Where in the world should Joi go next?

Joi has six free days in Europe and has posted a wiki where we can suggest ways he can constructively use his time.

A cleverer person than I could probably figure out huge amounts about Joi, his social network and his standing just by reading this page. It's the sort of rich artifact the Web creates unintentionally and frequently...

Thomas Barnett - Media, Politics, Funny

Thomas Barnett, the author of The Pentagon's New Map, a book I'm hearing good things about, has a rollicking good blog. (It was the Feedster Site o' the Day earlier this week.) He's been writing rather wickedly about dealing with the media interest in his book recently.

Final Notice of Domain Extension

My scam printer — aka fax machine — continues to spew almost nothing but spam and scam. Today I got yet another legal-looking notice, formatted to lo like you're being served with papers, from the Domain Notification Center. It "warns" me that unless I contact them, someone else might register the .us version of a .com name I own. Heavens forfend!

At least now that I'm back to running an internal fax/modem card I'm not paying for the ink to spray this crap onto paper.

By the way, DomainNotificationCenterSucks.us is available.

US Broadband jumps

From the May 2004 Bandwidth Report:

US broadband penetration grew by 1.9 points in April, with 47.87% of active Internet users enjoying a high-speed connection at home. This jump of nearly 2 points is 2.5 times the average rate of broadband growth. 52.13% of US home users dial into the Internet with "narrowband" connections of 56Kbps or less.* Meanwhile, broadband growth in other countries suggests a limit of 75% saturation...

As of April 2004, most users in the US connect to the Internet using dial-up modems of 56Kbps or less. 42.74% use 56Kbps modems, 6.99% use 28/33.3Kbps, and 2.4% use 14.4Kbps modems. In total. 52.13% of home users in the US connect to the Internet at 56Kbps or less.

...As of April of 2004, of those connected to the Internet, 79% of US users at work enjoy a high-speed connection, up from 78.8% in March. 21% connect from work at 56Kbps or less

The report also wonders whether 75% is a saturation point for broadband.

Right-leaning lefties

Search at Google Images for "left arrow." Check the 21st image, which with my configuration is the first one on the second page. You'll be able to tell that you have the right one because it is the only one pointing right.

Now notice what page the image comes from. So maybe it does run in the family.

[Thanks to Hanan Cohen for the find.]

Ralph in the comments notes that the image is at #18 and rising because of the increased linkage.

Justice, Religion, Sexuality

Here's a transcript of a speech by Justice Michael Kirby of the Australian High (= Supreme) Court on his Christianity and homosexuality. (Thanks to Vergil for the link.) Excerpt:

So how did my relationship with God survive this experience of self-discovery?

First, I never doubted for an instant the surrounding love of my parents, my brothers and sister. I knew, in my heart, that they would always love me as I was. For years we did not confront the subject verbally. We did not really need to do so. When we did, it was exactly as I expected. No big deal. Not everyone is so lucky.

Secondly, I was greatly blessed by having many loving friends and companions, homosexual and heterosexual. Especially in finding a loving partner, Johan. He is not here tonight. He has very little time for religion and churches. He has often said to me: "I don't understand how such an intelligent person can take seriously religions that all oppress women, people of colour and gays". He prefers to be out there helping his Ankali. He volunteers to clean and cook and scrub the toilet-bowl for a patient living with HIV. That is his "religion"...

AKMA blogged this speech a couple of weeks ago (d'oh!) and wrote"

As I read the Justice’s words, it seemed increasingly likely that the present stresses over sexuality in the church will not be resolved by new arguments, or even by new attention to arguments that presently have been relegated to the sidelines of the public strutting contest. Rather, I think that it will settle out based on people’s sense of with whom they would want to align themselves. Most of the facile arguments have already been drilled into our heads; most of the subtle arguments fail to command the kind of traction that could make someone change the direction of their thinking; but sooner or later, people will begin to say, "Aw, they can’t be that bad," or "I just have to stick with this group no matter what.""

Well put! Here in Massachusetts we have two years before the vote on an amendment to ban same-sex marriage. That's two years for residents of the Commonwealth to decide that they'd rather align themselves with the loving gay couples in their neighborhood. That's what I'm hoping for, anyway.

Please ignore this MT-Blackllist URL extractor

NOTE: I updated this script on June 2 so that it now pulls out all (?) of the URLs embedded in the selected spams. The code listed below is updated, but not my comment about it not doing what I just updated it to do. So to speak. (The version without the wordwrap issues has also been updated. But what you really want is this pure text version, suitable for copying and pasting.)

I just received 200 comment spams. They each listed a different URL and came from a different IP address,which means the invaluable MT-Blacklist (thank you, Jay Allen) has to be told to delete each one, one at a time.

Instead, I cobbled together an Outlook script — yes, I use OL on my desktop machine, although I've been happy with Thunderbird on my laptop — that looks through the messages you have highlighted in your inbox and builds a list of the URLs that people listed in the URL field of the comment. You then paste these into the text box in MT-Blacklist's "Add" tab. (It also shows a list of the IP addresses, although I don't know why I bothered.)

Here are just some of the caveats you need to take very seriously: I am fumbling around in the dark when it comes to VBA for Outlook. And, there's almost no (= NO) error checking in this little program, so you could end up banning your mother; you must carefully inspect each of the URLs to make sure you really want to delete the comment that contains it. Further, I don't really understand how MT-Blacklist works. And there are probably some bad line wraps in the code below which will totally break it. Finally, this does NOT find any of the URLs in the body of the message because that's too hard. Well, finding the beginning of the urls isn't hard, but figuring out when they end is.

So with that warning (WARNING: read the warning!), here's the script:

Sub FindURLStoBAN() 
' walks through selected 
'files to find bad urls
 Dim objApp As Application
 Dim objSelection As Selection
 Dim objItem As Object
 Dim ipstr As String
 Dim urlstr As String
 Dim ips As String
 Dim  us As String
 
 Set objApp = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
 ' get the selected msgs
 
 Set objSel = objApp.ActiveExplorer.Selection
 
 x = 0
 For Each objItem In objSel
   If objItem.Class = 43 Then ' 43=mailitem
     msgtxt = objItem.Body ' get msg text
     ' Is this msg from mt-blacklist?
     p = InStr(msgtxt, "MT-Blacklist") 
     If p > 0 Then ' yes it is
      ' get the ip to ban
        p1 = InStr(msgtxt, "IP Address:")
        p1 = p1 + 12
        p2 = InStr(p1, msgtxt, vbCr)
        ips = Mid(msgtxt, p1, p2 - p1)
        ipstr = ipstr & vbCr & vbLf & ips
        ' get the url listed for the name
        p1 = InStr(msgtxt, "URL: ") + 5
        p2 = InStr(p1, msgtxt, vbCr)
        us = Mid(msgtxt, p1, p2 - p1)
        urlstr = urlstr & vbCr & vbLf & us

    ' ----'Get urls in the text
      udone = False: prevp = 1
      'u ppercase it because I'm lazy
     msgtxt = UCase(msgtxt)
     While Not udone
     u = ""
   ' get next a href
   p1 = InStr(prevp, msgtxt, "<A HREF=")
    ' get end of href
   p3 = InStr(p1 + 1, msgtxt, "">")
  ' find end of href
  If p1 > 0 And p3 > 0 Then
   ' get /a
   p2 = InStr(p1 + 1, msgtxt, "</A">")
    ' if it has an end /a
    If p2 > 0 Then
     ' extract the string
      u = Mid(msgtxt, p1 + 9, (p3 - (p1 + 11)))
     ' note where it ended for next loop
     prevp = p2
    ' is it already in the string?
      If InStr(1, urlstr, u) = 0 Then
     urlstr = urlstr & vbCr & vbLf & u
     End If
    End If
    End If
   ' are we out of links?
    if p1 = 0 Then udone = True
  Wend
                      
      End If ' if p > 0 msg from mtblacklist
     x = x + 1
 
     End If
  
 Next

 ' Fill the two textboxes

 mtblacklistfrm.iptxt.Text = ipstr
 mtblacklistfrm.urltxt.Text = urlstr
 mtblacklistfrm.Show
 Set objItem = Nothing
 
 
 End Sub 

(Here's a version that shouldn't have word-wrap problems.)

To make this work, you have to create a form called mtblacklistfrm and stick into it a text box that you name iptxt and one that you name urltxt. Set the text boxes' scroll bars to on and make sure that they're set to multiline.

If you don't know how to stick a script like this into OL, then you shouldn't. If you do, then you could have done this better yourself.

Warning: Do not trust this script! It undoubtedly is embarrassingly wrong and dangerous. Have pity on me. I'm a humanities major.

Thank you.

Me on the radio about spyware

I did a 4 minute interview this afternoon on WBUR's Here and Now show. The topic was spyware. [SPOILER:] I'm against it.

A terabyte for $500 and change

TigerDirect is advertising Seagate 120GB drives for $59.99 after the rebate. Applying my unique math skills (i.e., I've never done a calculation correctly), I think that works out to $511.91 for a terabyte of storage. Why, that'd be enough to store an entire blog, with room left over to download Tetris!

Peter van Dijck tracks storage prices over the years. At this rate, you'll be able to get 15 petabytes for $120 in the year 2020.

Why I'm weepy

This issue has had me on the verge of tears for days. And sometimes I've gone over the verge. Why?

The feeling is immediate. I don't have to think myself into it by imaginging that I'd been prevented from marrying my wife for 25 years. The feeling isn't connected to any particular friends who are getting married. Yet it's got a direct line to my heart.

The best I can figure, it's about hope. Here is something I never thought would happen in my lifetime. And it isn't just an issue like legalizing marijuana. This is about a deep cultural prejudice (IMO) against one of the forms love takes. With the bang of a gavel, it's done. A set of people have been embraced by the law and will, I believe, be embraced by our neighborhoods as well.

All that I hope for is finding expression in this one moment of liberation. If gays can marry, who knows what else is possible? What other freedoms might we grant? What other ways might we find to accept love?

I think that's why today I'm crying at the weddings of strangers.

in just

               in just

     in Just-
spring      when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame baloonman

whistles       far       and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old baloonman whistles
far       and       wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and

        the

                goat-footed

baloonMan     whistles
far
and
wee

— ee cummings

[Thanks to Zephyr Teachout for pointing out how apropos this poem is.]

Same Sex Marriage in MA, Part 2

A flautist and violinist played Baroque duets ("Music courtesy of the Brookline Music School") in the front corner of the lobby of the Brookline Town Hall. "Let me get rid of that for you," said a woman wearing an orange GLAD t-shirt, taking an orange rind from the tiny hand of a four year old on the shoulder of one of his fathers. GLAD was there to hand out roses, serve pastries, and applaud. There were no crowds of anonymous well-wishers, unlike last night's festival in Cambridge, just clusters of couples with their family and best friends.

Terry, the mother of one of my son's best friends, was there with a corsage pinned to her. She was invited by the parents of a boy a year ahead of ours in our local school. They were chatting with a small group of friends and relatives, waiting for the clerk to call their number. The clerk, a man in his 70s, stood outside the inner office, called out the couples' numbers, and warmly congratulated each couple on the way out. By 9:30 this morning, fifty couples in this town of 50,000 had been granted marriage licenses.

When I left, I saw a media person videotaping a meter maid ticketing a motorcycle with a sidecar — B-roll for the "life goes on" message the news will use to frame today's events. Yes, of course life goes on. But so far in Brookline, a hundred neighbors have had their love a acknowledged in a way that they probably thought would never happen in their lifetimes. So, life goes on, but as of May 17, 2004 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, life is better for all of us.

"We are legal"

"We're giving them the street." So the police officer said as my daughter and I arrived at Central Square in Cambridge at 11:30 this evening. The police pulled back the restraining fences and the crowd packed Massachusetts Ave. solid where we watched couples enter the Town Hall — the first same-sex couples in America to be issued marriage licenses fully legal according to state law. (Oh, stop your quibbling! We're the first state to do it right and I'm going to enjoy that.)

WOOHOO!

The crowd was enormous. We were crammed together from the street all the way up the long steps to the very entrance of the building. The protestors across the street ("God hates fags" read one particularly charming sign) were outnumbered and totally ignored; by midnight, they'd left.

Songs rippled through the crowd: "Going to the Chapel," and "America the Beautiful" and "This Land Is Your Land." Every couple that went up the stairs was cheered and applauded by all of us. "It's Woodstock," I said to my daughter. ("It's the Summer of Love," I thought.)

Then, at midnight, people threw rice, clapped, shouted, cheered. At least one of us laughed and cried at the same time. A chant began further up the hill and I couldn't tell if it was "We are equal" or "We are legal," but, well, that's the point, isn't it?

I'm proud of my state and I'm happy tonight.

I've posted my photos here.

Permission-Free Prison

Fascinating article by Seymour "Next Pulitzer a-Comin'" Hersh in this week's New Yorker. It alleges that the abuses at Abu Ghraib happened because a "special-access program" established by Rumsfeld to authorize quick-response kill/capture/interrogate operations took hold there. Hersh does not allege that Rumsfeld knew of or authorized the particular abuses, only that his program of secret, rough interrogation enabled them.

But it's a far more nuanced article than I'm letting on. And, of course, it's well-told.

Our Iliad

Ian Brown writes in Canada's Globe and Mail about how Abu Ghraib looks to someone immersed in The Iliad. It's impressionistic — at one point, it's Europe that's sulking in its tent, and at another Donald Rumsfeld is the modern stand-in for Achilles — but it's also splendid.

I, too, have been reading the Robert Fagles translation, which is both muscular and lyrical, and it's hard not to see the Iraq war through its lens. Homer does something that our accounts of our war have not: He conveys the sweep of the war by showing, one at a time, what happens when a spear strikes flesh encased in thin armor. The descriptions are vivid and concise. After telling us that someone's "limbs went loose," Homer will often remind us of where the soldier — each with a name — came from, what used to bring him pleasure, who will cry for him. Not for Homer the stupor of the cinematic long shot.

If our own journalists had shown us more of what war means to the soldiers and civilians who are fighting, dying, suffering, our shock at the photos at Abu Ghraib would not have been so great, although our outrage might be the same. We back at home aren't even allowed to see the caskets draped in honor, much less the corpses of our dead warriors. The photos from Abu Ghraib were one of the first glimpses we've had of what war brings us to. We citizens are being treated as if we're moral cowards, as if we can't face the suffering of war.

Where is the reporting that is unafraid to embed itself in reality? Where is the story of the broad sweep of the war that proceeds by talking of people, each of whom has a name? Where is our Homer?

A: On the Simpsons. D'oh.

Half-Life for the autistic

An autism institute apparently is interested in using Half-Life 2's facial animation capabilities to help teach autistic children how to recognize expressions, according to PC Gamer magazine.

While we're on the subject, can someone explain to me why having your code downloaded illegally can delay your product development by a year. Sure, you'll want to change it sufficiently that online play can't be hacked. But a year??? Half-Life 2 better be durn good!

And here's an unrelated tip: If you want to discuss Aspberger's Syndrome with your thirteen year old, try pretending it's pronounced Frenchily, as in Ahz-bair-shay. Otherwise, I can promise you that you won't get past the syndrome's name.

Walt Mossberg at the WSJ takes the ButtKicker for a ride. It sends vibrato through the seat of your chair whenever the notes get low enough, including when you're firing your shotgun at zombies. How long 'til Chanukah?

And speaking about How Long, Hiawatha Bray [link breaks soon] reports from the E3 convention that Half Life 2 is approaching cinematic quality, at least in terms of the graphics. Of course, he was watching the 15 minute demo video, which might possibly have been rendered by a server farm.

Bloguestion: Who is king of the jungle?

From Trevor Bechtel:

My partner, Susan, maintains a blog written by her 2nd grade class at http://209.typepad.com

I am writing you today to drum up site visits and comments for a question she has recently posted and would like to receive comments on. I asked some of you to help in this endeavor several months ago with a different question and she appreciated all the comments then. If you choose to go, remember that there are 7 and 8 year-old children reading your comments. Thanks for your participation.

Here's the question:

We were talking and studying about dinosaurs in our class and a debate started in one of our small groups. We want to know who was king of the jungle in the past and who is king of the jungle now?

Is your answer a fact or your opinion?

And my own favorite, St. Reduce the Leading and Maybe It'll Fit

Here are the patron saints of graphic design... [Thanks to Ian Poynter for the pointer.]

"If you're comin' to Broo-oo-kline...

...be sure to wear some flowers in your hair."

Monday is the first day same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts. I called the Freedom to Marry group and asked where a well-wisher should go. They expect lots of people in Cambridge at 11pm on Sunday when the office will open to give out forms, etc., so they suggested that I go to my own town hall on Monday morning.

So, I'm planning on showing up at the Brookline town hall with flowers. See you there?

Mexican UFO's

The AP is reporting that the Mexican Air Force has released video tape of 11 unidentified flying lights circling one of their jets. Here's a crappy infrared photo, which I glommed from here.

What it looks like I'm doing

My office is right off the TV room, um, I mean the family room, and I have no door, so my children are aware of my presence throughout the day. I sometimes wonder what they think my worklife is like, based on what they see me do.

Apparently, worklife means clicking on a keyboard for 10-14 hours a day. There are occasional phone calls, but the ones my kids see tend to be the multi-hour gabfests when I get tired of checking my email and wander around the house in shorts and a headset...

More over at Worthwhile...

Making the News

The murder of Nick Berg was horrible. He seems to have been a good-hearted man who went to Iraq because he wanted to help rebuild the country. But why is it the top headline in newspapers around the country?

If the Iraqis had murdered a civilian hostage, the media certainly would have paid attention, but I doubt it would have been the lead story. After all, Berg's going missing on April 9 wasn't deemed newsworthy.

Had the Iraqis murdered a hostage by beheading him, the savagery of the act would have made the story more newsworthy, especially in comparison to the humiliations at Abu Ghraib. But I doubt it would have dominated the news cycle.

This became the lead story because there's video of the savagery.

There's video because Al Qaeda wanted it to be the lead story.

Al Qaeda is better at manipulating our media than it is at fighting its war.

Heather knew Nick. Other reactions from Boston bloggers at Boston-online.com.

New issue of my newsletter, JOHO

May 6, 2004

Let's put the fire out with kerosene

Here's a link to the interview on NPR's Fresh Air that Bill O'Reilly doesn't want you to hear.

The Connection on the Anti-Blog

George Packer of the New Yorker is on the NPR talk show, The Connection, complaining about blogs because, first, they're addictive, and second, they're frequently written quickly and contain shallow ideas. He assumes blogs are like second-string columnists and misses entirely the role of millions of blogs as as social phenomenon.

So, I figure I should point this out in a blog entry written quickly and without any interesting ideas.

Army Times calls for Rumsfeld to resign

The Army Times, the unofficial newspaper of the US Army, is calling for Rumsfeld to resign. Here are some excerpts:

Around the halls of the Pentagon, a term of caustic derision has emerged for the enlisted soldiers at the heart of the furor over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal: the six morons who lost the war.

Indeed, the damage done to the U.S. military and the nation as a whole by the horrifying photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees at the notorious prison is incalculable.

But the folks in the Pentagon are talking about the wrong morons...

The entire affair is a failure of leadership from start to finish. From the moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and isolated. The message to the troops: Anything goes.

...On the battlefield, Myers’ and Rumsfeld’s errors would be called a lack of situational awareness — a failure that amounts to professional negligence.

...This was not just a failure of leadership at the local command level. This was a failure that ran straight to the top. Accountability here is essential — even if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war.

[Thanks to Tim Bishop for the link.]

Double-edged security

Bruce Schneier is becmoing the king of op-eds. Here's another goodie that argues for requiring warrants before we allow government agencies to invade our privacy. Bruce doesn't want us to increase our security against foreign attacks by making us less secure against the predations of our own government.

Frank conversation about torture

Over at Frank Paynter's there's been an interesting and useful discussion of my attempt to find a way for the left and the right to agree on a policy condemning torture. (As I've noted several times now, I should have talked not about the right wing but about the Rush wing.) Frank's first blog entry about it is here and his reply to my reply is here. Be sure to read the comments where I am taken to task rather severely by some exceptionally thoughtful people. (I reply there also.)

Fire Rumsfeld or Impeach Bush

I'm trying to be fair. I'm trying to appreciate the right steps I believe President Bush has taken in reaction to the discovery that Americans tortured Iraqi prisoners. I've said that I was glad Bush expressed outrage right away and then a day later apologized. I made the public mistake of anticipating a tepid reaction from the right wing, but have found it only in the Rush wing, and I accept the correction gratefully. I have tried to keep some perspective on the harshness of the torture we've heard about so far, and have taken some lumps for that. I am trying not to be the knee-jerk liberal nee pacifist that I in fact am. And I find my views wobbling like a headlight on the road after a traffic accident.

But I read the news today, oh boy. Now we know how many holes it takes to fill a moral void.

Rumsfeld is wondering what to do with the additional information we have about torture. The fact that he's wondering means he should be fired. There wasn't much of a case for keeping him before this: He knew we were torturing prisoners, didn't act to stop it, and didn't tell Congress or the President. The effect of his hiring mercenaries and going soft on the Geneva Convention was predictable. Rumsfeld should be fired before he's allowed to resign "because the continuing political controversy no longer allows me to be effective in my job."

And, the US should close Abu Ghraib because symbolism isn't just symbolic when it comes to morality. And we ought to open all our prisons up to the Red Cross. And we ought to unambiguously accept the Geneva Conventions as applicable across the board. And we ought to internationalize the occupation of Iraq, beyond the Coalition of the Willing and the Paid, along the lines that Kerry has suggested. We now need to do everything we can think of to indicate that we understand that because we are fallible humans, our power can corrupt us, and since we are the most powerful country on the planet, we know we need to take special pains to behave well and humbly.

If Bush does not fire Rumsfeld and take the strongest and most dramatic steps to investigate, reveal and remedy the abuses, then Bush supports Rumsfeld and takes the blame for the system that enabled torture, just as surely as he should take the blame if, say, the economy suddenly tanked and he didn't take strong steps to fix it. If a president is responsible for a system of "torture rooms," that, in my opinion, is a high crime that is grounds for impeachment.

Even if Bush doesn't deserve impeachment — and of course reasonable people may disagree — if he fails to take these events seriously enough, impeaching him is perhaps the only way we can signal to the world and, more important, to ourselves that America knows it isn't above the most basic laws of morality. Symbolism counts.

Tony Judt writes well in the Washington Post about the hollowness of our official apologies. For the military's own report on the abuses at Abu Ghraib, see Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article. For Cheney's assessment that Rumsfeld "is the best secretary of defense the United States has ever had" and that Rumsfeld ought to get back to business as usual, see this Reuters article.

The administration's reaction to torture

I'm pleased that the Bush administration hasn't tried to defend or minimize our actions at Abu Ghraib. Not a word that I've heard.

Of course, I wish Bush had apologized earlier; it took about 24 hours for the administration to decide that this was really really really bad and not just really bad. And, I'd prefer to see a more sweeping set of changes that address how this could ever have happened. But I'm surprisingly not outraged by how Bush reacted once the photos went public.

Will this bring a break between Bush and the DittoHead wing of the Republican Party? Rush is telling his cadre that this was all caused by some "idiot" who took "a picture of something out of context." "The world is laughing" at us for the Senate's questioning of Rumsfeld:

We are being laughed at today and we are being seen as weak and malleable. I ask again, "Who died here?"

Um, 25 Iraqis. And America's claim to being the unambiguous moral leader of the world.

Has Rush criticized Bush for apologizing? I can't say that I'm a regular listener...

A speech I'd like to hear

You know how sometimes when you're angry at someone, you write a letter that you don't send just because writing it feels good? That's what I do when I get frustrated at what I'm hearing from politicians, except it comes out not as a letter but as a speech in the bombastic rhetorical style typical of candidates.

This is what I wrote last night...

Seeking miiddle ground on torture

The left sees in the photos what we are afraid our country has become. The right sees in the photos some "fratboy hazing" (Rush Limbaugh's basic message) and fairplay against people who want to kill our children. Is torture going to be the final breaking point between the two sides in this country? Is it the issue that will in fact solidify our national sensibilities into two and only two sides: You hate torture or you think it's great that we're finally getting tough on the bad guys?

I despair of finding middle ground. Here's the best I can do:

I am willing to admit that there are circumstances in which torture is permissible, just as I think sometimes we have to kill people. And I'm willing to admit that what we apparently put the Abu Ghraib prisoners through wasn't nearly as bad as the torture that's routine in many other countries.

Is the right willing to admit that: Torture should only be used in the direst of circumstances? Torture should never be a cause for the exulting shown in the photos? The people responsible for allowing the wholesale torture at Abu Ghraib need to be punished severely, quickly and publicly not only for the sake of justice but to try to limit some of the damage the practice has done to our war on terror?

Can we get even to that common ground? Can we as a nation say that we abhor torture, except in the rarest of cases? That we do not believe in the institutionalizing of torture? That we will fight it around the world? That we believe in the rule of law and that no one is above the law? That we believe in treating even our enemies with dignity? That we support the established international conventions for treating prisoners? That we are sorry about what went on at Abu Ghraib?

If left and right can't agree on those points, then I do fear that the division in our country is unbridgeable. If we can't agree to condemn torture, if we can't feel shame at what we did at Abu Ghraib, then what can we agree on?

I am predicting that some of you are going to be outraged at the idea that we should treat our enemies with dignity. So, let me preemptively explain what I mean.

In WWII, when we captured Nazi soldiers, we generally (AFAIK) followed the Geneva Conventions. We didn't kill them. We didn't beat them. We didn't strip them and put them on leashes. We fed them and housed them ok. We treated them with basic dignity even though we had been trying to kill them in the field, and even though they were f_cking Nazis. Why?

For a few reasons.

First, people are people. But if you have a problem with the idea of treating enemies with dignity, this will probably strike you as mere liberal mush.

Second, we want reciprocity. Failure to abide by the international rules gives the other side license to do the same with your own soldiers.

Third, the aim of war is to establish peace. Mistreating prisoners makes it harder to come to peace because your enemy hates you more. And it makes it harder to preserve peace because the people you're now mistreating are going to become civilians when the war is over; making a segment of the population hate your guts does not help the cause of long-term peace.

If you believe, as I do, that the war against terror can't be won solely on the battlefield, then preventing the war from destroying the possibility of peace is especially trenchant.

More photos, without balls

The Washington Post has a gallery of photos.

They've cropped out the dicks and balls. This is one time our sensibilities need to not be protected.

Has it really come to this?

Who would have thought that this would be something we'd have to state explicitly?

Posted by self at 02:28 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (1)