Obsidian Wings

My Irony Meter Exploded Again...

And I had just replaced it after the last time...

Via Randy Paul at Beautiful Horizons comes this White House Press Release:

"President's Statement on United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture

On United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the United States reaffirms its commitment to the worldwide elimination of torture. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right, and we are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law."

So are we to infer that Alberto Gonzales and Donald Rumsfeld will be stepping down, and that General Ricardo Sanchez won't be getting that fourth star? Will all those prison ships return to their home ports? Will we stop sending anyone besides embassy officials and Peace Corps volunteers to Uzbekistan? Will our soldiers never again beat a taxi driver to death even though they know he's innocent? Will officials of my government never again give advice on how best to evade our laws against torture? And will those who are responsible for all these things finally be held accountable? Somehow, I don't think so.

(Cross-posted at The Poor Man. Heh heh heh.)

Freedom and Equality on the March!

The Netherlands and Belgium. Canada and Spain.

"We were not the first, but I am sure we will not be the last. After us will come many other countries, driven, ladies and gentlemen, by two unstoppable forces: freedom and equality," [Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero] told the chamber.

In the US there's a wall dividing good people. A wall built of fear, misunderstandings, and in far too many places basic intolerance. Freedom begins at home, Mr. President. Tear Down that Wall!

Failure Is Always An Option

by hilzoy

Billmon has a very interesting post on Iraq called 'Failure Is An Option'. He makes a lot of points, some of which I disagree with, but all of which are worth reading. But the point made in his title is a really important one that I've been thinking of writing about for a while. I think there are people who think we cannot fail in Iraq. We have the best military in the history of the world. We have, on other occasions, defeated countries much larger and more advanced than Iraq. Iraq's people were poor and beaten down; its army was a shell; how could we possibly lose?

Easily. For instance, we could just order our soldiers to lay down their weapons and march, one by one, into wherever insurgents have their stronghold these days. It would take a while, but this would surely do the trick.

This is, of course, a stupid example. But it's meant to make an important point, namely: having the best army does not ensure that we will win. Stupid decisions can always lead to defeat. It only makes sense to say that we cannot lose in Iraq if one makes tacit assumptions about the people who make those decisions. Specifically: that there is some level of stupidity to which they will not sink. And this assumption is not always true.

One thing that makes it much more likely that decision-makers will sink to that level of stupidity is if they believe that they cannot possibly lose. If they believe that, they will not think hard about how to ensure that they win. They will, instead, feel free to get sloppy, to wander around without plans, trusting in whatever they think will ensure their success instead of doing what they have to do to make that success a reality. I believe that the people who set our policy in Iraq -- and here I mean not the generals, but the civilian leadership -- did not think they could lose. I am sure that given their track record to date, we should not assume, for an instant, that we cannot lose with them in charge.

I think I know what von meant when he said that failure was not an option. As I read him, he meant that we should never, never choose it. I don't think he was the sort of person Billmon was referring to when he said:

"Under the circumstances, the mindless chants of "failure is not an option" are starting to sound like the desperate prayers of the terminally ill. Failure is always an option -- particularly for morons who launch a war of choice under the impression that they can't possibly lose it."

But while I agree with von, I also agree with Billmon.

There are other things we should not assume are impossible. We should not assume, for instance, that because we are a large and wealthy country, no single administration could drive us to financial ruin. And we should not assume that because we are a country with noble ideals, we cannot possibly stop being the good guys. Both of these things, like failure in Iraq, are quite possible. It is up to us to prevent them.

In philosophy, there's a funny view called fatalism. A fatalist thinks like this: any event I can think of will either happen or it won't. If it will, I don't need to try to make it happen. If it won't, I don't need to prevent it. Que sera, sera. The problem with this view becomes clear if you make it specific: twenty minutes from now, either my dinner will be cooked or it won't. If it will, then I don't need to bother cooking it. If it won't, my best efforts to cook dinner won't work. So why bother? Either I will get run over by a car or I won't. If I will, then it won't help me to look before I cross the street; if I won't, then why bother looking? In all these cases, what the fatalist leaves out is her own contribution to the future. It might be that if I look before walking into the street, I won't get run over, but if I don't look, I will. If I decide not to bother looking, then because of that very decision I will get run over.

Like many annoying-sounding philosophy examples, this one has a real point. Fatalism is bad if we assume that things will go badly: if, for instance, I am drowning and decide that it's hopeless and I might as well stop trying to stay afloat, then it might be that very decision that seals my fate. But it is also bad if we assume that things cannot possibly go too badly wrong, since it might be our very failure to take preventive action that ensures that they will. Assuming that failure is not just not an option we should choose, but not a possibility we need to work hard to avoid, can make us fail. And right now we need to understand that very, very clearly.

Establishing My Religion

by hilzoy

I have been reading the oddest thing: Scalia's dissent in McCreary County v. ACLU (pdf). It's very peculiar in its own right, and even more peculiar as an illustration of originalist legal theories in action. McCreary County is one of the Ten Commandments cases that were handed down on Monday; it concerns a copy of the Ten Commandments displayed in a courthouse. The majority said that the display of the Ten Commandments in this case was unconstitutional. Scalia disagrees on various grounds; the one that interests me is his claim that putting up the Ten Commandments in a courthouse does not favor one religion over another (pp. 53-55).

I could understand (though I would not agree with) an originalist who said: look, what 'establish' means, in the establishment clause, is: to make some religion the official religion of the government. Via the fourteenth amendment, this extends to other units of government, like counties. But putting up a display in a courthouse is not an establishment of religion in this sense. So even if McCreary County had chosen to display the Catholic catechism, the Augsburg Confession, or the Qur'an, that would have been fine. Scalia does say that "governmental invocation of God is not an establishment." But for some reason he does not conclude that it is acceptable for a public building to display the text of some specific religion; only for such a building to display texts common to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. (Why? I don't know about you, but I think the answer has to involve a penumbra or an emanation.)

I could also understand an originalist who tried to argue that displaying the Ten Commandments did not count as establishing a religion unless the display somehow indicated which of the several religions that take the Ten Commandments to be sacred it favored. But while that argument would be understandable, it would also be stupid and unworkable, not least because it would require a clear account of what counts as 'one religion'. (Is establishing Christianity OK so long as the government does not choose between Protestantism, Catholicism and Orthodoxy? Is establishing Pentacostalism OK so long as one does not specify which of the roughly 11,000 Pentacostal denominations now in existence one prefers? And so on.)

But Scalia does not rely explicitly on the claim that the Ten Commandments are not the province of any one religion either. Instead, he argues that because the Ten Commandments are viewed as sacred by Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and because these three religions are the most popular monotheistic religions in the country, it is acceptable to display the Ten Commandments in a public building. And what I cannot understand is how on earth he manages to get this out of the text of the establishment clause in a way that even pretends to be consistent with his general views on legal interpretation.

(Note: I am not a lawyer, of course, but I am about to pretend. Be warned. It may not be pretty. Also: I started thinking about this because I was appalled by the idea that you could 'establish' anything on which Christianity, Judaism. and Islam all agreed; but as I thought more I ended up being more interested in the question: how did a smart guy like Scalia convince himself that what he says has anything at all to do with originalism?)

Cupboards Well-Stocked With Things To Diminish

Barely adequate.  Bush's speech last night did pull the Administration back from Cheney's "last throes" remark.  That's good, because Cheney's claim was ridiculous given the facts on the ground.  Indeed, in less-partisan times, one might even call it a flat-out lie.

So, at least we're no longer at the brink of a self-inflicted Vietnamization.  Bush also hit the high points, forthrightly stated the difficulty of our task in Iraq, and showed a willingness to stick it out. 

After the say, however, comes the do.  It will be hard to do the right thing in Iraq.  We had cupboards well-stocked of goodwill; reserves of will to win aplenty.  Those cupboards are now nearly bare.  The public is no longer buying Cheney's glib pronouncements of imminent victory or premature claims of "Mission Accomplished".  The worm is turning on Iraq, and we must complete the mission before it does.

With that in mind, Herbert E. Meyer, a former CIA official with the Reagan Administration, offers the following advice:

Get Real with the Generals

First, you need to fight harder in Iraq.  You keep saying that you are giving our generals all the troops they want.  With all respect, sir, this couldn’t possibly be true.  In the history of the world there has never been a general who thought he had enough troops.  If your generals are telling you they have all the troops they want to finish the job in Iraq, either the generals are idiots – or they have gotten the word that asking for more troops will end their careers.  Sit down with your generals privately – just you and them -- and find out how many troops they really think they need.  If they still insist they don’t want more troops on the ground in Iraq, then get yourself a new bunch of generals.  If they tell you they need another 250,000 soldiers and Marines – then fly them over from Korea, Germany or wherever they are stationed just as fast as possible.  If we haven’t got them to send – then order a draft.  One way or another, put enough troops on the ground in Iraq to secure that country -- fast.  And while you’re at it, give the orders to either take out the governments of Syria and Iran or to hit them with so much force that they quit playing footsie with al Queda and the Baathists, because we cannot win in Iraq so long as Syria and Iran are providing support and sanctuary.  In short, do whatever is necessary, and do it now.

Emphasis mine.  As The Belgravia Dispatch notes, "Sit down with your generals privately" means without Rumsfeld, Cheney, or, indeed, anyone else in the room.  Just the President and the Generals; all cards on the table.  (By the way, if The Belgravia Dispatch is not yet a daily stop for you, it should be.)

When public opinion decisively tips against the war (as it, assuredly, soon will), it will be impossible to keep troops in the field.  When public opinion decisively tips against the war, the insurgents won't need to beat us; we will have beaten ourselves.  A very public suicide; a disaster for Iraq, our national security, and the Middle East.

The time to win in Iraq is running out.  No more buck passing.  No more of Rumsfeld's "it's above my pay grade."  No more a strategy of "just enough."  Act.  For the good of your country and your administration, act now.

(Title cite.)

UPDATE:  A few changes for clarity.  Some of the readership point out, rightly, that a draft is a poor way to keep public opinion on your side.  Absolutely conceded; indeed, I originally bolded that section of the letter to highlight where I disagree with Mr. Meyer's advice.  Sadly, I didn't get around to including that discussion in the body of this comment.

But the core of Mr. Meyer's advice is sound.  I don't buy the dance of "we want to send troops, but the Generals won't have them."  The Generals, I'm sure, are very aware that a larger footprint in Iraq will have some negative consequences.  But it seems that all this worrying about "larger footprints" is meaningless if the footprint you have just ain't getting the job done.  It's similar to being on a starvation diet, and yet all you talk about is how fat you could get if you eat more.  A strategic anorexia; not very becoming. 

Yeah, there's a risk (how real?  who knows?  goes the Rumsfeld koan) more troops will enflame the insurgency.  But weigh that risk against the near certainty that the current level of troops cannot defeat the insurgency.  Cost-benefit yo' ass.  Ain't a few more troops -- if we have them to send -- worth the risk of a few months of bad press?  Would enough troops to secure the border with Syria make it more likely that we'll fail?

(That's one reason why I found Neurath's Boat's critique of my last post on the subject less than convincing.)

Eminent Domain

When I first heard about the Kelo case I was worried because I thought there was a greater likelyhood of the Court expanding the eminent domain power than there was of them limiting it.  The drift from an already expansive meaning of public use to the very broad understanding of public purpose is unfortunate.  It also represents another step in the strange jurisprudence of cordoning off personal property rights from the jurisprudence of all of all other personally held rights.  I say strange, because property rights are explicitly mentioned in the Constitution but seem to be taken by many modern justices as far less important than other rights which are at best linked to the Constitution by penumbras and emmanations of rights. 

I have however, come across a rather amusing response to the case (hat tip Captain's Quarter.  A New Hampshire developer has decided to try to build a hotel.  It is likely to be much more tax-positive for the city of Weare than the current use of the land, and may help bring in tourists for further economic benefit.  The current use of the land is as Justice Souter's home. 

Ceci N'Est Pas Un Post

by hilzoy

I was writing a long post on a Wall Street Journal OpEd that said that critics of the war were doing Zarqawi's dirty work for him, but I've decided to bag it. If people are inclined to believe that any problems we might be having in Iraq are the fault not of the administration that has had total control over its timing and prosecution, but of their powerless critics, so be it. And if people feel like thinking that the recent downturn in popular support for the war is not due to (a) the fact that it is going badly, and (b) the fact that this administration seems unable either to admit this or to deal with it, but rather to the fact that Chuck Hagel said we might lose, fine. (Evidently Chuck Hagel has the ability to sway huge numbers of people with a few interviews, while our President can't sway them even when he spends months talking about his Social Security plan. Ex hypothesi, since neither Hagel's success nor Bush's failure has anything to do with the truth of what they say, it must be due to something else, like Silva Mind Control. Or maybe this. Who knew?)

Instead of a long post, I'll just say this. In this country, we have civilian control of the military. The bad news about civilian control is that the civilian leadership gets to tell the military what to do; and since they generally know a lot less than the military about how to actually fight a war, and about what military power can and cannot achieve, they can at times be badly wrong. The good news about civilian control is that civilian leaders are always accountable to us. It is our job to hold them accountable. We should never leap to the conclusion that they are screwing up. War is too important to leap to any conclusions about. But we are failing to do our job as citizens if, having thought seriously about what's going on and concluded, reluctantly, that it's not good, we say nothing.

Or, as the Cunning Realist says:

"As civilians, we have an implicit agreement with our troops: they agree to defend our right to criticize our leaders, and we agree to exercise that right when necessary to ensure our military has a defined mission and a viable exit strategy. Because I think supporting the troops is important, I'm not willing to abrogate my part of that agreement. But enablers of language and mission creep by definition cannot support our troops. And because of the desperate word games and constant moving of goalposts, our political leadership falls squarely into that category---ironic, considering its recent hyperbole about "the motives of liberals.""

In trying to cast criticism of the war as unpatriotic, or a form of service to our enemies, the Journal is, in my view, taking a position that is at odds with fundamental American values. And this is not just because they are trying to cast political speech as a subversive act; it's because our whole system depends on the willingness of citizens to hold their government accountable. We support neither our troops nor our country by giving our leaders a blank check. We owe them much more.

In other news, the Editors have obtained an advance copy of the President's speech. Read it now, and get the drinking started early!

Also, I found a wonderful site on How To Destroy The Earth. I am not competent to judge the physics, but it all sounds legit. I particularly enjoy the section, for each method, on what you will need. Examples:

You will need: a microscopic black hole.
You will need: Some strange matter.
You will need: some means of accelerating the Earth's rotation.
You will need: 2,500,000,000,000 tonnes of antimatter
You will need: a black hole, extremely powerful rocket engines, and, optionally, a large rocky planetary body.
You will need: a powerful mass driver, or ideally lots of them; ready access to roughly 224,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules
You will need: a single von Neumann machine, which subsists almost entirely on iron, magnesium, aluminium and silicon, the major elements found in Earth's mantle and core.

And, under 'less scientifically probable ways that the earth could be destroyed':

You will need: God

-- Enjoy.

Petition: Investigate Prisoner Abuse

by hilzoy

Wes Clark has drafted a petition calling on Sen. John Warner, the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to investigate the role of the Bush administration in the various prisoner abuse scandals. It reads:

"Chairman Warner:

I urge you to investigate the Bush Administration's role in the prisoner abuse and humiliation that has motivated our enemies in the war on terror and endangers the well-being of our fighting forces.

Today, the reports of abuse and humiliation at detainment facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba are distracting the world from focusing on winning the war on terror. Although the military chain of command seems to have properly investigated the role of its personnel and held accountable those in the wrong, the civilian leadership in this country has failed to do the same.

How can we win the war on terrorism, a fight for democracy and freedom in America and around the world, if we forsake the very principles and institutions for which we are fighting?

The laws of war are designed to regulate combat and to protect non-combatants from the violence and degradation of war. The conduct of this Administration may ultimately lead to a green-light for our enemies to torture our soldiers when captured -- we owe it to our men and women in uniform and their families to investigate.

I urge you to hold hearings and investigate the Bush Administration's role in the abuse and neglect of detainees. For the sake of our international reputation, and for the sake of our soldiers in the field, we can't afford to keep silent."

This is not a new issue for Clark. While his campaign had ended by the time the abuses at Abu Ghraib became public, he advocated US entry into the International Criminal Court not only because it was both the right thing and the smart thing to do, but because he thought that the idea that we needed to worry about holding the members of our armed forces to the standards of international law was insulting to them. He was horrified by the abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, both for the obvious reasons and because he loves the army he spent his life in, an army in which it was expected that everyone would follow the laws of war; and these abuses were opposed to everything he thought it stood for. As he writes in the letter that prefaces the petition:

"For generations, the United States has been a powerful voice of moral authority in the world. After World War II, we led the world in creating the Geneva Conventions and prosecuting war criminals at Nuremberg, and later became one of the first nations to ratify the Convention Against Torture. Even today, Slobodan Milosevic is being tried for war crimes thanks to a U.S.-led NATO air strike against his brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has squandered our legacy of moral leadership."

If you support such an investigation, you can sign the petition here. Thanks.

Belgravia, Rolling.

by von

There's a lot to criticize in Kerry's NYT Op-Ed ("The Speech the President Should Give" -- not presumptuous at all, is he?), but Greg Djerejian tags the key line:

The administration must immediately draw up a detailed plan with clear milestones and deadlines for the transfer of military and police responsibilities to Iraqis after the December elections.

No.  Setting a deadline for withdrawal is sheer lunacy.  It throws a lifeline to terrorists, undercuts the nascent Iraqi regime, and discourages Iraqi moderates.  A firm deadline virtually guarantees that withdrawal will occur too soon.  It's idiotic, counterproductive, and will ultimately cost more American lives.  Treaty of Versailles, Peace of Nicias  -- choose your own overblown historical analogy and drop it in.  The shoe freakin' fits.

Djerejian expands:

It's a huge incentive to the bad guys to simply wait us out. It's simply bad policy, .... to hold a gun to their [Iraqis'] head and intimate we might cut and run if they do not meet such timeframes is just as irresponsible as providing some drop-dead exit date (yet another fictitious "deadline"). .... Moderate Iraqis must believe that we will stand shoulder to shoulder with them come what may.

Simply put, Iraqis have always needed more support from the U.S.  More troops to restore basic services and keep the civil order in the aftermath of the war.  More trainers to prepare a new Iraqi army.  More and better ways to channel rebuilding funds to the ground level.  More assurances that we will stand beside the Iraqi government until it has been fixed. The strategic sins of the Bush Administration have been of omission, not commission. 

Kerry's Op Ed notes this, of course.  But noting in passing that the aftermath of the Iraq war (and here I use Djerejian's phrase) was "something of a pretty significant cluster-f*&k" ain't enough.  Using it to score a political point ain't enough.  You gotta act on it.  You gotta fix it.  You gotta offer something other than cut and run. 

The only acceptable outcome for Iraq is success.  There are no other routes to a happy ending. The difference between from Kerry's "plan" for Iraq and the right plan for Iraq is the difference between accepting Germany in 1919 as "good enough," and taking a shot at Germany in 1945. 

We must stay in Iraq until its government is standing on its own two feet -- whether it takes two, five, or ten years.  To do otherwise would be a tragic mistake, for which our children and grandchildren will pay for years to come.  Democrats who give a damn -- Clinton, Biden -- know the foolishness of setting a withdrawal date.  Kerry doesn't, or doesn't care.   

(As always, the rest of Djerejian's analysis is well worth your time.)

Iraq and the Occasional Communicator

by Charles

As anyone could probably guess, I voted for Bush in the last two elections and I generally agree with many, if not most, administration policies.  There are also some actions and policies I do not support, encapsulated best in this piece last August.  One of the biggest ongoing irritants for me is that, while Reagan was the Great Communicator, Bush is the Occasional Communicator and it's hurting our progress in Iraq. Here's the problem: