Most of the articles about the '08 candidates online right now deal with issues like:
1) Obama saying that the religous right has stolen religion and used it to split the country. (which is true)
2) Giulani's reasons for quitting the Iraq study group. (which we'll never really know)
3) The lobbyists on McCain's staff. (Which doesn't matter since he has absolutely no shot anyway)
4) Bloomberg marching in a gay rights parade. (Uhhh...he's not even a candidate)
Now I really think that, with the other critical stories to cover around the world, there shouldn't be any stories about the '08 candidates. It's too early, and there's too damn many of them to keep the news focused on them right now.
But, since they are covering them, let me just point out that NONE of these stories have ANYTHING to do with any relevant issue. The news just is not reporting on candidates actual positions. It's ridiculous.
You know what would make a great article? Some papers should just publish a list of issues, and where each of the candidates stack up on those issues. How come that's not in any of the mainstream sites or papers? Maybe I'll put that on the blog, if I get time to compile it.
Showing posts with label presidential election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presidential election. Show all posts
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Evolution and the Presidency
I just heard Mike Huckabee say "I don't think anyone in America cares about whether their presidential candidates believe in evolution." Uhh...really? Actually, Governor Juckabee, I care. To me that's like saying nobody cares whether their candidates believe in Gravity. If you don't believe in either of those things, you are not competent to enter into any sort of reasonable discourse, because you clearly are not persuaded even by overwhelming evidence. The problem is not evolution per se, but the idea that scientific proof must be seen to put argument to rest. It's the fact that a refusal of the principle of evolution is a refusal of the scientific paradigm, and that is simpy no longer acceptable in a mainstream candidate for president.
Huckabee went directly onto say "I think there are issues Democrats and Republicans can agree on. We have 2 kids drop out of High School every second, and others who put their heads down and take the most expensive nap in America." So I guess Huckabee is trying to push himself as the pro-education candidate.
Hey Mike, what do you think they teach in those schools? If you want kids to agree with you that evolution is bullshit, you don't need to wake them up, you just need to make sure they sleep through science class.
Huckabee went directly onto say "I think there are issues Democrats and Republicans can agree on. We have 2 kids drop out of High School every second, and others who put their heads down and take the most expensive nap in America." So I guess Huckabee is trying to push himself as the pro-education candidate.
Hey Mike, what do you think they teach in those schools? If you want kids to agree with you that evolution is bullshit, you don't need to wake them up, you just need to make sure they sleep through science class.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Coercive Interrogation is Bullshit
I just finished reading a fascinating article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19032165/site/newsweek/page/0/
In which the Steven Kleinman, a veteran interrogator from as far back as WWII, argues that coercive interrigation techniques (read: torture) are indefensible on grounds of effectiveness, rather than any particular moral or legal problem. This is something that has made common sense to me for quite some time, and I was glad to see a mainstream publication giving voice to the position.
Kleinman favors instead the use of empathetic techniques, the defusal of resistance postures through counter-intuitive, overly friendly and helpful stances that create rapport and a desire to please on the part of the subject.
In one of the article's most interesting exchanges, the interviewer suggests that the level of fanaticism found in terrorists today would render non-coercive techniques ineffective. Kleinman pushes against this point by insisting that Nazi fanaticism (during the period he was cutting his teeth with these techniques) was commensurate with terrorists devotion to Osama bin Laden today.
It seems to me that, even if he is wrong, and the terrorists today are greater fanatics than the Nazis, that only makes his case stronger. Fanaticism (defined by me as the willingness to suffer and inflict suffering for a person or cause) is more help in resisting torture than in resisting empathetic techniques.
Kleinman's techniques involve more subterfuge and deception than coercive techniques, and those weapons are more likely to circumvent fanaticism than a head on challenge. In fact, physical suffering plays directly into the fanatics hands by allowing him to "offer up" that suffering to his God or figurehead.
A friend of mine who was an on-the-ground interrogator attached to an infantry unit in Iraq told me that by far the most effective technique he has seen used on the terrorists was a religous reversal. That is, convincing a religous fanatic that Allah had intended for him to survive whatever battle he had been captured during, and that Allah's will now was for him to cooperate with the US. (Otherwise, Allah would have allowed him to die) The point about this technique is that when it works, it works all the way. No disinformation, no withholding, as opposed to coercove techniques which force interrogators to fight tooth and nail for every gain.
Kleinman also made an interesting point with regard to the assumed effectiveness of coercive techniques. He said that shows which depict torture (most notably "24") show it (falsely) to be such an effective method, that even the opponents of torture tend to oppose it on legal or moral grounds rather than pressing on the expected results. This is a huge mistake.
The question is whether the creators of such shows bear any responsibility to the public trust, in terms of spreading this disinformation. I have the same question about shows (I was watching "Mission Impossible III" last night, and they did this.) that depict someone performing CPR, pressing sharply on someone's chest, and restarting a stopped heart. This is medically impossible, that technique is only useful for keeping minimally oxygenated blood flowing through the veins until actual medical help can be obtained. Do people actually try this? And if so, should the creators of such shows be held responsible for creating this dangerously fictional perception?
Finally, I fail to understand why opponents of torture (Notably John McCain. There isn't even really a debate in the Democratic Party.) fail to utilize these arguments in their opposition to torture. During the last debate, McCain said "We could never gain as much from torture as we would lose in international opinion." (That quote is close, it may not be on the money.) Those kinds of arguments are inherently weak, because A) loss of international opinion is a hypothetical future event and B) It should be clear from the 2004 election that 51% of this country doesn't give a shit about international opinion. If McCain (and others) would step up and make the debate much more about the ineffectiveness of torture rather than the abhorrent nature of the means, they wouldn't come off as such wussies. And they would still be right.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19032165/site/newsweek/page/0/
In which the Steven Kleinman, a veteran interrogator from as far back as WWII, argues that coercive interrigation techniques (read: torture) are indefensible on grounds of effectiveness, rather than any particular moral or legal problem. This is something that has made common sense to me for quite some time, and I was glad to see a mainstream publication giving voice to the position.
Kleinman favors instead the use of empathetic techniques, the defusal of resistance postures through counter-intuitive, overly friendly and helpful stances that create rapport and a desire to please on the part of the subject.
In one of the article's most interesting exchanges, the interviewer suggests that the level of fanaticism found in terrorists today would render non-coercive techniques ineffective. Kleinman pushes against this point by insisting that Nazi fanaticism (during the period he was cutting his teeth with these techniques) was commensurate with terrorists devotion to Osama bin Laden today.
It seems to me that, even if he is wrong, and the terrorists today are greater fanatics than the Nazis, that only makes his case stronger. Fanaticism (defined by me as the willingness to suffer and inflict suffering for a person or cause) is more help in resisting torture than in resisting empathetic techniques.
Kleinman's techniques involve more subterfuge and deception than coercive techniques, and those weapons are more likely to circumvent fanaticism than a head on challenge. In fact, physical suffering plays directly into the fanatics hands by allowing him to "offer up" that suffering to his God or figurehead.
A friend of mine who was an on-the-ground interrogator attached to an infantry unit in Iraq told me that by far the most effective technique he has seen used on the terrorists was a religous reversal. That is, convincing a religous fanatic that Allah had intended for him to survive whatever battle he had been captured during, and that Allah's will now was for him to cooperate with the US. (Otherwise, Allah would have allowed him to die) The point about this technique is that when it works, it works all the way. No disinformation, no withholding, as opposed to coercove techniques which force interrogators to fight tooth and nail for every gain.
Kleinman also made an interesting point with regard to the assumed effectiveness of coercive techniques. He said that shows which depict torture (most notably "24") show it (falsely) to be such an effective method, that even the opponents of torture tend to oppose it on legal or moral grounds rather than pressing on the expected results. This is a huge mistake.
The question is whether the creators of such shows bear any responsibility to the public trust, in terms of spreading this disinformation. I have the same question about shows (I was watching "Mission Impossible III" last night, and they did this.) that depict someone performing CPR, pressing sharply on someone's chest, and restarting a stopped heart. This is medically impossible, that technique is only useful for keeping minimally oxygenated blood flowing through the veins until actual medical help can be obtained. Do people actually try this? And if so, should the creators of such shows be held responsible for creating this dangerously fictional perception?
Finally, I fail to understand why opponents of torture (Notably John McCain. There isn't even really a debate in the Democratic Party.) fail to utilize these arguments in their opposition to torture. During the last debate, McCain said "We could never gain as much from torture as we would lose in international opinion." (That quote is close, it may not be on the money.) Those kinds of arguments are inherently weak, because A) loss of international opinion is a hypothetical future event and B) It should be clear from the 2004 election that 51% of this country doesn't give a shit about international opinion. If McCain (and others) would step up and make the debate much more about the ineffectiveness of torture rather than the abhorrent nature of the means, they wouldn't come off as such wussies. And they would still be right.
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