Say Anything Blog

BURIED WITHIN a recent government brief in the case of Guantanamo Bay inmate Majid Khan is one of the more disturbing arguments the Bush administration has advanced in the legal struggles surrounding the war on terrorism. Mr. Khan was one of the al-Qaeda suspects who was detained in a secret prison of the CIA and subjected to “alternative” interrogation tactics—the administration’s chilling phrase for methods most people regard as torture. Now the government is arguing that by subjecting detainees to such treatment, the CIA gives them “top secret” classified information—and the government can then take extraordinary measures to keep them quiet about it. If this argument carries the day, it will make virtually impossible any accountability for the administration’s treatment of top al-Qaeda detainees. And it will also ensure that key parts of any military trials get litigated in secrecy.

The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has posted most interesting study called The Militant Ideology Atlas. The data base identifies key intellectuals in the jihadist movement and presents the texts and sources commonly cited in jihadist circles. The main report is more than 4 MB but the Executive Report is just under a meg…I’m sure it will make for interesting reading on a rainy day.

Not very civil of her...would this constitute an act of treason in American law?

Somebody mentioned George Orwell the other day and this quote of his came to mind:

All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.

I know I’m guilty of it at times as are others I’m sure.

This article greeted me as I opened up Firefox this morning. The rather understated opening sentence actually speaks volumes:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen in Iraqi police uniforms rounded up dozens of men at a government building in central Baghdad on Tuesday and drove off, in what may be the biggest mass kidnapping seen in a city becoming used to such violence.

I’m glad Saddam was deposed and I know that building a democracy is hard work but I can’t imagine how weary the Iraqi people must feel. Here’s hoping for a happy ending to an increasingly sad story.

The Belgravia Dispatch’s Greg Djerejian kindly posts an extended excerpt of a Michael Lind article in the Financial Times. The article’s theme is essentially Colin Powell’s admonitions to “go high or go home” and to rely on military action as the final resort and how ignoring Powell’s doctrine has contributed to the mess we see in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s interesting analysis for those who prefer their analysis rooted in the real world.

I’ve always enjoyed reading John Cole at Balloon Juice as he’s one of the few higher profile conservative bloggers who has consistently refused to trade intellectual integrity for partisan hackery. He’s a tidy writer too…read this lament and you’ll feel his disappointment as if it were your own.

I have been giving that some thought lately. The “stay the course” and the “tinker with tactics” arguments don’t appear to grasp the reality of armed interests competing to fill the power vacuum created when Saddam was deposed. The “cut and run” argument may tempt those opposed to the seemingly endless expenditure of American resources but it flies in the face of a standard of responsibility shared by most of us…some call it the “you broke it, you pay for it” philosophy while others refer to the “we’re in it now so we have to finish it” dictum. They aren’t expressing the problem in exactly the same way but the endpoint is the same. One can choose between two distasteful options or one can hope that some third option reveals itself.

A coup in Iraq wouldn’t solve any of the significant regional issues that American policy is intended to address but it would seem politically expedient for America.

Ouch.