And now....

Obama has a Torture Czar.

h/t Glenn.

"...Some of my outstanding Cabinet Members and Advisors..."

Courtesy of Allah, I see this....



As you will note in the upper right, I am an airline pilot. This may not be obvious, but this means that I fly with a number of different First Officers all the time. Occasionally, I will fly with a different F/O on each leg. I cannot tell you how many times I've looked over to my right to a guy who I have been sitting next to for the past two days, and silently asked myself: "What is his name?". With Flight Attendants, it is even worse. I have only a cursory exposure to them...frequently not even meeting some of them at all.

That said, I've always believed it is important for "The Boss" to at least know his subordinate's names. And, since I know this is a weakness of mine, I know I have to work to make sure I do. I don't always succeed (especially with the F/As), but I do try.

And as myrenovations notes, for the President of the United States, in an address on National Security, to mis-identify the Secretary of Defense is "awkward", in the very least. For him to make this mistake in the presence of his famous teleprompters is doubly awkward and unforgivable.

Oh, my.....

Politico: President Obama: U.S. 'went off course' fighting terror

Cheney due up next to smack him down.

This thing is going nuclear.

More on Torture...

One of the concepts that I've had in mind regarding "torture", but which I've been so far unable to fully crystallize and enunciate is the idea of "intent".

Like all Air Force pilots, I am a graduate of their Survival School. I have undergone many of the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques which were exposed here, but not "waterboarded"--which I presume was part of an "advanced" Survival School that I did not go to.

I'll be the first to say that these EITs are unpleasant, and that given the choice, I would avoid them.

But more on "intent"....

If I take my gun out, and align the sights on the heart of a man, pull the trigger and kill him, have I committed murder?

I say: It depends.

• If I am a madman in a bell tower, then: Yes. This is murder.
• If I am a political assassin, then: Yes, this too is murder, with a political motivation.
• If I am a soldier in the field, then: No. This is part of combat that is expected of every soldier.
• If I am an executioner in a prison, then: No. I am carrying out the sentence of the state (perhaps of my first two examples).

So the reason behind why you are pulling the trigger has everything to do with how we view the act of pulling the trigger. Intent.

So. Regarding "torture", what if we had the following set of questions and answers...

Questioner #1: Are Navy SEALS subjected to waterboarding as part of their training being tortured?

Respondent: No, it's not torture in the legal sense because you're not doing it with the intention of harming these people physically or mentally, all we're trying to do is train them --

Questioner #1: So it's the question of intent?

Respondent: Intent is a huge part.

Questioner #1: So if the intent was to solicit information but not do permanent harm, how is that torture?

Respondent: Well, it... uh... it... one has to look at... ah... it comes out to question of fact as one is determining the intention of the person who is administering the waterboarding. When the Communist Chinese did it, when the Japanese did it, when they did it in the Spanish Inquisition we knew then that was not a training exercise they were engaging in. They were doing it in a way that was violative of all of the statutes recognizing what torture is. What we are doing to our own troops to equip them to deal with any illegal act -- that is not torture.

...and...

Questioner #2: Whether waterboarding is torture you say is an issue of intent. If our officers when waterboarding have no intent and in fact knew absolutely they would do no permanent harm to the person being waterboarded, and the only intent was to get information to save people in this country then they would not have tortured under your definition, isn't that correct?

Respondent: No, not at all. Intent is a fact question, it's a fact specific question.

Questioner #2: So what kind of intent were you talking about?

Respondent: Well, what is the intention of the person doing the act? Was it logical that the result of doing the act would have been to physically or mentally harm the person?

Questioner #2: I said that in my question. The intent was not to physically harm them because they knew there would be no permanent harm -- there would be discomfort but there would be no permanent harm -- knew that for sure. So, is the intent, are you saying it's in the mind of the one being water-boarded, whether they felt they had been tortured. Or is the intent in the mind of the actor who knows beyond any question that he is doing no permanent harm, that he is only making them think he's doing harm.

Respondent: The intent is in the person who would be charged with the offense, the actor, as determined by a trier of fact looking at all of the circumstances. That is ultimately how one decides whether or not that person has the requisite intent.

Of course, in this example, Questioner #1 is Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) and Questioner #2 is Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) and the Respondent is Eric Holder in the recent hearings regarding the "torture" question. And equally obvious, I did not come across this by myself, but must credit Scott at Powerline who expands on the point brought out by Andrew McCarthy. They lay out that Holder is aware of the differences between the intent behind waterboarding. They argue that if the intent of the waterboarding is to train, or to gain information, then waterboarding is clearly not torture. If the intent is to cause pain or discomfort, then it is.

Holder is acting politically here, which comes as no surprise.

It was a light blogging week, but....

I just noticed that it has been a week since I put something up here. Its not that I haven't been active on the intertubes...I have. I'm on vacation now, which means I've been catching up on things around the house (a pool repair project, a new door, fixing the lawnmower [again--groan]), preparing for our 25th Anniversary Vacation (Yeah!), studying for recurrent (Boo!), and spending more time on That-Forum-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named than I should.

All that said, the topic of the week was, still, "torture". It came in many incarnations...from Zero's decision to not release the photos of the "torture", to Nancy Pelosi's continuing down the bizarre path that They-Only-Told-Me-They-Were-Gonna-"Torture"/I-Was-Only-Briefed-That-There-Was-A-Briefing/The-CIA-Lied-"Mislead"-Congress/No-Make-That-"The-Bush-Administration-Lied". Leon Panetta has now found himself involved.

The "Torturous" video here....

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And on That-Forum-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named "torture" was still the topic. I posted the following over there (de-identified, of course) to one of my die-hard "torture-is-immoral" oppponents (is that an oxymoron?).

Posted By [Me] on 13 May 2009 07:38 PM

Posted By [A guy with similar views] on 13 May 2009 10:07 AM
...[My first name], help me here.

Maybe this is what you're looking for....

Regarding "torture", [My opponent] and his fellow travelers will say...

Posted By [My opponent] on 12 May 2009 10:05 PM

No, what we do to them defines us....

As they gaze at their navels in the search for every one of our imperfections, they fail to wonder:

If we are defined by what we do to them, is our enemy similarly defined by what they do to us?

While, just as in every religious sect, in Islam there are different interpretations of the meaning of religious texts, the Sura 9:29 says...

"You shall fight back against those who do not believe in GOD, nor in the Last Day, nor do they prohibit what GOD and His messenger have prohibited, nor do they abide by the religion of truth - among those who received the scripture - until they pay the due tax, willingly or unwillingly."

...and I have seen this alternative translation...

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day, nor acknowledge the religion of truth, even if they are people of the book (i.e. Christians or Jews) until they pay the Jiyza with willing submission and feel themselves subdued."

Also relevant is Sura 9:30...

"They have set up their religious leaders and scholars as lords, instead of GOD. Others deified the Messiah, son of Mary. They were all commanded to worship only one god. There is no god except He. Be He glorified, high above having any partners."

When a Christian or Jew listens to a preacher or a Pope, the Islamists believe that they are blaspheming God/Allah. They call us "polytheists" for employing these intermediaries between ourselves and God. Moreover, whenever we elect people to represent us in a democracy, they believe that we are elevating a man to a place that God ought to occupy.

Christians and Jews share the Old Testament, and therefore the Book of Genesis. In Genesis, we see the story that God created the Heavens and Earth in six days, and on the seventh day He rested. He created a day free of work so that He could stop and appreciate--love--all that He had created. And, of course, one of the things that He created was man. Moreover, man was created in His image. [This idea itself is enough for the Islamists to believe that we are heretics.] But given that we are in His image, one of the things we accept is that we too have a day free of work in which we set aside time to worship Him and appreciate the wider world. But, because God also gave us freedom....we are also free not to worship. That choice may generate some consequences in this life or the next, but the point being that we are free to make that choice in our religious life.

The Islamists don't believe in this freedom, either in the choice of whether to worship or to whom. They believe that Allah determines and controls everything. They believe that the reason that the very molecules in our bodies do not fly apart into a random oblivion is only due to Allah's will. To deny Allah's will, either directly or by maintaining another faith, is blasphemy.

The Islamists also believe that any lands which were ever Islamic are always to be Islamic. The "Israel Problem" is a combination of their quest to reclaim territory and a fight against freedom-loving non-believers.

And speaking of freedom-loving non-believers, the Islamists are almost as unhappy with democratic Muslim states and Muslim states who cooperate with the West as they are with the West itself. They believe that any Muslim who casts a vote is denigrating that which is due to Allah. They were especially incensed at Saudi Arabia for allowing the infidel West to defile their lands in Desert Storm. They remain unhappy that SA does business with the West.

What this all adds up to is that the Islamists believe they have a duty--a religious duty--to fight anyone who denies Allah or Muslims who cooperate with these infidels.

I imagine you're wondering: Why did I take you down this path?

Well, I did this to again make the case that we are in an existential fight against a measurable portion of Islam. Like it or not, we are in the worst sort of war: A religious war. Beyond the lands that the Islamists seek to retake and rule under Sharia, they are also after our religious hearts. They seek to take everything we have: Our lands; our freedoms; and our religions. It is a telling omen that when Steve Centani and Olaf Wiig were kidnapped by the Palistinians in Gaza, one of the conditions of their release was that they were made to convert to Islam at gunpoint. You can pooh-pooh this by reasoning that a forced conversion is not a valid conversion, but how can you be sure? Does not God have the power to recognize conversions? Moreover, this is entirely consistent with how the Islamists view the world. We believe we have the freedom to make our own religious choices; They believe in no such thing. They are completely intolerant.

And when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed sawed off the head of the Jewish Daniel Pearl, he too was being completely consistent. They believe they have the right, and the duty, to rid the world of those who do not believe as they do.

So after we captured Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, we found him to be resistant to all our efforts at getting what he knew. So then we gnashed our teeth and asked the OLC to give a legal opinion on just how enhanced our Enhanced Interrogation Techniques could be. So after we decided how and whether we could waterboard him, he gave up Abu Zubaydah after the EIT. When we captured Zubaydah and found him also resistant to our questioning, we waterboarded him and then Zubaydah gave up KSM. KSM also resisted until waterboarded, and through all these EITs, we learned information that saved American lives.

[My opponent] says: So what? We could have learned what they knew without resorting to these EITs--this "torture". He can't possibly know this. You can never know the conditions on the path that you chose not to take. Moreover, he cannot know the fourth dimension here--the time required to yield the same results if we chose to take some less "torturous" techniques. This is why Zero retains his Jack Bauer exception to the ticking time-bomb scenario. And this also makes those who decried the previous administration over "torture", yet continue to support Zero, hypocrites on this matter.

Christians are commanded to turn the other cheek. Yet we are also allowed to defend our beliefs.

FWIW, if you've reached this far and are interested in more of I've come across here, this post speaks to the Recent Statements of Islamic Ideology as heard through bin Laden and Zarqawi and this post speaks to Islam vs Free Democracy and Free Enterprise. I read all of the first and can recommend it, and the introduction of the second and can recommend it to that point.

Put me down as a....

"Me neither".

Gregory Kane, Washington Examiner:

"...I don’t care that al-Qaeda operatives Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah were waterboarded after Sept. 11, 2001...."

More....

"...We were in a war against terrorists. War is called war for a reason. It’s because nasty things get done in a war, lots of them. The Allies killed hundreds of thousands of German and Japanese civilians in bombing raids during World War II. Should we have NOT bombed Germany and Japan because killing civilians violates our principles and destroys our values?

Or does torture violate our principles and destroy our values while wholesale killing of civilians is acceptable?...

....and, finally....

"...If it’s worth fighting for, it’s worth fighting dirty for."

I agree entirely. If we have something worth defending, we have to stop gazing our our navels and be willing to bring to our enemy a horror they cannot imagine.

h/t HotAir headlines.

A Couple O'.....

Updates....

• I asked here if, given the increasing instability in Pakistan, we weren't developing a plan to go in and grab up their nukes. And now the New York Times is questioning the stability of these same Pakistani nukes.
• And most recently, I noted the "Torture" question circling the lefty drain and the "logic" used by Jon Stewart to, among other things, claim that Harry Truman committed a war crime by dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. You really do owe yourself 17 minutes of your day to watch Bill Whittle take this claim apart piece by piece.

Jon Stewart and Torture....

In preface, I don't like the mixing of politics and comedy. It diminishes the seriousness of the issues in front of us, and many times, in practice, the comedy isn't all that funny.

Further, the prime practicioner of this practice, Jon Stewart, has an irritating "Clown nose on/Clown nose off" approach to his guests. He delivers serious points, but when confronted with serious rebuttal points, he immediately slips into the comedic role. Moreover, Stewart has a very bad habit of filibustering the people who he invites as guests, leaving his viewers with an uneven, if not one-sided debate.

But here is Stewart's Daily Show session with Cliff May, introduced as the head of "The Foundation of the Defence of Democracies".

Part 1

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 1
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

Part 2

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 2
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

Part 3

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 3
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

Stewart at 1:20 of Part 2 brings up the issue of whether dropping the atomic bomb on Japan was tortuous. May gets Stewart to say at 5:55 that he thinks that Truman was a war criminal for dropping the atomic bomb. Wow.

The point that I would have liked to see May use to rebut Stewart regarding the atomic bombs is that when we dropped those atomic bombs, we saw the rate of civilian casualties drop. Our campaign of firebombing cities was causing more casualties than our use of the atomic bombs. How can Stewart claim that we were immoral by dropping the atomic bombs, but avoid the greater casualties we were bringing the Japanese through firebombing?

At 3:00 of Part 2, Stewart asks if it is "OK that we violate every ethical standard that this country has been based on, and even if by doing so, people are still going to die...." and he answers (or more correctly, filibusters) his own question with "I'd rather hold my head up high, and say as a country, 'We lived up to the ideals of our Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and the family of nations [whatever that means], and not gone past the point that would bring most people moral concern...., why can't we do that to every criminal in prison'...."

Here's the problem with that approach....

• First of all, it is an ethical standard of this country to do what is necessary to protect its citizens. Killing is immoral, but that is not an absolute. We make no apology for killing our enemies.
  
• "Moral Concern" is not universal. It is immoral in most Western cultures for a man to have multiple wives. In other cultures, that is not the case.
• The "why can't we do this to every criminal in prison" point is completely disingenuous or reflective of someone who doesn't understand what is going on here. A Prisoner of War is not necessarily a criminal. We're not holding him because he has violated some law. We are holding him to keep him off the battlefield. [And this bypasses completely the point that May makes that these al Qaeda prisoners do not qualify as POWs. They are "illegal combatants"--a point touched on in this interesting article, which I only skimmed. ] Stewart makes the mistake of substituting law enforcement for war. We are back to 9/10.
  

At 4:04 of Part 2, May makes a very good point regarding that we do use lines between coercion and torture, where those lines are and where they ought to be.

At 2:42 of Part 3, Stewart suggest an alternative to torture that we need to get better information by learning Arabic, learning more about the culture, and otherwise avoiding the need to resort to "torture". What he is missing is the 4th dimension--time. If we are faced with the Ticking Time Bomb scenario, we don't know if we have the time to get the information we seek by asking nicely. Stewart would sacrifice American lives to give us that time.

Stewart engages in what I have elsewhere labeled as "Navel-Gazing". He believes this is all about us and how we believe others perceive us. It is not about our enemies, or how they are behaving.

h/t Tigerhawk, via Ed Driscoll and Glenn.