New Feature - HOT5 Daily

I am starting a new feature here called HOT5 Daily.  Each day I am going to link five recent blog posts that I found interesting.  They could be interesting because of their insightful analysis, their incredible stupidity, or for other reasons.  Most will be political in nature, but not necessarily all. They will only be links to blog posts, not to regular news stories or mass media published articles. If you have a blog and think you have a post I should read, or want to suggest something, please let me know.  Put "HOT5" in the subject. On to the list:

1.  "Who Do You Think You Are Anyway"  This could also be called Cynical Rant of the Day.  The author may be a liberal, but this made me want to read his blog.  

Representative Sample: Let me tell you some things that you may or not know. First of all, the Federal government doesn’t give a f**k about you. They never have and they never will.

2.  "This beaver is clearly up to something"  NSFW-language. This is a must read.

Representative Sample: beavers don't just go around tapping their fingers together like an evil genius for no reason.

3.  "Matt Yglesias Is A Moral Leper"  A vicious right-wing smackdown.

Representative Sample: a snobby, know-it-all, chomskyite punk who graduated from Harvard the same year the war in Iraq began

4.  "Don’t Mention the (Cold) War"  An incisive capsule view of Russia today.

Representative Sample: there is a concerted effort on the part of the Putin/Medvedev regime to turn back the clock on Russia's relations with the United States

5.  "Syria And Iran: Know Who You're Dealing With"  Why we can't trust either of them.

Representative Sample: It isn’t that no one has tried negotiating with Iran on its nuclear program but merely that Iran has broken all its pledges

Want your blog post linked, or have a suggestion?  E-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com  Put HOT5 in the subject.

Blackwater Guards Were Under Fire

Back on December 8, I had a post up looking at The Blackwater Manslaughter Case.  At the time, I wrote that "it seems unlikely that the guards, all former military men, would just open fire on civilians without a good reason." An AP report yesterday reveals that Blackwater radio logs during the incident

describe a hectic eight minutes in which the guards repeatedly reported incoming gunfire from insurgents and Iraqi police.

It looks like the prosecution's case just fell apart.

Israeli Arms Sales to Russia?

Ares Defense Blog at Aviation Week reports a possible $12 million arms deal between Israel and Russia, with Israel supplying 100 of its Hermes 450 UAVs.  The Hermes 450 has multi-payload capacity, as well as real-time intelligence capabilities.  Russia encountered the UAV in its conflict with Georgia, which had previously bought some from Israel.

Hmm, selling advanced UAVs to Russia, the main arms supplier of Israel's Arab (and Persian) enemies.  What could go wrong?  I can understand the Israeli armaments industry's desire to reach new markets, but Putin's Russia is a terrible choice.  Why not just sell some to Syria and Iran while they are at it?

Religious Freedom & Guantanamo

The Washington Post  "On Faith" section has a daily column called "Under God." The latest article looks at a court case involving four British Muslims, held for two years and released uncharged, who claim that they were tortured and denied "their rights to practice their religion." They assert that

during their detention their beards were shaved, their daily prayers were banned or interrupted, copies of the Koran and prayer mats were denied to them, and one copy of the Koran was thrown in a toilet bucket in their presence.

Their case was unanimously rejected by the federal appeals court, but the Supreme Court is giving them another chance to make their case.  The appeals court, among other things, ruled that foreign non-resident detainees are not entitled to the same rights as U.S. citizens and legal resident aliens.

The Post writers are highly sympathetic to the former prisoners, are incredulous about the appeals court reasoning, and tout the fact that various religious groups share their position.

I don't share their views.  Let's pretend that the former prisoners even have a case based on something other than their own unsubstantiated assertions -- a big assumption.  And let's exclude the torture part of their claim, since this article only deals with the religious freedom aspect.  This case is still a complete waste of time and should be dismissed.

First, the appeals court was correct. Non-U.S. citizens do not and should not have the same rights as U.S. citizens.  The idea that they do, because the constitution refers to "people" or "persons" is simply ridiculous.  That notion is even more absurd when applied to presumed hostile aliens captured during wartime.

Then there are the specifics of the claim about being denied the rights to practice their religion. When you are in custody, even if you are a U.S. citizen, your full ability to practice your religion is going to be restricted.  There are dress and hygiene requirements in prison.  You don't get to have all the ceremonial implements you might think you need.  If your religion requires you to sacrifice a goat every Tuesday morning, is the prison going to provide you with a goat and a knife? Prisons have schedules, and prisoners aren't free to do whatever they want.  If you think you need to pray at a fixed time, it's likely that you might be interrupted occasionally.  If your prayers are loud, disruptive or otherwise irritating, they might be banned.  

All of the allegations in the claim can be easily understood as reasonable restrictions on religious practice based on prison conditions.  The Koran in the toilet incident, if it even occurred, was a an alleged trivial single occurence in a two year span and is therefore irrelevant -- especially since we don't know the circumstances. This "religious freedom" case is a frivolous suit based on shaky claims of constitutional rights that don't even exist for the persons in question.

As an aside, there is a hilarious quotation in the article by J. Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee, and one of the Washington Post's "On Faith" panelists.  

When anyone's God-given religious freedom is denied, everyone's is threatened

Religious freedom is "God-given"?  Really?  Which god is in favor of religious freedom? Mr. Walker might want to read back through the bible and see what his god has to say about the practice of other religions.  He can start witih "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Exodus 20:3.  

Brzezinski's Foreign Policy Recommendations

Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski has a new column out titled, "The global political awakening." He gives some fairly specific recommendations for the direction of U.S. foreign policy.  Let's examine some of them:

1.  "re-establish a shared sense of purpose between America and Europe."  This is pretty vague, but essentially he's calling for the U.S. to work closer with European allies and make them feel like they have a role in U.S. foreign policy decisions.  I'm not sure how we accomplish that, but it appears to be a worthy goal.

2. "A regular personal dialogue...between the U.S. president and the Chinese leader."  Brzezinski wants more engagement with China to develop "a shared sense of responsibility." This is a realist approach that recognizes that we need Chinese cooperation on various issues.  It seems like a reasonable proposal.  We can't afford to ignore China.

3.  Diplomatic efforts toward Russia, in conjunction with Europe, to "seek agreements that enhance global stability, promote nuclear weapons reduction and deal with such regional problems as Iran."  Unfortunately such efforts assume that Russia is willing to cooperate.  There haven't been many signs of that lately.  He writes that the U.S. and Europe have to 

find a way of reaffirming their commitment to the integrity of Ukraine and Georgia while conveying to Russia that their interest in these two states relates to the gradual construction of a larger democratic Europe and is not designed to threaten Russia itself.

Good luck with that.

4.  "The Israeli-Palestinian peace process needs to be a priority."  Here I strongly disagree.  As a realist, Brezinski should understand that the Israeli-Palestinian situation is an unsolvable problem. The best thing we can do is to try to keep it from escalating. Wasting our time trying to come up with new agreements is pointless. We should also stop pretending to be some sort of honest broker and recognize that Israel is our ally, the Palestinians are hostile, and act accordingly.

5.  "undertake seriously reciprocal negotiations with Iran."  Useless and counterproductive.  Our only negotiations with Iran should be in the form of clear, unmistakable threats -- ie. deterrence. The current Iranian regime cannot be trusted.  Making some sort of deal with Iran, which they will then break -- either openly or secretly -- is a terrible idea.

6. "America's strategy regarding Afghanistan and Pakistan needs a basic reassessment."  Here he argues for a shift in Afghanistan toward a policy aimed at trying to separate the Taliban from Al Qaeda -- more diplomacy and less military action.  I think we should definitely consider such a strategy.  He does not elaborate with regard to Pakistan.

The entire article is definitely worth reading, even though I disagree with some of his assumptions and recommendations.

Ticking Bomb Scenario & Torture

While surfing the left-wing blogosphere, I came across a short post by John Cole at Balloon Juice entitled:  "Tick Tock, You Don’t Stop." Cole is referencing an op-ed piece by Reuel Marc Gerecht, and a subsequent exchange between Gerecht and Andrew Sullivan.  Cole argues that

every attempt to justify torture inevitably returns to the mythical ticking time-bomb scenario

But of course there's nothing mythical about a ticking time-bomb or an analogous situation.  Why is it so difficult for left-wingers to understand that information can be time-sensitive? Unlike what Cole seems to believe, there is an excellent reason the ticking time bomb scenario comes up so often in arguments about torture.

There are three broad positions regarding torture.  Most people subscribe to one of them, although there is some overlap between groups.  The first I'll call Moral Absolutism. Moral Absolutists oppose torture on any and all occasions, because they see torture as morally wrong and indefensible.  The ends never justify the means.  The second position I characterize as Utilitarian.  Utilitarians evaluate torture on the basis of its effectiveness alone.  They aren't swayed by moral concerns.  This is the position often taken by torturers themselves, who argue that their actions were both necessary & effective -- the best way to save lives or whatever. The last group is almost certainly the largest, I'll call them Ticking Bomb Theorists.  Ticking Bomb Theorists tend to oppose torture in most cases.  But unlike Moral Absolutists, they believe that there are certain situations where torture might be justifiable, such as of course, a ticking bomb. Obviously the devil is in the details, and different people in this category can have far different thresholds for the use of torture.  

The ticking bomb scenario is just a convenient, easily understood scenario that illustrates why most people are not moral absolutists.  No one expects moral absolutists to agree.  But it would be nice if they'd stop pretending that possible real-world situations are nothing more than myth.

More Smoker Lawsuits

The Supreme Court rendered another bad 5-4 decision, opening the way for more lawsuits against tobacco companies based on "deceptive business practices" involving the marketing of light and low tar cigarettes.  The usual suspects, Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsberg & Breyer were in the majoirty.

Most tobacco lawsuits are little more than schemes to extort money from the unpopular tobacco companies -- particularly the cases filed by state attornies general.  Many individual cases rely on someone claiming to be such a moron that he/she didn't realize smoking was bad for health, and was tricked by the deceptive advertising of smoking companies.  Amazingly enough, this tactic has paid-off incredibly well.

I'm thinking of buying a Cadillac CTS and then suing GM for deceptive business practices if it doesn't turn me on.  They can pay me out of their bailout money.