Altercation

• May 14, 2004 | 11:01 AM ET

Slacker Friday:

Name: Charles Pierce
Hometown: Newton, MA

"And it follows that the revered Senator McCain, who has been declaring that he wants all the remaining photos released, is acting like a posturing, media-mad fool."
-- Mickey Kaus  5/12/04    

Doc --
And, it follows, of course, Mickey is blogging like a college sophomore who discovered Ripple and Sun Tzu an hour ago.  But, we digress.

And, anyway, after this week, to paraphrase the young comedy writer from My Favorite Year, I need John McCains as big as I can get them.

Admittedly, it did not begin well; I did not need to hear McCain on the radio telling Sean (Knocko) Hannity that the latter was doing "God's work."  (For pity's sake, Senator, God's got enough trouble.)  However, as the week went along, he stepped up time and again.  As the incomparable Daily Howler pointed out yesterday, the senator even fed something back to Hannity himself concerning the God's work that Knocko had done in smearing McCain on behalf of C-Plus Augustus back in 2000.

Elsewhere, McCain grilled that Cambone character to a fine medium-well.  He walked out on the revolting Senator Jim Imhofe (R-Plankton).  Then, on Tuesday night, talking with Ted Koppel, he single-handedly redeemed Nightline, which otherwise spent the week looking down from a very great height upon The Shark.  On Tuesday, McCain was preceded by a filmed report that seemed designed as an apologia for the indiscretion of reading all those dead people's names last week.  It was all about how the murder of Nick Berg had put the prisoner scandal into perspective, and how Pat Roberts had read the dispatch in close to real time in the hearing room, and some more raving from Imhofe, and a lot of ends-justifying-means thumb-sucking. (Which was followed up the next night by a show on the theme "How Much Torture Should We Allow?" which included a package in which the views of Michael Ignatieff were paired off with those of the producer of Fox's "24."  Nice.)  Then McCain came on and threw a bucket of cold water on the whole parade, arguing that torture is, pretty much, well, torture, no matter under which flag it is inflicted.

Let's see.

On journalism, do I go with Sy Hersh or, ah, Jonah Goldberg?

On the correct treatment of prisoners-of-war, who do I take more seriously, John McCain or, let's say, Mickey Kaus?

Yeah, right.

There's little doubt at this point that the defenders of the Avignon Presidency will settle upon some variation of "They Deserved It/Don't You Know There's A War On?" ends justifying means as a response for what is going to be a long several months of new video releases from the various other outlets of the Blockbuster Gulag.  What else is left for them, assuming that they're not really serious about Rich Lowry's "Hey, It's Just Like Mapplethorpe's Stuff" argument?  The "Few Bad Apples" trope doesn't even pass the Guffaw Test any more -- not with the military press angrier in its demands for high-level scalps than the civilian press ever thought of being.  It's going to be a little hard to blame this one on the Clintons -- although people have tried their best.  But, while I agree with Josh Marshall that in this way lies madness, imagine for a moment what we'd be hearing if this had happened on Clinton's watch, and if Hillary Clinton had announced that she was too delicate a flower to look at the photos that were hitting hubby's administration below the waterline.  Tom DeLay would've grown another head by now.

Name: Eric Rauchway
Hometown: Davis, CA
I recently told you I was two for three as a predicting pundit.  The one thing I got wrong (I thought) was my prediction that Bush would politicize relations with Greenspan's Fed.  I take it back; it looks like I was right about that too.

Wall Street wonders why Greenspan hasn't been reappointed.  But that mystifies White House.  It stands by Bush's statement a year ago that the 17-year veteran deserves a new term once his Fed chairmanship expires June 20.  Bush has time: In 2000, senators confirmed Greenspan in just 10 days.  Still, investors speculate he's stalling on Greenspan to "lean on him over hiking rates so close to the election," says Tom Gallagher at ISI Group.  If still unconfirmed by June 20, Greenspan would remain chairman unless someone else is picked.  If reappointed, he'd likely quit the Fed in 2006 when his separate, nonrenewable term as a Fed governor expires.

(from the Wall Street Journal, via Brad DeLong)

Name: Christian Weller
Hometown: Center for American Progress
Eric:
This is an “upside down” economy, whereby profits are soaring to record heights, while personal income grew at the slowest rate in any recovery.  The lack of income growth threatens the sustainability of the recovery.  So far, households have compensated for the lack of income growth by borrowing more.  This cannot continue endlessly.  Unless consumption is financed out of income, economic growth is likely to slow.  Historical precedent supports the notion that stronger income growth means stronger economic growth.  When income growth was stronger in a recovery, households increased their debt less, governments borrowed less, and the trade balance improved more.  In sharp contrast, this recovery has seen comparatively low economic growth rates, record household debt, deteriorating government finances, and record trade deficit levels.  Because the distribution of national income gains was upside down, this recovery is debt driven and hence less sustainable than otherwise would be the case.

Name: Micah L. Sifry
Hometown: Iraq War Reader
It's important to compare Thomas Friedman's latest column "Dancing Alone" with a seminal one he wrote a year ago.  Today Friedman tells us that the White House cares more about politics at home than doing the right thing in Iraq.  But Friedman's belated awakening to the cynical Machiavellians running the White House must be placed alongside his March 2, 2003 column, "The Long Bomb."  In it he wrote, "A U.S. invasion to disarm Iraq, oust Saddam Hussein and rebuild a decent Iraqi state would be the mother of all presidential gambles.  Anyone who thinks President Bush is doing this for political reasons is nuts." [my emphasis] So, now either Friedman is nuts, or finally he is realizing that the crazy anti-war skeptics he scorned so pompously last year were a lot wiser than him.  Is this what three Pulitzer prizes are for?

Name: Media Whores Online
Hometown: ?
After saying he wouldn't attend his daughters' college graduations because he didn't want people to have to go through security, Junior will be doing at least 3 commencement speeches.

Name: David Sirota
ERA,
Can you guess why those new Medicare prescription drug cards that the White House is bragging about don't actually save anyone any money?  It's because the provisions creating them in the new Medicare bill were written by a long-time Bush crony who owns a company Bush himself used to be an investor in.

Name: Barry Jablonski
Hometown: Matawan, NJ
Why weren't you slaughtered on 9/11.  My wife should be alive and the likes of you don't deserve to be alive.

In memory of Virginia, murdered in WTC1 by the people eric idolizes!

• May 13, 2004 | 12:42 PM ET

Let the Mea Culpas begin:  To my hawkish friends who are not also ideologically blinded and/or intellectually dishonest:  Repeat after Tucker:

“I think it’s a total nightmare and disaster, and I’m ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it," he said. "It’s something I’ll never do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who’s smarter than I am, and I shouldn’t have done that. No. I want things to work out, but I’m enraged by it, actually."

Shorter Tom Friedman:  What Tucker said (though not as forthrightly).

Stop the presses: Max Boot Makes Sense  (Must be his crack editor.)

What  next?  Pigs fly?  Hitchens’ owns up?

And this is before they knew we were torturing and raping them: 

“Four out of five Iraqis report holding a negative view of the U.S. occupation authority and of coalition forces, according to a new poll conducted for the occupation authority.”

The only thing that that prevents me from asking how this war could possibly have gone any worse is the fact that every time you think that what you’ve just heard about this administration is the worst possible outcome, they always manage to outdo themselves.  It’s amazing, really, and one has to exercise tremendous self-discipline to avoid giving into despair, particularly given how little of these basic truths make it through the SCLM.  Once again, it proves Philip Roth’s oft-repeated observation that the most vivid novelist’s imagination is no match for reality, though that is hardly much comfort.

Quote of the Day I:  "He is not up to the job. This is not a moral judgment, but a practical one.  The world is too complex and dangerous for the pious simplicities and arrogant unilateralism of George W.  Bush."
-The communist Financial Times

Quote of the Day II:  “Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to Complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British army in their Treatment of our unfortunate brethren.”
-George Washington.  Yes, really, George Washington, speaking to the officer he placed in charge of 211 prisoners taken at Princeton.  From David Hackett Fischer's Washington's Crossing, (Thanks to Jerome Clark)

Dorothy Rabinowitz to 9/11 widow: “Shut up”  The Wall Street Journal’s chief television watcher terms the widows of 9/11 to be “absurd products of the zeitgeist - women clearly in the grip of the delusion that they know something… who feel attacked,” presses send.  (We note for the record, though this article does not, that Kristin Breitweiser is a Republican who voted for George W. Bush.) 

Just how strange is David Horowitz?  I take a crack at it this week in a Forward book review, but it’s really a question for a shrink, not a book reviewer.  What’s more, it would require at least ten times the number of words I’ve written here, and believe me, neither the Forward’s rates nor Horowitz’s significance can begin to justify that…

Where have you gone, William J. "Death of Outrage" Bennett?  Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.  Good line, Tim Noah.  Read part two too.

Meanwhile, back in Afghanistan, Ahmed Rashid reviews Steve Coll’s new book here.

We learn (again) that Al Qaida is not the problem here (and hence we have made it far worse),  and our strategy has always been screwed up.  More here.

And speaking of suicide bombers...

And here is Todd Giltin's "Think Again" report on what he learned travelling to Greece, Turkey and India about just what effect this administration is having on even the most pro-American citizens of those nations.

Correspondents’ Corner:

Name: Ronald Wolter
Hometown: Pasadena,  CA
Eric,
I bet your mother is ashamed.  A non-military American is beheaded to shouts of "Alah is great" and MSNBC can only run stories of "shaken" democratic Senators.  These are some great people you have chosed to defend and support.

What ever happened to the democratic party of old?  They never would have allowed treason to be advanced in their name . . .

Please just move to Massachusetts and marry Teddy Kennedy and drink yourselves into oblivion.
Lord have mercy –

Eric replies:  Mom, well?

Name: Rob Braswell
Hometown: Salisbury, NC
I find it interesting that you show your leftist bias so brazenly.  THere has been no proof of torture by American soldiers at Abu Ghurib prison.  Oh mercy!  A few criminals had to take their clothes off and were humiliated for a while, call out Amnesty International, call out the Peace Corps, call out Ralph Nader and Heck, call out Hugh Hefner, doesn't he publish Playgirl,which is basically all these photos equal.  Where is the outrage at the exponentially greater scandal, the Food for oil doozy that is blowing the lid off the UN and its totally corrupt ways of doing business.  Yet John Kerry is UN this and UN that, when now we see that the top UN officials were making millions off the misery of the Iraqi people, and whoa, wonder of all wonders, good ol' Hans Blix' name shows up as a receipient of money from the Hussein treasure chest, no freakin wonder he never found WMD.  This so called prison scandal is a grain of sand in the wind that Democrats are trying to fluff up to hide the leviathan UN Food for Oil Scandal that will no doubt implicate some Democrats when it is blown wide open.  Thank God for Pat robertson and the 700 CLub.  MSNBC and CNN might actually get some ratings if they produced professional and quality news like FOXNEWS and the 700 Club.

Name: russell harris
Hometown: overland, mo
Gosh Mr. Alterman, why do you always come across as a clueless idiot with a chip on your shoulder?

One can only hope you didn't spawn progeny, it would be criminal to pass that, "STUPIDITY GENE" to another generation...

Name: Bill
Hometown: Colorado Springs
I hope you post this, but I bet you wont.Iam sickened beyond what words can describe by your article.I find your views as nothing less then aiding and comforting our enemies.Yes our soldiers have a standard of conduct to uphold in reguard to the handeling of prisoners,and yes some of those soldiers may have crossed the line,but thanks to peole like you,what they did or did not do has been exposed at a level above and beyond what was necessary to solve the problem.Who is appauled by all of the killing and torture that americans in Iraq have suffered? lets ask the father  whos son was decapitated how he feels? If I were to try real hard to think of who else might share your opinion,I can come up with about 3 names.Saddam hussane,osama bin laden,and oh yea Jane Fonda!

Eric adds: I know this is too easy, but could you resist?

Name: Barry Ritholtz
Hometown: The Big Picture
Hey Doc,
You may have felt the administration was rather facile in the way the reasons for the Iraq invasion so casually shifted . . . But did you have any idea that there were 27 actual explanations floated by the White House?

Makes you wonder if some junior policy wonk was assigned to track them all.  And now it's someone's graduating thesis:

Study Says Bush used 27 different rationales for war in Iraq  (mirror)

I always knew there were a lot of shifting explanations and rationales for invading Iraq -- but fer cryin' out loud -- 27 ?  Jeez, can't ya just pick two or three good lies, and STICK to 'em?

"If it seems that there have been quite a few rationales for going to war in Iraq, that’s because there have been quite a few – 27, in fact, all floated between Sept. 12, 2001, and Oct. 11, 2002, according to a new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. All but four of the rationales originated with the administration of President George W. Bush.

The study also finds that the Bush administration switched its focus from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein early on – only five months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States."

Even better for those of us who have been following this story, the author "not only identified the rationales offered for going to war, but also established when they emerged and who promoted them. She also charted the appearance of critical keywords such as Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Iraq to trace the administration’s shift in interest from the al Qaeda leader to the Iraqi despot, and the news media’s response to that shift."

The road to war took place over three phases: Sept. 12, 2001, to December 2001; January 2002, from Bush’s State of the Union address, to April 2002; and Sept. 12, 2002, to Oct. 11, 2002, the period from Bush’s address to the United Nations to Congress’s approval of the resolution to use force in Iraq.

The paper "drew from statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Policy Board member and long-time adviser Richard Perle; by U.S. senators Tom Daschle, Joe Lieberman, Trent Lott and John McCain; and from stories in the Congressional Record, the New York Times and The Associated Press. She logged 1,500 statements and stories."

And what were those actual rationales?

"Largio identified include everything from the five front-runners – war on terror, prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, lack of weapons inspections, removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Saddam Hussein is evil, to the also-rans – Sen. Joe Lieberman’s “because Saddam Hussein hates us,” Colin Powell’s “because it’s a violation of international law,” and Richard Perle’s “because we can make Iraq an example and gain favor within the Middle East.”

Sources:
“Uncovering the Rationales for the War on Iraq: The Words of the Bush Administration, Congress, and the Media from September 12, 2001 to October 11, 2002”
Devon M. Largio
Senior Honors Thesis
Department of Political Science
University of Illinois

Name: Jordan Barab
Hometown: Confined Space
Howard Kurtz watch:
Do Washington Post writers ever actually read the Washington Post? Apparently Howard Kurtz doesn’t t. In a dissection of political commercials by the two Presidential candidates, Kurtz discusses the negativity of the Bush campaign and then goes on to blast Kerry for being negative as well.

Kerry has aired a handful of ads painting Bush as a corporate toady who wants to foul the air and water, outlaw abortion, and export U.S. jobs overseas. These spots, which also [like Bush’s] contain exaggerations...

The interesting thing is one of the examples that Kurtz highlights.

Kerry’s ads, says Kurtz, argue that Bush:

"Let corporate polluters rewrite our environmental laws. He wants to roll back the Clean Air and Clean Water acts."

Yeah, and so what's your point?

Kurtz explains that:

An administration task force met privately with energy industry executives, but there is no evidence they rewrote pollution laws. And while Bush's proposed changes in air and water laws have drawn criticism from environmentalists, they hardly amount to a rollback.

Come again?

Oh really?  I hardly know where to start. How about the January 1, 2004 Washington Post?

The Bush administration proposed new rules yesterday regulating power plants' mercury pollution, and some of the language is similar to recommendations from two memos sent to federal officials by a law firm representing the utility industry

"Similar," hell:

A side-by-side comparison of one of the three proposed rules and the memorandums prepared by Latham & Watkins -- one of Washington's premier corporate environmental law firms -- shows that at least a dozen paragraphs were lifted, sometimes verbatim, from the industry suggestions

No rollbacks, you say? What about this from the August 28, 2003 Washington Post?

The Bush administration yesterday approved a major rollback of clean air enforcement rules for the nation's oldest and dirtiest power plants in a move hailed by industry leaders but bitterly criticized by environmentalists and some lawmakers.

• May 12, 2004 | 11:44 AM ET

I had a lot to say today, but the mail is so interesting I will restrict myself to bullets:

• Don’t listen to Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba.  He just wants a book deal, a job in the Kerry campaign, a grant from Teresa Heinz, a photo spread in Vanity Fair, and is a disgruntled employee like John Diullo, Paul O’Neill, Richard Clarke, Gen. Anthony Zinni, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, Greg Thielmann, Joe Wilson, Christie Whitman, Valery Plame, etc…
  
  
• Say one thing for this administration, they are equal opportunity torturers.
  
  
• This one really drives me nuts and I don’t know how I missed it:
  
  “NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself... 
  Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.”
  
  Nick Berg might object, except, well, he’s dead.
  
  
• Readers of Chris Mooney’s Think Again column already knew James Inhofe was, shall we say, intellectually challenged.
  
  
• Rich Lowry joins Rush Limbaugh in condoning torture as no worse than porno.  No wonder Howie loves this guy.
  
  
• Why does George Will hate America? 
  
  
• And congrats to Rob Corddry for back to back Quotes of the Day:
  
  Corddry: How does one report the facts in an unbiased way when the facts themselves are biased?
  
  Stewart: I'm sorry, Rob, did you say the facts are biased?
  
  Corddry: That's right Jon. From the names of our fallen soldiers to the gradual withdrawal of our allies to the growing insurgency, it's become all too clear that facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda.
  
  
• Quote of the Day, Honorable Mention, because it's so long: Steven Colbert
  
  
• Bonus bullet:  WHAT $*%^*$& LIBERAL MEDIA??
  
  
• Bonus bullet II:  Uninformed VP Speculation continued:  I hear, again, from people who probably don’t know, that
• Gephardt has had four meetings; nobody else more than one
• Richardson has never been contacted and is not being considered;  
• Wesley Clark is being considered, as are Edwards, Vilsack, Graham and;
• This one strikes me as not credible but, so is Chuck Hagel.

Correspondents’ Corner (In no particular order):

Name: Matt Shirley
Hometown: Gurnee, IL
Mr. Alterman,
The ill-informed and naively cynical comments of some of your correspondents have provoked me.  They argue Saddam and the insurgents are worse, so therefore we are excused from the requirements of international law, humanity, and common sense in our handling of prisoners.  (Oh BTW some of these detainees did not in fact participate in attacks on U.S. Forces and where arrested by mistake.)  What rubbish!  Where do I begin?

First, we are parties to the Geneva Conventions protecting enemy prisoners of war and civilians in occupied territories.  We signed it; we ratified it; it's the law of the land every bit as much as an Act of Congress.  How can we claim to be a nation of laws, and example of the kind of democracy we would like to spread through the Middle East if we toss our own laws over the side at the first provocation?

Second, how can anybody think that it is morally acceptable to force detainees to strip naked for extended periods of time, in front of people of the opposite gender?  That it is OK to menace completely helpless individuals with military working dogs?  That forcing them to simulate or actually perform sexual acts while being photographed is all right?  I could go on and on and on because this case just gets uglier by the day.  But, how can the arbitrary abuse of people, who may or may not have done anything and know anything, have any rational relationship to punishing the actual perpetrators of actual attacks on U.S. Forces?  Your average six year old Sunday school student has better moral sense than that!

Finally, these kind of practices are ludicrously counterproductive.  One of the main reason we train the Armed Forces about the need to follow the law of armed conflict and treat enemy prisoners humanely, even when the other side's compliance is less than perfect, is that failing to do so may result in worse treatment for our own fellow service members if they are captured.  This is a practical lesson that has been relearned in every one of the wars fought by the U.S.  Moreover, information obtained from such intensely coercive means is highly unreliable and of questionable value.  Lastly, if this is a campaign to win hearts and minds and teach common Iraqis that there is a better system than arbitrary, absolute despotism, how exactly does tormenting detainees, many of whom are innocent, convey this message?

Please, arguing that the abuse of Iraqis prisoners is OK because it's not as bad as the old regime is as dumb as dirt.

Name: Chris
Hometown: Russellville
You want to know what just leaves me flabergasted. These people beat and torture our civillians and military prisoners and then unmercifully behead them, but you will never see a fuss raised or a congretional investigation of this. Instead all I'm seeing is a big rise out of the prisoners having their picture taken in the nude, oh the humanity. Give me a break please!

Name: JOE HALL
Hometown: LA QUINTA, CA
NOW THAT THE TERRORIST HAVE BEHEADED AN AMERICAN CIVILIAN ON TV, I'M SURE A FOOL LIKE YOU WILL FINALLY REALIZE THAT THESE TERRIORIST WANT TO KILL ALL AMERICANS, INCLUDING YOU MR. ALTERMAN.  THEY DIDN'T NEED A REASON FOR 9-11 AND THEY DON'T NEED A REASON FOR THEIR NEXT ATTACK.  THEY HATE THE USA AND ALL WE STAND FOR, AND YOU AND ALL THE LIBERALS KEEP ENCOURAGING THEM TO DO MORE HARM TO US.  YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED.

Name: TJ Bandrowsky
Hometown: Bear
Here's my "supporter of the war lesson's learned".

It will be a cold day in hell before I feel sorry for the victims of any dictatorship ever again.  Four times in ten years the USA has tried to military intervene on behalf of the people of a region and four times has failed.  In Somalia we tried to feed them and they cheered our dead soldiers. In Haiti they turned on themselves.  In Kosovo they wait for us to leave, so they can turn on themselves, and now, in Iraq, all they had to do was adopt a fricking interim gov't (which they couldn't agree on), and stop blowing up their own country, and we would leave.  But, now, thousands of our soldiers are getting wounded or killed for reasons that make zero sense to me.

Cries of dictatorship? Oppression and hunger in the world?  AIDS in Africa?

Let the third world rot, for all I care.  Four times out of four they've proved themselves animals, and I don't need anymore evidence than that!

Name: Ron Lancaster
Hometown: Tampa
In the "GWB Business Model," isn't this the phase of development where a rich benefactor bails out young George with some serious money, helps him quietly slither out of harm's way, and sets him for the next deal to capitalize on the Bush name, power and influence?  Too bad that doesn't work when an entire country is at stake (vs. a fly-weight oil investment company, et al).

Name: Phil
Hometown: Oakton, VA
You're an idiot.  It was only a matter of time before Saddam's tireless efforts to acquire nukes paid off.  What then, dumbass?

Name: Scott Blomenkamp
Hometown: Seattle
I am intrigued by your outrage about what many have termed accurately as "humiliation" rather than "torture" of Iraqi prisoners while you keep quiet about things  like beheadings of civilians, the murder and mutilation of other civilians and the display of body parts of Israeli soldiers by these "poor" oppressed people.  Not only do you choose to be bias in you condemnation of truly despicable acts but you also choose to not report on important subjects to our own country.  Where is your reporting of the billions in bribe money siphoned from the U.N. oil for food program (which is why we were "containing" Saddam for 12 years and we would never get the U.N. to join the coalition) or your reporting of the 200 swift boat vets that oppose John Kerry?  I am embarrassed as every American should be the Iraqi prison scandal. I am embarrassed not by the actions (you see worse in may parts of life) but by the "indignation" of our politicians and the sensationalism of the media.  If these were such terrible acts is the media not contributing to the pain being suffered by the victims?  Oh, sorry that gets in the way of the self-riotous hypocrisy of the media that let's the Jason Blair's and such thrive.  With all the "outrage" going on where are the Sunni and Shi'ite clerics, Arab Kings and heads of state apologizing for the systematic killings, mutilations, bombings, beheadings, and conspiracies to fly airliners into sky scrappers.

Name: Jack McIntyre
Hometown: Nashville, TN
You'll be happy to know after reading your links to O'Reilly and Limbaugh, I've applied for an NEA grant to stack the two of them naked (Limbaugh on top) and let the dogs at them.  I'm pretty hopeful . . . I can't think of a better way to blow off some steam

Name: N. League
Hometown: Orange Park, FL
SHAME ON YOU:
I do believe the folks being held in Abu Ghraib were members of Saddam's Regime.  The folks who raped, murdered, mutilated, and otherwise tortured so many innocent Iraqi's.  I do not feel sorry for them, they have been shooting real live ammunition at our young people who are over there to liberate that country.

They did not have their genitalia torn off by dogs, they were tormented with the fear of it being done because they knew that under Saddam that is what would have happened.  They have not had their eyes gouged out, like the children of people who did not tow Saddam's Party Line. They were not shot in the head and thrown into mass graves. 
They were humiliated and scared.  WAAAH!

The only thing I regret is that the dummies took these pictures so they can be used and abused by people like you who willingly take everything the wrong way and use it for a "Story" to fill up time on 24 hour news programs.

And the mutilation and deaths of hostages and POW's that will now occur because of the distribution of those stupid pictures. 

Hey Mr. Eric Alterman, pat yourself on the back, you are in a fine line of work.

Name: Jim
Hometown: Iowa
After seeing the beheading of the american contractor, I really don't care to read or see anything about the "abuse" of Iraqi prisoners. It's war, and war is hell. Too bad - grow up! Let's just get it done. Eliminate all the terrorists and their supporting countries.

Name: Shaun
Hometown: Harrisburg, Pa.
No link to al-queda? Your a moron and a hack if you think that is true. Last time I read one of pieces of propoganda. How about some facts. Like most crap reporters from MSNBC, you probably did no looking into any of your facts.

Name: Cary Kelly
Hometown: Harmony, ME
I have no words to comment on your opinion, it is so unbelievably full of nonsense.  I don't know how an 'intelligent ' person can be so ignorant.  I'd be happy to pay a one-way ticket for you to leave this great country of ours for good...and go live wherever you think it is so much better.  You discust me.  I don't consider you an American.

Name: CW2 Carney
Hometown: Fayetteville, NC
Whose side are you on?  Your an idiot and so are the people the read your crap!  Happy to see our forces lose people?  bet you are,  I only wish you had the balls to come over here and spout your BS with your friends, maybe you could pick up an Ak47 with our enemies (or mine) and I could enjoy putting a round right between your pathetic eyes.  Your a piece of s**t!

Name: Michael Waldron
Hometown: Milwaukee, Wi.
Hi, You are a piece of s**t without equal. You may thank the heavens you live in a country where you can spew such s**t.Hate America If you will. You make me even stronger. I do not hear you carping about mutilated U.S. combatants or civilians you need a serious realingment.

Name: Tom Plotts
Hometown: Denver, Colorado
Dear Dr. Alterman,
I realize as a progressive (and a scholar) you have the impulse to give time to alternative views to your own, but either you're deliberately skimming the bottom of the right-wing working class submissions or the last two e-mails on this list were included as part of an anthropological project trolling for public opinion in urban caves.  I'm certain there are more articulate and considered "conservative" responses other than these.  Posting these two jokers makes my cat's random meows come off like Hegel dictating Elements of Right...

One thing striking about the righties' responses though: is it me or do you notice the same underlying assumption that people in any kind of a jail apparently deserve to be there?  The quick assumption of guilt that comes with the fact of incarceration?  Didn't it used to be one of the core tenets of conservatism to be skeptical of state power, not enthralled by the infallibility of it?

This transformation in the conservative rank-and-file strikes me as profound, and you do have to wonder whether it is garden-variety racism trumping a healthy skepticism of state force at work.

Note of clarification from Eric: Those e-mails written with an abusive tone were turned into spam after I saved them for publication.  Perhaps that’s contradictory.  Alas, we at Altercation are large.  We contain multitudes.  (And for those who insist I only print the stupid ones with which I disagree, well, let’s just say you should be grateful you’re not reading the fellow who blames the torture photos on gays in the military.)

• May 11, 2004 | 11:20 AM ET

Let’s recap shall we?  We invaded a country that we now know posed no threat to us and enjoyed no connection whatever to those who did.  In order to do so, we pulled manpower and resources away from the job of protecting us and thereby made ourselves more vulnerable to the thousands of new enemies we created with our failed, dishonest invasion.  OK, what next?

How about we go through the nation we profess to be liberating, arrest a whole bunch of innocent people and then torture them  —raping a few here, killing a few there.  What next?  Well, what do you say we continue to this for a year after the Red Cross alerts us both to the fact of the torture as well as the innocence of ”70% to 90% of prisoners detained in Iraq since the war began last year?”

I don’t know about you, but I’m having trouble understanding why, at minimum, the term “criminal negligence” is not being used here.  If Rumsfeld really is responsible, and he says he is, then he should not merely be fired, but tried.  I know it’s more than he’s willing to offer an American citizen like Jose Padilla but I’m in a generous mood.  This being the Bush presidency, however, he is instead congratulated.  “You are doing a superb job.  You are a strong secretary of defense, and our nation owes you a debt of gratitude,” says the man who has just reached the lowest popularity point of his presidency.  I fear Mr. Orwell is looking more and more pollyanish every day.

I do wonder what honest supporters of the war are telling themselves now.  There was no threat.  There was no planning for the occupation.  We are hated by the people who we professed to liberate and we have destroyed our reputation in the Arab world we were pretending to teach a lesson about democracy.  The Arab-Israeli peace process is in tatters and we are reduced to begging the very same United Nations we treated so contemptuously to bail us out of the mess we’ve created.  In the meantime, Americans are in the hundreds are being killed a year after the president proclaimed “Mission Accomplished” and we have wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives to make neither ourselves nor the rest of the world any safer.  David Brooks makes a tentative attempt to begin that process here, but unless he grapples with some of the truths on the other side of the page he’ll never get there.

What the hell do we do now?  I don’t know, but The Center for American Progress at least, has a few ideas.

Meanwhile, the “Is Bush a moron?” debate continues as Jake Weisberg answers, “Yes, on purpose."

Quote of the Day:  “Remember Jon, just because torturing prisoners is something we did doesn't mean it's something we would do.”  (Or something, I paraphrase from Thursday night.)
--Rob Corddry

Reading List:

• David Tracy on Reinhold Neibuhr.
• Andrew O’Hagen on The Beatles 
• Dirty Pictures a history
• David Brock on why his new project is worth the $2 million
• Conrad Black, Neocon hero.

A note to my correspondents:  As you can see, I take my correspondence as seriously as any blog (or major media outlet, in fact), but there are rules.  I get hundreds of these a day.  I appreciate the feedback and make use of many of them here on Altercation, but owing to the fact that, at present, I have three jobs and three book contracts plus the odd freelance assignment, I am always looking for reasons to save time in dealing with them.  Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

1. If they are unsigned, I usually delete without reading.
2. If they are the slightest bit snotty, superior or abusive in tone, I stop reading, delete and turn the address into spam.  I don’t get paid to be abused.
3. If they say, “Hey check this out,” and offer a url but no description of why I should check it out, I delete, and possibly convert to spam, depending on my mood.
4. If they are part of a mass mailing, I delete and turn into spam.  I am only interested in reading things written to me.

On the positive side, I am happy to be alerted news and views of interest to Altercation readers. The most cost effective way to do this is to describe in a paragraph what you want me to know and then include the link. If you want a link to your blog, then write it in the form of a letter, with your name and put your blog address as your hometown, and a salutation, the way Mr. Ritholtz  (after considerable prodding) now does.

Correspondents’ Corner:

Name: David Scott
Hometown: Westfield, MA
I know this is probably a horrible and perhaps nearly incomprehensible thing to say, but I am happy that these prison murders, rapes and abuses have finally been shown to the American people, and make no mistake, given a choice this administration would never have allowed the country to see these terrible things.

As a disabled Vietnam veteran and as someone whose existence has been defined by war, there are things happening in Iraq that have a very sick and familiar feel, only this is a much more secret war.  In Vietnam it was all there on the T.V. every night, the carnage and senseless killing that is a part of every war.  In this war it is all a secret, as if there really were no killings no grotesquely wounded as if the 700 or so dead or the thousands wounded were just numbers with no names attached no real lives to account for and it is  unpatriot and nearly criminal to merely mention those that have fallen.

It is we, the wretched refuse, the poor people, and it has always been the poor who fight wars, who are ultimately made more poor, more disenchanted once they return home to  V.A. hospitals with the worst health care system in the country and veterans benefits that require nothing less than shameless begging.

It is always us against them.  The rich ,the privileged, that have never been in a war, have never been wounded or had friends die who have never seen rows and rows of blasted bone and mutilated flesh in veterans hospitals, those like  Bush or Cheney who posture and blather about things like patriotism and sacrifice, have no concept of the ugliness, the stupidity or the real shock and awe of suddenly being hit and down and the bleeding out into the ground of a foreign country far away.  It is always us, it is never them.

And it only comes to you later by painful degrees if you have survived with the rest of the wretched wounded in a slow sickening epiphany, that this is no John Wayne movie or Iwo Jima battle but a senseless murdering for reasons that are more and more unclear.

To all those who make these decisions about war, who seem suddenly appalled like our President and the rest of the rich who run this country, or the outraged officers who always serve in the rear,  to all those faux warrior architects, or political pundits who have no idea what it is like to be thousands of miles away with a rifle in a foreign country where the enemy does not wear uniforms and there are no real fronts.  Where life is cheap and always at risk, these pictures, these rapes, these tortures, these murders are what happen in such places.  And they happen in every war.  It is the ugly nature of the thing that I thought we had learned 30 years ago.

David Scott USMC RET

Name: D. Long
Hometown: Kalamazoo, MI
You are entirely correct regarding what people do during the conditions of war and situations where you have guards and prisoners.  I worked as a counselor in a state prison and I worked as a counselor in a juvenile facility.

That stuff with the Iraqi prisoners didn't even make me flinch.

Unfortunately, most Americans have no idea of what really goes on in the world.

Name: Mark McKee
Hometown: Lincoln RI
Rather than working hard to create a Constitution for Iraq, why don't we just give them ours?  We're not using it.

Name: Dawn Hubof
Hometown: Newport News, VA
The prisoners at Abu Ghraib are no Boy Scouts.  They shot at or tried to blow up Coalition members.  Some were found trying to detonate explosives.  Give me a break.  This is war.  If these people know information that can save lives, what do you propose they do?  If you don't agree with the war, fine, but don't make these prisoners out to be innocent.  The military is too busy to pick-up innocent civilians.  Complain about the middle eastern countries that commit REAL crimes against their people.  An example would be Hussein, oh that's right!  He can't torure, kill, and rape his own people anymore.  You know like putting men in meat grinders, pulling off babies' limbs, having rooms just for the pleasure of raping women pulled off the street.  How about all of those mass graves they found?  I guess those things don't matter.  But humiliating the enemy does.  You are a piece of work.

Name : Anonymous
Hometown Anonymous
You know I am really getting sick of hearing and seeing pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused. I am sorry, but these people are ones who have killed our soilders and would do it again if they had a chance. I do not see these people being beaten only humiliated which I do not see a problem with if they are a criminal. I know we don't like to see America under the microscope, but this type of stuff happens all over the world and even worse conditions then what these Iraqi prisoners are going through. The Iraqi people do not help the Americans and when they see an American soilder killed they cheer which I feel is a good enough reason to continue their humiliation in these prisons. I am sorry, but these people are animals and what happened when 4 bodies where torn apart and hung on a bridge, they all cheered. I didn't see any arrest of these individuals and they are still roaming the streets which means the Iraqi people are cowards and if they can get away with something so graphic then I see no reason to stop abusing the prisoners.

• May 10, 2004 | 10:46 AM ET

The dream is over:  Sy Hersh’s second installment on the torture at Abu Ghraib is here.  I find the pictures and accompanying story no less shocking than anyone else —save Rush Limbaugh who apparently enjoyed them and would have liked to play along— but I can’t say I find them surprising.  This is the kind of thing that happens in every war, particularly one as incompetently planned as this one was.  While the details are always unknowable, something like this scandal was entirely predictable.  Add to the natural inhuman pressures of war, the lack of concern this administration has demonstrated for the niceties of civil liberties and human rights since 9/11, and the signal that sends down the chain of command, revelations of this type become only a matter of time. 

Hello, Messrs. Friedman, Wolfowitz. et al, war is not a civilizing instrument.  Perhaps our historical memory is so faulty that nobody in the media—save the great Sy Hersh himself—remembers My Lai, but for goodness’ sakes, the Toledo Blade won its Pulitzer for its coverage of a U.S. owned-and-operated massacre in Vietnam this year!  Maybe ignoring that story just because they kicked your collective butts was, for the rest of the media, not such a good idea after all.  And all the hawks, liberal and otherwise, who find themselves “shocked, shocked” by the actions of our own soldiers should have read a little military history before embarking on this catastrophic adventure under the leadership of dishonest and incompetent ideological fanatics.

Cut the crap about our good “hearts” Mr. Excuse-Maker-In-Chief.  Nobody cares what’s in the heart of a torturer when he is sticking a cattle prod into your genitals.  We are no more “moral” than the French in Algeria, the British in Northern Ireland, the Israelis on the West Bank, or our former selves in Vietnam.  (Too bad you and Mr. Cheney were busy elsewhere during that one, sir.)  War crimes are a part of war, especially guerrilla war.  Buy one, get the other one free.  (And by the way, these abuses could have been stopped a long time ago if anyone in the administration had cared.  As the WSJ reported, the Red Cross informed the administration of these types of abuses over a year ago.)

Quote of the Day I:  “You know, if you look at -- if you, really, if you look at these pictures, I mean, I don't know if it's just me, but it looks just like anything you'd see Madonna, or Britney Spears do on stage.  Maybe I'm -- yeah.  And get an NEA grant for something like this.  I mean, this is something that you can see on stage at Lincoln Center from an NEA grant, maybe on Sex in the City -- the movie.  I mean, I don't -- it's just me.”
--Rush Limbaugh

Quote of the Day II: "I'm sure that our committees are going to be asking the right questions… But a full-fledged congressional investigation -- that's like saying we need an investigation every time there's police brutality on the street."
--Tom Delay  (Thanks to Paul Goode)

Who wants to sue a multimillionaire?  Here’s the transcript of O’Reilly one week ago, just before I left, care of David Brock’s new Media Matters.

O'REILLY: OK.  Now, Jane, you're in academia.  You teach at American University.  Do you know [Orville] Schell, the dean of the graduate school of journalism at the University of California Berkeley?

HALL:  I don't know him, I know who he is.

O'REILLY:  You know Orville, right?  How would you categorize him as far as politics are concerned?

HALL:  I would say he was probably to the left and liberal.

O'REILLY:  Yes, around Fidel Castro, right?  Somewhere in there?

(crosstalk)

O'REILLY: Somewhere in the Straits of Florida [i.e., near Castro], because we have had Dean Schell on the program.  And he wanted to take my car and I wouldn't let him.  Anyway, he reviews a book by Eric Alterman, another Fidel Castro confidant, "What Liberal Media?", and Orville loves it.  What do you think is going on here, Jane?

Now I have never spoken with Fidel Castro and neither has anyone ever said to me, “Eric, Fidel asked me to tell you…”  In fact, I’d be pretty surprised if the old windbag has ever heard of me, except perhaps when he may have seen my signature atop a petition of liberal intellectuals condemning his regime, which was reprinted in The New York Review of Books and the Wall Street Journal.  Moreover, even if O’Reilly is unfamiliar with both publications, we can be reasonably certain that the pundit is not honestly mistaken here, as neither he, nor anyone on his considerable staff, made any effort whatever to get in touch with me, as they did a few weeks ago in order to misrepresent the Kerry meeting.  Therefore claiming before millions of people that I am “another Fidel Castro confident” would seem to be actionable as “malicious intent” to defame my character and damage my ability to earn a living while demonstrating “reckless disregard” for the truth of the matter. All that being the case, two questions:

1. Who wants to be my pro bono lawyer?
2. Who wants to pay for, or set up a legal offense fund to pay for, related costs that are not covered by my pro bono lawyer.

Serious inquiries only.

I’ll be on the O’Franken Factor tomorrow at two.  Maybe Al would like to kick things off...

Correspondence Corner:

Name: Bill
Hometown: Mobile
Eric, You are the enemy of America.  As such leave or get what is coming to you.

Name: Barry Ritholtz
Hometown: The Big Picture
Hey Doc A,
Dow Jones media properties -- most notably the The Wall Street Journal and Barron's -- has been publishing some of the most damning and critical reporting on the war.  This, despite its less than enlightened editorial page.

Meanwhile, the a lot of the rest of the Press has been AWOL.

Of all the things I've read about Iraq, the most disturbing by far came in (yet another) WSJ article last week: Former General Sees 'Staying the Course' In Iraq as Untenable.  And, this was BEFORE any of the scandals about the abuse of prisoners had broken.

Here's the write up:

From:  General Sees 'Staying the Course' In Iraq as Untenable:
(mirrored at BOP News)

Its one of those reads that makes the hair on your neck stand up.  It was written by John Harwood, political editor of Journal. Harwood discusses the perspective of retired Gen. William E. Odom, who is the author of "Fixing Intelligence: For a More Secure America."

Here's the money quote:

"Maybe it's time, in other words, to listen to retired Gen. William E. Odom. It is delusional, asserts the Army veteran, college professor and longtime Washington hand, to believe that "staying the course" can achieve President Bush's goal of reordering the Middle East by building a friendly democracy in Iraq. For the sake of American security and economic power alike, he argues, the U.S. should remove its forces from that shattered country as rapidly as possible.

"We have failed," Mr. Odom declares bluntly. "The issue is how high a price we're going to pay. ... Less, by getting out sooner, or more, by getting out later?"

His is not the voice of an isolationist, or a peacenik, or Republican-hater. He is talking from the conservative Hudson Institute, where he was hired years ago by Mitch Daniels, later Mr. Bush's budget director. His office displays photos of Ronald Reagan, under whom Mr. Odom directed the National Security Agency, and Jimmy Carter, on whose National Security Council staff he served.

Rather, his unsettling view reflects a broader reassessment of America's predicament as Iraq looks ever-uglier. It can be seen as well in U.S. Administrator L. Paul Bremer's tacit admission of error in disbanding the Iraqi Army and Mr. Bush's new reliance on United Nations help.

Mr. Odom opposed the Iraq war before it happened.  An expert in comparative politics who teaches at Georgetown and Yale, he warned that there was no reason to expect that Iraq could soon develop the ingredients for constitutional democracy: individual rights, property rights and a tax-collection system supporting a government to enforce them. The violence of recent months, he concludes, has exposed Mr. Bush's vision of doing so as a dream.

That is brutal criticism from a person who is one of the nation's leading experts on strategic warfare and comparative politics. And, he's a guy who has actually donned a uniform and fought in wars . His perspective, view of strategic planning, comes from a place with more gritty realism and experience than the administration's current war planners -- much of whom avoided military service.

The real problem that lay at the heart of this misadventure is the utterly miserable and often missing strategic planning done -- or not done -- before the war.

Source:
Former General Sees 'Staying the Course' In Iraq as Untenable
John Harwood
WSJ, Page A4, April 28, 2004

Testimony before the House International Affairs Committee
17 April 2002
by William E. Odom, LT GEN, USA, Retired
Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute

Fixing Intelligence: For a More Secure America
Gen. William E. Odom
Yale University Press, March 2003

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