Dr. Paul never makes apologies about his personal opposition to abortion, and I don't blame him for that - he's and old man with 18 grandkids, a conservative Christian, and a OB/GYN to boot. However I think he's being disingenous when he says states can adequately handle the most controversial (not most important) issue in the USA. I just watched the YouTube of Ron Paul on The View. He repeatedly declares that Roe v. Wade allows unrestricted abortion at any stage of pregnancy. This is clearly not true - he may disagree on many of the 11 points below (probably #1 the most), but the last three flatly contradict what he said on The View. He also says he is OK with women/girls having to travel to a different state for an abortion if they live in a state that decides to have an outright ban, with parental consent laws and no exceptions for rape/incest. Is that not unfair to a broke 17 year old girl who was the victim of rape or incest? Aside from abortion for minors, Ron Paul expects adult women to abandon their friends, jobs and hometowns, and "vote with their feet" by moving to a different state if their state would ban abortion? Isn't Roe v. Wade protection from the tyranny of the majority? I mean, come on - it allows for first trimester abortions, but allows the states to take over in trimesters two and three. Seems pretty fair and reasonable given the modern human society we live in. I agree that no one's tax money should be used to fund abortions. Am I getting anything wrong here?
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973) [alternate] [District Court opinion] [Transcripts of Oral Argument (#1) (#2)] the landmark (7-2) abortion decision voided the abortion laws of nearly every state. Striking down a Texas statute that prohibited all abortions except to save the mother's life, the Supreme Court, per Blackmun, held that abortion was a constitutional right that the states could only abridge after the first six months of pregnancy. More specifically, the Court held that: (1) the Court had jurisdiction; (2) Roe's case was not moot, despite the birth of her child, because the case was "capable of repetition, yet evading review;" (3) the right to privacy includes the right to abortion; (4) since abortion is a fundamental right, state regulation must meet the "strict scrutiny" standard, which means the state must show it has a "compelling interest" in having the law; (5) the word "person" in the 14th Amendment, does not apply to the unborn; (6) the state has an important interest in both preserving the heath of a pregnant woman and in protecting fetal life; (7) the state's interest in maternal health becomes compelling at three months; (8) the state's interest in fetal life becomes compelling at viability--six months; (9) the state may not regulate abortion at all during the first trimester; (10) the state may regulate abortion during the second three months, but only for the protection of the woman's health; (11) the state may regulate or ban abortion during the third trimester to protect fetal life.
On every other issue, I admire Ron Paul for bravely sticking to his beliefs. But when he starts talking about abortion, he fidgets about, breaks eye contact with the interviewer, and becomes a politician. I just wish he would tell the truth and say "I'm opposed to abortion and I think repealing Roe v. Wade is the first step towards allowing states to criminalize it". I'm not sure there is anything you can say that will change my mind on this. I don't think anyone should expect to agree with any candidate 100% on everything.
I am in agreement with Ezra Klein:
THE ODD APPEAL OF RON PAUL.
As Dana says, it's a bit hard to square the immense affection Ron Paul receives from putative civil libertarians with his intensely restrictive attitude towards such issues as whether a woman will be forced to use her body as a vessel for childbearing. But, as Peter Suderman argues, it's probably a mistake to focus too intensely on policy when trying to evaluate the appeal of Paul. Rather, Paul provides a home for those who feel alienated, misled, lied to, and marginalized by mainstream politics. As one of my commenters said, "It's like he's quietly amassing and army of outcasts from the Perot and Nader campaigns." Add in outcasts from whomever the Libertarian party tends to run and I think you've got a pretty good sense of the coalition.
With Paul, the positions aren't the point. His candidacy is tonal, aesthetic in nature. It's a movement united behind Howard Beale: They're mad as hell at politics, and not going to take it anymore. The force of that statement is far more important than whether Beale's political opinions or likely comportment in office precisely match up with what his supporters would desire. Paul's candidacy is an indictment of the system, not an argument for who would best administer it.
UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald convincingly addresses politician purity on abortion here:
Thursday December 20, 2007 05:07 EST
Harry Reid's pro-life stance vs. Ron Paul's
Writing at The American Prospect blog, Dana Goldstein criticizes Andrew Sullivan for endorsing Ron Paul as the GOP candidate (Sullivan also endorsed Democrat Barack Obama, his clearly preferred candidate) and specifically objected to Sullivan's praise of Paul on civil libertarian grounds. Goldstein's complaint: Paul's pro-life position means he believes in freedom "only when it comes to half of the population" and therefore no "thinking person committed to individual rights" could coherently support him.
Ezra Klein offers qualified agreement: "it's a bit hard to square the immense affection Ron Paul receives from putative civil libertarians with his intensely restrictive attitude towards such issues as whether a woman will be forced to use her body as a vessel for childbearing." The premise here appears to be that abortion is not merely one issue, but an issue of such overarching importance that having the wrong position there ought to preclude "any thinking person committed to individual rights" from supporting that individual, regardless of their views on every other issue.
That's all fair enough, or at least certainly reasonable -- and my purpose here isn't to dispute that view -- though it still ought to be noted that feminist Naomi Wolf, who has devoted much of her adult life to advocating for reproductive rights, among many other pro-choice and liberal political figures, seems to disagree with Goldstein's view. Wolf has repeatedly praised Paul as one of the very few national political figures who recognizes the profound threats to American freedoms and who appears willing to take meaningful action in response.
In a speech last month, Wolf cited Paul's sponsorship of The American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007 (.pdf) -- which would restore habeas corpus, prohibit torture and rendition, bar warrantless surveillance, protect journalists from prosecution for reporting on classifed matters, outlaw the use of secret evidence, and compel Congress to sue to challenge the validity of signing statements -- as a measure necessary to "stabilize democracy long enough to take a breath."
During the Q&A session following the speech, Wolf was asked if there were any presidential candidates who were similarly committed to standing against the tidal wave of liberty erosion in the U.S., and she responded (video is here):
There is only one candidate, I'm sorry to say -- well, there's three candidates -- Ron Paul has always talked about these issues, and it's amazing to see -- he's on the other side, but I have a lot of respect for a lot of what he's saying. And he has supporters really from both parties who are passiontate about him, because he's saying things like: "You know what? We don't need an empire. Let's just give up our domination all over the world and let's just have a Republic." You know, I get chills thinking about that: "Let's have a Republic. We don't need an emprie." Can you imagine? So he would. And Kucinich and Chris Dodd are both committed, and they've always talked constitutional issues.It's fair to assume that Naomi Wolf is no less opposed to Paul's pro-life position than Goldstein and Klein are, but she presumably thinks that other issues can be weighed against it in importance, including the fact that Paul seems to be one of the very few candidates who has made the erosion of constitutional liberties a centerpiece of his campaign, and is the only candidate with a credible campaign making a substantive case against the premises of America's imperial, militaristic role in the world (i.e., not merely objecting to the invasion of Iraq on cost-benefit grounds but rejecting the core premises that led to it and other U.S. interventions against countries that haven't attacked us).
It's hard to see why a pro-choice politician who affirms the basic premises of America's imperialism and who has no real intention to roll back the massive abuses of the Constitution is any more acceptable in decent company than a pro-life politician who repudiates America's war-making and who does intend to do what is possible to restore America's basic constitutional framework. How do those issues get weighed exactly? And who, in Goldstein's view, are the candidates with sterling records across the board on liberty, war-making and constitutional rights, whom a "thinking person committed to individual rights" can enthusiastically support?
* * * * *
In any event, if one accepts Goldstein's premise -- that no decent person would ever support any pro-life politician regardless of other concerns -- it is difficult to understand how her position is reconciled with support for Democrats generally, given that they have installed in one of their two most powerful positions -- Senate Majority Leader -- a fairly dogmatic pro-life politician in Harry Reid. Here is what Taylor Marsh, one of Reid's constituents, said (accurately) when Reid was chosen by Democratic Senators to lead them in the Senate:
This week, something pretty amazing happens.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada takes over the minority leader spot in the Senate.
That he's replacing long-time Republican thorn, Tom Daschle, is only one big headline.
The other is that Senator Reid is a pro-life Democrat and devout Mormon from red state Nevada.
Senator Reid offers something special for the minority spot, because he is one of the first powerful Democrats in a long time who is devoutly pro-life:
Voted YES on criminal penalty for harming unborn fetus during other crime. (Mar 2004)
Voted YES on banning partial birth abortions except for maternal life. (Mar 2003)
Voted YES on maintaining ban on Military Base Abortions. (Jun 2000)
Voted YES on banning partial birth abortions. (Oct 1999)
Voted YES on disallowing overseas military abortions. (May 1999)
Rated 29% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record. (Dec 2003)Despite that solid pro-life record, Marsh (who is now a Clinton supporter) appeared to view Reid's election positively, calling it "quite serendipitous" and praising him as being "pretty independent." Indeed, Democrats elected Reid as their Leader despite this, from the Christian Broadcasting Network:
For example, on the issue of abortion, he says he's pro-life which puts him at odds with the majority of his party.
Says Senator Reid, "I don't in any way apologize for being pro-life. I'm pro-life."And this is what The Progressive said when Senate Democrats elected him as Leader:
Harry Reid is a pro-life converted Mormon, vocal in his opposition to gay marriage, unlikely to appeal to the activist faction of the party. Though he does not support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (on the grounds that it interferes with states' rights), he did vote for the Defense of Marriage Act. He voted against a ban on assault weapons and was endorsed by the National Rifle Association.
He voted to authorize force in Iraq. On his website, the Senator does not offer much in the way of contrition for that vote. He argues that the world is a safer place without Saddam and stresses continuing the search for WMD, suggesting it's possible they were "smuggled out of the country." Regarding the likely new head of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, Reid says, "I'm not sure Howard Dean is the answer to our problems. For right or wrong Howard Dean is recognized as part of the left, the anti-war crowd. I'm not sure we need more acrimony."Are all Senate Democrats -- who elected the unapologetically pro-life Reid unanimously to be their Leader -- guilty of the same things of which Goldstein accuses Paul supporters (or even those who find good things to say about Paul's campaign): namely, exhibiting complete indifference to the freedom and liberty of half of the population? How could they not be? Most of the Senate Democratic caucus is pro-choice -- many vehemently so -- but they apparently assumed that the benefits of Reid's leadership on other issues enabled them to overlook his pro-life dogma, the same calculation pro-choice boosters of Paul (such as Wolf) are making. What's the difference?
* * * * *
Ultimately, this is the key issue: the unfortunate reality is that there are fundamental issues concerning America's foreign policy, economic instability, and basic conceptions of governance which simply aren't addressed in meaningful ways in our mainstream discourse, which includes most if not all of the leading presidential campaigns. As Ezra somewhat hints at, many people (including myself) who think that Paul's candidacy has important positive elements (without wanting him to be President) believe that to be the case because he's injecting into our political discussions critical ideas and debates (such as his belief in a republic rather than an empire) which are otherwise all but excluded.
I don't see how someone can claim to be opposed to, say, America's presumed right to attack countries that haven't attacked us while simultaneously insisting that the only candidates worth listening to are ones who affirm that right. That makes no sense to me. Nor do I understand how someone can claim that we suffer from a civil liberties and constitutional crisis while thinking that the only legitimate candidates worth hearing from are ones who won't do very much about that other than to nibble around its edges.
Presidential campaigns aren't just about selecting the next person who will be President. They are also about debating political questions that need attention and expanding the scope of issues we consider and the ideas that are worth hearing. A campaign can be valuable by virtue of its ability to achieve those objectives.
By definition, one cannot coherently claim to find our mainstream political culture fundamentally corrupted but then simultaneously be wedded only to mainstream political discourse. Trying to narrow debate that way does nothing but perpetuate the status quo.
That doesn't mean that people who are deeply dissatisfied with the political framework are precluded from supporting highly imperfect, mainstream candidates. Especially in a presidential race, there are lots of good, pragmatic reasons why one might do so. But it should mean that such a person would want to expand rather than contract the scope of political debate we have, particularly during the primary season when the opportunity to debate such issues exists. There will be plenty of time later -- in fact, shortly -- for those who want to hear nothing other than boisterous cheering for the Democratic nominee and attacks on the GOP candidate.
Nonetheless, if the standard is (as Goldstein suggests) that, regardless of any other considerations, anyone who is pro-life ought to be removed from good company -- along with those who support any such individuals -- that's a perfectly principled position, but it ought not be applied selectively. It would mean, by definition, that none of the Democratic Senators (who unanimously chose to elect as their Leader one of the very few pro-life Senators in their midst) can be said genuinely to support individual rights, and that doesn't appear to be a conclusion which many people actually embrace.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Frontline on Wiretapping
I want terrorist communications to be monitured by US intelligence as long as there is judicial oversight. I do not want my Constitutional rights against unreasonable searches to be violated. I'm sitting here watching Frontline on PBS, near the end of the first hour of the program on the president's wiretapping program. I am trying to be vigiliant about spotting any liberal bias in the way this information is presented and in the way the questions are asked. This is PBS after all, and any republican-lackey radio host worth his salt knows PBS is liberal bias incarnate. I want to be completely convinced before I start any angry rants. The history of illegal government surveillance of American citizens is as old as the telegram, continuing through the advent of telephones and existing in some form during every decade of the 20th century. By exposing specific facts about the activity of George Bush's current administration in a single case, it becomes painfully obvious that roughly 10% of PURELY DOMESTIC phone and internet communications are being monitored ILLEGALLY by the government in a blanket surveillance program. And this is what we know from one brave whistleblower - just think of the other privacy abuses going on using other telecoms and internet providers. A lawsuit in California was filed after the AT&T employee in San Diego discovered the illegal equipment in a secret room that diverted ALL communications to a government data miner by using a splitter. The National Security Administration and AT&T will not answer questions about this case. One of the most revolting parts is when Diane Feinstein asks Alberto Gonzales if any other programs exist where the president is using his self-defined "special executive authority", and Gonzales makes her repeat the question, then says he cannot answer it. He is a crafty lawyer indeed - his loyalty to his benefactor is strong. I have a lot of respect for Frontline for airing this - every American needs to know the details of how our 4th Amendment rights are being blatantly violated at this very moment. When they were questioned about this illegal spying operation, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and President George Bush lied to the American people.
Must-See Movies about the USA
These could be considered political propaganda by some people, but I found all extremely compelling. Will add to this list in the future...
The Fog of War
Why We Fight
Murder on a Sunday Morning
Jesus Camp
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (PBS)
Citizen Ruth
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (HBO)
The Fog of War
Why We Fight
Murder on a Sunday Morning
Jesus Camp
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (PBS)
Citizen Ruth
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (HBO)
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Ben Stein
Ben Stein's Christmas message on CBS Sunday Morning was a good one:
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3623803n
Seems like old Ben is mellowing out a little.
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3623803n
Seems like old Ben is mellowing out a little.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Listen to TR
"The president desires to know in the fullest and most circumstantial manner all the facts, ... for the very reason that the president intends to back up the Army in the heartiest fashion in every lawful and legitimate method of doing its work; he also intends to see that the most vigorous care is exercised to detect and prevent any cruelty or brutality and that men who are guilty thereof are punished. Great as the provocation has been in dealing with foes who habitually resort to treachery, murder and torture against our men, nothing can justify or will be held to justify the use of torture or inhuman conduct of any kind on the part of the American Army,” - Teddy Roosevelt
Friday, October 26, 2007
Detainee Treatment
STUART HERRINGTON
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Recently revealed White House memos have raised the ugly question yet again: Is torturing prisoners captured in the Global War on Terrorism an effective and permissible use of our nation's might?
I served 30 years in the U.S. Army as an intelligence officer, which included extensive experience as an interrogator in Vietnam, in Panama and during the 1991 Gulf War. In the course of these sensitive missions, my teams and I collected mountains of excellent, verified information, despite the fact that we never laid a hostile hand on a prisoner. Had one of my interrogators done so, he would have been disciplined and most likely relieved of his duties.
Since my retirement, I have twice answered the Army's call, journeying to Guantanamo and Iraq to evaluate interrogation procedures. Subsequently, when the terrible tsunami of verified reports of detainee torture by American soldiers overwhelmed the dikes, the Army asked me to assist in training a new battalion of Iraq-bound Army interrogators in non-coercive interrogation techniques.
As regular readers of these pages may recall, I am a native Pittsburgher, the product of a superlative education at Mt. Lebanon High School and Duquesne University. I was commissioned through Army ROTC at Duquesne after completing a liberal arts curriculum. Fundamental concepts of right and wrong were basic building blocks of this education.
Forty-plus years ago, as fall winds coursed across the Bluff, ethics professor Dr. Arthur Schrynemakers, in a voice of Dutch-accented English that still rings in my memory, declared to my freshman class that ethical principles were absolute. Right was right; wrong was wrong. When he pointed his finger at those of us in the front row and thundered that it was ethically impermissible to commit an evil act and attempt to justify it because that evil act might lead to some future good, we listened -- and some of us remembered.
Coming from this background, it has been disappointing to observe the ongoing debate about torture in interrogation, usually carried out be people who have never interrogated a soul. Nor is it easy to accept that the current debate is framed pragmatically by the question, "Does torture work or not?"
In a recent interview with NPR's Terry Gross, I told her that 10 years ago the notion we would even be having such a dialogue was unthinkable. Somehow, perhaps blinded by the horrors of 9-11 and its aftermath, or by that barrage of chilling video footage of hooded executioners snuffing out the lives of journalists, civilians and soldiers, we have lost sight of other equally relevant questions: Is torture right or wrong? Is the brutalizing of helpless prisoners a practice that will advance or harm our nation's position as it wages a just war against Islamist extremists?
One can almost hear the late Dr. Schrynemakers expound on this question. Wagging his finger, he would note that government sanctioning of mistreatment of prisoners by its intelligence officers is an essentially evil act committed in the name of self-defense, which has propelled our great country down a slippery moral slope and imperiled us further.
Treat captives as guests
I and other authentic practitioners of the interrogation art respect our adversaries, however wrong we may deem their cause. We know that obtaining information from a captive who is motivated by his beliefs, his country, his honor or perhaps by the very human desire to live a full life with his family, is an elusive task that requires a patient, systematic approach.
One has to "go to school" on each captive. Who is he? Can I communicate with him in his language? What are his core beliefs? His loves? Hates? Fears? Where do his loyalties lie? Does he have a family, an inflated ego, perhaps some other core vulnerability? Does he have a hobby or some passion that might get him talking? What do we know about his activities before he fell into our hands? What about his religion? Sect? Tribe? Culture? Or the history of his movement? What have other captives in our hands said about him? Did he have documents or a computer that were seized with him? What drives this unique individual?
Professional interrogation is thus a developmental process, requiring extensive preparation. It requires in-depth assessment of the prisoner, all complemented by a healthy measure of guile, wits and patience.
Seasoned interrogators know that an important first step is to disarm one's adversary by resorting to the unexpected. Treat a captured general or colonel with dignity and respect. Better yet, treat a sergeant like he is a colonel or general.
In interrogation centers I ran, we called prisoners "guests" and extended military courtesies, such as saluting captured officers. We strove to undermine a prisoner's belief system, which we knew instructed him that Americans are unschooled infidels who would bully him and resort to intimidation, threats and brutality. Patience was essential. We rejected the view that interrogators could merely "take off the gloves" and that information would somehow magically flow if we brutalized our "guests." This notion was uninformed and counterproductive, not to mention illegal, and we made sure our chain of command understood that bowing to such tempting theories would result in bad information.
Persuasive? I'd always thought so, and it certainly worked for us in contingency after contingency in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. But when I explained these immutable principles to an auditorium of young Army interrogators last year, one reaction puzzled me. "Sir," a young soldier queried, "that 'tender-loving-care approach' sounds all well and good, but it takes time. What do we do when the chain of command sends out a requirement and says they need the information by the end of the day, and that thousands of lives may depend upon it?"
The very question tells us that intelligence professionals have failed to educate their commanders that detainee interrogation is not like a water spigot. "Give the inquisitors the freedom to push the envelope of brutality and good information will follow" seems to have become the watchword since 9-11.
It also tells us that our young soldiers take away lessons from today's pop culture. Self-styled "experts" on interrogation frequently cite the "ticking bomb scenario" (featured on shows like "24") to justify the Jack Bauer-like tormenting of a prisoner. According to this construct, it is necessary and acceptable to torture in the name of saving an American city from "the next 9-11." This has a magnetic appeal to legions of Americans, among them future soldiers.
But the so-called ticking time bomb scenario is a Hollywood construct that I never encountered in my 30-year career. Even so, it has become the rallying cry of many well-intentioned but ethically challenged military and civilian personnel. And it has been hawked by a large constituency of senior government officials, from the White House to the Department of Justice to Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, and is most recently evidenced in the surfacing of a January 2005 memo, written almost a year after Abu Ghraib, that characterizes face slapping and waterboarding as acceptable conduct.
Keep the gloves on
When a professional interrogator sits across from a captured Iraqi general who possesses information about the Iraqi nuclear program, or who knows why Saddam did not toss nerve gas at our massed forces, the interrogator knows he is facing a formidable adversary, an educated, trained professional strongly inclined by his Iraqi patriotism and survival instincts to deny his interrogator such information. The interrogator's challenge in such situations is to assess and manipulate the situation, somehow persuading his captive to make disclosures in spite of the prisoner's visceral fear of the consequences if he helps the enemy. The role of the interrogator is, in essence, that of a recruiter. The prisoner must be convinced that if he reveals state secrets, his captor will handle his trust with discretion and take care of him.
Generations of professional interrogators have possessed such skills, and used them to obtain information vital to our country. Those who have not mastered these techniques fall back on the ultimate admission of incompetence and resort to brutality. Once this moral frontier is crossed, captives on the receiving end of such treatment respond to their survival instincts. Spurred by cunning and fueled by the hatred stoked by their tormentor's brutality, they respond as our American aviators responded in the Hanoi Hilton, showing their contempt by lying, invention, stalling -- anything to stop the abuse -- or by accepting death before dishonor.
For 30 years, I was fortunate to work with talented professionals. We benefited from good training, including the need to adhere to the law. We never felt pressured "to take the gloves off" and mistreat our captives. On the contrary, our chain of command encouraged good treatment, and there was never a thought of traveling down the wrong road.
Regrettably, such an approach may not have satisfied a number of our senior leaders since 9-11, but it would surely have pleased Dr. Schrynemakers. It was a good approach then, and it remains so.
Three men in custody
Question: What do these three men have in common?
A wounded North Vietnamese Army sergeant, captured only after he exhausted his ammunition, brags that his Army is "liberating" the South and refuses to cooperate under harsh treatment by South Vietnamese interrogators. He then provides Americans with information about his unit, its missions, its infiltration route. He even assists in interrogating other prisoners. Granted amnesty, he serves in the South Vietnamese Army for the duration of the war.
A captured Panamanian staff officer, morose and angry, initially lies and stonewalls his American interrogator but ultimately reveals his role in his leader's shadowy contacts with North Korea, Cuba, Libya and the Palestine Liberation Organization. He provides information about covert arms purchases and a desperate attempt to procure SAM missiles to shoot down American helicopters in the event of an American invasion.
An Iraqi general, captured and humiliated during Operation Desert Storm, is initially frightened and defiant but eventually cooperates, knowing that Saddam Hussein's penalty for treason was certain death. Before repatriation, the general hands his captor his prayer beads and a scrap of paper bearing an address, saying with emotion, "Our Islamic custom requires that we show gratitude to those who bestow kindness and mercy. These beads comforted me through your Air Force's fierce bombings for 39 days, but they are all I have. When Saddam is gone, please come to my home. You will be an honored guest and we will slaughter a lamb to welcome you."
Answer: All three were treated by their American captors with dignity and respect. No torture; no mistreatment.
-- Stuart Herrington
First published on October 21, 2007 at 12:00 am
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Recently revealed White House memos have raised the ugly question yet again: Is torturing prisoners captured in the Global War on Terrorism an effective and permissible use of our nation's might?
I served 30 years in the U.S. Army as an intelligence officer, which included extensive experience as an interrogator in Vietnam, in Panama and during the 1991 Gulf War. In the course of these sensitive missions, my teams and I collected mountains of excellent, verified information, despite the fact that we never laid a hostile hand on a prisoner. Had one of my interrogators done so, he would have been disciplined and most likely relieved of his duties.
Since my retirement, I have twice answered the Army's call, journeying to Guantanamo and Iraq to evaluate interrogation procedures. Subsequently, when the terrible tsunami of verified reports of detainee torture by American soldiers overwhelmed the dikes, the Army asked me to assist in training a new battalion of Iraq-bound Army interrogators in non-coercive interrogation techniques.
As regular readers of these pages may recall, I am a native Pittsburgher, the product of a superlative education at Mt. Lebanon High School and Duquesne University. I was commissioned through Army ROTC at Duquesne after completing a liberal arts curriculum. Fundamental concepts of right and wrong were basic building blocks of this education.
Forty-plus years ago, as fall winds coursed across the Bluff, ethics professor Dr. Arthur Schrynemakers, in a voice of Dutch-accented English that still rings in my memory, declared to my freshman class that ethical principles were absolute. Right was right; wrong was wrong. When he pointed his finger at those of us in the front row and thundered that it was ethically impermissible to commit an evil act and attempt to justify it because that evil act might lead to some future good, we listened -- and some of us remembered.
Coming from this background, it has been disappointing to observe the ongoing debate about torture in interrogation, usually carried out be people who have never interrogated a soul. Nor is it easy to accept that the current debate is framed pragmatically by the question, "Does torture work or not?"
In a recent interview with NPR's Terry Gross, I told her that 10 years ago the notion we would even be having such a dialogue was unthinkable. Somehow, perhaps blinded by the horrors of 9-11 and its aftermath, or by that barrage of chilling video footage of hooded executioners snuffing out the lives of journalists, civilians and soldiers, we have lost sight of other equally relevant questions: Is torture right or wrong? Is the brutalizing of helpless prisoners a practice that will advance or harm our nation's position as it wages a just war against Islamist extremists?
One can almost hear the late Dr. Schrynemakers expound on this question. Wagging his finger, he would note that government sanctioning of mistreatment of prisoners by its intelligence officers is an essentially evil act committed in the name of self-defense, which has propelled our great country down a slippery moral slope and imperiled us further.
Treat captives as guests
I and other authentic practitioners of the interrogation art respect our adversaries, however wrong we may deem their cause. We know that obtaining information from a captive who is motivated by his beliefs, his country, his honor or perhaps by the very human desire to live a full life with his family, is an elusive task that requires a patient, systematic approach.
One has to "go to school" on each captive. Who is he? Can I communicate with him in his language? What are his core beliefs? His loves? Hates? Fears? Where do his loyalties lie? Does he have a family, an inflated ego, perhaps some other core vulnerability? Does he have a hobby or some passion that might get him talking? What do we know about his activities before he fell into our hands? What about his religion? Sect? Tribe? Culture? Or the history of his movement? What have other captives in our hands said about him? Did he have documents or a computer that were seized with him? What drives this unique individual?
Professional interrogation is thus a developmental process, requiring extensive preparation. It requires in-depth assessment of the prisoner, all complemented by a healthy measure of guile, wits and patience.
Seasoned interrogators know that an important first step is to disarm one's adversary by resorting to the unexpected. Treat a captured general or colonel with dignity and respect. Better yet, treat a sergeant like he is a colonel or general.
In interrogation centers I ran, we called prisoners "guests" and extended military courtesies, such as saluting captured officers. We strove to undermine a prisoner's belief system, which we knew instructed him that Americans are unschooled infidels who would bully him and resort to intimidation, threats and brutality. Patience was essential. We rejected the view that interrogators could merely "take off the gloves" and that information would somehow magically flow if we brutalized our "guests." This notion was uninformed and counterproductive, not to mention illegal, and we made sure our chain of command understood that bowing to such tempting theories would result in bad information.
Persuasive? I'd always thought so, and it certainly worked for us in contingency after contingency in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. But when I explained these immutable principles to an auditorium of young Army interrogators last year, one reaction puzzled me. "Sir," a young soldier queried, "that 'tender-loving-care approach' sounds all well and good, but it takes time. What do we do when the chain of command sends out a requirement and says they need the information by the end of the day, and that thousands of lives may depend upon it?"
The very question tells us that intelligence professionals have failed to educate their commanders that detainee interrogation is not like a water spigot. "Give the inquisitors the freedom to push the envelope of brutality and good information will follow" seems to have become the watchword since 9-11.
It also tells us that our young soldiers take away lessons from today's pop culture. Self-styled "experts" on interrogation frequently cite the "ticking bomb scenario" (featured on shows like "24") to justify the Jack Bauer-like tormenting of a prisoner. According to this construct, it is necessary and acceptable to torture in the name of saving an American city from "the next 9-11." This has a magnetic appeal to legions of Americans, among them future soldiers.
But the so-called ticking time bomb scenario is a Hollywood construct that I never encountered in my 30-year career. Even so, it has become the rallying cry of many well-intentioned but ethically challenged military and civilian personnel. And it has been hawked by a large constituency of senior government officials, from the White House to the Department of Justice to Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, and is most recently evidenced in the surfacing of a January 2005 memo, written almost a year after Abu Ghraib, that characterizes face slapping and waterboarding as acceptable conduct.
Keep the gloves on
When a professional interrogator sits across from a captured Iraqi general who possesses information about the Iraqi nuclear program, or who knows why Saddam did not toss nerve gas at our massed forces, the interrogator knows he is facing a formidable adversary, an educated, trained professional strongly inclined by his Iraqi patriotism and survival instincts to deny his interrogator such information. The interrogator's challenge in such situations is to assess and manipulate the situation, somehow persuading his captive to make disclosures in spite of the prisoner's visceral fear of the consequences if he helps the enemy. The role of the interrogator is, in essence, that of a recruiter. The prisoner must be convinced that if he reveals state secrets, his captor will handle his trust with discretion and take care of him.
Generations of professional interrogators have possessed such skills, and used them to obtain information vital to our country. Those who have not mastered these techniques fall back on the ultimate admission of incompetence and resort to brutality. Once this moral frontier is crossed, captives on the receiving end of such treatment respond to their survival instincts. Spurred by cunning and fueled by the hatred stoked by their tormentor's brutality, they respond as our American aviators responded in the Hanoi Hilton, showing their contempt by lying, invention, stalling -- anything to stop the abuse -- or by accepting death before dishonor.
For 30 years, I was fortunate to work with talented professionals. We benefited from good training, including the need to adhere to the law. We never felt pressured "to take the gloves off" and mistreat our captives. On the contrary, our chain of command encouraged good treatment, and there was never a thought of traveling down the wrong road.
Regrettably, such an approach may not have satisfied a number of our senior leaders since 9-11, but it would surely have pleased Dr. Schrynemakers. It was a good approach then, and it remains so.
Three men in custody
Question: What do these three men have in common?
A wounded North Vietnamese Army sergeant, captured only after he exhausted his ammunition, brags that his Army is "liberating" the South and refuses to cooperate under harsh treatment by South Vietnamese interrogators. He then provides Americans with information about his unit, its missions, its infiltration route. He even assists in interrogating other prisoners. Granted amnesty, he serves in the South Vietnamese Army for the duration of the war.
A captured Panamanian staff officer, morose and angry, initially lies and stonewalls his American interrogator but ultimately reveals his role in his leader's shadowy contacts with North Korea, Cuba, Libya and the Palestine Liberation Organization. He provides information about covert arms purchases and a desperate attempt to procure SAM missiles to shoot down American helicopters in the event of an American invasion.
An Iraqi general, captured and humiliated during Operation Desert Storm, is initially frightened and defiant but eventually cooperates, knowing that Saddam Hussein's penalty for treason was certain death. Before repatriation, the general hands his captor his prayer beads and a scrap of paper bearing an address, saying with emotion, "Our Islamic custom requires that we show gratitude to those who bestow kindness and mercy. These beads comforted me through your Air Force's fierce bombings for 39 days, but they are all I have. When Saddam is gone, please come to my home. You will be an honored guest and we will slaughter a lamb to welcome you."
Answer: All three were treated by their American captors with dignity and respect. No torture; no mistreatment.
-- Stuart Herrington
First published on October 21, 2007 at 12:00 am
Thursday, October 25, 2007
A Billion Dollars a Year?
I agree with this guy minus one percent - 49% on incomes exceeding half a million, plus the wealth taxes he mentions, until we pay off the 9 trillion. If something can't go on forever, it will stop.
By Robert Reich
Oct. 25, 2007
New data from the Internal Revenue Service show that income inequality continues to widen. The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans earn more than 21 percent of all income. That's a postwar record. The bottom 50 percent of all Americans, when all their wages are combined, earn just 12.8 percent of the nation's income.
Considering the magnitude of challenges ahead for America, it seems only reasonable that taxes should rise on the wealthy. Taxing the super-rich is not about class envy, as conservatives charge. It's about the nation having enough money to pay for national defense and homeland security, good schools and a crumbling infrastructure, the upcoming costs of boomers' Social Security (the current surplus has masked the true extent of the current budget deficit, but it won't for much longer) and, hopefully, affordable national health insurance. Not to mention the trillion dollars or so it will take to fix the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is now starting to hit the middle class.
To some extent, the major Democratic candidates for president appear to agree. They are unanimous in their pledge to roll back the Bush tax cuts. That means that the wealthiest Americans, who are now taxed at a marginal rate of 35 percent, would go back to paying the 38 percent marginal rate they paid under Bill Clinton. So far, however, no Democrat has suggested that the nation should raise the marginal tax rate on the richest Americans above that 38 percent, as will probably be necessary if America is to avoid an economic meltdown in the years ahead.
The biggest emerging pay gap is actually within the top 1 percent of all earners. It's mainly a gap between corporate CEOs, on the one hand, and Wall Street financiers -- hedge-fund managers, private-equity managers (think Mitt Romney) and investment bankers -- on the other. According to a study by University of Chicago professors Steven Kaplan and Joshua Rauh, more than twice as many Wall Street financiers are in the top half of 1 percent of earners as are CEOs. The 25 highest-paid hedge-fund managers are earning more than the CEOs of the largest 500 companies in the Standard and Poor's 500 combined. While CEO pay is outrageous, hedge-fund and private-equity pay is way beyond outrageous. Several of these fund managers are taking home more than a billion dollars a year.
At the very least, you might think that Democrats would do something about the anomaly in the tax code that treats the earnings of private-equity and hedge-fund managers as capital gains rather than ordinary income, and thereby taxes them at 15 percent -- lower than the tax rate faced by many middle-class Americans. But Senate Democrats recently backed off a proposal to do just that. Why? It turns out that Democrats are getting more campaign contributions these days from hedge-fund and private-equity partners than Republicans are getting. In the run-up to the 2006 election, donations from hedge-fund employees were running better than 2-to-1 Democratic. The party doesn't want to bite the hands that feed.
If the rich and super-rich don't pay their fair share, the middle class will get socked with the bill. But the middle class can't possibly pay it. America's middle class is under intense financial pressure. Median wages and benefits, adjusted for inflation, have been going nowhere for 30 years; health costs are soaring (employers are quickly shifting co-payments, deductibles and premiums to their employees), fuel costs are out of sight, the prices of the houses occupied by the middle class are in the doldrums.
What's fair? I'd say a 50 percent marginal tax rate on the very rich, meaning those earning over $500,000 per year. I'd also suggest an annual wealth tax of one-half of 1 percent on the net worth of people holding more than $5 million in total assets. Can't be done, you say? Well, the highest marginal tax rate under Republican Dwight Eisenhower was 91 percent. It dropped under John Kennedy to the 70 percent range. You say the rich will leave the country rather than face a marginal tax of 50 percent? Let them, and take away their citizenship.
If the Democrats stand for anything, it's a fair allocation of the responsibility for paying the costs of maintaining this nation. So far, neither the Democratic candidates for president nor the Senate Democrats have shown much eagerness to advocate this fundamental principle. It seems the rich have bought them out.
By Robert Reich
Oct. 25, 2007
New data from the Internal Revenue Service show that income inequality continues to widen. The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans earn more than 21 percent of all income. That's a postwar record. The bottom 50 percent of all Americans, when all their wages are combined, earn just 12.8 percent of the nation's income.
Considering the magnitude of challenges ahead for America, it seems only reasonable that taxes should rise on the wealthy. Taxing the super-rich is not about class envy, as conservatives charge. It's about the nation having enough money to pay for national defense and homeland security, good schools and a crumbling infrastructure, the upcoming costs of boomers' Social Security (the current surplus has masked the true extent of the current budget deficit, but it won't for much longer) and, hopefully, affordable national health insurance. Not to mention the trillion dollars or so it will take to fix the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is now starting to hit the middle class.
To some extent, the major Democratic candidates for president appear to agree. They are unanimous in their pledge to roll back the Bush tax cuts. That means that the wealthiest Americans, who are now taxed at a marginal rate of 35 percent, would go back to paying the 38 percent marginal rate they paid under Bill Clinton. So far, however, no Democrat has suggested that the nation should raise the marginal tax rate on the richest Americans above that 38 percent, as will probably be necessary if America is to avoid an economic meltdown in the years ahead.
The biggest emerging pay gap is actually within the top 1 percent of all earners. It's mainly a gap between corporate CEOs, on the one hand, and Wall Street financiers -- hedge-fund managers, private-equity managers (think Mitt Romney) and investment bankers -- on the other. According to a study by University of Chicago professors Steven Kaplan and Joshua Rauh, more than twice as many Wall Street financiers are in the top half of 1 percent of earners as are CEOs. The 25 highest-paid hedge-fund managers are earning more than the CEOs of the largest 500 companies in the Standard and Poor's 500 combined. While CEO pay is outrageous, hedge-fund and private-equity pay is way beyond outrageous. Several of these fund managers are taking home more than a billion dollars a year.
At the very least, you might think that Democrats would do something about the anomaly in the tax code that treats the earnings of private-equity and hedge-fund managers as capital gains rather than ordinary income, and thereby taxes them at 15 percent -- lower than the tax rate faced by many middle-class Americans. But Senate Democrats recently backed off a proposal to do just that. Why? It turns out that Democrats are getting more campaign contributions these days from hedge-fund and private-equity partners than Republicans are getting. In the run-up to the 2006 election, donations from hedge-fund employees were running better than 2-to-1 Democratic. The party doesn't want to bite the hands that feed.
If the rich and super-rich don't pay their fair share, the middle class will get socked with the bill. But the middle class can't possibly pay it. America's middle class is under intense financial pressure. Median wages and benefits, adjusted for inflation, have been going nowhere for 30 years; health costs are soaring (employers are quickly shifting co-payments, deductibles and premiums to their employees), fuel costs are out of sight, the prices of the houses occupied by the middle class are in the doldrums.
What's fair? I'd say a 50 percent marginal tax rate on the very rich, meaning those earning over $500,000 per year. I'd also suggest an annual wealth tax of one-half of 1 percent on the net worth of people holding more than $5 million in total assets. Can't be done, you say? Well, the highest marginal tax rate under Republican Dwight Eisenhower was 91 percent. It dropped under John Kennedy to the 70 percent range. You say the rich will leave the country rather than face a marginal tax of 50 percent? Let them, and take away their citizenship.
If the Democrats stand for anything, it's a fair allocation of the responsibility for paying the costs of maintaining this nation. So far, neither the Democratic candidates for president nor the Senate Democrats have shown much eagerness to advocate this fundamental principle. It seems the rich have bought them out.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Ron Paul Doing his Duty
Ron Paul sponsors American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007.
This bill would repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2006, restore full habeas corpus requirements, prohibit the use of secret evidence under all circumstances, and end the practice of rendition to other countries to torture terrorism suspects. It also would grant standing to Congress to sue the President over any signing statement that proposes that the President may ignore any provision of the legislation for any reason. This bill has no chance of passing in today's political fever swamp.
This bill would repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2006, restore full habeas corpus requirements, prohibit the use of secret evidence under all circumstances, and end the practice of rendition to other countries to torture terrorism suspects. It also would grant standing to Congress to sue the President over any signing statement that proposes that the President may ignore any provision of the legislation for any reason. This bill has no chance of passing in today's political fever swamp.
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