Terrorism: December 2007 Archives

I want to defend the people who disposed of the CIA tapes showing us interrogating Al Qaeda suspects. I want to indict the people who did the both the taping and the torturing. I believe that torture is wrong. I believe that videotaping our agents torturing bad guys is just stupid. This is like celebrities taping sex acts and expecting them not to show up on the net. They will show up and at the very worst possible time.

So, just what were they thinking when they taped prisoners who were (I am confident in fact bad guys), undergoing “stress questioning?” I’m assuming it wasn’t for pornographic reasons—though that is possible. (Please see: Herr Doktor Kraft-Ebbing). Someone thought it might be a good idea to document the interrogations. Well, someone was wrong.

I am not shocked that we transgress. I am very shocked when we are stupid, cover up badly and hold no one accountable. There are times when we push the boundaries. Torture is not legal and should never be legal. But it happens. What should we do when it happens? We should count on the bravery and patriotism of our people, and they should own up and take the hit. They should tell the truth and go on trial. If it was important enough to make someone choose to break our laws, they should be subject to justice. With any luck, their peers will acquit them if the case was urgent enough.

The same should be the case with taping these interrogations and then disposing of the tapes. I’d send the idiot who called for the tapes to be made to jail for gross incompetence. The people who disposed of the tapes however could be heroes. Had these tapes come out—and as with sex tapes, you have to count on it—they would have been played 24/7 on Al Jazeera and Al Arabia. And if you believe our standing is low in the Arab and Muslim World today, please know that there is still a great distance we could and would fall.

The cover up attempt however is wrong on so many levels. We cannot have a system of law and justice when our agencies and branches of government lie to each other—and lie under oath. If you want to know why there are conspiracy theories regarding nearly everything we do, it is because we chip away at our own credibility. The damage is mostly self-inflicted. The CIA does not get to lie to the 9-11 Commission. They do not get to swear that no tapes exist when tapes do exist. A patriot might order the destruction of the tapes and stand up and justify the act. But we cannot have a government of liars who continue to harm our us by evading and avoiding their patriotic duty to serve the interests of our nation.

The great question is not if we are perfect. We are not. The question is if we can violate our laws with absolute impunity or if we believe in and practice accountability? The elephant ate my homework evasion should not be allowed to stand.

I must admit that when I first began reading Jonathan's post about fellow Democrats' benign neglect of the Hamas-loving Mike Gravel, I thought, "So they ignored the yahoo in the room. Big deal, politicians do that all the time." But then Jonathan got me with the line, "Had he made analogous charges or observations as starkly offensive to Blacks, Hispanics, Asians or gays, can you imagine the other Democrats remaining silent? Don’t you think that someone would have challenged him?"

Jonathan is absolutely right. The silence here is damning. And so is this press release, which appeared in my inbox late yesterday afternoon:

DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE MIKE GRAVEL
TO SPEAK AT MPAC CONVENTION ON DEC. 15

(Los Angeles - 11/30/07) -- The Muslim Public Affairs Council today announced that Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Gravel will be a keynote speaker at its seventh annual convention on December 15 in Long Beach, CA.

A two-term U.S. Senator from Alaska, Gravel is best known for his blunt, no-nonsense approach in the Democratic Presidential debates where he's known to rail against the war in Iraq with the same outrage he used to condemn the one in Vietnam. In 1971, Gravel ordered the top-secret "Pentagon Papers" - a series of secret government reports that chronicled United States failures in Vietnam - into the Congressional Record and then went on to lead a one-man filibuster in the Senate that led to the end the military draft in 1973.

SEE: Mike Gravel's Comments During the 3rd Democratic Presidential Debate

SEE: "Mike Gravel, An Anti-War Crusader for Two Generations" (Kansas City Star, 11/21/07)

Gravel has been written off by media commentators as unelectable and has little money to finance his White House bid, but he has been able to keep his hopes alive through YouTube and the Internet. Low in the polls, he was blocked from the two most recent Democratic debates in October and November. His primary reason for running for the presidency is to advance his agenda for direct national elections on issues, called the "National Initiative."

SEE ALSO: Interview with Mike Gravel on "This is America with Dennis Wholey"

"The whole reason I am running is to empower the people," Gravel told AFP. "What the people need to be able to do is to be put in position so they can vote on the policies issues that affect their lives."

MPAC invited all of the Presidential candidates from both parties to address the Muslim American community at the annual convention. To date, Gravel is the only candidate who has accepted....

This is just a bad, bad move on MPAC's part. Fine -- the organization invited all the candidates, and only Gravel said yes. Sure, it should let Gravel, and any other candidate who wants to speak, get a spot at its convention. But to issue a gushing press release extolling the virtues of a candidate who just so happens to be an apologist for two Muslim terrorist organizations ... well, let's just say that's going to do very little to debunk the pernicious stereotypes that MPAC ostensibly exists to counter.

Several outrageous things happened and, worse, didn’t happen during the Democratic debate on NPR on Tuesday. I am truly upset and angry with all the Democratic candidates running for the presidential nomination. I am deeply offended mostly at what they did not say.

Loose cannon, former Senator from Alaska, Mike Gravel, usually portrayed as the weird eccentric who is even better for a laugh than Dennis Kucinich, defended Iran’s support of Hamas and Hezbollah. He wondered why we think, “there's something wrong with Iran supporting Hamas and Hezbollah? These are two elected organizations, and — and why can't they (Iran) give support to those organizations? Israel doesn't want it, so why do they (the Democratic candidates) buy hook, line and sinker that they can't give aid to Hamas and Hezbollah?” He continued that, “We give unlimited aid to Israel. These people (the Palestinians) are fighting for their rights.”

Okay, you can say that he is a nut or a radical. You can explain that he doesn’t really represent the mainstream of the Democratic Party. You can marginalize him and explain him away.

What you cannot explain away, forget, or in my view forgive, is the silence of the other Democrats. No one said, “Hey wait. I want to respond to that.” No one distanced themselves from him or followed up his endorsement of the aims and methods of Hamas and Hezbollah with an objection. No one questioned or denounced his creating a “moral equivalence” between Israel and Hamas/Hezbollah terrorists.

Notice that he was not simply advocating for a Palestinian state or remarking on the pain of the Palestinians. He was specifically equating Iran’s support of two terrorist organizations that reject a two-state solution and the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, with our aid to Israel. How could this go uncommented upon? If silence connotes assent, what did these candidates convey by their silence?

They all simply moved on to the next question. Maybe they were embarrassed. Possibly they didn’t want to give the issue further airing. They can spin it today as not wanting to “dignify” his rant. However, let’s try a little thought problem: Had he made analogous charges or observations as starkly offensive to Blacks, Hispanics, Asians or gays, can you imagine the other Democrats remaining silent? Don’t you think that someone would have challenged him?

As a life-long liberal, people often challenge me to explain why the Jewish Community is no longer as predictably and overwhelmingly liberal as we once were? Some theorize that once we got money and property, we abandoned our ideals and sense of social justice and compassion. I do not accept this at all. If you want to understand why the center of gravity of the local Jewish Community has moved to the right, listen to the heartbreaking and deafening silence of Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Kucinich and Obama. Remember the famous quotation attributed to Edmond Burke, “All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men (and one woman) do nothing."

I am also unhappy that this story, Gravel’s words and the silence of the Democrats, has been met with like silence from the media. Where is the outrage? Where is the coverage?

Consider, dearest readers, the case of Ms. Gillian Gibbons.

Full of impractical thoughts - but good intentions and the right feelings - Ms. Gibbons sashayed from Britain down to The Sudan a few months ago, intent to teach the bright youngins of Khartoum's Unity High School.

"What's that," you say, dearest reader, "ain't Sudan the place that George Clooney goes running around clandestine-like 'cause there's murder and maheym and genocide?"

Um, yeah.

"Ain't the government of Sudan pretty much allowing this genocide to occur," you query.

Um, yes again.

"Ain't Sudan full of Radical muslims, and ain't most of the murder and mayhem being caused by them," you query, puzzled by the plainest of facts.

The answer is yes, indeed, and your confusion is well founded, I assure you. A war zone is an unpleasant place to live. It's really difficult place to teach school, though doing so is courageous. That is, unless, of course, you're not a local, and you're heading into a place where the bulk of the locals want to kill you in the name of the Jihad. Then you're just plain stupid.

Ms. Gibbons, it seems, didn't quite accept that folks who crash airplanes into buildings in the name of religion - or who actively support genocide of peasants - might be a tad off kilter. No no, they just need a few good examples and positive feeeeeeelings, and all will be right in the universe.

All they need is love, no?

Well, no.

"A conservative," it has been said, "is a Liberal who has been mugged."

Perhaps Ms. Gibbons will come to realize the gravity and insult of the intellectual mugging she's just received. And, perhaps, she will join those of us who recognize the enemy for what it is, and stop coddling the irrational with feelings.

Feelings are nice, but they won't salve 40 lashings - not even those inflicted for a teddy bear.