America loves "grievance theater," especially when it affords an opportunity to take a stand against The Man. The Duke lacrosse rape case comes to mind. In the much-promoted "flying imams" case, CAIR and its opponents have sensationalized the issue. Mark and I both discussed the case (Mark in this post, and I a few days earlier in this one), but we did not refer to the police report, citing primarily journalistic accounts. I maintain that in light of the police report my characterization of the imams as political and legal provocateurs is appropriate. (I will use "CAIR" and "the imams" interchangeably, since most of the imams are members of CAIR or its sister organizations, since they had just attended a CAIR-sponsored conference, a conference that coincidentally dealt with media manipulation (topics included "Imams and Politics" and "Imams and the Media"), and since CAIR is orchestrating the lawsuit against the passengers who dared to speak up about behavior I will outline below.)
1) The question of prayer.
The police report cites several witnesses who said the imams were "praying very loud." After they had finished their prayers, when it was time for boarding, they began "chanting 'Allah, Allah, Allah'" together. Once on the plane, they again prayed loudly.
My reaction:
1.1) Islamic prayer should not be ostentatious. It is almost never done loudly. As I mentioned in my earlier post, it is unheard of for a large group of people to collectively pray in an airport departure lounge in loud voices. In public places from mosque to market, in the private homes of the princes and paupers, in countries ranging from Morocco to Oman, I have never witnessed loud, ostentatious Islamic prayer. Therefore, if I saw a group of men praying loudly and ostentatiously at the airport, I would think they were trying to make some sort of point. It is highly abnormal for Muslims to act in such a way. Indeed, it is worth noting that other Muslims on the flight were among those who tipped off the flight attendants, helping by translating the imams' increasingly inflammatory comments.
1.2) Salat (prayer) does not consist of chanting "Allah, Allah, Allah," as witnesses reported the imams chanting together. One recites the Sura al-Fatihah (think of it as the Lord's Prayer in Islam) along with another sura of one's own choosing while performing one's prostrations in the appropriate way (there are many discussions of the topic; see this site, for instance.) This is repeated a variable number of times, 3 in the case of the maghrib prayer. I have yet to read or hear a sura that repeats "Allah, Allah, Allah" - this, while permissible, is unorthodox, and frankly provocative in the context.
1.3) The flight was scheduled for takeoff at 5:15PM. Given that this took place at the end of the year, the sun would have been setting around boarding time. Therefore the imams would be praying the maghreb (sunset) prayer. This consists of 3 raka`a (prayer cycles.) Well and good. BUT the third raka`a is to be said silently. The imams spoke throughout, by several accounts.
1.4) The imams prayed both at the gate and on the plane. The 'isha (night) prayer generally takes place before going to bed, not a few minutes following the maghreb. I do grant that it would be permissible to do so (the sun had set, after all) but again it is highly unusual and unorthodox.
To summarize, the imams' prayer activities alone suggest a provocateur's agenda. They were loud and ostentatious, as no Muslim should be in prayer. They chanted the name of God, without any Islamic reason for doing so. They spoke throughout, when 1/3 of the maghrib prayer is meant to be performed silently. Finally, they either prayed the maghrib twice or they prayed the 'isha abnormally early. These actions have little basis in Islam. But they have a huge basis in Islam as a politicized ideology and what the Becket Fund rightly refers to as "legal terrorism." The imams' behavior is extraordinary from an Islamic perspective, but becomes less so if CAIR and the imams were intending to create an "incident" as with Mr. Scopes and the ACLU.
2) The question of political commentary.
2.1) The police report establishes that the men were angry, agitated, and in heated discussion. They were cursing. As with the un-Islamic "prayer", the problem with the imams' behavior is its form rather than its content. The form is suspicious. Having been to many airports, I do not generally see people rant and rave about political issues. The one time I saw someone behave in such a way (in Casablanca, incidentally) the offender was taken into police custody, and we all laughed and joked (in Arabic) about the person's lack of sense and provocative actions. The problem is not that they were discussing politics but that they were behaving in ways that were highly unusual for normal airline passengers, whether Muslim or not. Bear in mind that "erratic" behavior is normally the security officer's only chance of catching a potential terrorist (recall the way that the Millenium bombings at LAX were averted, thanks to a Canadian border guard who was aware of this fact.)
3) The question of the manner of boarding and seating assignments.
3.1) One of the imams had a first-class seat (he was upgraded, I believe.) The rest did not. Nonetheless, they all boarded together during the call for first-class boarding. Once on board, they ignored their assigned seats, and fanned out throughout the craft in a precise imitation of the 9/11 hijackers.
3.2) Several of the imams, not just Shahin (their somewhat rotund spokesman) asked for seatbelt extensions. None of the imams used them. Witness testimony confirms that "they were not overweight" (several of them, anyway) and that, worse, they left the extensions on the floor. These extensions can be used as weapons, and the flight attendants noticed. (I should note that the normal seat belts are capable of wrapping around very fat people. I have personally witnessed people whose rolls of fat were spilling over the seat rests (substantially heavier than any of the imams) make do with the normal belts. That said, it can still be unpleasant to sit next to them.)
3.3) The imams were asked by flight attendants to return the seatbelt extensions and return to their assigned seats but refused to cooperate.
What does this prove?
None of these actions, individually, would be cause for suspicion. Together, however, the imams' actions form a pattern of unusually suspicious behavior. They prayed in non-Islamic fashion; they angrily argued politics; they ignored their assigned seats, sitting instead in suspicious ways; they made requests for potentially dangerous equipment that they did not use for its intended purpose; and they refused to cooperate with flight attendants. This is what the police report tells us. The truth lies here, in the witness testimony, not "somewhere in between" the Rush Limbaugh show and CAIR's public relations rhetoric. Everything that the imams did screams "grievance theater." But more at issue is:
4) The question of the aftermath.
Mark says that it "boggles the mind" to think that CAIR would want to soften aviation security. I may be proven wrong, but the evidence currently brought to light supports that thesis. Softening aviation security is probably not CAIR's primary goal - that may be to promote their own importance (and their self-proclaimed right to speak for all Muslims) through a high-profile case. But to sue an airline for responding to the highly unusual and suspicious behavior outlined above - and, more importantly, to sue the *individuals* who noticed the behavior and informed flight attendants - has the direct consequence of weakening aviation security. John Doe is far less likely to tell a flight attendant about suspicious behavior if he knows that CAIR and its Saudi backers are going to sue him for it. If it is shown that CAIR planned the event, then my (admittedly inflammatory) "fifth-column" accusation will be borne out.
Other Subjects
Mark mentioned my favorable quote of Karl Rove in my critique of Fisk's recent column on maps. To clarify, I hold Rove and Robert Fisk in equally low regard. I also think Rove's quote aptly describes Fisk's attitude. The problem is not that Fisk lacks affection for or attachment to the West, or that he has compassion for people he sees as victims. The problem is that his writing, like that of Edward Said, is all too happy to ignore or misrepresent facts if they do not serve his political agendas. Fisk's writing is generally self-righteous, indignant, and hostile, positing a world of innocent non-Westerners forever menaced by Western bogeymen. Life is not so black and white.
In the future, I think, I shall perhaps stay clear of American politics (Mark seems to have a very good grasp of that) and instead offer more anthropological observations. Stay tuned.
Saturday, 31 March 2007
Friday, 30 March 2007
Torture and American Freedom
Some of the work I’ve been doing in the past few days has brought me back to an exchange we had on this blog several weeks ago on torture and interrogations. I’m a TA for a Human Rights Law course here at the university, and we’ve been preparing material for the upcoming unit on rights issues arising from the war on terror. The professor I work for asked me to take a look at a PBS Frontline special from late 2005 that he’s thinking of showing for the students (you can watch it online here).
The episode shows how torture metastasized from a tactic intended to be used against the most hardened al-Qaida types in the urgent name of national security to a practice used widely at Guantanamo and secret CIA interrogation facilities worldwide, and then finally to an extremely widespread behavior used across the Iraq theater of operations, where the Geneva Conventions very explicitly apply.
In our exchange on this blog earlier (here and here), I think we focused on the purely tactical shortcomings of torture. But while watching the episode, it struck me that what is truly important is to state unequivocally, once again, and on as many fora as is possible, the sheer moral gravity of this issue.
I guess it’s fair to ask why anybody should go around saying something that is pretty much self-evident. Everybody knows the act of torturing another human being is a horrible and egregious crime, right? And yet…
It has been more than a year since this episode was made, and the slowest among us began to put the pieces together and realize that the torture photos from Abu Ghraib were not merely an issue of an out-of-control “night shift,” but were rather the direct outgrowth of a concerted policy that favored intimidation and torture in fighting the war on terror. You can wrap it up in whatever newspeak you like (“coercive interrogations”, “gloves come off,” etc.), but it is clear that the Administration’s legal policy on detainees and interrogations tolerated and even encouraged practice amounting to torture. Yet what has been striking is the lack of reaction from the American people. There was revulsion, sure, when we were confronted with irrefutable photographic evidence of barbarism. By and large, however, we have not raised an outcry, have not sought to force a change in Bush Administration policies on this matter.
Indeed, the common attitude has been one of tacit acceptance. One senses even that in certain circles there is more than that. I hear that “Jack Bauer for President” t-shirts are selling quite briskly back home; if television’s proto-torturer were to emerge from the screen to stake his claim on that office, I have little doubt that he would win a large chunk of the vote from the younger male demographic. Jack Bauer, one could say, is not afraid to “get his hands dirty”, “take the gloves off,” or shoot a dirty terrorist in the kneecap to save American lives and defend American freedoms.
It’s not hard to see where this is coming from. The
In fact, going back to the Jack Bauer example, torture has become shockingly hip, the litmus test for the metaphorical manhood of our political leaders. Do they have what it takes to breach the ultimate taboo to save American lives? Rudy Giuliani (the logic goes)… yeah, he’d have Khaled Sheik Mohammed beaten to a bloody pulp if he thought American lives were at stake. John Edwards… that pretty boy doesn’t have it in him- he’d sissy out, and pretty soon
I hope I’m just completely misreading the mood of country. It’s hard to argue, however, that the response to the Bush Administration’s quite wanton use of torture has been muted. I guess I’m just still among those who believe that the use of torture should be anathema in a liberal society, that it is entirely antithetical to the principles that we claim uphold our government and direct our daily lives. I want to quote Andrew Sullivan at length, who in a tremendous article in The New Republic (also in late 2005) answered those who believe the U.S government should in some limited circumstances sanction the use of torture:
“Torture is the polar opposite of freedom. It is the banishment of all freedom from a human body and soul, insofar as that is possible. As human beings, we all inhabit bodies and have minds, souls, and reflexes that are designed in part to protect those bodies: to resist or flinch from pain, to protect the psyche from disintegration, and to maintain a sense of selfhood that is the basis for the concept of personal liberty. What torture does is use these involuntary, self-protective, self-defining resources of human beings against the integrity of the human being himself. It takes what is most involuntary in a person and uses it to break that person's will. It takes what is animal in us and deploys it against what makes us human. As an American commander wrote in an August 2003 e-mail about his instructions to torture prisoners at Abu Ghraib, "The gloves are coming off gentlemen regarding these detainees, Col. Boltz has made it clear that we want these individuals broken."
What does it mean to "break" an individual? As the French essayist Michel de Montaigne once commented, and Shakespeare echoed, even the greatest philosophers have difficulty thinking clearly when they have a toothache. These wise men were describing the inescapable frailty of the human experience, mocking the claims of some seers to be above basic human feelings and bodily needs. If that frailty is exposed by a toothache, it is beyond dispute in the case of torture. The infliction of physical pain on a person with no means of defending himself is designed to render that person completely subservient to his torturers. It is designed to extirpate his autonomy as a human being, to render his control as an individual beyond his own reach. That is why the term "break" is instructive. Something broken can be put back together, but it will never regain the status of being unbroken--of having integrity. When you break a human being, you turn him into something subhuman. You enslave him. This is why the Romans reserved torture for slaves, not citizens, and why slavery and torture were inextricably linked in the antebellum South.
What you see in the relationship between torturer and tortured is the absolute darkness of totalitarianism. You see one individual granted the most complete power he can ever hold over another. Not just confinement of his mobility--the abolition of his very agency. Torture uses a person's body to remove from his own control his conscience, his thoughts, his faith, his selfhood. (TNR subscribers can see the full article here.)
I don’t think you can put it any better than that; and it’s pretty much why, up until the past few years, the idea of the American government sanctioning torture as a deliberate policy would have been completely unthinkable. It is simply stands in complete opposition to the values we purport to defend.
There is, however, and argument to be made that, yes, torture is abhorrent, but under some circumstances it may be justified. What if, to take a common hypothetical, you are dealing with an imminent nuclear explosion, and you have one of the terrorist gang at your mercy. He knows where the bomb is, but he’s not talking. In this situation, millions of innocent lives hang in the balance. You are dealing with a twisted killer who surely deserves nothing better than the most relentless torture until he submits.
I might, I think, personalize this scenario a bit to illustrate further. Let’s say I am the chief interrogator, and I know there is a nuclear device set to explode somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area. I have, oh, say, Khaled Sheik Mohammed, and I know he knows where it is. Am I morally justified in torturing him to extract the necessary information?
First, it’s a bit silly to talk about what KSM “deserves.” I think The Onion got it right on pretty much day one, so no point in pursuing it any further. And frankly, depending on what sort of balance you use, yeah, I probably am morally justified in this imminent nuclear explosion/very evil man hypothetical to use whatever means of torture I can come up with to get him talking.
The problem is, the next time I talk to my parents, my girlfriend, my friends, everybody I care about, I am doing it as somebody who has physically tormented another human being. That is an experience I hope never to have to undergo; no matter how “justifiable” it may be given the circumstances, I do not think the blood washes off.
How, then, can I as a citizen of a democracy ask another man to commit these acts in my name? Not just once, mind you, in the excruciating hypothetical sketched above, but repeatedly, and under circumstances that are far murkier. If our policy in the war against terror is that torture will be an implicit weapon in our arsenal, then that will necessitate the creation of people whose duty it is to carry out that policy. Those people will spend half their time carrying out monstrous acts in the name of freedom, and the other half will struggle to be loving husbands, wives, fathers, and mothers. And if I acquiesce in this, then their burden is mine as well.
As Sullivan puts it, “Any polity that endorses torture has incorporated into its own DNA a totalitarian mutation.” One might add that any state that sanctions its citizens to commit acts of torture has ceased to be free.
Thursday, 29 March 2007
Re: The Strange Case of the "Flying Imams"
Normally I cede this sort of turf to you, BP, but you got me rankled with your favorable (favorable!) quotation of Karl Rove a couple of posts back. At least I think it was favorable; you're welcome to take me to task if I'm reading you wrong there.
But now all this talk of a "fifth column?" I'm perfectly willing to believe that the group did not act as perfectly "innocently" as their leader insists. But really, what exactly did they do that was so provocative? The passengers who cheered their removal obviously reacted not so much to their appearance as to their behavior (based on what I've read, I'll cede that). It seems that, objectively speaking, they did the following:
-They prayed at the gate, audibly. Among the Arabic words that came up repeatedly in the prayer and discussion was the eminently recognizable "Allah."
BP, you're more the expert here, but just from my layman's perspective, that would come up quite a bit during typical Muslim prayer, wouldn't it? Apparently they were not courteous enough to take their prayer to the "non-denominational chapel" that is considerately provided for such use; I'm pretty sure they tuck these into the farthest corner of most airports these days, so basic human laziness might be cited as a mitigating factor here. And in terms of the "suspicious" timing: even I say a little prayer before flying these days.
-They were cursing George Bush and criticizing the Iraq War. They mentioned al-Qaida and terrorism a few times during conversation in Arabic.
Well, I've been out of the country for a while now, but as far as I know discussing politics is still legal. Even in a foreign language. Shoot, if they weren't talking about this stuff, now that might be a bit suspicious.
-A couple of them asked for seat-belt extensions.
Apparently the leader weighs a deuce and a half. He's a big fella. The others aren't exactly small. 'Nuff said.
-They sat in a suspicious configuration.
The leader claims he was upgraded to first. Should be easy enough to check out. Okay, so I admit the two up front-two in the middle-two in the back configuration might justifiably raise some eyebrows. That said, if they did book tickets separately, as they claim, it might very well have worked out this way randomly.
-Some of them got up to walk around at various points while the plane was sitting on the tarmac, stopping to check in with their buddies.
Okay, so you've just been sitting there, it's been like an hour, and the plane still shows no signs of taking off. The captain periodically gets on the radio to announce that there's been some trouble with the "paperwork" (while unbeknownst to you, the captain, flight crew, US Airways, the Minneapolis PD, and the local FBI are all debating whether to cuff you and kick you off the plane). Meanwhile, your fellow passengers are looking at you in the nastiest ways. Since lord knows you're not going anywhere for awhile, you get up to clear your head, walk over to your friend's seat, and mention how paranoid everybody seems to be since 9/11.
Now, as is mostly the case in these situations, I'm guessing the truth lies somewhere in between how the imams insist they behaved and how they are accused of behaving by the usual online/talk radio suspects on the reactionary right. It's perfectly plausible that the imams quite inadvertably acted in a manner that perhaps not unjustifiably freaked out some of the flight crew and their fellow passengers. And if that is happening, then of course it is entirely reasonable and advisable for the captain to make the decision to have them removed.
And I can also understand that the imams may believe they were treated incredibly callously, that they have been convicted of no crime other than "flying while Muslim", and that their civil rights have been thusly violated. Suing US Airways doesn't strike me as so absurd under those circumstances, if only to draw attention to the shabby treatment you felt you received. I do, however, agree that dragging the "John Does" into this is both extreme and unwise.
What I don't understand is this "fifth column" business. The idea that the imams staged this as a provocation purposefully to get kicked off the plane so they could then sue to either a). draw attention to "discriminatory" practices in the aviation industry, or, even more absurdly, b). attempt through litigation to soften American homeland security defenses to pave the way for the next 9/11, plain and simply boggles the mind at the moment. If this goes to trial, then by all means let's hear the evidence, but I think imputing the most malign, conspiracy theory-caliber motives to the "flying imams" at this point seems highly premature.
But now all this talk of a "fifth column?" I'm perfectly willing to believe that the group did not act as perfectly "innocently" as their leader insists. But really, what exactly did they do that was so provocative? The passengers who cheered their removal obviously reacted not so much to their appearance as to their behavior (based on what I've read, I'll cede that). It seems that, objectively speaking, they did the following:
-They prayed at the gate, audibly. Among the Arabic words that came up repeatedly in the prayer and discussion was the eminently recognizable "Allah."
BP, you're more the expert here, but just from my layman's perspective, that would come up quite a bit during typical Muslim prayer, wouldn't it? Apparently they were not courteous enough to take their prayer to the "non-denominational chapel" that is considerately provided for such use; I'm pretty sure they tuck these into the farthest corner of most airports these days, so basic human laziness might be cited as a mitigating factor here. And in terms of the "suspicious" timing: even I say a little prayer before flying these days.
-They were cursing George Bush and criticizing the Iraq War. They mentioned al-Qaida and terrorism a few times during conversation in Arabic.
Well, I've been out of the country for a while now, but as far as I know discussing politics is still legal. Even in a foreign language. Shoot, if they weren't talking about this stuff, now that might be a bit suspicious.
-A couple of them asked for seat-belt extensions.
Apparently the leader weighs a deuce and a half. He's a big fella. The others aren't exactly small. 'Nuff said.
-They sat in a suspicious configuration.
The leader claims he was upgraded to first. Should be easy enough to check out. Okay, so I admit the two up front-two in the middle-two in the back configuration might justifiably raise some eyebrows. That said, if they did book tickets separately, as they claim, it might very well have worked out this way randomly.
-Some of them got up to walk around at various points while the plane was sitting on the tarmac, stopping to check in with their buddies.
Okay, so you've just been sitting there, it's been like an hour, and the plane still shows no signs of taking off. The captain periodically gets on the radio to announce that there's been some trouble with the "paperwork" (while unbeknownst to you, the captain, flight crew, US Airways, the Minneapolis PD, and the local FBI are all debating whether to cuff you and kick you off the plane). Meanwhile, your fellow passengers are looking at you in the nastiest ways. Since lord knows you're not going anywhere for awhile, you get up to clear your head, walk over to your friend's seat, and mention how paranoid everybody seems to be since 9/11.
Now, as is mostly the case in these situations, I'm guessing the truth lies somewhere in between how the imams insist they behaved and how they are accused of behaving by the usual online/talk radio suspects on the reactionary right. It's perfectly plausible that the imams quite inadvertably acted in a manner that perhaps not unjustifiably freaked out some of the flight crew and their fellow passengers. And if that is happening, then of course it is entirely reasonable and advisable for the captain to make the decision to have them removed.
And I can also understand that the imams may believe they were treated incredibly callously, that they have been convicted of no crime other than "flying while Muslim", and that their civil rights have been thusly violated. Suing US Airways doesn't strike me as so absurd under those circumstances, if only to draw attention to the shabby treatment you felt you received. I do, however, agree that dragging the "John Does" into this is both extreme and unwise.
What I don't understand is this "fifth column" business. The idea that the imams staged this as a provocation purposefully to get kicked off the plane so they could then sue to either a). draw attention to "discriminatory" practices in the aviation industry, or, even more absurdly, b). attempt through litigation to soften American homeland security defenses to pave the way for the next 9/11, plain and simply boggles the mind at the moment. If this goes to trial, then by all means let's hear the evidence, but I think imputing the most malign, conspiracy theory-caliber motives to the "flying imams" at this point seems highly premature.
The Case of the Flying Imams: CAIR's Campaign to Criminalize Scrutiny of Muslims in Airports
In November 2006, six Muslim clerics were returning from a Minneapolis meeting of the North America Imams Federation when they suffered racial profiling. They said their normal evening prayers; suspicious passengers called more suspicious airport police; the imams were taken off the plane in handcuffs, interrogated, and denied boarding for additional flight. This is the narrative, according to the imams themselves, and according to representatives of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). "As Americans, we deserve security based on intelligence and evidence - not paranoia, false reporting, bigotry and witch hunts at 32,000 feet," wrote CAIR's national legal director. The SF Chronicle and other defenders of human liberty jumped on the CAIR bandwagon. The imams first called for a boycott of US Airways and then, in partnership with CAIR, lauched a lawsuit against US Airways as well as the "John Doe" passengers who complained of "suspicious behavior." CAIR called for "Congressional hearings on religious profiling." The imams' spokesman, Omar Shahin, declared: "We did nothing."
But US Airways, the Minneapolis airport authorities, and the passengers on the plane tell a different story. It seems that the imams angrily cursed the US at the gate before boarding. They then engaged in their evening prayers and at high volume.
This sort of ostentatious behavior, incidentally, I have never seen at any prayer time in any airport in any Muslim country. (When traveling, Muslims may "make up" missed prayers at the beginning or end of the day; most do so, or else pray discreetly in their seats.) Once on the plane, the imams did not go to their assigned seats. Instead, they fanned out in pairs to the front, middle, and rear of the plane, exactly as the 9/11 hijackers had done. Next, the imams began to walk back and forth, speaking in Arabic. They asked for seat belt extensions, which were provided, though none of them needed them or used them. At this point, passengers quite rightly became suspicious.
Flight attendants asked the imams to return to their assigned seats and return their seatbelt extensions. They refused. The flight attendants then asked the imams to leave the plane. Still they refused. Then airport police boarded, and the imams walked off the plane with them, chanting "Allah" loudly as they did. (Later, the imams were to claim they were handcuffed and attacked by dogs; the police report says otherwise.)
The evidence is highly disturbing. It is worth emphasizing that CAIR's lawsuit is not only against US Airways but also the individual passengers who alerted flight attendants to the imams' suspicious behavior. Should the lawsuit succeed, it would have a chilling effect on the ability of average citizens and law enforcement officials to report or react to suspicious behavior. One could not dream up a better scheme to coerce airports into looking the other way when suspicious behavior takes place. One could not dream up a better way to prepare the ground for the next 9/11.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has condemned CAIR's lawsuit:
"In its 12 year history the Becket Fund has represented clients from Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and other traditions. This is, however, the first time they’ve ever opposed someone’s claim of religious discrimination. The Becket Fund will also promptly seek leave to file a brief in the case urging the trial court to keep secret the identity of the John Does. Hasson said they were driven to such action by the outrageousness of the Flying Imams’ tactics. 'We know religious liberty. Religious liberty is a client of ours,' Hasson says in the letter. 'And this claim is not about religious liberty.'"
Meanwhile, in a reassuring reminder that not all US Muslims support CAIR's terrorism-enabling actions, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, led by Zuhdi Jasser, has volunteered to raise money for the defense of US Airways and the John Does. The House of Representatives voted to protect the John Does in a largely symbolic gesture. But Democratic politicians protested that to oppose the imams would "encourage racial profiling." To which I reply: How exactly is Islam a race? And why should people be discouraged from awareness of suspicious behavior?
CAIR, of course, has a checkered history. It has been involved with many terrorist organizations over the years, such as Kind Hearts, a "charity" that funneled money to Hamas bombmakers. It has defended people like Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the Al Qaeda operative and orchestrator of the 1993 World Trade Center attacks. It is generously funded by the the same Saudi government that brought us the Pakistani indoctrination schools. It has, quite rightly, been called "the PR machine of militant Islam."
What is disturbing is that CAIR has managed to pass itself off as a civil rights organization, even as it seeks to undermine US security by criminalizing any scrutiny of Muslims in airports.
As Emilio Mola of the pro-Franco Spanish Nationalists once said, "I have four columns with me, and a fifth column [of sympathizers] inside Madrid." Bin Laden might well say the same about CAIR and its flying imams.
But US Airways, the Minneapolis airport authorities, and the passengers on the plane tell a different story. It seems that the imams angrily cursed the US at the gate before boarding. They then engaged in their evening prayers and at high volume.
This sort of ostentatious behavior, incidentally, I have never seen at any prayer time in any airport in any Muslim country. (When traveling, Muslims may "make up" missed prayers at the beginning or end of the day; most do so, or else pray discreetly in their seats.) Once on the plane, the imams did not go to their assigned seats. Instead, they fanned out in pairs to the front, middle, and rear of the plane, exactly as the 9/11 hijackers had done. Next, the imams began to walk back and forth, speaking in Arabic. They asked for seat belt extensions, which were provided, though none of them needed them or used them. At this point, passengers quite rightly became suspicious.
Flight attendants asked the imams to return to their assigned seats and return their seatbelt extensions. They refused. The flight attendants then asked the imams to leave the plane. Still they refused. Then airport police boarded, and the imams walked off the plane with them, chanting "Allah" loudly as they did. (Later, the imams were to claim they were handcuffed and attacked by dogs; the police report says otherwise.)
The evidence is highly disturbing. It is worth emphasizing that CAIR's lawsuit is not only against US Airways but also the individual passengers who alerted flight attendants to the imams' suspicious behavior. Should the lawsuit succeed, it would have a chilling effect on the ability of average citizens and law enforcement officials to report or react to suspicious behavior. One could not dream up a better scheme to coerce airports into looking the other way when suspicious behavior takes place. One could not dream up a better way to prepare the ground for the next 9/11.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has condemned CAIR's lawsuit:
"In its 12 year history the Becket Fund has represented clients from Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and other traditions. This is, however, the first time they’ve ever opposed someone’s claim of religious discrimination. The Becket Fund will also promptly seek leave to file a brief in the case urging the trial court to keep secret the identity of the John Does. Hasson said they were driven to such action by the outrageousness of the Flying Imams’ tactics. 'We know religious liberty. Religious liberty is a client of ours,' Hasson says in the letter. 'And this claim is not about religious liberty.'"
Meanwhile, in a reassuring reminder that not all US Muslims support CAIR's terrorism-enabling actions, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, led by Zuhdi Jasser, has volunteered to raise money for the defense of US Airways and the John Does. The House of Representatives voted to protect the John Does in a largely symbolic gesture. But Democratic politicians protested that to oppose the imams would "encourage racial profiling." To which I reply: How exactly is Islam a race? And why should people be discouraged from awareness of suspicious behavior?
CAIR, of course, has a checkered history. It has been involved with many terrorist organizations over the years, such as Kind Hearts, a "charity" that funneled money to Hamas bombmakers. It has defended people like Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the Al Qaeda operative and orchestrator of the 1993 World Trade Center attacks. It is generously funded by the the same Saudi government that brought us the Pakistani indoctrination schools. It has, quite rightly, been called "the PR machine of militant Islam."
What is disturbing is that CAIR has managed to pass itself off as a civil rights organization, even as it seeks to undermine US security by criminalizing any scrutiny of Muslims in airports.
As Emilio Mola of the pro-Franco Spanish Nationalists once said, "I have four columns with me, and a fifth column [of sympathizers] inside Madrid." Bin Laden might well say the same about CAIR and its flying imams.
Thursday, 22 March 2007
Some Hong Kong humor...
Pretty phenomenal cartoon today in The Standard (not posting the full image here because I don't want to get sued, but click on the link).
Monday, 19 March 2007
I've been trying to read as much as I can recently about the Iraq War, to try and get a handle on things- why it happened, how it went so wrong, what will be the consequences... It's been four years now since the invasion, and given that most of 2002 was spent getting ready for this thing, that means nearly half a decade we've been living with Iraq. In all that time, I'm not sure I've read anything that's left me so disturbed and disgusted as George Packer's latest article in the New Yorker. It's long, but everybody should read it. It's just about the capstone on every previous account illuminating the damage done to good people by the arrogant ideologues and fantasists who have presided over this catastrophe.
Wednesday, 14 March 2007
Maps and Magical Thinking
In a recent article, the always-interesting Robert Fisk asks: "Why are we trying to divide up the peoples of the Middle East?" He accuses Westerners of encouraging sectarianism, "divisions...suspicious...[and the] capacity for mutual hatred." How have we accomplished this feat?
Maps.
All this time, writers have been debating the impact of politics, history, economics, and theology on sectarian differences. But it seems that these factors pale compared to the malevolent influence of cartographers. In fact, Fisk writes, the color-coded demographic maps of Iraq and Lebanon found in the news media reveal not only Western "casual racism" but a "wish to promote civil war." Such maps are biased, Fisk explains, because neighborhoods, cities, regions, and nations are never demographically pure. A "Sunni" suburb of Beirut may have a substantial Druze minority; an "Ibadhi" quarter of Muscat may hide a great many Hindus.
To be sure, demographic maps may ignore minorities. Certainly, the real world generally lacks sharp boundaries. I have seen fences that zig-zag and climb wildly along cliffs and ravines, all to conform to a straight line on a map. But it seems far-fetched to argue that a map can be normative, or "Hitlerian" as Fisk puts it. Are we oppressing Republicans when we say that Berkeley is generally Democratic? Is it racist to say that Fruitvale (in Oakland, California) has few whites but many blacks and Hispanics? How can a demographic fact be anything but descriptive?
Fisk proposes that we refer to particular neighborhoods in Baghdad as "mixed." This would be as analytically fruitful as calling Berkeley "politically diverse." Is it "imperial" or "racist" of me to state that Sadr City is mainly Shi'a or that Berkeley is mainly Democratic? Fisk attempts to obscure his conflation of the descriptive with the normative by bringing up the issue of double standards, arguing that Western newspapers would "never" publish maps showing racial or religious demographics within major Western cities. Regardless of the merits of this claim, it is distinct from Fisk's contention that divisions in the Middle East were somehow invented, imposed, or developed by Western nations.
And since Fisk is so eager to accuse "we Westerners" of racism for drawing sectarian maps - what is "racial" about being a Sunni or Shi'a? It seems that "our potential enemies" - like people of all nations - are perfectly capable of dividing themselves.
Fisk's essay is of interest because, like much of his work, it has attracted popular attention and acclaim among many in the Middle East. (Bin Laden once referred to Fisk as one of the West's few "neutral" reporters.) It is also of interest because it is symptomatic of a general body of thought.
There are many, like Fisk, who eternally seek a Western bogeyman. Such bogeymen are easy to find, as Western governments and industry do not hesitate to pursue their interests. However, the extent of such groups' influence tends to be vastly overrated, as Jean-Francois Revel argues in his incisive "Anti-Americanism." Many intellectuals give national or corporate influence unique normative weight when it originates in the West. This is both a double standard and a form of magical thinking.
As Karl Rove once said, "Conservatives saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." By making everything "our" fault and denying agency to non-Western actors, Fisk continues to fight the good fight.
Maps.
All this time, writers have been debating the impact of politics, history, economics, and theology on sectarian differences. But it seems that these factors pale compared to the malevolent influence of cartographers. In fact, Fisk writes, the color-coded demographic maps of Iraq and Lebanon found in the news media reveal not only Western "casual racism" but a "wish to promote civil war." Such maps are biased, Fisk explains, because neighborhoods, cities, regions, and nations are never demographically pure. A "Sunni" suburb of Beirut may have a substantial Druze minority; an "Ibadhi" quarter of Muscat may hide a great many Hindus.
To be sure, demographic maps may ignore minorities. Certainly, the real world generally lacks sharp boundaries. I have seen fences that zig-zag and climb wildly along cliffs and ravines, all to conform to a straight line on a map. But it seems far-fetched to argue that a map can be normative, or "Hitlerian" as Fisk puts it. Are we oppressing Republicans when we say that Berkeley is generally Democratic? Is it racist to say that Fruitvale (in Oakland, California) has few whites but many blacks and Hispanics? How can a demographic fact be anything but descriptive?
Fisk proposes that we refer to particular neighborhoods in Baghdad as "mixed." This would be as analytically fruitful as calling Berkeley "politically diverse." Is it "imperial" or "racist" of me to state that Sadr City is mainly Shi'a or that Berkeley is mainly Democratic? Fisk attempts to obscure his conflation of the descriptive with the normative by bringing up the issue of double standards, arguing that Western newspapers would "never" publish maps showing racial or religious demographics within major Western cities. Regardless of the merits of this claim, it is distinct from Fisk's contention that divisions in the Middle East were somehow invented, imposed, or developed by Western nations.
And since Fisk is so eager to accuse "we Westerners" of racism for drawing sectarian maps - what is "racial" about being a Sunni or Shi'a? It seems that "our potential enemies" - like people of all nations - are perfectly capable of dividing themselves.
Fisk's essay is of interest because, like much of his work, it has attracted popular attention and acclaim among many in the Middle East. (Bin Laden once referred to Fisk as one of the West's few "neutral" reporters.) It is also of interest because it is symptomatic of a general body of thought.
There are many, like Fisk, who eternally seek a Western bogeyman. Such bogeymen are easy to find, as Western governments and industry do not hesitate to pursue their interests. However, the extent of such groups' influence tends to be vastly overrated, as Jean-Francois Revel argues in his incisive "Anti-Americanism." Many intellectuals give national or corporate influence unique normative weight when it originates in the West. This is both a double standard and a form of magical thinking.
As Karl Rove once said, "Conservatives saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." By making everything "our" fault and denying agency to non-Western actors, Fisk continues to fight the good fight.
Sunday, 11 March 2007
An Observation
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." -Jonathan Swift
Barack Obama and the Fox News peanut gallery.
Barack Obama and the Fox News peanut gallery.
Friday, 9 March 2007
Remembrance of Blogs Past
Since it's been a bit of a slow news week, I think I'll take a moment to comment on a topic close at heart. There are of course millions upon untold millions of blogs up and running on the web, most started by ordinary people like you and me with something (or even nothing) to say and a bit too much time on their hands. A tiny number of these blogs actually acquire some degree of prominence and readership; a single grain of sand on a beachful of blogs, as it were, actually becomes successful enough that the blogger can write full time and live off the ad revenues. As I said, however, we're talking really tiny numbers.
If you'll allow me to wax lyrical for a moment: Picture a night sky full of tiny, flickering stars. When one of those stars suddenly blinks out, who notices? Who misses its presence? And indeed, in the galaxy of blogs, this sort of thing happens all of the time. A blog starts, there's a flurry of creative energy devoted at the outset, and then, perhaps inevitably, the posts begin to flag. Weeks go by with nothing. A year later you check the url, and the blog is frozen in the past, a time capsule telling you what the creator thought about some obscure issue or life event that now exists as only a vague memory. Lord knows this has happened to me, twice now in fact, although perhaps in my defense I do seem to keep coming back.
I want to bring up one blog specifically, as an example of this phenomenon. This past fall, I was excited to see that an old friend from college had begun blogging. Vishal called his blog "Restless Ruminations", and I particularly enjoyed his focus on two disparate topics both of which I find fascinating but know very little about: India and Texas politics. Throw in a dash of legal commentary (he's a future law student), and the sort of center-left Bush bashing that is the bread and butter of this and many other blogs, and you had a blog that I think you'll agree was extremely diverting reading.
And then, after posting in early November on the midterm elections and Texas A & M President Robert Gates's appointment as Defense Secretary, Vishal mysteriously stopped. Nothing more was heard; the blog fell silent. And my own knowledge of India and Texas politics suffered an irreparable blow.
Vishal, if you ever by chance happen to read this, then heed these words. Forget law school. You have a gift, man. Resuscitate "Restless Ruminations" and get back to blogging.
If you'll allow me to wax lyrical for a moment: Picture a night sky full of tiny, flickering stars. When one of those stars suddenly blinks out, who notices? Who misses its presence? And indeed, in the galaxy of blogs, this sort of thing happens all of the time. A blog starts, there's a flurry of creative energy devoted at the outset, and then, perhaps inevitably, the posts begin to flag. Weeks go by with nothing. A year later you check the url, and the blog is frozen in the past, a time capsule telling you what the creator thought about some obscure issue or life event that now exists as only a vague memory. Lord knows this has happened to me, twice now in fact, although perhaps in my defense I do seem to keep coming back.
I want to bring up one blog specifically, as an example of this phenomenon. This past fall, I was excited to see that an old friend from college had begun blogging. Vishal called his blog "Restless Ruminations", and I particularly enjoyed his focus on two disparate topics both of which I find fascinating but know very little about: India and Texas politics. Throw in a dash of legal commentary (he's a future law student), and the sort of center-left Bush bashing that is the bread and butter of this and many other blogs, and you had a blog that I think you'll agree was extremely diverting reading.
And then, after posting in early November on the midterm elections and Texas A & M President Robert Gates's appointment as Defense Secretary, Vishal mysteriously stopped. Nothing more was heard; the blog fell silent. And my own knowledge of India and Texas politics suffered an irreparable blow.
Vishal, if you ever by chance happen to read this, then heed these words. Forget law school. You have a gift, man. Resuscitate "Restless Ruminations" and get back to blogging.
Sunday, 4 March 2007
We Have Ways of Making You Talk: From Hanns Scharff to Jack Bauer
"Much as a good hunter trains his hounds to bring the game to him rather than eating it, a good ruler has to restrain his henchmen from devouring the prey lest he be left empty-handed. Investigation is a subtle process, requiring patience and fine analytical ability, as well as a skill in cultivating one's sources. When torture is condoned, these rare talented people leave the service, having been outstripped by less gifted colleagues with their quick-fix methods, and the service itself degenerates into a playground for sadists."
- Vladimir Bukovsky, a former Soviet dissident imprisoned for over a decade (and often tortured himself), in 18 December 2005 Washington Post
When Bukovsky wrote that torture is "the professional disease of any investigative machinery," we might be inclined to say: this is just sour grapes from someone who enjoyed a few too many "Chekist handshakes." But it seems that people from the other side of the interrogation table are inclined to agree. Former CIA station chief (and excellent novelist) Milt Bearden argued in the LA Times on 23 May 2004 that torture is "as futile as it is brutal."
In works of fiction like Jean Larteguy's Les Centurions, on television shows like 24, and in the minds of many US interrogators and conservative commentators, however, torture is a brutal but sometimes necessary element of intelligence gathering. Gillo Pontecorvo's ostensibly anti-war Battle of Algiers similarly suggests that torture yields useful information; hence its popularity in private Pentagon screenings. (A flyer for a 2003 Department of Defense screening of the film said that the French "have a plan" that "succeeds tactically, but fails strategically." In other words, the problem was not that torture took place - it worked well, didn't it? - but rather that it radicalized the friends, families, and societies of those being tortured.)
Finding What You're Looking For, and the Logic of Perpetual Emergency
In one popular joke, the CIA is impressed at how many terrorists the Tunisian secret police have captured. Some case officers fly to Tunis to learn more. The CIA team arrives and compliments the Tunisians on their abilities. A Tunisian officer smiles and produces a rabbit. "Look at this rabbit," he says. "We'll release him and he will vanish. Just try and find him. If you can't do it in 24 hours, we'll show you how." He lets the rabbit go. The CIA team puts a trained dog on the rabbit's scent, but 24 hours pass without success. The Tunisian team then takes the dog and puts it in a basement. They suspend it in the air, pull out its claws, burn it with cigarettes, and beat it senseless. "Where's the rabbit?" demands the Tunisian interrogator. "I don't know," the dog sobs faintly. The Tunisian takes two electric wires and crosses them. They crackle, spitting sparks. He then presses the exposed wires onto opposite sides of the dog's body, which convulses wildly. The wires are removed and the dog howls in agony. "Where's the rabbit?" the Tunisian asks again. The dog yelps: "I am the rabbit!"
Torture is an excellent tool to extract confessions. Anyone can be tortured until he admits that he shot JFK or that he was Osama bin Laden's personal barber. But meaningful facts and operational details are different. You cannot torture someone into giving you my bank account PIN. Worse, even if he knows my PIN, he can give you a false one, buying me enough time to withdraw my money.
In his article, Bearden described how "the ticking-bomb scenario" has become many interrogators' North Star. Lives may be on the line; to get actionable information, then, the interrogator must do, as a popular television character often says, "Whatever it takes." Bearden describes the result: "every detainee became a 'high-value' subject, and...every intelligence question became a 'ticking bomb' case." Consequently, torture becomes the norm, rather than the exception.
Pain and death do not deter a committed ideologue. The Romans asked early Christians to recant or die; thousands chose to be crucified, burned at the stake, and fed to the wild animals of the Coliseum rather than betray their principles. Many others - from Jeanne D'Arc to William Wallace - similarly refused to make concessions to their torturers until the end. Though not all criminals are so self-righteous, the ones who join al-Qaeda-inspired organizations tend to be.
Interrogation Alternatives
Many professional interrogators argue that violence can be counter-productive, that "patience and cunning" could be more effective. Nazi interrogator Hanns Scharff is frequently held up as a model, since he had a well-deserved reputation for always getting actionable intelligence from his prisoners. To Sharff, intelligence was a like a mosaic or jigsaw puzzle. An investigator had to know the outline and some of the details and leverage them to fill in the rest. Sharff's "interrogations" would often consist of a friendly dinner, a philosophical conversation, or a walk through the woods. Sharff would profile his subjects and manipulate them into revealing information in the course of seemingly insignificant small talk. Many never realized that they had betrayed sensitive information to the Nazis until much later. For a long time, recounts a former interrogator, "the interrogation course at the US Army Intelligence Center and School...[was] based on the techniques that Sharff developed...All that seems to have gone out the window in favor of torture now." When the Pentagon invited Scharff to the US for a lecture tour (comparisons to Werner von Braun come to mind), the OC Weekly reports that "Scharff told his military audiences that camaraderie, fair treatment and respect are the indispensable keys to extracting information from the enemy." The contrast is stark between "Scharff's wine-with-dinner technique" - which got results - and "Lynndie England gleefully forcing Iraqi prisoners to masturbate while screwing her Army buddies in front of them" - which did not.
An anecdote from contemporary Iraq is also suggestive:
"Faced with finding the exact location of a minefield in an approximate area, U.S. servicemen lined up some 100 Iraqis next to the field. Off in the distance was a playground of children. 'You may think it’s U.S. soldiers who will die because you won’t tell us where the field is,' Nelson [the interrogator] recalls his colleague saying. 'But it’s the children over there who will die if you don’t tell us where it is.' Six of the 100 stepped forward to locate the mines. 'You actually get better, more accurate intelligence information when you comply with the law,' Nelson reiterates."
A similar methodology known as The Reid Technique was popularized for US law enforcement interrogators. The interrogator is asked to present plausible rationales for a suspect's alleged crime, drawing out confessions through non-leading questions and appeals to an alleged criminal's sense of self-righteousness.
Most criminals feels that their crimes are justified. For example, a criminal may say to himself: It wasn't arson - I just wanted to prove that the fire department's response time is too slow, to cause smoke damage to my rude neighbor's house, or perhaps simply to see how my he would react. It wasn't child abuse - I was toughening him up so that bullies wouldn't hurt him when he was older, or I touched her there to show my love and affection. I didn't kill anyone - I put her out of her misery, I only shook the child to get him to stop crying, I only intended to cut her slightly with the knife. And so forth. Most people firmly believe: "I didn't do anything wrong." This distortion of reality occurs because people do not want to experience guilt and anxiety. The suspect is then led to confess to a self-justifying version of events - that is, a more socially acceptable but equally prosecutable version of his crime.
Interestingly , torturers exhibit tendencies similar to other kinds of criminals. As presented in the Washington Post ("The Psychology of Torture", 11 May 2004), "torturers usually feel that they are carrying out the will of their societies...the torturers were not sadists, but perfectly normal people." As in the infamous Stanford prison experiment, you can "put good people into a bad barrel and they come out bad apples."
More to the point, however, is the fact that Reid and Sharff used psychological measures to get results. Their methodologies do not involve violence. On the contrary, they demand a keen rapport between interviewer and subject. An interrogation is a conversation. Torture is anything but.
Reid, in fact, shares much with the famed Lieutenant Columbo, whose technique, as Changing Minds puts it, was to: "(a) Get them talking, and (b) Slip in the real question." Once a subject is relaxed, Columbo
Sharff, incidentally, shifted from mosaics of military intelligence to literal mosaics. Some of his works are on display at Cinderella Castle in Disney World as well as the floor of California's capitol building in Sacramento.
- Vladimir Bukovsky, a former Soviet dissident imprisoned for over a decade (and often tortured himself), in 18 December 2005 Washington Post
When Bukovsky wrote that torture is "the professional disease of any investigative machinery," we might be inclined to say: this is just sour grapes from someone who enjoyed a few too many "Chekist handshakes." But it seems that people from the other side of the interrogation table are inclined to agree. Former CIA station chief (and excellent novelist) Milt Bearden argued in the LA Times on 23 May 2004 that torture is "as futile as it is brutal."
In works of fiction like Jean Larteguy's Les Centurions, on television shows like 24, and in the minds of many US interrogators and conservative commentators, however, torture is a brutal but sometimes necessary element of intelligence gathering. Gillo Pontecorvo's ostensibly anti-war Battle of Algiers similarly suggests that torture yields useful information; hence its popularity in private Pentagon screenings. (A flyer for a 2003 Department of Defense screening of the film said that the French "have a plan" that "succeeds tactically, but fails strategically." In other words, the problem was not that torture took place - it worked well, didn't it? - but rather that it radicalized the friends, families, and societies of those being tortured.)
Finding What You're Looking For, and the Logic of Perpetual Emergency
In one popular joke, the CIA is impressed at how many terrorists the Tunisian secret police have captured. Some case officers fly to Tunis to learn more. The CIA team arrives and compliments the Tunisians on their abilities. A Tunisian officer smiles and produces a rabbit. "Look at this rabbit," he says. "We'll release him and he will vanish. Just try and find him. If you can't do it in 24 hours, we'll show you how." He lets the rabbit go. The CIA team puts a trained dog on the rabbit's scent, but 24 hours pass without success. The Tunisian team then takes the dog and puts it in a basement. They suspend it in the air, pull out its claws, burn it with cigarettes, and beat it senseless. "Where's the rabbit?" demands the Tunisian interrogator. "I don't know," the dog sobs faintly. The Tunisian takes two electric wires and crosses them. They crackle, spitting sparks. He then presses the exposed wires onto opposite sides of the dog's body, which convulses wildly. The wires are removed and the dog howls in agony. "Where's the rabbit?" the Tunisian asks again. The dog yelps: "I am the rabbit!"
Torture is an excellent tool to extract confessions. Anyone can be tortured until he admits that he shot JFK or that he was Osama bin Laden's personal barber. But meaningful facts and operational details are different. You cannot torture someone into giving you my bank account PIN. Worse, even if he knows my PIN, he can give you a false one, buying me enough time to withdraw my money.
In his article, Bearden described how "the ticking-bomb scenario" has become many interrogators' North Star. Lives may be on the line; to get actionable information, then, the interrogator must do, as a popular television character often says, "Whatever it takes." Bearden describes the result: "every detainee became a 'high-value' subject, and...every intelligence question became a 'ticking bomb' case." Consequently, torture becomes the norm, rather than the exception.
Pain and death do not deter a committed ideologue. The Romans asked early Christians to recant or die; thousands chose to be crucified, burned at the stake, and fed to the wild animals of the Coliseum rather than betray their principles. Many others - from Jeanne D'Arc to William Wallace - similarly refused to make concessions to their torturers until the end. Though not all criminals are so self-righteous, the ones who join al-Qaeda-inspired organizations tend to be.
Interrogation Alternatives
Many professional interrogators argue that violence can be counter-productive, that "patience and cunning" could be more effective. Nazi interrogator Hanns Scharff is frequently held up as a model, since he had a well-deserved reputation for always getting actionable intelligence from his prisoners. To Sharff, intelligence was a like a mosaic or jigsaw puzzle. An investigator had to know the outline and some of the details and leverage them to fill in the rest. Sharff's "interrogations" would often consist of a friendly dinner, a philosophical conversation, or a walk through the woods. Sharff would profile his subjects and manipulate them into revealing information in the course of seemingly insignificant small talk. Many never realized that they had betrayed sensitive information to the Nazis until much later. For a long time, recounts a former interrogator, "the interrogation course at the US Army Intelligence Center and School...[was] based on the techniques that Sharff developed...All that seems to have gone out the window in favor of torture now." When the Pentagon invited Scharff to the US for a lecture tour (comparisons to Werner von Braun come to mind), the OC Weekly reports that "Scharff told his military audiences that camaraderie, fair treatment and respect are the indispensable keys to extracting information from the enemy." The contrast is stark between "Scharff's wine-with-dinner technique" - which got results - and "Lynndie England gleefully forcing Iraqi prisoners to masturbate while screwing her Army buddies in front of them" - which did not.
An anecdote from contemporary Iraq is also suggestive:
"Faced with finding the exact location of a minefield in an approximate area, U.S. servicemen lined up some 100 Iraqis next to the field. Off in the distance was a playground of children. 'You may think it’s U.S. soldiers who will die because you won’t tell us where the field is,' Nelson [the interrogator] recalls his colleague saying. 'But it’s the children over there who will die if you don’t tell us where it is.' Six of the 100 stepped forward to locate the mines. 'You actually get better, more accurate intelligence information when you comply with the law,' Nelson reiterates."
A similar methodology known as The Reid Technique was popularized for US law enforcement interrogators. The interrogator is asked to present plausible rationales for a suspect's alleged crime, drawing out confessions through non-leading questions and appeals to an alleged criminal's sense of self-righteousness.
Most criminals feels that their crimes are justified. For example, a criminal may say to himself: It wasn't arson - I just wanted to prove that the fire department's response time is too slow, to cause smoke damage to my rude neighbor's house, or perhaps simply to see how my he would react. It wasn't child abuse - I was toughening him up so that bullies wouldn't hurt him when he was older, or I touched her there to show my love and affection. I didn't kill anyone - I put her out of her misery, I only shook the child to get him to stop crying, I only intended to cut her slightly with the knife. And so forth. Most people firmly believe: "I didn't do anything wrong." This distortion of reality occurs because people do not want to experience guilt and anxiety. The suspect is then led to confess to a self-justifying version of events - that is, a more socially acceptable but equally prosecutable version of his crime.
Interestingly , torturers exhibit tendencies similar to other kinds of criminals. As presented in the Washington Post ("The Psychology of Torture", 11 May 2004), "torturers usually feel that they are carrying out the will of their societies...the torturers were not sadists, but perfectly normal people." As in the infamous Stanford prison experiment, you can "put good people into a bad barrel and they come out bad apples."
More to the point, however, is the fact that Reid and Sharff used psychological measures to get results. Their methodologies do not involve violence. On the contrary, they demand a keen rapport between interviewer and subject. An interrogation is a conversation. Torture is anything but.
Reid, in fact, shares much with the famed Lieutenant Columbo, whose technique, as Changing Minds puts it, was to: "(a) Get them talking, and (b) Slip in the real question." Once a subject is relaxed, Columbo
slips in a question about what he really wants to know. One of the tricks he uses is to phrase the question indirectly. If he wants to know whether a person drives a red car, he picks up something red and talks about a car he used to have that was the same shade of red. The conversation might go something like this:
Columbo: "This is a nice clock. You know, I used to have a car exactly the same color as this. Chevvy, it was."
Suspect: "Hey, I've got a red Chevvy!"
Columbo: "Have you? Well, you know mine was a pretty good one."
Suspect: "Well mine's a '56. Special convertible!"
Columbo: "There aren't too many of those around."
Suspect: "Yeah, I got it from a guy down on 52nd Street."
Sharff, incidentally, shifted from mosaics of military intelligence to literal mosaics. Some of his works are on display at Cinderella Castle in Disney World as well as the floor of California's capitol building in Sacramento.
An interrogator's story and the antecedents to torture
One of the things that really characterized the Bush Administration's, and in particular the Defense Department's response to 9/11 was the idea that we were going to succeed by intimidating the enemy into submission. The corollary, of course, was that it was perhaps regrettable but in the end perfectly justifiable when innocent people were caught up and harmed; that a demonstration of power would make these people less likely to aid and abet terrorists.
BP has already drawn our attention to the connection between the war on terror and a sort of worldwide counterinsurgency campaign. The trouble is that in counterinsurgency, the strategy of massive force and intimidation is utterly wrong. Time and again we have seen how it backfires.
And within that context it is harrowing to read the story of an Army interrogator in Iraq and the methods he used. It is particularly awful in light of his own argument that almost all prisoners tortured were either completely innocent or lacking in any important information.
In the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal, the DOD tried to portray the problem as one of a few "bad apples". It is very obvious now that the Administration's much-vaunted "gloves off" approach led quite directly to the abuses committed on the ground. It is also excruciatingly clear that the bias towards excessive force inflamed rather than extinguished the insurgency. As we draw further from the initial stages of our response to 9/11, it is vitally important that we recognize what impulses led directly to abuses committed later, and also that we acknowledge the ideas that informed those now-bankrupt strategies.
BP has already drawn our attention to the connection between the war on terror and a sort of worldwide counterinsurgency campaign. The trouble is that in counterinsurgency, the strategy of massive force and intimidation is utterly wrong. Time and again we have seen how it backfires.
And within that context it is harrowing to read the story of an Army interrogator in Iraq and the methods he used. It is particularly awful in light of his own argument that almost all prisoners tortured were either completely innocent or lacking in any important information.
In the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal, the DOD tried to portray the problem as one of a few "bad apples". It is very obvious now that the Administration's much-vaunted "gloves off" approach led quite directly to the abuses committed on the ground. It is also excruciatingly clear that the bias towards excessive force inflamed rather than extinguished the insurgency. As we draw further from the initial stages of our response to 9/11, it is vitally important that we recognize what impulses led directly to abuses committed later, and also that we acknowledge the ideas that informed those now-bankrupt strategies.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)