Tag Archives: Philosophy and Politics

Five Questions We Need to Ask

I wanted to take a couple of minutes out of my incredibly busy schedule tonight and call for serious reflection in days to come. Not just this week, but this month. The November 2nd election is unlikely to do much more than maintain the status quo. I realize that this is an extremely pessimistic stance, and I cede the point that something will probably change, but I don’t look for it to change much, if at all. We need to have a serious conversation as citizens of the United States and in the larger world, centered around the following five questions:

  1. Is America working towards becoming a global empire? Are we, as American citizens, comfortable with such a prospect?
  2. As a nation, have we stagnated in political and economic power? Has this led to undue use of military influence in the absence of social, political, and economic dominance?
  3. Where do we want America to be in ten years? Twenty five? Fifty? What kind of nation — what kind of world — do we leave to the next generation?
  4. Should we focus more on the humanistic needs of the world — food, basic housing, clean water — or on internal, national improvement? In the short term? In the long term?

We need to reexamine and redefine where our priorities lie as citizens and as members of a world community. We are not isolated, and we are not alone; what we do here in the United States ripples the world over. What ripples are we sending?

Thanks to this Winds of Change posting for inspiring me to write this.

Harsh Tactics

I noticed an article on The New York Times Online just now about the broad use of harsh tactics at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.

The first question that leaps to mind is: why should anyone be in the least surprised or shocked by this? Why is this front page news? We knew for a long time that the Bush administration was struggling with the “proper” way to treat detainees at Guantánamo; the fact that officials there witnessed things akin to torture — in fact, things that are torture — should be in no way a revelation. Dictionary.com defines torture as the “infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion”, which was clearly going on here:

One regular procedure that was described by people who worked at Camp Delta, the main prison facility at the naval base in Cuba, was making uncooperative prisoners strip to their underwear, having them sit in a chair while shackled hand and foot to a bolt in the floor, and forcing them to endure strobe lights and screamingly loud rock and rap music played through two close loudspeakers, while the air- conditioning was turned up to maximum levels, said one military official who witnessed the procedure. The official said that was designed to make the detainees uncomfortable as they were accustomed to high temperatures both in their native countries and their cells.

[…]

The people who worked at the prison also described as common another procedure in which an inmate was awakened, subjected to an interrogation in a facility known as the Gold Building, then returned to a different cell. As soon as the guards determined the inmate had fallen into a deep sleep, he was awakened again for interrogation after which he would be returned to yet a different cell. This could happen five or six times during a night, they said. This procedure was described by those who participated as part of something called “Operation Sandman.”

This after Philip Reeker of the U.S. Department of State stated in a press briefing that “our [the United States] position on torture is unequivocal: we condemn torture in all its forms”, which is an interesting thing for someone from the Department of State to say. The text of this briefing was conveniently unavailable on the Department of State web site, which only carries press briefings from 2001 on. That’s nothing to read into, but certainly interesting.

Back in June, The Economist wrote on the U.S. and torture, specifically on an internal memo regarding torture:

What is new and more embarrassing for Mr. Bush is detailed evidence that the main source of legal opinion for his administration–the office of legal counsel in the Department of Justice–has been giving advice that Americans may (in the normal sense of the term) torture people abroad.

Last week, senators questioned John Ashcroft on this issue–and the attorney-general refused to hand over the memo in question. But in another sign that the administration’s power over its subordinates is slipping, somebody leaked the full text to the Washington Post. The details make ugly reading for any friend of America.

The memo, which dates from August 2002, looks at the sections of the legal code (2340-2340A) which implement the UN Convention against Torture. It claims torture can be justified on three grounds.

First, it narrows the definition of torture, saying American law “was intended to proscribe only the most egregious conduct.” It is not controversial to say torture should be defined strictly. The UN convention says the pain inflicted must be “severe”. And the memo correctly identifies an important legal difference between torture and cruel and inhuman punishment. For instance, the European Court of Human Rights said Britain had used cruel treatment in Northern Ireland–hooding, sleep deprivation and so on–but that these things did not amount to torture.

Constitutionally, its second argument is no less striking. This is that the president can do whatever he wants in war, or, as the memo puts it, “enjoys complete discretion in the exercise of his commander-in-chief authority.” Interrogators, the memo says, are a “core function of the commander-in-chief.” Hence, “we will not read a criminal statute as infringing on the president’s ultimate authority in these areas.”

[…]

The memo’s third argument is that, in rare cases when acts are so egregious that they amount to torture, and do not challenge presidential power, torturers are still able to claim immunity. They could only be prosecuted if it were shown their main intent was to inflict pain. If they intended to extract information (presumably the point for all but sadists), that would be a defence under American law according to the memo. It also says that they can use “self defence” to justify actions that might have prevented further attacks on America. International law admits the defence of “necessity” in the case of someone with information about, say, a ticking suicide bomber or imminent threat. But the memo goes far beyond that.

The Economist, June 19th, 2004
“The Bush administration and the torture memo: What on earth were they thinking?”, pp31-32

The above is a somewhat extensive quote from that article, but clearly shows that the U.S. has intentionally bent the definition of torture to the point where what the international community would call torture, the United States calls necessity. Admittedly, this quote also shows the possibility that the second reference to “common procedure” at Guantánamo Bay may not actually be defined as torture based on the example cited in the article, but there’s no real way of knowing. Something to think about as we go into the elections.

Sacrifice

I happened to notice an interesting entry over on Winds of Change about sacrifices made in war. The post discusses the World War II tin and rubber drives, which served a dual purpose (not acknowledged in the article, but in the comments to it): first, to collect raw material, and second, to ensure the loyalty of the population at large towards the government.

We saw the exact opposite in Vietnam: rather than being asked to give, instead, the media was flooded with horrific images that made the populace so angry that they protested to end the war in massive numbers, helping to bring an end to our invasion of Vietnam.

Now, in Iraq, we are faced with almost the exact same situation as World War II, except the circumstances are different: the media is still inundated with images and war coverage, except that that coverage is controlled: we don’t see the hundreds of Iraqi civilian casualties, the living conditions caused by Operations Desert Storm, Desert Shield, and Iraqi Freedom, the faces we fight against. We see noble people trying to set up a government, but we don’t see people that government is trying to help. We see U.S. and Japanese troops rebuilding, but we are not told about the extent of that rebuilding. We are told of the lives of governmental officials, but not of the young child who lost a family through bombing.

That Winds of Change article talks about sacrifices, only these sacrifices aren’t really concrete. We are asked to switched to alternative energy and to push for much lower dependencies on Middle Eastern oil; a laudable and commendable goal for our future, certainly. We can do our part by switching to hybrid SUVs and cars, by pushing for wind power instead of oil power in our communities, by using biodiesel instead of normal diesel. Higher taxes on gasoline would certainly achieve a goal of pushing the population away from Middle Eastern oil dependence–and compared to England, it wouldn’t add much more onto our gas costs–but it would leave people wondering what the point of it all was. Why go to war to protect our oil interests only to turn around and say that we no longer need it? This disconnect would be glaring and would make people question the war even more than we already have. That’s why it hasn’t been–and probably won’t be–done. It boils down to loyalty.

If you really want to sacrifice, sacrifice your own comfort; sacrifice your hot food, sacrifice your warm homes for a while and give to those who don’t have anything. Strive to bring a better life to the homeless, fight against AIDS, join a local political campaign, get your voice heard and speak loudly for the rights that you take for granted but that don’t apply to everyone. Fight for the disadvantaged, the repressed minorities. Go out and make a difference in the world; the only thing you have to sacrifice is your own time and your own energy. That is patriotism: not only questioning our leaders, but fighting to make a better nation, a better world.

Attacking Kerry and The State of Iraqi WMDs

“The answer to this last question will determine whether you are drunk or not. Was Mickey Mouse a cat or a dog?”

The New York Times reports this morning on Bush’s new attacks against John Kerry, stating that:

. . . the scathing indictment that Mr. Bush offered of Mr. Kerry over the past two days – on the eve of the second presidential debate and with polls showing the race tightening – took these attacks to a blistering new level. In the process, several analysts say, Mr. Bush pushed the limits of subjective interpretation and offered exaggerated or what some Democrats said were distorted accounts of Mr. Kerry’s positions on health care, tax cuts, the Iraq war and foreign policy.

[…]

Mr. Bush’s aides defended Mr. Bush’s statements, saying that the president had fairly spotlighted positions Mr. Kerry has taken over the years. “The campaign’s criticisms of John Kerry are meticulous and precise and most of the criticisms involve reading back John Kerry’s own words,” said Steve Schmidt, a campaign spokesman for Mr. Bush.

But other analysts, including some Republicans, said Mr. Bush was repeatedly taking phrases and sentences out of context, or cherry-picking votes, to provide an unfavorable case against Mr. Kerry.

Combine this with the fact that the position of the U.S. investigators is now that Iraq has not had weapons of mass destruction since shortly after the Persian Gulf War (“Iraq had destroyed its illicit weapons stockpiles within months after the Persian Gulf war of 1991, and its ability to produce such weapons had significantly eroded by the time of the American invasion in 2003. . .”, New York Times, “U.S. Report Finds Iraqis Eliminated Illicit Arms in 90’s”, October 7, 2004), something the Defense Department knew before the war even started.

We’ve been looking at a very heavy dose of revisionist history with the Bush administration, which continues to push weapons of mass destruction as the main reason for war against Iraq. There has never been any link established between al Qaeda and Iraq, nor have there ever been any WMDs found in Iraq, though a disturbing polling study published by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) found that viewers of Fox News Network were more likely to believe these two assertions than anyone else in the United States. This is especially scary considering that Fox continually bills itself as “Fair and Balanced Reporting” when it’s not anything of the sort (and, in fact, is being sued over the continued use of that phrase). There’s an interesting documentary out there called Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism which I’ve seen. I don’t particularly believe all of it, but the general message is correct.

An interesting turn of events, to be sure, for the Bush administration. This could all make it much harder for Bush to stay in office, while at the same time benefitting Kerry in tonight’s debates.

The Case Against Iraq and Kerry

My friend Tempus got me thinking about the war in Iraq and John Kerry with this entry, which, admittedly, is anti-liberal (understandable, since he’s conservative) and has a few perceptions that I decided to respond to directly with him. Unfortunately, he had to go to bed, so this is turned into a blog entry. I suggest reading the post before reading on.

The War in Iraq

First: we are not in Iraq to cut oil prices. The United States has nothing to do with oil prices. We’re in Iraq because whoever controls the flow of oil controls the world. Think Frank Herbert’s Dune: spice was the commodity in the universe, and only one planet, Arrakis, had the Spice. Whoever controlled Arrakis controlled the spice, and in turn, controlled the universe. Oil is to the nations of the Earth what the Spice is to Herbert’s universe.

The entity that sets oil prices is OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), which recently set oil prices at $50 a barrel, which is, I believe, the highest it’s been in the last decade or so (if not ever). The United States has no presence in OPEC — it is not a member. The eleven members that make up OPEC are Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. Coincidentally, the U.S. has, since the 1970s, had conflicts in or intervened somehow in the affairs of Cambodia, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait (Persian Gulf War), and Iran. It’s probably had dealings with the others too, but these countries are the more well-known. Is it a coincidence that it’s had some form of influence over OPEC countries? Is it a coincidence that it’s in Iraq, which, out of all those countries, probably has the most oil available? Nope. Those eleven countries weild a lot of power over the rest of the world — or would without outside influences such as the United States, Great Britain, France, and other European countries.

Entire economies are based on oil — the United States alone is very oil-dependent for the efficient operation of its transportation fleet, as well as power supplies and various consumer products. Oil has a very wide reach in the United States; it also has a very wide reach in Europe and every single developing country in the world. Oil makes the world go around; without oil, there is no gasoline. Without gasoline, there is no transportation that doesn’t take months to travel from place to place (think steamer ships). Because oil is such a valuable resource and because it drives the economies of the world, whoever controls either the price of oil or the supply of oil (preferably both) controls the world. Shut down oil supplies or raise oil prices high enough, the world comes to a halt (the drive for alternative energy alternatives notwithstanding). It’s basic economics: if something is in high demand and the price is set too high, then demand for it will drop until the price of that commodity drops.

The logical thing to do, then, if you’re a major oil-consuming economy on the scale of the United States (which is probably the biggest user of oil anywhere), is to try and gain a controlling interest in how oil flows. To draw another parallel from Dune, the houses of Herbert’s universe fought over control of Arrakis because they knew that having control over that resource would give them great power. The United States was in Cambodia in the early 1970s, Kuwait during the early 1990s as part of the Persian Gulf War against Iraq, Iraq in modern day, Libya in the mid-1990s, and is extremely friendly with the government of Saudi Arabia, which is a pro-U.S. government. The United States has, since 1970 (and, actually, earlier) been setting the stage for control over the world’s oil supplies by either fighting wars on the soil of OPEC countries in support of their sovereign rights or by establishing friendly relationships with the governments of those countries.

The end conclusion, therefore, is that the United States, in addition to assisting in world politics (which was really just a minor side perk), has been slowly establishing relationships with OPEC countries. This led to the invasion of Iraq, which is now essentially a United States protectorate alongside Afghanistan. We cannot withdraw from Afghanistan because doing so would collapse the democracy we have set up there; the same will be true for Iraq.

As a side note, England has been paying well over $5/gallon for gas for at least the last decade. This isn’t anything new in the world. The only reason we’re making such a big deal out of it is because the United States isn’t used to seeing such high oil prices; we’ve been trained that low oil prices are a given. Every other country in the world can only look at our reaction to rising national oil prices as the whining of a spoiled newborn — coincidentally, a very good image of what we actually are, since we haven’t been along quite as long as, say, England or Egypt, or anything in the Middle East.

Another side note: elections in a country mean nothing when those in power support the U.S. agenda and are, in fact, puppet regimes of the United States — something that the current Iraqi government has rightly been accused of. We can hold “free democratic elections” until we die of old age; none of it does any good so long as those elected support the U.S. oil agenda.

Kerry: Presidential Politics

pan·der (from dictionary.com)
intr.v. pan·dered, pan·der·ing, pan·ders
1. To act as a go-between or liaison in sexual intrigues; function as a procurer.
2. To cater to the lower tastes and desires of others or exploit their weaknesses: “He refused to pander to nostalgia and escapism” (New York Times).

I contend that Kerry is not, as he has stated in the popular media and as others have labelled him, anti-war. That image has never truly, earnestly been perpetuated until recently. Kerry is, in fact, a pro-war Presidential candidate who voted for the war and for war funding. This fact has been obscured in media coverage since he began running. He has been correct when he states that Iraq is the new Vietnam of this century, but I don’t believe that this is a stance he himself supports.

Let me be careful to define the line between pandering and flip-flopping, since both of these phrases have been applied to Kerry. As I refer to flip-flopping here, I refer to someone who says one thing one minute and another thing another minute without taking into account audience, that is, without considering who they’re talking to or who will hear the statement. When I refer to pandering, I refer to someone who, in the literal definition of the word, uses the desires of others to exploit their weaknesses. It’s a well-known tactic in American political life that if you want to get what you want, you have to side with the majority in any situation. Thus, a panderer in this context is someone who says one thing one minute and another thing another minute while considering the audience they are addressing.

Kerry is a very smart man, which is ironic, considering that he has been portrayed, in some circles, as being very stupid. This is precisely because he’s a panderer. Kerry paints the image that he is flip-flopping on the issues, but as I’ve defined the term flip-flopping above, that would imply that Kerry has absolutely no regard for the audience that he is speaking to. In running for the Office of the President, one needs to possess just a smidge more intellect than to simply spout a stance without knowing how that stance will be interpreted or regarded. Even Bush — who, in my opinion, is unfit for office — was smart enough to do this when he ran for election. Kerry is much smarter in that, while he’s sticking to a pro-war position, he is catering to the opinions of the American public and verbalizing an anti-war stance. In other words, he’s a panderer. He can safely say that he’s anti-war because this serves his interests in getting elected President. The sad thing is, this is probably working in his favor.

Every statement Kerry has made has consistently changed to meet the current political viewpoint of the majority of the population of the United States. To people who would argue with me over the finer points of whether Kerry is flip-flopping or pandering, I say that the distinction between these two make little difference if you accept that both actions are inherently bad. Neither of these traits are things you want to see in a Presidential candidate. Kerry comes across as having no convictions because he’s using the pulse of the United States population to temper his convictions to whatever seems like it’ll get him elected at the moment. Kerry will get nailed on it, and, in fact, is getting nailed on it. The problem is that people probably won’t realize what’s really going on until after the elections.

The Future

If Bush wins, it’s pretty much a given that things will continue the way they are now. If Kerry wins, however, we should also expect more of the same. If Kerry wins, regardless of what he says now, he will likely continue the War on Terrorism (the very title is ridiculous, but that’s for another post), taking the stance that there’s no way we can easily back out with the amount of military might invested in Afghanistan and Iraq. He will continue the drive for U.S. imperialism and control. It’s not that Kerry doesn’t have convictions; it is simply that his convictions are the exact opposite of what he’s been saying to date. He does, in fact, stick to his convictions; it’s unfortunate that he’s lying about what those convictions really are. While, granted, those who are pro-war can become anti-war (there are thousands of such cases), I don’t believe that this has happened with Kerry.

I apologize for the length of this post, but I felt the need to speak out on these two things and clarify what I’ve been thinking about within the last few months.

John Kerry for President


With the Presidential Primaries less than a month away, I decided that it was time to stop hemming and hawing over which Presidential candidate to endorse. I’ve chosen John Kerry.

However, I have not chosen him necessarily because I support him with the fullest enthusiasm possible. I have chosen him because I believe that what Bush has done with this country is unjust and wrong. I recognize, that Kerry may continue current policies for the next four years (and likely will in several areas); however, I feel that Kerry has a much better chance of improving environmental law, resolving the War in Iraq, and preserving Social Security. I am among a mass of voters who vote not because they feel any affinity towards any candidate, but because not voting means not being heard.

The American public is still disillusioned in politics. We expect that our political figures will lie to us. We expect that those in power will abuse that power. Despite what Bush may tell us, what is known as the Vietnam Syndrome — which refers to the feelings aroused in the American public as they witnessed the Vietnam War — is very much alive, and John Kerry is right to try and invoke that idea when he argues that Iraq is exactly like the Vietnam War. However, there’s no way of knowing whether Kerry does what he says he will or whether he is simply trying to appease a torn American public.

Kyoto Protocol Ratified

The big environmental news today (Mount St. Helens notwithstanding) is that Russia has decided to back the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, which places specific caps on the amount of greenhouse gasses that countries can produce. This is good.

I did a whole bunch of work looking at global warming during Spring Quarter of my Freshman year at Evergreen, so I know quite a bit about Kyoto and the issues surrounding global warming. However, I’m a little too beat to actually dig up my notes on the subject just yet — probably in the near future, for those who care about background. Or you could just check out the Wikipedia entry, which gives you more than I could ever tell you.

Guess you shouldn’t expect an update regarding this :)

Compassionate Impeachment

I saw a bumper sticker as I was wandering through the parking lot of the Yoga place next door on the way back from a day at the Writing Center retreat and stops at Safeway and Blockbuster:

Practice compassionate impeachment

Well, that’s a contradiction in terms. I realize that that’s usually the point of bumper stickers — to be a little flippant and completely contradictory — but it still got me thinking about the term “compassionate impeachment”. I decided to be literal in interpreting this phrase and looked up both “compassionate” and “impeachment” in the Oxford American Dictionary (Heald Colleges Edition, 1980):

compassionate (adj.): a feeling of pity that makes one want to help or show mercy

impeachment (n.): 1. to charge a public official with misconduct in office before an appropriate tribunal. 2. to call in question, to discredit.

Thus, the phrase “compassionate impeachment” refers to a case when, out of pity and a want to show mercy to a public official, that official is charged with misconduct in office before a tribunal. Well, given the liberal stance on the current Presidency (as well as my own stance on the current Presidency), it’s relatively safe to assume that this refers to Bush (it’s also rare to hear of impeachments that don’t involve the office of the President of the United States; this isn’t further corroborating evidence towards assuming it’s about Bush, simply an observation). Practicing compassionate impeachment is sort of a way of “saving grace” in the face of a public official whom the public feels has screwed up.

I would argue that this is exactly what we don’t want to do in Bush’s case. Yes, Bush has perpetuated lies upon the American people, the depths of which probably won’t be fully revealed, much less understood, for several years. Yes, we are in an unjust war against Iraq (and, to some extent, against Afghanistan and the entire Middle East). Yes, this is another Vietnam — I may not like the way John Kerry has been pushing this point lately, but he is dead on in this assessment. However, given that Bush has made these errors and omissions, there isn’t enough time left within his Presidency to justify impeachment proceedings against him, since the effect of such proceedings would be felt after he left office and the damage has been done. While I recognize that some charges are better than no charges and that consequences should be leveled, the timing is wrong.

In addition, the nature of the Bush presidency thus far suggests that there are lies that we haven’t even begun to uncover. Impeaching now — without allowing more facts to emerge — is to only impeach him on his known actions after 9/11 and to essentially absolve him of future prosecution due to the double jeopardy provisions of the Constitution. Perhaps this is a stretch of my legal understanding of the Constitution — since some people spend their whole lives trying to understand the intent and content of that document — but it seems to me a reasonable conclusion. Any facts or evidence uncovered after impeachment that are related to 9/11 cannot be used against him.

Thus, since impeachment refers to a public official and not a private citizen or war crimes tribunal, impeachment in Bush’s case was impractical. Clinton’s impeachment was politically viable merely because, number one, he had committed deeds that were fully known to the public, and number two, he had enough time left in office for impeachment proceedings to make sense. At least in terms of number two, there are only about three months left in the Bush presidency. Compassionate impeachment, in any form, against George W. Bush is impractical, though the need to make Bush accountable for his lies is copiously evident.