Novelists, bloggers, screen and teleplay writers, journalists, talk show hosts -- if we don't start hanging together, then, as Benjamin Franklin said, assuredly we shall all hang separately.

P.S. Proud to say I'm now blogging both at Truthout and at the Huff Post, where this piece ran today on the front page. If you have a chance, stop by and leave a comment (already responded there to a bunch) -- thanks.

Paper Earthworks and Digital Tides

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Don't be misled by the self-serving narratives Amazon and Macmillan have advanced following their recent eBooks battle. Amazon's narrative is "We're Pro-Consumer;" Macmillan (and paper publishers in general) counter with "We're Anti-Monopoly." Neither of these narratives is untrue, but neither addresses the real cause of this war.

What's happening is this. Amazon is doing everything it can to speed the transition to eBooks because, in a digital world, Amazon's costs of shipping and storage essentially disappear. Paper publishers are doing everything they can to slow the transition to eBooks because, in a digital world, paper publishers' high hardback margins essentially disappear.

That's it. One side wants to improve its profits through lower costs; the other, through higher margins. Everything else is commentary, much of it misleading.

Paper publishing has been around a long time and hasn't changed much. Think of it as a castle, surrounded by earthworks built out of the high margins publishers enjoy on hardback books. Now imagine digital as a surging tide comprised of two elements: (1) increasingly low-cost, high-quality digital book readers; and (2) lower-priced digital books. Amazon has attacked publishing's fortifications first by introducing the Kindle, and second, by selling eBooks at a loss. Publishers can't counter the first strategy (and even if they could, it wouldn't matter -- Apple, B&N, Sony, and plenty of other players are constantly improving and lowering the costs of digital readers). They have found a way to temporarily counter the second, by forcing Amazon to price eBooks no lower than $15, which is what the battle with Macmillan was fought over.

But it was only a battle. In the wider war, digital readers will continue to get better, cheaper, and more widely adopted. As for the price of eBooks, publishers can only control the price of the what Amazon buys from them. If you were Amazon, therefore, and publishers had stymied one of the two prongs of your strategy for speeding the transition to digital, what would you do?

That's right. You'd speed your own transition to becoming a publisher. This has been happening anyway; all Macmillan has done is provide Amazon with an incentive to do it faster. In the coming months, therefore, expect to see Amazon announce that it's poached some combination of editors and writers from major paper publishers. It will then publish its own eBooks at whatever price it believes will most effectively speed the transition to digital. Drive the price of eBooks low enough, and consumers' perceptions of the value of all books will radically change. It's this changing perception publishers fear. Consumers will buy a $17 hardback if the eBook costs $15. Charge $5 for that same eBook, and $17 for a hardback becomes an impossible sell.

Earthworks are a static defense. Publishers can do a few things to make the walls marginally higher and thicker, but that's about it. Meanwhile, the force of the digital tide is always increasing. Eventually, a kinetic and ever stronger offense will overwhelm a static, finite defense. Either publishers don't know this, in which case they're deluded; or they do know it, in which case they're just playing for time while their employees update their resumes. Either way, their position is grim. If they want to survive, they can't just hunker down behind their crumbling walls. They need an offense.

What would that offense be? The only solution I can imagine is for the major paper publishers to stop selling digital rights to Amazon and other retailers and establish their own well branded and managed online store. It's probably too late for them to make such a move anyway, but even if it weren't, the chances that a media industry could do something so radical are vanishingly small. And even if they did manage to pull it off, they'd keep eBook prices high to shore up their paper profits -- which is of course what they're doing now. Piracy would increase, and Amazon would muscle in with its own line of low-cost eBooks. To make it work, publishers would have to radically lower eBook prices and cannibalize their high-margin hardback sales. I've never heard of a company managing such a bold move, and I don't think a publisher will be the first to pull it off. But in a land of zero-cost distribution, with their primary competitive advantage further eroding every day, publishers need to establish their own direct link to consumers. If they don't, they'll offer no significant value in the changing ecosystem in which they find themselves, at which point they will become extinct.

I hope I don't sound unsympathetic. I make a good living selling hardback books through paper publishers and I have many friends in the industry who will suffer as it changes, so on a personal level the transition to digital isn't something I welcome wholeheartedly. But when analyzing a trend, it pays to set aside sentiment.

I used the word "extinct" above. It's hard to avoid the imagery the word naturally conjures: dinosaurs, blinking in frightened confusion as they find themselves encircled by new, hungry-looking predators encroaching on the territory that was once exclusively theirs. Dinosaurs had famously small brains. If publishers have an advantage in this regard, they need to start exploiting it.

If the Hippocratic Oath Applied to Intelligence

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I'm just about done with Tim Weiner's phenomenal Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. Two themes are at the heart of the book.

First, the Agency has been incompetent from its inception. The roster of incompetence includes subversion operations that cost the lives of hundreds of agents and accomplished nothing; CIA-managed coups that backfired; the Bay of Pigs; and many others. Even operations that "succeeded" were pyrrhic. Installing the Shah via a CIA-sponsored coup in Iran in 1953, for example, created enmity that resulted in the Khomeini revolution and hostage crisis of 1979 and continues to this day.

Second, the Agency and its political masters have consistently lied to the American public about CIA domestic law breaking. Anyone horrified at the notion that the modern CIA kidnaps and tortures terror suspects at secret prisons should understand that these activities aren't aberrant, but are in fact the legacy of programs like Project Artichoke and Project MKULTRA, in which the Agency built secret prisons in Germany, Japan, and the Panama Canal Zone, prisons where suspected double agents were tortured and dosed with heroin, amphetamines, sleeping pills, and LSD. And, like the interrogation videotapes the CIA now claims it destroyed in 2005, the CIA also destroyed its records of these earlier illegal activities.

It's tempting to conclude from all this that the CIA should never have been in the operations business -- after all, incompetence measured against subversion of the Constitution seems a bad bargain. But it's hard to see what CIA analysis has accomplished, either. Mostly the analysts have been disastrously wrong (on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, for example, the Agency continued to insist even after Russian tanks crossed the border that it couldn't be a full-scale invasion), but even when the Agency has been right, it hasn't made a difference. When policy makers agree with CIA conclusions, they use those conclusions to justify what they were going to do anyway. When policy makers disagree with those conclusions, they simply ignore them. Either way, the conclusions become irrelevant. You can have the best information and analysis in the world, but if it has no impact on policy, it's still a waste of resources.

Counterproductive operations, activities that subverted the rule of law, irrelevant analysis... it's hard to read Legacy of Ashes and conclude other than that America would be better off today if the CIA had never existed.

Of course, no politician will ever abolish the Agency. The CIA is too useful a tool for demonstrating to the public that a politician is doing something about a problem, and an iron law of American politics (perhaps all politics) is that a politician can never say, "We're doing as much as can reasonably be done about this problem, and attacking it further would only make things worse." Also, the CIA is too easy to ignore when ignoring it is convenient, too easy to manipulate when CIA support is useful, and too easy to blame when something goes wrong (say, a mistaken and unjustified war).

So what can be done? The solution, I think, lies in a critique of Weiner's book by Nicholoas Dujmovic, available on the CIA's website. Dujmovic writes:

The intelligence services that are often judged to be superior to CIA—the Israeli Mossad, the Cuban DGI, the East German Stasi, and even the British SIS -- are far more limited in focus and scope. CIA from the beginning was charged with worldwide coverage in all intelligence areas, something no other service, except perhaps the Soviet KGB, was required to do. If making no mistakes is Weiner’s only standard, he has adopted an unrealistic one -- a Platonic ideal for intelligence -- that CIA, dealing with the world as it is, could only have failed to meet.

That last line is just a straw man: Weiner doesn't require that the CIA make no mistakes. No reasonable person would. But if Dujmovic's point is that the CIA is too diffuse to be effective, why not focus its mission? Eliminate its operations arm, which has consistently done more harm than good. As for analysis, do politicians really need secret information to formulate sensible policy toward, say, China? And even if they did, history suggests they wouldn't use it except to justify what they were going to do anyway. So eliminate operations and ruthlessly focus on questions that only good intelligence can answer: the whereabouts of Pakistani nukes, for example, or the nature of terrorist financial networks, or how close Iran is to acquiring nuclear weapons. Resources are always finite, and an organization that's focused in part on China will inevitably be less focused on Pakistan -- and will probably perform poorly on both.

P.S. I'm proud to report that I'm now being syndicated on Truthout, which puts me in the company of Mel Goodman, Jeremy Scahill, Andy Worthington, and some other journalists and writers I've learned a lot from and admire. If you have a chance, stop by and leave a comment on today's post -- many thanks.

The Best Lack All Conviction

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If you want a pristine example of why people view Democrats as feckless wimps, here's Obama's statement from yesterday on what the Dems should do about health care reform following Brown's Massachusetts victory:

"Here's one thing I know and I just want to make sure that this is off the table. The Senate certainly shouldn't try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated. People in Massachusetts spoke. He's got to be part of that process."

Translation:

"It's not enough that the rules make it difficult to pass legislation. We're also going to make sure we don't take full advantage of the rules. In fact, we're going to make up nonexistent rules, like having to delay a vote until a new guy gets seated, and impose those nonexistent rules on ourselves. We wouldn't want anyone to think we don't fight fair; accordingly, we're going to tie one arm behind our back and fight that way."

Can you imagine Republicans doing this under like circumstances? Of course not. GOP leverage of the filibuster is the very reason Brown's election has stymied the Dems. I don't like the way the GOP has used the filibuster (I think the rule should be eliminated regardless of which party has a majority), and I don't think the rule is good for the country or that it's been used in good faith, but hey, Republicans are just exploiting the rules to what they see as their advantage. Something Democrats are obviously themselves afraid to do.

But neither the surface maneuvering, nor the substance of the underlying argument, is what matters politically. What matters politically is this: voters sense Republicans are effective; Democrats, fearful. Republicans, unafraid of what people think of their tactics and focused on results; Democrats, obsessed with being liked. The comparison is not flattering to Democrats.

I just finished reading Rory Miller's new book on violence, tentatively entitled "Seven" (I'm writing the foreword). Rory talks about how criminals don't see their victims as humans, but rather as resources, and how difficult it is for a normal person to understand this criminal perspective. We're deeply invested in believing in our common humanity, in the power of reason and the presence of empathy... and it's hard for us to accept that, with certain people, we can negotiate as effectively as we could with a hyena.

The Democrats are in a similar state. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they remain in denial -- still clinging to the belief that with enough compromise, enough compassion, they can placate their Republican enemies and negotiate the passage of some sort of compromise. They don't understand that Republicans don't want something passed. They don't want anything passed. They want to "break" Obama and the Democrats and inherit the ruins after.

Yes, a political strategy aimed primarily at breaking a party rather than at building the country is irresponsible, reprehensible, disgraceful, etc. But until Democrats start acting like they understand the nature of the fight they're in, voters will continue to look at them and wonder, with reason, "Jeez, if they can't handle a bunch of bully politicians, how can they handle Ahmadinejad (or any other officially designated boogeyman)? What will they do, complain to Ahmadinejad that he's not being fair?"

It's one thing to show your belly if there's a reasonable chance submission will result in mercy. But when submission repeatedly results in your opponent attempting to disembowel you, you might want to consider another strategy.

Unless, of course, you just really like submitting. With the Democrats, you have to wonder.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Indeed. One party is harmful and knows exactly what it's doing; the other is innocuous and doesn't have a clue. One party's inept; the other, insane. Welcome to America.

Democratic Crybabies

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The Democrats are so pathetic.

Their latest plea is that if Martha Coakley doesn't win in Massachusetts today, they'll lose their critical 60-seat Senate block and with it, health care reform.

It's bullshit. If the Democrats wanted to pass health care reform, or anything else, they could do it today. Any time they wanted, with a simple majority vote, they could end the filibuster rule that enables Republicans to block legislation.

This is so simple, it's useful to break it down the way a child might approach it.

Democratic Senator: Sorry, little girl, we can't pass health care reform without 60 votes.

Child: In school they taught us there only 100 Senators. So don't you need only 50 votes?

Dem: Yes, but there's a Senate rule that allows the minority party to do something called a "filibuster," and when they do, the majority party needs 60 votes to overcome it. Filibusters used to be rare, but now the Republicans do one for every bill we try to pass. Those meanies.

Child: Well, where did the rule come from?

Dem: The Senate passed it.

Child: By a majority vote? I mean, 50 Senators?

Dem: Yes.

Child: Then don't you need only 50 Senators to repeal it?

Dem: Huh?

Child: I mean, if you think Republicans are meanies who aren't being fair about the rule, why don't you just change the rule?

Dem: That would make the Republicans really mad!

Child: So you're afraid of them?

Dem: Of course not!

Child: Then why don't you change the rule?

[Silence]

Child: I was afraid of bullies, too. But then I stood up to one and he backed down. You should try it.

The only thing my hypothetical child might be missing -- and only because she's so innocent -- is that the Democrats might actually like the filibuster they're always complaining about. Here's a link that nicely lays out how the filibuster works and why the Democrats are motivated to keep it: essentially, because they can use it to excuse their failure to fulfill their promises to their constituents while simultaneously invoking mean Republican abuse of the rule in their fundraising efforts.

So are the Democrats cowards or cynics? I'm not sure. Sometimes, watching them, I see a study in learned helplessness -- they've let themselves be beaten down so many times they just want to cringe in the corner and give up. Other times, I see the Stockholm syndrome -- they want to lick the hands of the people who are punching them. Or maybe they do indeed know exactly what they're doing -- their "inability" to cope with those obstreperous Republicans is great for fundraising. Regardless, listening to them whine about how they can't pass legislation because they don't have 60 votes is like listening to a guy who says he can't work because he's wearing handcuffs -- handcuffs he's put on himself, and to which he's holding the key.

Ironically, undergirding the cynicism and cowardice is stupidity. I doubt the average voter knows that much about the details of health care reform or any other proposed legislation or platform. Most people don't choose a product because they really know the product's features; instead, they make an emotional decision based on the product's brand. At this point, the Republican brand is "bully." Not good, you might think, because most people hate bullies. But the Democratic brand is "coward." And looking out at a scary, uncertain world, a lot of people would rather be led by a bully than by a coward. Until the Democrats grasp this obvious, fundamental point, their fortunes will continue to come down to the results of single special elections, their turns in the White House to interludes between bouts of Republican incompetence so profound that desperate voters will temporarily grasp at any alternative. You can call this state of affairs a lot of things, but "prescription for getting things done" will never be one of them.

Between one party that's "corrupt and inept," and the other that's "batshit insane," what can be done? Digby has the best and most level-headed plan I've come across. Read it on Hullabaloo here.

P.S. Yesterday Scott Horton blew gigantic holes in the government's attempt to cover up torture and murder at Guantanamo. Overseas papers are all over the story, but the American mainstream media won't touch it. Make a difference -- post, tweet, or forward Scott's article and do what you can to make America a nation under the rule of law.

It's Good to Be The King

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President Obama's Nobel acceptance speech has been praised by a number of people I admire. I wish I could agree with them. In fact, even apart from the "War is Peace" elements inherent in a man accepting the Nobel Peace Prize immediately after escalating one of the three wars he is waging, I thought the speech was insidious and appalling.

The speech is fulsome in its praise of the law, and in its call that nations that break the law be punished. "Those who claim to respect international law cannot avert their eyes when those laws are flouted," for example. So far, so good. But then Obama says this:

Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America's commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. (Applause.) And we honor -- we honor those ideals by upholding them not when it's easy, but when it is hard.

This paragraph is pleasant on the surface, and poisonous underneath. Obama has no more power to prohibit torture than Bush had to permit it. Torture is illegal in America. The law, not the president, is what prohibits torture. What would you make of it if the president said, "That is why I prohibited murder. That is why I prohibited rape. That is why I prohibited embezzlement, and mail fraud, and tax evasion." And the point applies equally to Obama's order to close Guantanamo (which, in any event, is nothing more than classic Obama sleight of hand) and his reaffirmation of the Geneva Conventions.

In America, the president doesn't make the law, nor does he rescind it. The president executes the law -- which is why Article 2 of the Constitution is called "The Executive Branch." Presidents who make and rescind laws at will are more commonly known as kings.

While we're on the subject of the Constitution, that increasingly quaint document, former Harvard Constitutional Law Professor Obama also said this: "But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation...". There is no such oath in the Constitution. Rather, Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution provides that the president will take the following oath: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

See if you can spot the difference between the oath Obama now says he took and the one he actually took. President Bush and Vice President Cheney didn't know the difference, either. That, or one or more of these men knows better, but finds distorting the nature of his oath politically expedient.

I suppose Obama felt there was no way around his speech's non-sequitur theme of "We must uphold the law, so I prohibited torture." Because he refuses to prosecute torture (the insane bromide "we have to look forward, not backward" is the real Obama Doctrine), he can't acknowledge torture is a crime. If it's not a crime, it must be just a policy difference. And, indeed, the implication of Obama's benevolent prohibition on torture and refusal to prosecute it is that a less enlightened future president might re-implement the "policy" of torture as easily as Obama rescinded it.

It's good to be the king.

What Happens When a War Isn't Winnable?

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Foreword:

I wrote the following piece over four years ago for Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind and the Philadelphia City Paper. On the eve of President Obama's announcement of a major escalation in Afghanistan, it's sadly timely. I hope there won't be cause to reprint it four years hence.

Remember when Blockbuster Video charged three dollars for a two-night video rental, and one dollar per night if you were late? They made most of their profits from late charges. Why? Because if you didn't get a chance to watch the movie during the first two nights and returned it at that point, you had to pay three dollars for nothing. If you kept it just one more night and watched it, you'd pay four dollars for something -- not as good as what you were originally planning, but a much better deal than the three dollars for nothing you were facing instead. Except... something came up on that third night, too. Now you're four dollars in the hole and still nothing to show for it. But if you hold on for just one more night, you can get what you originally hoped for five dollars, rather than nothing for four. Strong incentive to hang in for just one more night and turn the whole thing around.

By the tenth night, you were kicking yourself for having rented the damn thing in the first place. Even if you watched it tonight, you paid much more than it was worth, and you knew it. But there was nothing you could do to get that ten dollars back. If you could just watch the movie, at least you'd have something to show for the whole sorry enterprise.

But you didn't watch it that night. And maybe after two weeks, when you were down fifteen bucks in exchange for no value, you finally decided you were never going to watch it, it wasn't worth even a dollar more, it was time to cut your losses and just return the movie. And you did. You had nothing to show for the exercise, but at least you stopped the bleeding.

The example is trivial, I know. But dynamics at work for small things tend to apply to big ones, too.

Here's what I said over four years ago.

*******************************************

I've been thinking about what happens when a society goes to war for a limited objective but then comes to face what seems to be an unlimited cost.

The more blood and treasure a society spends on such a war, the harder it becomes to acknowledge that it can't be won. After spending so much, a retreat would be painful: The society would have to acknowledge that the entire enterprise — the lives lost, the money spent — was a waste (worse than a waste, really, because of opportunity costs and unintended consequences).

Any society would want to avoid the pain inherent in such acknowledgment. It would prefer to believe there is still some chance of winning. If victory is possible, even if securing it turns out to be costlier than first believed, at least the society would have something to show for what it paid.

If you were a member of the administration that launched such a war, and you understood these dynamics, what would you do? Even if you knew, up front or deep down, that the war couldn't be won, would you bring the troops home?

Not likely. You would have to take the entire blame for the failure, with no room for face-saving or rationalization. Most people wouldn't be able to face such an unarguable personal failure. Instead, consciously or unconsciously, such an administration would seek to defer the withdrawal to a successor. Doing so would obscure the administration's personal and historical culpability for the war: Members would always be able to say, "We could have won if our successors hadn't lost their nerve." And who could "prove" them wrong?

I expect such an administration would continue the war, trying to keep U.S. casualties close to levels the public had already proven willing to accept. Periodically, the administration would announce "turning points," the achievement of which would imply that the nation is indeed on the road to victory. As each previously declared turning point is reached and revealed to have no effect on the course of the war, the administration would articulate a new one, thereby maintaining the public's hope that there is still some purpose to the enterprise — that the war can still be won. Simultaneously, the sunk costs of the war would be increasing, deepening the society's need to win, somehow, if only to justify the increasing costs.

This is a potent political combination: undiminishing casualty levels, constant infusion of new hope, increasing sunk costs. Because this combination is relatively stable while the pain of a "we can't win" acknowledgment gets worse the longer the war drags on, the status quo would prevail for a long time. Eventually, the war could be passed on to the next administration. Blame for losing it could be passed on as well, or at least shared and obscured.

At some point, during the tenure of the administration that launched the war or of one of its successors, the war will have dragged on long enough to force the conclusion that victory isn't possible. It's not so much that the pain of what has been spent becomes overwhelming; it's the sense of nothing but further pain ahead, for no possible gain, that would bring about a new consensus on the war. Vietnam illustrates the point. I don't think what happened was, "We've lost 58,000 Americans and that's enough." It was more like, "We've lost 58,000, and even with another 58,000 I still don't see how we can win this." In other words, the pain of acknowledging failure was finally outweighed by the prospect of more pain for no gain. When a society reaches this point, it abandons the war.

In trying to articulate these dynamics, I've deliberately avoided mention of current events. Sometimes you can see more clearly by taking a step back from the matter at hand. But obviously I do think what I've described above applies to the Bush administration and Iraq. Maybe the question isn't just, "Is the war winnable?" but rather, "Even if it's not winnable, what will the administration and our society do then?" It's that second question that's important to answer.

Fear Itself

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This morning, while reading The Washington Independent's Daphne Eviatar's excellent report on the death penalty for terrorists, two things occurred to me.

First, there's been much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the right about trying Khalid Sheik Mohamed in New York City because, apparently, KSM said he wanted to be tried in New York. As Rudy Giuliani said, "I didn't think we were in the business of granting the requests of terrorists."

Giuliani's point is of course silly -- as Dahlia Lithwick put it, "Funny, that. I didn't think we were in the business of caring one way or another what the terrorists want from us" -- but let's assume for the moment that Giuliani really wants to follow the principle he articulated. If we shouldn't grant terrorist requests, what would Giuliani have us do with terrorists who want to be put to death, who believe that being executed by infidels will make them martyrs? Would Giuliani argue that because a convicted terrorist asked for the death penalty, we shouldn't execute him? Hard to imagine. So what principle is really behind Giuliani's remarks? And if there is no principle, what's motivating him instead?

Second, a common complaint on the right is that we mustn't try terror suspects in America because doing so would make us unsafe (similarly, we can't imprison terrorists even in supermax prisons from which no one has ever escaped because... well, it's not clear why, exactly, but incarcerating terrorists in quality American prisons scares some people a lot). For example, John "Surrender is Not an Option" Bolton says he's practically ready to evacuate his family from New York if we try KSM there, because such a trial will render New York unsafe.

Let's do for Bolton what we've done for Giuliani -- extract the principle he's articulating, and see whether he's serious about applying it. The principle is: we should deviate from applying our rules of justice if we're afraid that following those rules could increase the danger of a terror attack. Well, what if it's possible executing terrorists would do just that? It's hard to imagine John Bolton or anyone like him arguing we shouldn't execute terrorists because doing so might lead to new terror attacks. But then what principle is really driving him? Or what's driving him in the absence of principle?

There was some spirited debate in the comments to my previous post over my use of the term "rightist." I'll have more to say on the topic of nomenclature in a future post, but for now: if you're talking about rhetoric and policy positions fueled by fear (or the cynical exploitation of fear), rhetoric and positions so unprincipled they crumble in the face of even the most cursory logical scrutiny (like that applied above) you're almost certainly talking about the right -- meaning the Republican party. I don't know why someone would dispute this. You can either embrace it ("Hell, yes, I'm afraid, and you should be too, and with good reason"); or you can disassociate yourself from it ("I'm not a Republican"). What you can't do is say, "Well, that's just George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Steele, Glenn Beck, Hannity, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Rudy Giuliani, John Bolton, Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Andy McCarthy, Rich Lowry, et al. They're not really representative of the GOP."

One of the things I always find telling is when a person or institution stands for something, but won't acknowledge standing for it. If you advocate torture, say so! Why go all mealy-mouthed and hide behind euphemisms like "alternate interrogation techniques?" Similarly, if you're afraid and think the country should be afraid, too, why not say so? The GOP, by its rhetoric and policy positions, is indisputably the party of fear. And what's wrong with that, if we really ought to be afraid? It's the "Be afraid" rhetoric and positions, coupled with the refusal to own up to it, that makes me suspicious.

More on nomenclature, right and left, next time. Happy Thanksgiving.

The Economist Again, and Those Funny Rightists

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War is Good

I don't mean to pick on The Economist (and I doubt they'd care if I did). I love the magazine. But the oddities are piling up.

The current issue is dedicated to "Dealing With America's Fiscal Hole." In the leader of that name, and in "Stemming the Tide," the three-page briefing that follows it, the magazine proposes a number of ways America might reduce spending and reduce its current $12 trillion national debt. Yet among all its proposals, which include innovative and politically risky schemes like a carbon tax and a national value added tax, and which include a call to cut social security and health care spending, not a passing thought is given to war. Not a single word on the subject in the leader, and only a few lines in the briefing -- lines devoted to dismissing the notion of reducing military spending.

When military spending is so sacrosanct it doesn't even get mentioned as reducible in the service of America's economic health (if for no other reason), something seems amiss. Especially when one considers that our wars since 2001 have thus far cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $935 billion (eventual costs of the Iraq war alone are reckoned to be in the $3 trillion range).

The kindest explanation I can come up with is that The Economist, like others in the media, puts a high priority on war. I wonder, though, why they don't explicitly say so?

One of those Essential Rightist Moments

Here's Bill O'Reilly, declaring, "I don't care about the Constitution."



In fairness to O'Reilly, I imagine he'd explain his remark by saying he was just trying to get his guest to offer his personal views on the matter of terror trials in civilian courts: "The Constitution isn't here," as he put it. "You're here." But why would O'Reilly care about what someone thinks irrespective of what the Constitution provides? His follow-on is telling: "Don't be a pinhead." Translation: "Don't be one of them, one of the out-group. Show me you have the right loyalties, that your loyalties are tribal, and that those loyalties trump your adherence to an objective application of the rule of law."

I like this clip because it captures something essential to the rightist mentality. It's not that rightists don't care about the Constitution (despite O'Reilly's claim); it's more that they don't get the Constitution. They don't get that you can't apply the law through a tribal filter, with one set of rules for your group and another set of rules, or no rules at all, for the "pinheads," or "enemy combatants," or "terrorists," or whatever other designation the tribalist employs to avoid having to apply the law impartially.

Another Essential Rightist Moment

Another incident I like for the way it illuminates rightist thinking (or what passes for rightist thinking) is Obama's recent bow to Japanese Emperor Akihito. Obama's bow precipitated predictable outrage on the right, with cries of "treason," "weakness," etc.

It's as though these people don't know that in Japan, the bow is a sign of respect. Or maybe they know it, but believe the purpose of diplomacy is to show other countries we're so badass we can ignore their customs? That we can disrespect other countries and still get what we want? What do these people think diplomacy is for? Do they have any capacity at all to look at things from the other side? Or are they so insecure that they can only imagine a show of respect being taken instead as a sign of weakness?

Rhetorical questions, I know. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of temperament in America today: one that's so weak and fearful it declares a bow off limits even in the land of bows; the other confident enough to understand adopting your neighbor's custom will be taken as a sign of respect. One, delusional enough to believe you can get what you want in life through disrespect; the other, competent enough to understand that respect in human relations is essential. One, so brittle it's afraid -- literally -- to bend; the other, sufficiently supple to recognize that diplomacy without flexibility is just a metaphor for pigheadedness -- and futility.

Obama's bow was also useful because of the way it exposed rightist hypocrisy. Did anyone who criticized Obama for bowing to the Japanese Emperor criticize Bush for holding hands and kissing the Saudi King? If not, the kindest explanation for the discrepancy is that there's something more verboten in America about a man bowing to another man than there is about a man holding hands with and kissing another man. That would be a tough argument to support, given rightist homophobia, but even if I bought it, we'd be back to the explanation above: rightists are relatively brittle, fearful, and insecure.

Despite its shortcomings, though, the right does have a talent for communication (usually fear-based). True, Democratic marketing geniuses decided to apply the shockingly banal label "public option" to their health care reform proposals, thereby ensuring they would have the world's most boring rallying cry with which to respond to GOP "death panel" accusations. But still, think about it: the right managed to convince significant segments of the voting public that government subsidized health care would be bad for them -- and that trillions spent instead in Iraq and Afghanistan would be good! Even with marketeers as feckless as the Democrats for opponents, convincing people to turn away a government subsidy and send the money to foreigners instead is no easy task. I wish the right would do it for sugar beet farmers, bankers, and mortgage holders, too.

Afghanistan and the Death of Common Sense

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I've been reading The Economist for decades and have always admired the magazine for its coverage, insights, and eclectic politics (who else in the media has called for Bill Clinton's resignation, gay marriage, war in Iraq, and drug decriminalization?). I've respected the magazine's opinions even when I disagreed with its conclusions. But lately, I find myself wondering about its common sense. Two pieces from the October 17 issue, Obama's War and To Surge or Not to Surge, both calling for escalation in Afghanistan, are useful to study not just to expose the flaws in escalation theory specifically, but to illuminate various species of weak critical thinking in general. Let's take the magazine's arguments for escalation one by one.

1. "A less intensive, more surgical 'counter-terrorism,' relying on unmanned air raids and assassination... is more likely to kill civilians and create new enemies than to decapitate and disable al-Qaeda."

Certainly killing civilians and creating new enemies would be counterproductive for any policy. It's reasonable, therefore, to ask whether sending tens of thousands of additional foreign troops into the country eight years into the war might have a similar effect, or even a worse one. Yet The Economist doesn't consider the costs of its favored policy. It's as though those costs don't exist.

The general flaw here is the assessment of costs only of one course of action, not of its proposed alternative. If your house and belongings were being ruined by a leaky roof and someone told you repairs would cost a thousand dollars, would you reflexively say, "Forget it, too costly?" Or would you also consider the costs of ongoing water damage caused by an unrepaired roof, and measure one against the other?

2. "Anarchy in Afghanistan, or a Taliban restoration, would leave it prey to permanent cross-border instability."

The specific problem here is that the argument ignores not just theoretical alternatives, but also actual history. If cross-border stability is a goal, it's important to ask whether there was more of it before or after the current war began. If the answer is "before," we can reasonably infer that the presence of foreign troops in the country is part of the cause of the current instability, and that more troops would make things worse.

The more general problem here is unexamined assumptions. Afghanistan has a whole history of instability. Why ignore that history when asserting withdrawal would worsen things? Why leave a critical assumption untested when you have so much data to test it with?

Note too the related assumption: stability in Afghanistan is so vital a western interest that no one even has to explain what the interest is. Stability is one of those words that just gets intoned, thought-free, by serious-sounding people who rarely bother to explain why the stability is important enough to warrant a war to maintain it -- and who even more rarely pause to consider how war might foster stability's opposite.

3. "Defeat for the West in Afghanistan would embolden its opponents not just in Pakistan, but all around the world, leaving it open to more attacks."

The argument is that we shouldn't do something to embolden our opponents, yes? Then why does The Economist not also discuss the way war -- particularly escalation -- emboldens our opponents? Or can only withdrawal embolden opponents, while escalation can't?

Again, it seems the only costs are those associated with the course of action The Economist seeks to dismiss. The magazine's preferred alternative is free of such costs, and apparently of other costs, as well. Wouldn't it be nice if life were really like this?

4. "Withdrawal would amount to a terrible betrayal of the Afghan people, some of whose troubles are the result of Western intervention."

I don't know how you measure something like this, especially after the kind of rigged election Karzai just pulled off. Regardless, will this always be true? Afghanistan seems historically a hard place to pacify. How long does The Economist propose staying to avoid betraying the Afghan people? How many lives is it willing to spend for this avoidance? How much money? It doesn't say.

Starting to see a pattern here? If a salesman were trying to sell you a car this one-sidedly -- "no costs, unless you don't buy the car!" -- would you get out your checkbook?

5. "The Afghan conflict, it is often said, has been not an eight-year war, but eight one-year wars. NATO comes off worse each time. And so the most important reason for persisting in Afghanistan: the coalition can do much better."

If you knew someone who had been married and divorced eight times, would you recommend he give it another go because he can do better? If, as you lay down on the operating table, you learned that your surgeon had killed her previous eight patients, would you take this as a sign your operation will be a success?

They say past performance isn't an indication of future results. Maybe not. But the notion that eight years of failure means ipso facto next year will be better is contradicted by history, everyday experience, and common sense. As an argument, it is, simply, delusional.

6. "The coalition’s leaders, at least, seem to have grasped that it must behave not as an occupying army but as a partner, whose aim is to build up the local forces that will ultimately ensure Afghanistan’s security. And soldiers and civilians are beginning to understand that development aid can benefit local people rather than foreign consultants and contractors."

If it took eight years for our leaders to figure these things out, is that cause for encouragement? Or despair? If you knew someone who'd been driving for eight years and only just figured out the importance of using the turn signal and rear view mirror and putting on the headlights at night, would you then confidently hand him the keys to your vehicle? Or would you instead sense that someone who learns this slowly will never manage to safely drive a car?

7. "The coalition, however, lacks three essential components of a successful strategy. It needs a credible, legitimate government to work with, the resources to do the job and the belief that America’s president is behind this war."

I think Rory Stewart said it best: "This is not a plan: it is a description of what we have not got."

8. "As for resources, it is worth remembering that in 2006, before the American surge, prospects in Iraq looked far bleaker than they do now in Afghanistan."

It's odd to tout Iraq as the kind of success we might emulate in Afghanistan. Andrew Bacevich:

Six-plus years after it began, Operation Iraqi Freedom has consumed something like a trillion dollars—with the meter still running—and has taken the lives of more than forty-three hundred American soldiers. Meanwhile, in Baghdad and other major Iraqi cities, car bombs continue to detonate at regular intervals, killing and maiming dozens. Anyone inclined to put Iraq in the nation’s rearview mirror is simply deluded. Not long ago General Raymond Odierno, Petraeus’s successor and the fifth U.S. commander in Baghdad, expressed the view that the insurgency in Iraq is likely to drag on for an-other five, ten, or fifteen years. Events may well show that Odierno is an optimist.

Given the embarrassing yet indisputable fact that this was an utterly needless war—no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction found, no ties between Saddam Hussein and the jihadists established, no democratic transformation of the Islamic world set in motion, no road to peace in Jerusalem discovered in downtown Baghdad—to describe Iraq as a success, and as a model for application elsewhere, is nothing short of obscene. The great unacknowledged lesson of Iraq is the one that the writer Norman Mailer identified decades ago: “Fighting a war to fix something works about as good as going to a whorehouse to get rid of a clap.”

For those who, despite all this, still hanker to have a go at nation building, why start with Afghanistan? Why not first fix, say, Mexico? In terms of its importance to the United States, our southern neighbor—a major supplier of oil and drugs among other commodities deemed vital to the American way of life—outranks Afghanistan by several orders of magnitude.

9. "Mr Obama... might well reflect on a line from a British counter-insurgency specialist, quoted in Lewis Sorley’s book 'A Better War,' which White House staff are said to be busily reading. South Vietnam, he says, could have been saved if America had not cut off military aid to its government. 'Perhaps the major lesson of the Vietnam war,' said Sir Robert Thompson, 'is: do not rely on the United States as an ally.'

Perhaps so. Perhaps the point would be more relevant if Sir Thompson and The Economist could point to the country whom South Vietnam could have relied on instead. Otherwise, you could as well argue that Bill is useless to have your back in a fight because he lacks mutant invisibility powers and titanium-coated skin.

10. "Most of all, Mr Obama needs to fight this war with conviction. His wobbles over the last month have done more to comfort his enemies and worry his allies than any recent losses on the ground. Only if he persuades his troops, his countrymen and the Taliban that America is there for the long haul does he have a chance of turning this war around."

This sounded familiar to me. So I looked up William Westmoreland on Wikipedia and found this in his 1967 address to a joint session of Congress:

In evaluating the enemy strategy, it is evident to me that he believes our Achilles heel is our resolve ... Your continued strong support is vital to the success of our mission ... Backed at home by resolve, confidence, patience, determination and continued support, we will prevail in Vietnam over the Communist aggressor!

Indeed, the oddest thing about reading The Economist's articles this week was my sense that, had the word Vietnam been substituted for the word Afghanistan, they could have been written anytime during that earlier war (and I'm sure they were). Well, those who don't learn the lessons of history and all that.

Measure the costs of all proposed courses of action, not just one. Identify and test your assumptions. Recognize that multiple failures and extraordinarily slow learning are not cause for optimism for success. Don't confuse a description of what you lack with a strategy for achieving it. Spot and learn from historical parallels. Common sense, you would think. But not, apparently, when such common sense is most urgent.

P.S. On the subject of weak critical thinking, conservative NYT columnist Ross Douthat claims the secular arguments against gay marriage can be summed up as "institutional support for reproduction."

Reproduction needs institutional support? I actually can't think of something that needs less institutional support. Breathing, maybe. And the guy calling for this institutional support for reproduction also calls himself a conservative, presumably in favor of small government and all that? Bonus points, Ross, for irony.

More Signs of the Creeping Militarization of US Society

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Hi everyone, forgive my long hiatus. If anyone here is considering moving back from Tokyo, living in a house while it's being renovated, and finishing a manuscript all at the same time, I would advise... don't. But the worst of the storm is past, thank God, and it's good to be back at blogging. Lots to catch up on; here are three recent items that strike me as all being evidence (along with, say, the bizarre and unconstitutional reverence for "our" Commander-in-Chief) of the creeping militarization of American society.

1. On Fox News Sunday, Liz Cheney offered these thoughts on Obama's Nobel:

Well, I think what the committee believes is they'd like to live in a world in which America is not dominant. And I think if you look at the language of the citation, you can see that they talk about, you know, President Obama ruling in a way that makes sense to the majority of the people of the world. You know, Americans don't elect a president to do that. We elect a president to defend our national interests. And so I think that, you know, they may believe that President Obama also doesn't agree with American dominance, and they may have been trying to affirm that belief with the prize. I think, unfortunately, they may be right, and I think it's a concern.

Here are the main premises in the paragraph above:

A. America should dominate the world.
B. The president "rules" America.
C. Americans elect a president exclusively, or at least primarily, to "defend" our national interests.
D. The defense of America's national interests should not, and indeed cannot, make sense to the majority of the people of the world.

Let's examine the premises Cheney regards as axiomatic.

A. Is it necessary, desirable, or even possible for America to dominate the world? What are America's national interests, and is world dominance necessary for their defense? Do all countries require world dominance to defend their national interests, or is America unique in this regard?

B. Does the president "rule" America? (Hint: the president's job description is helpfully laid out right in the Constitution. Very handy document.)

C. Is it true that Americans exclusively or primarily elect a president to "defend" our national interests? What else do we want a president to do? What does it suggest when someone mentions "defense" as the only, or even the primary, role Americans expect in a president (as opposed to, say, advancing interests, or continuing to form a more perfect union... that kind of thing)? Especially when the same person suggests the president "rules" America?

D. Is it true that when the president defends America's national interests, his actions cannot and should not make sense to the majority of the world? Is a decent respect for the opinions of mankind incommensurate with the defense of our national interests, or a part of that defense?

2. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) supports a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which is good. But the senator also says, "It has to be done in the right way, which is to get a buy-in from the (U.S.) military (that) I think is now possible."

Huge majorities of Americans, including majorities of Americans with family members in the military, favor a repeal of DADT (it seems the military itself seems about evenly divided). Regardless: what, specifically, would the required military "buy-in" consist of? Was the military's "buy-in" also required when President Truman ordered desegregation? Are there other issues for which the civilian government and civilian population require the military's "buy-in?" Are there other institutions from which the President and Congress require buy-in, or is it just the military? What does Levin's notion suggest about current notions regarding military subordination to civilian leadership?

3. In a September 11 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Fouad Adjami, who writes like Peggy Noonan (this is not a compliment), claimed, "Wars are great clarifiers." Adjami was so certain of the truth of his statement that he didn't even bother to support it, and instead offered it up as an axiom.

Is it true wars really are great at clarifying things? Or do they tend instead to enflame and obscure? What does it say about a person's worldview when he believes it virtually goes without saying that wars greatly clarify things?

Against the creeping authoritarianism that today thoroughly infests the GOP but that shows increasing virulence outside it, as well, awareness, outspokenness, and familiarity with the Constitution are the best defense.

P.S. Glenn Greenwald has a terrific related interview with Jonathan Weiler, co-author of "Authoritarianism & Polarization in American Politics."

Double Standard for a Latina

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I just read this article in today's New York Times: "Sotomayer Says Identify Won't Distort Her Positions."

"Judge Sonia Sotomayor insisted on Tuesday, in the face of sometimes skeptical questioning from Republicans, that she would never allow her background or life experiences to determine the outcome of a case if she were elevated to the Supreme Court."

Two questions and an observation:

1. Has a white man ever been asked if he would allow his background to determine the outcome of a case?

2. Is it even conceivable that a white man would be asked if he would allow his background to determine the outcome of a case?

3. Worse: a white man has claimed that his background affected and would continue to affect his decisions. That man was Justice Sam Alito, who said during his confirmation hearings:

"But when I look at those cases, I have to say to myself, and I do say to myself, 'You know, this could be your grandfather, this could be your grandmother. They were not citizens at one time, and they were people who came to this country...'

"When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account."

(Hat Tip Glenn Greenwald)

Imagine those words coming out of Sonia Sotomayer's mouth. Imagine the Republican furor.

So when a white man says his background will affect his decision making as a Justic, that's an asset for Republicans. A Latina, on the other hand, is forced to disclaim such a possibility.

Wow.

The Willful Stupidity of Anti-Gay Prejudice

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This post began as a response to a series of comments on my FaceBook page, where I posted a video of Rachel Maddow interviewing Rep. Patrick Murphy, an 82nd Airborne Iraq war veteran, winner of the Bronze Star, and Congress's point man for the repeal of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy. You can find the full text of those comments here, and a similar exchange with a woman who conflated gays and child molesters, here.



After writing my response to the anti-gay commenters, I realized what I'd written would serve well as its own post. Here it is.

You know why these discussions can be so sterile? Because the people who talk the most and listen the least are the ones with the most nonsensical, ill-considered opinions. I guess this makes sense, in a way. After all, if you know deep down that your opinion will be exposed as nothing but ignorant, empty prejudice in the face of evidence, logic, argument, and even common sense, your best strategy will be to ignore such things any time you encounter them in favor of throwing up an unending stream of thoughtless bullshit.

So, Brentt and Colin, you ignored my request to substitute the word "blacks" for the word "gays." Here, let me do it for you in your own comments:

"It all comes down to following orders. If you can't abide by having to serve in an all-black unit and not being able to serve with whites, then you deserve whatever comes your way, and it makes me happy to see it... Just because you're black doesn't mean you get special treatment so grow up, man up and follow the rules... All I am saying is that in order to maintain professionalism in an all volunteer military, you volunteer once, and then do what you're told to do after that. It doesn't mean you have to like it, you just have to do it... Just because they are black they are exempt from the rules? I think not."

"I think all the blacks should be put into their own regiment. That would give them a way to show their true merit and defend or avenge their black buddies in battle."

How does that read to you? It's exactly what you're arguing.

Brentt, your thoughts on the discriminatory nature of DADT also ignore previous comments -- again, presumably because you're not reading them. As others here have said, and as even the most elementary common sense ought to suggest to you, DADT is indeed discriminatory because it only applies to gays. The only way you could miss a point so obvious is if you're motivated by something other than reason.

Here, let me clarify by substituting the word "straight" for the word "gay" in your comment:

"If any of you try to make this a debate about discrimination, you'd be wrong. The military is not saying that you can't be straight and serve in the military. They are only saying that you can't ask anyone if they are, or tell anyone that you are. It's perfectly fine for you to be straight and serve in the military and has been for 15 years or so when President Clinton enacted this policy."

Do you see it now? A law that allows one class of people to acknowledge their sexuality and punishes another class of people for acknowledging their sexuality is inherently, obviously, discriminatory. If you want DADT to apply across the board -- such that anyone who acknowledges his or sexuality, straight or gay, will be discharged -- then it won't be discriminatory. Otherwise, by definition, it is.

Really, to miss a double standard so blindingly obvious, you'd have to start with the premise, conscious or unconscious, that gays are in some way illegitimate. Which I guess is where you're coming from and is unlikely something you can be reasoned away from if you're sufficiently motivated to adhere to your view.

"So, the question here is this: Is the Military ready for homosexuals to openly serve?"

But I already specifically addressed this exact question in one of my comments above, in which I referenced Truman's desegregation order, the Civil Rights Act, and the attitudes of the military and society at large. I argued, in fact, that this is not "the question," nor should it be, nor was it or should it have been then. Now you're raising the question again as though for the first time, suggesting that for you, it *is* the first time, because the most charitable explanation I can devise for why you would ask the same question that has been responded to previously without even noting the existence of that previous response is that you're not reading the comments to which you purport to be responding. And because you haven't responded to a single one of the arguments Rep. Murphy lays out in the video interview I linked to, and because many of his points contradict your own, I imagine you haven't watched the interview, either.

Discussing -- if that's the right word -- an interview you haven't even bothered to listen to is odd behavior. I wonder what would motivate it.

Your conflation of sexual assault with homosexuality is borderline insane and regardless, has already been addressed in other comments here. Sexual assault and other forms of assault are and should be illegal, in the military and elsewhere. Assault has nothing to do with homosexuality or heterosexuality, and the fact that you would argue otherwise again suggests that your views are motivated by something other than reason.

As for your conflation of sexual orientation with marital affairs, this is as worthy an argument as your conflation of sexual orientation and sexual assault. Once again, if you can't understand the difference between orientation and behavior -- about the same as the difference between being left-handed, on the one hand, and a left hook, on the other -- something is going on inside you, and it isn't reason.

Your suggestion that most gays are just malingerers who are using their gayness as an excuse to get out of the military is similarly revealing. The only evidence you cite is that you have "seen many people" do so -- as though someone as prejudiced as you could be counted on to adequately account for someone's motivations -- and you ignore the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Rep. Murphy points out that over 13,000 military personnel -- over three combat brigades worth -- have been discharged for being gay. And you assume that a significant percentage of that number were malingerers? Based on a few people you claim to know? Without offering any other evidence for your opinion? Tendentious would be a charitable way of describing your views.

If you really believed your "they're all malingerers" theory, and you really wanted to stop the malingering you assume is so widespread, you would support ending DADT. But you don't -- leading me, once again, to wonder what's really motivating you.

Your fear that straights might freak out if they knew there was a gay in a communal shower is also strange. First, there already are gays in the showers, and good order and discipline seems to go on. Is your point that good order and discipline can be maintained if straights know there are gays in the shower, but not if straights know who some of these gays are? I guess you're arguing then, as Col. Jessup might say, that straights "can't handle the truth."

Well, what was your previous advice for gays? "Man up and follow the rules." I could be wrong, but I have a feeling most soldiers devoted enough to serve and brave enough for combat can handle knowing some of their comrades, equally devoted and brave, are gay. But don't take my word for it: watch the Rep. Murphy video you're pretending to discuss and see what he has to say on the matter.

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I promised in a previous post to do an article on how to argue. I haven't forgotten and in fact have outlined some of the points I want to make. But the new book, a sequel to Fault Line called Inside Out, is due at the end of the month, and I've still got a ways to go, so I'm trying to keep my blogging semi-under control.



Pending the article on how to argue, I'll just say this: if you want your argument to be persuasive, and if you hope to be taken at all seriously, at a minimum you have to: (i) familiarize yourself with what's being discussed, whether it's an interview, an article, or the comments of other posters; (ii) respond to points that other people are making, ideally by quoting their exact words; and (iii) understand the difference between opinion and evidence and use the latter to bolster the former.

Final point: for anyone who wants to hear from me a little more frequently, I've been posting updates on Twitter. I confess when I first heard of a 140-character-per-post social networking medium, I thought it sounded silly. It's actually interesting, useful, and productive, though it can be a hell of a distraction, too. Anyway, if you're on Twitter, follow me, and I'll look forward to seeing you there.