Obsidian Wings

One eye open.

Nine more Iraqi policemen were killed today. It's really not news, and that's a shame. Until Iraq's police start policing (spending all your time investigating the mass-murder of your fellow officers and trying to stay alive yourself, btw, does not count) we haven't yet won in Iraq.

We promised the Iraqi people that we would make Iraq a democracy. A shining beacon on a Mesopotamian hill, remember? George Bush's administration made those promises, it's true. But a consequence of our democracy is that a promise by our President gets made by the rest of us too. That means you. Me. Senator Kerry. Karl Rove. Dick Cheney.

You don't like promises? Vote out the president. Call him a fool and an ass. But don't break your word; you cannot uncast this die.

This is the moment in which minds will wander. This is the moment when the battle is won or lost. It passes without comment, because there seems so little drama. But determination is quiet -- and determination is what wins the day.

The troops do not come home on Senator Kerry's schedule, Karl Rove's schedule, or President Bush's schedule. They come home on the mission's schedule. Or we fail.

von

p.s. Katherine, on hiatus-from-her-blogging-hiatus, has done some really fine reporting in support of Clarke's account of the Bush administration after 9-11. (I say this as someone who tends to give Bush the benefit of the doubt on 9-11.) Do give it a read.

Lo and Behold, the Sky Is Not Falling

Via Tacitus.

So Prime Minister-elect José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero does not seem to spell immediate doom for all of Spain, Europe, and the rest of the civilized world:

Spain's New Leader May Send More Troops to Afghanistan

After all the "Spanish Flee" type libeling across the blogosphere the last few weeks, I think a particularly alarmist segment of the world owes the Spanish people a collective apology.

This compromise strikes me as particularly clever and politically shrewd:

Less than two weeks after the deadly train bombings in Madrid, the incoming prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, wants to signal his commitment to fight terrorism and show the United States that Spain remains a loyal ally, said one of the sources, a high-ranking party official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

He added that the new government wants "to send a message that the Socialists do not believe in appeasement."

I look forward to similarly refreshing ingenuity from the pending Kerry Administration.

One Nation, Under a Misconception

In his column today, New York Times columnist David Brooks argues that we should appreciate that the phrase "one nation under God" (which is, after 50 years, finally being challenged in the Supreme Court) is "not proselytizing; it's citizenship." To help us understand this, he offers the example of Martin Luther King, Jr. (via David L. Chappell's book "A Stone of Hope"), who believed that the goals of the civil rights movement "would take something as strong as a religious upsurge." Brooks leaps from this choice made by King (only one of the Civil Rights leaders) to the conclusion that, "If you believe that the separation of church and state means that people should not bring their religious values into politics, then, if Chappell is right, you have to say goodbye to the civil rights movement. It would not have succeeded as a secular force."

Forget the ocean of other options in between his example and his conclusion, look at his twisted path to this conculsion: let's take it one main phrase at a time:

If you believe that the separation of church and state means that people should not bring their religious values into politics

Remember that the backdrop for this column is the phrase "under God," which was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, although the Pledge had served the nation well for 62 years before then without it. But this was not the bringing of "religious values into politics"; this was the bringing of politics via religion into Patriotism, which should transcend politics as much as possible.

So we're already off course here.

Next he adds

then, if Chappell is right,

By which he refers to Chappell's conclusion that "the civil rights movement was not a political movement with a religious element. It was a religious movement with a political element."

OK, he's asking us to consider that. Fine.

Next he adds

you have to say goodbye to the civil rights movement.

I won't quibble too much by noting that his argument actually suggests "you have to say goodbye to the successes of the civil rights movement" (there's no reason to believe that the movement would never have occurred without its being formed as a religious movement, but rather only that it was perhaps more successful because it was).

What he's really leaping to (in this context...and via a logical platform made of popsicle sticks and bubble gum) is that only by sharing religious values do we facilitate progress on human rights issues (presumedly by appealing to the religious beliefs of potential supporters of the movement as a rallying cry and by arguing through religion against the objections of the opposistion). This ignores two facts: one, other human rights movements, such as the women's movement and gay rights movement, have made great strides without a religious framework (mostly despite it, actually), and two, the freedom to be an atheist or agnostic is also a human rights issue.

You could argue that Brooks is arguing that only the Civil Rights Movement needed a religious framework (not other movements), but that's contradicted by his later conclusion that

Whether you believe in God or not, the Bible and commentaries on the Bible can be read as instructions about what human beings are like and how they are likely to behave. Moreover, this biblical wisdom is deeper and more accurate than the wisdom offered by the secular social sciences, which often treat human beings as soulless utility-maximizers, or as members of this or that demographic group or class.

If we followed the Bible's wisdom and/or instructions about human beings, the women's movement and gay rights movement would arguably be much less further along than they are.

I personally believe in God, and I like to think that belief informs my actions and decisions on a daily basis, as well as how I vote. I don't believe, however, it's necessary to bring religion into our shared texts, procedures, or practices in order for our individual religions or religious communities to thrive.

A history of the Pledge explains that "In 1954, Congress after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, added the words, 'under God,' to the Pledge. The Pledge was now both a patriotic oath and a public prayer."

Not that this should convince anyone, but ironically, the granddaughter of Francis Bellamy (1855 - 1931), the Baptist minister who wrote the Pledge, "said he also would have resented this...change. He had been pressured into leaving his church in 1891 because of his socialist sermons. In his retirement in Florida, he stopped attending church because he disliked the racial bigotry he found there."

The Pledge belongs to the nation now, though, so we can update it as we see fit. It would best honor the Republic, for which the flag stands, however if the Pledge reflected the values the nation was built upon. The separation of church and state, being one of them.

UDPATED: to correct a few typos and clarify one sentence.

A longer stroll down memory lane

These are from Lexis Nexis searches, so I can't provide links. Sorry about that.

These excerpts--and there are plenty more like them--leave little question that some of the hawks in the Bush administration wanted to attack Iraq immediately after 9/11. But the articles at the time suggest that they want to invade Iraq AND Afghanistan, not that they want to invade Iraq instead of Afghanistan. And when I re-read the Guardian article I linked to in the last post, that's a perfectly plausible interpretation of the British ambassador's remarks.

As far as timing--I'd say we had decided on war with Taliban (unless they unexpectedly turned on bin Laden) by September 20 at the absolute latest. That's when Bush delivered his ultimatum in front of a joint session of Congress. And presumably they decided some time before he made his speech.

Blair also seems to have met with Bush on that date, so that's probably when the conversation in which Bush promises to postpone Iraq "for another day" occurred.

Here goes:

The Sour Grapes of Wrath?

How do you discredit a former Administration insider who blasts the Administration after their departure? In the case of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill , it's really quite easy to portray him as unable to reach those juicy grapes himself, leaving it to the public to imagine that's why he considers them sour.

But Clarke's a bit taller than O'Neill in the public's eye, because not only had he worked under four Presidents (three of them Republicans), but he continued to work for the Bush II White House for two years even after he was demoted from White House terrorism czar to merely the cyberterrorism poobah (or whatever). Clearly the demotion didn't offend him so much that he marched right out.

On the Today Show this morning, Rice responded somewhat emotionally (for her) to a question about Clarke's comments by rattling off a list of failures that took place under Clarke's tenure as Czar...I've heard she did better on other programs, but she was clearly a bit shaken on the NBC interview. She did have the ring of credibility in her defense, but she also had the slight wimper of the wounded. If the goal this morning was to portray her as "human" the Administration succeeded. If it was to portray her as immune to Clarke's charges, they weren't quite as successful.

The Administration must dismiss his charges, obviously. To do otherwise would be disastrous. I've noticed, however, that Rice backed off insisting the disputed conversation with President Bush never happened. This might have had something to do with 60 Minutes' Leslie Stahl's generous warning to Stephen Hadley that they had corroboration from someone who witnessed the meeting.

Bush said early on he welcomed the opportunity to discuss how his administration has handled the war on terror. As the old adage goes, be careful what you wish for...

Greetings from scenic Duck, NC...

...because travelblogging is the thing to do these days, it seems. It's been very relaxing: I turn on the television, establish that the planet hasn't blown up yet, turn it off and go look at another tourist attraction, of which North Carolina has a remarkable number. So far on this trip we've seen Yorktown (on the way down), a fragment of Colonial Williamsburg (ditto), the Wright Brothers Memorial and Roanoke Island's Elizabethan Gardens, Aquarium and Fort Raleigh; today we're scheduled for kiddie-wheel hang-gliding* and maybe a stop or two at the local wineries. There's quite a few of those, not to mention breweries**, BBQ places and at least one beachfront restaurant that apparently can cook a lobster properly (watching my girlfriend eat one of those was subtly disturbing; it really does look like an alien torture session). I can see the whitecaps on the Atlantic Ocean from where I'm sitting right now, and there's just a hint of sea in the air, even inside. The wind's blowing nicely and its chill is nostalgic.

In other words, things are looking pretty good right now, and that annoying flutter I get in one eyelid when I'm tired is gone, gone, gone.

Be back Wednesday.

Moe

*We'll try to get a couple pictures of that, at least. We keep forgetting the camera...

**Which, of course, must be sampled; they're mostly revving up for the tourist season, so they're happy to see us. Off-season timeshares have their points.

Corroboration of Clarke's account

A trip down memory lane, from an April 4, 2003 Grauniad* article:

Tony Blair has frequently played a pivotal role in the infighting in the US administration over Iraq, according to the recently retired British ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer.

Hawks in the Bush administration, mainly the deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, pushed for an attack on Iraq rather than Afghanistan in the aftermath of September 11.

Sir Christopher, in an interview with the US public broadcasting system last night, said that the prime minister, arriving in Washington the week after an inconclusive discussion between George Bush and his key advisers at Camp David, swung in behind the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, who saw Afghanistan as the prime target.

In the documentary Blair's War, Sir Christopher, who returned to Britain last month, said that when Mr Blair met Mr Bush in the weeks after September 11, he urged him to deal first with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network and its protector - Afghanistan's Taliban government - before tackling Iraq.

"Tony Blair's view was, 'Whatever you're going to do about Iraq, you should concentrate on the job at hand'. And the job at hand was get al-Qaida, give the Taliban an ultimatum," the former British ambassador said.

Sir Christopher added that Mr Bush took Mr Blair aside and promised he would keep Iraq "for another day".

I remember my jaw dropping when I read this a year ago. But the U.S. press never picked it up, and I forgot about it until I saw Clarke's interview.

Did anyone actually see that documentary? I haven't, but assuming this is an accurate characterization--a few observations:

1. The retired British ambassador, and the retired terrorism advisor under four U.S. presidents, seem to be telling the same story, or at least quite consistent stories. One of them may tell the story under oath next week. If they're not credible enough sources to at least take these charges seriously--who, exactly, would be?

2. A lot of people on the left gave up on Blair and Powell as moderating influences long ago--but if this is accurate, we have a lot of reason to be grateful to them. Fighting terrorism is fraught with uncertainty, but deep in the pit of my stomach I know that if we had attacked Iraq while bin Laden and the Taliban did as they pleased in Afghanistan--there would have been another attack on New York by now. And probably London too.

3. I wonder which side Cheney was on in this debate? And Rice?

4. One of the weirdest things about that Guardian article is the reference to Blair "arriving in Washington the week after an inconclusive discussion between George Bush and his key advisers at Camp David". I remember being surprised that so much time passed between 9/11 and the first bombs falling on Afghanistan--was this really because we spent a full week deciding whether to bomb Afghanistan or Iraq? I find that bizarre beyond words, but it does seem possible.

5. Whether it was Blair or not, whether it was a close call or not--Bush did make the right decision that September. I suppose that should reassure me. But it doesn't seem to have weakened the hawks in the administration at all, based on what's happened since. It's more like there was a grudging agreement that "we'll give Tony and Colin this one, but then a next year it's OUR turn and they have to support us." And in the end, Iraq got more resources than Afghanistan ever did, by almost any measure.

UPDATE I'm doing some Lexis searches of news stories the weeks after 9/11. Briefly--it is very clear that the hawks in the Bush administration immediately wanted to go after Iraq. But it's not clear that they wanted to go after Iraq instead of Afghanistan, rather than in addition to Afghanistan. The Guardian article strongly implies the former, but Meyer's quotations could just as easily support the latter.

More on this...I don't know exactly when. But soon.

Enough.

Ten days ago, I criticized a decision by Mr. Johnson (of Little Green Footballs) to insult and deride Spanish mourners of the terror attacks in Madrid. Mr. Johnson's decision not only showed an astonishing lack of judgment, but (as Kevin Drum also notes) likely was counterproductive to our fight against terrorism.

This is not the first or last time that Mr. Johnson showed a lack of judgment in his posts. On Friday, for instance, Meteor Blades (of The Daily Kos) and Tacitus (of, erm, Tacitus) confronted a misleading entry by Mr. Johnson on the civil war in Sudan. In the process, they also corrected several factual misstatements by Mr. Johnson's regular commentators.

Rather than attempt to defend his ground or correct his original post, Mr. Johnson responded with ad homs. He then blocked access from Tacitus. It is worth noting that this is not the first time Mr. Johnson has responded to criticism by blocking access to his website.

Supposedly, a key purpose of Mr. Johnson's Little Green Footballs is to show the horrific nature of Islamic radicalism, and to point out the cowardice of non-radical Muslims who fail to speak up against such horrors. This is a noble and worthy purpose, and it could make for an interesting and relevant weblog.

Little Green Footballs, however, fails in its claimed purpose. It consistently gets the facts wrong; it frequently substitutes prejudice for reason[**]; and it breeds misdirected hate in its comment boards. LGF's errors and distortions make it all the more difficult for thoughtful bloggers to criticize the actions of radical Muslims, for, if they do, they run the risk of being lumped in with the "wingnut LGF crowd" and ignored.

This must end. We are fighting a terrible enemy in Islamic terrorism. Whether we describe that fight as a war, or a law enforcement action, or (as I do) something else entirely is less important than whether we choose to confront our enemy with clear heads, deft hands, and, where necessary, ruthless action.

Mr. Johnson deserves no more free passes from the Blogosphere. It's time to start calling him on his mistakes.

von

UPDATE 2: ** So we're clear, the FrontPage Magazine Article that LGF excerpts (misleadingly, IMHO) is not the target of this criticism; LGF is. I do disagree with significant portions of the FrontPage article, however. See my discussion with the article's author, Mr. Spencer, in comments for more.

Arar #23: More on Ahmad Abou El Maati

El-Maati is the truck driver who was stopped at the U.S. border & found with a map of Ottawa that raised customs officials' suspicions, in August of 2001. He was watched by Canadian police for a few months after that. In November 2001 he traveled to Syria, where he was detained, allegedly tortured, and allegedly questioned about information that had to come from the Canadian police. This probably started the chain of events that ended in Maher Arar's deportation and torture.

That's as quick a summary as I can give--there's much more in this post.

Anyway--El Maati is still in Egypt, but he and a friend of his described as "an Islamic religious leader in Toronto", have recently talked to a few reporters. He is expected to return to Canada soon.

Here are the two articles I found:

1. From the Globe and Mail, 3/20/04:

The RCMP probe seems to have focused mostly on Mr. El-Maati, who has complained that spies were dogging him in Canada in the summer of 2001, especially after he was interrogated by U.S. border guards.

A map of Ottawa was discovered in the transport truck he was driving and appears to have caused concern that he planned to launch a terrorist strike there. He denied the map was his, and his employer drafted a letter saying that the truck's previous driver had an Ottawa route.

Mr. El-Maati flew to Syria in the fall of 2001, where he was immediately arrested. He has since said he was tortured there by captors who asked questions that seemed to be based on information that first surfaced in North America.

Aly Hindy, an Islamic religious leader in Toronto, said his friend first came under suspicion because he was known to have spent time in Afghanistan. But the imam said that Mr. El-Maati was never part of any plot, though he was tortured into admitting as much.

"They tortured him until he told them, 'What do you want me to say?' Imam Hindy said in a recent interview. ". . . He said, 'What if I used a truck?' They said, 'Okay, very good idea but which building are you going to hit?'

". . .So he said, 'How about the Parliament Buildings?' They said, 'Oh, it's a very, very good idea.'

"So he wrote everything and signed, and after that they didn't touch him and they sent him to Egypt," Imam Hindy said.

2. From The Toronto Star, 2/25/04:

In his first interview since being released last month, Ahmed Abou-Elmaati said his bags are packed and as soon as he obtains travel documents he will leave Cairo.

Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Reynald Doiron confirmed yesterday that consular officials are working with Elmaati to help him obtain the required exit visa.

Elmaati, who spent more than two years behind bars, first in Syria, then in Egypt, wants more than anything to come home to tell his story.

"I need my file to be closed. I need to show my innocence and I think this will not happen unless I go back to Canada," Elmaati said in a telephone interview yesterday.

The former Toronto resident, whose case may become a crucial link in determining why U.S. authorities deported Canadian Maher Arar to Syria, said he has been denied a consular escort and fears he may again be detained as he travels.

It's believed Arar was deported in part because he knew Elmaati (who had been the focus of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation and interviewed by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service) and Abdullah Almalki, an Ottawa resident who is still being held in Syria.

Born in Kuwait, Elmaati holds both Canadian and Egyptian citizenship. He said he hasn't been threatened since being released last month but worries about his flight home.

"Actually, to tell you the truth, I'm very doubtful I would reach (Toronto) because I believe something will happen to me on the way back," he said yesterday.

Scarborough imam Aly Hindy, who met with Elmaati when he was in Cairo earlier this month, said Elmaati was tortured, which included being stripped naked, drenched with water and then having live electrical wires placed on his body.

Hindy said it was this torture that prompted Elmaati to sign a confession about plotting to drive a bomb-laden truck into the Parliament buildings in Ottawa.

This tends to confirm my working hypothesis, but it's not really detailed enough to make a real judgment or evaluate El Maati's or Hindy's credibility. If El Maati and Almalki actually make it back to Canada, and one or both of them talks to the press--El Maati definitely seems to want to--we'll know more.

At any rate, with Almalki's release one less person is being tortured. Which seems like an intrinsically good thing, even if the guy does turn out to be guilty of something.

I haven't seen many stories generated by the inquiry itself yet. And U.S. press coverage has gone from pathetic to completely non-existent.

I don't know the status of Arar's lawsuit in the U.S., either. If I get a chance over spring break I may go to the district court in Brooklyn and try to view the file, if any of it's publicly available. (I realize that's the dorkiest use of spring break ever--don't worry, I've got other plans as well.) But I don't know if I'll have time, as I'll only be in New York for a few days.

Ach, the blogging mood's gone anyway.

It would seem that I actively need this mini-vacation. Everyone have a good weekend and I'll see you all next Wednesday.