Ends justify the means

As I wrote about a month ago, the futility of torture is the inevitable conclusion. And a month ago, I was thinking that as more information dribbles out that more Americans would show their moral indignation and begin demanding some accountability. Instead, very little outrage and even the defense of none other than Dick Cheney, the spouse of Lynn Cheney, who writes children's books, justifies the torture with, "it works."

Frank Rich in a NYT op-ed peice does a good job of capturing the blase response from the public. Therein lies the triumph of terrorism; not that it terrorizes us into hiding in our homes, but rather it turns us into that which we claim to not be. the article is here

Yet, as I read Rich, I cannot help but think back to one of my earliest takes on the entire "war against terror," that the Bush Administration didn't believe enough in our justice system, in our constitution to deal with terrorism. We couldn't rely on our legal standards, our constitutional safeguards to fight terrorism (or to keep "us" safe). Even our legislative process was suspect. Only police power, a police state, could keep us safe and win the war on terrorism.

Even the fantasy "24" scenario, the ticking time bomb, would/should we torture to get information to save those lives, is one which is used to argue against our laws. If such an unusual situation occurred, we have means to deal with it. The legal system can try the torturer(s) and a jury of their peers can decide guilt. Even now, it seems, that the Dick Cheney defense, "it worked" and then the counter, "no it didn't" seems to miss the point. It doesn't matter if it worked or not, torture is against our values, our morality, and our laws. Either change the laws, scrap the values, overturn the morality, or let our system do its job.

If the authorizers of torture (and those who participated) want to defend their illegal and immoral acts, let them in a court of law. Let them show the information....shouldn't matter, but then OJ got off and that is because the prosecutors did a poor job....as it should be.

The biggest casualty, as I see it, is the complete undermining of our system of justice by the Bush Administration and from what I can see, it continues under the Obama Administration. What a shame.

A nation of laws, where even the powerful are subject to justice if they break the laws is the defensible America. Arguments of ends justify means is the argument of a police state.

Sobering realism about terrorism

Here is a good read from the BBC on terrorism For those who follow such stuff (with something of an open mind about how to solve the problem) it won't be much of a revelation. I didn't see anything really new (author notes how US sees it as a military solution, while Europe looks at it as a crime problem), but what I took away from it is that there is no easy or clear solution.

This is a report on a conference in Stockholm, of terrorism experts.

I'm not trying to equate any religions here, but as I have said many, many times, if states had wanted (and they did) to stamp out Christianity, what would have been successful straegies? The Islamic fueled terrorism is a violent global social movement and ultimately it is going to be won, not with guns and security states, but at the ideological level.

The BBC author concludes with a quote from a n American military expert who helped produce the US Counter-Insurgency Manaual. In response to a question that the journlist didn't really expect an answer to, how long would this conflict last, the answer was:

"Thirty years if we get it right," he said. "A hundred years if we get it wrong."

Is it us, is it them, or a bit of both?

An interesting bit of news from the Int'l Herald Tribune:

In his recently published book, "Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam after Iraq," Scheuer argues that the United States faces more trouble because its leaders refuse to recognize what drives terrorism.

President George W. Bush argues that terrorists "hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote." But polls show that the bedrock of support for militancy among the world's 1.3 billion Muslims is the detestation of U.S. foreign policies.

Scheuer faults U.S. leaders for failing to acknowledge the grievances that bin Laden laid out in precise detail, which were adopted by the followers he inspired. They were: the U.S. presence in the Arabian Peninsula; unqualified support for Israel; U.S. support for states oppressing Muslims, especially China, India and Russia; U.S. exploitation of Muslim oil; U.S. support and financing of authoritarian Arab regimes.

Tony Blair, at his speech at DePauw University on 3/3 echoed George W Bush's arguement that it is a clash of values and not policies.

I suspect it is a bit of both. Even Mr. Blair said, that fixing the Israeli-Palestinian problem was necessary to defeating terrorism, which is now his main focus, as special envoy to the Middle East.

The article noted this bit of irony:

Polls show that radicals - potential suicide bombers and hostage takers - and moderate Muslims are in favor of moving toward more democracy, a process stifled in many places by authoritarian rulers who enjoy the backing of the United States.

It cemented its reputation as the superpower of hypocrites after one of the very few democratic elections in Middle Eastern history, the 2006 vote in which Palestinians opted for the Islamist party Hamas over Fatah, the corrupt ruling bureaucracy built up by Yasser Arafat. The closely monitored election was deemed free and fair.

The United States responded by boycotting Hamas and backing Fatah

Just because there is an election doesn't mean we (the US) have to like who is elected. Just ask Hugo Chavez, or Allende, to name just two off the top of my head.

We Must Stand Up for our Values

I attended Tony Blair's lecture at DePauw University Monday night. Among the many things he spoke of, he reiterated several times that "we," meaning the US, Canada, and Europe, must stand up for our values in the face of the spreading middle eastern terrorist threat. He talked about how if our resolve to defend our values appears even for a moment to be weak, that is a huge win for the terrorists.

Now that sounds like military/war like talk, but it wasn't. He spoke mostly about what he called "soft" power, or diplomacy and the job of selling not just our stuff and material life, but our culture and values to the rest of the world.

He, however, was not specific about what he meant. What would be standing up for our values in the face of the terrorist threat?

The audience was not allowed to ask questions, the questions were submitted before his talk.

I would have asked him to give me an example of what he was talking about. Today, Reuters reports:

The FBI acknowledged Wednesday it improperly accessed Americans' telephone records, credit reports and Internet traffic in 2006, the fourth straight year of privacy abuses resulting from investigations aimed at tracking terrorists and spies.

Apparently the banks, telecoms, and other business gave more information than the FBI asked for, but the FBI didn't turn away from examining it.

Is that an example of living up and standing up to our values? Violating our own laws?

How about folks like me who think the real cowards are those who skulk behind claims of national security to violate the Constitution, am I standing up for our values in the face of terrorism?

Mr. Blair didn't anticipate that question and so didn't answer it. He did say that we could not respond from a position of fear, which I agree with. But, what does it mean to stand up for our values in the face of those who hate our values? Punch them in the nose? Or maintain our values even in the face of extreme adversity?