Cooler heads might have prevailed

In 1945, President Truman appointed Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson as the chief prosecutor for the planned tribunals to try accused Nazi war criminals:

The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated. That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.

This Tribunal, while it is novel and experimental, is not the product of abstract speculations nor is it created to vindicate legalistic theories. This inquest represents the practical effort of four of the most mighty of nations, with the support of 17 more, to utilize international law to meet the greatest menace of our times-aggressive war. The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power and make deliberate and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which. leave no home in the world untouched. It is a cause of that magnitude that the United Nations will lay before Your Honors.

In the prisoners' dock sit twenty-odd broken men. Reproached by the humiliation of those they have led almost as bitterly as by the desolation of those they have attacked, their personal capacity for evil is forever past. It is hard now to perceive in these men as captives the power by which as Nazi leaders they once dominated much of the world and terrified most of it. Merely as individuals their fate is of little consequence to the world.

What makes this inquest significant is that these prisoners represent sinister influences that will lurk in the world long after their bodies have returned to dust. We will show them to be living symbols of racial hatreds, of terrorism and violence, and of the arrogance and cruelty of power. They are symbols of fierce nationalisms and of militarism, of intrigue and war-making which have embroiled Europe generation after generation, crushing its manhood, destroying its homes, and impoverishing its life. They have so identified themselves with the philosophies they conceived and with the forces they directed that any tenderness to them is a victory and an encouragement to all the evils which are attached to their names. Civilization can afford no compromise with the social forces which would gain renewed strength if we deal ambiguously or indecisively with the men in whom those forces now precariously survive.

***

No charity can disguise the fact that the forces which these defendants represent, the forces that would advantage and delight in their acquittal, are the darkest and most sinister forces in society-dictatorship and oppression, malevolence and passion, militarism and lawlessness. By their fruits we best know them. Their acts have bathed the world in blood and set civilization back a century. They have subjected their European neighbors to every outrage and torture, every spoliation and deprivation that insolence, cruelty, and greed could inflict. They have brought the German people to the lowest pitch of wretchedness, from which they can entertain no hope of early deliverance. They have stirred hatreds and incited domestic violence on every continent. These are the things that stand in the dock shoulder to shoulder with these prisoners.

The real complaining party at your bar is Civilization. In all our countries it is still a struggling and imperfect thing. It does not plead that the United States, or any other country, has been blameless of the conditions which made the German people easy victims to the blandishments and intimidations of the Nazi conspirators.

But it points to the dreadful sequence of aggressions and crimes I have recited, it points to the weariness of flesh, the exhaustion of resources, and the destruction of all that was beautiful or useful in so much of the world, and to greater potentialities for destruction in the days to come. It is not necessary among the ruins of this ancient and beautiful city with untold members of its civilian inhabitants still buried in its rubble, to argue the proposition that to start or wage an aggressive war has the moral qualities of the worst of crimes. The refuge of the defendants can be only their hope that international law will lag so far behind the moral sense of mankind that conduct which is crime in the moral sense must be regarded as innocent in law.

Civilization asks whether law is so laggard as to be utterly helpless to deal with crimes of this magnitude by criminals of this order of importance. It does not expect that you can make war impossible. It does expect that your juridical action will put the forces of international law, its precepts, its prohibitions and, most of all, its sanctions, on the side of peace, so that men and women of good will, in all countries, may have "leave to live by no man's leave, underneath the law."

Robert H. Jackson, Chief of Counsel for the United States, Nuremberg, Germany, November 21, 1945

To compare al-Qaeda directly to the Nazis is of course to give al-Qaeda far too much credit, but there is an obvious analogy to be made. Of all the reasons that the torture and other depredations of the Bush years should be investigated and prosecuted, perhaps one of the greatest and least-mentioned is this: in addition to losing our moral standing in the world, consider what the world has lost in terms of opportunities to bring organizations like al-Qaeda to light, to expose them for the cowards and liars that they are, and to begin the process of redressing the conditions so as to make such acts as the 9/11 attacks inconceivable to all humanity. I am not naive enough to think that war and terror can be stamped out solely through honesty, but the fundamental laws of human dignity and decency did not cease to function in September 2001. It is precisely the calm and measured tone of Justice Jackson that has been sorely missing for the past 7+ years. What if the knowledge gleaned from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's (pre-torture) interrogation had been made known to the world in 2003 or 2004? What more could have been accomplished in stemming the tide of hatred and violence fomented by the bin Ladens of the world if we had kept our sights on them the whole time? We will never know, and that is a loss that should not go unredressed.

America either tortures people or it doesn't (updated)

Remember the debate over the torture issue? It was back before the fears of swine flu surfaced, so it's pretty ancient now...I think it was last Friday. Near as I can tell, the position of the old Bush guard (pun intended) is that we do not torture, but it doesn't matter anyway because it's not illegal to torture, which is not something we do, anyway. I'm pretty much sick and tired of the debate, but it is a debate that apparently must be had, because there are seemingly honest, intelligent people in this country who will say with a straight face that simulating drowning by covering a person's face and repeatedly dowsing them with water until they think they are on the verge of death is not torture, but "enhanced interrogation techniques," and that we shouldn't bother with any sort of investigations into the legality of such actions because...well, I guess it's because we have better things to do. Of course, Republicans are always complaining that government is too big, so perhaps we can just use some of the extra weight to conduct investigations and prosecutions, while the important and necessary parts of the government carry on. If the alleged wrongdoers didn't do anything wrong, then they've got nothing to hide, and what would be the harm in investigating, right? Right?

I can throw the quotes of Bushies back in their faces all day, and I'd love to do so, but here's the thing: to say that investigations and prosecutions of torture would "tear this country apart" is bullshit, plain and simple. This is not an issue of right vs. left, conservative vs. liberal, or whatever. It's a question of basic human dignity. It doesn't matter what our opponents do, or what they plan to do, or what they'd like to do to us. We (and by that I mean America) hold ourselves out as the "shining city on a hill" to inspire the peoples of the world. We have squandered every last bit of goodwill that we spent the first 200+ years of our history earning from the rest of the world in the supposed name of keeping ourselves safe from...something. The Bushies never would tell us exactly what...

Investigations and prosecutions are not just necessary, they are essential...not just to regain the world's respect, but to regain respect for ourselves. If this truly is a partisan issue, if there really is an argument to be made for legally sanctioned and clandestine torture, then let that argument be made out in the open, within the hearing of all Americans and the world, open to discussion and debate. If having such a debate would be damaging to our republic, if it would somehow damage our ability to "move forward," it does not matter. If we cannot address our own wrongdoing without ripping ourselves apart, then we are just prolonging the inevitable. America is more than a nation, and at the risk of sounding trite, it is an idea that has endured longer than most states ever have. America is a dream of freedom and liberty under law. Let those laws work, and if it tears us apart in the process, what was it that we were really holding together in the first place?

UPDATE: Gene Lyons at Salon has two excellent pieces on the genesis of this whole debacle here and here.

UPDATE II: Ditto for Gary Kamiya:

Those opposed to reopening the book on the Bush years argue that doing so would tear the country apart. They're right -- but they forget that the country is already torn apart. The gulf between Democrats and Republicans has never been wider. The Republican Party, the home of those who still defend the Bush years, has become a reactionary and increasingly marginal movement that is in fealty to crude demagogues like Rush Limbaugh and whose hysterical denunciations of Obama sound more and more unhinged.

What this means is that those Americans who would be truly outraged by an investigation are already outraged. It could not make them any angrier or more bitter than they already are. And even if it did, how much difference would that make? The GOP base already regards Democrats as terrorist-coddling communists. Are they going to all join militias?

I kind of suspect that Mr. Kamiya has not been to Texas recently, or he might not be so sanguine about the idea of Republicans joining militias. I still prefer that to everyone hiding their true colors.

I suppose it's possible that for some the battle lines have not yet been drawn. I certainly hope not, though.

Adventures in police statism

A while back, I extended a challenge to Bill O'Reilley to allow himself to be tasered to prove his claim that it's no big deal. I didn't actually expect a response. I am glad, though, to see that another torture apologist, Christopher Hitchens, has put his money where his mouth is and subjected himself to waterboarding. His conclusion? Uh, okay, it is torture after all, sorry. And BillO remains everyone's bitch.

Tom Tancredo messes with Texas

Colorado Republican Congressman Tom "I See Brown People" Tancredo got booed at a hearing in Brownsville when he suggested that the proposed border fence go to the north of Brownsville (I wish I were making this up) (h/t Crooks and Liars, who has the video):

Boos and hisses emanated from the audience for a congressional field hearing when Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado dismissed residents' concerns that the effort to build 670 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border by year's end would damage the environment and destroy a centuries-old bond between residents on both sides of the Rio Grande.

Late in the five-hour hearing, Tancredo returned to a comment made earlier by panelist Betty Perez, a rancher and local activist. Perez said, ``It really isn't a border to most of us who live down here.''

Tancredo dismissed Perez's remarks as a ``multiculturalist attitude toward borders.''

As jeers rose, Tancredo added, ``I suggest that you build this fence around the northern part of your city.''

Brownsville sits at the southernmost tip of Texas, where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico. The border fence as planned would cut through the campus of the University of Texas at Brownsville and Southmost Texas College, leaving its golf course on the Mexican side.

Gosh, so many possible remarks...I'll start off with "multiculturalist attitude toward borders" being a sufficient reason to dismiss an enture argument--that makes absolutely no fricking sense...unless you are aware of some overriding "American" culture that is threatened by our proximity to a country like Mexico...so full of...Mexicans...it must have been horrible for Tom. Actually, it just lends some credence to my hypothesis that he is an insufferable fuckwad.

Another point--Congressman Tancredo is from Colorado. That cuts both ways, actually. On the one hand, he has very little to worry about: Colorado is about 800 miles north and 5,000 to 10,000 feet above Mexico. To get there, Mexicans not only have to trek across a big-ass desert, but then they have to climb. I know they're up to it, but Colorado is a less likely place when California and Texas are sitting right there. On the other hand, the state is called Colorado...could this be a form of linguistic invasion? As a proud American and Texan (and therefore the inheritor of two helpings of whoop-ass served to Mexico), I suggest, nay, demand that "Colorado" be given its proper English name, the State of Red-Colored. Say it a few times--it gets easier. The first option is quite a bit more plausible, don't you think?

At this point, my apologies to Mexico. My taunts were purely illustrative as part of my Tancredo-as-fuckwad exegesis. As a lifelong Texan and Salma Hayek fan, I assure you I meant no offense.

As a quick aside to those who are not too familiar with Texas, Brownsville is the southernmost city in the state, and possibly the southernmost city in the continental U.S. except for the Florida Keys (which technically aren't on the continent anyway). It's not a very good place to try to stir up Mexicophobia or to use the term "multicultural" in a pejorative sense. It is, however, a good place to crash if all the hotels at South Padre are booked up. Also, Kris Kristofferson was born there.

To sum up: Congressman Tom Tancredo has a serious problem with non-Americans, and very poor argumentative skills. He's also a U.S. fucking Congressman, which makes his inability to form a coherent thought all the more good cause for sleep deprivation. Hopefully he will continue to publicly embarrass himself like he did in Brownsville, and his ideas will fade into obscurity along with his career.

In closing, then, two thoughts: 1. Piss off, Congressman. 2. ¡Viva México!

Arlington Cemetery will keep funerals private, even when the family doesn't want them to

Think of it as the Iraq ostrich syndrome (h/t HuffPo): out of sight, out of mind:

Lt. Col. Billy Hall, one of the most senior officers to be killed in the Iraq war, was laid to rest yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery. It's hard to escape the conclusion that the Pentagon doesn't want you to know that.

The family of 38-year-old Hall, who leaves behind two young daughters and two stepsons, gave their permission for the media to cover his Arlington burial -- a decision many grieving families make so that the nation will learn about their loved ones' sacrifice. But the military had other ideas, and they arranged the Marine's burial yesterday so that no sound, and few images, would make it into the public domain.

That's a shame, because Hall's story is a moving reminder that the war in Iraq, forgotten by much of the nation, remains real and present for some. Among those unlikely to forget the war: 6-year-old Gladys and 3-year-old Tatianna. The rest of the nation, if it remembers Hall at all, will remember him as the 4,011th American service member to die in Iraq, give or take, and the 419th to be buried at Arlington. Gladys and Tatianna will remember him as Dad.

The two girls were there in Section 60 yesterday beside grave 8,672 -- or at least it appeared that they were from a distance. Journalists were held 50 yards from the service, separated from the mourning party by six or seven rows of graves, and staring into the sun and penned in by a yellow rope. Photographers and reporters pleaded with Arlington officials.

"There will be a yellow rope in the face of the next of kin," protested one photographer with a large telephoto lens.

"This is the best shot you're going to get," a man from the cemetery replied.

"We're not going to be able to hear a thing," a reporter argued.

"Mm-hmm," an Arlington official answered.

The distance made it impossible to hear the words of Chaplain Ron Nordan, who, an official news release said, was leading the service. Even a reporter who stood surreptitiously just behind the mourners could make out only the familiar strains of the Lord's Prayer. Whatever Chaplain Nordan had to say about Hall's valor and sacrifice were lost to the drone of airplanes leaving National Airport.

This makes me mad.

Explosive nipple rings???

Will someone please explain how this furthers the interests of national security and/or airline safety?:

A Texas woman who said she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane called Thursday for an apology by federal security agents and a civil rights investigation.

"I wouldn't wish this experience upon anyone," Mandi Hamlin said at a news conference. "My experience with TSA was a nightmare I had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way."

Hamlin, 37, said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on Feb. 24 when she was scanned by a Transportation Security Administration agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.

The female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in front of Hamlin's chest, the Dallas-area resident said.

Hamlin said she told the woman she was wearing nipple piercings. The agent then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the jewelry, Hamlin said.

Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked whether she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was out, she said.

She was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped piercing but had trouble with the second, a ring.

***

She said she heard male TSA agents snickering as she took out the ring. She was scanned again and was allowed to board even though she still was wearing a belly button ring.

Any ideas??? Anyone??? Am I going to be denied entry to an airport because I have braces? Either the TSA has too much power and too little of a mandate, or we are all just waaaaaaay too paranoid.

While the thought of having my own nipples pierced causes me to collapse shuddering into the fetal position, I will defend to the death other peoples' right to do as they will to their own nipples.

Besides, this isn't national security, it's (O, for a less-cliched phrase) sexual harassment.

Malum prohibitum: Why is the basic transactional part of prostitution illegal, anyway? - UPDATED

It's pretty much par for the course nowadays that more than a few authority figures love the outside-the-mainstream kinky stuff. I have about as much sympathy for Eliot Spitzer as I did for Larry Craig (i.e. none). Still, there is a looming and largely unasked question here: Why is the act of two consenting adults, in private, agreeing to exchange money for sex a crime? Above all, why is it a federal crime in this case? Glenn Greenwald explores this question in some depth, as does Digby. I also recommend Digby's post for its historical review of the Mann Act, the archaic 1910 federal law invoked to federally prosecute prostitution-related offenses.

In all seriousness, while I think Eliot Spitzer deserves to be hoisted upon his own petard (I never get tired of that phrase), doesn't the federal government have better things to do? Isn't there a war still going on or something?

Some discussion of the question (thanks to a quick and highly unscientific Google search) can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here. A common thread among arguments for keeping prostitution illegal involves legalization's supposed windfall for pimps and its further demeaning effect on women, not to mention an increase in human trafficking. I don't want to pick on this site too much, because I know they do a lot of good work, but their "10 Reasons for Not Legalizing Prostitution" do not hold much water. A more in-depth look at this page may come in a future post. There is absolutely no denying that human trafficking and the continued subjugation of women is a problem all over the world. These are terrible problems that deserve smart, effective soultions. Wiretapping a guy who spends $1K-5K per hour for the services of an "escort" is not one of those solutions. Going after the traffickers, educating the women most likely to be victimized by said traffickers, and working to alleviate the conditions that might cause women to fall prey to a trafficker are more likely to help. But they won't make for prurient headlines.

In a final note for the moment, I present further evidence regarding the death of irony (or at least one of its more pathetic gasps): Newsweek has commentary on the whole sordid affair from Heidi Fleiss.

UPDATE (3/13/08): Ditto everything Glenn Greenwald says here. Viva sarcasm!

A friendly reminder

"When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter. Courts can sustain exclusive presidential control in such a case only by disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject. Presidential claim to a power at once so conclusive and preclusive must be scrutinized with caution, for what is at stake is the equilibrium established by our constitutional system."

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., et al v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 637-38 (1952, J. Jackson, concurring)

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

Karl Rove is either (a) a somewhat-high-functioning psychotic, or (b) so accustomed to lying that it comes as naturally to him as a morning whizz. For those not in the know, he is now claiming that the Bush Administration did not want the Iraq war vote to happen in the fall of 2002 because it would be "too political" or some such crap. Watch the clip in the above link. It's unintentional hilarity.

Dixie-Chicking

Truthdig has a great piece on the modern-day equivalent of blacklisting, now known in some circles as "Dixie-Chicking":

[A]ll hell broke loose after Maines’ on-stage comment made the media rounds. The Chicks lost most of their airtime on right-leaning country western radio; CD and concert ticket sales plummeted. Egged on by reactionary FreeRepublic.com bloggers and DJs, ex-fans destroyed Chicks CDs en masse during the ensuing “Dixie Chicks Destruction” campaign. Concerts were picketed by red-baiters who called the Chicks “traitors” and “communists,” although the group’s fans were divided, and some remained loyal. Worst of all, bomb-sniffing dogs and metal detectors were deployed at Dixie Chicks concerts. Under heavy security, the Texas trio confronted a 2003 death threat at a Dallas performance, after a letter threatened to shoot Maines in the same city where JFK had been gunned down 40 years earlier. For his part, President Bush appeared to egg on the Chicks’ persecutors, saying: “They shouldn’t have their feelings hurt just because some people don’t want to buy their records.”

As best I can recall, most of the backlash against the Dixie Chicks was juvenile at best ("chicken toss" parties??? Grow up, folks.) A now-amusing comment from April 2003:

Apparently Maines didn't learn much after the September 11 attacks. The American people have become much more patriotic, and while there are many opinions about the war in Iraq, there are also many casualties for those that speak out on subjects that are considered by many as un-American.

Seeing as how America was founded through the ultimate act of protest (not that I'm advocating armed rebellion per se), it can hardly hurt to have a trio of singers state an opinion (one that has been rather, uh, vindicated by the ensuing 4 1/2 years of events, I dare say). Most of the complaints against the Dixie Chicks, judging from the documentary "Shut Up & Sing," centered on their lack of patriotism and/or their stupidity.

Well, as for their patriotism, as we all learned during the Clinton impeachment, this is a nation of laws, not men, so criticism of any sitting president is not the same as criticism of America. And criticism of America is not always a bad thing. As for the stupidity comments, I'll just say that (a) the Dixie Chicks are hella-good songwriters and performers, and (b) George W. Bush once said this:

My job is a decision-making job, and as a result, I make a lot of decisions.

History will decide.



BTW, Ted Nugent is still a pussy.

A nation of pants-piddlers

Great article by Rick Perlstein on America's inability to confront anything scary.

Squeal like a pig, Rush

This won't change anyone's mind, as I think opinions are probably entrenched by now, but it's still funny.

They're trying to make our country better, dammit

Spouses of servicemembers are being deported. It seems like a no-brainer to me that people serving overseas shouldn't have to also be fighting immigration battles here. The counter-argument-that-wasn't that CNN offers from Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies is less than convincing--he pretty much just calls the idea another amnesty that's "ridiculous" or some equally unhelpful word. The soldier in question states it so bluntly that all immigration critics should be ashamed: "I'm trying to make this country--my country--better."

So let's lay this situation out. An individual volunteers for military service and goes overseas, most likely to Iraq or Afghanistan, to take part in "the defining struggle of our time." Back home, that person's spouse is facing deportation for one or more administrative reasons (note that the woman in the CNN report linked above came here "illegally" when she was five years old. Her children are most likely U.S. citizens, assuming they were born here.) These deportations are supported mostly by people who are not taking part in "the greatest force for liberation that humankind has ever known," and who do not stand to lose anything personally by supporting such proceedings.

This is, to put it as mildly as I am capable, bullshit.

To judge from his ever-so-brief Wikipedia biography, Mark Krikorian has never served a day in uniform (if I'm wrong, I'll take it back, just let me know). He argues here that there are no jobs that Americans "won't do," so there's no need to import foreign labor (i.e. for the shit jobs like scrubbing toilets that pay so little no American will do it). Again, I doubt he has ever scrubbed a toilet in his life. And lest this seem like an irrelevant ad hominem attack, keep in mind that this guy's whole argument boils down to knowledge of human behavior and human nature (i.e. "Sure, Americans will be happy to mow lawns and wash dishes for pennies an hour! How do I know? Uh, because I'm an American!") While there is a certain populist appeal to the idea that no work should be "beneath" Americans, it is the messenger I doubt more than the message. Show me that you are willing to do the heavy lifting, Mr. Krikorian, and maybe I'll start to believe you.

In the meantime, for fuck's sake stop deporting soldiers' spouses!!! Give them something to fight for, dammit!

Turns out this actually is against the law

CNN has a report on a veteran in Reno, NV who took offense to a Mexican flag flying above the U.S. flag over a local store, and took it upon himself to remove the offending flag (although from the video, it looks like he removed both.)

It turns out that it actually is against federal law to fly another flag higher than, or even adjacent to, the U.S. flag, except in certain circumstances. It's in Title 4, Chapter 1 of the U.S. Code (the collected, codified federal statutes). Section 7 provides as follows:

(c) No other flag or pennant should be placed above or, if on the same level, to the right of the flag of the United States of America, except during church services conducted by naval chaplains at sea, when the church pennant may be flown above the flag during church services for the personnel of the Navy. No person shall display the flag of the United Nations or any other national or international flag equal, above, or in a position of superior prominence or honor to, or in place of, the flag of the United States at any place within the United States or any Territory or possession thereof: Provided, That nothing in this section shall make unlawful the continuance of the practice heretofore followed of displaying the flag of the United Nations in a position of superior prominence or honor, and other national flags in positions of equal prominence or honor, with that of the flag of the United States at the headquarters of the United Nations. (Emphasis added)

The thing is, the U.S. Code does not seem to prescribe any particular criminal penalty for violating this section (although I didn't look all that hard.) I do know that one of my former law partners once defended a guy charged with criminal mischief, a misdemeanor in Texas (unless the damage is greater than $1,500), for doing the exact same thing here in Austin (i.e. tearing down a Mexican flag he deemed offensive). So please, don't go running around tearing down any non-U.S. flags you see.

I just can't seem to get all worked up about the Mexican flag, though. I do remember being bemused by people protesting the immigration issue with Mexican and other flags (although much of this may have been overblown.) Maybe it's my Texas heritage (we've beat 'em before, we can do it again, or something like that). Maybe it's a failure of patriotism. Maybe it's just that there are far, far bigger threats to the U.S. than the position of our flag on the streets of the Biggest Little City in the World.

I'd love to see BillO take a taser hit

Bill O'Reilly claims he's been tasered and that that kid in Florida is a "wimp." The search is apparently on for any footage of the tasering of Bill O'Reilly. I say why should we do all the work? If BillO could be tasered once, he could do it again. So bring a cop on your show and show us all how getting tasered is no big deal, Bill. I triple dog dare you...

The unsung hero of the Larry Craig case

I know Larry Craig is probably old news by now, and I've certainly beat the dead horse off...uh...too many puns... Anyway, I hadn't given the matter any further thought, even despite my recent trip through several airports. Today, however, Barbara Ehrenreich raised a point that had not yet occurred to me:

Short of some undisclosed evidence that the 9/11 killers were closeted Wahabist gays, you may wonder, as I do, why - with the "threat level" at an ominous orange - agents of the law are being deployed to detect people of alternative sexualities. Larry Craig was apprehended by a man apparently consigned to spend his entire day on the can, watching for errant fingers. Possibly this fellow has some intestinal issues which made this a necessary posting. But, sphincter control permitting, could he not have been more usefully employed, say, interviewing passengers as to their willingness to blow themselves up to score some theological point?

How long, exactly, did this vice cop spend on that particular can, just waiting for somebody to tap their feet and do something with their fingers? How many superiors did this cop have to piss off to get this duty? And what happens if, say, he spends an entire eight-hour shift sitting in a stall...waiting...waiting...and no one taps their feet or does anything to invite attention--what kind of impact will that have on that officer's self-esteem? I mean, eight hours and nobody wanted to give him a bathroom hummer??? That has to be hurtful on some level, be it professional or personal.

There actually is a more serious point to make here. The "threat level" does seem to still be hovering around orange, meaning that we should all be generically afraid and thank Bush for the safety we have--but given that "high" risk, can we afford to lose even a single law enforcement officer to "stall duty"? Unless, of course, the next terrorist plot is to unleash a mass public fellating in men's rooms everywhere.

"We are strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals"

One day after the day that supposedly changed everything, I read this column by Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald that allowed me to breathe again, and gave me a sense of calm pride that We (by that I mean we Americans) could weather whatever storm was about to be unleashed. I am reposting it in its entirety (from a site where it had been reposted before) because I so desperately want to feel the way I felt the first time I read it.

By Leonard Pitts Jr.
Published Wednesday, September 12, 2001

We'll go forward from this moment
It's my job to have something to say. They pay me to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the American soul. But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering.

You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard.

What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed.

Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause. Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve. Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.

Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae -- a singer's revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse. We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though -- peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.

Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of this makes us weak. You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals.

IN PAIN
Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock. We're still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did, still working to make ourselves understand that this isn't a special effect from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot development from a Tom Clancy novel. Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition and the probable final death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism in the history of the United States and, probably, the history of the world. You've bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.

But there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice.

I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people, as you, I think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me to tremble with dread of the future.

In the days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. There will be heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We'll go forward from this moment sobered, chastened, sad. But determined, too. Unimaginably determined.

THE STEEL IN US
You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent. That aspect of our character is seldom understood by people who don't know us well. On this day, the family's bickering is put on hold.

As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.

So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that's the case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange: You don't know my people. You don't know what we're capable of. You don't know what you just started.

But you're about to learn.

Six years later, I shudder to ask what has been learned. The list of blunders committed in all our names since then is by now familiar enough to anyone who cares to hear it that it need not be repeated yet again. The opportunities missed and the goodwill squandered is too much to bear. Have we truly risen "in defense of all that we cherish"? I have seen no end to the "recrimination and accusation," no real talk of "what can be done to prevent it from happening again."

The "monsters," the "beasts," and the "unspeakable bastards" are still out there. We are still arguing over who strutted most bravely on that day, and who will fail to protect us the least.

So I ask again, what have the unspeakable bastards learned about us? What have we learned about us?

Blogging from Bergstrom

I'm sitting at Austin Bergstrom Int'l Airport at the moment, and I have a new idea for a drinking game. I'll call it the TSA Drinking Game.

Every time you hear the words "suspicious behavior," drink.

Trust me, you won't be able to make it to your flight, or even stand up, if you play this game.

Bringing back Caesar

I'm not sure if the original article is even available anymore, but I wouldn't link to it even if it were--discussion of it is available here and here.

By elevating popular fancy over truth, Democracy is clearly an enemy of not just truth, but duty and justice, which makes it the worst form of government. President Bush must overcome not just the situation in Iraq, but democratic government ....

That's someone named Philip Atkinson from somewhere called "Family Security Matters" (clearly an irony-free area), arguing that Bush is hamstrung by the whims of the American electorate, and that the real problem with Iraq is that we did not kill every single person there:

If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results: popularity with his military; enrichment of America by converting an Arabian Iraq into an American Iraq (therefore turning it from a liability to an asset); and boost American prestige while terrifying American enemies.

Perhaps I am naive, but I do not automatically associate the extermination of an entire nation (whose people, I might add, did nothing to us) with greater morale and poluarity in the U.S. military. It gets even better:

He could then follow Caesar's example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court.

This actually makes a military coup sound kind of quaint, almost.

I'm sure this is nothing more than another case of right-wing penis envy, given that the host website has apparently eliminated everything related to this guy. There is probably a greater chance of people like this holding actual sway in Washington than of the mythological fear of Islamists seizing power there, but still not likely. I suppose the question to ask is: Is Atkinson's view the kind of America we want?

Be careful what you wish for

Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast:

The weaselly Democrats are too fucking frightened to take on this lunatic [Bush], even if it means that thousands more American families receive the knock on the door that no one wants to hear. No price in American lives is too much to pay for them to keep their jobs and not have to expend the effort to explain to the Fox Noisebots in their districts what's really going on. God knows the Republicans won't do it; they're too busy getting off -- and making money -- off of the war effort.

That leaves the military. We know that Congress won't live up to its Constitutional duty to remove this guy from office before he can do any more harm to the Constitution and to our country. We are now left with only the hope that the military will rise up and say "Enough."

A military coup -- that's what it's come to, folks. Because that's the only thing that will rescue us form the clutches of this monster.

A few minutes later, she posts the ominous news that "[m]embers of the 1st Battalion 265 Air Defense Artillery have mobilized and are on a plane headed first to Ft. Bliss, then for federal active duty in the capital region." Although it's probably nothing, I am a bit concerned about calls for a military coup of some sort. They don't always go well.

Seriously, though, I have generally figured that if anyone has the capability to call Bush on his bullshit, it is the military leaders. I will never advocate any sort of military coup, just based on knowledge of history, but it may not come to that. (Fred Kaplan did offer an interesting argument last year that "a military coup in this country right now would probably have a moderating influence.") The U.S. may just run out of combat-ready troops soon, anyway, which presumably would force the civilian leadership to pay more attention to the military leadership.