Later On

Jeff Kaye at Firedoglake:

In commemoration of the passage of the treaty known as the Convention Against Torture (CAT), the United Nations declared June 26 the International Day of Support of Victims of Torture, I want to review where we are in the fight against U.S. torture today. I also want to revisit some important episodes in the history of how we arrived here, including the a look at the role of top U.S. behavioral scientists in the construction of a torture program for the CIA and military.

The U.S. is formally a signatory to CAT, but from the day it was ratified by the U.S. Senate, the treaty was eviscerated by a number of "reservations, declarations, and understandings", which legalisms were meant to shield the United States from actions that any reasonable person would understand constitute torture or cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment of prisoners. Still, the CAT remained a formidable obstacle to the Bush/Cheney lawyers, when they were drawing up their memorandum to allow torture. Yoo, Bybee and Bradbury made sure they addressed legal problems for the administration faced by the treaty the U.S. signed, and turned rhetorical and forensic somersaults to make sure that no one would charge U.S. actors for the crimes of torture.

Meanwhile, the administration of Barack Obama has made a fetish of the idea that U.S. society must not "look backward," and refuses to promote the necessary investigations and prosecutions of the crimes undertaken by the Bush/Cheney administration — and this is true even after recent revelations indicate that besides torture, illegal human experimentation on prisoners also occurred. Even worse, there is plenty of evidence to now indicate the Obama administration has itself embraced the policies of rendition,secret prisons, assassination, and abuse of prisoners.

Nor has Congress acquitted itself especially well. The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) undertook an in-depth investigation of Department of Defense involvement in detainee abuse, producing a fairly redacted public report that described how the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency and its Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape school (SERE) personnel were utilized to teach torture methods to the CIA, the DIA, and Special Operations teams (and perhaps others — see PDF report). Nevertheless, the SASC never recommended any specific reforms, and not one high-ranking military officer was held accountable for what had occurred. The use of JPRA personnel in interrogations remained "a policy decision" to be decided by the Secretary of Defense — who happens to remain, over a third of the way through Obama’s current term of office, Bush Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

The Senate and House Intelligence Committees were supposedly briefed on the CIA’s interrogation program, but as a number of articles by Marcy Wheeler have documented, the CIA lied about who was briefed, and falsified the evidence of the briefings when it was convenient to them.

Even so, one could criticize the overall actions of Congress on the torture issue. The Senate Intelligence Committee currently is investigating the circumstances around the CIA’s interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, and other aspects of the CIA "enhanced interrogation" program, including charges of human experimentation. But this investigation is behind closed doors, and we cannot judge its efficacy, nor does it do what real investigations of torture should do: educate the public about what has occurred, and mobilize society for the necessary task of cleaning up the government from the infection of torture and brutality that debilitates it. In order to keep the truth at bay, ever-increasing attacks against whistleblowers, ever-increasing encroachments on civil liberties and privacy, are taking place.

On this International Day of Support of Victims of Torture, I offer a reposting of an article of mine from last year, posted at Jason Leopold’s The Public Record. This is an important article that details the origins of the torture program, and demonstrates the importance of delaying real accountability. A failure to end the practice of torture has resulted in increasing militarism, increasing governmental secrecy, and the empowerment of a clique of individuals whose operations and immorality have penetrated to every major societal institution.

If this article is too long for you, bookmark it and read it later. Send it to your iPad or Kindle, print it out and read it at your leisure (though you might miss the hyperlinks). As an accompanying piece, you might also wish to take a look at this excellent diary at Daily Kos, which describes the uses of torture domestically, in U.S. jails and Supermax prisons. Torture at home, torture abroad, the question we must be asking ourselves is this: So far down the road to becoming a "torture state," do we have the courage and fortitude to turn back, to create a better society, or will we succumb to barbarism?

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Top U.S. Behavioral Scientists Studied Survival Schools to Create Torture Program Over 50 Years Ago

A couple of recent articles have highlighted the unseemly fact that some past presidents of the American Psychological Association (APA), the foremost professional organization for psychologists in the United States, if not the world, had links to the use of torture, or at least to military research into coercive interrogations…

Continue reading. Barack Obama is not an ally in the fight to prevent the US from using torture. He’s on the other side, protecting torturers in case he wants to use them later.

Who was it who said that we can simply trust that businesses will act ethically? I offer BP as an immediate counter-example. Harry Weber for Associated Press:

The chairman of a House panel investigating the Gulf oil spill said Friday that BP won’t let members talk to several employees who may have critical information about what led to the catastrophe.

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., told The Associated Press that BP PLC has cited its own investigation as its reason for denying access to the employees.

BP spokesman David Nicholas said in an e-mail that BP "has not objected to providing access to any of the specific BP employees that the committee has requested, and we continue to cooperate with the committee." He would not elaborate.

BP was leasing and operating the Deepwater Horizon rig when it exploded April 20, killing 11 workers and blowing out the well that has now gushed as much as 131.5 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.

"They have been slow in bringing forth documents and witnesses we want to talk to," Stupak said of BP.

He also said information gathered so far shows it could be difficult for the government to prosecute anyone for the spill because of vague environmental laws and other challenges.

"And remember, in a criminal case you have to prove intent," he said. "That’s very, very difficult in a situation like this."

Stupak said there are a half-dozen people his committee wants to question, but hasn’t been able to. Stupak, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, did not say whether some of those people work for companies other than BP that were involved with the Deepwater Horizon.

He also said he isn’t ready to issue subpoenas yet.

Among the people Stupak’s committee wants to talk to is BP well site leader Donald Vidrine, one of the top two BP officials on the Deepwater Horizon at the time of the blast…

Continue reading.

I think we generally are a mix: for some things we are an Asker, for others a Guesser. Oliver Burkeman in the Guardian:

The advice of etiquette experts on dealing with unwanted invitations, or overly demanding requests for favours, has always been the same: just say no. That may have been a useless mantra in the war on drugs, but in the war on relatives who want to stay for a fortnight, or colleagues trying to get you to do their work, the manners guru Emily Post‘s formulation – "I’m afraid that won’t be possible" – remains the gold standard. Excuses merely invite negotiation. The comic retort has its place (Peter Cook: "Oh dear, I find I’m watching television that night"), and I’m fond of the tautological non-explanation ("I can’t, because I’m unable to"). But these are variations on a theme: the best way to say no is to say no. Then shut up.

This is a lesson we’re unable to learn, however, judging by the scores of books promising to help us. The Power Of A Positive No, How To Say No Without Feeling Guilty, The Book Of No… Publishers, certainly, seem unable to refuse. (Two recent books addressing the topic are Marshall Goldsmith’s Mojo, and Womenomics, by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay.) This is the "disease to please" – a phrase that doesn’t make grammatical sense, but rhymes, giving it instant pop-psychology cachet. There are certainly profound issues here, of self-esteem, guilt etcetera. But it’s also worth considering whether part of the problem doesn’t originate in a simple misunderstanding between two types of people: Askers and Guessers.

This terminology comes from a brilliant web posting by Andrea Donderi that’s achieved minor cult status online. We are raised, the theory runs, in one of two cultures. In Ask culture, people grow up believing they can ask for anything – a favour, a pay rise– fully realising the answer may be no. In Guess culture, by contrast, you avoid "putting a request into words unless you’re pretty sure the answer will be yes… A key skill is putting out delicate feelers. If you do this with enough subtlety, you won’t have to make the request directly; you’ll get an offer. Even then, the offer may be genuine or pro forma; it takes yet more skill and delicacy to discern whether you should accept."

Neither’s "wrong", but when an Asker meets a Guesser, unpleasantness results. An Asker won’t think it’s rude to request two weeks in your spare room, but a Guess culture person will hear it as presumptuous and resent the agony involved in saying no. Your boss, asking for a project to be finished early, may be an overdemanding boor – or just an Asker, who’s assuming you might decline. If you’re a Guesser, you’ll hear it as an expectation. This is a spectrum, not a dichotomy, and it explains cross-cultural awkwardnesses, too: Brits and Americans get discombobulated doing business in Japan, because it’s a Guess culture, yet experience Russians as rude, because they’re diehard Askers.

Self-help seeks to make us all Askers, training us to both ask and refuse with relish; the mediation expert William Ury recommends memorising "anchor phrases" such as "that doesn’t work for me". But Guessers can take solace in logic: in many social situations (though perhaps not at work) the very fact that you’re receiving an anxiety-inducing request is proof the person asking is an Asker. He or she is half-expecting you’ll say no, and has no inkling of the torture you’re experiencing. So say no, and see what happens. Nothing will.

I bought salad stuff, including spring onions which Whole Foods seems to have dropped for the rest of the season, along with some chard of various colors, cooking now. I’m relieved to note a 1-pound loss, so I’m not yet plateauing. I got more tempeh so I can avoid meat for a while.

Here are two articles:

The Stanley McChrystal I Know, by Jim Molan

The Stringer and the Snake-eater, by David Morris

And then profess amazement that the Palestinians are enraged. Yoni Kempinski of IsraelNationalNews.com:

The Likud Central Committee unanimously adopted a resolution on Thursday supporting construction in Jerusalem as well as Judea and Samaria at the end of the 10-month freeze imposed last November.

Minister Benny Begin noted that the freeze will expire in the middle of the holiday of Sukkot, also known as "the time of our joy". He said there would be no new freeze order.

Israel has no interest in peace, only in grabbing more territory.

And it’s available as Watch Instantly. Tales from the Script. Don’t miss it.

Sounds easy.

It has long been recognized that an agency established to deal with a problem will find in time that it’s existence—and the jobs of everyone in the agency—depends on the problem NOT being solved. So long as the problem exists, the agency will be there. If the problem goes away, the agency is no longer needed.

So a curious dynamic arises in which the agency seeks to work on the problem—steadily, for years and even decades—but never to solve it. We see this happening in the War on Drugs. Despite its evident failure and the growing realization that drug addiction is a medical problem, not a criminal problem, and that some drugs are quite benign (cannabis is the primary example: less harmful than alcohol, nicotine, or caffeine), the drug warriors are fighting attempts to solve the problem by other means. They want their jobs. Indeed, the drug warriors and the drug cartels have a significant overlap of interests.

The result is that government agencies that have fought the War on Drugs (and failed utterly) are now fighting for their lives. Danny K at Transform in the UK:

An internal Home Office memo, accidentally leaked to the BBC’s Martin Rosenbaum (see his blog here), today exposes a culture of playing fast and loose with Freedom of Information (FOI) requests that might expose Government policy to criticism. The fifteen-page document demonstrates in detail how officials at the Home Office discussed withholding a Home Office commissioned value for money study (of the UK drug strategy) from Transform because of fears of bad press for its much vaunted drug policy. The epic 3 year saga of how we finally obtained the VFM study is detailed here. The internal document was inadvertently sent to Rosenbaum (the deleted portions were still visible) along with a letter that the Home Office sent him as a part of an unconnected FOI request. It has allowed for a brief peep behind the curtain of obfuscation and spin that has characterised so many of our dealings with the Home Office.

In the memo, which was copied to the Home Secretary and the Permanent Secretary, in Annex D under the heading ‘Potential issues arising from the Report’, it says:

“The release of the report entails the risk of Transform, or other supporters of legalisation, using information from the report to criticise the Government’s drug policy, or to support their call for the legalisation of drugs and the introduction of a regulated system of supply. These risks should be considered in reaching a decision on whether to release the report, as recommended.”

This is an extraordinary comment to write in a document like this as it so blatantly goes against the spirit of FOI. But more importantly demonstrates that the Home Office was not applying the guidelines that say that all FOI requests should be dealt with ‘blind’. (i.e. not taking into account who has made the request.) . In this context it is particularly odd, indeed faintly ridiculous that the Home Office in response to Rosenbaum state that ‘The Freedom of Information Act is applicant blind. Regardless of who the applicant is, all requests for information are assessed and answered in the same manner’ – when this is obviously not the case as evidenced by the actual document they were being asked about. Bizarre. (See update below).

A document is either exempt under the Act, or it is not. It is not for civil servants to make decisions about releasing information based upon its potential to provide ammunition for those challenging Government doctrine or policy. That is not and should not be the function of the Freedom of Information Act.

The document even contained worked up reactive media positions, should the report eventually be released and receive media attention. You have to ask: Shouldn’t they be developing effective policy, rather than suppressing evidence, censoring criticism and working up reactive press soundbites?

This is all reminiscent of the Government’s handling of the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit Drugs Report released in July 2005.

One of the series of entirely spurious reasons originally given for withholding the report (see here for details of this and the various others) was that the National Audit Office was soon to release a review of drug strategy value for money and that release of the report at the same time

“risks misinterpretation of the findings of the [NAO] report”

As the Economist coverage of this development noted (‘Inconvenient Truths’ Dec 3rd 09):

‘This is believed to be the first time that a public body has openly refused to release information in order to manage the news better’

Ironically the NAO report and Public Accounts Committee report that followed it berated the Home Office for having nothing approaching an effective drug strategy evaluation framework, which was one of the key points the VFM review was making in the first place.

One thing that this memo will hopefully do, is to bring the issue of drug policy’s value for money to the attention of the coalition Government, and we have long suggested that the very obvious evidence vacuum could begin to be filled by conducting an Impact Assessment of current enforcement policy and related legislation.

This ought to be a Government interested in Impact Assessment. In the current economic climate the Government’s mantra is: ‘What should we cut? You decide.’ Well, what about at least costing out the war on drugs and comparing it with alternatives.

Let’s not forget that David Cameron called on the UK Government to initiate ‘a discussion within the [UN] Commission on Narcotic Drugs of alternative ways—including the possibility of legalisation and regulation—to tackle the global drugs dilemma’ as a back bench member of the Home Affairs Select Committee in 2001/2. Or that Nick Clegg’s Lib Dem’s Election Manifesto all but called for decriminalisation of personal use. Or indeed that Alan Duncan is the first member of Government to have written a book with a chapter advocating in favour of legalisation.

Transform will be making official complaints to the relevant parliamentary bodies, not only to bring pressure to bear on those mishandling FOI requests with regard to drug policy, but also to encourage better FOI practice more generally for the future. There is a bigger issue here that has nothing to do with drug policy or Transform.

That said, if we are to move towards a more effective drug policy this culture of secrecy and suppression of  evidence must end. The focus must shift from the futile defence of a broken and failed policy paradigm, to developing effective, just and humane alternatives. This can only be done in an atmosphere of openness and with a commitment to what works (for the public that is), not defending to the last what so obviously does not.

Lastly, we are aware of another value for money document that has still not been released. Maybe releasing this and other relevant research would help draw a line under this depressing episode and signify a fresh start under the new Government, as well as obviously helping inform a mature policy debate based on evidence of effectiveness. That’s not too much to ask is it?

Update 26.06.10  Mark Easton’s blog quotes The Information Commissioner who asked about the revelations responded that:

"Requests should not be refused simply on the grounds that disclosing the information would reveal gaps in the evidence base for a policy. There is a public interest in openness and transparency…

"The fact that the information may not reflect well on the public authority in question is not in itself a reason for it to be withheld."

Eric Lichtblau in the NY Times:

There are no Secret Service agents posted next to the barista and no presidential seal on the ceiling, but the Caribou Coffee across the street from the White House has become a favorite meeting spot to conduct Obama administration business.

Here at the Caribou on Pennsylvania Avenue, and a few other nearby coffee shops, White House officials have met hundreds of times over the last 18 months with prominent K Street lobbyists — members of the same industry that President Obama has derided for what he calls its “outsized influence” in the capital.

On the agenda over espressos and lattes, according to more than a dozen lobbyists and political operatives who have taken part in the sessions, have been front-burner issues like Wall Street regulation, health care rules, federal stimulus money, energy policy and climate control — and their impact on the lobbyists’ corporate clients.

But because the discussions are not taking place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, they are not subject to disclosure on the visitors’ log that the White House releases as part of its pledge to be the “most transparent presidential administration in history.”

The off-site meetings, lobbyists say, reveal a disconnect between the Obama administration’s public rhetoric — with Mr. Obama himself frequently thrashing big industries’ “battalions” of lobbyists as enemies of reform — and the administration’s continuing, private dealings with them.

Rich Gold, a prominent Democratic lobbyist who has taken part in a number of meetings at Caribou Coffee, said that White House staff members “want to follow the president’s guidance of reducing the influence of special interests, and yet they have to do their job and have the best information available to them to make decisions.”

Mr. Gold added that the administration’s policy of posting all White House visits, combined with pressure to not be seen as meeting too frequently with lobbyists, leave staff members “betwixt and between.”

White House officials said there was nothing improper about the off-site meetings.

“The Obama administration has taken unprecedented steps to increase the openness and transparency of the White House,” said Dan Pfeiffer, director of communications. “We expect that all White House employees adhere to their obligations under our very stringent ethics rules regardless of who they are meeting with or where they meet.”

Attempts to put distance between the White House and lobbyists are not limited to meetings. Some lobbyists say that they routinely get e-mail messages from White House staff members’ personal accounts rather than from their official White House accounts, which can become subject to public review. Administration officials said there were some permissible exceptions to a federal law requiring staff members to use their official accounts and retain the correspondence.

And while Mr. Obama has imposed restrictions on hiring lobbyists for government posts, the administration has used waivers and recusals more than two dozen times to appoint lobbyists to political positions. Two lobbyists also cited instances in which the White House had suggested that a job candidate be “deregistered” as a lobbyist in Senate records to avoid violating the administration’s hiring restrictions.

A senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that in “a small number of cases,” people might have been “wrongly” registered as lobbyists, based on federal standards. The official said that while the White House might have discussed such instances of possible “over-registration,” he was “quite confident that no lobbying shop has been instructed to deregister anyone.” . . .

Continue reading. I am very disenchanted with the Obama White House. It is undoubtedly much better than a McCain-Palin White House would have been, but it falls far short not only of Obama’s rhetoric but also of simple Democratic ideals and practices.

Let’s face it: the promise to close Guantánamo is another in the long string of broken promises from Obama. Greenwald has a good column on this issue, which closes with this:

. . . That is so vintage Obama administration:  we’re not going to do the things we said we would, but we’re going to keep pretending that we will and claim we want to in order to keep our rubes devoted and believing. That deceit works with many Democrats, but it does not seem to be working in the Muslim world, where people are far less politically faithful and gullible and want to see actual actions, not pretty words, and thus are growing increasingly disenchanted with both the U.S. and Obama. The reality is that closing Guantanamo has been discarded because of the Obama administration’s general embrace of the Bush/Cheney Terrorism template; if you are going to retain a system of due-process-free indefinite detentions, then closing Guantanamo makes little sense.  One could almost respect the administration more if they admitted that — as John Brennan came close to doing yesterday — rather than pretending that it is trying but is just oh-so-tragically and helplessly thwarted by Congress.

* * * * *

Related to all of this:  see Eric Lichtblau’s excellent article on how Obama officials have been meeting with lobbyists outside the White House in order to avoid having to disclose these meetings pursuant to Obama’s much-touted "transparency" policies.

William Dalrymple has a long and thoughtful article, definitely worth reading, on the Afghanistan war, the longest US war ever:

In 1843, shortly after his return from Afghanistan, an army chaplain, Reverend G R Gleig, wrote a memoir about the First Anglo-Afghan War, of which he was one of the very few survivors. It was, he wrote, "a war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, has Britain acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated."

It is difficult to imagine the current military adventure in Afghanistan ending quite as badly as the First Afghan War, an abortive experiment in Great Game colonialism that slowly descended into what is arguably the greatest military humiliation ever suffered by the west in the Middle East: an entire army of what was then the most powerful military nation in the world utterly routed and destroyed by poorly equipped tribesmen, at the cost of £15m (well over £1bn in modern currency) and more than 40,000 lives. But nearly ten years on from Nato’s invasion of Afghanistan, there are increasing signs that Britain’s fourth war in the country could end with as few political gains as the first three and, like them, terminate in an embarrassing withdrawal after a humiliating defeat, with Afghanistan yet again left in tribal chaos and quite possibly ruled by the same government that the war was launched to overthrow.

Certainly it is becoming clearer than ever that the once-hated Taliban, far from being swept away by General Stanley McChrystal’s surge, are instead regrouping, ready for the final act in the history of Hamid Karzai’s western-installed puppet government. The Taliban have now advanced out of their borderland safe havens to the very gates of Kabul and are surrounding the capital, much as the US-backed mujahedin once did to the Soviet-installed regime in the late 1980s. Like a rerun of an old movie, all journeys by non-Afghans out of the capital are once again confined largely to tanks, military convoys and helicopters. The Taliban already control more than 70 per cent of the country, where they collect taxes, enforce the sharia and dispense their usual rough justice. Every month, their sphere of influence increases. According to a recent Pentagon report, Karzai’s government has control of only 29 out of 121 key strategic districts.

Just recently, on 17 May, there was a suicide attack on a US convoy in the Dar-ul Aman quarter of Kabul, killing 12 civilians and six American soldiers; the following day, there was a daring five-hour-long grenade and machine-gun assault on the US military headquarters at Bagram Airbase, killing an American contractor and wounding nine soldiers, so bringing the death toll for US armed forces in the country to more than 1,000. Then, over the weekend of 22-23 May, there was a series of rocket, mortar and ground assaults on Kandahar Airbase just as the British ministerial delegation was about to visit it, forcing William Hague and Liam Fox to alter their schedule. Since then, a dozen top Afghan officials have been assassinated in Kandahar, including the city of Kandahar’s deputy mayor. On 7 June, the deadliest day for Nato forces in months, ten soldiers were killed. Finally, it appears that the Taliban have regained control of the opium-growing centre of Marjah in Helmand Province, only three months after being driven out by McChrystal’s forces amid much gung-ho cheerleading in the US media. Afghanistan is going down.

Already, despite the presence of huge numbers of foreign troops, it is now impossible – or at least extremely foolhardy – for any westerner to walk around the capital, Kabul, without armed guards; it is even more inadvisable to head out of town in any direction except north: the strongly anti-Taliban Panjshir Valley, along with the towns of Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat, are the only safe havens left for westerners in the entire country. In all other directions, travel is possible only in an armed convoy.

This is especially true of …

Continue reading.

Sounds like an interesting book:

Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents

by Ian Buruma

A review by Benjamin Moser

Religions tend to claim a monopoly on truth, which is why most of us learn as children that it is impolite to inquire too closely into the religious beliefs of others; and since such beliefs tend to be held with considerable zeal, the wisest course, we are taught, is to stay out of it. This sound advice, not to children but to governments, is reiterated by Ian Buruma, who concludes his Taming of the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents (Princeton, $19.95) with a paraphrase of Confucius: "Let us leave the spirits aside, until we know how best to serve men."

Buruma examines the role that religion plays in the modern state, a subject that has been so belabored — Are Muslims taking over Europe? Are religious fanatics taking over America? — that it requires all of Buruma’s essayistic skill to condense these debates into a compact work. That he succeeds says much about his talent for unwinding complex topics, as well as for approaching overly familiar discussions in unfamiliar new ways.

In Europe, conflicts between religious groups and so-called religiously neutral states have sometimes seemed irreconcilable, and, as in America, the nativist right wing has profited from the threat of Islamic fundamentalists. But Buruma shows that the debates go beyond the household names, and so if Spinoza puts in an appearance, along with the equally inevitable Tariq Ramadan, George W. Bush, and French girls wearing headscarves to school, so do the nineteenth-century architects of Japanese emperor worship and the horrific Taiping rebellion in China, during which 30 million people died as a result of the mad Hong Xiuquan’s conviction that he was the brother of Jesus Christ.

Buruma opens with Sinclair Lewis’s skirt-chasing evangelist Elmer Gantry. But he emphasizes that even though Europeans may believe that "secularism had always distinguished them from the parochial, conservative, God-fearing Americans," Europeans have a far more fraught record on this subject than Americans. And he agrees with Tocqueville that religious fervor in America has often strengthened democracy, as well as religion, by its very determination not to be corrupted by politics. The current resolve of certain religious leaders to identify believers with one political party is, in this sense, a historical perversion.

Buruma’s comparative approach demonstrates, in the kind of sober voice that is all too often drummed out by political hysteria, that it is in the interest of both politics and religion to keep to their respective realms. "It is not the task of a liberal democratic state to provide answers to the deeper questions about life, let alone impose metaphysical beliefs on its citizens," Buruma notes, with typical clarity. He realizes that the temptation will always exist. But the state ought to insist "on observance of the law and of the basic rules of democratic society. As long as people play by the rules of free speech, free expression, independent judiciaries, and free elections, they are democratic citizens, whatever they choose to wear on their heads."

Jay Rosen analyzes the overt admission that beat reporters will keep back anything that, if reported, might reduce their access. We always suspected this, but now it is confirmed. From his post:

As everyone who pays attention to the news knows by now, an article appeared in Rolling Stone this week by freelance reporter Michael Hastings that wound up forcing the resignation of General Stanley A. McChrystal as commander of American troops in Afghanistan. Invited to hang out with McChrystal and his staff, Hastings was witness to their contempt for the civilian side of the war effort, which he then reported on. It was a shock to everyone in Washington that McChrystal would make such a blunder, and the press began immediately to dissect it.

The Politico was so hopped up about the story that it took the extraordinary step of posting on its site a PDF of Rolling Stone’s article because Rolling Stone had not put it online fast enough. In one of the many articles The Politico ran about the episode the following observation was made by reporters Gordon Lubold and Carol E. Lee:

McChrystal, an expert on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, has long been thought to be uniquely qualified to lead in Afghanistan. But he is not known for being media savvy. Hastings, who has covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for two years, according to the magazine, is not well-known within the Defense Department. And as a freelance reporter, Hastings would be considered a bigger risk to be given unfettered access, compared with a beat reporter, who would not risk burning bridges by publishing many of McChrystal’s remarks.

Now this seemed to several observers—and I was one—a reveal. Think about what the Politico is saying: an experienced beat reporter is less of a risk for a powerful figure like McChrystal because an experienced beat reporter would probably not want to “burn bridges” with key sources by telling the world what happens when those sources let their guard down.

Let me enumerate why this is worth noting:

1.) It’s an admission that preserving their own future access is a hidden factor in what institutionally-bound reporters are willing to tell us today.

2.) Carol Lee covers the White House for the Politico. She is a beat reporter, so she would know, right? She’s not going to let an observation that rings false to her ear go out under her by-line… is she? Doesn’t make sense.

3.) This is exactly the sort of observation in which the Politico trades: the “inside” fact you might not know that tells you how Washington really works. It’s part of the brand.

4.) The Politico was actually founded to reveal just this sort of fact. The idea from the beginning was to open the kimono on journalism itself.This is from the days (2006) when it was first announced that John Harris and Jim VandeHei would be leaving the Washington Post to start a new online publication.

Mr. VandeHei, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, said he hoped that the venture would knock down some of traditional journalism’s “state secrets,” such as how stories get leaked and whose motives are served by certain political stories.

Right. And that’s exactly what Gordon Lubold and Carol E. Lee did. They revealed one of political journalism’s state secrets: beat reporters have a motive to preserve key relationships, so they often don’t tell us everything they could, which makes them more reliable, more predictable, in the eyes of the powerful people they cover. They were being good Politico people by asking: how could McChrystal and his staff be so unsavvy?

And Andew Sullivan picked up on it. “Why, one wonders, have we not heard a peep of this from all the official MSM Pentagon reporters and analysts with their deep sources and long experience? Politico explains…” Then he cut to the passage from reporters Lubold and Lee that I began with.

Meanwhile, Thomas Ricks, formerly a beat reporter covering the military for the Washington Post, made a similar observation at his blog for Foreign Policy magazine:

Reporters doing one-off profiles for magazines such as Rolling Stone and Esquire have less invested in a continuing relationship than do beat reporters covering the war for newspapers and newsmagazines. That doesn’t mean you should avoid one-off reporters, but it does mean that they have no incentive to establish and maintain a relationship of trust over weeks and months of articles.

Our reveal is looking pretty good, isn’t it? Gordon Lubold and Carol E. Lee have no motive to make it up. Lee is a beat reporter herself, qualified to speak on the subject. Lubold has covered the military for years. Politico trades in this kind of observation; it was founded to reveal some of journalism’s “state secrets.” Tom Ricks, a former beat reporter for the Washington Post who also covered the military, says pretty much the same thing: beat reporters have an investment in continuing the relationship so they are less risky for a powerful figure like McChrystal.

And then, the next day… the reveal disappears…

Bottom line: Reporters admit that they don’t do their jobs.

From The Eldest, a good catch. Michael Sragow for the Baltimore Sun:

David Simon has repaid a long-held literary debt — with interest.

On Tuesday, Penguin Classics reissues "Paths of Glory," Humphrey Cobb’s surgically sharp novel of the First World War. To Simon, Cobb’s 1935 rendering of a doomed French assault and its calamitous aftermath has repercussions that go beyond its immediate anti-war themes. He hears Cobb’s characters every time he listens to BP executives trying to explain destructive actions taken for short-term gains. And when bureaucrats assess Hurricane Katrina with "we all did our best" clichés, they remind him of French generals rationalizing the debacles of Verdun.

Simon told The Baltimore Sun recently that throughout "The Wire," "When I was writing an institutional dynamic, I was thinking of the guys in Cobb’s book." Penguin asked him to contribute a new introduction, and he agreed without hesitation: "I had to write something respecting this masterpiece."

Penguin Classics hopes that fans of "The Wire" will follow its creator into Cobb’s trenches. The series’ editorial director, Elda Rotor, says, "People will discover this book because they know David Simon’s work. Many of my colleagues think this has to be interesting, because he wrote the introduction for it."

Seventy-five years ago, critics praised Cobb’s debut. The New York Herald Tribune called it "one of the great books to come out of the war." But with the waning of the Depression and the onset of World War II, "Paths of Glory" fell into obscurity. Cobb’s only other novel was published as a serial, not a book.

Stanley Kubrick‘s 1957 movie version brought the novel back into print, briefly. It was reissued again when Kubrick’s Vietnam War movie, "Full Metal Jacket," appeared in 1987. Few noticed. Rotor hopes that with Simon’s help it will now land a contemporary audience. "It resonates with modern readers," she says. "It’s sad that it’s so pertinent."

"It was a favorite film before I knew the book," Simon says, "and then I found the book, and it was very modern, written in a smart, spare way. It doesn’t feel like it’s from the 1930s in any sense. This guy knew what he was doing. Some writers say what they have to say in one book, and that’s it. Ralph Ellison wrote one book, and you’re going to want to read it. Same with Humphrey Cobb."

A few years ago, exasperated by interviewers who viewed Season 5 of "The Wire" strictly as a roman a clef about The Baltimore Sun, Simon told a reporter that "the film template in his head" was actually "the most important political film of the 20th century, which is ‘Paths of Glory.’ " Simon said it spoke more eloquently than any other picture "to the essential triumph of institutions over individuals and … to the fundamental inhumanity of the 20th century and beyond." . . .

Continue reading.

Take a look. He does sell some interesting knives, imported from Norway, Finland, and Sweden. As he states:

The page reflects some of my interests including:

• Knives and knifemaking,
• Historical blacksmithing, including the making of firestrikers,
• Vikings and Nordic Culture,
• Living history and reenacting, from the Viking through the American Colonial periods.
• Whatever else seems interesting at the time. I don’t intend the page to be static.

A NY Times reporter discovers an aspect of terrorism I had not previously noticed: that terrorism is intensely romantic. Matt Duss at ThinkProgress:

Via Phil Weiss, in an interview with Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni, the New York Times’ Deborah Solomon demonstrates the flagrant double standard that exists in the American media in regard to pro-Israel versus anti-Israel terrorism:

SOLOMON: Your parents were among the country’s founders.

LIVNI: They were the first couple to marry in Israel, the very first. Both of them were in the Irgun. They were freedom fighters, and they met while boarding a British train. When the British Mandate was here, they robbed a train to get the money in order to buy weapons.

SOLOMON: It was a more romantic era. Is your mom still alive?

What’s amazing here is not only does Solomon neglect to challenge Livni’s characterization of her parents’ membership in a terrorist group as “freedom fight[ing],” Solomon herself volunteers further assistance in the whitewash. Even if this is a clumsy attempt at sarcasm, can you imagine any mainstream American journalist performing this service in regard to Hamas terrorism? I doubt it.

While Livni may prefer to think that the Irgun weren’t terrorists, and Solomon would like to help, it’s worth noting that both the New York Times and the World Zionist Congress saw things very differently at the time. On December 24, 1946, the Times reported “The World Zionist Congress in its final session here strongly condemned by a vote early today terrorist activities in Palestine and ‘the shedding of innocent blood as a means of political warfare‘” by the groups Irgun and the Stern Gang.

I very much doubt that the civilians who were murdered by the Irgun at the King David Hotel, nor those massacred and ethnically cleansed at Deir Yassin and Jaffa, nor the hundreds killed in various other Irgun attacks look upon that era as particularly romantic. Their memories deserve far better.

In an earlier post, I pointed out a column on how nationalists will eagerly support and defend actions of their own nation and government while bitterly denouncing the same actions performed by another government. That column is still worth reading if you haven’t read it yet.

My apartment disorder has temporarily reached a new maximum, so most of the weekend I’ll be washing dishes and putting them away, a bit of cooking, and quite a lot of picking up and putting away.

I also will do a little kettlebell work, with the lighter kettlebells.

Sorry for the glare. TOBS Avocado is one of my favorite shaving creams, and it once again delivered a great lather and a fine shave, helped along by the Rooney Style 2 (lather) and the Gillette Executive with a Gillette 7 O’Clock SharpEdge blade (shave). A splash of Stetson Classic and I’m good.