Cell #23 at Abu Ghraib
It's old news, but still worth recalling, that the Washington Post has published a number of sworn statements by Abu Ghraib detainees to its web site. A January 18 statement by Kasim Mehaddi Hilas may be additional evidence of torture and abuse of children under American supervision -- the topic of a German TV report earlier this month.

With apologies in advance to readers for the brutal images, here is the relevant segment:*

2. I saw [redacted] f*cking a kid, his age would be about 15-18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard the screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn't covered and I saw [redacted], who was wearing the military uniform putting his d**k in the little kid's *ss. I couldn't see the face of the kid because his face wasn't in front of the door. And the female soldier was taking pictures. [Redacted], I think he is [redacted] because of his accent, and he was not skinny or short, and he acted like a homosexual (gay). And that was in cell #23 as best as I remember.

There's more repugnant, criminal behavior described in this statement and the others, but this was the lowlight.  Note that even in an incident as utterly sordid and criminal as this, pictures were being taken; this was either brazenness that indicts the chain of command for incompetence, or purposefulness that indicts the chain of command for far worse.   If the translated prisoner's phrase "taking pictures" covers video, this may be one of the incidents that Seymour Hersh referred to in a recent speech to the ACLU.**
 
I believe Bush should have insisted long ago that Rumsfeld resign over these and similar incidents.  Since that hasn't happened, I believe that Rumsfeld and Bush are at best negligent, incompetent, foolish men who are utterly unfit to serve this country.  
 
That is the single most important reason I've put up a Kerry sticker on this site. I supported the war in Iraq -- perhaps foolishly, given the lack of solid WMD evidence I was prepared to put up with. I continue to believe that we must do everything possible and sensible to assure Iraq's transition to a sovereign, independent, and (hopefully) democratic state. But I will extend no further support to this administration beyond the necessary honest minimum, and I want its crushing defeat in November.


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* I use the phrase "[redacted]" to indicate blacked-out items in the online document. I've edited asterisks into some words to try to avoid unwanted search hits and readers, and not out of misplaced squeamishness.  Incidentally, I don't subscribe to the possible implication by the witness that gay men are particularly prone to engage in homosexual r*pe.
** Via The Poor Man. Streaming video of Hersh's speech is available; I haven't seen it yet.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:01:00 PM -- |    

 
Oh, before I forget
One inning: single, double, triple, two home runs.  5 hits, 6 runs, 3 earned, ERA 27.00
 
Ha ha ha ha. A ha ha ha ha ha.  HA HA HA HA HA HA.  Priceless.  Ah me.
 
Best pitcher of all time, my foot.  He was a headhunting thug, and he should have been thrown out of the game a long time ago.


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UPDATE, 7/26: Looks like the Red Sox blog site Soxaholix enjoyed it too. Even Yankee fans wrote in to say they got a kick out of it, prompting this comment by "BriVT": Look at you two, Sox fan and [shall we say, Yankee --ed.] fan, coming together, holding hands, singing Kumbaiya and shit, all over Raja's meltdown. It's a beautiful thing [wipes tear]. He's a uniter, not a divider. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:30:00 AM -- |    

 
You've got to break a million eggs...
Back in November of 2001, with smoke still trailing from the ruins of the World Trade Center, one Waller Newell connected the War on Terror with the culture wars in an article titled What Osama Bin Laden Learned from the Left.  He began:

Much has been written about Osama bin Laden's Islamic fundamentalism; less about the contribution of European Marxist postmodernism to bin Laden's thinking. In fact, the ideology by which al Qaeda justifies its acts of terror owes as much to baleful trends in Western thought as it does to a perversion of Muslim beliefs. Osama's doctrine of terror is partly a Western export.

Now, setting aside the title for a moment, this opening isn't hard to believe. I've come across suggestive evidence of this in a German article pointing out strong ideological connections between Al Qaeda forefather Sayyid Qutb and a right-wing French Vichy figure named Alexis Carrel.

What's a little irritating and not very clearly supported is Newell's insistence that there's a compelling, necessary connection between Al Qaedism and modern left-wing thought.  The connections, such as they were, seemed vague and circumstantial -- Foucault was excited by the Iranian revolution, stuff like that -- and could be as clearly traced to fascist elitists like Heidegger or Carrel as to their possible* counterparts in the modern left like Foucault or Derrida.

Newell's work was revived by a recent Samizdata item, picked up by Glenn Reynolds, and widely discussed. I came across it when reading a post by Bill Allison on his excellent blog "Ideofact."  He was responding to another writer ("Athena"), who called Newell's argument a "cheap attempt at placing more blame on the Left when the culpability ultimately lies with the Islamist perpetrators of these horrendous acts."  Allison recalled the notorious case of historian Eric Hobsbawm; in a 1994 TV interview with Michael Ignatieff, Hobsbawm explained his long support for the Communist Party with his early belief that they were the only hope for a better society, but conceded that the deaths of millions during the 1930s had proven to be "only marginally worthwhile."

Ignatieff then said: "What that comes down to is saying that had the radiant tomorrow actually been created, the loss of fifteen, twenty million people might have been justified?"

Hobsbawm immediately said: "Yes."**

Allison was pointing out that there are callously bloody-minded people on the left; he went on to say there is the potential for similar apologists for ideologically driven terror in the Islamic world.

But while that's true, it seems to me the real point is that such people are distributed fairly evenly throughout the conventional political/ideological spectrum. The real problem is just this apocalypticism, this willingness and even eagerness to break a million eggs to make their particular omelette. Given that politicians and terrorists as otherwise different as Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden and Hussein extol or extolled mass death as the path to their paradises, it seems fruitless to say the Left or the Right or Islam are more prone to genocide or terror or mass death.  By their deeds shall ye know the worst among them, not by their words or political poses.

The main thing is to be vigilant, and to never forget. Vigilance means putting institutions -- or soldiers -- in the way of the human monsters to prevent them from succeeding.  Never forgetting means remembering and understanding how such killers occasionally do prevail for long enough to begin their killings.  In my view, that usually has a lot to do with how weak the rest of their world is, and not just with the ideologies or faiths such killers profess.


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* I say "possible" because frankly, I have no idea what Foucault or Derrida are all about, and somehow I doubt I'll ever take the time to find out. For all I know they're a great couple of guys; I'm certainly not someone who can afford to hold the occasional stupid ramble against anyone.
** As recounted in Robert Conquest's "Reflections on a Ravaged Century."

EDIT, 7/16: Newell wrote that it was Foucault who was excited by the Iranian Revolution, not Derrida.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:15:00 AM -- |    

 
Groupthink over whistleblowing: the American way?
Barbara Ehrenreich, in the New York Times, on the Senate committee verdict of "groupthink" regarding American suspicions of Iraqi WMD:

Groupthink has become as American as apple pie and prisoner abuse; in fact, it's hard to find any thinking these days that doesn't qualify for the prefix 'group.' Our standardized-test-driven schools reward the right answer, not the unsettling question. Our corporate culture prides itself on individualism, but it's the 'team player' with the fixed smile who gets to be employee of the month. In our political culture, the most crushing rebuke is to call someone 'out of step with the American people.' Zip your lips, is the universal message, and get with the program." [...]

As Fred Alford, a political scientist who studies the fate of whistle-blowers, puts it: "We need to understand in this 'land of the free and home of the brave' that most people are scared to death. About 50 percent of all whistle-blowers lose their jobs, about half of those lose their homes, and half of those people lose their families. (link added)

I found this while trying to follow up on the story about American abuse of children in Iraq, by looking for stories about Sergeant Provance -- one of the two principal witnesses in the German TV report -- and Abu Ghraib. Ehrenreich mentions him:

Sgt. Samuel Provance III has been shunned by fellow soldiers since speaking out against the torture at Abu Ghraib, in addition to losing his security clearance and being faced with a possible court-martial. A fellow Abu Ghraib whistle-blower, Specialist Joseph Darby, was praised by the brass, but has had to move to an undisclosed location to avoid grass-roots retaliation.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:48:00 PM -- |    

 
Stop the Federal Marriage Amendment!
The Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) will be voted on today. Register your opposition by calling your Senators today at 877-762-8762 or 202-225-3121; if the line is busy, use this directory to get your Senator's office directly.

I plan to say something like what I wrote to Barbara Mikulski a week ago:

Dear Senator Mikulski,
I'm writing to urge you to publicly oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment, which may come up for a Senate vote soon. I think our Constitution should not be abused to enshrine discrimination and prejudice against homosexual citizens. Frankly, I think if people want to marry, that should be welcomed, not opposed; at any rate, other people's choices to marry have no impact on my marriage. If you do oppose the amendment, and come under any kind of political pressure for that, I will join your friends in supporting you all the more.

Links:

Human Rights Campaign

"Newsrack" search results for "Federal Marriage Amendment", including "Oppose the Marriage Amendment" (02/16/2004)

Washington Post editorial today: Kill This Amendment

The combination of this proposal's radicalism and its consideration in the middle of an election year commands a strong rebuke from those members who retain enough shame to oppose a constitutional amendment whose express purpose is to deny equal treatment to U.S. citizens. Even opponents of gay marriage, about which people of conscience legitimately disagree, should balk at this measure, which would prevent a democratic majority in any state ever from recognizing it. A strong vote against the Federal Marriage Amendment would send a powerful message that amending the Constitution is not a solution for every non-problem that generates a bad cause.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 9:45:00 AM -- |    

 
Nationwide "Computer Ate My Vote" Day of Action


...organized by VerifiedVoting.org
(Thanks, Boing Boing) posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:23:00 PM -- |    

 
Department of Occasional Sneaking Admiration
Via The Corner, a concurring opinion in Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. by Judge Antonin Scalia in its glorious entirety:

As today's [majority] opinion shows, the Court's disposition is required by the text of the statute. None of the limitations urged by petitioner finds support in the categorical language of 28 U. S. C. §1782(a). That being so, it is not only (as I think) improper but also quite unnecessary to seek repeated support in the words of a Senate Committee Report--which, as far as we know, not even the full committee, much less the full Senate, much much less the House, and much much much less the President who signed the bill, agreed with. Since, moreover, I have not read the entire so-called legislative history, and have no need or desire to do so, so far as I know the statements of the Senate Report may be contradicted elsewhere.

Accordingly, because the statute--the only sure expression of the will of Congress--says what the Court says it says, I join in the judgment.

Assuming he's right, this is a great way of putting it. I guess I ought to read the majority opinion, the dissents, the amicus curiae briefs, the relevant statutes. Yet I will not.

(However, I regret my dispute with the honorable Gary Farber about the Pledge ruling, and hereby (re)acknowledge that he made good points.) posted by Thomas Nephew at 9:51:00 PM -- |    

 
Department of Raising the *!@$& Tone
Jive Turky records this in his livejournal as "The single greatest event of my life":

Adam, Brendan, and I rose our banner (the More Trees, Less Bush one) and he turned to wave to our side of the road. His smile faded, and he raised his left arm in our direction. And then, George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States of America, extended his middle finger. (emphasis added)

There's a photo, but you can't see much.

(Via Oliver Willis, anil dash, and soon the world; I'm also indebted to Brett Marston, who has generously developed and promulgated raising the *!@$& tone under a Creative Commons license.) posted by Thomas Nephew at 9:21:00 PM -- |