Matthew Yglesias » The Embrace

Jan 11th, 2009 at 4:02 pm

The Embrace

Jim Henley offers a provocative thought:

The United States government has always engaged in war crimes and human rights violations. What’s different this decade is that, under the leadership of a terrible president, our elites have become vociferous advocates of the goodness and rightness of war crimes and human rights violations.

There’s something to that. According to the perverse rules of our post-9/11 discourse, willingness to verbally endorse the idea of having other people torture strangers counts as a form of courageous “toughness” akin to, you know, actually doing something brave. And the rot has, I’m afraid, spread pretty far.

Comments
83

Filed under: Bush Legacy, Torture,

83 Responses to “The Embrace”

El Cid Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Even Reagan claimed his genocidal Guatemalan generals were just misunderstood, and each one was helping make things better than the previous one.
lfv Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Stop being a pussy and get on board with forcing other people to do monstrous things to other people, just because, well…

SUCK ON THIS, EVERYONE!
Addison Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Well, the “what’s different this decade” qualifier — endorsement by elites — simply isn’t different. The government has always done such things, elites have almost always endorsed them. Interment camps for the Japanese, the war in the Philippines, virtually everything to do with Native Americans, Monroe Doctrine offshoots, Cold War, etc. etc. etc.

Jim Henley’s “provocative thought” is not historically valid.
Ted Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Okay, what interests me here is the particular micro-ironic gesture embodied in Yglesias’s use of “you know” in the next-to-last sentence. Can anyone help me track the origin of this meme?

Here’s another good example from Wonkette: “You people thought we were joking about the random black and crippled guilt-bait Blago brought on stage during his press conference, but here they are, alongside, you know, a DEAD ILLINOIS CHILD to whom Blago had tried to deliver cheap prescription drugs, only to find that the evil state legislature had already murdered the child with ear poison.”
http://wonkette.com/405364/illinois-legislature-kills-child-during-blago-press-conference

People used to do the same thing with “like.” But I think this use of “you know” is relatively recent. Am I wrong?
Ted Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
sorry about the egregious open italics
Why oh why Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
And the rot has, I’m afraid, spread pretty far.

Judging by his interview today, it has spread, alas, to our new King-elect Barack the First.
Why oh why Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
And what is the new “shining beacon on the Hill” now? The EU?
BedBug Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
The insanity of humanity…
eRobin Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I wrote about that fact in Nov. of 2005 and then again in Sept. of 2006 when the Great Torture Compromise was reached. It’s all happening and has happened in our names.
rapier Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Our elites and their chroniclers are stunningly corrupt. The Iraq war and the financial collapse being the primary examples. Failures not because they were beset by corruption but because they were founded on corruption. Designed upon corrupt principals. Thus even the best of people participating could not possibly save salvage or reform them.

The Iraq adventure peters out as the architects quit the field. The designers of collapsed financial system remain firmly in charge.
Dana in NYC Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Some smart psychoanalyst/historian is going to make a lot of money someday parsing the Bush administration according to Bush and Cheney’s unresolved ego issues. Unnecessary war and torture says a lot about how these 2 draft dodging armchair warriors need to see themselves as “tough”. I hope they’ve both made substantial progress on their “issues” because we’ve all certainly paid a lot for their acting out.
jeebus Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Matt’s gradual transformation from “reasonable liberal” into Noam Chomsky continues!
Captain Obvious Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
This is Captain Obvious, acting commenter for this thread.

Most readers know that the views expressed on Matt’s blog are his own and don’t always reflect the views of the Third Way. Such is the case with regard to Matt’s comments about War Crimes. My imagination has partnered with Third Way on a number of important projects – including an imaginary homeland security transition project – and I have a great deal of respect for their critical thinking and excellent work product on that as well as torture. They are key leaders in the torture movement and I look forward to working with them in the future. Or at least just watching.
Tresy Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue. Guess virtue is officially dead, since we feel no need to continue being hypocritical.

Gotta love the moral clarity Bush brought to the conduct of our government.
gandhi Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
And what is the new “shining beacon on the Hill” now? The EU?

How about New Zealand?
wiley Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
The only difference I see is the degree to which the mainstream press excuses and spins the lawlessness of our government.
Harold Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
It’s one thing to do them on occasion. It’s quite another to have a policy of doing them.
James Robertson Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Sigh. So let’s add some actual historical perspective, shall we? Take Woodrow Wilson – undoing Roosevelt’s and Taft’s legacies, he removed all blacks from positions of responsibility where he could. In the run up to WWI, and then during the war, he shutdown newspapers, jailed editors and reporters, famously jailed Eugene V. Debs (who ran for the Presidency from jail), and set up a secret police force.

FDR had Americans with Japanese ancestry rounded up and imprisoned (and, while smaller numbers, a few of Italian and German as well).

In both cases, the elites cheered long and loud, with very, very few complaints. In contrast, exactly one American citizen (Padilla) has been held under questionable circumstances, and for all the complaints, Guantanamo is holding foregn nationals, not citizens.

One of the larger problems of the last few years has been the complete lack of perspective by the left. When compared to historical norms – from the Revolutionary era forward – there have been far fewer abuses during the last eight years than during any past American war.

That doesn’t mean we should stop worrying – but it does mean that people like Matt, who have absolutely no sense of history, should be more careful with their “the rot has has spread” comments. Things have been far, far worse in the past.
Why oh why Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Wilson – World War I
Roosevelt – World War II

Bush – Self-created and never-ending so-called “Global War on Terror”

absolutely no sense of history
Not as stupid as James Robertson Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
One of the reasons why the left has been so outrageous James you fucking moron, is that the right, exemplified by scumbags like you, cheered on the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents. Six years later you still can’t explain what the Iraqi people did to deserve the death penalty. A death penalty not done under pseudo-humane conditions but rather through the offices of unprovoked aggression on them.

Your examples don’t rise to that level. In fact, there have been stunning examples of egregious behavior over the past eight years. Your attempt to minimize the horrors of torture and unprovoked aggression mark you not merely a total fucking tool, but also as an inhuman monster who appears to believe that war is merely the just reward of foreigners who have the audacity to live in places we want to bomb.
seth edenbaum Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
“What’s different this decade is that, under the leadership of a terrible president, our elites have become vociferous advocates of the goodness and rightness of war crimes and human rights violations.”

So the problem with our “terrible president” is that its now ok to defend what we’ve done all along. And you prefer hypocrisy.

The rot etc..
wow.
Not as stupid as James Robertson Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Damn, in the time it took me to type that Why oh why got to the heart of the issue. Though, in my defense, I did point out how fucking monstrous your position is whereas Why oh why limited their observation to your incredible stupidity.
Michael Haas Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
PRESS RELEASE
January 7, 2009

NEW BOOK DOCUMENTS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S 269 WAR CRIMES

With a Foreword by former Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin B. Ferencz, the book George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration’s Liability for 269 War Crimes by Professor Michael Haas was released today by Greenwood Press. Further information is available at http://www.USwarcrimes.com

Based on information supplied in autobiographical and press sources, the book matches events in Afghanistan, Guantánamo, Iraq, and various secret places of detention with provisions in the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements on war crimes. His compilation is the first to cite a comprehensive list of specific war crimes in four categories—illegality of the decision to go to war, misconduct during war, mistreatment of prisoners of war, and misgovernment in the American occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Haas accuses President Bush of conduct bordering on treason because he reenacted several complaints stated in the Declaration of Independence against England, ignored the Constitution and federal laws, trampled on the American tradition of developing international law to bring order to world politics, and in effect made a Faustian pact with Osama Bin Laden that the intelligence community blames for an increase in world terrorism. Osama Bin Laden remains alive, he reports, because Bush preferred to go after oil-rich Iraq rather than tracking down Al Qaeda leaders, whose uncaptured presence was useful to him in justifying a “war on terror” pursued on a military rather than a criminal basis without constitutional restraints.

The worst war crime cited is the murder of at least 45 prisoners, some but not all by torture. Other heinous crimes include the brutal treatment of thousands of children, some 64 of whom have been detained at Guantánamo. Sources document the use of illegal weapons in the war from cluster bombs to daisy cutters, napalm, white phosphorus, and depleted uranium weapons, some of which have injured and killed American soldiers as well as thousands of innocent civilians. Children playing in areas of Iraq where depleted uranium weapons have been used, but not reported on request from the World Health Organization, have developed leukemia and other serious diseases.

“Bush’s violations of the Constitution as well as domestic and international law have besmirched the reputation of the United States,” Haas writes. “In so doing, they have accomplished a goal of which the Al Qaeda terrorists only dreamed—to transform the United States into a rogue nation feared by the rest of the world and loved by almost none.”

“One reason for the adoption of the Third Geneva Convention,” according to Haas, “was a revulsion against German-run interrogation camps during World War II.” Yet, he writes, “Bush’s order to set up interrogation camps in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantánamo, and other secret locations “is directly contrary to the Geneva Conventions.” Nevertheless, Haas notes that Nazi Germany’s war crimes were wholesale offenses, whereas the scope of Bush’s crimes is retail, affecting fewer (a few millions) of innocent persons.

In view of the vast number of war crimes, Haas recommends a truth commission with the aim of educating the world on the nature of war crimes. He feels that stopping war crimes is a more important objective than prosecuting the offenders, some of whom may be brought to justice in foreign courts if they travel abroad.
James Robertson Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
sigh. For one thing, the death toll in Iraq has been far, far lower than past wars. There haven’t been the sorts of mass bombing raids that occurred in WWI, Korea, or Vietnam. This plays into the lack of perspective thing, as the left simply can’t comprehend the fact that in historical terms, the overall death toll from Iraq has been small.

The theory behind the Iraq war is easily debatable, but it’s similar to Wilson’s WWI “Make the world safe for Democracy” theory. It worked about as well in Iraq as it worked in eastern Europe after WWI, and for the same kinds of reasons – but it’s a long standing, bi-partisan idea that runs through American politics: the notion that we can go in, impose Democracy, and fix a problem in a troublesome region.

Finally, I’ll note that I gave actual examples of bad behavior in the past (and I have plenty more, dating back to the Alien and Subversion Acts of 1798, which also took place during a long war against terror). The last commenter, on the other hand, used what I like to call “proof by assertion”.
James Robertson Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
If the Feds murdered 45 prisoners, I assume you have names, dates, and locations?
Richard Steven Hack Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
What do you expect? You people are monkey-ass chimpanzees.

Meanwhile, Israel is murdering hundreds of children and also deliberately destroying the Palestinian educational system just to be sure.

In Gaza, the schools are dying too
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/10/gaza-schools

“Learn, baby, learn” was a slogan of the black rights movement in America’s ghettoes a generation ago, but it also epitomises the idea of education as the central pillar of Palestinian identity – a traditional premium on schooling steeled by occupation, and something the Israelis “cannot abide… and seek to destroy”, according to Dr Karma Nabulsi, who teaches politics at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. “We knew before, and see more clearly now than ever, that Israel is seeking to annihilate an educated Palestine,” she says.

The Palestinians are among the most thoroughly educated people in the world. For decades, Palestinian society – both at home in the West Bank and Gaza, and scattered in the diaspora – has put a singular emphasis on learning. After the expulsions of 1948 and after the 1967 occupation, waves of refugees created an influential Palestinian intelligentsia and a marked presence in the disciplines of medicine and engineering across the Arab world, Europe and the Americas.

“Education is the most important thing – it is part of the family life, part of your identity and part of the rebellion,” says Nabulsi. “Everyone knows this, and in a refugee camp like Gaza, every child knows that in those same schooldesks sat your parents and your grandparents, whose tradition they carry on.”

Schooling and university studies are the fabric of life despite, not because of, circumstances: every university in the occupied territories has been closed down at some point by Israeli forces, many of them regularly. However, the closures and arrests of students (more than 300 at Birzeit university in Ramallah, says Nabulsi) only strengthens the desire to become educated.

In the current offensive, Israel began attacking Gaza’s educational institutions immediately. On only the second and third day of air attacks last week, Israeli planes wreaked severe damage in direct strikes on Gaza’s Islamic University. The main buildings were devastated, destroying administrative records, and, of course, ending studies. The Ministry of Education has been hit twice by direct hits from the air.

The Saturday of the ground invasion was the day on which most students in Gaza sit their end-of-year examinations. In the majority of cases, these had to be abandoned, and it remains unclear whether they can or will be sat again. Other schools were also attacked – most notoriously the UN establishment in the Jabaliya refugee camp where at least 40 people were massacred on Tuesday.

On Sunday, another Israeli air strike destroyed the pinnacle of Palestinian schooling, the elite and private American International School, to which the children of business and other leaders went, among them Fulbright scholars unable to take up their places in the United States because of the Israeli blockade. Ironically, the same school was attacked last year by a group called the Holy Jihad Brigades, and has been repeatedly vandalised for its association with western-style education.

The school was founded in 2000 to offer a “progressive” (and fully co-educational) American-style curriculum, taught in English, from kindergarten to sixth form, and was said by the Israelis to have been the site, or near the site, from which a rocket was fired. A night watchman was killed in the destruction of the building.

The chairman of its board of trustees, Iyad Saraj, says: “This is the most distinguished and advanced school in Gaza, if not in Gaza and the West Bank. I cannot swear there was no rocket fired, but if there was, you don’t destroy a whole school.” He adds: “This is the destruction of civilisation.”

The school has no connection to the US government, Saraj says, and many of the 250 who graduate from it each year go on to US universities. “They are very good, highly educated open-minded students who can really be future leaders of Palestine.”

Young Palestinians playing in Daniel Barenboim’s celebrated East-West Divan Orchestra – which this week again brings Palestinian and Israeli musicians together to play a prestigious concert in Vienna – say that music schools in their communities and refugee camps are “not just educating young people, but helping them understand their identity”, as Nabeel Abboud Ashkar, a violinist based in Nazareth, puts it, adding: “And the Israelis are not necessarily happy with that.”

Ramzi Aburedwan, who runs the Al-Kamandjati classical music school in Ramallah, argues: “What the Israelis are doing is killing the lives of the people. Bring music, and you bring life. The children who played here were suddenly interested in their future”.

In a recent lecture, Nabulsi at St Edmund Hall recalled the tradition of learning in Palestinian history, and the recurrent character of the teacher as an icon in Palestinian literature. “The role and power of education in an occupied society is enormous. Education posits possibilities, opens horizons. Freedom of thought contrasts sharply with the apartheid wall, the shackling checkpoints, the choking prisons,” she said.

This week, following the bombing of schools in Gaza, she says: “The systematic destruction of Palestinian education by Israel has countered that tradition since the occupation of 1967,” citing “the calculated, wholesale looting of the Palestinian Research Centre in Beirut during the 1982 war and the destruction of all those manuscripts and archived history.”

“Now in Gaza,” she says, “we see the policy more clearly than ever – this ’scholasticide’. The Israelis know nothing about who we really are, while we study and study them. But deep down they know how important education is to the Palestinian tradition and the Palestinian revolution. They cannot abide it and have to destroy it.”
Al Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Good thing we have Obama now. He would never appoint someone to a counterterror advisor position who advocates rendition for torture and “taking off the gloves” in interrogations.

Oh, wait…

Hope and Change!
duBois Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
MacArthur and the war in The Philipines
Truman and No Gun Ri
Colin Powell burying “the bodies” after My Lai

“American Exceptionalism” means purposeful forgetfulness is ok.
duBois Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Did I forget to mention the use of white phosphorus against civilians at Falujah?
Why oh why Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
The worst part is this: Obama will bring back the rule of law (to some degree at least). Then another terrorist attack will happen, and from an Islamist group – Virginia Tech doesn’t count, blame this one on video games instead of the NRA.

Immediately torture fanatics like James Robertson will go insane and demand that the right to “enhanced techniques” is amended to the Constitution, after blaming all deaths on the USA not torturing suspects to death.
Why oh why Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
duBois, there is a difference between a country committing war crimes then denying them before trying to change its conduct, and a country actually glorifying and defending its war crimes. And this difference matters a lot when said country is the United States, supposedly a model for new democracies across the world (or at least it used to).
El Cid Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
James Robertson has a point — all things in perspective. Compared with the numbers of people killed senselessly by Bush Jr., Hamas is clearly an example of remarkable and impressive restraint.
jonnybutter Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
tresy: Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue. Guess virtue is officially dead, since we feel no need to continue being hypocritical.

This is what Henley should’ve said. And it’s a very big deal when you no longer feel a need to pay some tribute to virtue. It’s a fine distinction, but not a small one.
gregor Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
I had this notion that there is some chance no matter how minuscule that Obama will be different.

Good luck to you all with that.

Whether Obama allows torture with a heavy heart or leaves the torturers alone, or whether the Bushistas shamelessly proclaim their pride in having allowed torture, the end result is the same.
James Robertson Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
I’m hardly a “torture fanatic” – I’m merely pointing out that what you guys see as some kind of horrible exception to normal procedure is a mild blip compared to what’s happened in the past. The excesses of the last 8 years are small change compared to what’s happened before – and while you may not find that encouraging, I do – it means that over time, fewer bad things are happening, even during the first external attack on the US since 1941
duBois Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Tamerlane killed 17 million people and has statues in his honor.
Mark Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Hey, I’m no fan of torture. The way they taught us, when I was a soldier, is that torture of prisoners only leads to poor intelligence and your fellow soldiers being tortured if they are captured.
That being said: this ain’t nothing new. It’s just in the news. Look at any empire, and you will find monstrous crimes in their wake.
Bush was just dumb enough not to maintain “plausible deniability”.
jonnybutter Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Whether Obama allows torture with a heavy heart or leaves the torturers alone, or whether the Bushistas shamelessly proclaim their pride in having allowed torture, the end result is the same.

Strawman, gregor. Shame is a constraint, however incalculable or effective it is. Without shame, torture will certainly be used more, and more often. Too bad that’s not very satisfying, but never forget the iron rule of humanity: things can always be worse. We oughtn’t make Bad the enemy of the Worse.
Richard Steven Hack Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
“there is a difference between a country committing war crimes then denying them before trying to change its conduct, and a country actually glorifying and defending its war crimes”

Not to the victims, their relatives or anybody who’s heard about it.

And the entire question being discussed is whether Obama really WILL “change its conduct”. Absent the evidence, wait and see.
Farid Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
The only way you can bring the scumbags in Tel Aviv to their sense is a) Hamas should use long range missile to hit Tel Aviv b)Boycott, divest and sanction Israel – just as we did with South Africa.

Time to fuck them up for good.
Farid Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
If Israel continues escalating their genocidal attack, Hamas should make it clear that they will use biological agents on their long range missile.

Sick and tired of this shit. Let’s deal with the scumbags the way they should be dealt with.

Bitch slapping time for Israel.
ill Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
In contrast, exactly one American citizen (Padilla) has been held under questionable circumstances

Euphemism alert: “questionable circumstances” here means “having one’s mind destroyed by torture.”

“exactly one”: you think you know that, do you? That you can trust these guys to have told you about any others they might have salted away somewhere, given all we know now?

In any case, if they could do it to Padilla — if, for example, O’Hare Airport counts as a “field of battle” for the purpose of decreeing someone an enemy combatant in this vague and open-ended “war” — they can disappear and destroy anyone. That ought to be too obvious to need pointing out, but.

for all the complaints, Guantanamo is holding foreign nationals, not citizens

Used to be that America was committed to this quaint idea that all human beings have a degree of inherent worth, such that denying them certain basic rights was precluded. Cite all the past occasions you like as to when we’ve failed to live up to that, but using those examples to somehow mitigate current examples is tantamount to throwing that idea out.
ill Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
My #42 is re James R. at #18, of course.
Midland Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
“there is a difference between a country committing war crimes then denying them before trying to change its conduct, and a country actually glorifying and defending its war crimes”

“Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.” If any particular offense or cruelty becomes publically acceptble, is is going to become more common.

We live in a “Dirty Harry” culture where rage and resentment are considered signs of strength. Breaking moral and legal rules to satisfy your outrage and need for punishment and revenge is touted on virtually every cop show and every action flick for the last forty years. This wouldn’t be a problem if our culture at least enforced the concept of separation of reality from fiction, but instead we have elected officials and cultural leaders who openly quote from fictional sources and paraphrase cheap dialogue from their favorit action heroes. We talk a lot about God in this country, but our elites seem to worship the boob tube like the rest of us.

Not to the victims, their relatives or anybody who’s heard about it.

This is sloganeering on the scale of Britt Hume claiming that “everyone agrees that the New Deal failed.” Could you elaborate on this astonishing notion that “everyone” believes that occasional cruelty is the same evil as constant cruelty? That the existance of illegal acts of sadism is just as horrifying as mass sadism openly practiced and touted as a virtue by the highest officials in the government? That the pain of a victim is essentially the same if there is some hope of the pain ending and the torturers being punished, versus knowing it will never end and he or she will never be free of further torment? That an agony that can be mitigated by medical care is endured just the same as an eternity as hell?
Indy Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
dur wha?

escalation = bad. also, Gaza doesn’t have any of those things you mentioned.

James Robertson isn’t so much wrong as he is sophistic. Sure, his facts are accurate, his generalizations are apt, and he’s deploying them all in such a way as to deny and disparage the necessity of being a good and decent actor in a troubled world.

He’s like Screwtape working on the advice of his uncle Wormwood.
The Fool Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 12:10 am
Robertson said,

“For one thing, the death toll in Iraq has been far, far lower than past wars.”

Well there is more than one reasonable estimate based on survey evidence that put the death toll at around a million. I don’t know what your standards of “low” are but that’s a lot of rotting carcasses in my book.
The Fool Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 12:13 am
Just to put that death toll in terms that Robertson might be able to understand: assuming an average weight of 140 lbs per dead Iraqi, that adds up to about 70,000 tons of dead meat.
The Fool Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 12:15 am
Actually my estimate is probably high. 140 lbs per dead Iraqi would probably be pretty close if the dead were all adults but considering that there are probably hundreds of thousands of children included in that number, the average rotting carcass probably weighed considerably less than that.
sam Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 1:07 am
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead?
Israeli scumbags?
Pleasant and nice Hamas operatives?
The Palestinian school system?
Bushistas are murderers (never mind the millions liberated from death in Africa or death/oppression in the Middle East)?

You people on the left are idiots. I am not usually a name-caller and I apologize, but you really are effete and witless morons.

God help us all with fools like you for citizens.
pseudonymous in nc Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 2:34 am
This plays into the lack of perspective thing, as the left simply can’t comprehend the fact that in historical terms, the overall death toll from Iraq has been small.

Whereas James Robertson, tucked up safely in his undisclosed suburban location, far away from anything that might scare, trouble or vex him, simply can’t comprehend the fact that on a subjective level, sitting in a hot tub of blood and sitting in an ocean of blood are not that much different.
Kilo Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 5:27 am
Other heinous crimes include the brutal treatment of thousands of children, some 64 of whom have been detained at Guantánamo.

I’d love to see prosecutions.
Making up lies like this doesn’t advance that goal.

Even if you knew nothing, had read nothing…. wouldn’t your brain tell you that if you had 1 prison where US senators inspected it and 20 other where they don’t and hold almost all of the prisoners, nobody is holding children at the 1 public prison.
Otherwise that shit might have got a mention.
Graham Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 7:08 am
Kilo –

I don’t know the numbers, but they do hold children at Guantanamo. Google ‘children guantanamo’ to confirm. The Pentagon have admitted it.

Don’t expect the US media to tell you stuff – that’s not their job.
Kilo Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 7:44 am
I can google “pentagon laser beam alien attack on 9/11″ and get hits. If you could produce multiple concurring reports that this was anything other than a lie, you would.

You can’t, because it’s a lie.
The kind of lie that can dismiss anything else from that same source that may be the truth.

Hence, when I tell you to STFU and stop peddling lies, do that.
jonnybutter Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 8:01 am

You people on the left are idiots. I am not usually a name-caller and I apologize, but you really are effete and witless morons.

God help us all with fools like you for citizens.

You know, Sam, I don’t agree with some of the things said on this thread, but being ignorant on purpose – ‘hundreds of thousands of Irais dead? Palestinian School System?’ – is a shirking of *your* duty as a citizen. Being ignorant is lazy and cowardly. You don’t get to believe what you feel like believing. Joe the Plumber thinks war reporters – of which he is one at the moment! – should be ‘abolished’ from, er, reporting on wars (he thinks it’s ‘asinine’). He actually says that we should just go to the movies (or, I guess watch Fox nowadays) and see newsreels the government makes and cheer on our boys, like in WW2, and that’s it. Do you agree with that? If so, I don’t know what kind of citizen you think you are. If you can’t get off your lazy ass – intellectually speaking – enough to be able to tell the difference between the war against Nazi Germany in the 40s and Iraq now….well, yes, god help us. BTW, who are the millions ‘liberated from death’ in Africa and the Mid East? Just curious.

Even if you knew nothing, had read nothing…. wouldn’t your brain tell you that…nobody is holding children at the 1 public prison.
Otherwise that shit might have got a mention.

If you actually had read anything, you would know (your ‘brain would tell you’) that there was indeed a children’s contingent at Gitmo and that that ’shit’ got plenty of mention. It’s not a secret, Kilo, except to you. Reports vary about their treatment (some, like Sully, say they were treated very well), but we have detained lots of children, some of them at Gitmo.

It’s easy for us effete, witless people on the left to mock him, but evidently Joe the Fake Plumber speaks for a lot of people; to summarize: you can’t trust what the Government does or says about anything, unless it’s about the war, in which case you should trust and believe *everything* they do and say.

Get a clue morans!
James Robertson Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 8:34 am
Reliable estimates for Iraqi dead in the war go to somewhere around 100k. The estimates of “millions” are simply absurd, and have been shown to be so. Contrast that with Korea or Vietnam – never mind the last two major world wars.

As I said initially, one can easily argue the justifications for the war – it has been a Wilsonian “export Democracy” project all along, and I have no trouble with honest disagreement as to whether that was a good idea or not. What I have problems with are the people who wanted to bail immediately – you have to take a “we broke it, we bought it” attitude, IMHO.

In the end, we’ll likely leave an Iraq that is a better place than we found it – whether it’s been worth the cost is an entirely different question, and one that is easily arguable.

Getting back to the original post, the main problem is lack of historical perspective. For all the spleen venting, the abuses during this war have been trivial compared to what Wilson or FDR did – by a lot. Heck, they are trivial compared to what Adams did in 1798. That doesn’t make abuses acceptable, but here’s the problem: by claiming that they are “the worst ever”, you make reasonable discourse impossible, and turn off people who might otherwise agree that there have been excesses.

You don’t need to lie and exaggerate to make your point. Bring up Padilla, and question what happened there. When you make wild, unsubstantiated claims about him being “the tip of the iceberg”, you make it impossible to get anyone on your side.
zadig Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Kilo, the suggestion was not to use Google to see nonsense theories like aliens whatever. The suggestion was to use Google to research in 5 seconds instead of asking others to do your research for you.

But, since you’re a lazy sonofabitch, here’s a link to the Miami Herald confirming that juveniles (that’s children if you’re too lazy to go look it up) were held at Guantanamo:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/774678.html

So who should STFU again? Asshole.
James Robertson Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Calling them “children” is the same tack advocates use when discussing how many “children” are in jail – never mind how many of them are stone cold gangsters involved in narco-trafficking.

The right answer domestically would be to get away from the “war on drugs”, and thus trade some increased use of narcotics for a huge decrease in the violence associated with the “war on drugs”.

In places like Afghanistan, it’s more complicated. We could call the people we capture POWs, but that implies that there’s an enemy government somewhere to whom they could be returned when hostilities end. Given the fact that many of the jihadis are from countries we aren’t actually at war with, that makes POW status kind of problematic.
Dr_Applebreath Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 10:46 am
According to Clinton administration official Richard Clarke:

“ ‘extraordinary renditions’, were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgment of the host government…. The first time I proposed a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Clinton had seemed to be siding with Cutler until Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South Africa. Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: “Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and said, ‘That’s a no-brainer. Of course it’s a violation of international law, that’s why it’s a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.’”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition
Stefan Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
If the Feds murdered 45 prisoners, I assume you have names, dates, and locations?

Yes.

Autopsy reports reveal homicides of detainees in U.S. custody
(released by the ACLU 10/24/05 |
More Torture Documents Released Under FOIA)

http://action.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/102405/
Stefan Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Reliable estimates for Iraqi dead in the war go to somewhere around 100k.

Flatly incorrect. The most recent Lancet survey of Iraq War deaths, published on October 11, 2006, estimated 654,965 excess war-related deaths, or 2.5% of the population, through the end of June 2006. Keep in mind that this was over two and a half years ago, so any deaths since that time aren’t even counted, and likely approach a million.

The estimates of “millions” are simply absurd, and have been shown to be so.

Again, flatly untrue. While the best estimate of deaths does not reach into the millions, it does approach approximately one million. If we are to consider casualties (deaths plus wounded) then millions is the correct estimate (since the number of wounded always far exceeds the number of dead).
Stefan Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Even if you knew nothing, had read nothing…. wouldn’t your brain tell you that if you had 1 prison where US senators inspected it and 20 other where they don’t and hold almost all of the prisoners, nobody is holding children at the 1 public prison. Otherwise that shit might have got a mention.

Huh, seems it did get a mention…by that notorious left-wing propaganda outfit the Pentagon.

U.S. confirms it held 12 juveniles at Guantánamo:
The Pentagon reversed course and conceded that human rights groups had correctly counted a dozen juveniles among the detainee population at the prison camps at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

By MIKE MELIA
Associated Press
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The United States has revised its count of juveniles ever held at Guantánamo Bay to 12, up from the eight it reported in May to the United Nations, a Pentagon spokesman said Sunday….

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/774678.html
Stefan Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
For all the spleen venting, the abuses during this war have been trivial compared to what Wilson or FDR did – by a lot. Heck, they are trivial compared to what Adams did in 1798.

Even if true, so what? The defense that “well, he did something worse” is one that most of us left on the playground when we were little children. If, for example, I’m arrested for murder, it won’t get me very far to say that “yeah, but what I did was trivial compared to what Son of Sam and Jeffrey Dahmer did.”
James Robertson Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
The Lancet “study” has been utterly discredited. Go Google the pitiful results of that yourself.

And to Stefan – my point is that the rhetoric (read Matt’s original post) doesn’t match the reality.
Cyrus Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Robertson’s right that by the numbers, there have been worse leaders and worse policies than the current ones, so “worst president” or “virtue is officially dead” may be unreasonable hyperbole. I don’t agree with him that lack of perspective by the left is “one of the larger problems,” far from it, but that lack of perspective does exist. Fair enough.

Even so, I’d say there are at least three good reasons to treat Bush especially harshly. First, he’s here now. We tried/should have tried to do something about his horrible policies at the time, we can still do something about his legacy, we have to live with the repercussions of his actions, etc.

Secondly, there’s all the wasted potential. I mean, for example, FDR screwed over the Japanese and that’s bad of course, but his America didn’t have much civil rights for minorities anyway. He deserves blame for making things worse, but it’s not like any president could have made things better for Japanese-Americans at that time. Bush, on the other hand, came into office with a record surplus and 9/11 created a lot of sympathy for Americans around the world. Look where we are now. It’s probably not all his fault, but still, our country has very rarely fallen so far in a single president’s term.

Third, Bush’s suckiness is across the board. Thomas Jefferson kept slaves, but he wrote the Declaration of Independence. FDR interned Japanese-Americans, but he got the New Deal. John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition (not “Subversion,” I’m pretty sure) Acts, but he also was one of the founding fathers and brokered important peace treaties with both England and France at various times. What’s Bush redeeming accomplishment? Increased funding for AIDS treatment in Africa. That’s it, and even that comes with the caveat that he added counterproductive conditions to it. Important, sure, but it seems like much less of a big deal than his failures.
Dr_Applebreath Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
1. Finally resolve the issue of Saddam’s WMD’s, the focus of American and UN policy for the previous 10 years;
2. Eliminate major WMD programs in Libya;
3. Eliminate the largest WMD proliferation program in history with the shutdown of the AQ Khan network;
4. Prepare the environment so that Israel could destroy Syria’s nuclear program;
5. Dispatch with the cheat-enabling policies of the Clintons regarding North Korea, create 6-Way Talks including Russia and China to confront North Korea’s wmd efforts;
7. Last but not least, drive Al Qaeda to ground globally, destroying the sanctuary in Afghanistan that they enjoyed in the ’90’s.
Stefan Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
The Lancet “study” has been utterly discredited.

Again, that is completely untrue. The Lancet study is the most rigorous examination so far of Iraq War deaths, using commonly accepted statistical models, and its conclusions have never been effectively rebutted.

But then what to expect from conservatives who believe that simply repeating a lie over and over will make it true?
Graham Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Oh, and Mr Robertson,

I know your time is precious, but could you provide us with a link to one of the sources whioch utterly discredit the Lancet study, and, if it’s not too much trouble, another one which utterly discredits the Opinion Research Business study which found that the Lancet study was an underestimate. I’ve read loads and loads of republican-leaning blogs which baldly state that the Lancet study must be wrong because it contradicts their odd little world view, but I’ve never seen anything which could even be mistaken for a refutation.

Perhaps you’re better than average at making that sort of mistake?
Stefan Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
And to Stefan – my point is that the rhetoric (read Matt’s original post) doesn’t match the reality.

Here’s the original post:

“The United States government has always engaged in war crimes and human rights violations. What’s different this decade is that, under the leadership of a terrible president, our elites have become vociferous advocates of the goodness and rightness of war crimes and human rights violations.” There’s something to that. According to the perverse rules of our post-9/11 discourse, willingness to verbally endorse the idea of having other people torture strangers counts as a form of courageous “toughness” akin to, you know, actually doing something brave. And the rot has, I’m afraid, spread pretty far.

How does the rhetoric not match the reality? The post explicitly acknowledges that the US has always engaged in human rights violations. How, then, does claiming that other presidents have done bad things in the past somehow subvert this point?
Dr_Applebreath Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
From the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress:

Table 1. Other Iraqi Civilian Deaths Estimates
Iraq Body Count – March 19, 2003 – August 22, 2008 – 86,661 – 94,558
Iraq Coalition Casualty Count – April 28, 2005 – August 22, 2008 43,099
Brookings Iraq Index – May 2003 – August 14, 2008 – 113,616
The Associated Press – April 2005 – February 13, 2008 – 34,832 dead – 40,174 wounded
The Iraq Family Health Study (the “WHO study”)
March 2003 – June 2006 – 151,000
The Lancet, “Mortality after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq”
March 19, 2003 – July 31, 2006 – 426,369 – 793,663
Source: Prepared by CRS with data from noted sources.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS22537.pdf
bleat Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
For all the spleen venting, the abuses during this war have been trivial compared to what Wilson or FDR did – by a lot. Heck, they are trivial compared to what Adams did in 1798.

All those other administrations are dead, buried and gone. So are the people who SHOULD HAVE prosecuted them. This one isn’t, and neither are we.
piglet Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Robertson has a point insofar as the insistence on the exceptionality of the Bush regime at least in part reflects a desire to believe in the general goodness of America. And that belief is certainly at odds with historical facts. As disgusting as the Iraq war was, it is hard to argue that Vietnam was less disgusting, and it is also hard to argue that most Americans didn’t know about, and didn’t consciously support, the unspeakable crimes that were committed there. The elites embracing the “goodness and rightness of war crimes and human rights violations” is really nothing new. You are deludign yourselves if you think otherwise.

Liberals should be more honest with themselves. The reason why Bush has now become so reviled is not because he started a war of aggression or because he had prisoners tortured. It is because people now realize that they are worse off after eight years of Bush, that the nation is worse off, that it has been weakened and diminished by Bush’s incompetence.
Dan Roberts Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Actually, the Lancet Study has in no way been “utterly discredited”. I googled “Lancet survey Iraq War deaths” and the first link was a Wikipedia article. A very long article. With lots of opinions and counter opinions, detailed explanations, comparisons of other methods, etc. I recommend reading it, for those who have time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_casualties_of_the_Iraq_War”

There is a huge range of opinion and information there. To me, “utterly discredited” suggests the study was shown to be falsified or totally incorrectly done. That James Robertson says the study was “utterly discredited” suggests that he is unable to use Google, or he has a very short attention span, or he only reads right-wing blogs.
Kilo Says:
January 16th, 2009 at 3:17 am
zadig Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 8:55 am

But, since you’re a lazy sonofabitch, here’s a link to the Miami Herald confirming that juveniles (that’s children if you’re too lazy to go look it up) were held at Guantanamo:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/774678.html

So who should STFU again? Asshole.

Well, that mantle would now pass to you it seems.
You’ve posted a source that says 4 20 year olds are detained, two of which are being held because they killed US troops. Meaning that the valid alternative to their detention could have been a bullet through the skull back when they were still kiddies.

Google will also find you a rather famous photo of that principle in action in Vietnam.

This is relevant unless you thought that the detention of children was being cited here on the grounds of pointless trivia, in the same way that the number of left-handed detainees would be.

However, the claim wasn’t that they were innocent. The claim was there were 60+ of them. You’ve pointed me to a source that states there were 12 in total, over the duration.

So…. would you like to try another google, or are you happy to validate my assessment of that claim as BS ?
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