We’re told that if we set a timeline for withdrawl, the insurgents will inevitably exploit it, but I think that cuts both ways.

If we’re going to stay in there until the Iraqi military and police can handle the insurgency themselves, no matter how long it takes, won’t they exploit that? Why stand up for the government at the risk of being shot if our military is going to stay in indefinitely and do the fighting for them? Wouldn’t knowing that we won’t be in Iraq after say, 2011, put a little more pressure on them?

Okay, that’s not how Mukasey put it in his speech in San Francisco this weekend. In explaining why warrantless surveillance and telecom immunity are vital, he asserted that “(officials) shouldn’t need a warrant when somebody with a phone in Iraq picks up a phone and calls somebody in the United States because that’s the call that we may really want to know about. And before 9/11, that’s the call that we didn’t know about. We knew that there has been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn’t know precisely where it went.”

Is Mukasey saying that prior to 9/11, the administration knew someone was calling from a terrorist safe house in Afghanistan and did nothing? Didn’t apply for a warrant to listen in? Didn’t use the FISA surveillance rule that allows them to apply for a warrant three days after surveillance starts? Why the heck not?

Or is he saying that the 9/11 terrorists were in contact and making phone call to their boss, but we didn’t know it at the time? In which case, that’s more an indictment of our government’s failure to put the picture of the plot together (see the 9/11 Commission’s report for all the ways we stumbled) than a justification for wireless eavesdropping: What good would having the power of warrantless surveillance done if we didn’t know there was a call to eavesdrop on?

Or is his real point (I’m assuming he has a point other than “Comrades should obey Supreme Leader Bush and stop questioning the state.”) that if the CIA and NSA didn’t have to worry about warrants and Fourth Amendment and probable cause, they could just eavesdrop on everyone and that way nobody would escape their gaze? So if we sacrifice all privacy in communications, the government can keep us safe for ever and ever.

Apparently the administration still hasn’t caught on that we’re not scared enough to give up the Bill of Rights yet.

One of the points he makes to prove that whatever we do in the Middle East, Muslims had it coming, is that they don’t denounce the terrorists “enough.”

A few years ago, the cry was that Muslim leaders didn’t condemn terrorism and violence.

Then, when right-wingers couldn’t deny that some Muslims did just that, they switched to the idea they’re not condemning terrorism enough. Which is brilliant, because no matter what Muslims say or how many they say, “enough” is so flexible that Williams and his ilk can continue in the same groove indefinitely.

In his column today, Walter Williams announces that despite claims from “experts and talking heads” that Islam is a peaceful religion “In terms of national policy, it’s irrelevant … whether most Muslims are peaceful.”

How so? Because, he says, if a Muslim nation attacks us, the fact it may be only a small percentage of the people who are hostile is irrelevant: We still have to fight back. Besides, “because peace-loving Muslims do not speak out and expose terrorists … they become enemies of the West … Muslims should be prepared to suffer the full might of the West in its efforts to fight terrorism.”

In the first place, this is typical hypocrisy from Williams: He’s been shrieking about Muslim terrorism since 2001, but when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Building, Williams’ response was to devote a column to the evil things the US government does that turn people such as McVeigh into terrorists. So much for speaking out.

Second, it is indeed relevant whether Islam, as a religion, is innately hostile to the West. If Islam is some innately evil murderous religion, we have to take different steps than if bin Laden or other Islamic terrorists are simply homicidal sociopaths who happen to be Muslims (which is how I’d classify them).

Third, as a policy guide, Williams’ column is pretty much mush. Williams compares Islam to Nazi Germany — even if a lot of Germans didn’t want to conquer the world, we still had to go in and fight them — but Islam isn’t a nation. Is he suggesting that because bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are both Muslims, attacking Iraq was a logical response to 9/11?

Probably. A running theme in right-wing commentary is that Islam is one vast, monolithic enemy: 9/11, the Muslim conquest of Spain, the siege of Vienna, the Barbary Pirates preying on American shipping and every other clash are somehow all part of the same vast conspiracy against the Western world. Therefore, all Muslims are against us, therefore Iraq, Iran and whatever other country our president points at are legitimate targets (usually, if it’s pointed out this is bigoted and verges on a justification for genocide and ethnic cleansing, the anti-Muslimites will insist that no, no, of course they didn’t mean that … though they’ll be pretty vague about what the alternatives for dealing with such a supposedly evil, bloodthirsty religion are).

I’m sure this plays very well with the hard-right portion of Williams’ audience (white terrorists like McVeigh are justified! Brown-skinned non-Christian terrorists are the enemy of all that is good!), but it’s balderdash.

When Hilzoy on obsidian wings has something to say, it’s a pleasure to read:

“Invading Iraq was, obviously, completely different. Iraqis needed to set up a society virtually from scratch. They badly needed our help: help like ensuring basic law and order after the regime fell, and protecting infrastructure from looting. Even if we had not failed utterly to do those things, though, their task would have been immensely difficult. Imagine how much is presupposed by the fact that I can walk down a street in Baltimore and assume that no one will rob me, or bundle me into a car and hold me for ransom; or by the fact that people who own warehouses or equipment yards need to protect their property against small groups of people, but not against trained private armies. There are, after all, a lot of people who need money, and yet, oddly enough, very few of them do these things. A whole lot goes into making that true: culture, policing, a whole network of shared understandings and assumptions and social mores. In a country like Iraq, when you excise a tyrannical government, all of that is gone.

Likewise, consider how difficult the Democrats are now finding it to agree on a fair resolution of the problem of the Michigan and Florida delegates. What counts as fair? we wonder. Who can we trust? Different sides have different arguments, and many of them are colorable; and yet it seems awfully hard to adjudicate. Now imagine this situation, with the following differences: (a) it’s not just Michigan and Florida; the whole political system is up for grabs; (b) for that reason, there is nothing like the DNC rules to appeal to, or to base your arguments on; (c) if your side loses, you and those you love and your entire community might be killed; (d) the people on the other side are people you hate and distrust not the way people hate and distrust those who have pulled the odd unfair political trick or said something that seems way out of line, but the way people hate and distrust those who have killed their friends and families. Or, in brief: the stakes are life and death, not just for distant people but for you; there are no rules; and anything goes.

Fixing problems like these is orders of magnitude more difficult than anything we did in the first Gulf War. And no amount of purely military skill or power will do the trick.

In a sane world, we could count on people with high policy-making positions to know these things, and to bear them in mind. Apparently, we don’t live in a sane world. We live in a world in which Danielle Pletka, “vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute”, can describe mistakes she made before the Iraq war as follows:

“Looking back, I felt secure in the knowledge that all who yearn for freedom, once free, would use it well. I was wrong. There is no freedom gene, no inner guide that understands the virtues of civil society, of secret ballots, of political parties.”
The appropriate next sentence would be: Of course, the fact that I thought there was a freedom gene means that I am a complete idiot, so having confessed this in the New York Times, I plan to retire to a life of small good works, carefully chosen so that my complete ignorance of human affairs and my staggering lack of judgment will henceforth be unable to do anyone serious damage. Alas, Ms. Pletka does not seem to have drawn the appropriate conclusion.

Having been completely let down by our government, by many policy analysts, and by a lot of people in the media, we have to remember these things ourselves. War sucks. It is horrendously destructive to everyone it touches. It can shatter entire societies. Sometimes it’s necessary, just as sometimes it’s necessary to amputate all your limbs, but that doesn’t make it any less awful. It should never be undertaken lightly — and it was certainly advocated lightly by a lot of conservatives. (Ledeen Doctrine, anyone?)

There should never be a rush to war, any more than there should be a rush to an outbreak of plague, or having your city hit by an asteroid, or any other utter catastrophe. Any time people seem to be rushing to war, that is a time to stop short, catch your breath, and think things through as carefully as you possibly can. Because if people are rushing to war, they have probably gone collectively insane, and it is imperative not to join them.

If the case for war is not clear, it is probably wrong. (For instance: “Though as a realist, I felt queasy about the “democratic peace theory” behind the war (”only despots make war, while democracies are inherently pacific”), I hesitantly thought, Why not? Maybe the fall of this horrifying regime would serve as an example to all the other despotisms in the neighborhood.” — “Why not?” is never, ever a good enough reason for a war.) If the case for war rests on magical thinking, it is certainly wrong. And if it relies on the idea that a country can be reconstructed essentially from scratch without enormous effort and commitment and skill and luck, then it rests on magical thinking.

If any good can come of this war, it would be that we remember these things.

***

I can’t write this without quoting Richard Cohen again:

“I owe it to Tony Judt for giving me the French ex-Stalinist Pierre Courtade, who, wrongheaded though he might have been, neatly sums it all up for me: “You and your kind were wrong to be right; we were right to be wrong.”"
Wouldn’t it be nice to think so?

Richard Cohen: you were wrong to be wrong, and wrong yet again for choosing a self-gratifying fantasy over an honest acknowledgement of that fact. The idea that there is anything noble about wrongly advocating war, or that when you feel a weakening in your resolve to send good men and women to their death, the right response is to “(steady) myself by downing belts of inane criticism”, is part of what got us into this mess in the first place. The heroes are the men and women, Iraqis and American, who have died*, in part, because of fantasies like these.”

Qwest refused to cooperate with the Bush administration in providing information on our phone records.

The CEO says that’s why the government subsequently pulled a lot of contracts from the company.

If true, that hardly fits the Bush line that the telecoms were just trying to help defend America because they’re good corporate citizens.

Director of National Intelligence Michael Mukasey to House Speaker Pelosi last week on the need to give legal immunity to telecoms who give the government our phone records: “Even prior to the expiration of the Protect America Act, we experienced significant difficulties in working with private sector companies because of the continued failure to provide liability protection for such companies.”

As I’ve said before, if the corporations were obeying the law, why would there be a problem? And if they’re not obeying the law, why should they be given immunity?

Of course, Mukasey has also asserted that the White House had no choice but to break the laws requiring warrants for intelligence wiretaps because it’s just too much darn paperwork and they might not be able to put a wiretap in place fast enough. I’ve never heard an explanation why they made no attempt to change these supposedly onerous requirements until after the programm went public.

The House, fortunately, seems to be seeing through Bush flimsy rubber-stamp-my-wishes-or-the-terrorists-will-kill-us rationalizations: The bill that was passed last week doesn’t give telecoms immunity but does allow themselves to show records to a judge to prove that what they were asked to do was within the law.

Of course, Bush has announced he’ll veto this, even if it passes the Senate. Because taking anything to a judge might reveal who the supposed “terrorists” were that the administration has been spying on, and for some reason, Bush just doesn’t want anyone to know. Gee, I wonder why?

•Keith John Sampson, a student and janitor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis was seen reading a book called “Notre Dame vs. the Klan” — about Notre Dame University’s clash with the antiCatholic KKK — by a black coworker who complained to the school authorities that reading a book about the KKK was a form of racial harassment. Unfortunately, the university sided with the complainant, telling Sampson not to read the book at work again, though officials generously decided not to initiate any punishment.
I could understand the coworker jumping to conclusions and complaining about Sampson, but for the university to agree with the complaint? Unless some hidden dimension comes up to the story, that’s amazingly idiotic.
•Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern on homosexuality: “Studies show, no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted for more than, you know, a few decades. . .
I honestly think it’s the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam.”
What can one say except no, it isn’t? But bonus stupid points to Kern for identifying Islam, not just terrorism, as a threat to America.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on the show 24 and Jack Bauer’s use of torture: “Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives …Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” Scalia subsequently goes on to say how pleased he was with one sequence where Bauer convinces a terrorist that unless he talks, his family will be executed.

This wouldn’t be worthy of discussion if Scalia hadn’t told the BBC last month that he not only thinks torture acceptable when lives are in imminent danger–the “ticking bomb” scenario–but once you accept that, you have to consider it valid to use torture on people for general information (I’ll be discussing this further in Saturday’s column).

Actually, no we don’t. As someone once put it, it’s possible to come up with a situation in which you have to kill a child to save hundreds of lives—let’s say because a terrorist with a nuclear bomb is using the kid as a shield while he presses the detonator. It does not therefore follow that this makes shooting children in other situations (or like Jack Bauer, threatening to shoot them) an alternative that should be considered.

And then we have Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff saying “I thought that there was one element of the shows that at least I found very thought-provoking, and I suspect, from talking to people, others do as well… I think when people watch the show, it provokes a lot of thinking about what would you do if you were faced with this set of unpalatable alternatives, and what do you do when you make a choice and it turns out to be a mistake … It’s very easy in hindsight to go back after a decision and inspect it and examine why the decision should have been taken in the other direction. But when you are in the middle of the event, as the characters in ‘24′ are, with very imperfect information and with very little time to make a decision, and with the consequences very high on a wrong decision, you have to be willing to make a decision recognizing that there is a risk of mistake.”

In other words, we can’t wait to prove all those enemy combatants are innocent because if they’re guilty and if there’s a bomb out there and if we don’t torture them to find out what they know then something bad might happen so anyone who objects to Bush authorizing the torture of innocent people obviously hates America and loves bin Laden. So there.

I watch 24, I like 24. But I don’t watch it because it makes me think about the ethics and legality of the use of torture in real life, any more than people who watch The Punisher are intrigued by the ethics of when to resort to vigilante justice. I watch it because it’s entertaining and well-made enough and fictional, none of which is the case with real torture. And for all the pretense it confronts us with serious issues about torture, it’s pointedly avoided many of them: Nobody has ever given a false confession to stop the pain or made up information, for instance.

As for the “Would you prosecute Jack Bauer?” question, I think if a CIA agent actually did save LA from a nuclear bomb by the use of torture, no jury in the country would convict him. But Chertoff to the contrary, we’re not dealing with ticking-bomb cases under the current administration, we’re dealing with the Maybe there’s a bomb, Maybe they know something, Maybe the consequences of not torturing will be bad.

That’s not good enough. Not for America.

CIA Director Michael Hayden on the use of waterboarding and other torture techniques: “The agency applied its methods of questioning when other techniques did not work and when a captured terrorist had more information that could save innocent lives.”

Even assuming Hayden sincerely thinks this is true, let’s remember this administration has assured us that the enemy combatants in Gitmo were “the worst of the worst,” even though some of them were there by mistake.

We sent an innocent man, Maher Arar to Syria to be tortured for a year.

The CIA held a man in Germany for three months until they realized they had the wrong man.

We’ve picked up “enemy combatants” on the say-so of people who had personal grudges against them.

So I’m extremely skeptical of our government’s ability to know, for a fact, that everyone they capture and torture has vital information—and “could save” is pretty much an admission we’re not necessarily talking about a ticking-bomb scenario here.

Three cheers to Congress for banning the CIA’s use of torture. And if Bush veto’s the bill, as he’s said he would, it will be one more item to add to his list of shameful decisionss.