FunctionalAmbivalent

The Point At Which President Obama Must Decide What Kind of Country We Are

A basic premise of the United States is that reasonable men (and women) can disagree. What has become obvious in the last few months is that it is no longer possible to remain reasonable and believe that what the Bush Administration did not torture. If you believe that, you're one of three things: ignorant, blind or dismissive of American law.

It's possible to be reasonable and believe that the torture was necessary. We live in a dangerous world, and the preservation of a civil society sometimes requires us to do uncivilized things. 

So here we are: we know the law was broken, and those who broke the laws believe their actions to be necessary and justified. The way to reconcile those two things in our Constitutional system is to have trials. We do not, as a rule, allow politicians to decide, based on political convenience, that breaking the law was all right. It is the job of judges and juries, after a public airing of the facts, to decide that in specific, narrow cases, the breaking of the law was justified.

If we're a nation that believes itself to be a shining city on a hill, inspiration and role model to the rest of the world, we have no choice. The people who ordered and justified torture must be put on trial. Ugly and embarrassing as that spectacle will be, we can either begin the legal proceedings or demonstrate to the world that we are little different from those lawless regimes that allow their leaders to do whatever they like, no matter what the law says.

This is President Obama's test. He can either stand up for America -- for it's laws and taditions -- or he can let step gingerly away from them in order to preserve his own political comfort. Heroism lies in the former, national disgrace in the latter. It's his decision to make.

Cheney and the War

I, like a lot of people, watched CNN's interview with former Vice President Cheney over the weekend, and I've read a bunch of analysis of it, arguments for and against, and two things strike me.

First, Cheney looked pretty good. Toward the end of the administration, on the few occasions when he was actually visible, he looked awful: tired and gray and apparently on the verge of death. He seems to have adjusted well to the stress-free life of a former Vice President. He looks tan and his skin has its color back and his eyes are shiny.

Second, when people look at Iraq we see two wars. The first is the war that we started under a certain set of assumptions: it would go fast; it would pay for itself; it would bolster our stature in the world; it would eliminate a substantial threat to the united States. The second is the war we have: long, difficult, expensive, progressing slowly.

The conclusion most people reach in examining the first war is that it was a mistake. The conclusion people reach in examining the second is that we need to bring it to some kind of satisfactory conclusion.

Cheney, I think, sees mostly the second war. In discussing policy, of course, it's the only war that matters. Democrats may prefer the politics of the first war, but it's not relevant at a policy level. (It is relevant politically; to many, the flaws in justification, planning and execution of the first war is the single most important reason why Republicans shouldn't be in power.) Policy shouldn't be about settling old scores, and you can't undue damage done in the past.

Where Vice President Cheney gets people's dander up, I think, is in his steadfast refusal to grapple with the consequences of the failure of the first war. An awfully lot of people want to hear him say "oops" and "I'm sorry."

Instead, he spoke of the war as a success, correctly stating:

I guess my general sense of where we are with respect to Iraq and at the end of now, what, nearly six years, is that we've accomplished nearly everything we set out to do. Now, I don't hear much talk about that, but the fact is, the violence level is down 90 percent. The number of casualties and Iraqis and Americans is significantly diminished. There's been elections, a constitution. They're about to have another presidential election here in the near future. We have succeeded in creating in the heart of the Middle East a democratically governed Iraq, and that is a big deal, and it is, in fact, what we set out to do.

The thing that the former Vice President isn't including in his calculation is the cost of our great victory in Iraq, which by all measures has been enormous. Forget the money; we're a rich country, and we can afford a couple of trillion dollars. Consider the lives, the injuries, our standing in the world and -- most importantly -- the damage done to Constitutional governance.

None of this, of course, figures into Cheney's calculation. Cheney has forgotten the first war as surely as his opponents forget the second. That seems to me that's what the argument is about. Cheney can look at the second war all he wants, but he and his party are being judged largely on the first.

History may be kinder. History will tend to forget the first war and remember the second, so there's a chance that, despite all the complexities, a thriving, democratic Iraq pulling the Middle East into the modern world will change the perception of the Bush Administration. I, personally, think it's a long shot, and it's entirely dependent on things out of our control.

It's also the only part of both wars that Dick Cheney wants to talk about.

Number Four

Today in church the pastor asked a young man and his wife to come up to the front of the church. The wife carried their young baby in her arms. The pastor put his arms around them and announced that the young man, whose name is Jimmy, would be leaving this week for basic training. He enlisted in the Army.

I think of Jimmy as one of my kids, because back when he was in high school I was his Sunday School teacher. Jimmy is the fourth of my kids to enlist and go off to war, and every one of them has been announced in church and every one of them has made eye contact with me as if my opinion of their decision mattered. I make a point, every time, of seeking them out and thanking them, but my heart is less and less in it.

Every one of these kids shares two traits: each wants badly to contribute, and each was having a hard time in the civilian world finding his right path. So it is the military that welcomes them and trains them and gives them a sense of mission. They stand in front of the church and we applaud, and they get hugs and handshakes. When basic training is over they come home in their dress uniforms and they are something to see: tall and confident and clear-eyed. And then we send them off.

Four of my kids, kids I met when they were 12 years old. One has been to Afghanistan and is back safely with a newborn child; two are overseas now with families left behind, worrying; Jimmy is on his way to basic.

I'm achingly proud of these young men. They're braver and more sacrificing than I'll ever be. But when I'm done shaking their hands and wishing them well, I pray that we're not squandering their willingness to sacrifice. I pray that we're taking very seriously what they're risking, and that we're asking them to do it for the right reasons and that we're not going to put them in jeopardy one minute longer than is absolutely necessary.

In sending young men and women off to war, that's our duty: to make sure we don't waste their willingness to sacrifice. As I wish Jimmy well and promise myself that I'll stay an attentive part of the community that's going to look after his wife and baby, I pray that we're not letting national vanity get in the way of protecting our best young men and women, protecting them even as they go off to protect us.

If There's One Thing I've Learned In Business, It's This: Don't Kill Your Investors

A leading al-Qaeda commander has called upon Muslims to rise up and kill the King of Saudi Arabia.

Today's Sermon Is From the Book of Eisenhower

In light of The New York Times' revelations about the objectivity of military analysts working for the news nets, we turn to President Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address, delivered three days before he left the White House.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry.  American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well.  But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.  Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment.  We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.  The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government.  We recognize the imperative need for this development.  Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications.  Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex.  The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.  We should take nothing for granted.  Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Eisenhower was, of course, no liberal pantywaist, but given the manly bluster of the right these days, he'd be far out to the left of where the Republican Party thinks we ought to be. There seems no awareness on the right these days that the confluence of military and industrial interests pose a challenge to our republic. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

The television news nets -- cable and broadcast -- appear to have not really cared that the analysts they were putting on the air had, in some cases, a vested financial interest in the war they were "objectively" analyzing. The nets want the ratings, the administration wants the votes, the analysts want the lobbying fees they were getting from the defense industry, the defense industry wants the revenue, and the military -- which sees the world a particular way -- gets to do what it wants to do, too. Everybody wins -- except, of course, for the country, which is gradually being ground down.

Which is what Eisenhower warned us would happen, except for the media part, which is just an added bonus.

Thought Experiment

Just imagine that five years ago, President Bush went on the air and said:

We need to invade Iraq. It's going to cost us at least 4,000 American deaths, a couple of trillion dollars, and we're going to have to occupy the country basically forever.

Question: How many votes for military action do you think he'd have got in Congress?

Not Confused

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge knows waterboarding is torture:

One of America's greatest strengths is the soft power of our value system and how we treat prisoners of war, and we don't torture. And I believe, unlike others in the administration, that waterboarding was, is — and will always be — torture. That's a simple statement.

We win wars not just because of our military power, but because of the moral rightness of how we fight and what we're fighting for. Today's Republicans, by and large, forget that this country stands for more than power.

Let's All Take a Break From Putting "Support the Troops" Bumper Stickers On Our Cars To Consider What the Bush Administration Has Done To the Troops

The United States Air Force General who is the legal adviser at Guantanamo Bay, appearing before the United States Senate, is unable to stand up for the men and women who wear the uniform.

Senator Lindsey Graham: You mean you're not equipped to give a legal opinion as to whether or not Iranian military waterboarding, secret security agents waterboarding downed airmen is a violation of the Geneva Convention?

Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann: I am not prepared to answer that question, Senator.

Before the Bush Administration, of course, we could speak out against the torture of our troops. This general and every other could have stood up, voice filled with righteous indignation, and threaten retribution if the Geneva Conventions against torture were violated. That helped protect the lives and safety of American troops in enemy captivity. Now, even the military itself is forced into silence, for fear of showing President Bush's torture policy to be what it is. And the troops in the field are pretty much on their own.

But that's OK because we all have flag pins in our lapels.

Video here.

It Will Be Interesting, At the End of This War, To Put the Parameters of "Victory" Into a List and See If That's a War That Could Have Been Sold Going In

Tony Blankley in the Washington Times demonstrates that we're getting closer and closer to declaring victory and coming home

But as of Veterans Day 2007, I think one can claim a very real expectation that next year the world may see a genuine, old-fashioned victory in the Iraq War. In five years we will have overturned Saddam's government, killed, captured or driven out of country almost all al Qaeda terrorists, suppressed the violent Shi'ite militias and induced the Sunni tribal leaders and their people to shun resistance and send their sons into the army and police and seek peaceful resolution of disputes. And we will have stood up a multisectarian, tribally inclusive army capable of maintaining the peace that our troops established.

I, personally, wish that Blankley had stopped writing after "killed, captured or driven out of the country almost all al Quaeda terrorists," since a less worshipful assessment of the rest of his definition of victory would read something like, "completed the ethnic cleansing...buddied-up with the warlords we were originally fighting...gave up completely on an Iraq that is democratic in any sense that the western world understands democracy."

Any discussion of a perfect world, in war, goes right out the window when the first shot is fired. After that, it's about best outcomes. And on the ground in Iraq, the best outcomes have been pretty bleak for pretty long. A declared "victory" is the best we're going to get out of this war, and we'd be fools not to take it. Then we get to come home, at least in the sense that "coming home" is defined as "leaving 80,000 troops there basically forever."

There's also this: Republicans in general and Neocons in particular are going to demand we keep fighting until someone pats them on the head and says, "yes, we won." To do otherwise would involve admitted that they were wrong, which is not something politicians do well. Once they've got an out, they'll take it. How convenient that everyone's view of the war seems to have us winning and drawing down the troops just in time for next fall's election.

 

I, For One, Am Shocked and Awed

Stephen Biddle, military analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations and enthusiastic promoter of the Anbar Province strategy that is all in vogue these days, explains the path that he imagines us to be on in Iraq:

Biddle also said (again, expressing his personal view) that the strategy in Iraq would require the presence of roughly 100,000 American troops for 20 years—and that, even so, it would be a "long-shot gamble."

That's a big investment for a "long shot gamble," I think.