Day 141 of Bush's Silence

Nicolas Kristof's column in the NY Times is where I first heard about Darfur. He is currently in Darfur, and today's column tells one refugee's story.

Darfur

I am currently reading A Problem From Hell, a book about America's response to genocide during the 20th century. So far I have read the parts where the author covers the Armenian, the Jewish, the Cambodian, and Iraqi Kurd genocides. The book also covers Rwanda and Bosnia. From what I have read so far, I highly recommend it!

It is interesting to see to what extent we are repeating our history. We have done little other than talk in the many months that we have been aware of the genocide in Darfur. We did concluded that a genocide is currently taking place, but there has been little follow-up in the month since Secretary Powell used that word. In the past we did not acknowledge the occurrence of genocide until after the genocide is over. We also recently pledged to help fund the African Union force that, while currently present in Darfur, has been unable to do very much. Unfortunately our pledges under Bush have not had much follow through, especially in Africa.

The US still has the chance to intervene in Darfur in time to save lives. It is important to acknowledge that we are doing better than we have previously (although that is a ridiculously low standard to meet) but we have not done enough for a country whose foreign policy goal is to spread freedom. democracyarsenal.org has some thoughts about the role that NATO might play in Darfur.

We applaud NATO's commitment to the ongoing crisis in Darfur but we also believe that this successful military alliance, strengthened by the warrant of Security Council legitimacy, could do much more to bring a halt to Darfur's horrific humanitarian crisis. The ever-popular mantra 'never again'’ has to mean more than expressing political sentiment and issuing lukewarm resolutions that fail to stop the violence. It is not too late for meaningful action.

This is tough stuff, to be sure. Last week the U.S. and European countries agreed to provide critical assistance -- including $300 million to fund a larger AU force, air transport, armored personnel carriers, troop transport trucks, and training. These are very positive steps, but much more is needed. For example, the money pledged still falls nearly $150 million short of what the AU says it needs.

With the U.S. military over-extended as it is, we would need to rely mostly on the Europeans for further support, especially troops -- although, significantly, as Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick explained last week, the U.S. has already agreed to airlift the Rwandan contingent of the AU force, help build communications facilities and assist with training. But I believe greater American leadership could be decisive. Zoellick has made Sudan one of his highest priorities -- he has already been to Darfur once, and is going there again this week.

Memorial Day Thoughts

Mark Shields' column today is interesting.

...War demands equality of sacrifice. That is a genuine American value that has been ignored, if not repealed, in the Iraqi war, now in its third year.

All the sacrifice and all the suffering have been borne by those Americans who volunteered to serve their country and their loved ones. For all the rest of us, we have been asked to pay no price, to bear no burden.

This is the longest war in U.S. history to be fought without a military draft and without tax increases. Instead, our leadership has asked to underwrite the war by accepting three tax cuts.

...Ralph Whitehead of the University of Massachusetts, who has thought long and hard about these changes, believes our contemporary culture has devalued individual sacrifice for the common good and no longer honors our reciprocal obligations, as fellow citizens, to each other and to our nation.

This surely makes it more difficult for any leader, so inclined, to summon the nation united to sustained sacrifice.

Here is Whitehead's analysis: "Over the past generation or so, liberals in America have 'deregulated' the nation's culture while conservatives have been busy 'deregulating' the nation's economy."

...What has emerged, if we are candid, is an American society and culture where individual autonomy and self-expression are revered, where the individual's pre-eminent obligation is to himself and where the uninterrupted, private pursuit of wealth qualifies as a contribution to the common good. There is little room in this equation for sacrifice.

...By today's standards, it is quite easy to become a patriot. It involves no personal risk or sacrifice. All you have to do is to give enthusiastic, uncritical backing to the unilateral invasion and occupation of an agreed-upon unfriendly nation.

Last night our PBS station showed a repeat of Frontline's report A Company of Soldiers. Frontline spent a November of 2004 "embedded with the soldiers of the 1-8 Cavalry's Dog Company in south Baghdad to document the day-to-day realities of a life-and-death military mission that also includes rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, promoting its economic development, and building positive relations with its people." Here is a blurb from Frontline's website about the program.

Filming began three days after the Fallujah campaign was launched in November 2004. There was a surge in violence as an insurgent group, thought to have come from Ramadi, launched a series of ambushes and attacks in Dog Company's sector.

The campaign of violence began when two huge car bombs exploded at Christian churches. The unit responded immediately but found both churches sustained heavy damage. As they returned to base, they were ambushed and came under attack from gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades. They fired back, forcing the insurgents to flee, but in the process a civilian was hit by a ricochet and fatally wounded.

The next day, the situation escalated further. A Dog Company patrol was ambushed and in the fighting Spc. Travis Babbitt, a gunner, was hit. Despite being mortally wounded he managed to return fire before collapsing, killing several insurgents and saving the lives of his fellow soldiers in the process.

Back at the base, patrol leader Capt. Jason Whiteley called his men together to break the news.

"Babbitt was a superb soldier, and he was a great friend to all of us, and he died like he should. He went out fighting," said Captain Whiteley. "We all loved him like a brother, and it's going to be very, very difficult for all of us, including me. But what we have to do now is be strong for the guys who are on the team, for each otherÂ…. Because later on tonight, tomorrow morning, we're going to be back on the same road, we're going to be going back into another ambush."

The loss hit the unit hard.

"I don't have a wife or kids. I don't have somebody waiting for me back home, so sometimes I wish it was me, and not Babbitt," says Private Josue Reyes, who at age 19 is the youngest member of the unit and was sent to Iraq straight from basic training.

I remember hearing Bush tell the American people following 9/11 that the best way to respond to the terrorists was to go shopping. The sacrifice of "going shopping" pales in contrast to the sacrifice that Spc. Babbit made.

What are they teaching in the military academies?

OxBlog looks at the profiles in Time and the Washington Post of the the class of 2005 from West Point and the Naval Academy. Take a look!

Egypt again

Abu Aardvark reports this question and answer from the President at a press conference.

Q Mr. President, President Bush, the First Lady under the Egyptian pyramids this week enthusiastically endorsed Mubarak's first steps towards direct presidential elections. Two days later, Mubarak supporters attacked the opposition in the streets. Was it premature to back Mubarak? What's your message to Mubarak now?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I also embraced President Mubarak's first steps and said that those first steps must include people's ability to have access to TV, and candidates ought to be allowed to run freely in an election and that there ought to be international monitors. That's -- and the idea of people expressing themselves in opposition in government, then getting a beating, is not our view of how a democracy ought to work. It's not the way that you have free elections. People ought to be allowed to express themselves, and I'm hopeful that the President will have open elections that everybody can have trust in.

Abu Aardvark also reports how the Arab media covered Bush's statement. Basically, they focus on the fact that Bush criticized Mubaraka. Now that's good news. This is what public diplomacy ought to look like. I'm also glad that Bush said that the referendum was a good first step, and I hope that he encourages Mubarak to take more steps.

Moral of the story: if America does the right thing, it can and does get the benefit of the doubt in the Arab media. No lesson could be more important for thinking about public diplomacy. It is really worth reflecting on this, given the relatively tepid nature of Bush's criticism of Egypt and the fervent embrace of those comments by virtually the entire Arab media - across the political spectrum, from al-Arabiya to al-Jazeera, from al-Sharq al-Awsat to al-Quds al-Arabi. Forget about building a lousy television station that nobody watches, forget about spin, forget about advertising and public relations. Say the right thing, do the right thing, and Arabs will in fact notice and give the U.S. a chance.

Condoleezza Rice Interview

Sec. Rice was asked about Egypt yesterday. Let's hope that she studies the reports, and the referendum, more closely.

"MR. MACKLER: In Egypt, we're also having a referendum on the political reforms today. We've had reports on our wire and AFP reporters have seen people, who are opposing this process, are actually being beaten by police and stuff like that. It's anecdotal. I can't say how widespread it is. There have there been complaints that the reforms that are adopted are a step forward, as you've said, but are still not really geared to have a significant challenge to President Mubarak. Do you think -- how do you react to these opposition complaints?

SECRETARY RICE: I've not seen the reports that you're talking about today. We have said to the Egyptians that this process needs to be as open and as forward leaning as possible because political reform is a necessity for Egypt. Now, they are taking steps forward. Not everything moves at the same speed and there are going to be different speeds in the Middle East. But again, if you just step back and ask yourself whether a year ago or two years ago, you would have seen these developments in the Middle East, if you could have predicted that you would have seen these developments in the Middle East, I would think you probably wouldn't have.

So the whole character of the conversation has changed about what needs to be done in the Middle East, about what's possible in the Middle East, about what the expectations are in the Middle East. And having done that, I think we want to continue to encourage governments to be supportive and proactive about reform. Not every step is going to be an ideal one, but if we can keep the forward momentum going, I think you're going to see a lot of changes in many of these places, including in Egypt."

Washington Post editorial

The Washington Post weighs in on Laura Bush's stop in Egypt. Apparently the referedum passed, so Egypt will have so-called multi-party elections in the future. By multi-party, they mean that every canidate will need to be approved by Mubarak's party. Hmm.

I wonder what Sec. Rice will say today about the voting.

The Emergent Mystique

For more on Brian McLaren, read this article by Andy Crouch (another of my favorite writers) that was published in Christianity Today last fall. McLaren responds to Crouch's article here. Notice the emphasis on conversation, but in the article and in the way that McLaren responds. My sympathy to this mode of thinking about the Gospel is related to my interest in blogs.

Egypt round-up

Here is Abu Aardvark's round-up of the Egypt referendum coverage, which he titled "Lovely. Laura must be so proud." Basically, those opposed to Mubarak were beaten and sexually harassed, sometimes by thugs and sometime by the police.

Here is the NY Times explanation of the referendum.

The measure, which is expected to pass by a wide margin, will ostensibly let rival candidates challenge President Hosni Mubarak, who is expected to run for a fifth term in September. But the opposition says the details of the law make it virtually impossible for any credible opponent to run, and dismissed the referendum as a ruse.

"This was not a referendum, but an extension of Mubarak's rule and a guarantee that Gamal will inherit from him," said Abdel Halim Qandeel, spokesman for Kefaya, Egypt's largest opposition movement, referring to the president's son, Gamal Mubarak. "We refuse for the people of Egypt to be insulted like this.".

...Under the amended Article 76 of Egypt's Constitution, which was voted on, independent candidates would need the support of 250 elected politicians drawn from the upper and lower houses of Parliament and from each of 26 provincial legislatures to be allowed to run for the presidency.

Given the domination of those institutions by President Mubarak's National Democratic Party, few if any independents would be likely to come close to meeting the requirements.

I wonder what the White House will say, and more importantly do, in regards to this. How serious are we about spreading freedom and democracy?

Egypt

Abu Aardvark has been covering the referendum in Egypt. Most observers think the reforms are a sham. A few days ago, Laura Bush visited Cairo and praised Mubarak's "democratic reforms." So, moderates in the Middle East have yet more evidence that the US is hypocritical in our support for the spread of freedom and democracy.

Abu Aardvark wonders if Laura was unprepared for the question about Mubarak (she was there on Sesame Street, so maybe nobody thought that she would be asked any political questions) or she actually conveyed the opinion of the White House. I remember some people talking about how disastrous Theresa Heinz Kerry would have been as a First Lady. Would she have made such a mistake?

10 Questions for Brian McLaren

ChurchGal mentioned this interview with Brian McLaren. If you are not familiar with McLaren, this is a good introduction. I have read some of his books, and listened to a number of his sermons (his church provides MP3's of his sermons on their website) He is someone to watch.

U.N. Forces Using Tougher Tactics to Secure Peace - New York Times

This seems to be good news. The article talks about how the UN has learned from its mistakes of the past in the realm of peacekeeping. The article talks a lot about Congo, because it is the largest of the UN's peacekeeping missions, with 16,500 soldiers.

The peacekeepers in Haiti, as well, are using Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, which allows them to protect their soldiers or innocent civilians by using force. Peace missions in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Burundi and Ivory Coast - each with its own rules of engagement - have also moved well beyond the traditional notion of peacekeeping in which blue helmets occupy a neutral zone between former combatants.

Judicial Filibusters Unconstitutional?

Talking Points Memo goes into more depth in how Frist wants to end judicial filibusters. As I said below, it takes 67 votes to change the rules of the Senate, and Frist does not have 67 votes. It only takes 51 votes to find a Senate rule to be unconstitutional, so they will claim that the judicial filibuster is unconstitutional.

Their reasoning will be that the federal constitution requires that the president makes such nominations "by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate" and that that means an up or down vote by the full senate.

Nobody believes that.

Not Dick Cheney, not any member of the Republican Senate caucus.

For that to be true stands not only the simple logic of the constitution, but two hundred years of our constitutional history, on its head...

You can think the filibuster is a terrible idea. And you may think that it should be abolished, as indeed it can be through the rules of the senate. And there are decent arguments to made on that count. But to assert that it is unconstitutional because each judge does not get an up or down vote by the entire senate you have to hold that the United States senate has been in more or less constant violation of the constitution for more than two centuries.

The furor among the Republican party, and particularly with the Religious Right, over judges is because they believe that "activist judges" ignore the clear meaning of the constitution and instead twist it to fit their agenda. In order to ensure that the kind of judges they like will be confirmed, they will need to ignore the clear meaning of the constitution and twist it to fit their agenda.

Filibusters

Republican Gordon Smith from Oregon made the principled case against the filibuster on the floor of the Senate yesterday. Here are a few highlights.

When I ran for the Senate, I promised the people of Oregon that when it came to advising and consenting on judges, I would not have a litmus test, that I would respect the results of elections, that I would evaluate nominees for their academic achievement, their judicial temperament, for their personal integrity, and I would then vote on that basis without regard to a cultural litmus test.

I tried to demonstrate that when President Clinton was living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, although I was not on the Judiciary Committee, I followed closely the deliberations of that committee under the leadership of Senator Hatch. There were a number of Democratic nominees that I specifically advocated for and tried very hard to help in their confirmation, and in the most part succeeded, even though their views were different from mine on a range of issues. I remember, in particular, the work of the committee on two controversial judges who were, by every measure, on the left wing of the spectrum politically, Judge Berzon and Judge Paez.

I remember Senator Hatch got them out of the committee, and I remembered my promise to the people of Oregon. One of our colleagues began to filibuster against proceeding in violation of what had been a gentleman's agreement of 200 years and more; that is, you don't filibuster judges when they clear the committee process and they come to a vote. So I voted in both instances to invoke cloture and then to confirm their ascension to the appellate court. I remember hearing a lot of disgruntlement by conservatives in Oregon who felt very strongly that they should be defeated.

But I do think elections have consequences. Presidents have rights and we have a role to play in advising and consenting. But I also feel that when we use the Senate rules to essentially overturn the right of a President and the result of an election, we do more than just violence to the executive branch of Government. We do serious injury to the judicial branch of Government. And we send a chilling effect into judges' chambers that they are going to then, in the future, be held to a standard that is so politicized that the best and brightest of liberal and conservative minds need no longer apply for service in the Federal judiciary.

Unlike Bill Frist, who voted to filibuster Judge Paez, Smith is being consistent.

As Senator Durbin, the assistant minority leader, would probably like to know, this is one Republican who does listen to him and I was listening to him last night when he spoke about Priscilla Owen. I heard his comments earlier when she had come up for confirmation in the 108th Congress, and among the many things held against her was her membership in the Federalist Society. The Federalist Society is something I have never belonged to. When I was in law school, I did not know about it. But it is an organization that believes apparently the judicial branch of Government should strictly construe the laws and be reluctant to get into political questions, to leave the democratic processes working, and to strictly interpret their judgments from the black letter of the law. I do, however, remember when I was in law school that one organization was very active in recruiting, and that was the American Civil Liberties Union. That is an organization that believes

it stands for the protection of the Bill of Rights and believes that those who should be on the court should expansively interpret those rights. As I understood the assistant Democratic leader, he was saying that Judge Owen's membership in the Federalist Society should disqualify her. Well, if that is now the standard--and, Mr. President, it will be the standard if the new Senate rule is 60 votes--then I promise my friends on the Democratic side that there will probably be more than 40 Senators on this side who in the future will hold ACLU membership against nominees.

... Mr. President, I come to this place believing that the brightest of conservative and liberal thinkers best serve American justice and the evolution of American law rather than having a standard that says if you are unwritten and unrevealed and unaffiliated, you have a chance, but if you are a Member of a political organization, if you are affiliated with the Heritage Institute or the Brookings Institute or you are a member of a religious faith, these standards will begin to erect barriers to service in public office. I think that is a very dangerous thing.

This would be problem with a supermajority requirement for judges.

Nevertheless, in former years, our colleagues made many modifications to the filibuster rule. It began in 1917. There was no limit to filibusters until then. The standard was then set at 67 votes to invoke cloture, end debate, and go to a vote. But still, this was not a standard applied to the Executive Calendar.

Further on, many changes have been made to the filibuster rights of a Senator. There are, in fact, 26 laws on our books today abrogating the right of a Senator to filibuster. For example, you cannot filibuster a Federal budget resolution. It was known as the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The Budget Act of 1974 restricts debate on a budget resolution and all amendments thereto and debatable motions and appeals in connection therewith to not more than 50 hours. That is a very significant restriction on the right of a Senator to filibuster.

Another restriction is that you cannot filibuster a reconciliation bill. Like the budget amendment, a reconciliation bill cannot be filibustered on the Senate floor, so it can pass by a majority vote. So you cannot filibuster anything connected with a resolution or reconciliation, such as an amendment or a conference report.

I think the public would be surprised to know that at the end of a session, when the work of the Finance Committee and much of the work of the Appropriations Committee comes to this floor, usually in a big omnibus bill or reconciliation package, it passes by a majority vote because it cannot be filibustered. In fact, I suspect half of the work we end up doing here, because of decisions made in former days, is not the subject of filibuster, even though it is part of the legislative calendar.

Another instance: You cannot filibuster a resolution authorizing the use of force--the War Powers Resolution. You cannot filibuster international trade agreements, and that is called the Bipartisan Trade Promotion Authority. You cannot filibuster legislation under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.

Time and again, our colleagues before have recognized that to move the business of the United States, there had to be some kind of limits. When I speak of the filibuster, I speak of it respectfully; I also understand its importance to slow down debate and to give Senators all the opportunity they need for debate. But I also understand that the country's business has to move forward. So colleagues, in former decades, have narrowed the right of the filibuster.

If this is accurate, and I have no reason to think that it is not, it addresses my "slippery slope" fears.

The Senate rules are not Scripture. They have been changed repeatedly throughout the history of this institution. We may now have to do that again. I had hoped that a compromise could be found.

Here is the place that I have some questions for Senator Smith. I wonder what he thinks of the way that Frist is planning on changing the rules of the Senate. As I understand it, it takes 67 votes to change those rules. Since he obviously would not have 67 votes, he instead will claim that judicial filibusters are unconstitutional. If 51 Senators agree, then the rule would be changed. Does Smith really believe that the filibuster of judicial nominees is unconstitutional? I know he thinks it is unwise, and that he thinks that it violates a "gentleman's agreement," but does he really think that it is unconstitutional?

The Best P.R.: Straight Talk

Tom Friedman nails it again.

Instead of sending Mr. McClellan out to flog Newsweek, President Bush should have said: "Let me say first to all Muslims that desecrating anyone's holy book is utterly wrong. These allegations will be investigated, and any such behavior will be punished. That is how we Americans intend to look in the mirror. But we think the Arab-Muslim world must also look in the mirror when it comes to how it has been behaving toward an even worse crime than the desecration of God's words, and that is the desecration of God's creations. In reaction to an unsubstantiated Newsweek story, Muslims killed 16 other Muslims in Afghanistan in rioting, and no one has raised a peep - as if it were a totally logical reaction. That is wrong.

"In Iraq, where Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni Muslims are struggling to build a pluralistic new order, other Muslims, claiming to act in the name of Allah, are indiscriminately butchering people, without a word of condemnation coming from Muslim spiritual or political leaders. I don't understand a concept of the sacred that says a book is more sacred than a human life. A holy book, whether the Bible or the Koran, is only holy to the extent that it shapes human life and behavior.

"Look, Newsweek may have violated journalistic rules, but what jihadist terrorists are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan - blowing up innocent Muslims struggling to build an alternative society to dictatorship - surely destroys the Koran. They are the real enemies of Islam because they are depriving Muslims of a better future. From what I know of Islam, it teaches that you show reverence to God by showing reverence for his creations, not just his words. Why don't your spiritual leaders say that? I am asking, because I want to know."

He goes on to list a few examples of Arab intellectuals and Iraqi journalists who are doing this. Maybe Karen Hughes will help encourage this truth-telling, when she starts working FOUR MONTHS from now. Why do we keep shooting ourselves in the foot?!?

Blowing Up an Assumption - New York Times

Daniel Drezner pointed me to this story in the NY Times about suicide bombings. The author "compiled a database of every suicide bombing and attack around the globe from 1980 through 2003 - 315 in all" and found that religious motivations are much less prevalent than conventional wisdom would suggest.

What nearly all suicide terrorist attacks actually have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland. Religion is often used as a tool by terrorist organizations in recruiting and in seeking aid from abroad, but is rarely the root cause.

...Understanding that suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation rather than a product of Islamic fundamentalism has important implications for how the United States and its allies should conduct the war on terrorism. Spreading democracy across the Persian Gulf is not likely to be a panacea so long as foreign combat troops remain on the Arabian Peninsula.

More on Newsweek

The Columbia Journalism Review takes the rest of the media to task for their coverage of the Newsweek story. Their criticism applies to many of the blogs I read.

Editor & Publisher highlights the hypocrisy of the White House and Pentagon in their comments.

I wish someone would put together a good timeline of this story.

One of those debates I was talking about

Joseph Britt just finished guest blogging at The Belgravia Dispatch and asked the question What Is World Order For? This is the kind of question that the American public should have been asking before the last Presidential election. How should the US be involved in other's countries affairs when we do not have an obvious short-term interest.

Fifteen years ago Zimbabwe could feed itself, and even export food; it was an example other small African countries seeking to develop could hope to emulate. Now it is a basket case, its government dependent on international handouts to keep part of its population from starving to death and willing to use its food aid as a political weapon. Sudan is expelling refugees by the tens of thousands while killing many of those left behind; it has done this, in different parts of its territory, for about two decades now. And of course North Korea is seeking a nuclear arsenal even as its government's policies drive its people toward starvation and itself toward collapse.

These situations ought to concern us. They ought to concern other countries even more, though, and we do not use that fact to our advantage nearly as often as we could. It is too glib to say that the solution to the Zimbabwe problem has to go through South Africa; to Sudan, through Egypt; to North Korea, through China. Each of the larger countries in these instances have reasons for the actions they have taken, or rather and for the most part have not taken. But in each case those reasons have led them to follow a course fraught with indignity, dishonor or great physical risk. Other governments are no less likely to do foolish things than ours is, and as we are able to correct our mistakes, so are they.

...In all these cases, but especially the last two, an honest assessment of American national interests would have to conclude that a policy of benign neglect has much to recommend it.

Britt recommendation is a "deliberate American encouragement of regional powers to lead the way in quelling or preventing upheavals in smaller neighboring states." He acknowledges risks in this path, but there are huge risks in our current approach. Since we can only invade a few countries at once (and Republicans have ruled out even talk of a draft), our options in dealing with North Korea, Sudan, and Zimbabwe (not to mention Iran) are limited. With the nomination of Bolton to the UN, the administration is showing that it does not think the UN should have much of a role in these problems. So what is the Bush plan? Six party talk with North Korea (which Bolton undermined) Let the Europeans negotiate with Iran (which Bolton tried to undermine) Hmm. Britt's plan does not seem so bad to me.

If there is to be a stable, multipolar world order some of the poles in it will have to play a larger role than they do now, or than they are now inclined to do. I am skeptical of the value of pressing countries around the world to become democracies whether their people and cultures are advanced enough to adapt to this very demanding form of government or not. There are cases in which pressing nations to alter their foreign policies to serve the interests of civilization seems a more promising means of making this world a less brutal, a less morally degraded and perhaps a less dangerous place.

The BBC on Newsweek

The BBC covers this story better than anyone else. Here is the conclusion of the article:

It is hard to avoid the inference that the people who are really to blame are the men and women who have abused their prisoners, not those who have reported allegations about the ill treatment.

What happened in prisons like Guantanamo, Bagram and Abu Ghraib after 2001 has done serious damage to the United States and its allies: not just the dwindling number who still have troops in Iraq, but the new governments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Do not blame the news media for this. Instead, all the effort needs to go into convincing the world that the abuse has stopped, and will never be allowed to start again.

So should Newsweek be let off the hook? I'd say that they should not have included the information that they could not verify, even if other media outlet had published it. Their source did not show them the report that contained the information about the Koran flushing, so they should have found independent verification of the incident.

Flushing the Koran?

There have been a lot of reports lately about rioting in Afghanistan after a Newsweek report was that US soldiers had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet to intimidate Muslim suspects in Guantanamo Bay. This rioting has resulted in at least 15 deaths and many injuries. Newsweek is now backing off of that report.

Last Friday, a top Pentagon spokesman told us that a review of the probe cited in our story showed that it was never meant to look into charges of Qur'an desecration. The spokesman also said the Pentagon had investigated other desecration charges by detainees and found them "not credible." Our original source later said he couldn't be certain about reading of the alleged Qur'an incident in the report we cited, and said it might have been in other investigative documents or drafts. Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges, and so will we. But we regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst.

Andrew Sullivan (it's in his Quote Of The Day II) talks about what I think is the most important part of this story.

It is perfectly conceivable, given the torture policies promoted and permitted by this president, that desecration of the Koran has taken place in Guantanamo. Many other insane and inhumane interrogation tactics have turned out to be true. Remember smearing fake menstrual blood? We are in a critical war for world opinion. A critical part of our message is that this is not a war against Islam as such, but against Islamo-fascism and terror. And yet we see the religious right co-opting air force academies, and we hear of incidents like the alleged toilet-flush of the Koran. Since no one is ever held responsible for anything in the Bush administration, we can be sure this incident will be lied about, covered up or blamed on some poor military grunt who can be easily scapegoated. But at some point, we will have to confront the severe damage this administration has done to American prestige and credibility in a critical global battle of ideas because of its interrogation policies. These are self-inflicted wounds. Even if this incident turns out to be false, our previous policies have made it perfectly plausible. That is the shame - and the terrible gift from this administration to Osama bin Laden. [Emphasis added]

All of these problems were known or predicted during last summer's election season. Why was it only on blogs that I saw these issue being debated? There was a real question about whether or not American credibility was important or not, and that question was largely ignored. (There were lots of other important questions that were ignored, like when and under what circumstances should US military force should be deployed - in a place like Darfur? in Iran? Syria? North Korea? What are the differences between these countries and Iraq?)

The president has said that the way that the world views the US is important, so important that he appointed one of his closest advisors, Karen Hughes, to be in charge of public diplomacy. It is so important that she will not get started until the fall! The position of Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy has been vacant since last summer.

However, public diplomacy is not the crux of the matter. If "freedom is on the march" and US policy is to spread democracy, we must credibly deal with the widespread view that we support torturing people in our custody.

Top 10 Things the UN Does Well, and Some It Needs To Work On!

I've been reading Democracy Arsenal a lot lately. It is a group blog about "US foreign policy and global affairs." One of the writers is Suzanne Nossel, a Senior Fellow at the Security and Peace Institute. She served as Deputy to the Ambassador for UN Management and Reform at the US Mission to the United Nations from 1999 – 2001 under Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke. The other folks who write there have equally impressive backgrounds.

Nossel wrote a post called Top 10 Things the UN Does Well. She is guest blogging at the another blog I regularly read, that of the conservative Daniel Drezner. (Drezner is a political science prof at the University of Chicago and previously served as an international economist in the Treasury Department.) At Drezner's blog, Nossel wrote What's Wrong With the UN, showing that support for the UN and support for reforming the UN are not mutually exclusive. Obviously I do not have anywhere near the experience she does, but the two lists make sense to me.

One item on her list of things that the UN does well is this:

4. Peacekeeping. The UN has 16 active peacekeeping missions right now, in places like Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Lebanon, Liberia and Burundi. Make no mistake: in most of those places if the UN weren't there, no one else but the marauders would be and the peace or relative peace being kept would have disintegrated long ago. The history of UN peacekeeping is checkered for at least 2 reasons: a) vague mandates and inadequate resources decreed by the countries on the UN Security Council and b) poor planning, management and capabilities. On the latter front (the only front which the UN qua UN can do anything about), the organization has made real progress based on a 2000 reform report. While holes still exist, a most-improved-player award is in order here.

This stood out to me because I have been reading a lot about Rwanda recently, where the UN was a complete failure. It is good to see that the UN is making improvements. The 2000 reform report can be found here.

Nossel also has written more thoughts about needed UN reforms.

Narnia Trailer

The Chronicles of Narnia trailer is here!

Questions for Both Sides

Christianity Today's website has an article that is subtitled Terri Schiavo prompted a national debate, but there's still much unresolved. I wonder if enough time has passed to actually dig in and discuss these kinds of questions. One of the online discussions that I participate in seems to still be too emotional, with everyone still arguing over the facts in Schiavo's situation instead of discussing what should happen in the future. I hope that there really is a national debate, but the media has moved on to the "latest" news.

This end-of-life debate has moved on to a debate about judges and the nuclear option, which seems to confirm the cynical interpretation that some conservatives were using Schiavo for political reasons. (The Republican memo that talked about opportunities in the Schiavo situation also confirms this interpretation!) I know that many politicians truly were concerned for Terri Schiavo and her parents, but so many Senators in the late night debate not being able to pronounce her name correctly makes me question their sincerity.

Newsweek on Narnia

The May 9 issue of Newsweek has some exclusive pictures from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

Update: USA Today has a longer feature. The first trailer for LWW will be seen Saturday night during ABC's showing of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. A longer trailer will be shown before Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. I can't wait!

Paul Marshall

It’s funny how easy it is to think you know an author after reading one of his or her books. Paul Marshall wrote a book over 20 years ago that had a big influence on my thinking about politics, Thine Is The Kingdom. It really affirmed my opinion that, in general, the Democrats are closer to having a Biblical approach to politics than the Republicans. (I really do mean in general. I read this book in the months prior to the 2000 elections, and partly as a result of the book, I ended up voting for Nader)

Today I spent some time trying to figure out what Marshall has been doing lately, and I was quite surprised. Based on some online searching, he seems to be working and writing in circles that are quite politically conservative (like the National Review and Claremont Institute). I don’t know if he has changed in the past twenty years, if I apply the ideas in his book differently than he does, or if these are the only places he could find who would support someone who grounds his approach to politics in the Bible.

A few years ago his writing focused on the worldwide persecution of Christians, an issue that evangelicals and liberal Democrats have found some common ground. Even more recently, he has written a lot about Islam and terrorism. I’m not sure that I agree with all of his analysis of Islam, but Thine Is The Kingdom does not really suggest anything one way or that other about how he might approach such as issue.

I guess the surprise comes from his association with groups who, it seems to me, disagree that the government has a role in ensuring that different spheres within creation (like economics, the family, or the church) do not infringe on each other. I have been meaning to blog about sphere sovereignty for a while now. For those who aren’t really sure what I’m talking about with all this “sphere” stuff, stay tuned…

Beer and theology

This is fun!