Anti-Torture Picture Lacks Definition

Cliff May has a post at NRO Online that addresses the dishonest element that runs through all of the recent whip-up about "torture." There's also some details about how Islamists respond to harsh interrogation:

Re: Not Pro-Torture, Just Pro-Facts [Cliff May]

Andrew Sullivan has a post up on his Daily Dish taking a shot at me as well. He begins by saying generously: “Cliff May has done great work over the years advancing democracy and defending human rights.” He goes on to link to one of my Corner posts and to say that my “defense of torture when and only when America does it deeply undermines his credibility and makes a mockery of his previous work.”

In fact, in just about everything I’ve written and said, I’ve taken pains to emphasize that I oppose torture. However, I do think (1) it’s important to define torture so we know what we are talking about, and (2) all forms of “stress and duress” utilized to elicit cooperation from a terrorist in possession of life-saving information are not torture.

Every opponent I’ve debated on has taken this tactic — labeling me as “pro-torture,” refusing to grapple with definitions, and refusing to consider whether there may be methods of interrogation that are unpleasant but fall short of torture.

This is especially important because we now know that Islamists believe their religion forbids them to cooperate with infidels — until they have reached the limit of their ability to endure the hardships the infidel is inflicting on them.* In other words: Imagine an al-Qaeda member who would like to give his interrogators information, who does not want continue fighting, who would prefer not to see more innocent people slaughtered. He would need his interrogators to press him hard so he can feel that he has met his religious obligations — only then could he cooperate.

But just try to get anyone in the “anti-torture” camp to seriously debate any of this.

* “Brothers who are captured and interrogated are permitted by Allah to provide information when they believe they have reached the limit of their ability to withhold it in the face of psychological and physical hardships.” — Abu Zubaydah, quoted in released CIA memos

Obama's Attorney General Pick

I wasn’t sure at first what to think about President-elect Obama’s selection of Eric Holder as nominee for Attorney General of the United States. Frankly, I don’t remember him from the Clinton administration. But then I read Andrew McCarthy’s take on him at The Corner, (“Opposed to Holder without apology”), ripping Holder for his role in the Clinton PardonFest. I have tremendous admiration for McCarthy, and since he speaks as a former Justice Department insider (he prosecuted the Blind Sheikh and, atypically of DOJ terror prosecutions, won), I give his opinions that much more weight.

Now I see that the Arab American News likes Holder, and for all the wrong reasons. Speaking for Osama Siblani’s newspaper is up-and-coming jihadist mouthpiece, Tarek Baydoun, whom we’ve notice before calling for, among other things, the "national unity" of the Muslim nation. Baydoun sings Holder’s praises, cementing my negative view of Holder in the process. (“Obama's Attorney General pick encouraging to Arabs, Muslims and all Americans”).

Baydoun is an example of the heights that can be reached in opinion-writing when a writer is unfettered by either fact-checking or moderation. As an Osama Siblani disciple, Baydoun subscribes, or pretends to subscribe (sorry, I instinctively credit all law students with crass ambition), to the Muslim Gulag narrative, whereby, (goes the narrative), each morning every Arabic resident of East Dearborn wakes--on a good day--to face daily checkpoints, body searches, and harsh interrogation, and--on a bad day--a simple trip to the bakery is as likely as not to end in summary arrest, deportation, waterboarding, transport to Gitmo, or disappearance without a trace.

As I believe I may have mentioned before, as a West Dearborner who has to drive through East Dearborn to get to work, I have to allow myself extra time to plod through the countless black marias blocking traffic as they round up hapless Muslims innocently on their way to wire money to their freedom-loving relatives abroad.

As Baydoun tells it, this systematic destruction of the civil liberties of Arab Americans will be the worst stigma of all of the Bush administration, above and beyond, as he so temperately describes it, “the failures on all fronts of the Bush administration.”

Baydoun is heartened that Obama picked Holder who, in June, long before he knew he was going to have to have to face Senate confirmation for Attorney General, made a speech to the American Constitution Society, “a progressive organization of lawyers and law students,” where:

Holder blasted the Bush administration's policies as "immora[l]." Holder said the policies weakened the government's position at home and abroad in its fight against terrorism. Holder described the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II and the Supreme Court decision upholding it as "one of the darkest moments in American constitutional history." He said that although the government did not do the same to American Muslims after 9/11, much of the action it did take was "excessive and unlawful." Holder said "Our government authorized the use of torture, approved secret electronic surveillance of American citizens without due process of law, and denied the writ of habeas corpus to hundreds of enemy combatants. I do not question the motives and patriotism of those responsible in implementing these policies. But this does nothing to mitigate the fact that these steps were wrong when they were initiated, and they are wrong now… We owe the American people a reckoning."

When you write like Baydoun, who actually was allowed to publish to readers
of the Arab American News that “hundreds of citizens” have been “arbitrarily and illegally detained without trial in prisons inside and outside of the United States” [and] “transferred abroad for torture” [!], you’re not going to be able to resist the boundless nonsense of Holder’s seamless non sequitur from the Japanese internment of WWII to the current domestic war on terror: “although the government did not do the same to American Muslims after 9/11, much of the action it did take was ‘excessive and unlawful.’”

I don’t expect a Democrat President to nominate an Attorney General of my exact liking. But at least he should know the law, (especially the Constitution, e.g., the legal history of habeas corpus being extended to enemy combatants), and have a decent measure of coolness in his thinking. Based on the excerpts of the speech he gave the ACS, Holder appears to lack all of these.

Personally, in view of the incoming Obama administration's sudden discovery of the lethal intentions of our jihadist enemies, I look forward to watching Holder try to explain to the Senate Judiciary Committee how he intends to keep Americans safe from domestic terrorist plots while intending to "reverse course" on effective methods, perfectly legal methods, that have been successful these last few years to thwart terrorism. Sure, it's fun to make gratuitious swipes at the Bush administration when you don't imagine you might be part of the next administration. Now Holder can try being the AG who suggests to President Obama, whose re-election campaign started November 6th, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed deserves release under habeas corpus.

'25 Hints You're Not Voting for Obama'

Peter Kirsanow wrote this for the Corner at NRO Online:

Today's Rasmussen daily tracking poll has 80% of Democrats supporting Obama and 87% of Republicans supporting McCain. There are still a healthy number of undecideds. This conflicts with the stream of media reports that Obamacons, evangelicals, black conservatives and independents are flocking to Obama.

If you're an independent, moderate or conservative on the fence about whether to vote for McCain or Obama, here's a helpful guide:It's unlikely you'll vote for Obama if you....

1. aren't a news anchor.

2. read the New York Times for pretty much the same reason the NSA monitors radio transmissions.

3. automatically conclude that the person laughing in the car next to you must be listening to Rush. Or maybe Obama off teleprompter.

4. dislocated your shoulder trying to explain Obama's position on Iraq to co-workers.

5. find autobiographies generally more interesting when the author has, you know, done something.

6. remember the Carter Administration.

7. would give a month's pay to play Jack Bauer's partner on 24.

8. increasingly agree with Mark Steyn that "almost everything [Obama] says is, well, nuts."

9. think it's relevant — despite what the sophisticates say — that several of Obama's mentors and associates have displayed a dislike for America or a disdain for Americans.

10. think it's relevant that several of McCain's mentors and associates are American heroes of historic magnitude.

11. think about 9/11 more than once a year.

12. have concluded that Larry the Cable Guy makes way more sense than Howard Dean.

13. feel a little safer during turbulence when your pilot is a calm "white haired dude."

14. thought about Hillary's 3:00 a.m. phone call ad when you first heard about Russian tanks in Georgia.

15. wonder why Obama felt it necessary to give a speech on patriotism.

16. get sorta creeped out by 200,000 Germans chanting "Obama! Obama!"

17. think the jury may still be out on Harvard Law School.

18. suspect "merci beaucoup" is French for "empty suit."

19. doubt that teleprompters are really magical dispensers of good ideas.

20. know in your gut that defiantly withstanding 4 1/2 years of torture trumps all of Obama's qualifications and accomplishments combined — regardless of what the elite pundits say.

21. repeatedly find yourself asking "Change to what?"

22. have ever used the term "pompous twit' in the same sentence with "Marx," "Marcuse," or "Sartre."

23. don't like being told what to do — especially by someone who hasn't done it.

24. really like ticking off the media, Hollywood, academics, and PC busybodies everywhere.

25. weren't born yesterday.

Score (# of descriptions that apply to you):
0— Go ahead, write in Dennis Kucinich
1—3 Obama may be your choice after all
4—5 You think Hillary got a raw deal and won't vote Obama
6—24 McCain's your man
25 It's OK to write in Reagan

Iraq and the Most Important Thing

Bill Bennett just said something that's needed putting into words now for a long time, but I didn't know how:

McCain has nothing to apologize for or retreat from re: yesterday’s statement on the most important thing and Iraq, but that’s how the statements the campaign is making in his defense read. The weak defense I have read — “their lives are precious” is well ...weak.

McCain is absolutely right. First, the military, the all-volunteer military, does not think returning home is the most important thing to them. Doing their job successfully is what they consider to be their most important job. These are not children in a summer camp where the river is rising and the most important thing — the only thing — is to get them home. These are the soldiers of the U.S. military. Their lives are valuable indeed, but their mission is foremost. They understand that. And that's why they reenlist and that's what they tell us again and again on this show and elsewhere.

Obama's First Term: 'Eliminate Unemployment, Fix Health Care, Save Planet'

A needed laugh from Mark Steyn at National Review Online:

Obama, Political Viagra
Now is when you get worried.

By Mark Steyn

The short version of the Democratic-party primary campaign is that the media fell in love with Barack Obama but the Democratic electorate declined to. “I felt this thrill going up my leg,” said MSNBC’s Chris Matthews after one of the senator’s speeches. “I mean, I don’t have that too often.” Au contraire, Chris and the rest of the gang seem to be getting the old tingle up the thigh hairs on a nightly basis. If Obama is political Viagra, the media are at that stage in the ad where the announcer warns that, if leg tingles persist for over six months, see your doctor.

Out there in the voting booths, however, Democrat legs stayed admirably unthrilled. The more the media told Hillary she was toast and she should get the hell out of it and let Obama romp to victory, the more Democrats insisted on voting for her. The more the media insisted Barack was inevitable, the less inclined the voters were to get with the program. On the strength of Chris Matthews’s vibrating calves, Sen. Obama raised a ton of money — over $300 million — and massively outspent Senator Clinton, but he didn’t really get any bang for his buck. In the end, he crawled over the finish line. The Obama Express came a-hurtlin’ down the track at two miles an hour.

But what does he care? Sen. Obama has learned an old trick of Bill Clinton’s: If you behave like a star, you’ll get treated as one. So, even as his numbers weakened, his rhetoric soared. By the time he wrapped up his “victory” speech last week, the great gaseous uplift had his final paragraphs floating in delirious hallucination along the Milky Way:

I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people… I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal… This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation…

It’s a good thing he’s facing it with “profound humility,” isn’t it? Because otherwise who knows what he’d be saying. But mark it in your calendars: June 3, 2008 — the long awaited day, after 232 years, that America began to provide care for the sick. Just a small test program: 47 attendees of the Obama speech were taken to hospital and treated for nausea. Everyone else came away thrilled that the Obamessiah was going to heal the planet and reverse the rise of the oceans: when Barack wants to walk on the water, he doesn’t want to have to use a step-ladder to get up on it.

There are generally two reactions to this kind of policy proposal. The first was exemplified by The Atlantic Monthly’s Marc Ambinder:

What a different emotional register from John McCain’s; Obama seems on the verge of tears; the enormous crowd in the Xcel center seems ready to lift Obama on its shoulders; the much smaller audience for McCain’s speech interrupted his remarks with stilted cheers.

The second reaction boils down to: “‘Heal the planet’? Is this guy nuts?” To be honest I prefer a republic whose citizenry can muster no greater enthusiasm for their candidate than “stilted cheers” to one in which the crowd wants to hoist the nominee onto their shoulders for promising to lower ocean levels within his first term. As for coming together “to remake this great nation,” if it’s so great, why do we have to remake it? A few months back, just after the New Hampshire primary, a Canadian reader of mine — John Gross of Quebec — sent me an all-purpose stump speech for the 2008 campaign:

“My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.”

I thought this was so cute, I posted it on “The Corner.” Whereupon one of those Internetty-type things happened, and three links and a Google search later the line was being attributed not to my correspondent but to Senator Obama, and a few weeks after that I started getting emails from reporters from Florida to Oregon asking if I could recall at which campaign stop the senator in fact uttered these words. And I’d patiently write back and explain that they’re John Gross’s words, and that not even Barack would be dumb enough to say such a thing in public. Yet last week his demand in his victory speech that we “come together to remake this great nation” came awful close.

Speaking personally, I don’t want to remake America. I’m an immigrant and one reason I came here is because most of the rest of the western world remade itself along the lines Sen. Obama has in mind. This is pretty much the end of the line for me. If he remakes America, there’s nowhere for me to go — although presumably once he’s lowered sea levels around the planet there should be a few new atolls popping up here and there.

Marc Ambinder is right. Obama’s rhetoric is in a different “emotional register” from John McCain’s. It’s in a different “emotional register” from every U.S. president — not just the Coolidges but the Kennedys, too. Nothing in Obama’s resume suggests he’s the man to remake America and heal the planet. Only this week, another of his pals bit the dust, convicted by a Chicago jury of 16 counts of this and that. “This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew,” said the senator, in what’s becoming a standard formulation. Likewise, this wasn’t the Jeremiah Wright he knew. And these are guys he’s known for 20 years. Yet at the same time as he’s being stunned by the corruption and anti-Americanism of those closest to him, Obama’s convinced that just by jetting into Tehran and Pyongyang he can get to know America’s enemies and persuade them to hew to the straight and narrow. No doubt if it all goes belly up and Iran winds up nuking Tel Aviv, President Obama will put on his more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger face and announce solemnly that “this isn’t the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad I knew.”

Every time I hear an Obama speech, I start to giggle. But millions of voters don’t. And, if Chris Matthews and the tingly legged media get their way and drag Obama across the finish line this November, the laugh will be on those of us who think that serious times demand grown-up rhetoric.