More On Torture

As if you needed more reasons to oppose it, another government official experienced in interrogation and counter-terrorism, has publicly registered his disapproval of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ – also known as torture.

Back in America, Back in Iraq

Today the Washington Post printed an opinion piece by an American officer in charge of interrogations in Iraq.

Matthew Alexander (a nom-de-plume for this homme-de-guerre) has conducted more than 300 and overseen more than 1,000 interrogations. His experience says: Abide by the U.S. Army Field Manual and the spirit of American freedom. Do not torture. We found Abu Musab al-Zarqawi this way, it works.

But his experience is falling on deaf ears and obstructive bureaucracy. Top brass at the Pentagon and in Baghdad is not in the mood for ’soft’ interrogation.

Why? Because they are neo-conservative Bush Doctrine supporters? I suppose we will find out once the Obama administration takes the reins. Because they have existed in and propagate a culture based on aggression and the ability to dole out violence? Perhaps, but Mr. Alexander  exists in the same culture and is not so bent on using torture. While we debate the morality and motivations for torture, we are losing ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sir Janus previously addressed Victor Davis Hanson’s opinion that the Western war machine works because democracy is responsive to the public. But now we see the inevitable discord between ideal and reality: we espouse freedom, we bring torture.  Should we despise and denegrate our nation and our ideals because we can not live up to them?

I think not. Our ideals are still intact. We will probably never fully live up to them. We probably never have. Of course, we have our beautiful and ugly aspects. The liberty of the Constitution, the inhumanity of the Three-Fifths Compromise. The success of western expansion, the blood of native Americans and Mexicans. The triumph of the Second World War, the black mark of Japanese detention camps.

But neither should the knowledge that we will always fail our highest principles lull us into complacency. Are our leaders, in Congress, in the Supreme Court, in the White House, in the Pentagon – are they responsive to cries for justice? Will they stop torture, not only because it is ineffective but because it is wrong? Can we culturally and ideologically triumph over terrorism if we indulge in barbaric and anti-American practices? This antithesis between American freedom and American torture can only co-exist for so long before it mars our memory of this war, and more immediately hinders our ability to defeat Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Dino News Flash

This just in from the International Herald Tribune:

Iranian government spokesman: “[Israel] jeopardizes global peace and security.”

So Iran somehow has added global peace and security to its agenda, which is already crowded with such time consuming activities as:

1. Nuclear ”power.”
2. The manufacture and export of crucial industrial products like explosives.
3. Annihilation of Israel via Hamas.
4. Denying that homosexuals exist within its boundaries.
5. And numerous speaking engagements on the lucrative American university circuit.

Looks Like VDH is Vindicated

Victor Davis Hanson, the classicist and military historian at Stanford University’s invaluable Hoover Institution has long advocated that the culture of Western civilization has throughout history given its constituents a decisive advantage over its enemies. In the brave new world of 21st century asymmetric terrorist and anti-terrorist warfare, this shamefully antiquated, western chauvninist, orientalist, </ivory tower newspeak> proposition of VDH seemed destined to meet its Waterloo in the bloody streets of Baghdad.

But it looks like VDH may wind up with the last laugh after all. The quantitative and qualitative success of General Petraeus’s COIN [COunter-INsurgency] strategy has turned the tables on the insurgency (knock on an entire rainforest’s worth of wood, of course), whose brutal tactics and inflexibility have cost it the strategic advantage and popular support it once commanded. As Andrew Sullivan opines:

Maybe this will be history’s judgment of the last few years: both the US and al Qaeda over-reached. But al Qaeda’s over-reach was greater. And in this we see why democracies do actually do better in warfare in the long run: because our leaders have to be responsive to the people; because legitimate internal criticism and debate forces course correction and exposes self-defeating hubris. With the Bush administration, this process took much longer than it should have, and the Bushies did all they could to stamp out, rather than hear, criticism. But in the end, democracy adjusts to reality; religious extremism cannot.

Whammy! Western Civ for the win!

Petraeus for President. and VDH as veep. And Andrew Sullivan as Secretary of the Interior[-Design].

Re: Iran

Dear Kingremi,

When you mention the Melian dialogue and its relevancy to Iran, I am reminded of another episode from ancient history.

After the death of Alexander the Great, Macedonia was largely unable to maintain an important part in the politics of the Hellenistic world. Meanwhile, the Seleucids in Palestinia and the Ptolemies in Egypt dominated the Greek East. In the latter half of the third and into the second century BC, Philip V of Macedonia attempted to expand his holdings in the Aegean Sea. By both armed conflict and diplomatic overtures he tried to bring Macedonia back to the primacy it once held. He made an alliance with the Carthaginians to stave off the threat of Rome. He made a pact with Antiochos III of the Seleucid Empire to seize Egyptian holdings in the Aegean Sea.

But Philip overplayed his hand. The Carthaginians could not defeat the Romans, who now had an excuse to march into Macedonia. Antiochos III did not dare come to Macedonia’s aid (at least not openly) because he recognized that it was Rome, not Macedonia, against whom he was struggling in a cold war for control over the Aegean. Macedonia was just a second class state who should have picked a superpower to support instead of trying to grab power for itself. Philip failed because he tried to exert influence when he did not have the political or military clout to do it. As a result, Rome invaded Macedonia and Greece – on behalf of the “independence” of the Greek cities, a novel reason to invade a foreign state indeed – and forced Philip to disarm and become its ally. Philip’s son Perseus was the last king of Macedonia, dependent on Rome to sustain his figurehead status.

The historian Ernst Badian once said that history needs to be rewritten for every generation. He studied the diplomatic and military maneuvering of the Roman Republic against Hellenistic empires in order to understand the Cold War politics of seizing influence over the second and third worlds. Should these histories be rewritten for us today, and who will rewrite them? Is Iran a Macedonia that should just lay down its arms in the face of powers with which its resources simply can not cope? Are we Rome?

Forcing the hand of any state by means of threat is not typically a good idea. And more war is usually the last thing anybody could do with, not least of all us. If history is going to be rewritten at this time, it needs to be done by clear planning and innovative diplomacy.

I think that Iran is fighting – and by fighting I mean clandestinely shipping arms across its borders so other people can die for their agenda – for the same thing for which we are fighting: an ideologically and politically friendly state in the Middle East. Besides this, they are also supporting militant groups against Israel and attempting to make Lebanon its own satellite state. And it is apparent that they have the resources to at least be disruptive, if not actually accomplish anything. But I surmise, or perhaps I hope, that Iran’s cold war/hot war pseudo-imperialist actions will exhaust itself before it can bring about any more destruction and death.

Go-go gadget history,

Aristeides

Basra’s Back!

Are recent Iraqi victories too good to be true? Only if they lead to poorly drawn conclusions by hawks or doves alike. As the Atlantic correctly points out, the truth is somewhere in the middle. We can see progress, but it is at best progress progressing—these victories are not an end in the themselves.

Still, it’s nice to see potential light at the bottom of Pandora’s box.

How’d You Get Here? Oh, Iran.

Short Answer: I support opening dialogue with Iran.

Longer answer: Here’s a solid run down of recent and upcoming observations about US strategy with Iran.

Let’s begin with this reality: peace is always better than war. I realize that a lot of people see many definitions in this casual maxim, and it causes them ulcerating consternation—what I urge you to do is substitute whatever sensation meadows or comfy couches, where ever you typically find happiness, gives, make it a reality for everyone, and then ball it up in politics as peace. Now, no world is that perfect, so let’s make due with something imperfect, but practical, like utilitarianism, and say that there are always quantitatively more people enjoying peace when there are not wars. With agreement, this conforms to the rules of logic and we see that there is no possible world in which war period, and with Iran in particular, is better than peace.

I am afraid for Lebanon right now and Iran is responsible. Most importantly, I’m sickened when I think of what Iranian weapons are doing to US soldiers in a fight that is, crucially, not about Iran at the street-patrolling level. The battle for Iran is being fought in Washington and those soldiers are not hostile enough to invite bloody Iranian interference. It makes me sick and I want to see it end. Winning Iraq will require neutralizing Iran. Opening up any kind of a campaign against Iran just extends the borders of our trouble.

There have been a few attempts at dialogue, but nothing serious and substantial has been accomplished. Yet it seems to me that nothing serious and substantial has been tried. A new tone is required. Dialogue has acquired a stigma of weakness because of Chamberlain’s appeasement, but appeasement wasn’t because of the dialogue, it came from the politics.

Our tone has an unsettling precedent in Thucydides. When asked why they should give themselves up to Athens and not fight back, the mighty Athenians tell the Melians, inhabitants of a small island who desired neutrality, that “The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.” The Melians agree, but resist the Athenians anyway to defend their homes and families. The Athenians, as everyone knew they would, prevail.

Inherent in this dialogue is the key cause of war—that the weak should just simply succumb to the strong, that there is nothing worth fighting for when one knows one will lose, if they can even agree to that. We are making a very big show about our military muscle in an ability to dictate Iranian actions:

[Defense Secretary Gates] has ordered the deployment of a second Carrier Strike Group as a reminder to Tehran of US military might. Also, Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff has underscored that all options certainly remain open for US policy.

Despite Iranian posturing, there is little doubt about who would win in an all-out war. We do have nuclear weapons, after all. If we wanted to flatten a country, or several, we can. Maybe Iran doesn’t think we would do this—and it would take an extraordinary desperation or disdain for human decency to do so—but we could, and they couldn’t and they also can’t know we wouldn’t.

A Carrier Strike Group is a threatening thing and Iran is doing an awfully lot to provoke a Tonkin-like incident with these nat-like speedboats zipping around. We are trying to do as the Athenians did and show simply that we are the stronger and it logically follows that if you don’t fall in line with us, you will suffer.

This is a brute theory that is not likely to produce peace.

We focus on differences with a thoughtless strategy that makes me concerned there are other belligerent and selfish forces at work in Iranian policymaking. The top two priorities in our Iran strategy are victory in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nothing else—not nuclear power plants, not Hezbollah, not oil prices—is as important as bringing home troops and strengthening a region. Here, we should focus on our similarities.

Iraq is the most complicated for a host of reasons, not the least among them what our long-term military ambition in the country is, but regardless of whether it becomes a South Korea situation or all Americans are home, the ambition must not be to invade Iran. This needs to be stressed in a dialogue. An unstable Iraq is not in Iran’s interests. Clearly they favor a Shiite neighbor, but do they favor that greater than favoring delivering these kidney shots to the US? I doubt it. They are seizing an opportunity to be a pest. Besides, in all out war, other Sunni countries would back Iraq’s Sunnis and the Iranian advantage would level out. They enjoy their evasive ‘bee trapped in our bedroom’ role.

Present scenarios that the Iranians haven’t considered. What might peace be like with the US? Why should you join us, instead of why wouldn’t you? A stable Iraq means security for Iran. They need to reel in, or at the very least, cease supplying Shiite militias. The effects would be noticeable almost immediately—such is the ease of arms smuggling and receiving training on the other side of the massive border that it requires almost no effort by the Iranians to cause us an irritating headache.

In Afghanistan, Iran is not backing Al-Qaeda’s Sunni insurgency, but couldn’t they be offered an invitation into the fold? Here the US could offer an invitation to work side-by-side with NATO and other nations that have been critical of Iran at the UN. It isn’t necessary for Iran to provide soldiers to fight in Afghanistan, just to increase vigilance at the border. Perhaps there could be an intelligence swap, or even, gasp, a gift about some sanctuaries the Taliban could hold in or around Iran? Perhaps Iranian engineers could work closer with Afghani engineers since they will be living next to each other and all.

Both of these scenarios are in both country’s strategic interests. It would require a major change of attitude and I’m not afraid to say that we would have to be the “bigger” country and make that leap. A conciliatory gesture, some kind of information, a lifting of some restriction, should be done to set the tone of a new approach. The timing, with a new president on the way, is perfect.

The nuclear issue will always remain. It is obvious that this is where Iran will want a return for its concessions and efforts. They continue to claim that they use their nuclear facility for peaceful purposes, which I don’t believe, and we can force this bluff as well. If Iran agrees to shift its strategy in the two theaters of war, we will be able to bring it under an umbrella of our protection. Who would Iran be afraid of attacking it if not for us? Let’s take that effort off the table by exposing it as nonsense. Israel is not going to preemptively nuke Iran for kicks. A country might still resent our nuclear capacity, but its existence can’t be denied and if people are kept happy and cared for, the issue will fade in front of the reality.

If Iran finds this unsatisfactory, her motives are revealed and her lies exposed. Our priority in everything must be to defend American life and currently Iran has indirectly killed too many to ignore. Politically, if the truth of the region can be well-articulated, it would leave Iran no choice but to join us because it would be in their interests.

Settled in this manner, Iran is forced to expose its motives. Everyone agreed the Melians would lose and they fought anyway. We should exhaust ourselves discouraging the fight in order to win the wars.