Getting Feith: Emily Litella, ace reporter for the WaPo, says “never mind”

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Last night I was in the middle of preparing a piece about the Washington Post article that described the Pentagon’s sharp criticism of Douglas Feith for giving too much credence to some faulty prewar intelligence reports of a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda.

Rearching the post was interesting, as research often is. It lead me to read quite a bit of background about Feith and his detractors, including this New Yorker piece by Jeffrey Goldberg, written in May of 2005, which contained the following interesting passage:

[Feith’s] detractors see him as an ideologue who manipulated intelligence to bring about the invasion of Iraq. His main nemesis on Capitol Hill, Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who serves on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told me that Feith deceived not only the White House but Congress as well.

Remember, this was written nearly two years ago. Carl Levin has apparently been Feith’s Inspector Javert for quite some time. The current WaPo story featured Carl Levin in his new role as Armed Services Committee Chairman, finally able to stick it to Feith via this Pentagon report.

I discovered many other choice tidbits along the way: a much-reported (originally by Bob Woodward in Plan of Attack) quote from Tommy Franks that Feith was the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth.

But then, in his own autobiography, Franks had written that he was only quoting others, and that what he actually had said was: Word is going around that Feith is the fucking stupidest…”

The whole tale was replete with that sort of thing. But one fact became crystal clear: Feith had annoyed people–angered them, even–with a personal style described as arrogant. That made him the fall guy for everyone, since there were plenty of mistakes and errors to go around–as there are in any war and occupation, especially one of this complexity. Those in Pentagon, State, the CIA, and the Department of Defense could say, who, me? No, not me; him! And Feith seems to be the favorite “him” to blame.

Perhaps where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Perhaps Feith really is–if not the fucking stupidest man on the face of the earth (remember, I’m just quoting here)–then perhaps the fucking stupidest man in the Pentagon, State, the Department of Defense, and the CIA.

Somehow, though, I doubt it. I bet there’s at least a couple who are stupider (ah, yes, and maybe women, too).

Feith doesn’t sound especially stupid to me in the New Yorker article–but then again, I haven’t ever worked for him. He’s quoted there as saying that, prior to the invasion, his group drew up all sorts of dire contingency plans for postwar Iraq, but that the military didn’t listen. For example, he warned them to prepare for serious looting in the aftermath, although his warnings were apparently disregarded by Franks.

Feith also proposed–well, let’s hear the stupidest man on earth tell it himself:

…a plan to train five thousand Iraqi exiles to accompany American troops in the invasion. Feith and Perle, who supported the idea, claimed that centcom subverted the plan. “Central Command saw the training of Iraqis as a pain in the ass,” Perle said… Feith did not argue that a force of Iraqi exiles would be a panacea, but he said that they could have aided in translating, in guiding, and in vetting local officials.

Well, although I agree it’s no panacea, I’ve heard stupider thoughts, I must say.

While I was mulling over all this furious buckpassing, I came across another error. This one had nothing to do with Iraq, however. It had to do with the story itself. The Washington Post had printed a correction, and it’s a whopper. It turns out that the Pentagon report in question had contained very few of the reported quotes about Feith, and none of the most serious ones.

In a correction almost as long and involved as the original article (okay, that’s hyperbole; but it’s plenty long and plenty involved) the Post said that the most critical quotes attributed to the Pentagon report had actually been issued by none other than Feith’s old nemesis himself: Carl Levin.

It’s a little unclear how reporters Walter Pincus and R. Jeffrey Smith could have gotten the story so very wrong. Did Levin make the incorrect attibution himself? Or did they rush to print without exercising due diligence, or even minimal diligence? Or all of the above? How could they have mistaken Levin’s report for the Pentagon’s? After all, this is the Washington Post, not a blog; I bet they don’t work in their pajamas. But this error makes it seem as though they were writing in their sleep.

I’ll resist any “stupidest man on the face of the earth” jokes. But I won’t resist an Emily Litella reference: “never mind” seems to be the name of the game.

And I wonder how many who read the original story will ever hear of the correction?

Hating those dreadful neocons (Part II): Right and Left unite

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As I wrote yesterday in Part I, neocon-hatred is sometimes connected with poorly-veiled anti-Semtism. But there are many other reasons that some people on both Left and Right hate neocons. This post will, of necessity, contain many generalizations; I don’t mean to say that all on the Left or Right hate neocons, or even that all neocon-haters are motivated by the factors I’m about to discuss.

On the Right, paleocons have plenty of ideological disagreements with neocons. There’s a certain amount of anti-Semitism among a few paleocons (think Pat Buchanan), but more commonly there’s the idea that neocons have perverted the conservative agenda for their own nefarious and antithetical purposes. In other words, they’ve hijacked the party and infiltrated the mind of George Bush, wielding undue influence, hypnotizing him into betraying conservative impulses.

Paleocons believe in liberty and justice for all, but the “all” doesn’t tend to include anybody outside our borders, at least not though our own direct efforts. They are willing to defend this country—and will do so vigorously—when it is attacked. But otherwise, isolationism is common (although not universal) among paleocons. And, when not isolationist, paleocons tend to be of the school of realpolitik, supporting whatever dictatorship happens to be perceived as best fitting our interests.

President Bush has betrayed paleocons by being a big spender. But their perception of even greater betrayal stems from the fact that Bush listened to the siren song of the neocons, who managed to talk him into a costly and useless war that has, among other things, caused the Party to lose the control of Congress so recently gained and hard fought.

Another factor is that paleocons, unfortunately, don’t have much of an answer to the underlying problem of the rise of Islamic totalitarianism. This may be another part of the reason for their anger. Their traditional answer: pulling back, hunkering down—doesn’t cut it in the modern world as easily as it did even fifty years ago. This time, the enemy came here; in fact, it probably is here. The world forces that created Islamic totalitarianism are not going away easily, and the other traditional paleocon approach—realpolitik: supporting, dealing with, and in many cases allying with and helping whatever dictator happens to suit our purposes—has failed to contain it.

The neocons offer an alternative that goes against the paleocon grain. As for the justifications behind the Iraq War, the WMD argument is the only one a paleocon would tend to see as valid, and the postwar failure to find actual WMDs only adds to the sense of betrayal.

Some paleocons actually see neocons as liberals by another name. And they’re not that far off, in a way; neocons do not tend to share much of the cultural and social conservatism of paleocons; in this, many neocons do have more in common with liberals.

But of course, liberals seem to hate neocons even more strongly and universally than paleocons do. In a way, this is puzzling; after all, the neocon agenda involves the liberation of third-world peoples from tyranny. Is that not a traditional liberal, (and Leftist—although Leftists have different goals for any such “liberation”) agenda?

For liberals, though—at least recently—one of the subtexts of liberation around the world is that it must be altruistic and for humane purposes only. That is, our motives need to be pure. The neocons are considered much too bold about our own stake in the matter. Their belief that liberal democracy (meaning: democracy accompanied by guarantees of human and civil rights and liberties) is a desirable thing for those countries themselves is not so bad. The problem is their idea that this is not merely an altruistic principle, but rather that furthering the cause of democracy around the world would benefit the US, and that this could at times be done by military means.

Liberals see the neocon agenda as a form of imperialism and/or colonialism, another big no-no (see here for my previous discussion of colonialism and Iraq). That’s the underlying reason that wars of liberation are only defended by liberals if there is no US self-interest involved; that’s the only way the war would be free of the “colonialism” taint.

Any hint of self-interest is not only defined as colonialist exploitation in the economic and political sense, it also smacks of the violation of certain sacred cultural relativistic principles. Cultural relativism, originally a corrective to certain racist ideas of innate superiority, has slowly morphed into something quite different: a morally relative inability to make judgments about the actions of any country—with the strange exceptions of the US and Israel, who are always guilty, by definition. That way, the Left asserts its superior tolerance of others.

Liberals and the Left feel they have the corner on nobility and humanitarianism: it’s their territory. Those on the Right are defined as heartless red (not blue) meanies. So the motives of those on the Right when they cite humanitarian concerns are always suspect. The Right, by definition, is about money, exploitation, bloodthirstyness. Only when the Left wants a war of liberation can it really be one of liberation.

So we have the odd spectacle of watching liberals twist themselves into pretzel-like contortions trying to fit the old isolationist stance of the Right into the liberal agenda. People are supposed to get whatever dictatorship they deserve, I suppose; that’s most respectful of their cultural mores.

For liberals and the left, Bush Derangement Syndrome comes into the mix, as well. Even though he’s not a neocon, he listened to neocons. So those who hate Bush anyway hate neocons more because of their connection to him, and those who hate neocons anyway hate Bush more because of his connection to them–in an ever-increasing loop of anger.

This why liberals and Leftists who criticize the Iraq war must downplay the justifications for it given earlier by the Clinton administration, or the fact that it involved vioations of international UN agreements on the part of Saddam. No, it must be a solely neocon war, and its flaws are due to the stupid neocons, not just the flawed (and correctable) execution of a just and correct war that many of them supported when Bill was talking about it (such clips exist, by the way; I’ve heard them).

And so we have the interesting spectacle of Right and Left united—perhaps temporarily—in the chill grip or realpolitik and/or isolationism, and against the neocons.

Hating those dreadful neocons (Part I): cavils about cabals

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Neocons are the folks so many people love to hate. And hate to love.

To many, “neocon” has become an epithet. And this was true quite some time before the Iraq War.

Some of the people using the term that way haven’t any real idea of what a neocon stands for. Some have an idea, but it’s vague and/or incorrect. And, no doubt, some who hate neocons know quite well what they stand for.

One of the things that prompted this post is an encounter I had with a good friend of mine recently. She and I hadn’t discussed politics in quite a long time, after a few initial forays into the topic hadn’t gone well. She’s not very political anyway, and it’s not something I need to talk about, so we got into the “agree to disagree and leave it at that” mold.

I was stunned, however, when she brought up politics herself, much to my surprise. She was clearly agitated and quite disturbed by something; she was hemming and hawing as she said she needed to ask me a question.

Apparently she’d spoken to another friend of hers who’d insisted that neocons have a pernicious approach to, among other things, freedom of speech–to wit, they wish to end it. “Is that really true?” she asked me.

If I had then gone to my closet, taken out a Klan hood or a Nazi armband and put either (or both) on, I don’t think she would have been especially surprised. But instead, I tried to give her a little summary course on what neocons are about, including the fact that neocons actually don’t advocate invading country after country to accomplish the spread of democracy and human rights, and that the invasion of Iraq (although I don’t particularly want to raise that discussed-ad-nauseum-topic again here) was multi-determined; the goal of spreading democracy alone probably would not have been enough to have gone to war there. I also told her that neocons don’t necessarily support the exact ways in which the Bush administration has handled post-invasion Iraq, nor do they always agree even with each other.

And, of course, they’re all for freedom of speech. In fact, they advocate it. Because the type of democracy neocons favor–democracy with human rights and constitutional guarantees, so-called “liberal” democracy (ironic, that, is it not?)–includes freedom of speech, naturally.

The conversation ended–she seemed relieved, and asked for a recommendation for something to read to learn more. I mentioned a book I’m about a third of the way into, by Douglas Murray, entitled Neoconservatism: Why We Need It.

It’s one thing to disagree with neocons on substantive issues, and especially on strategy. That’s not hatred; that’s argument and differences of opinion. It’s quite another to consider them evil, and ascribe to them positions they do not advocate, although many do. This is an emotional thing; and there’s an emotional basis for it–or maybe several emotional bases (that’s why this is Part I; there’s a Part II coming).

As I said, this antipathy is hardly a result of the Iraq War; it was present beforehand. What’s it about?

It takes a different form than the rabid hatred of Bush, referred to in the blogopshere as BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome). BDS has to do with a perception of Bush as stupid, theocratically inclined (for the US, that is), anti-science, nuclear-mispronouncing and of course, warmongering (remember, he planned 9/11, at least according to my spam mail).

No, except for the “warmongering” part, the neocons are hated for other reasons. They are considered smarter, though just as evil, if not more (actually, Bush is often portrayed as their clueless dupe).

Neocons are widely perceived as Jewish. Although it’s certainly not the case that all of them are, it’s true that Jews are overrepresented among them. And so it is impossible to ignore or discount the influence of that perennial favorite–anti-Semitism–on the phenomenon of neocon-hatred, although of course many people who hate neocons will try to do exactly that.

Note, for example, the predominance of the word “cabal” in so many diatribes against neocons. Here’s information on the term, which means “a conspiratorial group of plotters or intriguers.” And, of course, there’s derivation of the word, which is not at all obscure or difficult to figure out:

The term cabal derives from Kabbalah (a word that has numerous spelling variations), the mystical interpretation of the Hebrew scripture, and originally meant either an occult doctrine or a secret. It was introduced into English in the publication of Cabala, a curious medley of letters and papers of the reigns of James and Charles I that appeared in 1654.

But the use of the word “cabal” alone does not an anti-Semite make. One of the many hallmarks of anti-Semitism, however (almost a fingerprint), is a situation in which Jews are not allowed the same sort of leeway others are; when they are held to higher or different standards than the rest. So neocons are not allowed to simply be a group of people who share a particular approach to foreign policy–for example, much as the realpolitikers are–and with whom many happen to disagree. An approach which, like all approaches, is flawed, and leads sometimes to difficulties. An approach advocated by people who are sincere and well-meaning, but perhaps misguided, according to detractors.

No, they are evil plotters, bent on controlling the world for their own nefarious purposes, much like those Elders of Zion we’ve heard so much about:

…[The Protocals of the Elders of Zion] is an antisemitic literary forgery that purports to describe a Jewish plot to achieve world domination…Scholars generally agree that the Okhrana, the secret police of the Russian Empire, fabricated the text in the late 1890s or early 1900s….he Protocols are widely considered to be the beginning of contemporary conspiracy theory literature, and take the form of an instruction manual to a new member of the “elders,” describing how they will run the world through control of the media and finance, and replace the traditional social order with one based on mass manipulation….It is still frequently quoted and reprinted by antisemites, and is sometimes used as evidence of an alleged Jewish cabal, especially in the Middle East.

The idea that a small group of plotting Jews are trying to take over the world has a long and illustrious history, I’m afraid. The plotters here are seen as incredibly intelligent and almost magically powerful, not stupid–although evil.

Hitler, of course, was perhaps the best example of one who ascribes wholeheartedly to the “evil Jewish cabal” theory. Here are some words he penned as he was about to kill himself, when all was lost for his glorious Reich. To his dying day, it was still the Jews, the Jews, the evil plotting Jews. This is the form the accusation took, which is the pertinent point:

It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted war in 1939. It was wanted and provoked solely by international statesmen either of Jewish origin or working for Jewish interests…[F]rom the ruins of our towns and monuments the hatred of those ultimately responsible will always grow anew against the people whom we have to thank for all this: international Jewry and its henchmen.

Am I saying that neocon-haters are Nazis? No, no, a thousand times no. But the idea that neocons are “an evil Jewish conspiracy” rather than “a group of people sincerely trying to come up with a solution to the problem of third world misery as well as the threat angry Islamic totalitarians present to us” is an example of demonization of those with whom one disagrees. Hitler represented an extreme of this same impulse.

One can certainly disagree with the solutions neocons offer in terms of theory or practicality or effectiveness. But that’s true of almost every approach to policy. It’s hard, however, to see how anyone could disagree with the ultimate desirability of the “neocon agenda,” if achieved–democracy and human rights for all, although one can easily disagree with the details of its execution (I certainly have). But demonizing the neocons themselves and their motivations, in the way of the neocon-haters, is quite another story, and indicates that something else is at play here.

[Part II tomorrow: other reasons behind neo-hatred, on both the Left and the Right.]

NASA’s advances in personal comfort during those long rides

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Fortunately, Alexandra Gekas has saved me the chore of doing the research on this one: what’s up with the diaper worn by Nowak in her long voyage to inner space and Florida?

The fact that she word a diaper for the journey puzzled me only for an instant–of course, NASA and those long space flights! I’d read about the diaper phenomenon in space before, although never such a creative land-based use for one. Click on the link and read all about it. There’s a diagram there to study, as well.

Then again, maybe better to skip it. Your call.

Oh Rudy, Rudy, Rudy: Giuliani and LaGuardia

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Giuliani’s no Cary Grant (who, by the way, did not actually say “Judy, Judy, Judy“in any movie). But nevertheless, to an electorate starved for somebody to love, he’s got a certain rough charm.

John Podhoretz thinks (hat tip: Pajamas Media) that Rudy might just be able to capture the Republican nomination for President in 2008 (although that headline, John, seems to be a case of bad timing: surely “right stuff” can’t be the best phrase to use at the moment, in light of recent events).

How long has it been since a New Yorker–a real New Yorker, not a fake one–has had a chance to be President? New Yorkers tend to be out of the running. Too northeastern, too ethnic, too many names that are too hard to spell–whatever. And Giuliani shares those characteristics, including the Republican-primary-unfriendly trait of being a social liberal, at least relatively speaking.

Podhoretz doesn’t think this will hamper Giuliani unduly in gaining the nomination, as he explains in the column. I’d like to think he’s right, although I’m not at all sure. But after all, I’m a social liberal myself.

I must confess that, prior to 9/11, I thought that Giuliani had long since peaked. His personal life was nothing if not messy, and he was somewhat full of himself (in that respect, probably not too different from most politicians). But he had certainly done yeoman’s duty in making New York a far more liveable city than it had been for decades, no small task.

Rudy was a true hero during and immediately after 9/11. He almost lost his life himself that day, but that’s not the heroic part I’m talking about. He struck precisely the right emotional tone for the city and the nation in that time of extreme tension and sorrow; the perfect combination of grit, determination, and heart.

And it all seemed sincere, not some phony act from a politician looking for votes. No crocodile tears; Rudy was the real thing. The fact that he wasn’t running for anything anymore was part of it, but not a big part. His sincerity was clear from his demeanor and his words–and from his behavior, which included an almost ceaseless attendance at the many funerals of those he had loved, respected, and lost. He didn’t have Churchillian eloquence (who does?) but he demonstrated Churchillian courage.

That’s not altogether what a Presidency is about, of course; other factors are certainly required. But it’s a vitally important trait, especially in these times. And Giuliani, perhaps more than any of the other candidates on either side, has shown us true grit in his public life. His ability to handle difficult and messy executive decisions was demonstrated even before 9/11, in his policies as mayor. But 9/11 cemented the deal, in real time. It also made him famous nationally.

It’s early yet, and Giuliani will have many opportunities to put his foot in his mouth and alienate any number of people. But for now, I’m very interested in his candidacy. Full disclosure: I come from a part of New York that was so heavily Italian that names such as “Smith” and “Jones” were exotic and rare. So, Giuliani reminds me of home, as well.

His psychological profile is a fascinating one. Did you know his father was a convicted armed robber? Giuliani’s early reputation was cemented by being tough on crime. Hmmm. The stuff with the divorce from his second wife was very messy, however, as well as needlessly cruel to her.

Giuliani reminds me a bit of Fiorello La Guardia, whose acquaintance I first made on those “I Can Hear It Now” records. He was another Italian Republican New York Mayor who was very tough on crime (although his marital history was decidedly better). Not exactly a typical guy, however; in addition to being five feet tall (no, that’s not a typo: 5 feet tall), and having that extremely odd name meaning “Little Flower,” Fiorello (born in the Bronx):

…was the city’s first Italian-American mayor, but LaGuardia was far from being a typical Italian New Yorker. After all, he was a Republican Episcopalian who had grown up in Arizona, and had an Istrian Jewish mother and a Roman Catholic-turned-atheist Italian father. He reportedly spoke seven languages, including Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, and Yiddish.

Fiorello shared another trait with Giuliani: he recognized a Fascist when he saw one, knew what they were up to, and wasn’t afraid to say so. In fact, he recognized certain things about Fascism long before others did:

[La Guardia] was also a very outspoken and early critic of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. In a public address as early as 1934, LaGuardia warned, “Part of Hitler’s program is the complete annihilation of the Jews in Germany.”

Apparently, Fiorello believed that someone like Hitler tends to mean what he says, and that we ought to pay attention. Too bad all that most people know of Fiorello these days is getting stuck in traffic trying to get to that airport named after him.

Frost on poetry: “the happy discoverer of your ends”

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Here’s a little relief from politics and its discontents–excerpts from a discussion by Robert Frost entitled “Conversations on the Craft of Poetry” (1959).” Any aspiring poets in the crowd, please listen to a guy who knows–who really knows.

In response to the comment: “I once heard you say that for a poem to stick it must have a dramatic accent,” Frost replied:

Catchiness has a lot to do with it, all of it, all the way up from the ballads you hear on the street to the lines in Shakespeare that stay with you without your trying to remember them. I just say catchy. They stick on you like burrs thrown on you in holiday foolery. You don’t have to try to remember them….

And when people say that this will easily turn into–be set to music, I think it’s bad writing. It ought to fight being set to music, if it’s got expression in it.

And here are some comments of Frost’s that especially resonated with me. He’s describing the process of writing a poem (even Frost’s prose is poetic, isn’t it? His “voice” is instantly recognizable here as his and no other’s, like a fingerprint):

…I could define poetry this way: it is that which is lost out of both prose and verse in translation.

…I have a tune [when writing poetry], but it’s a tune of the blend of [meter and rhythm]. Something rises–it’s neither one of those things. It’s neither the meter nor the rhythm,; it’s a tune arising from the stress on those–same as your fingers on the strings, you know. The twang!

…You know, you know that, when I begin a poem I don’t know–I don’t want a poem that I can tell was written towards a good ending–one sentence, you know. That’s trickery. You’ve got to be the happy discoverer of your ends.

…I’ve often said that another definition of poetry is dawn–that it’s something dawning on you while you’re writing it. It comes off if it really dawns when the light comes at the end. And the feeling of dawn–the freshness of dawn–that you didn’t think this all out and write in prose first and than translate it into verse.

Those who follow this blog know I’ve written about Frost before, here and here in particular. Many who are familiar only with his most famous poems think he’s a sort of Hallmark Card poet. Nothing could be further from the truth.

To prove it, I’ll offer one of his darker poems today, a poem for winter. This one sure isn’t happy. But I bet that, when he finished it, he was nevertheless the “happy discoverer” of its end:

DESERT PLACES

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it–it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less–
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars–on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

Are all hatreds alike?–becoming “just like them”

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Recently I rented the movie “United 93.” The edition I watched included an addendum to the film, interviews with families of some of the passengers on Flight 93 who’d been featured in it.

This was almost as interesting as the rest of the movie–hearing the differing ways people have coped with the almost unimaginably wrenching and violent loss of a loved one at the hands of international mass murderers dedicated to a political cause, occurring (literally) out of the blue on a bright and beautiful day in September.

One of the interviewees was the husband of a woman who died on that airplane. He seems a wonderful man, and loved his wife very much. He was still deeply grieving at the time of the interview, some years after 9/11.

This post isn’t about him, though, not really; I mean no disrespect to his feelings, nor to his way of dealing with his dreadful loss. It’s a particular thought he expressed that gives me pause, a remark that struck me as representative of a kind of thinking that always brings me up short when I encounter it. It’s an example of one possible way people have of coping with grief, and it stems from a genuinely wonderful impulse: forgiveness, compassion, reluctance to rush to judgment, and the banishment of hatred from the heart.

This is the statement, as best I can recall it:

I don’t hate Bin Laden; I’ve never met him. That’s their mindset–to hate innocent people they’ve never met and want to kill them. If I hated him I’d be like them.

Would he? Are all hatreds equal, and all equally abhorrent? And what is the definition of “innocence?”

I’ve heard this sort of thing from people of intelligence, kindness, and thoughtfulness too often to consider it a singular statement from one man in particular. No, it’s a trend of thought that seems to emerge sometimes from a religious sensibility that emphasizes the necessity for forgiveness and love, sometimes from the influence of various psychotherapies and their focus on the healthfulness of forgiveness and the destructive power of hatred for the individual, and sometimes from postmodern pronouncements that right and wrong are mere concepts in an ever-changing narrative.

But unfortunately there’s a problem: those who espouse the sort of viewpoints quoted here, in their well-meaning and heartfelt flight from emotions deemed destructive to self and others, may lose sight of the basis for and the ability to make necessary making moral judgments.

And that can be dangerous; as the old Talmudic saying goes: Those who are kind to the cruel end up being cruel to the kind.

In what sense can Osama bin Laden be regarded as “innocent?” My guess–and it’s only a hunch–is that the statement relies at least partly on the legal rule of “innocent until proven guilty.” That’s all very well and good for a court of law. The rule is a protection against certain actions that might follow from an improper judgment of guilt in a court case: the incarceration of an innocent person, the rush to judgment of an individual without a mountain of well-documented evidence. It’s a check against sullying the name of a blameless person and restraining his/her freedom merely through the force of rumor and accusation.

That has nothing to do with making a mental moral judgment about the acts of a world figure bent on the mass murder of truly innocent people–random civilians–and even claiming credit for it. A trial isn’t necessary in this case to establish a standard of guilt that’s high enough to make a moral judgment–and a moral judgment is required, I’m afraid, in order to fight effectively against such things.

But what about the well-known words of Jesus, “Judge not that ye not be judged?” Well, if one looks closely at the context, it seems that the subject was the need to discourage making hypocritical judgments concerning others, jumping to conclusions about their shortcomings without looking at one’s own:

Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

This hardly seems to apply to making a judgment about mass murderers who purposely target the innocent.

But what of hatred? The emotion of hatred has gotten a bad press lately, for the aforementioned reasons. Here, however, is a defense of the need to feel hatred in the appropriate circumstances. After all, as the article points out, if we’re looking for a religious base for things, Ecclesiastes 3 says:

For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace.

Both Judaism and Christianity share the “hate the sin but not the sinner” maxim, which originates in a respect for all human life, and the need to keep open the possibility of repentance (take a look at the linked article for a fuller discussion). But Judaism seems to make more allowance than certain strains of Christianity for a vigorous emotional response one might call “hate” towards a person who has moved beyond “ordinary” criminal acts and into the realm of mass murder and power and true evil: a Hitler, a Stalin, a Bin Laden (who, granted, does not rival the first two in terms of numbers, but nevertheless follows the same nihilistic impulses). It is especially appropriate for an unrepetant evildoer.

We can call the emotional response to such acts “hatred,” which has earned a bad rep lately. Or. we could rename it “outrage,” which might make it more acceptable. Although such an emotion is not the same as “love” for the sinner, it does, in a seeming paradox, stem from love: love for humanity, the need to be “kind to the kind” by not being “kind to the cruel.”

Some consider hatred of evildoers to be wrong because they see it as synonymous with the desire for revenge. Not necessarily. Hatred of evil, and of the perpetrators of evil, is one of the emotions fueling the pursuit of justice, which is different from revenge (and also is not limited to the justice of the courtroom). Hatred shouldn’t get out of control or it does become counterproductive, both for the psyche of the hater and for the effectiveness of any campaign against evil. But to expunge it entirely from the picture can easily lead to a paralysis of the will to fight evil and a tolerance for it that perpetrators only see as weak, and which empowers their cause.

It would be wonderful if the example of love and forgiveness could lead to the transformation of evil into its opposite. That’s the hope. And in same cases I do believe that love and forgiveness can work wonders–but only with those who have not crossed a certain line, only with those who share certain underlying values and assumptions. We need to recognize those who are far beyond its reaches; just as a psychiatrist needs to recognize when he/she is dealing with a sociopath, and all the love and understanding in the world is not enough.

Another problem with the sort of thinking evidenced in the quote about Bin Laden is the idea of becoming “just like” the enemy. Even for those who do believe that it’s wrong to feel hatred against someone like Bin Laden, is it really true that an ounce of hatred for a murderous psychopath is the exact equivalent of the evil done by such people and their supporters? Is there no sense of proportion here? Are all hatreds alike, including the one that is harbored in the heart as compared to the one that results in acts of murder? The one that is against the murderer as compared to the one that is against the victim?

This is a good example of a tendency I’ve noticed in our postmodern world: that the part is the equivalent of the whole. Comparisons of degree seem to be impossible for many people who are making judgments. Bush is Hitler, the Patriot Act is the end of liberty in America–or, as an erudite gentlemen serenely stated at a lecture I attended recently–the US is now a theocracy. This man, like certain other champions of so-called “nuance,” seemed unable to make a “nuanced” judgment of relative fault and degree.

Degree matters. Context matters. Not all hatreds are alike. A President whose policies on stem cells is in accord with his religious beliefs does not a theocracy make–ask the Iranians. And hating Bin Laden doesn’t make one like him. I wouldn’t have thought these things needed to be stated, or would be the least bit controversial. But apparently they do, and apparently they are.

My mother: there’s bad news and there’s good news

The New Neo Posted on by

Those of you who’ve followed the continuing saga of my 93-year old mother (yes, she just had a birthday) know that she moved back to NY in mid-November. So, how’s it going so far?

Well, she hates it.

But she’s happy.

And if that seems to be a contradiction–I think I can explain.

My mother complains about the place she lives in. Not her room; that, she admits, is beautiful–high-ceilinged and airy and light and…well, roomy. The bathroom, likewise, and the little kitchenette. No, the physical plant leaves little to be desired.

Her assistants (after all, it is “assisted living”) come more or less at their appointed hours, to help her with dressing and getting downstairs and the like. Since her stroke she’d gotten used to having personal caretakers around for about nine hours a day, more or less at her service, and now they come and go only as needed or as called, so I was a bit worried about the change.

But it doesn’t seem to be a problem. Actually, she appears to welcome the return of a certain amount of privacy, an unexpected benefit.

So, what is the problem? Two, actually, but they’re biggish ones. The first is that she doesn’t like any of her fellow residents. What this represents I’m not sure. But I think it’s the fact that my mother’s mind is (knock wood) basically sound, and most of the others are more–as they say–“cognitively challenged.”

And she hates the food. Hates, hates, hates it.

Now, food is an important part of life for most of us, although I hear tell of people who eat to live and don’t really enjoy the process all that much. But for the elderly in institutions–even ones as beautiful as my mother’s–food assumes an even greater importance in the hierarchy of events than it does for most people. That is to say, mealtimes are a big, big, very big deal.

So if she doesn’t like the food, and she doesn’t like the company that goes with it, and she doesn’t like the activities (too elementary, designed to suit the diminished capacity of so many of the residents)–then Houston, we’ve got a problem.

Except that we don’t, exactly. When I speak to her on the phone, her voice sounds more happy and relaxed than it has in years, with a lilt I haven’t heard in a long while. Even her memory–not all that bad to begin with–has improved. She sounds sharper in general.

Reading between the lines, I ascribe her improved mood to the phenomenon I wrote about here: the fact that she’s home.

No, it’s not her old home. But it’s “home” as a community, the place where she grew up, the area she lived in for eighty-eight years before moving to New England to be near me.

And that community–at least so far–has come through for her. She’s had lots of visitors (some of them bring the chocolate to which she’s become allergic, forcing my brother to confiscate it and take it home with him, poor thing). She’s had many more phone calls. She’s been out to restaurants–and, what’s more, they’re not just random restaurants, they’re places she knows and loves, with a long and deep history in her life.

Her room looks out over a highway, not the beautiful trees of her previous place, trees that changed with the dramatic New England seasons and offered the spectacle of nature’s wonder through her many windows. But my mom’s a city gal. Although she appreciated those trees and often remarked on them, now she monitors and reports on the changing traffic and seems happy to do so.

Proving that, in the words of the cliché and Dorothy: there’s no place like home– although the definition of “home” isn’t always what you think it will be.

Compassionate Europe and the death penalty

The New Neo Posted on by

I noticed (hat tip: Pajamas Media) that some Europeans may be reconsidering their near-total abolition of the death penalty.

This is surprising news, if true; the recent history of the death penalty in Europe has only gone one way, and that’s in the direction of ending it. It’s been an incredibly successful post-World War II campaign, understandable in many respects in light of the carnage that the war represented, and the desire to turn away from killing. The UN and international human rights groups led the way in the late 40s and the 50s, and all the nations of Europe save Belarus have followed suit. One cannot become a member of the EU without abolishing capital punishment.

It’s another manner by which Europe distinguishes itself from the US–although it should be remembered that the US had its own fling with the European way, abolishing the death penalty (de facto) for a decade from 1967 till 1977 as a result of Furman vs. Georgia‘s Supreme Court ruling that the practice was arbitrary and capricious, and cruel and unusual. Technically, the death penalty wasn’t abolished by the case, but it effectively generated a moratorium while people tried to figure out just exactly what the ruling meant, and how the states should respond to it.

At any rate, the European poll figures are interesting, because–despite the longing of the EU–Europe is certainly far from unitary. As might be expected, Eastern Europe (“new” Europe) leads the way in death penalty support, with 58% of Poles wanting to bring the death penalty back (Poland only came aboard recently, anyway, in 1997), and 56% of Czechs.

But even in France the numbers seem relatively close, and in England public opinion is virtually tied on the subject. England, of course, has a long and colorful history of historically significant beheadings, with the site of many becoming a tourist attraction. And don’t forget the bloodthirsty French Revolution.

But those days are gone in Europe–probably never to return, whatever the people might think. The law, once officially changed, is unlikely to ever change back, despite the fact that the obvious alternative to the death penalty–life imprisonment–is rarely enforced in Europe.

I speak here as a person who is not a strong proponent of the death penalty, although I reluctantly favor it in certain cases. For the individual criminal, its application has been capricious and unfair in too many cases. Life imprisonment–if it actually is life with no possibility of parole–is a decent alternative, often more feared by criminals than death.

But I recognize exceptions, even for individual criminals. For example, a New Yorker article a few years back (can’t find the cite right now) described a multiple murderer who was also a brilliant escape artist. No prison could safely hold him, and he seemed to be the sort who would kill again: an argument for the death penalty if there ever was one. And I always knew that mass murderers of the political sort, such as Hitler (and now, Saddam) cried out for a punishment that was definitive. Keeping them alive after their particular crimes seemed more of an obscenity than killing them.

Most of Europe does not agree. And it’s especially the elites of many European countries who don’t always agree with their people.

In Italy and Spain it’s true that the people are overwhelmingly against the death penalty, to the tune of 72% and 80%, respectively (and Italy, by the way, was the birthplace of the modern movement to abolish capital punishment). But take a look at some poll figures from Europe concerning Saddam Hussein’s execution, widely condemned by the leaders of Europe and the international groups there:

When the German magazine Stern commissioned a poll on whether Saddam should be executed, it found 50 percent of Germans in favor and only 39 percent opposed. A poll conducted last month for Le Monde found that most Americans (82 percent) favored hanging Saddam ”” as did most Spaniards (51 percent), most Germans (53 percent), most French (58 percent), and most Britons (69 percent).

But the rulers of Europe widely condemned Saddam’s execution–not just the form it took, but the fact of it as well.

Here are some more figures:

“Polls show that Europeans and Canadians crave executions almost as much as their American counterparts do,” wrote Joshua Micah Marshall in The New Republic in 2000. “It’s just that their politicians don’t listen to them.”

The figures Marshall goes on to quote (from a 1997 poll) are even more strongly in favor of capital punishment than the figures cited earlier in this post, which showed much softer death penalty support in Europe. But whatever the numbers mean (and we all know about polls and their vagaries), it’s pretty clear that even if the people of Europe were clamoring for a death penalty, the law would be unlikely to change to reflect public opinion. The elites wouldn’t have it, and they seem to be in control.

Its lack of a death penalty is one of the things that distinguishes Europe today. It is part of Europe’s own self-image as an evolved and pacifist culture, leading the way for the world and especially the American cowboys, who are both bloodthirsty and naive. To be the champions of the right to life for even a mass murderer and sadist such as Saddam Hussein is, they believe, the mark of a culture that will lead the world to a better way, where the lion will lie down with the lamb because that lamb’s superior moral force is so extraordinarily compelling.

Would that it were so. Nor do I believe the opposite–that executing someone such as Saddam will dissuade future power-grabbing mass murderers from lusting after the reigns of whatever chaotic and failed countries they can get their hands on. No, I’m afraid that nothing but the proper Constitutional safeguards, and an informed and aware populace, are likely to be sufficient to stop those with such lofty ambitions.