bush

The long life of 1950s sci-fi

Martin Kelley — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 01:59:18 +0000

Part of the playbook for American torture in Iraq and Guantánamo comes from Chinese interrogation methods used against captured Americans during the Cold War.

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.
The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

It sounds like something out of the 1962 thriller film The Manchurian Candidate. And in a way it is: the idea that Chinese Communists had used inhuman ruthlessness to unlock the secrets of the brain to create the perfect truth technique would be a charming artifact of 1950s American culture, something to show alongside the hula hoop and the Jetson-like hover cars we’re all supposed to be driving in the year 2000. Instead it’s yet another exhibit in Pentagon amnesia.

Doesn’t anyone do any fact checking at the Pentagon? “Officials who drew on the SERE program [in 2002 to design American intelligence adaptation] appear to have been unaware that it had been created as a result of concern about false confessions by American prisoners.” And yet… it’s clear that Presidents Bush and Cheney wanted false information in 2002 to launch the war against Iraq. Whatever “confessions” can be wrung from the Baghdad taxi drivers who got caught up in the arrest sweeps can certainly be used to bully the growing number who oppose the war.

But what do we want, justifications or the truth? Peace in the region or protection from sins of the past? Forget that torture is inhuman: it’s also just an unreliable way of getting accurate information. It’s hard to imagine a realistic scenario where the horrible events of 9/11 could have been stopped by acts of torture by U.S. intelligence or military personnel but it’s could have been stopped if thoughtful analysts had been allowed to share information across agency lines and been focused on true knowledge and understanding.

Webb on SOTU: We owe them loyalty, we owe them sound judgment

Martin Kelley — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 09:45:59 +0000

I must be honest and admit that I’ve always found President Bush’s State of the Union speeches unbearable. The distortions and half-truths are infuriating and the unearned confidence of a draft-dodging rich kid turned failed military adventurer just sends my blood pressure through the roof. I wish I could be detached enough to listen at least to the art of fine speech-writing but the message gets in the way.

Better then to listen to the Democratic response, given by Senator James Web. The transcript is over on the NYTimes and the video is over on YouTube. Here’s a taste.

Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm’s way. We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.

Worth a look: Josh Marshall over at TalkingPointsMemo.com had the neat idea to set up a YouTube group for people to give their own video responses to the State of the Union.

Warriors against the War

Martin Kelley — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:22:44 +0000

In the news: more than 1,000 service members sign petition to end Iraq War (Stars and Stripes), organized by the Appeal for Redress campaign sponsored by a handful of military antiwar groups including Nonviolence.org alums Veterans for Peace. The simple petition reads:

As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq. Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.

Supporting the troops means making sure American lives aren’t being wasted in dead-end wars. Their service and their sacrifice has been too great to continue the lies that have fueled this conflict since the very beginning, starting with the mythical Saddam/Al Qaeda connection and the phantasmic weapons of mass destruction. The current escalation (euphemised as a “surge”) of troop levels is simply an escalation of a badly-run war plan. When will this all end?
*Update*: President Bush has admitted that the Iraq government “fumbled the executions.”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/washington/17prexy.html. Meanwhile, the UN puts the “2006 Iraqi death toll at 34,000”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/world/middleeast/17iraq.html. When will Bush admit he’s fumbled this whole war?

Spying in times of terror

Martin Kelley — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 10:27:35 +0000

A new poll out there shows that only 64% of Americans believe that “the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States”:http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2005/NSA.htm. One wonders what the numbers would have been if “people living in the United States” were replaced by “Americans.” Even so, 64% approval is pretty low in these fear of terrorism times.

Some random chatter on the blogs: Americablog’s “New domestic spying poll numbers are very bad for Bush”:http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/12/new-domestic-spying-poll-numbers-are.html, Ezra Klein’s “Trust, But Verify”:http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2005/12/trust_but_verif.html & Stephen Kaus at Huffington’s “Popping the Wrong Question”:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-kaus/popping-the-wrong-questio_b_12982.html, Instapundit’s cryptic “I guess Kaus was right”:http://instapundit.com/archives/027738.php and Michelle Malkin’s “Sorry NYTimes: America is OK with the NSA”:http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004176.htm.

Pass the hummus, please, and by the way: are you a fed?

Martin Kelley — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 19:33:34 +0000

It seems that every day brings new revelations from mainstream media about governmental spying on Americans.

MS-NBC started the ball rolling on the 14th when they informed us that the Pentagon had a database of “protesters including the Raging Grannies and a dozen or so Quakers in Florida”:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316. This must have prompted the New York Times to publish a story they had been sitting on for a year: the scoop that Bush had ordered the super-secret “National Security Agency to start evesdropping on Americans”:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/politics/15cnd-program.html following the 9/11 terror attacks. It’s revelation was an FBI agent’s email complaining about “radical militant librarians [who] kick us around”:http://www.ala.org/al_onlineTemplate.cfm?Section=alonline&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=111469. Two days later we received the almost-humorous news that the Department of Homeland Security was hard at work monitoring the “Massachusett’s inter-library loan system “:http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12 [UPDATE: this has been “revealed to be a hoax”:http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12–05/12–24-05/a01lo719.htm by the student]. Trying to outdo the DHS in ridiculous, we learned on the 20th that “the FBI has been infiltrating vegan potlucks”:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/politics/20fbi.html. Today it turns out the “New York City Police Department”:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/22/nyregion/22police.html has been doing its own extensive investigations into protesters. They even apparently staged mock arrests in an attempt to incite violence (their contribution to the self-parody has been to send officers undercover on bicycle protests).

Are we surprised by all this? Well, not really. The fears unleashed after 9/11 ignited a firestorm of paranoia in the ranks of spydom. Nonviolence.org got a call from the U.S. Secret Service when Osama bin Laden posted to the board that he wanted to kill President Bush (well, actually we’re pretty certain it was a acne-faced fourteen year old procrastinating on his geometry homework). When I shot “shot photos of a scuffle at a Biodemocracy protest a few months ago”:http://www.nonviolence.org/articles/2005/06/biodemocracy_pr.php a Philadelphia police detective was in my office an hour later wanting to see it (the “melee” was harmless except for a policeman with heart conditions who took that moment to have a heart attack).

While some monitoring and prudence is indeed necessary, what ties together the string of stories this week is the randomness of the targets. It’s as if the agencies had lost all sense of judgement. Anyone critical of the war (or even mainstream culture: witness the vegans) was considered a threat. All leads were investigated, no matter how silly.

While invading American’s privacy is upsetting and unwarranted, the greatest danger is the sheer mass of irrelevant information that’s been collected. What’s an agency to do with reams of data on bicycle riders and Quakers? Who’s watching the flight schools and fertilizer depots while Agent Nincompoop is trading hummus recipes with the cute vegan with the nosering?

Of Floods and Prophets

Martin Kelley — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 21:31:42 +0000

The tragedies were reflections not on the power of nature but on the power of our human disregard for one another.
When the ramparts of New Orleans burst and flooded its streets and homes, I was at a hospital preparing to welcome a child. As my partner and I celebrated new life we saw images of people trapped in attics, heard tales of loved ones swept away as they sought to protect their children. We watched other new parents and their vulnerable children caught without food, water or services in a city suddenly unable to operate.
The tragedies show our human disregard. The trapped were almost all African American. They were almost all poor. Stories on the news–shot-at helicopters, mass violence in the Convention center–reflected America’s racist imagination more than reality. The levees failed because our political leaders ignored the recommendations of government engineers and scientists and slashed spending on storm protection. Even the hurricane itself was supercharged by a century of burning fossil fuels, our disregard for nature and our stonewalling over the reality of global warming.
A favorite image of pacifists comes from a line in the Book of Isaiah, that part in that talks about beating the swords into plowshares. But surrounding passages have been echoing in my ears lately. Like this one:
bq. Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hatest; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.… Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings before mine eyes; cease to do evil. Learn to do well; seek judgement, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, please for the widow. Isaiah 1:13–17.
The righteous indigation that followed the images from New Orleans is fading. Life is returning to normal in Washington DC and the high costs of recovery (and the continuing costs of Bush’s wars) will be shifted to the poor. We cannot stay silent to the vain oblations of our government. It is time to do well and protect the poor. It is time to relieve the oppressed and demand justice for the human decisions that led to broken levees.
This isn’t all finger-pointing: we each need to seek a self-judgement about our American lifestyles that have fuelled global warming with its consumeristic disregard for consequences. We need to depend upon each other more, seek a community deeper and more interlaced than that offered by Walmart and McDonalds. We are all part of one another, part of the earth and brethren to our human family. We need to gather together as a people who know that government and consumerism alone can never address our society’s deepest needs and that vain oblations alone will do nothing to put away the evil of our doings. We need to get angry and sing a song of change. We need more Isaiahs.

Danny: Looking for a Real Religion

Martin Kelley — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 21:56:20 +0000

Here’s an email from Danny, a new friend who I met at last week’s FGC-sponsored “Youth Ministries Consultation.” I liked his observations and asked if I could share this on the blog. I’m glad he said yes, since it’s a good perspective on where one convinced 19 year old Friend is at.
Update: “Here’s Danny’s new blog, Riding the Whale”:http://Quakernow.blogspot.com/

Martin! I finally got around to checking out your website [after hearing about it at the youth consultation], and it is one of the most beautiful things I have seen in a very long time! Many of the things you have written especially speak to my condition at the Chapel Hill Monthly Meeting, which could be a poster child for “the only thing i believe in is peace [+ that Bush is bad]” brand of Quakerism. While I cannot honestly say I have faith in Jesus as the son of God who died on the cross for our sins at this point in my spiritual developement, I do feel myself moving very strongly towards what you call conservative liberal Quakerism. It’s mostly an issue of making the leap of faith. I feel very strongly that modern Friends need to go back to George Fox and the other old Friends for some context and guidance. Even though I am only 19, I consider myself one of those 20somethings who are looking for a real religion, not just some watered down semi-spiritual community. [I’m not actually a member of my MM. but I feel like I am. I feel like one of the most Quaker non-official-Quakers around] I apologize in advance for my ranting.
Your writing helped me think critically about the youth consultation, although I already had some problems with it. Especially the lack of God –and just about no Christ [lots of “the Spirit”] and the lack of talk about why exactly young people are leaving Quakerism. I know you’re not someone who necessarily needs to hear my rants, but I just don’t understand why there’s no communication network set up for Quakers from all over the place to come together and discuss things. the fact that there is no North American Young Adult Friends is just pitiful. I don’t, and I’m sure lots of other disgruntled Friends don’t –feel they have any easily accessible way of venting feelings and beliefs in a place where someone will listen.
For some reason, at the consultation I *did* feel like we were worshiping together, which is something I cannot say for CHFM. I don’t know why.
that consultation left me feeling so incredibly hopeful and depressed about the future of Quakerism-at the same time. reading your blogs only fueled those feelings. living on a university, I am very aware that there are a zillion and a half religious groups that all want me to be one of them. What will I tell my fellow students when they ask me why they should be a Quaker? or even what it means to be a Quaker?
thank you for listening to my rants, again.
blessings, blessings, and blessings, Danny

When I asked Danny if I could repost his email, he also asked that he give this disclaimer: sure you can put it up. although i will have to give myself the disclaimer of having only attended the chfm for a year and a few months, so i don’t want to claim that my experience of that community is necessarily the most fair one that anyone could produce. they are really good people,and the kind of community that some people want and need simply isn’t a very religiously orthodox one. but i think that they could clarify what they believe as a community.

Bulldozing the U.N.

Martin Kelley — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 08:47:15 +0000

President Bush has nominated a “foe of the United Nations to be its U.S. ambassador”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13790-2005Mar7.html. Ten years ago he declared: “There’s no such thing as the United Nations,” and went on to say “If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.” This is a fellow who called his role in withdrawling the U.S. signature on the treaty ratifying the International Criminal Court “the happiest moment of my government service”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13790-2005Mar7.html. The Guardian reports that “fought arms control agreements, a strengthening of the biological weapons convention and the comprehensive test ban treaty”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1432701,00.html?gusrc=rss. With his nomination, the Bush Administration continues its course of unilaterialism and open contempt for the world community. Not a good way to build a last peace.