Torture on NRO

A couple of articles about torture at NRO:

Clifford D. May writes:

On one extreme of the debate over interrogating terrorists are the Jack Bauers, those who – like the lead character in Fox's hit series 24 – think you do whatever it takes to get the information you need from someone plotting mass murder. At the other extreme is the antiwar Left: They wouldn't harm a hair on 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's head to save Disneyland at Christmas.

Those of us who hold views somewhere between these poles ought to be having a serious discussion about what methods should be permissible and under what circumstances. But that's become close to impossible. A case in point: I was on The Abrams Report on MSNBC last week to discuss whether Judge Michael Mukasey, during congressional hearings, should have said whether "waterboarding" "simulated drowning" constitutes torture and therefore must be prohibited.

(source)

Andrew J. McCarthy writes:

Jonathan Turley has penned an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times claiming that Michael Mukasey, President Bush's nominee to become the next attorney general, should be disqualified for failing to condemn waterboarding as torture. According to Turley, Judge Mukasey's confirmation-hearing testimony was evasive, and the nominee flatly lied to the committee when he said he did not to know what was involved in the technique called "waterboarding." The accusation about lying is noxious and what passes for legal reasoning in Turley's piece is especially shameful for a George Washington University law professor.

To begin with, interrogation tactics used in top-secret Central Intelligence Agency programs are classified. The fact that Professor Turley, Judge Mukasey, I, or anyone else may know, as a general matter, what waterboarding is does not mean we know how it has been practiced (assuming it has been practiced) by the CIA. Just a brief perusal of the available literature on the Internet demonstrates that there are variations – and those are just the ones we know about.

Mukasey on Water boarding

...At the Wall Street Journal

This Year's Fires

Predictions about this year's fire season in Southern California can be found here:

Quis custodiet?

OK, the FISA court decides when surveillance is OK, but what oversight is there? How much oversight should there be?

For one who recently returned from Europe, where a colleague and I interviewed an array of domestic security officials in key European democracies, it is a bit of an out-of-body experience to examine the various bills now pending on Capitol Hill that aim to govern how the U.S. government conducts foreign electronic surveillance. While the exact mechanisms for intercepts and wiretaps vary from nation to nation, the overwhelming standard for such collection in Europe is simple: Does it make sense to target someone for surveillance, and is it, on its face, reasonable to do? Overwhelmingly, the judgment about whether it is reasonable is left in the hands of either the executive or an investigating magistrate. Any oversight is minimal.

A discussion of the amendments to FISA.

A review of Gould "Mismeasure of Man"

(Hat tip: Dissecting Leftism)

After carefully reading the book, I charge Gould with several counts of scholarly malfeasance. First, he omits mention of remarkable new discoveries made from Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) which show that brain-size and IQ correlate about 0.40. These results are as replicable as one will find in the social and behavioral sciences and utterly destroy many of Gould's arguments. Second, despite published refutations, Gould repeats verbatim his defamations of character against long deceased individuals. Third, Gould fails to respond to the numerous empirical studies that show a consistent pattern of race differences in IQ, brain size, crime, and other factors that have appeared since his first edition went to press.

Dr Watson, continued

James Watson continues to write on genes and intelligence.

...genetics can be cruel. My own son may be one of its victims. Warm and perceptive at the age of 37, Rufus cannot lead an independent life because of schizophrenia, lacking the ability to engage in day-to-day activities. For all too long, my wife Ruth and I hoped that what Rufus needed was an appropriate challenge on which to focus. But as he passed into adolescence, I feared the origin of his diminished life lay in his genes. It was this realisation that led me to help to bring the human genome project into existence.

In doing so, I knew that many new moral dilemmas would arise as a consequence and would early on establish the ethical, legal and societal components of the genome project. Since 1978, when a pail of water was dumped over my Harvard friend E O Wilson for saying that genes influence human behaviour, the assault against human behavioural genetics by wishful thinking has remained vigorous.

We do not yet adequately understand the way in which the different environments in the world have selected over time the genes which determine our capacity to do different things. The overwhelming desire of society today is to assume that equal powers of reason are a universal heritage of humanity. It may well be. But simply wanting this to be the case is not enough. This is not science.

To question this is not to give in to racism. This is not a discussion about superiority or inferiority, it is about seeking to understand differences, about why some of us are great musicians and others great engineers. It is very likely that at least some 10 to 15 years will pass before we get an adequate understanding for the relative importance of nature versus nurture in the achievement of important human objectives. Until then, we as scientists, wherever we wish to place ourselves in this great debate, should take care in claiming what are unarguable truths without the support of evidence.

The logic of torture

Gabriel Schoenfeld looks at what torture is, what it isn't, and the gray areas between.

The Population Bomb

One of the 50 worst books in history?

Even worse than The Eye of Argon?

(I suppose so. No one takes Eye seriously.

Giuliani on torture

A moderately hysterical NY Times piece, with a collection of shrilly hysterical comments.

IQ

IQ differences are real, but do they matter?

The evidence is that IQ, as conventionally measured, does differ between racial groups. Many studies have shown differences of about 15 points between the mean scores of white and black groups, and some have shown that Chinese and Japanese groups score higher still.

A second argument - that IQ doesn't matter anyway -is easier to dismiss. A large body of evidence shows that IQ is linked to success in life, both educational and economic. This is why the gap narrows when corrections are made for socio-economic status, because in a mobile society success is largely determined by intelligence.

Watson, up the crick?

Fury at DNA pioneer's theory: Africans are less intelligent than Westerners

Celebrated scientist attacked for race comments: "All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really"

By Cahal Milmo

Published: 17 October 2007

One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.

James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.

And....

Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really". He said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".

His views are also reflected in a book published next week, in which he writes: "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."

Mukasey and Torture

Jonathan Turley opines in today's L.A. Times:

This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote in favor of Michael Mukasey to be the new U.S. attorney general, sending his nomination to the full Senate for confirmation. What is most surprising is the wave of support from the committee's Democrats, who seem determined to ignore what they clearly view as a minor flaw in the nominee: his refusal to denounce the deplorable practice of "water-boarding" and his apparent willingness to lie to duck the issue.

Declaring "water-boarding" a "clear and unambiguous act of torture under international and U.S. law", Turley calls for the Senate to reject Mukasey's nomination.  What does he object to in Mukasey's responses?

At first, he repeatedly stated that he does not support torture, which violates the U.S. Constitution. This is precisely the answer given so often by President Bush like a mantra. The problem is that Bush defines torture to exclude things like water-boarding. It is like saying you do not rob banks, but then defining bank robbery in such a way that it does not include walking in with a gun and demanding money from the cashier.

Well, if you must use this analogy, walking in to a bank with a gun and demanding money from the "cashier" is only robbery if the "cashier" actually hands over money. Otherwise, it's assault. (And Turley's a law professor? Come on!)

The senators pushed Mukasey to go beyond the Bush administration mantra. He refused and then said something that made many of us who were listening gasp: "I don't know what is involved in the technique," he said.

Actually, that's still a valid answer, despite the publicity water-boarding has received.

Terry Karney, who has screamed and wailed that "the Administration condones torture" has equated water-boarding with "mock executions", which are explicitly banned under the Geneva Conventions. So the question becomes, is water-boarding administered in such a way that the subject believes he's not going to survive? Not too long ago, a news reporter was water-boarded on TV. I think we can assume he had every expectation that he would survive the process, nevertheless it was still no picnic. Are terrorists who are being water-boarded told they're going to die, or that they'll survive the process? That could make a critical difference to a judge reviewing the legality of the technique.

If the administration is unable to find a nominee who will denounce torture, then it should be left with an acting attorney general who will lead the department without the consent of the Senate. After all, there are worse things than being denied confirmation. You could be water-boarded, for example.

The thing is, there are worse things than being water-boarded. The Al Qaeda manual that was captured some months ago displayed a number of them. Although a reporter was willing to be water-boarded on TV, I've yet to see one volunteer to have his skin burned with a hot clothes iron, or have holes drilled in him with an electric drill.

There's a line between what constitutes torture, and what does not. Some things will lie very close to the line, and reasonable people may differ over what technique belongs on which side of the line. To declare that people who disagree with your placement of that line "refuse to denounce torture" is more of a hysterical fit than a reasoned argument.

Progress in Iraq

The death tolls are dropping.

Phony Outrage about Rush Limbaugh

David Limbaugh has a piece looking at the phony outrage about his brother's "phony soldier" comments.

Jena Six timeline

Look for it at the link above.

Twelve Myths about the Jena Six

Gee, that's two myths per Jena thug!

Myths looked at are:

Myth 1: The Whites-Only Tree.

Myth 2: Nooses a Signal to Black Students.

Myth 3: Nooses Were a Hate Crime.

Myth 4: DA's Threat to Black Students.

Myth 5: The Fair Barn Party Incident.

Myth 6: The "Gotta-Go" Grocery Incident.

Myth 7: The Schoolyard Fight.

Myth 8: The Attack Is Linked to the Nooses.

Myth 9: Mychal Bell's All-White Jury.

Myth 10: Jena 6 as Model Youth.

Myth 11: Jena Is One of the Most Racist Towns in America.

Myth 12: Two Levels of Justice.

These are just 12 of many myths that are portrayed as fact in the media concerning the Jena cases. (A more thorough review of all events can be found at www.thejenatimes.net – click on Chronological Order of Events.)

Five myths about rendition

These myths are:

1. Rendition is something the Bush administration cooked up.

2. People who are "rendered" inevitably end up in a foreign slammer -- or worse.

3. Step one of a rendition involves kidnapping the suspect.

4. Rendition is just a euphemism for outsourcing torture.

5. Pretty much anyone -- including U.S. citizens and green card holders -- can be rendered these days.

Dark Networks

This post from Belmont Club opens with an unsettling tale:

A Ferrari engine makes a deep, distinctive sound. When the children at Portugal's most famous orphanage heard the sports car roaring down the driveway, fear swept through the dormitories.

The noise could mean only one thing: the man known as The Doctor was coming to call. Yet this medical practitioner had no intention of adhering to the ancient Hippocratic Oath.

Instead, arriving at Casa Pia (House of the Pious), a 17th century Lisbon orphanage where more than 4,000 children are cared for each year behind high stone walls, the doctor would summon selected boys and girls from their beds for examinations one night each week.

Where possible, he chose deaf-mutes.

They were being used as sex slaves and for kiddie porn.

(link)

Also cited is the case of Marc Dutroux, a convicted pedophile.

Wretchard mentions the crime of child sexual abuse almost in passing, turning his attention to the networks that support it.

How do these networks of scum form? My intuition is they form in a way not very different from any Small World Network, of which terrorist cells are a familiar example: that there are hubs, to which a new arrival on the scene can easily form an attachment. As with all Small World Networks, there are probably only a small number of "hops" which separate a footsoldier like Marc Dutroux from the evil Mr. Bigs. The existence of hubs will guarantee that.

One piece of academic research which might help us understand the structure of pedophile rings is The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution, a monograph by Microsoft which examines how illegally downloaded music or video is shared across a Darknet -- a private network of distribution. It's usefulness lies in that the abstract characteristics of illegal file sharing systems it describes are probably shared to some degree by the pedophile networks. By examining the architecture and vulnerabilities of one, we better understand the organization and weaknesses of the other.

Early attempts to shut down large scale illicit content distribution focused on closing down servers from which the material was downloaded. This would be the equivalent of closing down the Casa Pia orphanage described in opening paragraph. But just as the architects of content distribution sharing systems responded by creating a peer to peer structure where the "goods" were passed from one anonymous system to another, so will the pedophiles have adapted. It was suggested that if Madeleine were indeed abducted, she was "abducted to order". You don't download a child from the server any more, just from another peer node. But even this switch from a client-server model to a peer to peer system did not remove the vulnerabilities entirely. The Small World Property reasserted itself in video and music file sharing networks and created super-peers which were themselves like the old content servers. And these too can be targeted. This means that even in a pedophile network without wholesale warehouses like the Casa Pia orphanage, there are "hubs" of users which occupy important positions in the system. Taking down those hubs will degrade the system seriously.

In effect, networks are networks, and are constrained by the same laws whether they deal in music (and video) downloads, child abuse, or terrorism. The tools that work on one are very likely to work on others.

Rush on dot org

Just a link

The mugging that wasn't

An Air America host was reported to have been mugged. One of the other hosts on the station speculated that it was a hate crime – some right-wingers had beaten her up.

This was all over the blogosphere before the truth came in: She had tripped and fallen. No attack squad in sight.

Is Waterboarding Torture?

The new Attorney General doesn't seem to have an answer.

The post, at Patterico's blog, is not very interesting, but the comments are.

In particular, we have a pointer to this piece at Blackfive. It in turn links to a post at National Review Online's "Corner" blog here.

...As a former Army Counterintelligence Agent, I conducted battlefield interrogations of enemy prisoners of war as well as strategic debriefings of higher value targets, and I've served in bad places where bad things will happen if you don't get the information.

On more than one occasion, I had discussions with some of our operators regarding the obtaining of information in the ticking bomb scenario. Our discussion ran along the lines of "It's against the law. It's against the UCMJ. We'd go to jail. But if we knew the bomb was ticking, and this guy had the information that could save dozens or hundreds or more people, or if the team (the operators and the unit) were going to be wiped out if we didn't get it, I'd whip out a hatchet and an entrenching tool and go to work on him."

We were comfortable with this fairly horrible ambiguity and the bad consequences that would accompany it only because the military ethos was to sacrifice ourselves for others, and the notion of incurring legal jeopardy to save others struck us as a righteous cause, but it had to be predicated on the necessity of the ticking bomb....

Nuclear Al-Qaeda?

Mowatt-Larssen has been gathering this evidence since a few weeks after Sept. 11, when then-CIA Director George Tenet asked him to create a new branch on weapons of mass destruction in the agency's counterterrorism center. He helped Tenet prepare the chapter on al-Qaeda's nuclear efforts that appears in Tenet's memoir, " At the Center of the Storm." Now that the uproar over Tenet's mistaken "slam dunk" assessment of the Iraqi threat has died down, it's worth rereading this account. It provides a chilling, public record of al-Qaeda's nuclear ambitions.

Mowatt-Larssen argues that for nearly a decade before Sept. 11, al-Qaeda was seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction. As early as 1993, Osama bin Laden offered $1.5 million to buy uranium for a nuclear device, according to testimony presented in federal court in February 2001. When the al-Qaeda leader was asked in 1998 if he had nuclear or chemical weapons, he responded: "Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so."

Even as al-Qaeda was preparing to fly its airplane bombs into buildings, the group was also trying to acquire nuclear and biological capabilities. In August 2001, bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, met around a campfire with Pakistani scientists from a group called Umma Tameer-E-Nau to discuss how al-Qaeda could build a nuclear device. Al-Qaeda also had an aggressive anthrax program that was discovered in December 2001 after bin Laden was driven from his haven in Afghanistan.

General Sanchez on Iraq

[Retired Lt.] General Sanchez covered a lot of ground in his recent talk to military affairs reporters, from media-military relations, the political climate in the US and what that means to the fight in Iraq and what the US has to do moving forward. But it's clear the MSM have decided to emphasize only one aspect of the General's speech – his harsh critique of the Administration's planning and execution of the war in Iraq. I know, it's shocking that that's what they have chosen to emphasize.

Gray vs. Gore

(Dennis Prager interviewed this professor this morning.)

Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth.

His comments came on the same day that the Nobel committee honoured Mr Gore for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming.

"We're brainwashing our children," said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. "They're going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It's ridiculous."

Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.

However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.

"We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was," Dr Gray said.

He said his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science.

"It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants."

Genocide resolution

From the Worldwide Standard blog.

So passage of the resolution is likely to constitute a serious blow to the war effort. Was this foreseen by House leaders? Was it the motivation?

Good questions.

Worldwide Standard on torture

And for what? The Times indicts the Bush administration for exposing terrorists captured abroad to "head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures." Boo hoo. And why does the Times consider this such a dangerous policy? The reporters end the story with this quote, from former Navy lawyer John Hutson, which they must believe to be compelling:

"The problem is, once you've got a legal opinion that says such a technique is O.K., what happens when one of our people is captured and they do it to him? How do we protest then?" he asked.

As Jules Crittenden notes in response:

[The] article neglects to mention we are fighting an enemy that considers powerdrills into kneecaps and videotaped beheading of captives business as usual. That in fact, we have yet to face an enemy in the modern era that observes anything approaching the standards we do. Germany, Japan, North Korea, North Vietnam, Iran, Iraq. Disorientation, isolation, beatings, starvation, summary executions, torture … of the bone-breaking, organ-smashing, electrocuting, bloody-drawing variety.

That is, real torture. And it trivializes the seriousness of it to apply the word to "head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures." It also trivializes the seriousness of real war crimes for someone to throw around the charge so promiscuously.

S-CHIP recipient

You may remember the Democrats' S-chip poster child, Graeme Frost, the 12-year-old boy from Baltimore, MD, whose parents relied on Maryland's S-chip program to pay for his health care following a severe car accident. Graeme recounted his sob story to Congress in an effort to show the mean Republicans that poor kids need health insurance, too. Baltimore Sun reporter Matthew Hay Brown profiled the "poor" Frost family, but failed to ask some important questions. As it turns out, little Graeme isn't so poor, and bloggers are on the story.

• The Frost kids attend a private school, with a $20,000 per child price tag.
• Halsey Frost, the father, owns the company he works for. He chooses not to give himself insurance.
• Halsey Frost owns the $160,000 building that houses his business.
• The Frost family home is valued at $485,000.

Apparently, a significant number of S-CHIP recipients under the recently-vetoed plan would also be required to pay the Alternative Minimum Tax. Maybe it covers a number of people who aren't all that "poor".

Another leak -- another outcry?

Here's another story about a secret being leaked by someone, somewhere in the Administration.

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.

Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.

The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network.

I'll be curious to see if this leak provokes anywhere near the reaction the leak of Valerie Plame's identity provoked.

I'm betting it won't. Those who act as gatekeepers for media outrage consider the war on terrorism optional, but the war on George Bush is mandatory.

Clarence Thomas Corner

At The NRO Corner blog, links to interviews with Justice Clarence Thomas.

RCP "torture talk"

For the moment.

Saddam and Al Qaeda

Another post on the question of Saddam Hussein's involvement with Al Qaeda. 

 

Is there a more confused issue in the public discourse than the matter of Iraq's ties to al Qaeda prior to the March 2003 invasion? I doubt it. At an ABC News blog, Jake Tapper claims that Senator Barack Obama was right to call out (in a speech he gave yesterday) Senator Hillary Clinton for saying the following back in October 2002:

"[Saddam] has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001."

Tapper writes:

As Don van Natta and Jeff Gerth have written in their book about Clinton and the New York Times, Clinton's linkage of Saddam and al Qaeda was unique among Democrats and "was unsupported by the conclusions of the N.I.E. and other secret intelligence reports that were available to senators before the vote." [Note: The vote mentioned here is, of course, the resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq]

The problem is that Sen. Clinton's statement was supported by the intelligence available, contrary to what Tapper and apparently what Don van Natta and Jeff Gerth argue.

...as George Tenet writes in his book At the Center of the Storm, there was "more than enough evidence" of a relationship between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda, including intelligence demonstrating that more than a dozen al Qaeda agents "had found a comfortable and secure environment" in Baghdad. According to Tenet, these al Qaeda agents used their safe haven in Baghdad to move supplies to other al Qaeda agents in northeastern Iraq. Tenet cites a variety of other pieces of evidence that were contained in the CIA's reporting on this issue from the summer of 2002 through January of 2003 as well. Safe haven, discussions of collaboration, sharing VX nerve gas technology ... it's all there.

The 9/11 Commission found evidence of a relationship as well. The one sentence in the final 9/11 Commission report that says there was "no evidence" that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda developed into a "collaborative operational relationship"--that is, that there was no evidence the two collaborated on attacks against Americans--has been widely trumpeted. But the Commission also found (see p. 61) that there were "indications" that Saddam's regime had assisted al Qaeda in northern Iraq, which was outside of Saddam's centralized control, but where Iraqi Intelligence still had a heavy footprint. The Commission also provided citations showing that President Clinton's administration had uncovered evidence of Iraq’s cooperation with al Qaeda on chemical weapons development projects in Sudan (p. 128). Admittedly, that issue has now become greatly clouded as well. But suffice it to say that the Clinton administration had found significant evidence of a relationship before some former Clinton administration officials decided there wasn't any evidence.

Regardless, the Commission clearly did find that there was a relationship. Here is what Thomas Kean, co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission said about the matter: "There was no question in our minds that there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda."

Goldfarb on "torture"

George Bush is being accused of "war crimes" for allowing the "torture" of detainees.

As Jules Crittenden notes in response:

[The] article neglects to mention we are fighting an enemy that considers powerdrills into kneecaps and videotaped beheading of captives business as usual. That in fact, we have yet to face an enemy in the modern era that observes anything approaching the standards we do. Germany, Japan, North Korea, North Vietnam, Iran, Iraq. Disorientation, isolation, beatings, starvation, summary executions, torture – of the bone-breaking, organ-smashing, electrocuting, bloody-drawing variety.

That is, real torture. And it trivializes the seriousness of it to apply the word to "head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures." It also trivializes the seriousness of real war crimes for someone to throw around the charge so promiscuously. A quick search of Sullivan's blog for "war criminal" turns up 34 hits, all of them referring to members of the Bush administration. No doubt hit number 35 will be Andrew's attack on the war criminals of the Worldwide Standard.

Sen. Harkin -- phony soldier?

Check out the Instapundit's piece.

More phony soldiers

Betsy Newmark has a post on the whole "phony soldiers" kerfuffle.

All this outrage being ginned up by the Democrats and Media Matters over a badly edited report that Rush Limbaugh referred to soldiers who criticize the war as phony soldiers is just funny. When the full context of Limbaugh's comments are played, it's clear that he was talking about people such as those exposed in an ABC news report who claim to have served in the military, yet really didn't. He wasn't criticizing real soldiers who have criticisms of the war.

As Instapundit reminds us, Tom Harkin campaigned in the 1990s as a former combat air pilot from the Vietnam War. But it turned out, as James Taranto reported a few years ago, that his service was limited to flying ferry flights in Japan during the war.

Hat tips to Michelle Malkinand Instapundit. If you want a clear summary of what Limbaugh said and didn't say and how Media Matters was able to pull the strings of the congressional Democrats, go read Byron York's report on the matter. And you'll see the role of the George Soros-funded Media Matters to supply a fake outrageous story for the Democrats to run with in order to try and distract from the Moveon.org ad on General Petraeus.

Limbaugh and "phony soldiers"

On Monday evening, September 24, Rush Limbaugh was struck by a story that appeared on ABC’s World News with Charles Gibson. “A closer look tonight at phony heroes,” Gibson said in his introduction to the report, which was about men who claim to be veterans but are not. In the story, reporter Brian Ross discussed two men who claimed to have served in wartime, possibly to receive free veterans’ hospital and other benefits.

And then this: “Authorities say the most disturbing case involves this man, 23 year-old Jesse Macbeth,” Ross continued. “In a YouTube video seen around the world, Macbeth became a rallying point for anti-war groups, as he talked of the Purple Heart he received in Iraq and described how he and other U.S. Army Rangers killed innocent civilians at a Baghdad mosque.” Ross played video of Macbeth saying, “Women and men, you know — while in their prayer, we started slaughtering them.”

As it turns out, none of that happened. Macbeth was in the Army for just six weeks, was discharged before completing basic training, and was never in Iraq. “Last week in federal court in Seattle,” Ross concluded, “Macbeth offered an apology for defaming the real American heroes as he admitted to lying about his service record and his supposed atrocities.” Ross’ story was headlined “Phony War Vets” on the ABC News website.

During his program the next day, Wednesday, September 26, Limbaugh spoke to a somewhat emotional caller who claimed to be a Republican fed up with the war in Iraq. After a long and sometimes testy exchange, Limbaugh cut to another caller, a man named Mike in Olympia, Washington who said he had served two tours in Iraq. Discussing war critics on the left, the caller said, “What’s really funny is they never talk to real soldiers. They pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue — “

“The phony soldiers,” Limbaugh said.

“The phony soldiers,” the caller repeated. “If you talk to any real soldier and they’re proud to serve, they want to be over in Iraq, they understand their sacrifice and they’re willing to sacrifice for the country.”

“I was thinking of Macbeth when I said ‘phony soldiers,’“ Limbaugh told me. As the caller talked, Limbaugh told a staff member to print out the previous day’s commentary on the ABC “Phony Heroes” story. After “vamping” a bit while the commentary printed out, Limbaugh moved on.

“I want to thank you, Mike, for calling. I appreciate it very much. I gotta — here is a morning update that we did recently, talking about fake soldiers. This is a story of who the left props up as heroes. And they have their celebrities. One of them was Army Ranger Jesse Macbeth…” Limbaugh read the entire commentary from the day before and wrapped up that segment of the program. From there, he moved on to a discussion of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Where the controversy goes now is not clear. Democrats, and particularly their supporters in the left-wing blogosphere, are pressing for payback over the MoveOn.org affair. But Limbaugh’s explanation will likely make it harder to make the clear-cut case against him that Republicans, and some Democrats, made against MoveOn. The fact that Limbaugh, on the original September 26 program, brought up the ABC report, unbidden, to explain the “phony soldiers” remark suggests that that indeed was what he had in mind at the time he said it. That’s also supported by the fact that he had recorded a commentary on the story the day before, and that he printed out and re-read that commentary on September 26 as he explained “phony soldiers.” It was clearly on his mind.

And even though there are political arguments on all sides of this controversy, independent-minded critics who look at Media Matters might conclude that its political motivations are simply too strong to merit serious consideration. In addition to its ties to major Democratic donors and to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Media Matters is a deeply politicized organization down to its lowest levels. In the past few days, it has posted eleven stories on the Limbaugh matter. Those postings were written by, among others, Julie Millican, a veteran of the Kerry campaign, MoveOn.org, and the Democratic turnout organization America Coming Together; Sarah Pavlus, formerly of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee; Andrew Ironside, who worked for the Howard Dean campaign; Adam Shah, a lawyer who worked for the Alliance for Justice, the organization best known for opposing President Bush’s judicial nominees; Jeremy Schulman, a former spokesman for Colorado Democratic congressional candidate Dave Thomas; and Matthew Gertz, former deputy campaign manager for Connecticut Democratic congressional candidate Diane Farrell, as well as intern for New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer.

Murtha to have his day in court

Even though he doesn't want to.

The Jena Six

A comment piece in the Kansas City Star

...the reality is Thursday's protests are just another sign that we remain deeply locked in denial about the path we need to travel today for true American liberation, equality and power in the new millennium.

The fact that we waited to love Mychal Bell until after he'd thrown away a Division I football scholarship and nine months of his life is just as heinous as the grossly excessive attempted-murder charges that originally landed him in jail.

Reed Walters, the Jena district attorney, is being accused of racism because he didn't show Bell compassion when the teenager was brought before the court for the third time on assault charges in a two-year span.

Where was our compassion long before Bell got into this kind of trouble?

That's the question that needed to be asked in Jena and across the country on Thursday. But it wasn't asked because everyone has been lied to about what really transpired in the small southern town.

There was no "schoolyard fight" as a result of nooses being hung on a whites-only tree.

Justin Barker, the white victim, was cold-cocked from behind, knocked unconscious and stomped by six black athletes. Barker, luckily, sustained no life-threatening injuries and was released from the hospital three hours after the attack.

A black U.S. attorney, Don Washington, investigated the "Jena Six" case and concluded that the attack on Barker had absolutely nothing to do with the noose-hanging incident three months before. The nooses and two off-campus incidents were tied to Barker's assault by people wanting to gain sympathy for the "Jena Six" in reaction to Walters' extreme charges of attempted murder.

Much has been written about Bell's trial, the six-person all-white jury that convicted him of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery and the clueless public defender who called no witnesses and offered no defense. It is rarely mentioned that no black people responded to the jury summonses and that Bell's public defender was black.

It's almost never mentioned that Bell's absentee father returned from Dallas and re-entered his son's life only after Bell faced attempted-murder charges. At a bond hearing in August, Bell's father and a parade of local ministers promised a judge that they would supervise Bell if he was released from prison.

Where were the promises and supervision before any of this?

It's rarely mentioned that Bell was already on probation for assault when he was accused of participating in Barker's attack. And it's never mentioned that white people in the "racist" town of Jena provided Bell support and protected his football career long before Jesse, Al, Bell's father and all the others took a sincere interest in Mychal Bell.

You won't hear about any of that because it doesn't fit the picture we want to paint of Jena, this case, America and ourselves.

We don't practice preventive medicine. Mychal Bell needed us long before he was cuffed and jailed. Here is another undeniable, statistical fact: The best way for a black (or white) father to ensure that his son doesn't fall victim to a racist prosecutor is by participating in his son's life on a daily basis.

That fact needed to be shared Thursday in Jena. The constant preaching of that message would short-circuit more potential "Jena Six" cases than attributing random acts of six-on-one violence to three-month-old nooses.

And I am in no way excusing the nooses. The responsible kids should've been expelled. A few years after I'd graduated, a similar incident happened at my high school involving our best football player, a future NFL tight end. He was expelled.

The Jena school board foolishly overruled its principal and suspended the kids for three days.

But the kids responsible for Barker's beating deserve to be punished. The prosecutor needed to be challenged on his excessive charges. And we as black folks need to question ourselves about why too many of us can only get energized to help our young people once they're in harm's way.

I've been the spokesman for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Kansas City for six years. Getting black men to volunteer to mentor for just two hours a week to the more than 100 black boys on a waiting list is a yearly crisis. It's a nationwide crisis for the organization. In Kansas City, we're lucky if we get 20 black Big Brothers a year.

You don't want to see any more "Jena Six" cases? Love Mychal Bell before he violently breaks the law.

Young Earth Creationism at Coral Ridge

To: DebunkCreation@yahoogroups.com

I read this on another list and am re-posting here with permission.

I found the letter typical of a good YEC flogging, but the reply is perhaps the most interesting IMO.

Mike

Dr. D. James Kennedy,
Coral Ridge Ministries
PO Box 40
Ft Lauderdale FL 33302
E-mail: letters@coralridge. org
April 16, 2005

Dear Dr. Kennedy,

In general I applaud your ministry by standing up for Christian values in a post-modern society which is progressively becoming more degenerate. The obvious evils I can immediately think of are abortion, homosexuality and pornography, amongst many others. You project a most laudable image of authority in your various programs, such as "Truths that Transform".

Like you I am a Christian, and like you I have various academic qualifications, though not as many nor as impressive as yours. Your qualifications appear to be mostly in the arts and divinity, whereasmine are in the sciences. I do not know what your Ph.D. is in, but presumably it is in divinity or a related subject. Mine is in astrophysics.

As a professional scientist, I feel that I am qualified to speak with some authority in the branch of astrophysics and related subjects I work in, and less authority on other fields of science. Not being a scholar in ancient Hebrew, Greek, biblical hermeneutics, or ancient Middle Eastern studies, I am not qualified to speak on these at all except at an amateur level, and although I have my own interpretations of the Scriptures, that may agree or disagree with other individuals, I cannot speak with any authority, and depend on and respect those who are qualified and have taken the trouble to undertake the necessary studies. Of course this does not mean that even when talking on a subject I am familiar with I am infallible, and like anyone I make mistakes.

Having said all that, it rather puzzles me how you can speak with any authority on science, such as, astronomy and geology, unless you have studied these subjects. I note that this is an unfortunate characteristic of several church leaders who think that because they are an authority on the Bible and are devout Christians, they are automatically an authority on some branch of science without studying it. I am referring to your two broadcasts in the "Truths that Transform" archives on your http://www.coralridge.org/BroadcastArchives.asp website for May 24 and 25, 2004, where you talk about the young earth. I can tell from a number of major errors in your broadcasts that you have moved far outside your area of knowledge in your apologetics.

Young earth creationism, namely a belief that the universe is less than about 10,000 years old, together with other dogma, in particular a global Noah's flood about 1600 years after the creation, is in my mind a disease that has infected a large fraction of the evangelical community in the USA since World War II, and does not necessarily have much to do with the bogy word "evolution". In fact many evangelical scholars in the late 19th century and early 20th century, such as Charles Hodge and Benjamin B. Warfield, accepted that the earth was probably very old, even if they had problems with evolution. The whole issue of a young earth creationism was revived by Henry Morris and John Whitcomb Jr. with their book "The Genesis Flood" in 1961, which was based on the writings of the Seventh Day Adventist George McCready Price before World War II.

It is true that evolution as we understand it requires long periods of time, but some astronomical processes also require long periods of time (and others short periods of time), quite independently of any assumptions about evolution. Astronomical timescales are determined from the empirical evidence, not on any assumptions about evolution. So called "evolutionists" do not need long periods of time, long periods of time are just determined by looking at the evidence. Not working in the field of evolutionary biology, I am not qualified to speak on it, and only want to deal with astronomy and geology. Also a broad discussion on the philosophy of science is beyond the scope of my comments here, as well as a lecture on astronomy.

Unlike some of the leaders in the creationist community, who I have every reason to believe are knowingly bearing false witness in some cases, as I can tell by what they say, I have every reason to believe that you are just misguided, and have bought into this whole business of young earth creationism simply because you have not thought through the whole issue properly, and acquainted yourself with the science. It appears that you have been persuaded by some of the leaders in the creationist community, and are propagating these errors to other Christians.

The impression you give in your two broadcasts is that there is a world wide conspiracy in astronomy and geology to cover up the evidence that the earth is no more than about 10,000 years old, and that somehow geologists with their dating methods are evil and deliberately manipulate dates because they do not want to be accountable to God. You stated several times that over 99% of all geochronology gives relatively young ages for the earth. Indeed many rocks can be young, but many can be old; however, the age of the earth, the moon, the other planets, the sun, and the Solar System as a whole, have been dated to be 4.5 billion years old. These are based on many independent assumptions, and if different and independent assumptions generally agree, there is every reason to accept this figure. There is no argument that the Solar System is about 4.5 billion years old, rather than about 10,000 years old, nor that the universe as a whole is about 14 billion years old. The empirical evidence is just too strong, and anybody who denies this is in effect denying that there is such a thing as objective truth.

One matter that really puzzles me is that several times you say that evolution is impossible even in trillions of years, yet you make an issue out of a mere 4.5 billion years. All of the specific errors concern the second half of your broadcast on May 25, 2004 as follows: (1) Meteorites: You stated that they are made up mostly of nickel, and stated that this element is rare on the earth, and none are found, except obviously for freshly fallen meteorites. This is completely wrong, as far as I know no meteorites containing mostly nickel are known. Nickel is found alloyed with iron in iron meteorites, is always significantly less abundant than iron, and iron meteorites make up about 5% of meteorite falls. Moreover, when exposed to water and oxygen, the iron and nickel will weather with time, and be difficult to distinguish from terrestrial rocks.

You also stated that no micrometeorites have been found in sediments, but for the same reason as stated above, reactive elements like iron and nickel will readily react with water and oxygen over time, and be difficult to identify as having come from meteorites. Of course the elements themselves in a combined state can be identified, and in the case of the rare element iridium, can be identified as being of extraterrestrial origin.

Finally, you stated that you had performed some boring in the ocean and found nothing. Fine, OK, but could you say where and when you did this boring, what equipment you used, and your results.

2) Cosmic dust: You stated that the Voyager space probe(s) found three huge rings of dust between Mars and Jupiter, but the Poynting-Robertson effect, which you described with a bit of detail, would cause this dust to fall into the Sun in a relatively short period of time. That is certainly correct, but what you did not say is this dust can be shed by comets and produced by collisions. For the former we can see this process happening today. A particularly good example was Comet Hale/Bopp in 1997 where you could look up in the sky and see a large dust tail. For the latter, all the asteroids we have looked at are pock marked with many craters, so obviously impacts have happened, and dust will be thrown out into orbit around the Sun in such collisions.

3) Jupiter's moon Io: You stated that scientists were surprised to discover from Voyage that Jupiter's moon Io was bubbling over with volcanic activity. That is correct. However, you also stated that if the Solar System were billions of years old, it should have long ago cooled down and all activity should have stopped, thus violating all physical laws. Even if the source of heating was unknown, this does not argue for a young Solar System given that our own moon has cooled down, as well as the other moons of Jupiter. In fact Io is in a tidal tug-of-war between Jupiter and the next moon out, Europa, and heating caused by the tides match the heat dissipated by volcanic action.

4) Red Sirius: You stated that the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius, was reported to be red by the Egyptians, Romans and Greeks, that is correct. You also said that it is a white dwarf, that is technically not correct. Sirius is a binary star consisting of a bright white star known since antiquity, and a very faint white dwarf, which was only found in the 1800s. Exactly why the Egyptians, Romans and Greeks claimed it was red is not very clear, the most plausible theory is related to its helical rising at the time the Nile flooded, and when low down in the sky will appear red, as do the sun and moon. Being so bright the effect of atmospheric absorption will be more noticeable than any other star. Another theory is that the ancient writings have been mistranslated or misinterpreted.

You implied that our knowledge of stellar evolution is so bad that the white dwarf companion of Sirius was a red giant less than 2000 years ago. If that had been the case, the red giant would have been nearly as bright as the moon, there would have been a spectacular display of the ejected gas when the white dwarf threw off its outer layers, which would still be visible today. None of this has been observed, and the white dwarf, though hot by our standards, is much too cool to have been produced only about 2000 years ago, unless you assume that all the laws of physics are wrong, but then concerning Io above, you used the laws of physics as part of your apologetics.

Why the Egyptians, Romans and Greeks claimed Sirius was red is a bit of a mystery that may never be fully resolved. A very unlikely astrophysical explanation is that a cloud of dust passed between Sirius and us, causing Sirius to be reddened, and has since cleared away. The ancient Chinese recorded Sirius to be white, and they are considered to have made reliable records that can be backed up in the case of planets, comets and supernova explosions, which can be checked independently.

5) Comets and the Oort cloud: This is one of the favorite arguments used in creationist apologetics, and unfortunately you are no exception. You stated that the Oort Cloud is merely a belief in the spirit of Hebrews 11:1, which you quoted, namely that scientists need it to explain where comets come from in order to explain why we see them if the Solar System is billions of years old, instead of a few thousand. Even though the Oort Cloud has not been seen directly (yet), scientists do not believe in the way of Hebrews 11:1 that it exists, but it is inferred from the orbits of long period comets, which have orbital periods from 200 years (which is an arbitrary figure), up to about a million years. Those comets with orbital periods of about a million years spend most of their time out at great distances from the sun at what is assumed to be the Oort Cloud. As a very small proportion of the comets have been discovered, it is likely that there is a very large number of bodies out at the Oort Cloud.

You stated that we "know" in two million years all the comets, long and short period, would have disintegrated if the Solar System were that old. In fact as many comets can survive several passages of the sun, but some cannot, comets with orbital periods of about a million years would still be around, and this makes no assumptions about comets on orbits that do not take them into the inner Solar System, but are later perturbed by passing stars.

Another problem with your apologetics for the non-existence of the Oort Cloud is that it may be directly observed at some point in the future as our instruments improve. If this happens, some Christians will get egg on their faces who use this argument. This has already happened twice in the last few years. For many years creationists maintained that the Kuiper Belt, which is a region of icy asteroids at about and beyond the distance of Pluto, did not exist, because it had not been seen. Well, in the early 1990s objects were found it in, and a figure approaching 1000 objects are now known. In fact Pluto itself is probably a large member of this group. The same happened with planets orbiting other stars. Before any were discovered, creationists maintained on some strange theological grounds that they did not exist, but the first was discovered in 1995, and over 130 are now known. In both cases, for a number of years after the discoveries creationists lived in denial claiming that Kuiper Belt objects and planets orbiting other stars did not exist, just as some member of the Roman Catholic Church denied that Galileo had seen moons in orbit around Jupiter. In the end, with the weight of evidence so strong, creationists quietly back-peddled, but probably not before damage was done to the image of Christianity.

Incidentally, in 2003 an asteroid called Sedna taking over 10,000 years to orbit the sun, was discovered. It is in an orbit between the Kuiper Belt and the presumed Oort Cloud.

6) Salt in the ocean: This is another classic creationist apologetic, where a false uniformitarian assumption is made about the accumulation of salt, sodium chloride, in the oceans. In fact there are processes that remove as well as add salt into the oceans, which have to be taken into account. Some compounds of aluminum stay in the oceans for a very short time, so by you making the same assumption for them, you can state that the oceans are only about 100 years old. In fact because different substances have different accumulation and removal times, based on these alone you can "date" the oceans to any age you like between 100 years and billions of years, just pick a figure.

7) Helium in the atmosphere: You started by mentioning hydrogen in the atmosphere, which presumably was a slip of the tongue, because you then went on to talk about helium, which is the product of most forms of radioactive decay in the earth. You stated that if the earth were 4.5 billion years old there would be massive amounts of helium in the atmosphere which cannot escape, so by there being only a very small amount of helium present implies that the earth is young. As any first year chemistry student would tell you, helium is a very light and chemically inert gas, and is used in balloons. Being light and inert it will readily escape from the earth, so your statement that it cannot escape is patently false.

Hydrogen is even lighter than helium, but of course nearly all of it on and above the earth's surface is combined with oxygen to form water.

8) Radiometric dating: You stated that rocks were dated from a Hawaiian volcano that erupted in 1800, and huge variations in ages were found using the potassium-argon method. Potassium-40 has a half life of just over a billion years, and cannot be used for rocks younger than about 100,000 years old simply because not enough potassium-40 has decayed to give meaningful results. It is a bit like using the counter in your car to measure the length of your garage, it is a far too coarse a measuring tool for the purpose. Also, it is well known that if rocks embedded in lava have not been completely melted, their "clocks" may have not properly have been reset.

9) Skull 1470: I am not familiar with this and the anthropologist Richard Leaky, but again you stated that dating methods are completely unreliable. In particular you stated that the dating methods used to determine the age of the earth are so unreliable as to be useless, implying again that the earth is young.

Unfortunately, your witness for Christ can be seriously undermined by your incorrect science, and thus your apologetics on other matters such as abortion can loose credibility in the eyes of those who have some scientific knowledge. What happens to a student who is a devout Christian, and has bought into young earth creationism, then goes to college and studies geology or astronomy, what happens to his faith? What if his professor is a Christian? No wonder many Christian parents complain that their children drift away from Christianity when they attend college. Young earth creationism is just as false as flat-earthism or geocentricism, and claiming that it is true, undermines the whole meaning of truth, particularly in a post-modern society where truth is considered as relative. This is the legacy of young earth creationism: The non-Christian is handed what appears to be a valid reason to reject the good news of Jesus Christ. And when the fallacies of young earth creationism are finally discovered, disillusioned Christians may relinquish their faith*. Another legacy is that Christianity is perceived as residing in the ghetto of anti-knowledge and anti-science, thus undermining its influence in society.

With the brains God has given us, and such a fabulous universe to study, I think that young earth creationism sells God very short. As Christians we should celebrate that we can study God's creation using modern science, far more than the ancient Hebrews could have imagined, rather than skulk in the darkness of deliberate ignorance with the fear that science will undermine our faith.

The real irony of young earth creationism is that its proponents, more than many other Christians, keep claiming that they have the truth, yet when confronted with the irrefutable evidence that the universe is ancient, such as seeing light from distant stars, are unable to bring up any plausible arguments or evidence, and often resort to arguing for some form of a deceptive creation with the appearance of age. This not only contradicts objective truth, it of course also contradicts Romans 1:20.

This is a free country, not Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan under the Taliban, and you and I are free to express our views. However, my advice is to distance yourself from creationism and stick to the branches of apologetics you are familiar with and have studied. Your association with the young earth creationist movement is most unhealthy. By making the age of the earth an issue, all you are doing is ghettoizing Christianity, and making it ineffective. Moreover, because of a number of serious and well known scientific errors in these and other broadcasts (the shrinking sun is another example), skeptics who hear your broadcasts can use your erroneous arguments against Christians.

I have no official ministry, and I am not associated with the progressive creationist Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe, with whom I agree with on many matters, but also disagree with on others. I await any response you or your colleagues at Coral Ridge Ministries may wish to send me.

Yours in Christ and sincerely,

Christopher M. Sharp

Department of Astronomy, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721.
E-mail: csharp@as.arizona. edu / cmsharp01@aol . com
Web: http://csharp. com

NB. Please note that my views here are my private views, and have nothing to do with the University of Arizona, or any of its departments.

(*) From http://www.gpa.shubh-corp.com/downloads/articles/YEC%20Article. pdf

On July 11, 2005, I received the following e-mail from a member of Coral Ridge Ministries. The name of the person replying, his/her e-mail address, and his/her role in the organization are not disclosed to protect privacy. Likewise the part of the ministry the employee works for is not disclosed. The letter is otherwise an exact copy, including typing errors.

Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 20:14:49 -0400
From: "XXXX"
To: csharp@as.arizona. edu
Subject: Open letter April 16, 2005

Dear Mr. Christopher M. Sharp,

Concerning the letter that you wrote (http://www.csharp.com/kennedy.html), dated April 16, 2005. It is my opinion that you are correct on each and every point raised. As you know not every believer concurs with the 6,000 to 10,000 year old "young earth" theory. We here at CRM have interesting internal discussions on these topics; unfortunately free speech is a questionable one.

These "Internal discussions" relate to such topics as the speed of light, the size of the Milky way and the distance to Andromeda and the math just does not support the 10,000 years old creation scenarios. To support the young earth theory as "truth" the young creationist community has formulate a "work-around" which is that God was (self) forced to create within the entire light spectrum the events that we see ( i.e. starts that go supernovae, etc). All of these events were embedded into this contiguous light stream that we see today. This results in the universe to be young and yet look old.

I do not concur that an eternal God had to create this contiguous stream of light with all of the images imbedded in it so that we humans would come to the conclusion that the universe is very young and made to look very old, I just don't concur.

The earth being 4.5 billion years old comparing it to a 13+ billion year old universe, the earth is young on this scale.

XXXX

An Employee

During office hours I believe that the earth is 6004 year old, on nights and weekend (including all Christian holidays) the earth is 4.5 billions years old, give or take 10,000 years.

NB. Please note that my views here are my private views, and have nothing to do with Coral Ridge Ministries Media, Inc. XXXX Operation is a part of CRM's XXXX. In addition to our mission statement, we are a ministry within a democracy and not necessarily here to practice it, unfortunately free speech is a questionable one.

How's the enemy doing in Iraq?

(Hat tip: PrariePundit)

The facts on the ground are that the two chief enemies of the new Iraq - the groups wearing the al Qaeda label and the Iran-backed Shiite militias - are not doing well. Indeed, one might say that both have already lost their bids for power and, the continued killings notwithstanding, are in the process of marginalization. The only way they could make a comeback is if Congress decides to legislate a victory for them.

Al Qaeda's strategy had two parts. One was based on the assumption that, by killing enough Americans, it would enable the party of defeat in the United States to force President Bush to surrender. That failed when Bush decided to increase, rather than reduce, the number of U.S. troops in Iraq.

The other part assumed that, by fomenting a sectarian war, al Qaeda would force Shiites, Iraq's majority, to run away - allowing Salafi Sunnis to seize power in Baghdad. That also failed: Not only did the Shiites not run away,but also many who had fled under Saddam Hussein decided to return to Iraq.

...

Here are some other facts on how the enemy is doing right now:

• The main Arab Sunni armed groups (including the 1920 Brigade and the Islamic Army of Iraq) have switched sides, agreeing to work with the Iraqi government against foreign terrorists.
• The Sunni Arab tribal sheiks in once-unruly Anbar province have decided to come off the fence and take up arms against al Qaeda, even if this means collaborating with the Americans.
• On the Shiite side, Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army to lay down arms for six months. He made that decision after dozens of his commanders, former members of Saddam's Republican Guards, had switched to the government side.
• Sadr also saw the writing on the wall after his gunmen tried to seize power in Karbala, Najaf, Wassit, Misan, Dhiqar and Qaddisiyah - and failed.
• ....

As in any war, what counts in this war is the protagonists' states of mind. No war is won with a defeatist discourse.

The "surge" was a political signal that the United States did not intend to abandon its allies. That signal persuaded fence-sitters in Iraq - and, beyond it, in the broader Arab world - to take sides. Most chose the side of new Iraq against its internal and external foes.

America and its Iraqi allies can't be defeated in Iraq. But defeat could be manufactured in Washington, where part of the U.S. elite seeks it in order to win in the domestic political war.

Each time an American politician speaks of defeat, he encourages the terrorists, discourages allies, signals to fence sitters to look elsewhere - and thus prolongs the war.

Iraq as flypaper, again

Argument #1: "we're fighting them over there so they don't attack us over here." Yes, and the Tooth Fairy is real. This argument takes the prize for being both misleading and stupid, suggesting that Iraq's civil war and regional instability are offset by that invisible fence in Anbar province that magically corrals the world's terrorists and keeps them right where we want them.

It is not Argument #1that is "being both misleading and stupid" here. And uncharitable. Argument #1 is much stronger than Zeigart suggests. Because the US is fighting in Iraq, this has caused Al Qaeda to put a high priority on victory in Iraq, and therefore Al Qaeda has chosen to spend their limited resources in Iraq rather than in the US. This is a perfectly sensible argument and it might very well be true.

The secular case for Marriage

Why should the State recognize marriage at all, never mind any particular type?

This was a letter sent a radio talk show host after a broadcast where he claimed not to recognize any reason for the state to recognize marriage. That is odd because the secular case for marriage is actually its most compelling reason for existing as an institution at all.

More here

Iraq -- the Al-Qaeda Motel

The Left thinks Iraq is a killing field for Americans. Actually, it is a killing field for our enemies, at a very great but vitally important sacrifice. That reflects a grand strategy, tailored to the peculiar nature of the global terror threat.

You don't shoot poisonous fire-ants with a BB gun; you just set an ant trap. Ant colonies are highly "distributed" biological societies, much like the world-wide web. They can't be killed with a BB or a pressure hose; even pouring flaming gasoline on an ant hill won't work

Instead, you destroy ant colonies by attracting hungry ants to a chemical bait, and then kill them all in one small place. Ant traps work.

That's the Bush strategy in Iraq. Al Qaeda isn't centralized, with big cities or steel industries like Nazi Germany. So you can't destroy the enemy by hunting them one by one. Rather, you bait a trap – provoke them to come to you, and make sure they don't get out alive.

Iraq is a trap for Al Qaeda. Our mere presence in the heart of the Osama's Caliphate-To-Be draws them like ants to sugar.

Kaplan on Petraeus

The idea that General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are front men for the administration is ludicrous. Until he took the job as overall ground commander in Iraq, Petraeus was a favorite of liberal journalists: the Princeton man who enjoyed the company of the media and intellectuals, so much so that he was vaguely distrusted by other general officers who envied the good ink he received. As for Crocker, he is a hard-core Arabist, a professional species that I once wrote a book about: He is the least likely creature on earth to buy into neoconservative ideas about the Middle East. Neither of these men are identified with the decision to go to war. If I had to bet, I’d say that Crocker especially would have been against it, like his other Arabist colleagues. Thus, these men have no personal stake in proving the president right. They and their staffs are much more likely to provide a balanced analysis of the reality in Iraq than senators and congressmen looking over their shoulders at opinion polls and future elections. As Petraeus said, “I wrote this testimony myself,” meaning, the White House had nothing to do with it. Watching them brief Congress Monday, I came away convinced that they made a better impression on the public than anyone else in the room.

a series of dictators, culminating in Saddam Hussein, built a state out of a multiconfessional and multiethnic hodgepodge. Because that hodgepodge was so unwieldy—a Frankenstein monster of a polity—the force required to control it was, by necessity, tyrannical in the extreme. With that extreme tyranny now dismantled, rebuilding the Iraqi state must begin from scratch. It may be no accident that the progress we have seen is at the bottom, since that might be the only place where such progress can even begin to take hold.

Bottom line: I suspect we will be stuck in Iraq with tens of thousands of troops for years to come. The results we obtain may be meager, but they’ll still be better than if we suddenly withdrew.

Read it.

Six years ago...

An interview with Laurie Mylroie, author of "Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America".

As for how likely it is that bin Ladin would co-operate with Iraq, it is very likely. In fact, bin Ladin basically serves as a front organization for others: Iraq, Sudan, the Taliban. He doesn't have the organizational skills on his own to carry out major attacks.

It's true that bin Ladin criticized Iraq 10 years ago, when it invaded Kuwait, on the grounds that Kuwait was a Muslim country that hadn't done anything to Iraq. But it is 10 years later and the perception is that the US is unjustly targeting Iraq.

Finally, I do share your concern that our "war" with bin Ladin might interfere with going after Iraq. We may become too distracted by him, bogged down, etc.

(And I thought Iraq was a distraction from Osama.)

Needless to say, Mylroie is considered "controversial".

Open letter to an Interrogater

I've been having an argument with an interrogator who turns out to be really lousy at making his case. In general, I agree with him about torture. Where he loses me is his insistence that torture never works.

I finally just wrote an open letter to him.

---

Hi there!

This is the Evil One, with an open letter for (or at least about) you.

Since you’ve declared me evil, and declared that I “support torture”, I really don’t expect this letter prompt you to attempt a civilized discussion, or to make any impact on you at all. I believe that you, with your declaration, have set about to define yourself as holding the moral high ground, and absolve yourself from mounting a reasoned defense of your case. I don’t blame you – thinking is hard work, and it takes practice.

This letter is really for the spectators. I intend to lay out my case for the dark side and let readers judge for themselves. On the off chance that you care to reply, I’m leaving comments open.

For my part, I don’t think you’re evil, merely foolish. I believe you when you say you hate torture, but I believe the arguments you have been making hurt your case and make it more likely that people will be tortured in the future. As good as your motives are, you lack wisdom.

First, let it be noted that for the most part, I agree with what you write. I merely believe that you carry your argument to extremes, and this, as I’ve mentioned, hurts the very cause you are fighting to promote.

I have two major objections to the arguments you raise against torture: silly definitions and your “utilitarian argument”.

1) Silly definitions

First, you define torture in a manner that is silly, useless, and which actually demeans real victims of torture. In your comment here, you define torture as “Any physical or mental coercion. Any.”

By my reading, this definition includes a huge number of acts which I don’t consider torture. A parent who puts his child on a “time-out” is coercing that child to observe the “time-out”, otherwise the child would not observe it. A police officer who pulls over a motorist for a traffic infraction is coercing that motorist – he doesn’t pull over because of his love of stopping and chatting with random police officers. An interrogator questioning a detainee is forcing that detainee to stay in the room with him, or at least at the detention facility. I doubt that, if given a free, un-coerced choice, that detainee would remain at the detention center.

Indeed, I can’t imagine any society that can function without some form of coercion to enforce whatever laws it deems necessary. Indeed, I don’t see how anyone can interrogate a person unless he can coerce that person to hang around long enough to be interrogated. So when you offer a definition of “torture” that forces me to choose between any sort of working civil order and a Hobbesian anarchy, I guess I have to stand on the side of “torture”.

You have introduced, at least by implication, another definition of “torture”. On several occasions, you have, in effect, challenged people with: “how would you like it?"

If you are willing to have it done to yourself, or your loved ones, if they are suspected/accused, then, just maybe, you have a morally defensible (though disgusting) position.

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The implied definition is, “torture” is anything you would rather not experience.

Unfortunately, while everything we both agree is torture is covered by that definition, so are any number of things we disagree over. Furthermore, so are any number of things I’m sure neither one of us would call torture. For example, in the army, you were trained to kill people. In battle, trained soldiers go into the field with the full expectation they will kill other soldiers, and with the full awareness that they may themselves be killed.

In my opinion, your definition of “torture” clouds the issue. When the same word applies equally to the tearing off of fingernails, the gouging out of eyes, and placing a child on a “time-out”, the word loses most of its meaning and all of its moral and emotional impact. When “torture” means anything as innocuous and routine as being pulled over by a traffic officer, a reasonable person may conclude “torture” isn’t that bad.

Your definition of “torture” also insults everyone who has been subject to real torture. By lumping the treatment Senator McCain received at the Hanoi Hilton together with routine treatment of prisoners here in the States, you cheapen McCain’s experience.

Now, it’s entirely possible that I’ve completely misinterpreted your definition of “torture”, and you do not intend to include every form of coercion. However, when I’ve given my take on your definition in the past, you have declined to either clarify or withdraw it.

I assume you stand by it, and what I infer from it. If you don’t, comments are open.

I don’t have a cut-and-dried definition of “torture”.

I note the United States Code defines “torture” in the following way:

Section 2340. Definitions

As used in this chapter -

1. "torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
2. "severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from
1. the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
2. the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
3. the threat of imminent death; or
4. the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality;

Now this definition suffers from a problem you were trying to avoid with your definition: What do we mean by “severe”? While we’re at it, how long is “prolonged”, how soon is “imminent”, and how profoundly is “profoundly”? Any reasonable definition, used by reasonable people in the real world is ultimately going to be a process of line-drawing. You have chosen to draw your line such that “severe” means “any”, “prolonged” is “any”, “profoundly” is “any”, and “imminently” is “at any time in the foreseeable future”. I don’t think this is a useful definition.

Now, in the real world, there are a variety of techniques that have been approved for use by interrogators, including the notorious “water-boarding”. So far, red-hot pincers, bamboo slivers under nails, and bastinado are not on the “approved” list. They’re on the “yes, it’s torture” side of the line, while the “attention slap”, extreme temperatures, prolonged standing, and water-boarding are on the “no it’s not” side.

My take on the issue: I’m not sure where I draw the line between “torture” and “not torture”. Indeed, any line I draw would probably be a fuzzy one, with some things being “mostly torture” and others “only a little bit torture”. Indeed, since people differ in their sensitivity and reaction to various things, I’d probably wind up having to draw a different line for every person on the planet.

Ultimately, I believe reasonable people can disagree over where to draw the line. You apparently don’t.

2) Your “Utilitarian Argument”

You have repeatedly advanced a “utilitarian argument” against torture. [Add links] You repeatedly assert that “torture doesn’t work”. This argument fails on two counts. Firstly, utilitarian arguments are very dangerous. They’re only as good as your data.

The book “Freakonomics” made the case that liberalized abortion laws were responsible for the drop in crime rates in recent years. The children aborted are the ones that would have been more likely to grow up poor and in single-parent homes. These are the very groups that are more likely to commit crimes.

Now, John Lott writes in his book, “Freedomnomics”, argues that abortion has actually caused an increase in crime.

What is the utilitarian argument with respect to abortion? I don’t know. The final results aren’t in yet. They may never be.

The point remains, if you base your argument on a moral point on utilitarian grounds, then your morality is only as solid as your data, and you may find your utilitarian argument urges the adoption of a policy you detest, and having raised the utilitarian argument in the first place, you have no grounds to object.

Secondly, your utilitarian argument is wrong – torture does work, especially if we allow your silly definition to stand.

Interrogation can’t possibly work unless the person being interrogated is required (that is, “coerced”) to remain where the interrogator can question him. As you define “torture”, interrogation is impossible without torture.

You have taken me to task for “arguing in bad faith” because “it’s impossible to prove a negative”. Fine, I take you at your word. Your “utilitarian argument” is not provable.

Furthermore, it’s very easy to disprove. All I have to do is cite one case to show that “torture” does, at least sometimes work. And since you define “torture” in such a way that even the methods of interrogation you approve of are impossible without it, we now have absolute proof that “torture” does, in fact, work.

However, let’s now bring in reasonable people with real-world definitions of “torture”, where there is a line drawn between “torture” and “rough treatment”. (And possibly, a line between “rough treatment” and “not being nice”.) We still have cases where you concede that rough treatment, even that which crosses the line into torture, does work. It obtains information which is true.

Why? Because as I keep saying, using torture as a means of collecting information doesn't work. As a system, it fails. Someone might tell the truth, but the amount of non-truth which enters the system buries it.

There are those who pretend that's not the case. That somehow we can sift the truth from the lies; without having any troubles. That somehow the dedicated bad person, who is willing to plant bombs, bury people alive, whatever fantasy of justification the torture mongers want to trot out, will somehow break when his body is beaten, his flesh is torn, his mind is assaulted with terrors, the electrodes are supplied with current, the water rises past his nose and mouth, his bones broken, his sleep deprived, his environment changed, etc., etc., etc., ad naseam.

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Sooner or later my honest report (assuming I break) will be lost in all the crap (all the more so if there is more than one person being tortured, the interrogators will start to manufacture corroboration; and when the story changes, so too will the false corroboration change to match it, because the answers are expected, and the source will be guided to them).

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It obtains information which is true, “but”, you say, this information is contaminated. Under torture, you point out, a person will say anything he thinks his interrogators want to hear, in order to stop the torture. How, you ask, do we differentiate between accurate information and inaccurate?

In other words, we have three issues to consider: The effect of incentives on human behavior, the signal to noise ratio of any information obtained, and the use to which any information obtained is to be put.

First, the use. You are right in saying the use of torture would contaminate all information obtained from a subject, if the information were being used to build a legal case. The thing to remember is that the war on Jihadists is not a law enforcement action. It is a war. During war, soldiers are called on to deal with the enemy in ways police officers would never be allowed to deal with criminals. No soldier, for example, reads a captured enemy his or her Miranda rights, for example.

Information obtained through sufficiently rough treatment should, and probably would, be excluded from any criminal proceeding. However, if, somehow, rough treatment caused someone to divulge the location of a “ticking time-bomb”, this information would be used to find and disarm the bomb, or at least evacuate the area. No one would use it to arrest the bomb. (More to the point, this information would probably not be allowed in court as evidence the subject of the interrogation was involved in a conspiracy to plant and set off that bomb.)

Second: Torture is designed to create an incentive. In order to prevent or avoid torture, the subject will, in theory, change his behavior. If the change in behavior means giving up useful information, then that’s what the interrogators want. However, a problem arises when the subject doesn’t have useful information, or has a strong desire to withhold it and/or give up false information. In the face of a strong counter-incentive, we have to realize that the information we get may be false. Indeed, I recently posted a blurb about false information that had been obtained, not from torture, but in order to obtain a reward. From this, we may conclude that non-torture doesn’t work.

A point you continually gloss over is that every subject of any method of interrogation must be presumed to have a strong incentive to withhold information and to mislead interrogators. When I say you gloss over it, you argue as if information obtained from what you call torture is never checked for accuracy or consistency with information obtained from other sources. In so doing, you imply that you have access to techniques which yield zero false information. In other words, you imply your preferred techniques yield 100% signal and 0% noise.

If this is, in fact, your claim, then I don’t believe you. In fact, I have such strong doubts that any technique exists which will yield 100% signal and 0% noise that I believe anyone claiming one does is either incredibly stupid or lying.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you admit to non-zero false information rates in all known techniques of interrogation.

Therefore, using the same line of argument you use to show “torture doesn’t work”, I could “prove” that your favorite techniques don’t work. All I would have to do is highlight every piece of false information you uncover, ignore the true information, and disregard any steps you take to differentiate between the two.

Presto! Interrogation doesn’t work, and we can reassign all interrogators to the motor pool.

Now, if you were willing to discuss this topic in a reasoned fashion, we could discuss such topics as which methods of interrogation are better. Reasonable people could try to uncover which methods have what signal to noise ratios. Adults in a reasoned discussion could address questions like the following:

• Do your preferred methods have a materially higher ratio than the methods you despise?
• Do your preferred methods yield information as quickly as the methods you despise? (Sometimes information may be needed in a hurry – e.g., the “ticking time-bomb” scenario.)
• Do different methods of interrogation yield different sets of accurate information? (People willing to divulge certain secrets under one technique might, in theory, only divulge others under a different method.)
• What moral price are we willing to pay for any given type of information?

And that last one is the question that you really should be asking. Your silly definition of “torture”, and you “utilitarian argument” are nothing more than ways to try to avoid dealing with the fact that sometimes we do have to choose between two bad scenarios. There isn’t always a perfectly good solution, and adults have to come to grips with that fact.

A free market solution...

...to opium growing in Afghanistan.

A more realistic, short-term proposal would be to buy the opium from the farmers. If we pay the farmers as much as the Taliban are paying for opium, it is not available for the Taliban to resell at a profit. We aren't going to get all of it, of course, but if we could even knock down the Taliban's share of the market to 30%, that would be a substantial reduction in Taliban revenue, as well as ending a source of hostility from Afghan opium farmers towards the Afghani government and NATO. The Taliban would also likely have to raise the price that they pay for opium, reducing their profit margin on resale.

In other words, we'd start a bidding war.

If we enter such a bidding war, we'll probably win – we have the resources for it.

Another possibility is that we might encourage other Afghan farmers to enter the opium business. Another possible problem is that we're not likely to care about the quality of the opium we buy. We'd just go ahead and pay the going rate, even for crap opium.

As a result, we might have opium farmers growing as much opium as they possibly can, selling the best of their crop to the Taliban for premium prices, and selling us the stuff no one else would touch, knowing we'll buy it regardless.

We'd have to give a lot more thought to implementing such a program. Right now, the only thing I can say about it is that it's better than what we're doing right now.

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Hmmm... Maybe a two-tier program. We'll buy your opium, but we pay more for this or that other crop. (At the rate things are going, we'll need all the corn growers we can get to feed the demand for ethanol...)

Padilla and his accusers

Beldar has some thoughts on the Jose Padilla case.

Jose Padilla and the Unfinished Business of Justice, by New York attorney Scott Horton in the online Harper's Magazine, is far from the worst analysis I've read on the Padilla verdict.

Pentagon's New Map

Dean Barnett at the Townhall blog:

THE PENTAGON'S NEW MAP made two assertions that described the world as it is and how America should handle our current and future challenges Here's how I described them a few years ago in the review that Tom so adored:

Barnett's theory essentially has two components which I will over-simplify only a little in the next two paragraphs. The first is that the world is divided into two parts, the Core which has all the economically functioning places and the Gap which has all the economic, cultural and political basket cases. The Core includes all the places where you might vacation or buy a good from; the Gap is comprised of the places you wouldn't visit unless you were a contestant on Fear Factor. Barnett argues that in this era of increased global connectivity and more widely available weapons of mass destruction, an unstable and disconnected country/government anywhere poses a threat to the United States and our interests. Witness the way internal Afghanistan politics had a profound effect on our soil. The only way to mitigate this threat is to, over time, integrate these Gap countries into the Core.

But how do you this when those Gap countries are often run by people like Saddam Hussein who don't want to play well with others in the global sandbox? That's going to involve military action and that's where the second part of Barnett's theory comes in. Barnett suggests that the military should be broken up into two distinct pieces. One he calls the Leviathan which will basically kick the ass of the Saddam types; the other will be called the System Administrator which will build the country back up after the asses have been kicked.

For what it's worth, I still think Barnett's theory is brilliant stuff. Its only problem is that it doesn't grapple with the reality that Islamic nations are a lot more intractable regarding entering the Core than we would hope. When I originally wrote that review, I praised the fact that Tom's book was "suffused with a can-do American optimism that has been the mark of this country since its birth." I still like that about the book, but four years into Iraq and six years after 9/11, is there any doubt that we should be a little less "optimistic" and "can-do" where the Islamic world is concerned? At the very least, we should not temper our optimism with measures of skepticism and caution?

SO WHAT'S MY BEEF? In recent blog posts, Tom Barnett has refused to grapple with the threat modern Islam poses and instead blames all of our problems on Bush administration blunders. What's more, he constantly operates under the assumption that our malefactors, like those in Iran, aren't "true believers" but instead are playing some cynical geo-political game. Tom Barnett doesn't worry about an Iranian nuke. He sees it as likely contributing to a Westphalian state of regional stability. He's not concerned that Iran may have a completely different set of values from our own.

If the Iranian government was merely crafty and not truly unhinged, it would jibe with "The Pentagon's New Map" over-arching theory that Gap populations everywhere hunger to enter the Core. But it's not true. Jihad is a bottom up phenomenon. The only thing more appalling than dealing with the House of Saud is contemplating dealing with a government that a democratic Saudi Arabia would produce.

Interesting blog

The Fallacy Files blog...

An index to logical fallacies.

Better to kill them

The Pentagon says no to non-lethal ray-gun in struggle for Iraqi hearts

by RICHARD LARDNER IN WASHINGTON

US MILITARY commanders in Iraq have repeatedly requested the deployment of a new non-lethal weapon to avoid civilian casualties - only to have their requests turned down by a Pentagon fearful that it might be seen as a torture device.

Essentially a ray-gun that neither kills nor maims, it uses energy beams instead of bullets and lets soldiers break up angry crowds without firing a shot.

Mounted on a Humvee or a flatbed truck, the Active Denial System gives people hit by the invisible beam the sense that their skin is on fire. They move out of the way quickly and without injury.

The main reason the tool has been missing in action is public perception. With memories of the 2004 Abu Ghraib prison scandal still fresh, the Pentagon is reluctant to give troops a space-age device that could be seen as a torture machine.