I Agree with Obama on Guantanamo but….

I agree with President Obama. It’s unacceptable that we, the US, have kept people as prisoners for as long as ten years without trial or any other procedure that could conceivably result in their release or  conviction.

Let me say first that it’s not an issue of toughness or not toughness. I, for one, think it’s ridiculous to invoke the Geneva Conventions to protect people who burn women and children alive and who assassinate while wearing  civilian clothing. I am also in favor of making their lives difficult, of increasing the hardship of doing their disgusting job any way we can. That would include making a public announcement that specific individuals may be volatilized from the sky anytime, any place. That sure would create a circle of isolation around them. I would also be in favor of including an option to surrender and be investigated (by us.) I don’t understand why this option does not already exist.

There are three purposes for keeping people locked up. One is  to secure them while they await trial. The lock-up time in this case should be as short as technically possible. The second reason is that they are serving a prison term, a punishment imposed  after a conviction of guilt in a well-described, appropriate procedure.

The third reason  to prevent people from leaving is to keep them out of any situation where they can hurt others. Thus, the classical treatment of prisoners of war is to secure them until there is peace. No punishment ought to be intended. In fact, there is international agreement that such prisoners should be treated the same as the soldiers of the nation detaining them.  Again, to punish people, you have to try them formally and to find them guilty of something. That’s true even if the accused are prisoners of war, for example. A prisoner of war may also be guilty of crimes. The two issues are separate.  A civilized society should not allow its collective judgment to drift from one situation to the other.

I often hear comments among my fellow conservatives that obscure the existence of a line separating the task of punishing terrorists from the mission to keep them out of our harm’s way. I also hear an absence, the absence of realization that the issue if not one of some Middle-Eastern strangers’ – many of whom openly hate us – rights. It’s about our rights. (It always is, in the final analysis.) Confinement to a small space open has not chosen is experienced as  punishment regardless of intent.  It’ s even the most severe punishment several other civilized societies have. I agree with President Obama that we should not punish severely individuals who may be completely innocent. They may be people who are no more guilty of violence against the United States and against Americans than I am. (Repeat this sentence. Make th”I” yourself.” )

I suspect many of my fellow conservatives believe in their hearts that those detained by American forces because they are suspected of terrorism must be at least a little guilty, or guilty of something. Of course, there is no such thing as being a little guilty in our legal tradition. The idea belongs in totalitarian societies.

If we need to control  some people’s movements for the third reason, to prevent from from doing us harm, in a war that may never end, we owe it to ourselves  as a nation to develop inventive solutions that don’t confuse our need to be safe with the imposition of undeserved punishment. I can think of two such solutions .

We could develop a place to keep them that does not resemble prison except that it should be guarded from intrusion by outside forces. High-tech surveillance methods on the periphery of such a place connected to  missiles, for example come to mind. I am thinking of a sort of armed  Club Fed. It could even be a Guantanamo Two, a decent resort where the detainees could lead a life more closely approximating  normal life. Inside the resort, they would govern themselves as befit people who are not in jail or prison. There is no reason why they couldn’t have a normal family life with spouses and children. I can hear some already snickering about the cost of such a scheme. It’ s extremely unlikely that it would be more expensive to maintain than the highest security jail this country has ever had. It would also be less expensive than war, any kind of war.

There is another, a sort of libertarian solution to the problem of neutralizing those we suspect of wishing to do us harm.  We could try to free them  on bail. Let me explain: There are millions of individuals around the world and thousands of organizations who profess to be terminally disgusted by the very existence of Guantanamo prison. Among the latter are hundreds of Muslim non-government organizations (NGOs). Some of the latter have thousands and tens of thousands of  members. The US government could negotiate the transfer of custody to private NGOs of inmates who have been held for several years and who are not slated to be tried. The US government could ask for a vertiginous bail amount, millions or even billions of dollars per inmate so transferred. The bail money would be refunded after  a determined number of years (say, when the detainee reaches a certain age) if the detainee had not been killed or recaptured in the process of conducting or of supporting terrorist activities.

Either some would take up this offer of privatization of custody or not. If the offer were taken, we would at least have put some distance between us and the practical problems of dealing with people we think dangerous. (This includes, as I write, the horror of force-feeding.) Relapses of terrorists would become more publicized than they are now, less subject to the constant suspicion that the US is manipulating appearances.  At the very least, if there was no no rush to adopt Guantanamo detainees, it would be nice to point  out the hypocrisy of our critics.

Breast Cancer and Political Idiocy

A Federal Government health panel announces sweeping changes in breast cancer detection practices. All the changes seem to imply savings, spending less health care money upfront. It looks for all the world like a trial balloon for health care rationing: Choose a topic known to be an emotional one for the 52% of the population that seem to care the most about health, women; tell them the corresponding care will be cut; wait for reactions. Then, plan for future rationing on the basis of what you learned on this occasion. Assume that private insurance companies, daily if covertly threatened with nationalization, will comply with whatever the Federal Government decides.

It does look like a trial balloon but I am not joining in the paranoia the announcement triggered. I am taking another path, in line with what I have been saying about President Obama and his camarilla, on this blog and on my radio show (“Facts Matter” ksco Santa Cruz, 1080 AM, Sundays 11a.m to 1p.m.) They are not Machiavellian; they are mindless, in their own peculiar way.

First, I would not be surprised at all if independent audits demonstrated that current practice, in force for at least 20 years , are economically wasteful, or very wasteful. Much preventive care is. (48 hours after the announcement, I have not heard a single argument to the effect that changing the standards will improve, or adversely affect, anyone’s health.) The hard fact is that we cannot, as a society, with current methods, afford to test every person for diseases that occur only once in ten million people, to make up an example. That’s a hard fact Americans are not used to. Health care, including and especially preventive care, has to be rationed and it has always been rationed. It’s only now coming out into the open, which is what all freedom-loving conservatives should want.

The issue is whether government experts should make the crucial decisions. I don’t trust government to act competently; I don’t trust left-wingers in government to act without regard to their political advantage. I prefer any other method of rationing but I want it transparent. If it’s not, people of conscience have no chance to influence the criteria used. To give an example of why transparency matters: I am angry to have learned after the fact that Guantanamo inmates received the swine flu vaccine before millions of American babies. True, I don’t know which ones are guilty; I just know for a fact none of them is a baby.

Second, private advocacy organizations, impelled by feminists, have made breast cancer a politically favorite illness, almost on par with HIV. In fact, of one hundred American women who died last year, fewer than three died of breast cancer. This is not to deny the particular horror this disease inspires in women. Yet, in reality, American women die of the same things as their husbands and brothers, mostly of heart disease. (based on Center for Disease Control figures for 2006).The politicization of illness in the past twenty or thirty years is not helping honest reformers. Instead, it creates a perceptual fog that facilitates the task of those who would implement changes that the population would reject if it understood them.

It seems to me that the sudden proclamation by the Federal Government of the rolling back of standards, on a sensitive and emotional matter, at a time when the party in power is trying to pass a difficult, much despised health care reform bill, is not a trial balloon. I think it’s another formidable demonstration of incompetence, of political incompetence, specifically.

The Obama administration never listened to anyone because it feels invested with a historical mission. It never listened to most of those who voted for the President because the top-echelons frankly believe there is nothing to be gained by listening. I hear an echo of the Communist notion of “dictatorship of the proletariat.” It says that the people don’t know what’s good for them, that if “we” let them make their own decisions, they will screw up almost for sure. I am familiar with this way of thinking because it used to be common, among European Communists, of course, but also among their social-democrat cousins. That would have included some of my close friends.

The Administration fucked up royally on this one, and in ways that were predictable. Same scenario with the decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohamed in New York City. As soon as it was announced, that decision raised a storm of protests, including in the liberal media. The President is an idiot, the way many college professors are idiots. He is sure he knows better; he does not know what he does not know.

Remain attentive; there are going to be more monumental mistakes because the President and his collaborators are incapable of listening. The question is whether they will self-destruct before they destroy our country.

PS Don’t be shy about linking this blog, or this particular posting, to your Facebook.

Rush Limbaugh; Tropical Drinks; Iran and Rumors of War

Update on Iranian election, 6/16/09:   I have not changed my mind. Some conservatives, including John McCain, are blaming the President for not intervening more clearly in the Iranians struggle for democracy.We can’t have it both ways, folks: You may not blame Obama for playing God and then decry that he is not acting like God in an issue dear to your hearts. It’s not the US President’s business to decide who won the election. It’s clear to White House does not have an inside source on this that is not also partisan, anyway.

It was before the election that, once more, President Obama wasted an opportunity to keep his mouth shut.

I don’t think hundreds of thousands of  likable young people risking their lives at the hands of the crude Iranian Islamist regime means that they should have their way. I did not think their counterparts should have their way in this country when they demonstrated in equally large numbers against the liberation of Iraq.

Repressive, blood-thirsty, intolerant governments win elections all the time. If you wanted to be effective, you        would have to come out and say: Iranian elections are a sham from day one. Th Iranian government is illegitimate. We will do it as much harm as we can.

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I listen to Rush Limbaugh nearly every morning. His staff  keeps him well informed; he has great powers of reasoning and a gift for clarity. That’s why liberals hate him.

Limbaugh was wrong on something recently, though. He criticized the Obama administration for releasing in Bermuda four Uighurs from Guantanamo. Those are men who have been categorically cleared by the Pentagon. There was no reason to hold then except the belief that China, the country of which they are citizens, would kill them if we sent them back. Having been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time should not merit a death sentence, I believe, as a conservative.

Limbaugh also derided some pictures that show the freed Uighurs pleasantly bathing in the warm Atlantic. He said sarcastically that all they were missing were pinas coladas. You are dead wrong, Rush. That would be just fine. In fact, I can’t think of a better way to kill terrorism in the egg than tropical bathing and long drinks with little colorful umbrellas. I wish we could try it. Liberals would call it torture, no doubt. I think they would be right, in a way. Just ignore them.

Some people are puzzled about events in Iran. It’s a tyranny yet, it holds hotly disputed elections.

Here is how it works. There is a council of religious elders, ayatollahs. They are a little like Methodist bishops, except that they will execute you at a nod. They are co-opted into the council. However, it’s not easy to become an ayatollah. You have to have a following. You pretty much have to be popular during a lifetime. This fact matters. (See my recent posting on fascism.)

This council of elders has veto power over everything and it directs foreign policy. The council also decides who is allowed to run for office. It’s a narrow fraction of Iranian public opinion. Anyone who says Iran should be a secular republic, like Turkey for example, is not allowed to run.

The council also decides who really won the elections.

Within these limits, elections and platforms are real and the press is very active.

Ahmedinejad was elected, I believe. Yes, there was cheating. That would include an interruption of electronic communications between opponents by the relevant Ministry, and the mere fact that the Ministry of the Interior was in charge of counting votes. None of this would be acceptable in a normal democracy. (My info is from the WSJ, a respectable source.)

Yes, the same ministry jumped the gun and announced a lopsided victory (65%), too early on to be honest.

None of this means that Ahmedinejad did not obtain the largest number of votes. I suspect, it’s like the last presidential election in this country: ACORN cheated massively for Obama and he would have won, with or without ACORN.

Western public opinion was not prepared. We thought there would be good news, for two reasons. First since Pres. Obama had announced his divine intervention in the Iranian election, the silly press wanted to believe him, the way it believes anything he says. So, journalists predicted the opposition would win. We are silly too to listen, still.

Second, journalists were lazy, as usual. I keep telling you this. They went for the low-hanging fruits. They interviewed English-speaking young Iranians in the ritzy districts of Tehran. That’s exactly the kind of people you would expect to be fed up with the Islamist regime.

Hardly any member of the former Third Estate took the trouble to go with a good interpreter and interview in the rural areas, or even in the slums of Tehran. That’s where Ahmedinejad’s supporters live. They care nothing about freedom. He makes them gifts of potatoes. They have no idea what life in prosperous democratic countries is like. Again, he makes them gifts of potatoes. They think that’s what improving one’s life is: more potatoes.

There is no conspiracy in the mis-reporting either folks. There is a press that’s culturally in tune with the Obama crowd, his brethren. Most come from the same mold as he. And there is laziness that’s hard to believe, sometimes.

Iran is a typical case of fascism, of successful fascism.

By the way, none of the other candidates including the leading one, Mussavi, is a democrat; none demands real democracy; none demands an end to the elders’ supervision; none envisages much more freedom for women than head-scarves that allow a little bit of hair to show. Mussavi was a cold-blooded executioner in the early stage of the Islamic Republic. Ooops, nobody is perfect!

By the way also, none of the competing parties had said they would stop nuclear arming if they won. That’s not allowed. It does not depend on who is President. What might have changed is the willingness to talk to the West.

One big way I might turn out wrong: The council of elders wields so much power that it might decide that youths demonstrating in the streets is a bad idea. It might even decide to annul the election and send old Ahmed back to his dog house and tell his electors to stuff it. Democracy!

If you want to worry about something, worry about what Israel will do. The Israeli Prime Minister is facing a country demographically ten times large than his own whose re-elected president has said repeatedly that Israel has not right to exist. That country is making fast progress toward a nuclear bomb. It already has the means to deliver it.

His traditional ally, the US, has let him down publicly, in no uncertain terms.

Ask yourself : What would you do if you were responsible for the safety of seven million Israelis (including more than two million Israeli Arabs, incidentally)?

The recent speech by Netanyahu offering two states, except… was pure cover-my-ass and perhaps, cover Obama’s ass. There was no reason to believe any Palestinian leader would court instant assassination by whispering anything signifying any sliver of assent. The Israeli Prime Minister was just saying: “Don’t blame me; I tried.” That’s classical preparation for aggressive action.

Here is a scenario: Israel bombs the Iranian nuclear sites without helps. Its planes overfly Iraq. The Israeli Prime Minister dares the US military there to shoot them down. He also warns the Iranians that if there is any retaliation, his airforce will firebomb downtown Tehran. Everyone knows he has nuclear bombs in reserve.

Peaceful Iranians, people I would gladly have a beer with (of the alcohol-free variety possibly because I am a sensitive SOB), some of the same people now demonstrating, are liable to die. Netanyahu probably thinks it’s better than the other way around.

Weakness does not make peace. It makes war. If the US had bombed two Japanese ports in 1940, there would never have been a Pearl Harbor. That would have saved hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives.