Fire Stuart Taylor, Jr. Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach Richard Cheney. Do It Now.

UPDATE: A Correction: Stuart Taylor sends me angry emails stating that I was wrong to claim that he was recently an enthusiastic supporter of the Bushies in Guantanamo, with phrases like: "I was right about you. Distortion through selective quotation is your purpose.You appear to be as dishonest as the worst of the wingnuts on the right."

Stuart Taylor's complaint is correct: I was wrong to claim that he was until recently an enthusiastic supporter of the Bushies in Guantanamo.

I misread my files, and thought that some statements of Taylor from 2002 were in fact from 2004. For example, Taylor's accusations that those worrying about what was going on in Guantanamo were in an "overwrought tizzy" and were "anti-American hypocrites who habitually turn a blind eye to egregious human rights violations in the Arab world and in Castro's Cuba" did not come from 2004 but from February 4, 2002.

I apologize for the error.

For the record, Taylor last carried water for Bush administration actions in Guantanamo on March 1, 2004, where the beginning of his column is:

The perception* that the Bush administration has systematically denied due process to the more than 650 alleged "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay has both shocked Americans who care about the rule of law, me included, and done America enormous damage in world opinion. But the system may be starting to work. Indeed, it may have been working for some time better than I had thought.... [T]he administration has made a plausible case that its process for deciding whether to send prisoners to Guantanamo -- where detainees from more than 40 countries have been held for as long as two years -- has far more rigorous safeguards than had previously been disclosed...

For the record, Taylor's last piece of open cheerleading for George W. Bush that I have been able to find comes on March 14, 2005:

As time passed, I came to fear that the invasion [of Iraq] had probably been a disastrous mistake.... I descended into dismay about Bush.... Bush's feckless failure to prevent North Korea from going nuclear... Guantanamo abuses... disdain for diplomacy... irresponsible approach to global warming... fiscal recklessness... shifting of tax burdens from the rich... swaggering refusal to ever admit error, the smirk, and more. Now, though, I am rooting for Bush to go down in history as a great president. That could happen.... How can we not root for Bush to win this campaign for Arab democracy, even if his chances still seem no better than even? And while celebrations are premature, shouldn't we sometime Bush-bashers -- and even the full-time Bush-haters -- be prepared to give great credit to him and his neocons, if and when it becomes clear that they have engineered a historic breakthrough?... [N]o matter how shallow, slippery, and smug Bush sometimes seems, if he ends up changing the world for the better, he will be entitled to a presumption of wisdom, even brilliance...

---

*Note Taylor's definition of the real problem at Guantanamo: the "perception" of the systematic denial of due process. Yyou can find similar "definitions" of the real problem elsewhere, for example December 17, 2005, where Taylor says that the real problem is that there is an "uproar over the use of coercive interrogation techniques" that "squeeze potentially life-saving information out of suspected terrorists." His column begins:

There is more than enough blame to go around for the disastrous damage done to our international standing and national security by the uproar over the use of coercive interrogation methods -- all of them "torture," in the parlance of many critics -- to squeeze potentially life-saving information out of suspected terrorists...

---

Voltaire said: "I may disagree with what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it." In the case of Stuart Taylor, Jr. of the National Journal, I want to turn this around:

I agree with what Taylor is now saying about how "many of us have suspected for years" that "countless assertions by administration officials... that all -- or the vast majority -- of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are... terrorists... captured on 'the battlefield'... have been false.... Many scores... innocent, wrongly seized noncombatants... handed over by reward-seeking Pakistanis and Afghan warlords... noncombatant teachers and humanitarian workers.... Bush administration... very little effort to corroborate... plausible claims of innocence..."

I agree with what he says. But I think he has no right to say it. Back in 2004--less than two years ago--and before, you see, Stuart Taylor, Jr., was an enthusiastic endorser of the Bushies' deeds at Guantanamo [CORRECTION: Taylor points out that he has been a longtime critic of how Guantanamo was run] critic of those who were "unduly fastidious", with phrases like "It's easy to sit in judgment on those assigned to deal with the threat of catastrophic terrorism.... Telling a prisoner that he or his family will be killed unless he talks is not torture.... Torture may be justified.... [D]efine "torture" narrowly enough on a case-by-case basis to leave considerable leeway for tough, coercive interrogation.... [U]ndue fastidiousness in interrogating terrorists could lead to the preventable murders of thousands of people..."

Ah. Back in 2004 Stuart Taylor, Jr., was an enthusiastic endorser of the Bushies' deeds at Guantanamo, [Taylor points out--correctly--that he was then a critic of how Guantanamo was run. But he was and remains eager that we not be unduly fastidious in interrogating terrorists] with phrases like "It's easy to sit in judgment on those assigned to deal with the threat of catastrophic terrorism.... Telling a prisoner that he or his family will be killed unless he talks is not torture.... Torture may be justified.... [D]efine "torture" narrowly enough on a case-by-case basis to leave considerable leeway for tough, coercive interrogation.... [U]ndue fastidiousness in interrogating terrorists could lead to the preventable murders of thousands of people..."

Feh.

When, in mid 2004, Erin Waters of the National Journal wrote me to ask why I had not resubscribed, I wrote back saying that I would never pay another cent to the National Journal as long as it employed ethically-challenged lawyers like Stuart Taylor Jr. who took America's major edge--that we are the Good Guys--and threw it in the trash. I had examples:

Why I Will Not Resubscribe to the National Journal:

Stuart Taylor: There is no evidence that the administration ever approved "torture" (which it has defined extremely narrowly) as a matter of policy. Justice did approve a number of highly coercive, still-classified interrogation methods, such as feigning suffocation and subjecting prisoners to sleep deprivation and "stress positions." Using such methods, the CIA squeezed valuable information out of Qaeda leaders...

Stuart Taylor: Some of the attacks on the recently leaked Bush administration legal memoranda about the use of torture and lesser forms of coercion to extract information are a bit facile. It's easy to sit in judgment on those assigned to deal with the threat of catastrophic terrorism. It's much harder to provide morally or legally satisfying answers.... Telling a prisoner that he or his family will be killed unless he talks is not torture, for example, unless the threat is of "imminent" death...

Stuart Taylor: Torture may be justified in rare [cases].... [W]hat about the Qaeda member caught by Philippine intelligence agents in 1995 in a Manila bomb factory? Defiant through 67 days of savage torture -- most of his ribs broken, cigarettes burned into his private parts -- he finally cracked when threatened (falsely) with being turned over to Israel's Mossad. And he revealed the so-called "Bojinka" plot to crash 11 U.S. airliners and 4,000 passengers into the Pacific...

Stuart Taylor: The best way to minimize the conflict between the need for aggressive interrogation and the prohibitions of human-rights law may be to define "torture" narrowly enough on a case-by-case basis to leave considerable leeway for tough, coercive interrogation short of excessive brutality.... Coercive interrogation of suspected terrorists is arguably legal.... This view... seems right.... [U]ndue fastidiousness in interrogating terrorists could lead to the preventable murders of thousands of people...

Stuart Taylor: [I]t's clear... there should be no Miranda warnings or lawyers for suspected Qaeda terrorists.... The same logic holds to some extent even if the suspect is a U.S. citizen, and even if he is seized on U.S. soil, as in the case of the Brooklyn-born Padilla...

http://nationaljournal.com/members/buzz/2004/openingargument/070604.htm http://nationaljournal.com/members/buzz/2004/openingargument/061404.htm http://nationaljournal.com/members/buzz/2004/openingargument/051004.htm http://nationaljournal.com/members/buzz/2004/openingargument/051004.htm
http://nationaljournal.com/members/buzz/2003/openingargument/031003.htm

And, yes, now--many days late and many dollars short--Stuart Taylor, Jr. has changed his tune. Gary Farber points us to:

Stuart Taylor: Falsehoods About Guantanamo (02/06/2006): [C]ountless assertions by administration officials over the past four years that all -- or the vast majority -- of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are Qaeda terrorists or Taliban fighters captured on "the battlefield"... have been false.... [M]any of the 500-odd men now held at Guantanamo... were captured on Afghan battlefields or were terrorists... [but] many of us have suspected for years:

• A high percentage, perhaps the majority, of the 500-odd men now held at Guantanamo were not captured on any battlefield...
• Fewer than 20 percent of the Guantanamo detainees, the best available evidence suggests, have ever been Qaeda members.
• Many scores... were innocent, wrongly seized noncombatants with no intention of joining the Qaeda campaign to murder Americans.
• The majority were... handed over by reward-seeking Pakistanis and Afghan warlords and by villagers of highly doubtful reliability. These locals had strong incentives to tar as terrorists any and all Arabs they could get their hands on... including noncombatant teachers and humanitarian workers. And the Bush administration has apparently made very little effort to corroborate the plausible claims of innocence detailed by many of the men who were handed over....

The tribunal hearings, based largely on such guilt-by-association logic, have been travesties of unfairness. The detainees are presumed guilty unless they can prove their innocence -- without help from lawyers and without being permitted to know the details and sources of the evidence against them. This evidence is almost entirely hearsay from people without firsthand knowledge and statements from other detainees desperate to satisfy their brutally coercive interrogators. One file says, "Admitted to knowing Osama bin Laden," based on an interrogation in which the detainee -- while being pressed to "admit" this, despite his denials -- finally said in disgust, "OK, I knew him; whatever you want."... The administration's unspoken logic appears to be: Better to ruin the lives of 10 innocent men than to let one who might be a terrorist go free.

This logic would be understandable if the end of protecting American lives justified any and all means, including the wrecking of many more innocent non-American lives. So, too, would be the torture (or near-torture) in late 2002 of the above-mentioned al-Kahtani... interrogated for 18 to 20 hours a day for 48 of 54 days; he had water dripped on his head and was blasted with cold air-conditioning and loud music to keep him awake; his beard and head were shaved; he was forced to wear a bra and panties and to dance with a male jailer; he was hooded; he was menaced with a dog, told to bark like one and led around on a leash; he was pumped full of intravenous fluids and forced to urinate on himself; he was straddled by a female interrogator and stripped naked; and more -- all under a list of interrogation methods personally approved by Rumsfeld. Al-Kahtani may well have had valuable information. But it appears that many other detainees who had no information... have been put through "humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes, use of forced positions" in a systematic effort to break their wills that is "tantamount to torture."...

Bush has... pledged that the Guantanamo detainees are treated "humanely." At the same time, he has stressed, "I know for certain... that these are bad people" -- all of them, he has implied.

If the president believes either of these assertions, he is a fool. If he does not, choose your own word for him.

Stuart Taylor Jr. Many days late. Many dollars short. And not a single sentence apologizing for his enthusiastic endorsements of the Bushies in the past.

Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach him now. Impeach Richard Cheney. Fire Stuart Taylor too.

Comments

[Charles]

You just got ten gold stars in my book, Brad.

We recently named Taylor, Jr. Wanker of the Day for an egregiously ugly statement, and recalled his role in Impeach-o-rama Circus in which he made many such statements.

His television persona is of a self-righteous, venal, rancid, rancorous scold. Somehow, I don't think this is just exceptional acting talent.

This was a post I can wholeheartedly sign on to.

[sm]

Put him on the list of people too untrustworthy to be listened to.

[tmcotter]

Get Stuart off of PBS forever. FOX has a place for him, and the Washington Times.

[Jim Dandy]

Taylor's performance is symptomatic of the process that's now unfolding before our eyes.

As the truth gets harder and harder to deny and to be covered up by blatant lies that before were promoted by these very same folks like Taylor, it will become necessary for some of them to begin to dissemble and change coats. The perceived cost is becoming too high to continue to play the same game, and there may be a perceived payoff in a timely change of colors.

One can already see this happening among some of the talking heads and media pundits (e.g. Chris Matthews recently beginning to put his toe in the water and feel the temperature).

In this context, it is crucial to do what the goodly prof is doing here, i.e. to throw the record back in their face and hold their feet to the fire. Thanks prof.

[Cranky Observer]

The Radicals are going to keep on doing what they are doing until they are stopped. The only two things I can see stopping them at this point are honest prosecutors or an overwhelming election loss. They are hard at work gutting the Justice Dept to prevent any more prosecutions, and they smirk as if they will never lose another election. So as much as I enjoy Brad's "impeach Bush now" posts, I am starting to get very afraid.

Cranky

[Kate G]

Brad! Fantastic work. I'm proud to know you. I've been thinking a lot about my republican sister in law and wondering when she will finally admit that she "voted for bush before she voted against him..." I think, in the end, bush's supporters will just pretend they never voted for him at all. If the republic survives that long.

Kate G.

[QuentinCompson]

And follow Kurt Vonnegut's advice: fire Rumsfeld!
-

[bob mcmanus]

Fire him hell. Stuart Taylor is an accomplice and an accessory to war crimes. He will not be fired, will not apologize, and will continue to spew whatever lies are fed him until he and/or his associates do jail time.

I am serious. Brad DeLong does not scare Stuart Taylor or his editors anywhere as much as Karl Rove scares them. He, Mitchell, Matthews and the rest need to be frightened into integrity.

[smintheus]

You neglect to mention that Taylor's piece is just a summation of what Corine Hegland is reporting in the main article in National Journal. In fact, your ellipses look like they were intended in part to obscure the fact that Hegland has done the hard work and produced a pretty important report on the fate of Guantanamo prisoners. Say what you want about Taylor, Hegland's work deserves praise and more publicity.

[dubblblind]

Stuart Taylor, Jr. is a rat abandoning a sinking ship.

[Brad DeLong]

Hegland does deserve great praise. Even more important, I think, is: Mark Denbeaux and Joshua Denbeaux, "REPORT ON GUANTANAMO DETAINEES: A Profile of 517 Detainees through Analysis of Department of Defense Data" http://law.shu.edu/news/guantanamo_report_final_2_08_06.pdf

[Scott Lemieux]

My favorite Taylor moment was when he took to the Atlantic Monthy to discuss what a woderfully principled and obviously correct piece of jurisprudence Bush v. Gore was...

[anne]

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/01/04/opinion/04dowd.html

January 4, 2006

It's Not Personal, Jack, It's Strictly Business
By MAUREEN DOWD

But just because this is a scale of amorality and blatant sale of government that astonishes even Washington cynics, why look on the dark side? ...

Now that Dick Cheney has freed Congress from the bother of advising and/or consenting, lawmakers can work on new ways to game the system and wallow in the G.O.P.'s culture of corruption - while tut-tutting about the decline in American moral values.

Since the Republican-run Capitol doesn't have to worry about holding the Bush White House accountable for excesses in torture and spying and the other myriad ways it has placed itself above the law, congressmen have more leisure hours for Abramoff successors to treat them to some Redskins games and steak dinners.

Checks and balances are now as quaint as the Geneva Conventions. Congress is complicit in putting its thumb on the scale for the executive branch.

The Post reported that W. had taken advantage of an innovation started years ago by Samuel Alito Jr. to shore up executive privilege. As a young Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration, Mr. Alito created a strategy that has the president declare what laws mean when he signs them. Mr. Alito wanted the courts to focus as much on the president's interpretation of a law as on what he called "legislative intent."

W. has issued at least 108 such statements, The Post said, rejecting "provisions in bills that the White House regarded as interfering with its powers in national security, intelligence policy and law enforcement."

And since the imperial presidency is run by the vice president, W. has a lot of free time to do the things he likes to do. Confined with his wife and mother-in-law at the Crawford ranch, he spent his Christmas vacation mountain-biking and clearing brush.

He left the ranch for a brief visit at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where he kidded in a way that again showed his jarring lack of empathy with the amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan: "As you can possibly see, I have an injury myself - not here at the hospital, but in combat with a cedar. I eventually won. The cedar gave me a little scratch. As a matter of fact, the colonel asked if I needed first aid when she first saw me. I was able to avoid any major surgical operations here, but thanks for your compassion, colonel." ...

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/11/international/middleeast/11intel.html?ex=1297314000&en=babfdb0d2c3bb78d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

February 11, 2006

Ex-C.I.A. Official Says Iraq Data Was Distorted
By SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON — A C.I.A. veteran who oversaw intelligence assessments about the Middle East from 2000 to 2005 on Friday accused the Bush administration of ignoring or distorting the prewar evidence on a broad range of issues related to Iraq in its effort to justify the American invasion of 2003.

The views of Paul R. Pillar, who retired in October as national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, echoed previous criticism from Democrats and from some administration officials, including Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism adviser, and Paul H. O'Neill, the former treasury secretary.

But Mr. Pillar is the first high-level C.I.A. insider to speak out by name on the use of prewar intelligence. His article for the March-April issue of Foreign Affairs, which charges the administration with the selective use of intelligence about Iraq's unconventional weapons and the chances of postwar chaos in Iraq, was posted Friday on the journal's Web site after it was reported in The Washington Post.

"If the entire body of official intelligence on Iraq had a policy implication, it was to avoid war — or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath," Mr. Pillar wrote. "What is most remarkable about prewar U.S. intelligence on Iraq is not that it got things wrong and thereby misled policymakers; it is that it played so small a role in one of the most important U.S. policy decisions in decades." ...

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/08/opinion/08herbert.html?ex=1281153600&en=2b72c1d42e07ddea&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

August 8, 2005

The Pain Deep Inside
By BOB HERBERT

Washington

Specialist Craig Peter Olander Jr. has the look of a mischievous kid, except that his eyes sometimes telegraph that they've seen too much. And there's a weariness that tends to slip into his voice that seems unusual for someone just 21 years old. Killing can do that to a person.

Specialist Olander was a teenager from Waynesburg, Ohio, population 1,000, when he joined the Army in 2003. "It was very appealing," he said. "The benefits. College. And it was something I'd always wanted to do since I was a small boy - be in the Army."

He had mixed feelings about going to Iraq, but he wasn't particularly upset. He didn't dwell on the possibility of getting killed or wounded. And he gave no thought at all to the spiritual or psychological toll that combat can take. "I was very confident in my training and I was very religious," he said. "I'd always read Bible stories as a child and I believed the Lord would look over me and his will would be done."

He went to Iraq in early 2004 and quickly learned that nothing - not his military training, not the Bible, nothing - had adequately prepared him for the experience. By the time he returned several months later, he said, the trauma he had encountered in Iraq had reached deep inside him. There was both fear and the hint of a plea in his voice as he told me, with surprising candor, that he believed the things he'd had to do in Iraq might jeopardize the salvation of his soul.

"Our base was Camp Victory in Baghdad," he said. "We did raids, convoys, security, patrols - numerous, numerous things."

The first time he was wounded was in the spring. He suffered a severe concussion and a sprained back when insurgents attacked his convoy with an antitank weapon. The headaches that ensued were all but unbearable. He was wounded again the following August.

"I was driving the Humvee that day," he said. "The usual driver wasn't sure of the area, so we switched. He was a new fellow and he was up on the gun."

When insurgents attacked the unit with rocket-propelled grenades, Specialist Olander tried to maneuver the Humvee to safety. As he was turning, an explosion sent the vehicle into a roll.

"I stayed conscious," he said. "As soon as the vehicle stopped rolling, I hopped out and I heard my sergeant hollering on the radio that we were hit. So I knew he was O.K. So I immediately went to the gunner, who was pinned under the Humvee. He was still alive at that point but he lost consciousness very quickly because the weight had stopped him from being able to breathe.

"We jacked the vehicle up. And right around that time, I'd say, once we got the vehicle off of him, unfortunately, he passed away."

Specialist Olander said he reached for a machine gun as the insurgents continued to fire with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms. "We engaged numerous individuals and killed them," he said.

When I asked if he knew how many insurgents he personally had killed, he said, "Three, for sure." ...

[Gary Farber]

Excellent point about Stuart's past tune.

"Gary Farber points us to...."

Um, er, an actual link to me might be nice?

[Gary Farber]

Meanwhile, here, where I most assuredly link to Corine Hegland's cover story.

Oh, damn. Okay, here:
http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/2006/02/guantanamo-lies.html

[eRobin]

Beautiful post.

[kaleidescope]

Funny to think that Stuart Taylor once was the NYT Supreme Court correspondent. And that Judith Miller was the Progressive's middle east correspondent. And that Maura Liason got her start in broadcast journalism in the KPFA News Department.

This should make all of us constantly vigilant and sceptical about what we do and why we do it.

Please lord, prevent me from ever becoming blind enough to turn into a Stuart Taylor or Maura Liason.

[wmmbb]

Impeachment is in essence a political process, requiring the non-electorally representative Senate to act. For example, how many Blacks and Latinos are members? I think the answer is zero.

There is an urgent need to improve democracy, not least in my country as in yours, which requires, I believe, changes to the voting system for the institutions to be more representative of opinion as in other ways.

Surely, the issue here with the precedent of the Nuremberg Trials, is to indict Bush and others as war criminals. With this one measure, the world, including the United States, would become a better place.

[celo]

Hear hear!!

Fire him.

[darrelplant]

Aside from being morally wrong, Taylor is legally wrong, at least by the actual laws against torture (which we don't observe any more). Article 1 of the Convention against Torture (ratified by the US Congress in 1994) defines torture as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession…."

Article 5 of 1948's Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

I'm not really sure whether threatening to kill someone's family falls into the category of "cruel" treatment or if the result might be mental "suffering" or whether both might just apply. Not in Taylor's mind, of course.

[Eli Rabett]

Well, Brad, you can't do anything much about Stuart Taylor, but how about John Yoo, currently bloviating at yr hmble university. http://www.law.berkeley.edu/faculty/profiles/facultyProfile.php?facID=235

[Bruce Webb]

"For example, how many Blacks and Latinos are members? I think the answer is zero."

I don't disagree with your overall point wmmbb, and granted both are relatively new to the Senate, but Senators Barak Obama and Robert Menendez, would be a little surprised if they read that sentence.

[Mellifluous]

wmmbb: "Impeachment is in essence a political process, requiring the non-electorally representative Senate to act." The Senate "convicts," the House "indicts." The House must act first, and is therefore of more significance in terms of this process. The Senate is non-electorally representative, but with the actions of gerrymandering in the House, I fear it is not much more representative.

[palinal]

From outside, it looks as if you no longer have a democracy, the Fascists are in power, and they dare not let go, the only thing doubtful, is who is the next leader, GW again, or Jeb, or ...?

[Lewis Carroll]

Before Taylor gets to open his piehole in public again about anything remotely regarding counterterrorism, he should be locked in a room and forced to read this a hundred times (forced by threat to his family, of course)

http://corrente.blogspot.com/2005/08/terrorizing-judges.html

[dubblblind]

Totally OT but since we are in a lull in Brad's postings I wanted to comment on Coretta Scott King's funeral. Was that not the first time in Shrub's presidency where he was actually confronted in a public appearance, one where he did not control and orchestrate the event? Gone were the carefully selected cheering crowds and on-cue laughter. Gone were the secret service to usher away nay sayers. Gone were the isolating protest zones. The look of sheer disgust and contempt on Jimmy Carter's face as he took Bush down was priceless as was the look on Shrub's face as he squirmed. Without attempting to answer whether or not the comments at the funeral were appropriate I think we can still appreciate it as a unique moment of public comeuppance and humiliation for the usually carefully protected Smirking Chimp.

[massacio]

In his book, The End of Faith, Sam Harris asks us to explain the difference between torture in the sense that we are using it in this discussion, and the natural consequences of slamming cruise missles into Pakistani buildings, where the logical result is the death and misery of completely innocent people. If the ends of relatively indiscriminate bombing justify its means, perhaps the ends of torture can justify the means in that case as well.

[massacio]

Or so Harris argues. The dilemma seems to require some new thinking.

[Susan]

torture and slamming cruise missles into Pakistani buildings (or any building's) is evil and wrong.

It is especially wrong against a country that did not attack us. And no country has attacked us since Pearl Harbor. the 9/11 terrorists events were from a clan of criminals, not a country.

[wmmbb]

Thank you for the corrections.I am happy to be disabused of my misinformation.

[Ginger Yellow]

"Telling a prisoner that he or his family will be killed unless he talks is not torture...."

No, but kidnapping a prisoner's family and torturing them to get the prisoner to talk is torture. And we've done that too. We've also detained targets' families to persuade the targets to hand themselves in.

[Tad Brennan]

re: Update.

Yeah, Brad's ruling is sustained on appeal (if that's the right jargon for "at second glance, he's still right).

I especially liked Taylor's "cheerleading" piece from 3/14/05:
"Bush is shallow and stupid! He made a lot of lousy decisions! He doesn't know how to run the country! If the Middle East goes democratic, it'll be a miracle! So if the miracle *does* occur, then "he will be entitled to a presumption of wisdom, even brilliance".

Yeah, that's really keen criticism, there. Really shows your intellectual independence.

[Abe]

Maybe this will teach you to apply your might indignation a little more selectively.

[Err]

Firing is too good for Stewart Taylor Jr. Impeach Stewart Taylor Jr.! Do it now! Impeach Stewart Taylor Sr. too! Do it now! Now!

[Slag]

Am I wrong to find this the most interesting part of the exchange:

"most of his ribs broken, cigarettes burned into his private parts -- he finally cracked when threatened (falsely) with being turned over to Israel's Mossad?"

Accepting the account as correct, what must these men believe about the interrogation tactics of Mossad?

Ought we be concerned about this 'perception' in regard to our largest recipient of military aid?

Or perhaps we should simply chalk this up to the deranging effect of too much exposure to anti-Israeli propaganda?

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/04/opinion/04BROO.html?ex=1383282000&en=a52dd59eac5f7517&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

November 4, 2003

A Burden Too Heavy to Put Down
By DAVID BROOKS

Um Haydar was a 25-year-old Iraqi woman whose husband displeased Saddam Hussein's government. After he fled the country in 2000, some members of the Fedayeen Saddam grabbed her from her home and brought her out on the street. There, in front of her children and mother-in-law, two men grabbed her arms while another pulled her head back and beheaded her. Baath Party officials watched the murder, put her head in a plastic bag and took away her children.

Try to put yourself in the mind of the killer, or of the guy with the plastic bag. You are part of Saddam's vast apparatus of rape squads, torture teams and mass-grave fillers. Every time you walk down the street, people tremble in fear. Everything else in society is arbitrary, but you are absolute. When you kill, your craving for power and significance is sated. You are infused with the joy of domination.

These are the people we are still fighting in Iraq. These are the people who blow up Red Cross headquarters and U.N. buildings and fight against democracy and freedom. They are the scum of the earth. And they are being joined in their lairs by the flotsam and jetsam of the terrorist world.

Their scumminess is our great advantage. People like this will never lead a popular insurgency. They have nothing positive to offer normal, decent people. They survive only by cruelty and the power of intimidation.

The only question is who is going to eliminate them.

Members of the Bush administration hope that a vast majority of honorable Iraqis will rise and do the job. That's why the administration is moving so quickly to train and arm 200,000 Iraqi security officers. That's why the administration is working aggressively to convince leading Sunnis that they have a lot to gain from the destruction of these sadist bands.

It would indeed be grand if the Iraqis would hunt the killers. They know the territory. They can get the intelligence sources.

But the administration would be making a mistake if it sent the signal to the American people that the hard work from here on out would be done by the Iraqis themselves. After all, is it realistic to think barely trained policemen can, over the next six months, deliver blows against bands of experienced mass murderers? Is it realistic to think that a local Iraqi mayor will take on the terrorists and so risk his own death, when the most powerful army in the history of the earth is camped just nearby?

No. Iraqification is a strategy for the long haul, but over the next six months, when progress must be made, this is our job. And the main challenge now is to preserve our national morale.

The shooting down of the Chinook helicopter near Fallujah over the weekend was a shock to the body politic. The fact is, we Americans do not like staring into the face of evil. It is in our progressive and optimistic nature to believe that human beings are basically good, or at least rational. When we stare into a cave of horrors, whether it is in Somalia, Beirut or Tikrit, we see a tangled morass we don't understand. Our instinct is to get out as quickly as possible.

It's not that we can't accept casualties. History shows that Americans are willing to make sacrifices. The real doubts come when we see ourselves inflicting them. What will happen to the national mood when the news programs start broadcasting images of the brutal measures our own troops will have to adopt? Inevitably, there will be atrocities that will cause many good-hearted people to defect from the cause. They will be tempted to have us retreat into the paradise of our own innocence.

Somehow, over the next six months, until the Iraqis are capable of their own defense, the Bush administration is going to have to remind us again and again that Iraq is the Battle of Midway in the war on terror, the crucial turning point where either we will crush the terrorists' spirit or they will crush ours.

The president will have to remind us that we live in a fallen world, that we have to take morally hazardous action if we are to defeat the killers who confront us. It is our responsibility to not walk away. It is our responsibility to recognize the dark realities of human nature, while still preserving our idealistic faith in a better Middle East....

[anne]

http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F60C13FE355D0C728DDDA80994DB404482

Avoid War Crimes

To the Editor:

In ''A Burden Too Heavy to Put Down,'' David Brooks writes, ''Inevitably, there will be atrocities'' committed by our forces in Iraq. Did he forget to add that they must be prosecuted?

War crimes are indeed more likely if influential commentators foreshadow impunity for perpetrators of the ''brutal measures our own troops will have to adopt.''

The choice is not between committing war crimes and retreating ''into the paradise of our own innocence.'' A third option is for the United States to strive to avoid complicity.

It is untrue that ''we have to take morally hazardous action.'' Those who choose it, or urge others to, cannot evade or distribute responsibility by asserting that ''we live in a fallen world.''

BEN KIERNAN
New Haven, Nov. 4, 2003
The writer is director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University.

[david]

Thanks, Anne.

I hate David Brooks. What a repugnant creep.

On topic: is Taylor's defense that he was for torture back when everybody was for it? George Packers of the world, unite.

[Nell]

DeLong: "Taylor's accusations that those worrying about what was going on in Guantanamo were in an "overwrought tizzy" and were "anti-American hypocrites who habitually turn a blind eye to egregious human rights violations in the Arab world and in Castro's Cuba" did not come from 2004 but from February 4, 2002."

Indeed, the number of people in the U.S. who dared to criticize the Guantanamo prison in February 2002 was very, very small. It included virtually no liberals (as distinct from leftists), other than professional human rights lawyers.

Did Brad himself post on the topic then? What was the tone?

I have an abiding respect for Canadian military blogger Bruce Rolston of Flit*, whose politics are centrist or even center-right (he posted his intention to vote Conservative in the recent election), because he argued strenuously at the time (late 2001-early 2002) that the men and boys taken to Guantanamo were prisoners of war and covered by the Geneva Convention.

*http://www.snappingturtle.net/jmc/flit/

I grant that Taylor remained a Bush apologist well beyond then, but there really was a deafening silence from cowed liberals for a full six to eighteen months after the September 11 attacks. Just enough time to get their war on....

[Dustin R. Ridgeway]

"I especially liked Taylor's "cheerleading" piece from 3/14/05:
"Bush is shallow and stupid! He made a lot of lousy decisions! He doesn't know how to run the country! If the Middle East goes democratic, it'll be a miracle! So if the miracle *does* occur, then "he will be entitled to a presumption of wisdom, even brilliance".

Yeah, that's really keen criticism, there. Really shows your intellectual independence."

I concur (with the poster)

[perianwyr]

Bush has one thing right. Land the plane, and even if you kill everyone on board, you still landed the plane.

[Charles]

Neil writes, "Indeed, the number of people in the U.S. who dared to criticize the Guantanamo prison in February 2002 was very, very small."

That's not true, Neil. Unlike Taylor, Jr., we didn't have microphones on TV talk shows or a press to get out our thoughts. Personally, as soon as word about Guantanamo got out, I researched the issue and posted that the reported size of the cages prisoners were being held in violated international law.

But it wasn't just me. I'd suggest you start from here hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/pow-bck.htm and work outward. I don't know how many people are members of AIUSA or HRW or other organizations that defend human rights whether they are those of Soviet dissidents or Iraqi Kurds or Taliban fighters, but many people were not silent about Guantanamo.

Even if that statement were true, it wouldn't be fair. Most Americans, unlike Taylor, Jr., don't understand the law well enough to be able to understand why an operation like Guantanamo is so antithetical to freedom.

When American troops are in the field, everyone wants to make it clear that we are on their side. We want to make it clear that we oppose the people who do violence against American civilians. Nuance is difficult.

It's always embarrassing to get a key fact, like the date of an article wrong. But anyone who has done anything serious in life knows that it happens, that you need to--unlike Stuart Taylor, Jr.-- stand up tall and admit the error, and not let it bother one.

Brad has shown how it's done. I guess I would have devoted no more than a paragraph to someone like Taylor, Jr., who is only concerned with errors when they threaten to expose his own hypocrisy. But the amount of energy to devote to it is Brad's call.

[Charles]

Oh, I thought of the proper title for this thread.

"Stuart Taylor, Jr: Always against torture except when he was for it."

[Roland]

Brad continues the battle of wits against unarmed opponents--annoying but valuable service.

[Ari]

The column of David Brooks and response by Yale's Ben Kiernan are stunning. Thank you, Anne.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/04/opinion/04BROO.html?ex=1383282000&en=a52dd59eac5f7517&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F60C13FE355D0C728DDDA80994DB404482

[Nell]

@ Charles:

I applauded Brad's first post (at TPM Cafe, same as this post before the update) as heartily as anyone. And I agree: it's important to call out people like Taylor who pretend to have always been opposed to Bush torture/detention policy. Taylor's post in 2002 also went well beyond simply silence, it joined the jingoist warblogger assault on any criticism of our government.

I was referring in my comment to the very small number of bloggers and people who wrote op-ed or other public articles. Of course Human Rights Watch was critical from the get-go; that's exactly what I was referring to when I mentioned professional human rights workers.

I was not by any means saying there were not tens of thousands of people, possibly millions, who recognized right away that Guantanamo was a setup for torure. I was one of them. But the climate of intimidation about "anti-Americanism" kept a crucial stratum of people silent until there was too much evidence to ignore. By that time hundreds of men and boys had had to suffer for years.

P.S. My name is Nell.

[Gary Farber]

Gee, Brad, good job with the updates, and all, and I realize that I'm only a lowly B/C-list blogger, but all those numerous revisions and corrections and updates, and you *still* couldn't make "Gary Farber points us to" an actual link?

Sniffle. This is not a very good job of subverting the dominant hierarchies, and all, is all I can say. Come the blogger peasant revolution, this will be in Your Permanent Record, you know, you noble cake-eater, you.

[ch2]

Taylor's an ass. Arguing with someone who has Google and can find what he has written ?

Liar, hack, and moron.

[Prophit]

Policy wonks keep arguing about market competition and consumer choice. But healthcare for the sick isn't a market because choice disappears. You can't shop around for generic drugs when you have cancer. Whatever chemical treatment the doctor suggests, it almost certainly will be a brand name costing several thousand dollars a month. My out-of-pocket cap is $7,500, which means that after I reach $7,500 in co-payments, Blue Cross pays 100% of my medical expenses for the rest of that year -- except for the $30-per-brand-name prescription I have to pay the pharmacy after I reach my $500 annual deductible for drug coverage. According to the policy, it's supposed to be a $30 co-payment for a month's supply, but a new anti-nausea drug I was taking for weekly chemo costs $285 for just three pills, so Blue Cross made me go to the drugstore and fork over $30 every seven days.