Right Wing Nut House

That’s the title of this Chicago Tribune jaw dropper about the United Nations Development Program - an agency largely funded by US tax dollars - and how the North Koreans ripped them off to the tune of $150 million while the clueless bureaucrats did nothing:

The United Nations Development Programme office in Pyongyang, North Korea, sits in a Soviet-style compound. Like clockwork, a North Korean official wearing a standard-issue dark windbreaker and slacks would come to the door each business day.

He would take a manila envelope stuffed with cash–a healthy portion of the UN’s disbursements for aid projects in the country–and leave without ever providing receipts.

According to sources at the UN, this went on for years, resulting in the transfer of up to $150 million in hard foreign currency to the Kim Jong Il government at a time when the United States was trying to keep North Korea from receiving hard currency as part of its sanctions against the Kim regime.

“At the end, we were being used completely as an ATM machine for the regime,” said one UN official with extensive knowledge of the program. “We were completely a cash cow, the only cash cow in town. The money was going to the regime whenever they wanted it.”

Kim uses hard currency to stay in power by disbursing the funds to reward loyal subordinates who in turn can then purchase capitalist goodies from South Korea and Japan. This is due to the fact that the North Korean won has about as much value in international markets as a wad of used toilet paper.

Riding to the rescue of the totalitarian regime however, are the UN flunkies who run the UNDP:

Documents obtained by the Tribune indicate that as early as last May, top UNDP officials at headquarters in New York were informed in writing of significant problems relating to the agency’s use of hard foreign currency in North Korea, and that such use violated UN regulations that local expenses be paid in local currency. No action was taken for months.

Then, under pressure from the United States, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on Jan. 19 ordered an audit of all UN operations in North Korea to be completed within 90 days, or by mid-April.

The Board of Auditors, the UN body tasked with the audit, made no movement on the audit for 40 days after Ban’s order. It sent out its notification letter for the beginning of the audit on the same day the development program announced the closure of its office–March 1.

Bad enough that they stupidly enable one of the most totalitarian regimes on the planet with a nutcase for a leader who likes to dabble in nuclear diplomacy, they have to go and try and cover up their negligence by pulling one of the oldest bureaucratic tricks in the book; the “What? Who? Me?” defense:

That timing, combined with past concerns about the UNDP’s transparency, has raised suspicions that suspending operations would be a way to hamstring the audit, the results of which may prove damning to the organization.

“The office was closed precisely for that reason,” said another UN official with extensive knowledge of the program. “With no operations in place, first of all, you have no claim to get auditors into the country. Second, it will take months and months to get documentation out of the office there, to transfer to somewhere else like New York.”

The UN sources who spoke about the development operations in North Korea requested anonymity either for fear of retribution or because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the subject.

No North Korean office, no evidence. No evidence, no audit. Beeutiful.

And what does it say about that fine, upstanding “best hope for mankind” organization that the leaker fears “retribution” for telling the truth?

The way this swindle worked could have been serialized and made into a weekly sit-com - if it wasn’t for the fact that the regime being propped up is one of the most destructive of human rights on the planet:

UN officials privately describe a vivid scene playing out at the agency’s compound each day.

A driver in a UN-issued Toyota Corolla would pull out of the compound’s gate, taking UN checks to the bank. A short time later the driver, a North Korean employed by UNDP, would return with manila envelopes stuffed with tens of thousands of dollars in hard currency.

Then the windbreaker-clad North Korean official would show up and take the cash away.

UNDP spokesman David Morrison said the use of hard currency and the hiring of staff through local governments was standard practice in authoritarian countries like North Korea. Morrison said his understanding was that the agency had never had problems with site visits, and that in 2005 its staff had visited 10 of its 11 monitorable projects.

I wonder if the visits were as informative as when they checked up on a program that purchased computers for a North Korean university?

One of the UNDP projects, sources said, involved the purchase of 300 computers for Kim Il Sung University. The computers supposedly arrived in Pyongyang, but the international staff was not allowed to see the equipment it had donated.

Finally, after a month and a half of pressuring their North Korean handlers, staffers were led to a room in which two computers sat. They were told the others were packed in boxes, which they were not allowed to open.

And while the UNDP’s programs–which have included projects such as “Human Resource Upgrading to Support Air Traffic Services” and “Strengthening of the Institute for Garment Technology”–cost anywhere from $3 million to$8 million a year total, the development program also acted as the administrative officer for all the UN agencies and wrote checks for tens of millions of dollars worth of programming every year.

The UNDP’s financial officer and its treasurer in Pyongyang, who issued those checks, were both North Korean.

This is the kind of nonsense that John Bolton was fighting against. So of course, he had to go. He was being mean and nasty to people whose towering incompetence is matched only by the depth of their apathy. It isn’t a “culture of corruption” as much as it’s a seriocomic nightmare of small men, small minds, and a Byzantine bureaucracy that allows ineptitude to become the norm and inefficiency to rule the roost. The loss of $150 million in tax dollars doesn’t anger me half as much as the attitude of UN officials who don’t care enough about the integrity of the organization to reform it. They revel in chaos. They thrive in an atmosphere of unaccountability. And for that, they should all be thrown into the East River and given a good dunking.

Perhaps then they’ll get serious about making the United Nations less of a bad joke and more of serious forum for dealing with serious problems.

Not very gentlemanly words but as my sainted father used to say, when invited to a knife fight, bring a gun.

I am surprised, shocked, and in a towering rage over the reaction to my post from yesterday about the faggot remark made by She who shall remain nameless always and forever. Not from the left. Hell, for all their supposed smarts, the left is more predictable than a Chicago Cubs losing season and less original than cloned calf.

My beef is with the shallow, ignorant, remarkably stupid righties who not only defend Coulter, but cheer her on. Their explanations vary but center on the idea that she defies “political correctness” and anyone who criticizes her is just an old fuddy-duddy, politically correct priss.

And that’s not my only sin. Evidently, since some liberals agree with me, I have become unclean! I am no longer a “real conservative.” I am infused with lefty group think and am only trying to curry favor by groveling before my enemies begging for approbation.

I feel compelled to point out that I was a “real conservative” before most of these inbreds were in books. And “real conservatives” don’t demonstrate such towering ignorance as this commenter at Hot Air. A few brief excerpts:

Conservatism has lost already. Homosexuality is now accepted by all “right-thinking” people. Would everyone be this upset at someone who eats his own mucous being called a booger-eater? Homosexual behavior has become more pervasive and open in the past 2 decades. Is it going to dry up and go away just because we’re nice to homosexuals? Can one cure cancer by thinking happy thoughts? Are homosexuals rushing to get psychological treatment because they aren’t made to feel bad about their illness? The difference between the open and derisive bigotry against Southerners and against homosexuality, is that there’s nothing wrong with being Southern, but there is something wrong with being a sexual deviant.

Did I fall asleep and wake up in the 19th century? Or maybe even farther back? I think I see Torquemada rubbing his hands together in anticipation of racking the next homosexual who happens to fall into his grasp.

But wait! It gets even better:

The current political battle in the U.S. is no longer a struggle between two allied political parties. It is a battle for political control of the nation, akin to the battle that created the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Red China. Read some history as to how Rome went from Republic to Empire, and you might see some more parallels to the current political struggle in the U.S.

Civility is fine for a court of law, a debate society, or a normal political campaign. But that’s not what we’re fighting now. The war is between the America that was and the socialist cesspit that will be.

You may not be willing to hate the enemy, but they’re more than willing to hate us. One truthful, much maligned comment by Ms Coulter vs thousands of vitriolic hate-filled comments throughout the left and the MSM demonstrate the truth of that.

To borrow a line from Col. Robert Lee Scott: “You’ve got to learn to hate.”

A few months back, I did a post asking whether or not the left actually believes it when they compare Bush to Hitler. I concluded that yes indeed, they really do find common ground between Bush and a man who gassed 6 million Jews, murdered another couple of million, deliberately started a war that killed 80 million, and countenanced the existence of a massive state run terror apparatus that ruthlessly oppressed tens of millions living in captive nations.

Yep. Sounds like a no brainer to me.

Similarly, our righty friend here actually believes it when he says that America is a “socialist cesspool” and that our electoral battles can be compared to the struggle for power by the Commies in Russia and the fascists in Germany.

Such delusional thinking deserves recognition - and a quick trip to the asylum in a strait jacket.

But what really got my goat were some of the “conservatives” on an email list that I unsubscribed from this morning. Yesterday, I left this explanation as to why She who shall remain nameless always forever should be condemned:

The term she used hurts the feelings of other people - deeply. It scars them. It is not like me calling you an idiot or you calling me a dumbs**t. It is beyond that. It’s even beyond saying something very hurtful about your mother or father.

BUT THERE ARE LIMITS. THERE MUST BE. And Coulter has exceeded those limits. And not for any other cause except her own self-aggrandizement.

A few choice responses to my call for empathy:

1. I’ll be sure to keep a close eye on the suicide statistics among homosexuals in the next months, so as to not miss their reaction to this deeply scarring, emotionally destructive commonly used descriptor of a “wimp.”

Since when is faggot the new f-word? People saying “f*** Bush” get half as much attention as this.

What is the common denominator in all of these messages as well as others that I’ve seen both in the comments on my post and other posts?

The people making the comments have a dead spot where the empathy gene should be plugged in. The wiring that connects being able to gauge an emotional reaction to what you say to the part of the brain that handles communication is either non existent or burned out.

A marmoset has more empathy than these people. And I hasten to add that empathy is NOT political correctness. It is, as my previously sainted father told me, the surest sign of a gentleman.

Gentlemanliness may be something of an outmoded concept to some but there is much praiseworthy in aspiring to be a gentleman. Good manners, a solicitousness toward women and children, and a moral grounding in one’s life are all part of what should be the outward manifestation of an adult man’s personae. Indeed, it is an artificial construct but a vital one nonetheless. It greases the wheels of discourse if the person you are talking to knows when to listen and when to keep their mouth shut - something that is sorely lacking in political discourse today. And the only way to do that successfully is to be aware of the emotional temperature of the party with which you are discoursing.

For those brain dead righties who don’t quite understand what I’m trying to say, here it is in a nutshell; any insult you give that goes to the nub of who someone is; the color of their skin, their belief in whatever God they worship, the heritage from which they sprang, or the most personal and private part of an individual - their sexual identity - cleaves very deeply and causes the kind a psychic pain I daresay you would be loathe to experience. And is unnecessary to boot. Very rarely do any of those attributes in an individual bear upon the issues at hand. And even when they do, another gentlemanly characteristic - simple, common courtesy - should keep you from slinging that kind of mud.

I’m not saying that John Edwards was hurt by these remarks, That’s silly. Anyone running for President has skin so thick a jackhammer would have a hard time finding a vein to deliver an IV. But you are mistaken if you don’t believe that some gay people - perhaps many - experienced the kind of psychic pain I referred to above. That’s because she meant the term as an insult - and because she knew it would get a rise out her audience.

As far as answering the charge that I’m not a “real” conservative I’ll say this; anyone who thinks being a conservative is simply a matter of believing in low taxes, small government, a strong defense, and family values is shallow indeed. Yes, the culture needs defending from the ravages of the left - something I find common ground with social conservatives on a regular basis. But this defense of the culture should not and cannot come at the expense of people. If you decry the “homosexual lifestyle” are you not also railing against the people who practice it? Disagreeing with hate crime statutes and the idea of giving gays statutory protection under the Civil Rights Act are political issues. But accusing gays of being “sinners” and “deviants?” This is beyond the pale and should have no place in our political conversations.

Conservatism used to be about fighting for individual liberties against the creeping power of the state. It is not about using the power of the state to curtail people’s liberties you disagree with or disapprove of nor is it about trying to impose one set of values on everyone else. It is not “libertarianism” to believe the state should stay the hell out of people’s bedrooms - gay or straight - nor dictate who someone has the right to fall in love with. Nor should the state be peering over my shoulder while I’m enjoying classic porn at my favorite internet movie site. This kind of individual liberty should be a matter of agreement by all - left or right.

So I would say to those on the right who question my conservative credentials or believe that it is somehow too PC to weigh carefully how ones words are received by others that perhaps it is you who should re-examine your own beliefs for deviation from the path of conservative enlightenment.

Who knows? A little introspection on your part may yield surprising results.

UPDATE

Goldstein tackles the left for pompously calling on conservatives to denounce such untoward behavior:

Personally, I don’t feel any need whatever to issue public condemnations of Ann Coulter—though were you to ask me, I’d readily tell you that her remark was juvenile, and that it could well be seen as homophobic (though I am in no position to peer into Coulter’s soul; and of course, “faggot”—though tied to homosexuality—has long been wielded as a slur against masculinity, which has little to do with sexual preference, in much the same way “pussy” is used). And the reason I feel no need to publicly condemn Coulter is that Coulter has never spoken for me.

And, as anyone who reads my site regularly knows, I champion the primacy of the individual, and so I react to such posts as Simianbrains—which are merely passive-aggressive attempts to police the kind of speech he finds offensive, while tethering it to a political position he finds unappealing—with what I believe to be an appropriate level of scorn.

Of course, your idea of an “appropriate level of scorn,” and my idea of an “appropriate level of scorn,” are quite a bit different than Mr. Goldstein’s.

Read the whole thing.

Just so we can get it out of the way and deny any of you lefties an opening.

1. Yes.

2. No.

3. Yes

4. Yes

If you actually need the questions, go here and here. I’ve answered them before and don’t feel like repeating myself. Question #2, if too obscure, is “Don’t you think Ann Coulter is typical of all conservatives?” Since every single conservative blogger I have seen this morning has roundly condemned her as well as most going so far as to believe she should never be invited to a respectable political gathering again, any broad brush painting done by liberals can easily be dismissed for what it is; rank stupidity.

Instead of repeating what everyone agrees about Coulter, let us take a moment to marvel at the Pavlovian response that Coulter not only expected but intended with her untoward remark about John Edwards. She is a “controversy slut” as my good friend Jay so succinctly put it. Why in God’s name the left falls for it and why the right then feels the need to respond is absolutely nuts! This is what she wants. She is playing us like a violin - right and left. And the fact that this despicable woman then gets to sit at home and laugh at all of us makes my blood boil.

Well, she’s our problem and it’s time for conservatives to solve it once and for all. If liberals want to help us with her emasculation, fine. Otherwise, shut the F**k up and stop ginning up the outrage over what anyone with half a brain can see is a deliberate attempt by Coulter to garner cheap headlines and publicity. If you want to be stupid enough to play into her hands and jump through the hoops she sets up for you, don’t expect conservatives to follow.

I urge everyone - right and left - to take the following actions:

1. Never write another blog post about Ann Coulter no matter how outrageous, cruel, or bigoted her language.

2. Immediately write the Presidents of Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN demanding that they refuse to schedule Coulter on any show for any reason on their networks.

3. Write the editor of Human Events and demand that they drop her column.

4. If her column appears in your local newspaper, write a letter to the editor demanding that they drop her column.

5. If you see her writings in any on line or print publication, write the editor and demand that they stop carrying her columns.

6. Any upcoming forum in which she is scheduled as a speaker or panel participant, write a letter to the organizers and make it clear that the reason you are not attending is due to Coulter’s presence.

The goal is to starve the witch of the attention she craves. I’ll have more on this later today, including an on-line petition we can sign and send to the cable nets and a report on my progress.

Enough is enough. I am sick to death of this woman leading people to believe that she speaks for conservatives. She doesn’t speak for me. And if you believe that she speaks for you, or if you were one of those mouth breathers who applauded when she used that disgusting epithet deliberately to hurt other people (not just John Edwards), then you are hopelessly beyond the pale yourself and would do well to examine exactly what you believe a conservative is and what is acceptable political discourse.

Anyone who reads this site knows I am not a wallflower when it comes to lashing out at my political foes. But there are limits. And Coulter regularly crosses them - not because she doesn’t know any better but because she deliberately uses hate language to get a rise out of the left and get the rest of us talking about her.

I will no longer be a willing cog in her publicity machine. And if we conservatives really care about our movement and the people who represent it, then we will do everything in our power to limit the exposure of this ghastly person who sells hate like Frosted Flakes and laughs at all of us while carrying her loot all the way to the bank.

UPDATE

Ha! Mark Coffey writes what many of us are thinking:

Jeez, Ann, thanks; predictably, the lefty blogs are all a-twitter, as if something newsworthy had actually happened here (can a massive Glenn Greenwald denunciation of the right be far behind?).

Indeed, I can just see Lambchop hunched over his computer, his stern visage growing darker as he pounds the keyboard relentlessly. No doubt, His Puppetress will tell us all what it really means and that no matter how loudly Coulter is denounced by conservatives, we all secretly want to sleep with her and make little conservative babies.

What a humorless twit.

Our crazy Uncle Andy writes something I tried to say yesterday about conservatives:

It’s a party that wants nothing to do with someone like me. All I heard and saw was loathing: loathing of Muslims, of “illegals,” of gays, of liberals, of McCain. The most painful thing for me was the sight of so many young people growing up believing that this is conservatism. I feel like an old-style Democrat in 1968.

I wouldn’t go quite that far (’68 Democrat? More like a ‘64 Democrat with LBJ and The Happy Warrior) but it is disconcerting to see these college kids with about as much empathy as a Three Toed Sloth.

UPDATE II

I have just sent the following email to Jonathan Klein, President of CNN. I plan on sending similar emails to the Presidents of MSNBC and Fox News:

To: Jonathan Klein, President, CNN

http://www.rightwingnuthouse.com

It appears that the “slow bleed the troops” plan of Representative John Murtha (D-Okinawa) has been withdrawn thanks to the Pennsylvania Congressman’s big mouth. If only Murtha had kept quiet about his cowardly plans to make it impossible for the Pentagon to deploy the troops General Petraeus feels are necessary to the mission’s success by throwing a monkey wrench into readiness and rotation requirements, the Democrats would probably have been able to sneak the amendment through in the middle of the night while no one was watching. Once exposed to the light of publicity, many of his fellow Democrats evidently got cold feet, however.

House Democrats have pulled back from efforts to link additional funding for the war to strict troop-readiness standards after the proposal came under withering fire from Republicans and from their party’s own moderates. That strategy was championed by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) and endorsed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

“If you strictly limit a commander’s ability to rotate troops in and out of Iraq, that kind of inflexibility could put some missions and some troops at risk,” said Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Tex.), who personally lodged his concerns with Murtha.

So what’s a cheese eating surrender monkey to do? Too chicken to vote on defunding the war directly and up front. Too stupid to finesse a comatose President by trying to backdoor a withdrawal through fiddling with deployments and readiness. And actually waiting to see what happens in Iraq as a result of the new strategy is just plain unacceptable.

How about jumping in Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine and pretending that the vote you cast for military action actually said no such thing?

“I’ve had enough of ‘nonbinding,’ ” said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who is helping to draft the new Democratic proposal. The 2002 war resolution, he said, is an obvious target.

“The authorization that we gave the president back in 2002 is completely, completely outdated, inappropriate to what we’re engaged in today,” he said.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) began calling for a reauthorization of the war early last month and raised it again last week, during a gathering in the office of Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). Participants included Kerry, Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (Mich.), Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), Jack Reed (R.I.) and Russell Feingold (Wis.). Those Democratic senators have emerged as an unofficial war council representing the caucus’s wide range of views.

An “unofficial war council…?” ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Try “The Official Surrender to the Terrorists Caucus.” That would be more accurate.

As far as the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), just what, pray tell, would you replace this “completely, completely” legal resolution with?

While these officials said the precise wording of the measure remains unsettled, one draft would restrict American troops in Iraq to combating al-Qaida, training Iraqi army and police forces, maintaining Iraq’s territorial integrity and otherwise proceeding with the withdrawal of combat forces.

The decision to try to limit the military mission marks the next move in what Reid and other Senate war critics have said will be a multistep effort to force a change in Bush’s strategy and eventually force an end to U.S. participation in the nearly four-year-old war.

Hinderaker:

That sounds like a really great idea. If someone plants an IED or shoots at our troops, they can’t fire back until they determine whether the attackers are al Qaeda or garden-variety insurgents.

I have a feeling this trial balloon is not going to get airborne. One good thing, though: the Dems’ Senate leadership is floating this concept in part because they are unhappy with Mad Jack Murtha’s “slow bleed” strategy. Not, of course, because they object to his objective of bringing about defeat; rather, because they think Murtha’s plan could create political liabilities.

In other words, rather than cut our troops off at the knees by defunding the war why not aim the knife slightly higher and castrate the military by saying who they should be fighting and who they should allow to kill them. If a non-authorized enemy fires upon our guys, maybe one of them can call their Representative and get an amendment passed to grant an exception to the new policy.

Yes, yes it’s an exaggeration and wouldn’t really work that way. But can you see our boys landing on Omaha Beach in 1944 and having to get permission to fight Poles, North Koreans, Hungarians, and the other foreign troops the Nazis put into the front lines just because the Declaration of War didn’t mention any of those nationalities?

I agree with John that this is a trial balloon and not a serious proposal. Unless the Dems want to spark a full scale Constitutional crisis, they won’t do it. Ed Morrissey has them pretty well pegged:

Nor are they opting for an honest method of floating this unconstitutional nonsense. The Democrats plan to attach the reworked AUMF as an amendment to a Homeland Security funding bill rather than allow an up-or-down vote on it in the Senate. They want to dare the Republicans to filibuster the spending bill or Bush to veto it if it passes with the new AUMF intact. They’re playing games with the funds necessary to secure the nation during a time of war — and they expect to be taken seriously on how to conduct one?

In the House, the Democrats plan to offer a different plan after the collapse of the Murtha strategy, but it will be just as transparently partisan. They will propose a more straightforward funding bill for the war, but will include a waiver on any deployment readiness restrictions by allowing the Secretary of Defense or the President to certify that unprepared troops will be deployed into battle. It’s a silly and blatantly partisan mechanism, but that matches the Democratic Congress perfectly.

Their entire strategy consists of sneaking around like criminals instead of standing up forcefully and proudly for what they believe. It truly is nauseating.

Fear not, however. Eventually, through the process of elimination, the Democrats will hit upon a strategy that will stop the war, make Bush and the Republicans look even worse than they do now (if that is even possible), while celebrating their “speaking truth to power” by dancing a jig on the Chamber floor…

At the same time that al-Qaeda is dancing a jig in the streets of Baghdad.

I got an earful from some of my friends on the left for taking Representative John Murtha and the Democrats to task for their moral cowardice in not directly trying to defund the war but rather slink in the shadows and attempt to sabotage deployments and readiness. Some of the emails I got tried to explain that Murtha’s strategy of strangling the Defense Department by mandating shorter tours and longer periods at home between deployments as well as going so far as to require troops to train with all their equipment (despite the fact that the troop’s equipment is either already in theater or is shipped to Iraq ahead of time) represents a “realistic” approach to the problem of defunding the war.

They point out that an up or down vote wouldn’t pass because Democrats don’t want to be saddled with the inevitable Republican charge of undermining the troops in a time of war. One commenter went so far as to explain that the American people wouldn’t understand the “nuances” of defunding the war so Murtha’s “brilliant” plan not only accomplished the task of ending the war but also left Democrats blameless!

Well, I’m glad we cleared up those points about moral cowardice, aren’t you?

Today, I was gratified to see that the Washington Post mirrors my thoughts on Murtha and his “slow bleed the troops” plan:

REP. JOHN MURTHA (D-Pa.) has a message for anyone who spent the week following the House of Representatives’ marathon debate on Iraq: You’ve been distracted by a sideshow. “We have to be careful that people don’t think this is the vote,” the 74-year-old congressman said of the House’s 246-182 decision in favor of a resolution disapproving of President Bush’s troop surge. “The real vote will come on the legislation we’re putting together.” That would be Mr. Murtha’s plan to “stop the surge” and “force a redeployment” of U.S. forces from Iraq while ducking the responsibility that should come with such a radical step…

Mr. Murtha has a different idea. He would stop the surge by crudely hamstringing the ability of military commanders to deploy troops. In an interview carried Thursday by the Web site MoveCongress.org, Mr. Murtha said he would attach language to a war funding bill that would prohibit the redeployment of units that have been at home for less than a year, stop the extension of tours beyond 12 months, and prohibit units from shipping out if they do not train with all of their equipment. His aim, he made clear, is not to improve readiness but to “stop the surge.” So why not straightforwardly strip the money out of the appropriations bill — an action Congress is clearly empowered to take — rather than try to micromanage the Army in a way that may be unconstitutional? Because, Mr. Murtha said, it will deflect accusations that he is trying to do what he is trying to do. “What we are saying will be very hard to find fault with,” he said.

Is Murtha in complete control of his faculties? This brazen admission of political and moral turpitude points up how truly cynical the Pennsylvania Congressman and his partners in this calumnious plan have become. Not only that, Murtha is also apparently woefully ignorant of what is going on in Iraq and some of his statements call into question whether the 74 year old is mentally sharp enough to occupy a position of leadership in the Democratic party:

Mr. Murtha’s cynicism is matched by an alarming ignorance about conditions in Iraq. He continues to insist that Iraq “would be more stable with us out of there,” in spite of the consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies that early withdrawal would produce “massive civilian casualties.” He says he wants to force the administration to “bulldoze” the Abu Ghraib prison, even though it was emptied of prisoners and turned over to the Iraqi government last year. He wants to “get our troops out of the Green Zone” because “they are living in Saddam Hussein’s palace”; could he be unaware that the zone’s primary occupants are the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy?

It would be nice to believe that Mr. Murtha does not represent the mainstream of the Democratic Party or the thinking of its leadership. Yet when asked about Mr. Murtha’s remarks Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered her support. Does Ms. Pelosi really believe that the debate she orchestrated this week was not “the real vote”? If the answer is yes, she is maneuvering her party in a way that can only do it harm.

Couple these bizarre statements with Murtha’s weird contention that we should redeploy the troops in Iraq to Okinawa and a troubling picture is emerging of a man who may not be as sharp as he was a decade ago when he was known rightly as a strong proponent of military preparedness and a champion of veterans benefits.

But the Democrats need Murtha for those very reasons - even if his mental acuity is not as it once was. That’s because there’s no one else in their caucus with the national security credentials to lead the retreat from Iraq. As the public face for surrender to the terrorists, the Democrats need Murtha as a front man to reassure the public that running away and leaving the people in Iraq - especially the Sunnis - to the tender mercies of the death squads, criminals, thugs, kidnappers, beheaders, and al-Qaeda terrorists who would be unencumbered in carrying out their massacres isn’t solely the product of left wing loons. In effect, Murtha mainstreams defeat and is therefore necessary to the Democrat’s plan to leave Iraq before the Iraqi government is ready to stand on its own.

Yes, it’s a low blow to call into question Murtha’s mental state. But considering the stakes and considering the statements he’s made above as well as his appearances on Meet the Press and other talk shows which have shown a sometimes confused and incoherent man, I believe it’s a painful but legitimate question to ask. I say painful because I always liked and admired Mr. Murtha. At a time when precious few Democrats were standing up for Ronald Reagan’s defense build up, he was a tireless proponent of strengthening our national defense while the rest of his caucus stood four square against increasing defense spending.

That was then. This is now. And Murtha, for whatever reason, has started down a road that I believe is a gigantic mistake. And the means by which he seeks to achieve his goal is so underhanded, so morally reprehensible that it does a huge disservice to his past standing as a passionate advocate for American security.

I sincerely hope the Republicans can torpedo this plan before it can be implemented. And I hope that Murtha and the Democrats can be convinced to schedule an up or down vote to defund the war. Win or lose, at least that would be a principled way to achieve their aims rather than sneaking around in the dead of night, stabbing the military in the back.

UPDATE:

Ed Morrissey:

Has John Murtha ever been anything more than incoherent on Iraq? He talks loudly but says next to nothing other than reiterate the need to declare defeat and bug out of Iraq. He can’t even get his facts straight despite having spent the better part of two years making himself the leading Democratic voice on the war. Even the Washington Post can’t help but notice that this Emperor has no clothes.

It’s going to be a long two years.

Got that right, dog.

Dan Riehl:

If the Washington Post is willing to call BS on the Democrats in the House, it should be heeded as a strong warning. This will be worse than the way they McGovern-ed themselves in ‘68. At least then they took a principled stand. What they are about today is far from that. Ultimately, they could easily be exposed for the shallow, power happy mob that they are.

Agreed - if the Republicans have the balls to call them out on their cowardice.

A. Jacksonian (Founder and sole member of the Jacksonian party) has some thoughts on Murtha circa 1994.

UPDATE: 2/18

Britt Hume of Fox News notices the same thing I did about Murtha’s diminished capacity:

HUME: That sound bite from John Murtha suggests that it’s time a few things be said about him. Even the “Washington Post” noted he didn’t seem particularly well informed about what’s going on over there, to say the least. Look, this man has tremendous cachet among House Democrats, but he is not — this guy is long past the day when he had anything but the foggiest awareness of what the heck is going on in the world.

Allah has the video.

Last June as the Senate was debating various proposals for withdrawing American troops from Iraq, I wrote the following:

Any timetable for withdrawal necessarily obviates any thought of victory. And if you don’t believe that victory is achievable then clearly you believe we have lost already. Trying to split the difference between victory and defeat in war is not possible. One side wins and one side loses. Hence, by offering this “timetable,” the Democrats are saying that we have lost the war and should leave in order to cut our losses.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this position, by the way. It is defeatist. It is cowardly. But there is nothing necessarily incorrect in admitting defeat and pulling out.

But what makes the Democrats position immoral is that they are not advocating this timetable to get our troops out of harms way as fast as possible. In fact, they are terrified of the political consequences of doing so. Instead, they opt for the Viet Nam approach. According to them, the war was a mistake to begin with, it was fought incompetently, it was illegal, and we’ve already lost since there’s no way we’re ever going to say that George Bush won the war. But instead of advocating an immediate withdrawal of all American forces, we are going to advocate that more young men die in a losing cause just so that we don’t appear to be “cutting and running” and thus, lose badly at the polls in November.

If there has been a more cynical, immoral ploy in the last half century of American politics, I can’t think of it.

As House Democrats prepare to open debate on the Iraq war resolution, we have further evidence that when it comes to having the courage of their convictions, the House Democratic leadership has feet of clay:

Top House Democrats, working in concert with anti-war groups, have decided against using congressional power to force a quick end to U.S. involvement in Iraq, and instead will pursue a slow-bleed strategy designed to gradually limit the administration’s options.

Led by Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., and supported by several well-funded anti-war groups, the coalition’s goal is to limit or sharply reduce the number of U.S. troops available for the Iraq conflict, rather than to openly cut off funding for the war itself.

The legislative strategy will be supplemented by a multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign designed to pressure vulnerable GOP incumbents into breaking with President Bush and forcing the administration to admit that the war is politically unsustainable.

As described by participants, the goal is crafted to circumvent the biggest political vulnerability of the anti-war movement — the accusation that it is willing to abandon troops in the field. That fear is why many Democrats have remained timid in challenging Bush, even as public support for the president and his Iraq policies have plunged.

A “slow bleed strategy?” Whose blood? I daresay it won’t be any of the Democratic leadership.

There is nothing noble about war. There is nothing uplifting or heroic about fighting one. Individual acts of heroism notwithstanding, war ultimately represents a failure of some kind. For the United States, sleepwalking during the 1990’s while al-Qaeda gathered strength and states like Iraq trained terrorists with utter impunity, it was a failure of intelligence, of diplomacy, of will, and finally a failure of imagination that led to the catastrophe of 9/11.

There is nothing moral about war except its quick and decisive ending. And whether or not you believe Iraq was a war of choice or whether you think it was thrust upon us by the exigencies of the times, the fact of the matter is we either fight to win - and win as quickly as circumstances allow - or we admit defeat and leave, accepting the consequences of our folly while holding harmless the young men and women who sacrificed much in service to the government and the people.

I say to you that whether you believe this war to be moral or immoral, the actions of the Democratic leadership in deliberately drawing out our withdrawal because they lack the political courage to take a stand on what they believe and cut off all funding for the Iraq War to bring the troops home now constitutes a towering act of moral cowardice rarely seen in Congress. Perhaps the debates over the Dyers Anti-Lynching Bill of 1918 would find an echo in today’s craven attempts by Democrats at avoiding responsibility for the moral consequences of their loudly proclaimed position on the war.

Instead of leadership, we get glitz and smoke and mirrors. Instead of a sober, serious approach to this issue of life and death, war and peace, we get the circus of a meaningless, degrading resolution that states opposition to sending more troops. And instead of bold, clear cut, up or down votes on whether we should stay or go, it appears we are going to get the tactics of the saboteur and assassin; cowardly end runs that seek to undermine the military in ways that even an enemy of this country could only dream:

Murtha, the powerful chairman of the defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, will seek to attach a provision to an upcoming $93 billion supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan. It would restrict the deployment of troops to Iraq unless they meet certain levels adequate manpower, equipment and training to succeed in combat. That’s a standard Murtha believes few of the units Bush intends to use for the surge would be able to meet.

In addition, Murtha, acting with the backing of the House Democratic leadership, will seek to limit the time and number of deployments by soldiers, Marines and National Guard units to Iraq, making it tougher for Pentagon officials to find the troops to replace units that are scheduled to rotate out of the country. Additional funding restrictions are also being considered by Murtha, such as prohibiting the creation of U.S. military bases inside Iraq, dismantling the notorious Abu Ghraib prison and closing the American detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

President Bush, the lamest of lame ducks, whose approval ratings are in the low 30’s, apparently still frightens cats, little children, and the House Democratic leadership:

Pelosi and other top Democrats are not yet prepared for an open battle with the White House over ending funding for the war, and they are wary of Republican claims that Democratic leaders would endanger the welfare of U.S. troops. The new approach of first reducing the number of troops available for the conflict, while maintaining funding levels for units already in the field, gives political cover to conservative House Democrats who are nervous about appearing “anti-military” while also mollifying the anti-war left, which has long been agitating for Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to be more aggressive.

“What we have staked out is a campaign to stop the war without cutting off funding” for the troops, said Tom Mazzie of Americans Against Escalation of the War in Iraq. “We call it the ‘readiness strategy.’”

Perhaps if Mr. Bush were flat on his back and tied down, the House Democrats would feel up to challenging him over war funding. As it is, they must slink along in the shadows, applying the “slow bleed strategy” while making up clever nomenclature to describe their perfidious behavior.

I hope the Republicans expose this strategy for the immoral cowardice it represents. Because there is very little nuance when it comes to war. This is why I say support the war and fully fund the troops and the surge or oppose the war and seek to defund the conflict. The Democratic strategy in this case gives us the worst of both worlds; no commitment to victory while refusing to acknowledge that their monkey wrench strategy - their “slow bleed the troops” strategy - does nothing except prolong the agony of the war just so that they can avoid the political pain and risk a stand up strategy would entail.

The Democrats say they ran on a platform of bringing new leadership and new ideas on the war. All right then. Lead. Give us new ideas - even if those ideas involve forcing the President to remove the troops from Iraq. Cowering in the face of tough political choices only reinforces the notion that you don’t have the guts to lead this country in its hour of greatest need.

Simply put, this “strategy” is unworthy of a majority party. Perhaps if you start acting like you run the place, you’ll grow a pair and wake up one day national leaders who can stand on two feet rather than sneak your agenda for the war through using legislative tricks and sleight of hand.

For shame, I say. Shame on you.

UPDATE

Bryan at Hot Air:

If they do what they’re apparently planning to do, “slow bleed” will be a very apt description. Those doing the bleeding, slowly, will be US troops.

Got that right.

Hinderaker:

So the Democrats will do their best to make the United States’ effort in Iraq fail, but without taking responsibility for that action, and then try to benefit politically from the country’s defeat. Nice.

Don’t know if I’d go quite so far. After all, there is very little chance anyone will see the loss of the war as anything but the President’s fault. But the political strategy sounds about right.

UPDATE II

Even the netnuts are getting antsy. Matt Stoller:

Is it time to work to run primary campaigns against Democrats who won’t argue for ending the war? There are immense incentives in DC that play into the status quo. Democrats think that Bush is going to be blamed for Iraq, and he will be. But Democrats have power, and that means that Democrats have some responsibility. It’s obvious that no Democrats in DC, with a few exceptions, feel any pull towards withdrawal. So they are screwing over us, who voted them into office to end the war, and we’re enabling them with cheerleading.

We must put incentives in place to stop this madness. And believe me, it’s madness. I live here. This is full of crazy people in suits who think that spending $1 trillion on defense a year is a good thing. And those are the progressives!

When I read this on Glenn Reynold’s blog this morning, I could hardly believe it. In response to an Ed Morrissey piece on Austrian weapons sold to Iran ending up with the insurgents in Iraq, the Professor drops his normally mild mannered personae and advocates hitting the Iranians with targeted assassinations:

I don’t understand why the Bush Administration has been so slow to respond. Nor do I think that high-profile diplomacy, or an invasion, is an appropriate response. We should be responding quietly, killing radical mullahs and iranian atomic scientists, supporting the simmering insurgencies within Iran, putting the mullahs’ expat business interests out of business, etc. Basically, stepping on the Iranians’ toes hard enough to make them reconsider their not-so-covert war against us in Iraq. And we should have been doing this since the summer 2003. But as far as I can tell, we’ve done nothing along these lines.

The outrage from all the usual suspects had to have been anticipated by Reynolds. He’s too experienced in the ways of the blogosphere not to have realized the second he wrote those words about assassinating “radical mullahs” and atomic scientists that a full blown blogswarm wasn’t in the offing. Sure enough, leading the pack of finger waggers and tsk-tskers is the number one hysteric in the blogosphere:

Just think about how extremist and deranged that is. We are not even at war with Iran. Congress has not declared war or authorized military force against that country. Yet Reynolds thinks that the Bush administration, unilaterally, should send people to murder Iranian scientists and religious leaders — just pick out whichever ones we don’t like and slaughter them. No charges. No trial. No accountability. Just roving death squads deployed and commanded by our Leader, slaughtering whomever he wants dead.

How Lambchop managed to wangle a column at Salon is a mystery. They obviously haven’t been reading his shallow, calumnious, hate filled rants toward conservatives and Bush supporters. His generalized assaults on people who disagree with him are wildly beyond the pale of decency and common sense - coarse, exaggerated, full of laughably simplistic analysis coupled with nauseating, moralistic lecturing. Lambchop is a Calvinist without the redeeming belief in God’s mercy.

“Cartoonish,” Goldstein correctly avers:

What I do find repugnant, however, is people like Greenwald(s) who hide their immense contempt for “the values of this country” behind pieties and outrage offered in bad faith, a rhetorical position intended to keep those who are trying to puzzle through difficult issues on the defensive, making them endlessly “prove” they aren’t “rogue” elements in the war against Islamism. And for all of Greenwald’s(’s) constant carping about how Bush supporters “routinely” label the loyal opposition “traitors,” he is fairly quick to insist that those who float the idea of covert warfare tactics are somehow hostile to individual liberty, freedom, representative government, and rule of law.

Lambchop’s absolutist, unyielding, unbending logic when it comes to anything the United States might do to protect itself does not carry over into criticizing the barbarians who violate every known international codicil that relates to establishing comity between nations. Nor does his resolute moral compass allow him to take the enemies of civilization to task for trying to achieve their goal of, if not destroying us, most certainly grievously injuring our interests and killing our citizens.

And we have no acknowledgement from Lambchop about Iran’s declaration of war against the United States on November 4, 1979 when they violated his precious international law, international tradition, and the rules of civilized behavior by attacking United States soil, capturing our diplomats, torturing them, and holding them hostage for more than a year. That, my dear sock puppet, is an act of war as surely as anything that has occurred in the international arena since the end of World War II. The fact that you choose not to recognize it as such is immaterial. For someone who pretends to be “reality based,” Lambchop’s concept of what is real seems to depend entirely on what he believes - which puts him in the same league as the holy rollers, the evangelicals, and other conservative Christians he takes such delight in savaging on a regular basis.

Leaving aside Lambchop’s bloviations, is it ever morally permissible to act like a barbarian to defeat a barbarian?

Conventional wisdom says no, that once started down that road we lose our identity as a nation and become exactly what we are fighting. I don’t know about that. We did some pretty horrific things in World War II to defeat Japan and Germany and managed to maintain our democracy while retaining a certain moral authority in the world left over from the Wilsonian era. The fact that we appear to have lost some of that authority today says more about the rest of the world’s refusal to acknowledge the threat of radical Islamism than it does about any actions we’ve taken to fight that menace.

By its nature, war is barbaric. I find it curious that absolutists like Lambchop somehow believe there is a “civilized” way to fight and win. We don’t target civilians. We don’t bomb cultural or religious symbols. We don’t behead our captives. Torture is a stain on our honor but it is apparently not a widespread problem. How much more “civilized” should we be? Idiots like Lamchop won’t be happy until we start warning the jihadis we’re coming because surprise attacks are barbarous.

From a purely practical standpoint though, Reynold’s proposal won’t work. Mathew Yglesias gets it about right:

I mean, how is this going to work? We’re talking, presumably, about the clandestine branches of the same intelligence agencies who can’t decide what the state of the Iranian nuclear program is, don’t know where Iran’s nuclear facilities are, and are unsure who, if anyone, in the Iranian government is responsible for Iranian weapons winding up in Iraq. Nevertheless, Reynolds believes they have an off-the-shelf plan for placing assassins in close proximity to key Iranian nuclear scientists. But not only for doing this, but for doing it quietly! American agents are infiltrating Iran killing Iranian scientists and religious leaders and none of them get caught. How? Are there really dozens of Farsi-speaking ninjas working for the CIA? I was going to compare this to a fun-but-stupid movie like The Bourne Identity but the point of that movie (and its sequal) is actually that if you somehow did build a hyper-competent utterly secret government agency it would likely become a cesspool of corruption and abuses of power.

Actually, I’m pretty sure our Special Forces boys, if tasked with specific targets, would probably have the capability to carry out a couple of missions. After that, I daresay the Iranians would increase security to the point that the question of assassinations would be moot.

And, at the risk of agreeing with Lambchop, how do you define “radical” mullah? You don’t get to be a mullah in Iran without possessing some fairly radical views like opposing the existence of Israel. How radical is too radical? What factors or beliefs do your base your targeting criteria?

Lamchop highlights the Executive Order outlawing assassination, something every President since Ford has followed. And if you lift that stricture, why target some obscure mullah? Why not go for the gold and kill Khamenei or Ahmadinejad? For the same reason no President has lifted the Executive Order on assassinations; what goes around, comes around. We kill one of theirs, don’t you think they’d do their damndest to kill one of ours?

And I’m not sure targeting atomic scientists is such a good idea either. The Iranians have had help from a number of countries including North Korea, Pakistan, and there is some evidence that former Russian scientists have also worked on the Iranian nuclear program. Besides, would it really do any good? Would it really cause the program any damage? Would it really make the mullahs think twice about helping the insurgents in Iraq? I doubt it.

I understand Reynold’s frustration with our inaction regarding Iran. We’ve dithered for 28 years about working to establish a genuine democratic movement there. It’s not like we haven’t done it before. One need only look at Poland or the former Czechoslovakia where we clandestinely set up a democratic facade for potential reformers that allowed for an indigenous movement to sweep those countries when the time was right. Of course, that type of operation takes patience and a lot of spade work.

The problem has always been that anything we do to Iran will result in counter measures that have the potential of hurting us even more. And anything we do to Iran will enormously complicate if not totally doom our efforts in Iraq. Fighting a Shia insurgency against our occupation along with war against the Sunnis and al-Qaeda would be a disaster. If Professor Reynolds believes that assassinations of the kind he is suggesting won’t set off the Shias in Iraq, he should read some recent speeches from al-Sadr where he warns against any American actions against Iran. And of course, the political situation - already tenuous - would go to hell in a handbasket. Forget about the Shias sharing power with the Sunnis or Kurds at all. In fact, that turn of events would make staying in Iraq a complete exercise in futility.

I too wish to avoid a generalized conflict with the Iranians. But assassination isn’t the way. And I believe that despite the sabre rattling by the Administration in sending 3 carrier battle groups to the Gulf, they too wish to avoid military action because of the consequences domestically and in the Middle East. In fact, it appears to me that the Administration may be willing to allow the Iranians their enrichment program, hoping that the technical problems they have been experiencing will continue while working to undermine the regime from the inside.

Short of war, that’s the best we can do.

UPDATE

Hugh Hewitt applauds Reynold’s idea while drawing a conclusion about Hizbullah:

Note that Hezbollah hasn’t kidnapped any Israeli soldiers lately. There’s a reason.

Nasrallah has his own reasons for not tweaking Israel’s tail at the moment, not the least of which is that he needs his militia to assist him in his efforts to overthrow the Siniora government and not trying to fight off Israel’s retaliation for such an act. For the last several months, Hizbullah has been trying to show that they are good Lebanese citizens who only want what they believe they deserve; increased representation in the Lebanese cabinet. Of course, that’s a crock. But that, plus the UNIFIL force have kept Hizbullah from any confrontations with Israel recently.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

I have called Jack Bauer a thug, someone who would be in jail if he weren’t out saving the country every week. And yet the fact that Jack seems to be remarkably untroubled by the methods he uses to battle the terrorists has always been one of his more attractive attributes. We want the kind of certitude exhibited by Jack. We long for it. We crave it. A black and white world where we don’t have to wrestle with our consciences about what to do with real terrorists and where the choices made by our government to protect us would meet with universal approval is something most Americans would give their right arm for. This, more than anything else, helps explain the popularity of the show.

The moral choices made by characters on 24 do not necessarily shed light on contemporary America so much as they illustrate time-honored thematic constructs from great literature and drama of the past. By definition, these themes are “conservative” in that they reflect a traditional approach to drama while offering a point of view regarding the threat of terrorism that more conservatives seem to be comfortable with than liberals. But at the same time, the show seeks to redefine the moral universe inhabited by the characters who are asked to sacrifice traditional values for the greater good of saving the country.

But we don’t live in Jack’s world. The world we live in is a many layered, textured nightmare of progressively darker shades of grey. What is torture? Is it right to make someone stand for 12 hours straight? Can you “waterboard” someone? Beyond the moral choices regarding torture, does it work? Is it necessary? The rest of the world is appalled at some of our answers. Shouldn’t we be?

And so, 24 remains what it is; a television show with a devoted following among the political class in America with the consequence that its impact on our culture and politics travels far beyond the 15 million people who watch the show every week.

In this serious and thoughtful piece in The New Yorker, Jane Mayer explores the personal politics of 24 creator and producer Joel Surnow. In the process of dissecting Surnow’s beliefs, we discover that some of our country’s most authoritative sources on matters of interrogation and torture feel that the character of Jack Bauer is a bad influence on the troops and that the show may even be responsible for the mistreatment of some prisoners.

Mayer gives details of a visit to the set last November by U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, along with several senior FBI and CIA agents who have conducted thousands of interrogations in their careers. Their verdict was simple and straightforward; the torture scenes in the show were affecting the way that cadets at West Point as well as troops in the field were approaching the interrogation of prisoners:

Finnegan told the producers that “24,” by suggesting that the U.S. government perpetrates myriad forms of torture, hurts the country’s image internationally. Finnegan, who is a lawyer, has for a number of years taught a course on the laws of war to West Point seniors-cadets who would soon be commanders in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. He always tries, he said, to get his students to sort out not just what is legal but what is right. However, it had become increasingly hard to convince some cadets that America had to respect the rule of law and human rights, even when terrorists did not. One reason for the growing resistance, he suggested, was misperceptions spread by “24,” which was exceptionally popular with his students. As he told me, “The kids see it, and say, ‘If torture is wrong, what about “24″?’ ” He continued, “The disturbing thing is that although torture may cause Jack Bauer some angst, it is always the patriotic thing to do…”

The third expert at the meeting was Tony Lagouranis, a former Army interrogator in the war in Iraq. He told the show’s staff that DVDs of shows such as “24″ circulate widely among soldiers stationed in Iraq. Lagouranis said to me, “People watch the shows, and then walk into the interrogation booths and do the same things they’ve just seen.” He recalled that some men he had worked with in Iraq watched a television program in which a suspect was forced to hear tortured screams from a neighboring cell; the men later tried to persuade their Iraqi translator to act the part of a torture “victim,” in a similar intimidation ploy. Lagouranis intervened: such scenarios constitute psychological torture.

Finnegan said that he’d like to see a show “where torture backfired.” All the experts agreed that torture, even when used in the show’s “ticking bomb” context, would never work. They pointed out that the fanatics, knowing that the bomb would go off soon, would simply hold out, secure in the knowledge that their suffering couldn’t last much longer.

They also pointed out that terrorist prisoners actually looked forward to torture as the first step towards martyrdom. An interrogation professional would never use it and would, instead, take the opposite tack of trying to build a relationship with the prisoner, drawing him out gradually by gaining his trust. Besides, the “ticking bomb” scenario itself was totally unrealistic and would never happen in the real world.

Of course, changing the parameters of the show by taking away the clock and interrogating prisoners the right way would make for lousy television which is why the producers would never agree to pursue such a storyline. More interesting is the idea that our troops actually think that this is the best way to get information from a suspect. Is what Finnegan and the others say true? Can our young men and women be so stupid as to reject their training and simply copy what a character on a fictional television show does, thinking that it is both legal and will get the job done?

I have no doubt that General Finnegan and the agents are genuinely concerned about the show’s impact on the troops. But the idea that some of the abuse of prisoners meted out by American soldiers is the result of watching a television show is absurd on its face. Blame it on our not giving the prisoners Geneva Convention protections or on poor discipline or leadership. But the intelligence professionals who carry out the overwhelming number of interrogations on prisoners can’t all be that stupid.

In fact, in an article in City Journal, Heather McDonald described how truly professional these dedicated men and women are and what they were up against when it came to interrogating al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners:

Army doctrine gives interrogators 16 “approaches” to induce prisoners of war to divulge critical information. Sporting names like “Pride and Ego Down” and “Fear Up Harsh,” these approaches aim to exploit a detainee’s self-love, allegiance to or resentment of comrades, or sense of futility. Applied in the right combination, they will work on nearly everyone, the intelligence soldiers had learned in their training.

But the Kandahar prisoners were not playing by the army rule book. They divulged nothing. “Prisoners overcame the [traditional] model almost effortlessly,” writes Chris Mackey in The Interrogators, his gripping account of his interrogation service in Afghanistan. The prisoners confounded their captors “not with clever cover stories but with simple refusal to cooperate. They offered lame stories, pretended not to remember even the most basic of details, and then waited for consequences that never really came.”

Some of the al-Qaida fighters had received resistance training, which taught that Americans were strictly limited in how they could question prisoners. Failure to cooperate, the al-Qaida manuals revealed, carried no penalties and certainly no risk of torture-a sign, gloated the manuals, of American weakness.

The solution was to initiate a series of extraordinary mild “stress techniques” that didn’t harm the prisoner but did put doubt in his mind that perhaps what he had heard about the Americans and their restraint wasn’t true:

Many of the interrogators argued for a calibrated use of “stress techniques”-long interrogations that would cut into the detainees’ sleep schedules, for example, or making a prisoner kneel or stand, or aggressive questioning that would put a detainee on edge.

Joe Martin-a crack interrogator who discovered that a top al-Qaida leader, whom Pakistan claimed to have in custody, was still at large and directing the Afghani resistance-explains the psychological effect of stress: “Let’s say a detainee comes into the interrogation booth and he’s had resistance training. He knows that I’m completely handcuffed and that I can’t do anything to him. If I throw a temper tantrum, lift him onto his knees, and walk out, you can feel his uncertainty level rise dramatically. He’s been told: ‘They won’t physically touch you,’ and now you have. The point is not to beat him up but to introduce the reality into his mind that he doesn’t know where your limit is.” Grabbing someone by the top of the collar has had a more profound effect on the outcome of questioning than any actual torture could have, Martin maintains. “The guy knows: You just broke your own rules, and that’s scary. He might demand to talk to my supervisor. I’ll respond: ‘There are no supervisors here,’ and give him a maniacal smile.

This is not to say that there hasn’t been torture committed by Americans. There have been more than 700 investigations carried out by the Army involving prisoner abuse and 25 detainees have died in American custody that have been ruled homicides. But to posit the notion, even tangentially, that the actions of Jack Bauer on a fictional TV show somehow contributed to this state of affairs strains credulity.

In Mayer’s New Yorker piece, she points out that while the show is fantasy, it sometimes crowds reality by depicting torture that actually occurred in real life, citing an incident last year where a terrorist was denied pain medication mirroring a similar event that occurred in Afghanistan. But the show’s senior writer Howard Gordon says that he makes up the torture scenes himself:

Howard Gordon, who is the series’ “show runner,” or lead writer, told me that he concocts many of the torture scenes himself. “Honest to God, I’d call them improvisations in sadism,” he said. Several copies of the C.I.A.’s 1963 KUBARK interrogation manual can be found at the “24″ offices, but Gordon said that, “for the most part, our imaginations are the source. Sometimes these ideas are inspired by a scene’s location or come from props-what’s on the set.” He explained that much of the horror is conjured by the viewer. “To see a scalpel and see it move below the frame of the screen is a lot scarier than watching the whole thing. When you get a camera moving fast, and someone screaming, it really works.

So does the show “enable” torture by sanitizing it while showing that it is necessary? Clearly, the audience is asked to accept the illegal methods used by Jack Bauer as the price that must be paid to save the country. But are we asked to approve of it? Mayer makes the case that in fact, by making the audience complicit in Jack’s law breaking and by showing Bauer to be basically untroubled by his use of torture, the show removes any moral complications the audience might feel:

The “24″ producers told the military and law-enforcement experts that they were careful not to glamorize torture; they noted that Bauer never enjoys inflicting pain, and that it had clearly exacted a psychological toll on the character. (As Gordon put it to me, “Jack is basically damned.”) Finnegan and the others disagreed, pointing out that Bauer remains coolly rational after committing barbarous acts, including the decapitation of a state’s witness with a hacksaw…

Although reports of abuses by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have angered much of the world, the response of Americans has been more tepid. Finnegan attributes the fact that “we are generally more comfortable and more accepting of this,” in part, to the popularity of “24,” which has a weekly audience of fifteen million viewers, and has reached millions more through DVD sales.

Frankly, I think that because the show is so popular with the politically active segment of the population that we tend to overestimate its impact on the rest of America. I doubt whether the majority of Americans who may be aware of who Jack Bauer is actually take his methods to heart. And as far as being more accepting of torture, 63% of Americans oppose physical abuse according to an ABC Poll conducted in 2004 with 35% supporting torture. And even higher majorities (75% in a USA Today poll) opposed the kind of treatment meted out to prisoners at Abu Ghraib. This hardly seems “tepid.”

In the end, it’s just a television show. A rollicking good show to be sure. It is well written, well acted, with production values that are the envy of series television. But basically the show functions as a safe outlet for our fears about terrorism and security. And Jack Bauer may be a goon but his dedication to duty and his patriotism are so attractive that the audience is more than willing to forgive him his shortcomings.

Most of us like to think that there is someone out there in real life with that kind of tough, no nonsense approach to protecting America but without the moral baggage that Jack carries. In that sense, the show succeeds in what it sets out to do; entertain us for an hour every week with thrilling, edge-of-your-seat action while making us wish that next week’s episode would hurry up and get here.

“Beware lest clamor be taken for counsel” (Desiderius Erasmus )

“Are we nothing more than a pack of digital yellow journalists writing pixelated scab sheets vying to see who we can lay low next? If this be the way to fame and fortune in the blogosphere, I truly fear that, like television, the last great technological breakthrough that promised to change the world, we will degenerate into a mindless, bottomless pit of muck and mudslinging, dragging down the culture and trivializing even the most important issues.” (Me)

Learning came late in life in my case. For 25 years, I goofed off in school, barely squeaking by as I was ushered from grade to grade, from high school to college, graduating only because of the kindness of professors I was wise enough to suck up to.

After college, I persisted in my ignorance, wearing it like a badge of honor and mouthing the liberal platitudes and pablum of the times. But forced to finally confront my ignorance as I set out to make a living in the world, I realized how truly deficient my knowledge of the larger world of ideas was and I began a conscious effort to rectify the situation.

Not having read much philosophy, I began by reading the Greeks Socrates and Aristotle, moved on to Erasmus, devoured Kant, Hume, and Rousseau and ended my initial explorations with Hegel and Marx. To this day, it is hard to put into words the excitement I felt when the ideas of those giants slammed into me, so powerful was was the force of their logic and personalities. This started my journey as an auto-didact. And for the nearly 30 years since those heady days in the summer of 1979, I have experienced the joy of learning simply for the sake of knowing.

Knowledge for its own sake is a concept perhaps out of style at today’s educational assembly lines where we churn out lawyers, accountants, and B-school grads. I guess when you’re paying in excess of $100,000 a year to educate your child, you tend to demand that what they learn is “relevant” to the employment conditions they will find after graduation.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this kind of education - as long as it is augmented with a well rounded curriculum that includes the humanities, the sciences, and the arts. My understanding is that these opportunities are still available to the undergraduate - even if you are pre-law or pre-med. It would be my advice to anyone going off to college to take advantage of everything the school has to offer including the study of subjects that hold no promise to assist you in whatever field you have chosen to make your life’s work.

But the accumulation of knowledge is only part of the equation. As Confucius said “Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance.” Knowledge does not automatically lead to wisdom or infallibility nor does it insulate us from making mistakes in judgement. And that, my friends, may be the most important idea you read today.

The reason for this personal digression is that I wanted you to understand not how smart I am but how truly ignorant we all are. If, as Erasmus said “Humility is Truth” then surely it follows that before one can glimpse the truth, we must recognize and admit to our own ignorance, our own mistakes. Anything less reveals a towering conceit born of ego - a hubristic mindset that brooks no opposition and where ideas are set in stone rather than existing as free agents capable of altering their shape, their texture, even the very foundations on which they exist.

Long time readers of this site know exactly what I’m talking about. You can trace the arc of my support for the Iraq War, for the President, for Republicans, even for conservatives from where I started to where I am now and see where my ideas have changed to reflect the knowledge I have gained as well as changes in perception that have colored my thinking on a host of issues. Does this make me wishy-washy? To some, perhaps. I prefer to think that it proves I am at least receptive to examining other ideas that may clash with some of my long held beliefs.

Specifically with regards to Marcotte and the left in this matter, it is obvious their desperation to shift debate on this issue from Marcotte’s hate filled spewings to what they consider to be similar sins committed by conservatives precludes their having to examine their own beliefs, their own complicity in her shockingly corrupt ideological rantings.

In truth, they see nothing wrong with her warped view of Christians, Catholics, conservatives, men, and any other enemy she targets with her vile invective. Nor do other liberal commenters who have hurled obscene racist epithets at Michelle Malkin or made wild accusations about me, about my brother, or any other individual who has questioned Marcotte’s fitness to serve in any capacity on the staff of a major Presidential candidate demonstrate the slightest ability to examine what Marcotte’s insults and hurtful diatribes mean in a wider context.

By maintaining their silence or even voicing approval for what those outside the left side of the blogosphere almost universally condemn as hate speech, the left proves once again that ignorance is bliss and that self examination, like a little knowledge, is a dangerous thing, something to be avoided at all costs lest one lose their place in the stratified pecking order of lefty blogs.

But I cannot leave this subject without examining the role of those of us on the right who flogged this story into the mainstream media and may have cost Marcotte her job. Certainly our motives lacked nobility. I will be the last to argue that anything more than “scalp hunting” animated this effort. And the questions I raised in the quote at the top of this page remains valid: Is this all we are? Is this what we have become?

In the heat of battle, it is easy to lose sight of those questions. This is not an excuse but rather an explanation. And whatever the outcome of this latest blogosphere dustup, it may be well to ask a third question: Is there anything we can do to change this dynamic? The constant back and forth of charge, counter-charge, revelation followed by the inevitable attempt to alter the discussion by pointing to the sins of the other side - all of this has become an all too familiar pattern of behavior that any rational person would have to say cheapens us all on both sides of the aisle and doesn’t solve anything. Instead, it actually breeds resentment so that the next rhubarb will follow exactly the same course with perhaps even more intensity in the use of language and invective.

I don’t have any answers. And the only thing I’m sure of is that I and everyone else will be guilty of the exact same sins the next time blogs swarm in and target someone for scalp lifting.

Nature of the beast? Or something that can consciously be changed? I don’t know. I just don’t know.

UPDATE: A LITTLE HONESTY WOULD BE A GOOD START

Statement from Edwards:

The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte’s and Melissa McEwan’s posts personally offended me. It’s not how I talk to people, and it’s not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it’s intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I’ve talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone’s faith, and I take them at their word. We’re beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can’t let it be hijacked. It will take discipline, focus, and courage to build the America we believe in.

“…[I]ntended as satire, humor, or anything else…”? How about deliberately hurtful? And the idea that Marcotte’s intention was not to malign anyone’s faith is a baldfaced lie. “Reproductive issues” - including anti-abortion beliefs - that she denigrated in such a scurrilous and vile manner are the essence of some Catholic’s faith! That and her disrespecting the Pope show that it was fully her intention to malign the Catholic faith and any statement that says otherwise is meaningless drivel.

The left now has their champions ensconced in a campaign after the principal releases a statement full of what everyone with an ounce of decency recognizes as lies. I’m all for forgiveness but how about a little honesty? If Edwards had come out and said that while he recognized that Marcotte’s views were hurtful to some Americans, they didn’t reflect his beliefs or what he was trying to accomplish with the campaign. Instead, he pretends that Marcotte’s screeds were humor or satire and he further pretends to believe them when they say that they weren’t trying to be hateful or hurtful to anyone.

None of the players covered themselves in glory over this - least of all Edwards.

Also, check out the comments by The Anchoress below as well as her post here.

UPDATE II

James Joyner agrees with me:

These statements have all the believability of 5-year-olds being made to shake hands and apologize. Further, while I have no doubt both these women believe in the 1st Amendment, it’s utterly ridiculous to claim that they never intended to criticize people’s religious views. They did so routinely. The only way that religious people would not have been offended by any of dozens of statements on their blogs was by not reading them.

Of course, that was likely the case in most instances. Blogs that appeal to rabid partisans often devolve into ridicule and dripping condescension toward those who disagree. That’s great for building a fan base, as numerous bloggers (and talk hosts) on both sides of the aisle can attest. It’s not very effective for holding a national conversation, though, let alone a presidential campaign.

Malkin: “Meanwhile, the nutroots are waving their guns around in triumph.” Yep. Firing off their weapons in celebratory triumph like all the other primitive peoples of the earth.

Goldstein:

But lost on these Marcotte supporters—who are cheering on the power of the “netroots” to cow a politician into keeping on an ugly and hateful liability—is that Edwards just showed up Marcotte and McEwan as frauds and posturing blowhards, writers who have been pulling the wool over their audiences’ eyes by posting vicious “arguments” they never truly believed. To use the loaded language of establishment feminism—he publicly castrated them—and in so doing, he made fools out of their audiences, to boot.

Further, in doing so, he has shown himself to be nothing more than a calculating political opportunist of the worst sort—one who believes the voting public so daft they might actually buy a statement like the one he just released.

See also some interesting thoughts somewhat similiar to my own about blogs and blogging from Sister Toldjah.

Allah is on fire. Keep scrolling.

My brother Terry (who just started a new blog) has an interesting post up today about Mitt Romney and religion. Much has been written about Romney’s Mormonism and I suppose much more will be written before all is said and done. Terry takes a little different approach to the subject:

Nevertheless, voters choose candidates for all kinds of reasons, some legitimate, some not. And sometimes, faith matters. For instance, if a candidate openly declared, “I am an atheist; God is a fairy tale invented to comfort children frightened of the dark”–I don’t think he or she would get elected in America. Ever. I think we’ll have a fat, gay Muslim president before we have an atheist one.

That’s because at some level we learn about people through their religion–or lack of it. A candidate’s faith is contextual–it fills out a public profile with the outlines of the most private of our commitments. And it is here–in the quest to understand what kind of man Mitt Romney, presidential candidate, is–that his Mormonism seems to matter to some.

Indeed, not only does Romney’s religion seem to draw criticism - even from some Christians - but some of the arguments used to question the former Massachusetts governor about his fidelity to the Constitution are eerily reminiscent of those used when Representative Keith Ellison was set to take his oath using the Koran.

Jacob Weisberg:

One may object that all religious beliefs are irrational—what’s the difference between Smith’s “seer stone” and the virgin birth or the parting of the Red Sea? But Mormonism is different because it is based on such a transparent and recent fraud. It’s Scientology plus 125 years. Perhaps Christianity and Judaism are merely more venerable and poetic versions of the same. But a few eons makes a big difference. The world’s greater religions have had time to splinter, moderate, and turn their myths into metaphor. The Church of Latter-day Saints is expanding rapidly and liberalizing in various ways, but it remains fundamentally an orthodox creed with no visible reform wing.

Beliefs that are “different” or hard to understand engender fear. I have frankly been amazed at the number of “Islamic scholars” who have emerged in the blogosphere over the last few years who, at the drop of a hat (and with a breathtaking casualness that bespeaks a shallowness of thought or just plain ignorance), will be more than happy to tell you that Islam is a religion of liars; that because of one line or another of text they’ve taken out of context from the Koran, there is proof that we can never trust Muslims, that Allah instructs them to lie to infidels in order to achieve worldwide conquest by Islam.

I have no doubt that the fanatics, the fundamentalists, the “Let’s Bring Back The Caliphate” crowd can justify anything by taking lines of revealed truth from the Koran and applying it to their jihad. A cursory glance at our own history reveals some dark truths about the way the Bible was used in similar fashion. Excerpts from the Bible have been used to justify slavery, war, capitol punishment (and anti-death penalty tracts), colonialism, forced conversions, and a host of other evils that any rational and loving God would never have intended.

The belief that Romney would be any less true to the Constitution as President because of his faith is a legitimate question. But how about questioning specific beliefs that may seem to some as outrageous or dangerous?

But there is a deeper argument about Mormonism and the presidency, and it deals with the contemporary authority of prophecy and revelation. As I understand it, Mormons believe we live in an age of prophecy–articulated in the pronouncements of the leaders of their church–and that these authentic revelations of God’s will are aimed at reforming Christianity and the world in preparation for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (which will be in Missouri–a tenet that makes a lot of people giggle. But if you’d told the Romans God was about to manifest himself on earth in Bethlehem, they’d have giggled, too.)

The issue for some (Damon Linker laid it out in The New Republic) is that if a person truly believes the utterances of church leaders are revelations carrying the force of prophecy–then they are binding, and binding on every aspect of life. Would a President Romney be bound by prophetic Mormon teaching on issues from abortion and stem-cell research to the Middle East? Is the question any different for a Mormon like Romney than it is for a Methodist like George W. Bush or a Catholic like John F. Kennedy?

The answer to Terry’s question can be found in history. In the most famous modern speech on religion and politics, candidate John F. Kennedy spoke before the ultra conservative Ministerial Association of Greater Houston in order to lay to rest once and for all the idea that a Roman Catholic couldn’t be President.

It was a brilliant speech. Kennedy challenged people to vote for him in order to prove that they were not bigots, a brilliant political ploy. And, he defined the role that religion should play in public life:

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish—where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches, or any other ecclesiastical source—where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials—and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

Kennedy is referring, of course, to the notion still prevalent at that time that a Catholic President would be in the pocket of the pope - a fear directed toward Catholics that had been with the nation since the earliest of colonial times. In one afternoon, Kennedy swept away 300 years of history and replaced it with challenge for tolerance.

Will Romney be forced into a similar declaration as a result of Mormon tradition and beliefs? Given the ink already devoted to this subject, my guess is that he will have to do so sooner rather than later. One thing is certain, he can’t keep ducking the issue. People would believe he has something to hide if he continues to refer to his beliefs as “private.”

What does it say about the United States that here, in the 21st century, we are still grappling with issues of religion and politics? Freedom has a price. And sometimes the price exacted isn’t fair or equitable but simply necessary. Romney will realize this and eventually address the issue. How he does so will determine the way people judge him as a man and a candidate.