Obsession to the Point of Dementia
Yesterday the New York Times ran an editorial that perfectly sums up a kind of dementia, born of obsession and hatred, that has become common on the Left. Titled "Looking At America," the editorial focuses on the Bush administration's efforts to prevent terrorist attacks over the last six years. Some would look at that record and see success: no significant attacks on American soil after September 11, most of al Qaeda's leadership killed or captured, no more safe havens for terrorists, tens of millions of people liberated in Afghanistan and Iraq. But not the editors of the Times: they see only the negative, and react with "horror." It's worth taking a moment to dissect the editors' highly selective version of events since 2001.
There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.
One wonders whether the Times' editorialists actually read the article to which they refer, which told quite a different story. CIA officials say that they destroyed the interrogation tapes in part to protect the persons involved, some of whom "traveled regularly in and out of areas where Al Qaeda and other Islamist extremists are active." They also sought to prevent the officers involved from becoming "political scapegoats," which was, as the Times' own hysteria confirms, a valid concern.
The Times' references to "the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency" are unclear, beyond the paper's reflexive belief that whatever its opinions might be, the Constitution requires that they be followed. Nothing in the Constitution prohibits either the creation or the destruction of video tapes of interrogations of terrorists captured and held overseas, nor is there any evidence--the editors certainly offer none--that the tapes' destruction violated any law.
The editorial continues with boilerplate along the lines of, "Out of panic and ideology, President Bush squandered America’s position of moral and political leadership, swept aside international institutions and treaties, sullied America’s global image, and trampled on the constitutional pillars that have supported our democracy through the most terrifying and challenging times." This kind of talk, standard issue on the Left, leaves one wondering what in the world they are talking about. The Times says that it "cannot recognize our country" these days; I, on the other hand, cannot recognize our country in the bizarre police state fantasized by liberals. The country they describe doesn't exist. Let's get more specific:
In the years since 9/11, we have seen American soldiers abuse, sexually humiliate, torment and murder prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq. A few have been punished, but their leaders have never been called to account.
This is the liberal vision of the United States military: all our armed forces do is "torment and murder prisoners." This obsession, shared by many on the Left, is so one-sided that it reflects, I think, a kind of mental unbalance. Yes, there have been a handful of cases in which our people have behaved badly. That handful of instances, most notably Abu Ghraib, became the most over-publicized events of the last century, due in part to the relentless efforts of the New York Times, which put Abu Ghraib on its front page on 32 consecutive days. But of the good that our military does--the liberation of two countries from the most repressive tyrannies on earth, the protection of civilians from terrorists, the extraordinary care our soldiers take to strike only military targets--the Times says nothing.
We have seen the president, sworn to defend the Constitution, turn his powers on his own citizens, authorizing the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, wiretapping phones and intercepting international e-mail messages without a warrant.
This is the Times' old chestnut, the NSA's international terrorist surveillance program, which it mischaracterizes, not for the first time. Once again the paper invokes the Constitution in support of its opinion, but as we have pointed out, the NSA program is legal under precedents set by at least six federal appellate courts. What is actually notable about the administration's post-September 11 intelligence gathering is how restrained it has been. Not only have the administration's surveillance programs fallen squarely within the executive's powers as defined by the federal courts, there is not a single documented case in which any citizen's rights have been abused or in which surveillance has been used for any purpose other than identifying terrorists. This is a record of which the administration can justly be proud.
We have read accounts of how the government’s top lawyers huddled in secret after the attacks in New York and Washington and plotted ways to circumvent the Geneva Conventions — and both American and international law — to hold anyone the president chose indefinitely without charges or judicial review.
This is the Left's paranoid vision of America. One would think that squadrons of storm troopers are sweeping citizens off the street and hauling them off to jail, as under Stalin's regime, of which the Times was once so fond. In fact, the Geneva Conventions do not protect captured terrorists, and there has never been a time in American history, until the present, when enemy combatants have been treated as criminal defendants entitled to "charges" and "judicial review." During World War II, for example, it never occurred to anyone that German and Japanese prisoners were to be charged with crimes and furnished lawyers so they could appeal to the courts to set them free. And they were legitimate soldiers, not terrorists.
Those same lawyers then twisted other laws beyond recognition to allow Mr. Bush to turn intelligence agents into torturers, to force doctors to abdicate their professional oaths and responsibilities to prepare prisoners for abuse, and then to monitor the torment to make sure it didn’t go just a bit too far and actually kill them.
What is really "twisted beyond recognition" is the Times' account of America's interrogation practices. What the paper describes is simply a fantasy. In fact, President Bush issued an executive order directing that all prisoners be treated humanely. Torture is illegal, and there is no evidence that any executive agency has authorized the use of torture. Waterboarding is the most intense interrogation method that has been authorized, with respect to as few as two high-level terrorists. While opinions differ, I think it is obvious that waterboarding is not torture. It does no physical harm, and is a technique that we have used to train pilots. The Times' reference to the role of doctors is dishonest. What doctors actually do was described in the paper's own news story:
[I]n the spring of 2002, ... the intelligence officers flew in a surgeon from Johns Hopkins Hospital to treat Abu Zubaydah, who had been shot three times during his capture in Pakistan.
In fact, as the Times itself reported, the CIA started videotaping interrogations in part to show how well the captured terrorists were being treated.
The White House used the fear of terrorism and the sense of national unity to ram laws through Congress that gave law-enforcement agencies far more power than they truly needed to respond to the threat — and at the same time fulfilled the imperial fantasies of Vice President Dick Cheney and others determined to use the tragedy of 9/11 to arrogate as much power as they could.
The Patriot Act, a long-overdue updating of laws governing intelligence gathering and its relationship to law enforcement, passed the House by a vote of 357-66 and the Senate by 98-1. It was reauthorized in 2006 by a vote of 251-174 in the House and 89-10 in the Senate. This suggests that it is the editorial board of the New York Times, not the Bush administration, that is out of the mainstream.
Hundreds of men, swept up on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, were thrown into a prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, so that the White House could claim they were beyond the reach of American laws. Prisoners are held there with no hope of real justice, only the chance to face a kangaroo court where evidence and the names of their accusers are kept secret, and where they are not permitted to talk about the abuse they have suffered at the hands of American jailers.
Notice how the Guantanamo prisoners were "swept up" on the battlefield, as though they were innocent bystanders. The Times repeats its fallacy of viewing captured enemies as criminal defendants. They are not criminal defendants and are not entitled to "real justice," if by that the Times means litigation in federal court. As for the "kangaroo court," i.e. military tribunals, the Times' gratuitous insult is unsupported by any fact. Speaking for myself, if accused of an offense I would far rather be tried by a military tribunal than by the Times editorial board.
In other foreign lands, the C.I.A. set up secret jails where “high-value detainees” were subjected to ever more barbaric acts, including simulated drowning. These crimes were videotaped, so that “experts” could watch them, and then the videotapes were destroyed, after consultation with the White House, in the hope that Americans would never know.
Earth to the New York Times: waterboarding captured terrorists is not a "crime." And the paper's description of the role of the White House is, once again, dishonest. The editors try to create the impression that the White House encouraged the destruction of the tapes "in the hope that Americans would never know." But the paper's own reporting indicates the contrary:
Mr. Muller, the agency general counsel, met to discuss the report with three senior lawyers at the White House: Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel; David S. Addington, legal adviser for Vice President Dick Cheney; and John B. Bellinger III, the top lawyer at the National Security Council.The interrogation tapes were discussed at the meeting, and one Bush administration official said that, according to notes of the discussion, Mr. Bellinger advised the C.I.A. against destroying the tapes. The positions Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Addington took are unknown. One person familiar with the discussion said that in light of concerns raised in the inspector general’s report that agency officers could be legally liable for harsh interrogations, there was a view at the time among some administration lawyers that the tapes should be preserved.
Perhaps the editorial board has joined the countless millions of Americans who don't read the Times.
After all of this fevered, paranoid prose, the editors finally get to their real point:
We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America.
In other words: Elect a Democrat in 2008, or we're going to stamp our feet and hold our breath until we turn blue!
To comment on this post, go here.
