Interesting piece by Rich Lowry on how, for Obama, America’s history does not matter, and he does not conceive of himself as a defender of America’s reputation. For him, it’s practically year zero. To me this has as much to do with his narcissism as his philosophy. It’s all about him! And if he wasn’t around when America did something–such as the very morally defensible, if disastrous, Bay of Pigs invasion–then it should not matter.
On a related matter, Buchanan notes that the Achilles Heel of Democrats has long been their perceived lack of patriotism, and Obama’s recent road show will not help. I think this is right, though I also agree (and wrote earlier this week) that America may have changed so much that the old Real America may not be numerous enough to slow him down. Obama has to show himself a champion of America as a vital, historical entity, not simply as a partisan for a grab-bag of liberal principles. Bush too got burned on this when he pushed amnesty as aggressively as he did. I think this will be difficult for Obama, though, because he has almost no experience outside of Chicago and the strange locale of Hawaii. He is a bit of a stranger to his country, in particular to the values and way of life in its interior. He also lacks affection for much of is past, which, though perhaps understandable, does not make him well suited for sustaining the affection of a great many Americans.
I’m no great fan of torture, particularly in the way it was couched in extreme legalism under the Bush administration. I feel an aggressive application of the pardon power is the better solution in war time, rather than having such terrible acts done deliberately, with the patina of legality, and the consequent degradation of lawmakers and the law. But I think it’s profoundly dishonest for Obama and others to say constantly that there is no choice between security and “our values.” There are choices, and they need to be made and defended honestly based on what they entail. Obama’s days of voting “present” are over. I confess, I don’t fully understand the critics’ passion on this issue. There are times when torture might work in saving Americans from a major disaster; an honest opponent of torture–like an honest defender of civil rights–would acknowledge that there are times when we should suffer in order to follow through on this moral commitment, though I think here the scale of harm is so much greater than ordinary crime that it’s a much closer moral question. War time, unlike ordinary policing, is a different realm, and this is something the lawyer Obama and his numerous lawyer advisers fail to appreciate. There is little chance any American citizen would be “tortured.” The victims are all foreigners of one kind or another, in fact all high ranking al Qaeda members. So long as “rough interrogations” are directed outward, the harm is confined to strange enemies, not potentially innocent accused Americans. Further, this talk of “our values” is a little results-oriented and astorical Our “values” did not prevent some pretty rough treatment of the Indians or Japanese. Waterboarding was common in Vietnam. George Washington had military commissions, as did FDR. So “our values” apparently means “today’s liberal values” for most who invoke this question-begging phrase. I think Obama also will find out that the various perma-bureaucracies in DC, particularly the CIA, have ways of getting even to perceived disrespect, as evidenced this week by the leakage of memos on the effectiveness of torture in preventing a 9-11 style attack on L.A.
Lucian Reed’s photographic essay of combat in Iraq, particularly with the audio of actual combat, is haunting and powerful. I found him at the Battle Space photography portal. It’s funny how much the media has dropped Iraq; there’s still a war going on, and those of us in military families can’t afford to “tune out.”
Closer to home, a scathing portrait of Tim Geithner.
The economy still looks pretty grim, and the “bear market rally” of the last few months has been a very low volume play thing of day traders and perpetual bulls, as best I can tell. One area that is rallying, in spite of drops in commodity prices, is ammunition. While gun prices have dropped some since January, ammo’s getting impossible to find, and price has tripled from 2-3 years ago. People who used to have a hundred rounds or so sitting around the house are, quite obviously, stockpiling. This is Obama-inspired, mostly, but it’s also inspired by the general fear out there among the peasantry. This is or course a smallish market with various impediments to entry and importation, and it’s subject to occasional panics like this one. Then again, this may be “how it is” so long as a gun-grabber is in the White House.
As a “signs of the times,” perhaps fearful of the devalued dollar, China has assumed a much larger gold position in the last several years.
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I really agree with you here on torture and legalism, and on your views on international public law in general. (That’s kind of pretentious for me to say, because I don’t have any law education.) I just wish your views could get more publicity. These views seem to be trapped in that no-man’s land between the paleocons and the neocons/Republicans. But keep up the good work anyway.
Your point about torture being done to foreigners is especially important, and it needs to be repeated over and over. Humans are very good at distinguishing between “us” and “them,” between in-group and out-group. Even Americans are good at this, despite all the universalist propaganda. Therefore, slippery-slope arguments are especially unconvincing here. I mean, it’s not as if France devolved into some torture-mad police state after the Algerian war.
The only thing I’d add to your comments is that, while I agree that war-time is a different realm, it looks right now like 21st-century war is going to be different from any kind the US has seen before. Low-intensity war may become the norm, not an exceptional situation with a beginning and an end, and it seems juridical thinking should take that into account. War-time law might be normal law, which obviously has some pretty big implications.
After posting the above comment I came across a well-stated example of the kind of thinking on international public law which you seem to be opposing in your writings (I hope I’m not projecting my own opinions here). Margalit and Walzer on soldiers and noncombatants, in the NYRB (natch) at
.
I see their kind of thinking as really dangerous, which doesn’t mean I agree with the people they’re arguing against either.
My opinions on all this, for whatever they’re worth, have been strongly influenced by Carl Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum. I recommend this profound book if you haven’t read it yet.
Oops, Margalit and Walzer URL didn’t come out. I’ll try again:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22664
I am hoping that this comment gets moderated before it is published. Mr Roach, I, as you know feel very strongly about the need for America to win this war, we are a client state, and more we are tied to your success for our success. I would much appreciate the opportunity to pick your mind, off the public view of your site. Once again I am deeply impressed with your take, could you contact me with an email or something, on my site, under contact the author.
Forgive my use of your comment facility.
The GOP’s old guard needs to disabuse itself of the no true “American” fallacy, and rhetoric. An element of truth in a proposition, viscerally discomforting as it may be, does not transform it into a law of political nature. Shaking hands with Rev. Wright and Hugo Chavez may make the palms sweat and the mind weary, but doing so hardly cripples our nation.
Time to retire the petty regurgitations of what defines, or doesn’t, Obama’s tap-dancing patriotism. The whole act is old. We heard it from the Rove gang, from the neocon posse, from the tired mind of McCain and from the empty one of Palin. At best, it brings applause from the usual suspects and adds five percent to the Tea Party crowd.
Please. Move on. Buchanan and Lowry are vestiges. Bitter men who belong in a museum. Ditto their ideas. Patriotism wears a new face now, slightly darker but with no less red, white and blue in the blood. One ought to be, well, Mansized enough to proudly accept that fact and embrace the spirit.
Torture is both illegal, immoral and stupid (it is worse than a crime, it is a blunder!). The military warned the spooks that it wouldn’t work but the CIA (and their civilian Israeli contractors) took the plunge. Interestingly, the techniques used are the same as used against Palestinian prisoners of Israel, further confirming the Israeli link to the policy. That the torture wasn’t just the traditional infliction of pain but also the use of rape and various sexually degrading and humiliating acts shows that the motivation was more than just intelligence gathering.
I am not sure I buy the idea of extra-legal torture protected by presidential pardon. That’s not to say I am not for waterboarding high-ranking al Qaeda detainees – I could give a flying fuck if some al Qaeda terrorist thinks he’s going to drown or has an insect put in his cell – put a whole swarm of mosquitoes in his cell for all I care.
But I don’t think we have a society where there is enough implicit trust for a CIA agent to act in the absence of a legal framework. In the past he might have had confidence that the government and people had his back, now he might think they would have his back only long enough to stick a knife in it.
If we want to utilize torture, I think we need some sort of policy. I don’t think we need to broadcast it to the world. Maybe I am missing the legal niceties of the situation, but it seems like since we have all sorts of other classified information, why couldn’t our torture policies for high-value terrorist detainees be clearly stated but highly classified?
Maybe this just reflects our current culture of having to air our dirty laundry in public. Nobody can keep a secret anymore. As part of so called therapy, people are encouraged to disclose their little secrets to the world.
Everyone wants to go on Oprah and announce to the world how messed up they are. Daddy beat mommie, uncle Tom diddled my sister, and I suffered from depression.
In the olden days people would have rather died than disclose what should have been private matters.
For half the population revealing what the CIA has done is therapeutic. For others, including our enemies, it is a sign of weakness.
All good points. I do see the shifting political winds as a weak link in my torture idea, but, then again, I’m not sure we absolutely need torture. There are times it might be justifiable, but that’s not the same as necessary. The idea of clear but highly classified authorization makes sense, but look what’s happened under Obama. And Rusty, you raise a good point about a half of the country I barely understand.
I don’t understand a great many of my fellow citizens. Perhaps it’s my age, or my very Conservative religious values.
I believe that there will be a backlash against the more “Progressive” (Leftist) ideas and programs that Mr. Obama wants to implement. Most people, who work for a living, don’t like the idea of “income redistribution” when they are on the giving end of the spectrum. It’s human nature to want to use the fruits of one’s labor for one’s own family.
I happen to believe that Obama got elected because the Bush/Cheney administration and the Republican-controlled Congress were rotten to the core. It was “throw the bums out” time. Both the Republican brand and the GOP Prez/Veep candidates were discredited by their own actions.
Torture is wrong, no doubt about it. It was shameful for our president and VP to sign onto it. (I think that Tenant didn’t want to get blamed…so…) My instinct tells me that it hasn’t stopped; at least in certain
places where we sent/send “terrorism” prisoners. I also think that the media is looking the other way because they don’t want to make their chosen politician look bad.
“This is Obama-inspired, mostly, but it’s also inspired by the general fear out there among the peasantry.”
“the peasantry” ??? !!!! Really Roach….
“…Not unless they pry it from my cold, dead hands…” ~~EP
Speaking of “peasantry”…..
The “AWOL Civilization–Probing the ideological underpinnings of Western decline…” blog has several articles that are bursting with satire aimed at the Obamas and their administration.
http://awolcivilization.com/