Redstate

1. Newsweek reported a Pentagon source told them that a Southcom report would include accusations that interrogators had flushed pages (or the entire Koran) down a toilet in an effort to intimidate prisoners at Guantanamo.
   
2. The Pentagon saw the Newsweek article before it was published and did not object to its content (although today Larry DiRita denied that the Pentagon saw the story before publication)
   
3. Last week General Meyer thought that the riots in Afghanistan were preplanned and had nothing to do with the Newsweek article.
   
4. After the article was published the leaker backtracked, first apparently saying that maybe the allegations were in another report then retracting completely.
   
5. Now the Pentagon says there is absolutely no truth to the allegations.
   
6. These allegations have been floating around for two years along with numerous other allegations of American troops and interrogators denigrating and demeaning Islam and Arabic custom to break and humilate detainees.  One need look no further than the Abu Garib photos and numerous other published sources to see that these allegations cannot be dismissed out of hand.

Congratulations for keeping a lid on that even as much as you did, I would never have gone there because I would have shown much less restraint.  ;-)

Kevin Drum can be very good at pushing the right buttons at the right moments, along with a few others over at the Washington Monthly who along with Josh Marshall have a knack for making little artful jabs in just the right places and then doing a pirouette.  In fact, sometimes I imagine that they live in houses full of luminous buttons that flash either pseudorandomly or are tripped by distress signals impinging on their roof antennae when something goes Wrong, because they need to spread the blame around or reflect it back on their adversaries...kinda like the old games Simon or Merlin, except that there are a lot more buttons and they press them for political reasons instead of just for fun or to play tic-tac-toe.

Some of the lights on the buttons begin to glow especially brightly when they're really discombobulated about something that has exploded at one of their mouthpieces, (notice the relative dearth of opposition posters here in the past 24 hours -- I think they're a little dispirited today, kinda like they were on November 3) and so they need to press the button, transfer the blame, and rally the troops.  It's deliberately provocative in the way Paul Krugman can be when he uses Marxist terms in his inimitable way.  He reads Washington Monthly too.  It's all so much fun!  

Short version: the only thing that matters to conservative bloggers is their continuing jihad against the liberal media. All else is subordinate.

Don't let him get too far under your skin, though.  This is Standard Operating Procedure, from what I've seen before.  Go for a jog, wake up tomorrow and get back to business.  Over and out.

1. Coverage of the War on Terror has been slanted from the beginning.  Tons of stories of terrorists (oops, insurgents) causing havoc.  It is only lately we hear that many of them are foreign terrorists. Anything good or honorable we get in letters home from Marines.
   
2. We still don't have a name for the "source."  He could be Mr. Wizard or ALF or a Power Ranger, but until we get a name or a documentation from an outside source, there is no proof he exists.
   
3. The argument from silence is an invalid arguing point.  It is like me standing outside my house and yelling "are there any liberals out there?"  Of course I would not hear a response- but that does not mean that they are not out there.  In the same way, just because nobody objected at the Pentagon doesn't mean they wouldn't have.  Maybe they skimmed over it.
   
4. There is no sense of Patriotism coming from Newsweek in this.  Do these writers have sons/daughters in Iraq that are sure to have a rougher go of it than they would have?  Just because something can be reported, doesn't mean it should be reported. I thought the left was the party who was so concerned about bringing our boys home.  This will extend their stay considerably, I would assume.
   
5. Just because our society is so morally bankrupt that we allow a crucifix to float in a bowl or urine and call it art does not mean that others are that way.  Are these Muslims primitive, or should they be commended for at least having some convictions about something?
   

Would the left feel the same if (God forbid) someone had blown up another building over this?

I am sick and tired of these transcendentally stupid arguments discussing how the "conservative bloggers" want to have a war with the mainstream media

Absolutely. They should say some conservative bloggers. Some would love to work hand-in-glove with the mainstream media to ensure a somewhat interesting and educational debate.

Not me. I am at the point where my goal is to discredit them in every possible way I can until they are utterly destroyed.

That is not to say that I want to have a war with the mainstream media. It is to say that I am in one anyway, and I accept that, and I am going to behave accordingly.

I do not hold Michael Isikoff, or Newsweek, responsible for the deaths. I do not believe they planned that. And so I am not even angry with them over that. Let others play Gotcha Lawyer with them, holding them culpable for the fluke outcome of a failure to predict the future which, had a subatomic particle been two centimeters away from where it was, would have been no such error.

No, what I am angry with them for is that they deliberately traded foreseeable harm to the interests of their country, at home and abroad, for a single opportunity to inflict transient harm on an Administration that they politically oppose.

This is my war with the mainstream media. They do this constantly. All of them. They would trade the citizenry of Los Angeles for a single good spear thrown at Bush. Yes, I believe that. I believe they are inherently malevolent individuals motivated almost entirely by partisan hatreds. They have traded whatever "journalistic ethics" they might have once had for an agenda of lies, distortions, half-truths, and omissions in the pursuit of partisan advantage. In doing so they have lost my respect and gained my enmity.

I will exploit this incident to the best of my ability to further discredit them; and I will do so shamelessly. As shamelessly as they exploited the sickness of the night shift at Abu Ghraib to throw spear after spear at the President, at the military, and at me.

A pox on these people, and all of their houses, now and forever Amen. I will fight them in every venue I can find, until their circulation and their ratings decline to where their behavior no longer supports them financially. And only then will I rest.

as has been said before, glad you're on our side!

Nick Danger, YOU ROCK!!

They have earned this emnity from Conservatives in buckets and spades ...

Speaking personally, I have a great many things on my To-Do List that take precedence over a war with the mainstream media, and contrary to the import of these moronic conspiracy theories, I would love to work hand-in-glove with the mainstream media to ensure a somewhat interesting and educational debate.

Likewise ...

But let's be honest it is not just our imagination that the Press has been actively anti-Conservative and anti-Republican for more than three decades and if there are Republicans and Conservatives who are "somewhat hostile" to the Press, is that such a scandal?

And considering the way they attacked Scott McClellan yesterday, I am more than willing to see this escalated.

What I wouldn't give to have a completely tactless, pugilistic, ranting and brutal Press secretary treat them with the disrespect they have fully earned and tear them new a**h*l*s each and every day.

Here are some references to other reports of Koran descrations:

http://rawstory.com/exclusives/newsweek_koran_report_516.htm

Newsweek did not kill anybody. Place the blame on the actual killers.

If the Bible was flushed down the toilet in Afganistan, would there be riots in Rome?

...richie

No, what I am angry with them for is that they deliberately traded foreseeable harm to the interests of their country, at home and abroad, for a single opportunity to inflict transient harm on an Administration that they politically oppose.

That's why we have the First Amendment, so that people can criticise the goverment - even when you don't like it.

It's not the job of the press to make the goverment look good.

I'm suprized that you are outraged at "Newsweek", but not at the administration for the way it treats the prisoners in Gitmo and elsewhere.

...richie

That's why we have the First Amendment, so that people can criticise the goverment - even when you don't like it.

I understand that. Nowhere have I proposed that the government, or the military, or anyone else, should shut them down by force.

What I propose to do is use my own free speech rights to join similarly-minded individuals to persuade our fellow citizens that these people need to go away, and that the way to make that happen is for free citzens to exercise their choices in such a way that the offending entities go out of business for lack of public support.

This effort is well within my rights, and I shall continue with it. As you are free to sell Newsweek subscriptions door-to-door if you please. Good luck.

he is on your side, but for very different reasons.  Tilting at windmills is a bipartisan sport, but we certainly don't need more Quixotes.

1. NEWSWEEK seizes upon a slacious allegation based on rumor of something that may have been in an FBI memo no one at NEWSWEEK has seen.
   
2. NEWSWEEK floats the same rumor past an unidentified, anonymous Pentagon source Isikoff has "found reliable' in the past. The source says he's heard something about a Koran and crapper.
   
3. NEWSWEEK allegedly runs the story to the Pentagon for comment. Why the Pentagon press office would treat the story as anything more than a courtesy copy of what was going to be printed is anyone's guess. Ordinarily in a press office you don't fact check allegations, you fact check quotes by your principals and statistics or data points. In my experience, fairly extensive in this area, I can't imagine doing anything with the article other than passing it around as a heads-up. Though now NEWSWEEK is apparently taking the view that it is up to the government to correct their errors. Funny, I thought they had editors over there.
   
4. NEWSWEEK runs with a totally unsourced, inflammatory allegation based on bupkus.
   
5. People died because of the article. Regardless of what Myers said, the rioters in Afghanistan and Pakistan weren't waving copies of Harry Potter.
   
6. But because only mere Third Worlders died and only the reputation of the US damaged and only the lives of US citizens abroad placed in unnecessary jeopardy, NEWSWEEK, the general media, the left, and you in particular are saying no-harm-no-foul.

...we could infuse some of your clear-sighted determination into the Rupublican leadership.  

Your post is superb.  I couldn't have said it better myself.  

What the Republican leadership and every other half-steppin' weenie on the right needs to realize that we are indeed at war.  A culture war.  The enemy is the MSM, the Dems, the purveyors of the "piss-Christ" mentality, those who foist value-free education on our children, and many, many more of like ilk.

The status quo is good for them and bad for us precisely because they have a sympathetic echo chamber in the MSM.  We have to take the initiative.  We have to take the war to them.  We have to fight them on the land, in the air, and on the seas.  We cannot rest until their mealy-mouthed, law breaking, secularist, equivocating, communist butts are destroyed.

The time to act is now.  Do not shrink.  If they want activism, we'll give'em activism.  If they want debate, we'll give them debate.  If they want name-calling, we'll give them name-calling.  But we cannot stop until they are defeated.

Yes, and I'm sure they are quaking in their boots.  Your venom is misplaced, but your right to crusade is certainly well protected, and to that extent I support you wholeheartedly.

1.  I'll agree with you.  Coverage on the war on terror has been slanted.  Why else would so many people still believe Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks or that the WMD existed?
   
2.  The source was not made up.  Everyone agrees with that.  Don't create controversy where there is none.
   
3.  If the Pentagon had the opportunity to review a short (my understanding is it is a couple paragraphs) article and didn't bother to read it closely, that is hardly Newsweek's fault is it?  If Newsweek's account is true, then someone at the Pentagon screwed up big time and is at least partially responsible for the publication of what the Pentagon now claims is completely false information.
   
4.  This is where your definition of patriotism and mine sharply diverge.  My definition of a true patriot is someone who fights for what President Bush talks about; things like the rule of law, democracy, human rights, personal responsibility, and the dignity of all human beings.  If we lose these things fighting the war on terror then we have lost the war.  The rule of law has been suspended at Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and in other secret detention facilities scattered around the world.  There have been numerous and credible accusations of mistreatment, demeaning, and inhumane treatment (including desecration of the Koran), and even torture from former detainees, NGOs, and government sources that cannot be dismissed out of hand.  I think a true patriot stands up and says that Americans don't do things like this and we should stop.
   
5.  I think the fact that we are willing to countenance torture and allow the administration to do anything it deems necessary to win the war on terror (and label anyone who objects to the administrations methods as unpatriotic or a traitor) says more about our moral bankruptcy than some bad avant garde art from 1989 (isn't there a statute of limitations on examples of the decadence of the left).  

You know, when I hear rants about the slanted coverage, I always think about the local evening news coverage of murders and rapes.  People are simply more interested in the negative aspect of news - and the media serve their customers.  I'm sure there are political biases which also influence coverage, but in the end, like any good corporation, it's about the bottom line.

Tilting at windmills is a bipartisan sport

One man, a lawyer named Harry MacDougald in Atlanta, made a single post on Free Republic noting his observation that the typeface on the Dan Rather memo appeared to be proportionally-spaced Times New Roman; that it was therefore fake; and that this should be pursued aggressively.

The result was a blogstorm that grabbed Dan Rather by the ankles and pulled him right off his perch.

Not long afterward, another blogstorm blew CNN's Eason Jordan off his perch.

If this be tilting at windmills, I'll take it.

2. Actually, everyone doesn't agree. Isikoff and his editor agree. But not everyone agrees. Really we are asked to take it on faith that Isikoff's source exists. That is the fact.
   
3. Not true. A press office would not fact check a story for a reporter. You fact check quotes made by spokesmen or your principals if they seem unusual. You fact check statistics. You would not get into an argument with a reporter like Isikoff over this, then it becomes a "cover up." Press offices do not exist to do this. If you know someone and like them you might tell them that they are going out in left field, in my experience you wouldn't comment on an unsourced allegation.

First off, though, excellent rant, Pejman.

Regardless of what Myers said, the rioters in Afghanistan and Pakistan weren't waving copies of Harry Potter.

The point that I fear is being lost, however, is that a poorly-sourced sentence in a paragraph-sized blurb in an American newsmagazine did not, in and by itself, cause this explosion of violence.  It was the match, to be sure.  But the powder was already present, prepared, and primed.  

The real story -- which I feel bloggers on the left and right are both missing -- is the fact that there was so much powder lying around that a relatively small mistake could ignite it.  Indeed, what the jihadist explosions demonstrate more than anything is that we are not even close to winning in the war in Afghanistan (and let's not even begin with our putative allies, the alternatively fascist and jihadist Pakistanis).  One small slip (and it was small, despite the hype) is all that's needed to set it off.

Blast Newsweek, sure.  Blast Messrs. Drum and Sullivan for their conspiracy theories, absolutely.  But don't overstate the case, and don't take your eye off the ball.  Newsweek didn't kill anyone.  The folks in Afghanistan and Pakistan did.  All Newsweek is guilty of is making the kind of mistake that can occur only where there is a free press.  In fact, it's easily said that such mistakes will inevitably occur in a free society.  

And that, from a certain way of thinking, is a good thing.

Well gee Warrior, I guess that means we're at war.  Funny thing is, I thought Buchanan declared culture war at the 1992 convention, and it didn't work out so well for you.  Moreover, you're never going to destroy us, any more than we're going to destroy you.  That's silly.

Fortunately, you don't really represent the Republican party any more than Kos represents the Democratic party, so I'll take it for what it's worth.  There is always more common ground than the folks with the sharpest axes to grind make out.  

The proximate cause of the riot, regardless of the undercurrents, was the article.

At a minimum Isikoff showed a reckless disregard for the forseeable consequences of this inflammatory story.

So I have no problem holding him to the same legal standard as we would hold someone who incited a mob to violence.

We'll see how far it gets you.  CBS is still around, as is CNN.  The people you take down will be replaced by others.  Perhaps you will help the media clear out some deadwood, bully for you, but in the big picture, blogs will operate in concert with other forms of news and opinion, not in defiance of them.

conclusion on this Koran issue, so we don't know that it was false as you state, plus, as others have said, there is a context of similar abuse surrounding it, if not exactly the same abuse, which has to be considered. Sure some of the accusations are by prisoners so can be said to be suspect, but some are not and no one can deny the Abu Ghraib abuses and the rendition of prisoners to places like Uzbekistan which tortures and boils body parts of its prisoners as it remains "our friend."

Seems to me that the arguments in favor of Newsweek can be summed up into two thoughts...

1. That the reporters should be protected by the First Amendment.  The First Amendment presupposes a people with conscience. John Adams wrote, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." (The works of John Adams, C.F.Adams, Boston, Little Brown Co.).  A religious person asks the question not just "can it be done," but "is this the right thing to do."  Swimming in a sea of moral relativism, the reporters for Newsweek appear to consider their monolithic organization their "Higher Power."  This has proved to be disastrous and deadly.
   
   
2. That we are already torturing detainees so what does it matter if we desecrate their holy book.  Okay, I'll take the bait on this one, and say it in case nobody else has yet.  Where have we decided that some forms of torture are always wrong?  When we have an enemy who is blowing up innocent civilians, hacking peoples heads off, and blowing themselves and their children up to get at us, might we need to redefine our methods of interrogation?  Has anybody watched "Man on fire?"  It made me sick to my stomach, but it makes sense.  If we had to cut a couple of fingers off a murderous lunatic to save a bunch of kids at a school in a remote part of the world wouldn't it be worth it?  Remember when Chechens' grabbed the theater in Moscow- and Mr. Putin gassed the whole theater and asked questions later?  Our "civil rights" people would have been infuriated.  Lawsuits would have been filed.  But they got the job done.  One thing that Russia has learned is that there is no negotiation with terrorists.  For the most part, they keep their press in check.  In this case the liberty of the few (the press) is hindered in order that the many (the common man) might not just have a better life, but a normal one; dying of old age with all of their body parts attached.  So what am I saying?  That we should be more like Russia?  No.  But what I am saying is that in the war on terror, if the conscience of the reporters won't keep them from divulging military secrets (thereby putting our troops, ambassadors, and citizens in jeopardy) perhaps they should not be granted acces to these matters, and certainly not be allowed to report heresay from "undocumented soureces"

C'mon guys, be real-those of you that are dads.  Don't tell me if one of your kids got snatched and one of the kidnappers broke his leg in your yard and was caught-that you wouldn't tell the police to use "whatever means necessary" to extract the information from him...

bloggers on the other side of the ideological and partisan divide have the exact same wish.[viz: would love to work hand-in-glove with the mainstream media to ensure a somewhat interesting and educational debate. ]

You are naive.  The Democrat party was lost to the US during the 1970's.  Its leadership was replaced by Leninists.  Not all are Soviet-style planned economy types, but all are 'Vanguard' leadership types.  Free flow of information is damaging to the 'revolution' or the success of the party.  Democratic leaderships based their leadership on the principle that they do know more than the rank and file and that some rhetoric must be mouthed with insincerity to placate or distract the masses while important work gets done.

What has the Democrat party done, in opposition to the GOP, for the good of America since 22Nov63?  [nb: nothing] The Democrat party is the party of treason, not just to American liberty, not just to American soldiers in combat, but to the concept of free and open debate.

2.  Sorry, but I don't think anyone, even the Pentagon or the White House, has raised the allegation that Isikoff created his source out of thin air.  That would be a serious and indefensible charge indeed.
   
3.  But isn't that the Penatgon's claim now? That any idiot would know these allegations would incite riots in the Muslim world.  Even the dumbest GS-5 government employee should have read the article and said, "Whoa, this is going to cause riots in Afghanistan".  At least that is the way the Administration (and this site) is painting it.

2.  Let him prove he didn't.

3.You mean "any idiot" working at Newsweek couldn't have thought this either?

in 2. Where have we decided that some forms of torture are always wrong?  We have decided this by not only signing and ratifying the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture

and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading

Treatment or Punishment (the latter applies whether or not the detainee is covered by the Geneva Conventions), but by being a major proponent of both.  Even President Bush has stated unequivocally that "We do not torture people" (although I personally don't believe him).  If you are saying we should not be like Russia, why use it as an example?

Torture is always wrong.  It is an immoral, unethical, illegal tactic that dehumanizes the torturer and the victim and breeds resentment in the population you are trying to win over.  For a site with so many frequent posters who continually profess their Christianity to find torture acceptable for any reason is shocking.  

Information gained from torture is questionable at best and even if valid, the tactical gain is outweighed by the strategic loss.

If you want to distinguish a country that truly believes in the rule of law and justice from one that does not, the use of torture is one easy way to distinguish one from the other.  Unfortunately, we are starting to slip to the wrong side of that line.

The proximate cause of the riot, regardless of the undercurrents, was the article.

At a minimum Isikoff showed a reckless disregard for the forseeable consequences of this inflammatory story.

So I have no problem holding him to the same legal standard as we would hold someone who incited a mob to violence.

Oh, come on.  This is not a law school exam on the application of Palsgraf to an incitement charge -- and if you really do want to talk about "incitement," "reckless disregard" and "proximate cause," you're going to come up short & look silly.  For instance:

A.  Incitement requires intent.  Negligence (if this was negligence) doesn't cut it.  There's no evidence of intent; indeed, the evidence is to the contrary.  So "incitement" -- the "yelling fire in a crowded theatre when you know there's no fire" is out.

B.  So, what about the negligence charge?  For a negligence theory to work, you must presume that the journalist is under some sort of implied duty of care (for negligence is, in general, nothing but the violation of such I duty).  I can think of two possible duties, and both conflict with a free society -- to say nothing of the First Amendment guaranteee of freedom of press (viewed according to the meaning of the phrase at the time of Constitution's ratification):

1.  Journalists have a duty to avoid running stories based on a single anonymous source (where, by way of other events -- e.g., Abu Ghraib -- the source's story is credible).  I presume you realize that such a standard would have illegalized huge swaths of journalism in this country, from Poor Richard on and is (at best) counterproductive and (at worst) wholly unAmerican.  And, to those who are willing to dispense en toto with anonymous sources, know that -- above and beyond the utter idiocy of such a requirement from a public policy standpoint -- you're standing opposite Ben Franklin, among many other founders and the well-considered meaning of the First Amendment's press clause.
   
2.  Journalists have a duty to avoid running stories critical of the Government's wartime policy.  Even though I suspect a few folks would argue that journalists should be barred from criticizing the government during wartime (a group that does not include Streiff), no reasonable person who believes in a free society can have such an opinion.  (If you disagree, ask whether you think it was appropriate for newspapers/you to criticize Clinton's handling of the Bosnian campaign -- and get back to me.)

The price we pay for a free press and free society is the occasional -- including, yes, the occasionally disasterous -- mistake.  Freedom has consequences.  But freedom is worth suffering those consequences.  

Or, to paraphrase Justice Black:  We must not be afraid to be free.

about Buchanan all you want.  I don't care for his isolationism myself.  But a culture war we have regardless of who parrots the term.

You have succeeded in destroying a peaceful, Godly, and decorous culture.  In like fashion, we will destroy the forces which have brought us to the sad state of "debating" whether homosexuals should be married.  

I never claimed to represent the Republican party.  And indeed, the Republican Party is quickly losing any claim to represent me.

And if you think returning respect for the law, respect for religion, and non-pornographic entertainment to our culture is having an ax to grind, you really need to get out more.  Try going to church once in a while...

We were "friends" with Stalin in another war.  

CBS is still around, as is CNN.

CBS is tarnished goods. It's all over but the shouting. This from Variety:

CBS' "Evening News," led by interim anchor Bob Schieffer, saw its lowest viewer tally on record last week, while the sprint for first in the evening news race remained incredibly close with 150,000 viewers separating NBC and ABC.

CBS' 6.1 million average nightly viewers last week was its lowest total since record-keeping started in 1987.

BTW, 60 Minutes II was just cancelled. So there went Dan's last perch. Courage.

As a demonstration of my magnanimity toward my foes, I have decided to leave CNN to the tender mercies of Roger Ailes, who is doing a bang-up job of sending CNN to the bottom all by himself.

I guess you've read nothing of real soldiers' stories from America's wars.  Wars are brutal.  They aren't conducted in the rarified atmosphere of a courtroom full of ACLU lawyers.

The Old Testamnet is full of instances of stoning people.  Do you think stoning is a form of torture?  If not, you need to think about it for a minute or two.  And people were stoned for things like adultery.  How much less would God tolerate in the case of calculated mass murder?  Believe me, God is not some smiling milquetoast, telling everyone to play nice.  That is only the MSM and Hollywood fantasy.  

He takes these things seriously and expects us to as well.  Sorry if you aren't happy with that.  Take it up with the Almighty...

was used to illustrate how an atheistic nation (or post-Christian depending on your view, deals with terrorism.  Where are we?  When we talk about abortion or posting the Ten Commandments the left cries "Separation!! First Ammendment!!!" But when we are talking about slapping someone in the face untill they reveal their plans of destruction they cry "it's immoral-it's illegal."  

Why is torture wrong?  Because it's illegal? So legality is a test for right and wrong?

Because it's immoral?  Religion!  Separation!

I find it amusing that you want to tell me what is Christian and not.  I have read the Bible cover to cover several times.  It says "protect the innocent, do justly, love mercy."

The "love your enemies" passage was spoken to disciples regarding their daily interaction-not to military leaders.  And even if the Bible spoke about this situation- would you have us use it as a pattern?

Theocracy! Separation!!

Please also note that my views ONLY represent my views and not redstate.org or the republican party.  Just because I come "from right field" does not mean I represent the whole any more than Michael Jackson represents the music industry.

PS.  I am not saying that I believe torture good or bad.  I believe the highest good is saving innocent lives.  It is my understanding that the goal of torture in the Geneva convention was obtaining military plans against military personel.  Since terrorists wage war on innocent civilians, might that not change the rules?

Since you didn't answer my question, I will.  If someone took my kid, I would tell the cops go into a dark room where there is no media and kick the snot out of the kidnapper until he told.

But I live in California- land of the Almighty Governator!

Why is torture wrong?  Because it's illegal? So legality is a test for right and wrong? Because it's immoral?  Religion!  Separation!

I'll give three very good reasons.

1. It is illegal--we are party to a treaty that outlaws torture, and treaties are, along with the Constitution, the supreme law of the land.

2. It is immoral by just about any conception of morality outside of a serial killer's.

3. It is ineffective.

which also deals with treatment of civilians and insurgents by the way, we still are signatories (and major proponents by the way) of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment which covers all people detained or held by the government, regardless of their legal status.  And as it name implies it outlaws all the activities listed in its title.

Torture is wrong because it is immoral.  It is illegal because it is immoral.  It is immoral for the same collective punishment, summary execution, and imprisonment without trial or charges is immoral; because it denies basic human rights to the victims and assumes guilt without due process (after all if you are torturing someone you must assume he is guilty of something).  It also dehumanizes the perpetrator and the society that practices it.

As for your hypothetical (a twist on the ticking timebomb scenario), you forgot to add the caveat that the kidnappers have left a message that they will kill your son in 24 hours and you have no other recourse other than to torture the captured kidnapper.  Otherwise torturing him is simple vengence, which is definitely against Jesus' admonition to "turn the other cheek".  Even if there is a ransom demand, you should pay the ransom and throw in whatever extra money you can scrape up to fulfill the "if a man demands your cloak, also give him your shirt" advice.  So no I would hope I would not want to torture the man to punish him for his crime, or at least realize that such emotions, however justified and powerful, were wrong and should not be acted on.

think stoning is a form of torture, don't you?  What a bizarre question.  I would imagine that there would be few things more painful than having rocks thrown at me til I died.  And I think Jesus made a pretty strong case for the end of stoning as a punishment for adultery.

Gee, and I thought the message of Jesus and the New Testament was one of love and inclusion, and that by his death and resurrection he took away the sins of the world.  He even forgave the Romans who crucified him.  Consequently, the God of Wrath from the Old Testament made a New Covenant with the world predicated on redemption and forgiveness.  That no matter what our collective or individual sins, Redemption was possible.

Yes, wars are brutal.  That is why strict rules of military discipline and humane treatment of the enemy, especially detainees, are absolutely essential to prevent soldiers from turning into an uncontrollable mob.  If the message from above is that abuse of the enemy is tolerated, the slide to barbarism is far too easy.  We are trying to win hearts and minds in this war, if the message is that these people can be abused then those hearts and minds will be lost and result in more danger to our troops and less cooperation by the population we are trying to win over.

By who's morality? The "insurgents?"

Are not they torturing innocent civilians before whacking off their heads? (In the pictures I have seen prior to beheadings, the victims are always covered with blood.)

What the victims  civil rights?  Has anyone from the ACLU hopped on a plane to negotiate their release?

It does not seem the left is oposed to writing laws in their favor and vigorously defending them(abortion for example the which is arguably more brutal than torture; sucking an American citizen's brains out while they are only 1 month old)

Why not rethink interrogation methods to accomodate our new adversary- or at lest deny the liberal press access so they won't be offended?

That's what we're doing with rendering...

show you don't know very much you are writing about.

2. Just because no one has brought up the fact that the source may not exist, or may be a composite of sources, doesn't mean that a lot of people have doubts about the source.
   
3. Just patently untrue. That's not the way a government or a corporate press office functions in this situation. You don't respond to anonymous allegations. And if the dumbest GS-5 government employee then this implies that Isikoff is either stupider than a GS-5 or he deliberately set out to cause riots.

I'm judging our actions, not those of the insurgents or the terrorists.  

Surely you are not suggesting that because they torture and kill their hostages that gives us the right to torture and kill anyone we decide is "against" us in the war on terror.  Remember, we are fighting a war against terror, not a war to prove who is better at terror.

(It is immoral by just about any conception of morality outside of a serial killer's.)

I agree.  I think you could add terrorists to your definition.  In fact, most terrorists are serial killers.  Might it not be that slight measures of torture could be used in extreme situations for the purpose of extracting information?  By their actions they have shown that we would only be acting in accordance with their moral code.

(It is ineffective)

You are dead wrong here.  Examples.

1. When a child lies to their parents they are tortured with time out, until they fess up and tell the truth. (mental torture)
   
2. When a prisoner causes trouble he is put in isolation until he changes his behaviour (mental and physical, hunger pangs)
   
3. Roman scourging (such as Jesus had)was often used to get people to tell the truth and or recant.  In Jesus' case, it was not effective in that sense, because He had a mission to fulfil.
   

But the exception only proves the rule.  The Roman soldiers knew it was effective, that's why they did it.

In fact- since I have been in these online forums, I have read where homosexuals have written "Jesus never spoke out against homosexuality."  Well, he never spoke out against torture, either. That's significant considering the Bible declares that He was beaten "beyond recognition of a man."

Is Jesus silence a test for morality?  If you say no here, then to be consistent we should apply it to the former argument, as well....

what the jihadist explosions demonstrate more than anything is that we are not even close to winning in the war in Afghanistan

I don't think you can draw that conclusion from the existence of the riots. Weren't there also riots the week before involving some Moslem editor or publisher who supposedly desecrated the Koran, or The Prophet, or who-cares? The "powder" that's lying around is the fact that a frightening number of the practitioners of the Moslem faith slit throats, stage riots, kill their daughters, etc., at the drop of a hat.

is that torture needs to be more clearly defined.

In my article above, I mention that torture is not against their moral code.

It would be very hypocritical for them to accuse the military of torture- for they would have to borrow our moral code to do so. But they are not the accusers- it is the ACLU and the media who are putting the military in trial.

No, because they do it does not make it right.

I personally would be for narrowly defined guidelines of causing those caught in the act of terrorism suffering or even pain- but for a purpose, the purpose of preventing greater suffering and pain.

Think of a hostage situation.  An armed man holds women and children in a bank.  Should the police sniper shoot him in the heart (and kill him) or shoot him in the shoulder (torture) causing him to drop the gun, thereby saving the people.  Either way the goal would be accomplished- but bullet wounds heal.

I am not saying that we should lower our morals to the surrounding nations (as some liberal judges have recently suggested), but rather, in order to achieve the higher good of protecting our citizens we may have to resort to methods of extracting information that are less than desirable.  But I would not call them immoral.  No more than shooting the leg of the gunman.

That being said- I am not a monster, but a compassionate person.  I was more shocked and disgusted by the military photos with people on leashes than anyone.  There was no higher purpose to this, therefore I think it was evil.

I liken it to a cut with a knife.  If a gang member does it to another with the motive of showing off it is assault and battery.  If a surgeon does it to a patient to remove a cancer it is called saving a life.

Okay- I'm done.  Thanks for the dialogue and for your input.  Your questions have really prompted me to think.

...we did.  FDR and Churchill agreed at Yalta to send thousands of political prisoners then in Western Europe back the Russians after the war.  

Really?  When was that again?

You may be in for a very lonely fight, Warrior.  And I do go to Church once in awhile, although I doubt you would like mine very much.

to incite, either that or there was abject stupidity. While stupidity may not be, in and of itself, legally actionable, we send people to jail for stupid acts every day.

I don't know where you are going with the "unAmerican" argument, for it isn't mine. Neither is it my position that the media should run favorable stories. I long ago put most of the media in the same camp with the jihadis.

Most of us are adult enough to realize liberty does not equal license. Isikoff crossed that line because it beggars the imagination to think that a man of his experience could not have known exactly what the probable outcome was. If you are willing to take the position that journalists are some type of international citizen and not bound by laws or commonsense, that is your prerogative.

NECESSARILY.  Jesus also told the woman at the well to go and sin no more.  His forgiveness wasn't intended as carte blanche for her to continue fornicating and it certainly was not meant to condone terrorism and anarchy.

And yes, Redemption is possible, but not without contrition, confession, and repentance.  Wow. You should go to church more often. Your ignorance of the Bible is even embarrassing me.

I swear, if I hear the "hearts and minds" argument one more time I'm going to throw up.  The only hearts and minds at issue are the ones being blown across some dusty trail in Falujah by an IED.  This ia a war, man.  Sure, there is a PR element to it, but none of that matters if we lose.

And by the way, you're not near so sanguine about, "...more danger to our troops and less cooperation by the population we are trying to win over..." when it comes to the irresponsible drivel spouted by some wiseacre over at Newsweek.  

torture and mistreat detainees and denigrate their religion, how exactly are we supposed to "win" this war?  We are told over and over that this is not a conventional war.  We are not fighting over territory or who controls shipping lanes.  We are not in Fallujah because we want Iraq to become the 51st state.  We are there to set up a stable, democratic government and leave.  If we don't win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people and prove to them that the system we represent is more humane, fair and just than the alternative then we will never be able to leave. Worse yet, when we do leave, what we leave behind will be more hostile than the government we overthrew when we went in.

And yes I understand the contrition, confession and repentence part of the deal.  Sorry for leaving them out of the overall point, but I was stressing God's part of the bargain, not ours.  His forgiveness and mercy for our faith, contrition, confession and repentence (and acts if you are Catholic).

of torture.  Torture is the use of physical or psychological pain to extract information.  In your example it is being, rather foolishly, to incapcitate a person who is posing an immediate threat to life and limb of another.

I too believe torture should be strictly defined but the Administration has refused to tell us what they consider appropriate interrogation methods.

that it is hardly worth a response.

We are told over and over that this is not a conventional war.  

We are not fighting over territory or who controls shipping lanes.

In reality we are fighting over territory and shipping lanes. Sure there is an ideological component to the struggle, just as there was in the wars against the evil socialism twins: Nazism and Communism. Why do we care what happens in the Horn of Africa or the Straits of Malacca? Shipping lanes. Why are we trying to establish stable, friendly and republican forms of government in Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Iraq? We are fighting to reclaim territory from our opponents.

We are not in Fallujah because we want Iraq to become the 51st state.  We are there to set up a stable, democratic government and leave.

Truth. However, if you actually believe this you can't be a Democrat.

If we don't win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people and prove to them that the system we represent is more humane, fair and just than the alternative then we will never be able to leave.

It doesn't follow. We aren't trying to establish our system, their system is being written right now and will be ratified this autumn, ergo we have nothing to prove to the Iraqis about our system.

Our winning hearts and minds is not unimportant but it is irrelevant to whether and when we leave. What is important is that the indigenous government win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. It is that activity that will determine out departure and whether we have been successful.

Worse yet, when we do leave, what we leave behind will be more hostile than the government we overthrew when we went in.

It's pretty unlikely that we are going to leave with a Sunni strongman in charge who had attacked two of his neighbors and who is subjected to UN sanctions. So this assertion is pretty farfetched.

It is always a possibility that we will leave a successor government that is not a close friend. That is really irrelevant to our purposes there. We are not there to establish a client state or a colony. The degree to which the government is friendly or hostile to us is not going to be a function of them loving us but whether our interests coincide.

The sniper was meant to illustrate that causing pain for one (a shot in the arm)for the greater good of all (saving hostages) is not seen as bad.

In the same way, if we had to tie someone in a chair and slap them around a little to save a city the size of L.A. from being nuked I would think it was worth it.

Escpecially if we did not cause any lasting psychological and/or physical damage.

That again, is just my opinion.

the word "suffering" or "pain" in it's place?

that you attend church.  Reverence and humility are the very qualities lacking in our culture to day.

As to your other "point," let's see...previous to the 60's, law and order prevailed, crime rates were low, respect for authority and God was the norm, and pornography and drug abuse were virtually unheard of.  Is that what you were asking?

Sure, we had (and have) a long way to go as an evolving culture, civil rights for example, but black families of the time had a higher rate of legitimate births than whites, poverty among them was decreasing, and only a small percentage of their pop was incarcerated.

Of course, then came the sixites, the drug explosion, the "liberation" of sex, the Great Society, and the welfare mentality.  And all those positive trends were reversed.  Indeed, the anarchic upheaval of the sixties could easily be called the Ku Klux Klan's greatest triumph.

Are you beginning to see a pattern here?

Every generation, every decade faces social problems.  I'm not a huge fan of the 60s - not having been around for the party, I feel like I've been picking up the mess ever since - but I don't think we can simply lay everything at the feet of changing times.  Moreover, in the sense of free will, the increased availability of choices does not by default mean those choices will be taken.

And I think your argument about civil rights veers dangerous close to the argument that slaves were better off on the plantation than free, because most masters took good care of them.  Before you get riled up, I'm not dropping a race card or doing anything else silly and conversation-destroying, but even if segregation or paternalistic racism could be shown to provide societal benefits, it would still be flat out wrong, and thus the benefits irrelevant.

"...the increased availability of choices does not by default mean those choices will be taken."

-- Rhetorically and academically maybe, but in the real world, are you kidding?

"And I think your argument about civil rights veers dangerous close to the argument that slaves were better off on the plantation than free, because most masters took good care of them.  Before you get riled up, I'm not dropping a race card or doing anything else silly and conversation-destroying, but even if segregation or paternalistic racism could be shown to provide societal benefits, it would still be flat out wrong, and thus the benefits irrelevant."

-- Oh for Pete's sake.  Get a grip.  You may not be consciously playing the race card, but your certainly playing the arrogance card.  The point was that even though blacks had not achieved civil rights, the society at large was healthy.

Whether blacks could have achieved civil rights without the immoral, culture-destroying chaos of the sixties is another question for another time.  My point was that blacks would be far better off NOW had not the general culture been destroyed in the sixties. Especially since the weaker cultural elements were the first to go. And a nascent black community facing choices and freedoms previously unknown to them was the most vulnerable.  Hence the seemingly intractable problems observed in the black community today. And speaking of plantations, the Democrats have kept blacks on one for 40 years now.

Are you beginning to get my drift or is your self-righteousness still blinding you?

Since you seem to be a young whipper-snapper ("...not a huge fan of the 60s - not having been around...,") try reading some history. A good place to start would be "The Vision of the Anointed" by no less an authority than Thomas Sowell.

And please quit wasting my time until you learn something and gain some perspective.

Have a nice day.

let's see...previous to the 60's, law and order prevailed, crime rates were low, respect for authority and God was the norm, and pornography and drug abuse were virtually unheard of.  Is that what you were asking?

Oh, really, remember the Mafia--they pretty much controlled most of the major cities of the northeast and midwest and owned Las Vegas from the thirties until the early '70s.  Why?  Because the FBI looked the other way since they were probably blackmailing J. Edgar Hoover for his love of women's clothing and homosexuality (of course if he hadn't been closeted they wouldn't have anything on him).  The Mafia also managed to infilitrate most of the major unions in this country (that was a bargain with the devil made by the companies back in the thirties to force the socialists and communists out of the unions).

As for the plight of the Blacks.  Strong families are one thing but is it worth trading a strong family for living under a reign of terror.  There were almost 5000 documented lynchings in this country between 1880 and 1965.  That doesn't even include the death sentences and harsh prison sentences handed down on trumped up or fabricated charges.  Or the beatings and murders that were never investigated or acquited by all white juries or excused.  Countless people were burned out of their homes because someone decided they were "uppity niggers".  Entire towns were burned to the ground and black populations of entire counties were chased out.  

Re; I'm not a huge fan of the 60s - not having been around for the party, I feel like I've been picking up the mess ever since

Lord, yes! How I wish everyone, the ex-hippies and the ex-squares, would all just let the 60s go! I'm 38 and I have only the most primordial recollection of that decade. I suspect a large fraction of the electorate is like me: just plain old sick and tired of people ranting on about all taurine byproduct that went down back then-- because none of it matters at all now. (I about gagged over both Kerry's endless prattling on about his war record, and over those too-long-in-tooth "switfty" critics critics of his.) It's 2005, and let's address the issues of today. Imagine how weird it would have been 100 years ago if TR and William Jennings Bryant had been battling over the 1860s, even though that decade was vastly greater a rupture in national life than the piddling 1960s were.

"Oh, really, remember the Mafia--they pretty much controlled most of the major cities of the northeast and midwest and owned Las Vegas from the thirties until the early '70s."

-- Oh, and so the Mafia has gone away now?  Besides, the Mafia came into power thanks to Utopian ideas like Prohibition.

"Why?  Because the FBI looked the other way since they were probably blackmailing J. Edgar Hoover for his love of women's clothing and homosexuality (of course if he hadn't been closeted they wouldn't have anything on him)."

-- Yeah, right.  If only Hoover had come out of the closet we never would have had a Mafia.  Brilliant!  Man, what have you been smoking?

"The Mafia also managed to infilitrate most of the major unions in this country (that was a bargain with the devil made by the companies back in the thirties to force the socialists and communists out of the unions)."

-- The Mafia would have forced Presbyterian school marms out of the Unions if they had stood in their way.  Look, the Mafia existed in a few urban centers where corrupt politicians allowed them to flourish.  This has little or nothing to do with the extremely low crime rates of the time or the sense of safety and security most people felt in their persons and property.  When I was a boy we didn't even lock our doors at night.  You've probably been watching too much television...

"As for the plight of the Blacks.  Strong families are one thing but is it worth trading a strong family for living under a reign of terror."

-- Try reading my post before commenting on it.  Blacks didn't trade strong families for civil rights, they traded them for the vote-buying schemes of Liberal Democrats and the chimeric promises of LBJ's Great Society, created so his legacy wouldn't be dominated by the secretive escalation of troops in Vietnam.  Too bad it didn't work.  

As to the rest of your screed, no one is disputing the history of the mistreatment of blacks in this country.  Neither is it relevant to this discussion, except as a way for you to engage in shameless moral preening.  Try to get a hobby or something.  Golf is nice...

"I suspect a large fraction of the electorate is like me..."

-- Maybe everyone under 38 is like you, but I doubt it.  Most people understand the tremendous rending of our culture which began during the 1960's.  It was a seminal decade, much indeed like the 1860's.  Hunter Thompson's old book, "The Hell's Angels" has just been re-released.  Pick one up and you can see for yourself what was going on at the time.  Or even better, get hold of, "The Destrucive Generation" by Peter Collier and David Horowitz.  But you probably won't be able to find it at Barnes and Noble or Borders - wait a minute, I thought the sixties didn't affect today...

"... [I'm] just plain old sick and tired of people ranting on about all taurine byproduct that went down back then-- because none of it matters at all now."

Really?  I just read an account of Chris Matthews interview of Jane Fonda on "Hardball."  When asked whether she thought the protesters of the sixties shortened the war (sheesh, they should call this show "Creampuff"), Fonda responded that, oh yes, the war would have gone on much longer and we still would have lost.  To which Matthews gave the talkshow equivalent of "Amen to that my sister!"  

In retrospect, with normalization of relations with N. Vietnam and the benefit of hindsight, just the opposite has been found to be true. With support from the American people, the war could have been won in two or three years (LBJ was plenty tough enough to do this), saving thousands of American lives and millions of Asian ones.  The Vietnamese would have been where they are today by 1968 or so, and probably close to where S. Korea is economically by now.  The bordering countries (Laos & Cambodia) would also have benefitted immensely.  The Cold War would have ended far sooner.  America would not  be divided as starkly as it is today and many of the "issues" we hotly debate on RS would have long been moot or moribund.  Indeed, former North Vietnamese Generals now freely admit that they never would have beaten us in the field.  They state unequivocally that the "protesters" (I prefer the term "useful idiots") were an integral componenet of their victory over the West.  It doesn't get much plainer than that.

And the sad part is that young leftists like yourself either don't know or disdain these facts when indeed you are the direct political progeny of this putrid legacy.

Dude, if you don't think the sixties affect us today, you need to go back to school or something...

what you mean by "/(w)ith support from the American people, the war could have been won in two or three years..."? What time frame are you referencing, and by what methodology would this have been accomplished?

My understanding is that the US threw everything they had at Vietnam, short of nuclear weapons, and the situation continued to deteriorate almost from inception.

Re: Most people understand the tremendous rending of our culture which began during the 1960's.

Nonsense. It was all small potatoes stuff, overwrough, overhyped and blown out of all proportion on both sides out of misbegotten egotism: Look at us! We're the generation that changed the world. What a bunch of sorry drama queens!

As for Vietnam: yes the war could have been won, but the support of the American people was not the problem; the lack of as winning strategy was-- the American people did not turn against the war until it became obvious that the Johnson administration and its generals had no idea how to win it. But that's water over the dam amnd washed far, far out to sea. It's as silly to fret over it now as it was for the doddering old Confederates of 1905 to insist how the South could have won at Antietam or Gettysburg.

As for "young leftist"-- compared to what? I suppose I should thank you for the "young" part; I haven't felt particularly juvenile since back in the days when Hillary was reforming healthcare and Newt was dreaming of a majority. But "leftist"? I am squarely in the center, as my commentary on these threads ought to make clear. My knee does not jerk for either party or any ideology.

could have been won had the Americans marched full square across the DMZ toward Hanoi. Now there were legitimate fears that the Chinese might have entered the war at that point, but fact is the strategy employed (an unending war of attrition in the South) proved to a strategy for losing the war, not winning it. Dictatorships have an easier time keeping up a never-ending stalemated war than do free governments. The latter require victories. In the Civil war the North, despite all its resources, nearly lost for thr same reason until Grant and Sherman started showering victories on the Union just in time for Lincoln to be reelected.

would it not mnake more sense to simply use drugs to get the truth out of someone instead of crude sadism? This isn't the year 1540; we do have very interesting stuff sitting in our pharmocopia.

And just how that would have been accomplished?  I don't have the time or space to argue how it would have been impossible to "win" in Vietnam when we were supporting an unpopular and corrupt government against a well-organized and supported insurgency but the notion that we could have won in two or three years is just ridiculous.  We had 500,000 men on the ground and couldn't defeat the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese.

When I was in High School in the mid '70s I had a gym teacher who was the picture of a gung-ho marine.  He had served in Vietnam and had been at Hue during the Tet Offensive.  One day I asked him about the war and was stunned by his response.  All he said was, "its difficult to fight a civil war".

Nonsense. It was all small potatoes stuff, overwrough, overhyped and blown out of all proportion on both sides out of misbegotten egotism: Look at us! We're the generation that changed the world.

I think you are both correct. The rot started in the 1960's, but the so-called boomers had little to do with it. Most boomers were teenagers in the 1960's; they didn't affect squat.

In 1963 or 64 (I forget which), the divorce of Nelson Rockefeller was a big deal. It probably cost him the Republican nomination, which went to Barry Goldwater. Divorce was still at that time, as Hillary would say, "legal but rare." We had a "divorced woman" in my neighborhood. I put that in quotes because that's how people talked about her; she was "that divorced woman." She was shunned. Other woman considered her a threat to their marriages. Also in those days, a man who was divorced could have difficulty obtaining employment. Divorce was evidence of some character flaw or instability.

Just 12 years later, with the boomers still in their teens and twenties, the issue of Ronald Reagan's divorce came up in his first run for the Presidency in 1976. But it was nowhere near the issue it had been for Rockefeller in 1964. The country and its attitudes toward divorce had changed that rapidly. The boomers had little to do with that. They certainly were not in any policymaking positions where they could be faulted (or credited) with the swift adoption of "no-fault divorce" by so many states beginning with California in 1970. Most boomers could not even vote at that time. That was all done by the Greatest Generation, the same ones who gave us Social Security, Medicare, Vietnam, and so many other highlights of our history.

They also brought us the War On Poverty, the "Man Out of the House Rule," and the subsequent wholesale destruction of the urban Black family.

All those boomers smoking rope in the Haight had very little to do with any of it.

The Mafia has not gone away but its power has been diminished exponentially.  The war on the Mafia began in the early '70s, not coincidentally shortly after J. Edgar Hoover died.  Read your history.  The FBI throughout the Hoover years consistently downplayed the power and reach of the Mafia.  To dismiss the Mafia as existing in just a "few urban centers" is ridiculous.  As for Mafia infiltration of the unions, it was allowed to happen and even had the tacit approval of the government precisely to keep them in line politically, look at the case of Lucky Luciano for confirmation of this fact.

As for reading your post before commenting.  I made  my little screed about the mistreatment of blacks (and don't forget other minority groups were also oppressed) because you made this statement: The point was that even though blacks had not achieved civil rights, the society at large was healthy.  A society where disenfranchisement, discrimination, and oppression of large segments of the population is accepted as normal is not "healthy".

Now it may be nice to imagine a utopia where minority groups were granted their full civil rights and started participating in politics.  Schools, neighborhoods, country clubs, and corporate boards would have become fully integrated as happy families naturally moved up through hard work and mutual respect.  Women, as they began to work outside the home and became financially and socially independent of their husbands, stayed in abusive and deeply unhappy marriages or didn't kick the bum out because he was cheaing on her because it was good for society and their duty to stay married.  Maybe that society would have come about if not for those damn hippies but I doubt it.  After all you Republicans are the ones who worship a divorced Hollywood actor and a twice divorced Speaker of the House (who served papers on one of his ex-wives while she was in the hospital receiving cancer treatment).  

Nick,

The Personal Liberty Revolution (that is, the freeing of the individual from various sorts of social control) did not start with the 1960s, or even the 1770s. It's been going on for centuries, and is probably fueled more by technology than by ideology. Start with the Reformation (though perhaps we could go back to the collapse of fuedalism?) . The single biggest reason the Reformation succeeded was because the printing press allowed the Reformers to disseminate their ideas widely, and allowed middle-class people to read Scripture (and much else besides)-- and make up their own minds on doctrinal questions rather than relying on the pronouncements of ecclesial authorities.

Now fast forward to the 1960s. The Pill, very obviously, has a great deal to due with the sexual revolution. And what about divorce? Well, our gradual accretion of labor saving devices, and various means of entertainment and communication, make it feasible for large numbers of people to live alone without the need for a "helpmete" to handle the daily chores of life and provide companionship and diversion.Now to be sure sometimes a generation or so passes before the accumulation of technological changse has much effect on society, due to a sort of social inertia that we can call small "c" conervatism.  Abortion became medically safe after the introduction of antibiotics in the late 1940s, but abortion did not become widely accepted until the 1970s.

It isn't liberalism or conservatism, religion or secularism that's in the drivers seat here. It's technology and science. In human societies when the limits of the possible change so too do the limits of the actual.

Re: I don't have the time or space to argue how it would have been impossible to "win" in Vietnam when we were supporting an unpopular and corrupt government against a well-organized and supported insurgency

Your assertion that unpopular governments always lose and insurgencies always win would be quite surprising to any number of successful emperors and despots down through history. Might does not make right, true, but neither does right make might. Napoleon said it best: "God is on the side of he who has the strongest battalion" (and, let us add, the will and knowledge to use them effectively).

And I find it passing odd that the tyrants governing North Vietnam (let alone the Khmer Rouge!!!) can be protrayed as fighting on the side on the angels.

Though I think you misattribute the quote your points are absolutely correct.

I agree with that. My monocausal explanation for the existence of feminism is that it was caused by electricity. All these technological whizbangs conspired to raise the labor productivity of human beings to the point where a single female could propose to support herself and her children without the aid of a 'helpmate.'

We are now in a period of some danger of destabilizing the society. We will be until the technology arrives to permit males to achieve the same thing via the amazing Panasonic Babymatic. Only then will "gender equality" be possible. In the meantime we are all tempted to use forcible extraction of economic resources from males to support single females and the society's young. That way lies increasing resentment, among other things.

I figure the next big fun thing will be chips implanted in our heads, so that we all have something like a web browser running in our "Mind's eye" most of the time.

We are Borg. Resistance is futile. We will be assimilated.

that the VC were fighting on the side of angels or that unpopular governments always lose to insurgencies. I was merely pointing out that in the case of Vietnam the VC were able to muster more support, be it through intimidation, actual true believers, being "closer to the people, tacit support, or whatever factor, than the thoroughly corrupt government we supported.  Napoleon's adage didn't work in Vietnam because we obviously had the strongest battalions.

We were fighting a war of imperialism at the end of the age of imperialism.  The tactics that had supported Empires for 500 years were not going to work because they were no longer morally acceptable and the natives had weapons available to them (the RPG, AK-47, and light mobile machine guns and mortars), that although they did not completely level the playing field, made a sustained insurgency possible.  Maybe we could have launched a full scale ground assault against North Vietnam, but that was never in the cards.  We were in Vietnam to stabilize South Vietnam as an independent nation, not invade the north.  Likewise, we only went into Cambodia to root out VC, not to change the government there.

Re: Napoleon's adage didn't work in Vietnam because we obviously had the strongest battalions.

True, which is why I tacked on my own amendment: "And the will and knowledge to use them effectively" It was the latter that we lacked in `Nam.

Also, referring to the US in Vietnam as "imperialist" is silly. In no sense whatsoever were we fighting to set up an imperial province that we would govern with viceroys and which we would take tribute from. We were fighting a big power proxy war: by way of a classical historical allusion we were the Romans in Armenia seeking to install a friendly but quite sovereign government, we were not the Romans in Gaul seeking to rule the place ourselves.

I remember reading somewhere along the line years ago (maybe the Pentagon papers? Can't be certain) that the Pentagon manpower estimates for a land invasion of North Vietnam was in the range of 2+ million troops - many more if the Soviet Union and/or China honored their commitments, and that casualty rates as high as 45-50% might occur in a worst case scenario.

"The war on the Mafia began in the early '70s, not coincidentally shortly after J. Edgar Hoover died.  Read your history."

-- Right.  The Untouchables were just a figment of everyone's imagination.  And I've probably forgotten more history than you'll ever know.

"To dismiss the Mafia as existing in just a "few urban centers" is ridiculous."

-- Why is it ridiculous?  I never knew the mafia existed until I saw it portrayed in a movie.  No, the northeast, Miami, Las Vegas and maybe a few other places and that was pretty much it.

"As for Mafia infiltration of the unions, it was allowed to happen and even had the tacit approval of the government precisely to keep them in line politically, look at the case of Lucky Luciano for confirmation of this fact."

-- Salvatore Lucania was convicted of pandering in 1936 and recieved a 30-50 year sentence.  He was paroled and deported to Italy in 1946.  He died there 16 years later of heart failure.  The Socialists were still in control of most unions then and retain control of many today.  What exactly are you talking about?

"A society where disenfranchisement, discrimination, and oppression of large segments of the population is