Is waterboarding torture?

By Rick Morris

Listeners to The FDH Lounge program are aware that fellow Lounge Dignitaries Burrell Jackson and Chris Galloway are good friends of mine dating back to our days navigating the political sphere at Ohio University. The same can be said of Scott Pullins, Ohio's foremost lawyer/political advocate/lobbyist/etc.

Scott penned a short introduction to a piece on his site last month denouncing our government's practice of waterboarding on terrorist suspects. Frankly, this is a strange topic for me in that I don't have a fierce and unshakable take one way or another, as I almost always do on any subject. I know that our government has considered it torture in the past and that it is not wise or moral for our government to indulge in torture. Without wanting to resort to something as cliche as the "Jack Bauer exception," I would probably be in favor of desperate measures under the most extreme circumstances (i.e. a nuke about to be detonated), but I would not want it to be standard operating practice.

But just the fact that I am at least somewhat sympathetic to Scott's arguments would put me afoul of the absolutists he references in his post. Now, I know from many, many conversations that I am way more of a paleocon than any of my fellow members of "The OU Mafia," so I won't associate Scott or anyone else with what I'm about to argue.

What Scott references, the people who can't form a single cogent thought beyond "Support the president" or any other cliche -- they are the neocons who have taken over the conservative movement and the Republican party. Revisionism aside, unrestrained militarism was never a cornerstone of the conservative movement. How many hot wars did Ronald Reagan engage in on his way to bringing down the Soviet Union? He showed that he was prepared to commit the military where necessary (Grenada, the Libyan president's mansion), but used proxies in other instances (Central America, Afghanistan). In short, he used the full range of options for every situation, unlike today's hairy-chested tough-talkers like Bill Kristol -- whose response to the Israeli-Hezbollah War of '06 was to call for the United States to invade Iran!

Somewhere along the way, those of us on the right side of the spectrum have allowed the neocons, who have historically not placed a tremendous amount of importance on traditional conservative issues like the right to life, to hijack this ideology and to paint anyone with legitimate questions about any aspect of American military or foreign policy as un-American. I will note in the very same breath that many on the left deserve the vitriol of the neocons and are actually interested in undermining our nation's standing in the world. But for the main conservative organs in this country, such as National Review, to act as though neoconservatism is the only legitimate strain of thinking is a slap in the face to those of us who read it and cherished it for the decades prior to its decline into intellectual sloth. To disagree, from another vantage point on the right, from the doctrine of Jonah Goldberg or Hugh Hewitt is not to be lacking in patriotism, it is to live up to the definition of the word. And whether Scott Pullins and I agree on every last point on political or military policy, that is definitely a point of agreement for us both.

Putin the Czar tries to restart the Cold War

By Rick Morris

As Mad Vlad Putin goes through the motions of the farce called Russian “democracy,” he has demonstrated yet again that his move from president to prime minister will change nothing and he will continue to wield the real power. His latest campaign stunt shows the price the world will pay for the route he has chosen to hang on to power.

The denunciation he made of the West (read: America) for alleged meddling in internal affairs in the 1990s is part and parcel of what has been an unfortunate strategy: earning the sympathy of the public by scapegoating foreign powers. As a child of the Cold War, I believed at the time that the Russian people were a noble folk oppressed by a vicious dictatorship. Sadly, I look back now and see a very naïve attitude on my part. Throughout history, the Russians have traditionally yielded to authoritarian governments of one type or another. Now, less than two decades after throwing off the yoke of the Soviet Union peacefully and in unprecedented fashion, the people of Russia are serving as willing co-conspirators in a backslide to a police state.

Putin’s emerging Hitler Youth equivalent has been chronicled here previously and is a vital part of his wicked plan. And the rhetoric about the conspiracies of other nations has been lapped up like vodka by the denizens of this arrogant nation.

If the America-baiting was simply serving as red meat to pacify the people and neutralize internal opposition to the Putin Cult of Personality, it would be bad enough. But Putin is also walking the walk in international affairs, forging agreements with the tyrants of China, Iran, Venezuela and every other entity determined to jab a sharp stick in the eye of Uncle Sam. Everything takes a back seat to an anti-American agenda, from preventing the horrors that may arise from nuclear proliferation to keeping oil prices stable to prevent hurting innocents in the Third World to keeping international terrorists in check.

I will maintain again, though, that the unilateralism of the Bush administration played right into Putin’s hands. Clearly, Putin wanted to go down this path all along, but an American policy of trying to install military bases in former Soviet satellite countries did not help matters. When dealing with an insidious head of state who is acting as a de facto enemy, the United States must muster every bit possible of craftiness. By this definition, we have not acted in our best interests in a long time and we need to start as soon as possible.

A Hamas boy band?????

By Rick Morris

Just when you thought you'd seen everything ...

although, come to think of it, swap out lyrics about bombing Jewish mothers and children for stanzas about shooting immigrant storekeepers and it's no different from gangsta rap.

Pakistan debacle exposes our overreach

By Rick Morris

I wonder how many people heard the news that Pakistan President/General Pervez Musharraf’s seizure of power over the weekend and assumed that he led off his announcement with a little sample from Jay-Z (THIS … IS … STATE OF EMERGENCY!). Nobody? Just me?

Regardless, the move represents a major black eye for the United States and exposes in humiliating fashion once again the consequences of our imperial overreach over the last five years.

In justifying the Iraq War, Bush administration officials disparaged the policies of their predecessors (including the president’s father!) over several decades in “tolerating” the repressive regimes of the Middle East. The deposing of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, we were told, represented a radical change in how we would utilize our power in the Middle East. No longer would we dirty our hands by dealing with repressive dictators and Third World thugs – freedom was now on the march! The president’s second Inaugural Address made this theme the centerpiece, which came as a surprise to pundits of the time.

Although it’s hard to remember clearly though the fog of our hard times in Iraq over the next two years, George Bush did have some momentary wind at his back as he took his victory lap in early 2005. Iraqi elections had just been held, and the images of jubilant voters waving their ink-stained purple fingers at the camera were compelling. Also at about that time, in a part of the world not far away, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine peacefully toppled a corrupt government trying to cling to power by illegitimate means. Shortly thereafter, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon drove out the brutal occupiers of Syria by rallying the country in protest. No less a Bush Administration critic than Jon Stewart wondered aloud whether Bush might be on to something with his insistence on the mandatory, immediate and unfettered institution of democracy anywhere and everywhere.

But inevitably, the moment did not last and the world was reminded again why sager minds had resisted the suicidal path of placing Wilsonian democracy above all else that Bush had embraced. Homicidal Hamas won the Palestinian elections and turned the Gaza Strip into even more of a terrorist hub than it had been previously (which really says something!). Iraqis subsequently elected tribal leaders and warlords to their government who, to put it mildly, had no appreciation for the sacrifices our country had laid down for them. The democratic experiment in Afghanistan was fraught with difficulty as well, with a similar ingratitude from many who we had freed there as well.

Granted, we had no choice but to promote democracy in Afghanistan as an alternative to the terror state we rightly annihilated after 9/11, but we should not have become so intoxicated by the early signs of success in that country that turning decades of established policy on its head could ever become an attractive option. After driving the Taliban from power, we were at a stronger point strategically in the world than we had been at any time since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and arguably the most powerful position since our arrival as a world power with our decisive presence in World War I. We accomplished in weeks what the mighty Red Army could not all throughout the ‘80s and we rebuilt the credibility that had been squandered by Bill Clinton’s cowardice in the ‘90s in the face of terrorist attacks on our interests worldwide. We had the world in the palm of our hands in early 2002, while still maintaining the sympathy of peoples everywhere in the wake of the devastating attack we suffered the previous autumn. Since the security and prosperity of the American people and free peoples everywhere depend on U.S. capacity for deterrence against war and terror, the tragedy of 9/11 had yielded, however briefly, a better world in its horrific aftermath.

Our previous Iraq War FAQ column addressed the crumbling of our military deterrence in the sands of Mesopotamia in the last half-decade. But equally damaging to our deterrence has been the disintegration of our diplomatic capacity. While promoting the “Freedom Agenda” as the cornerstone of our foreign policy efforts worldwide, we have done ourselves terrible damage by blowing our hard-won credibility:

^ While pronouncing democracy as a vital and non-negotiable concept in our dealings with repressive regimes, we never seriously challenged Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich Gulf states we rely on so completely – and the world noticed.

^ We talked tough on North Korea and said that we wouldn’t reward that murderous regime for their behavior – until we did – and the world noticed.

^ Now, we have rewarded Musharraf’s backsliding from democracy not with the calm backroom diplomacy that would have been available to us had we not made such a fetish out of imposing complete democracy anywhere as soon as possible but with the impotent whining of a country whose bluff has just been called – and the world noticed.

In its haste to pronounce George W. Bush as the Ronald Reagan of his time, a designation that could have seemed fair for as long as six months after 9/11 but now seems a grotesque insult to the Great Communicator, the American right has embraced the imperial overreach that has so damaged our national interest these past few years. This is largely because the neoconservative wing of the movement has taken hold almost completely in the 2000s and driven out the traditional adherents of the Old Right, who believed that the only relevant question to ever be asked was “does this serve America’s vital national interest?” Contrary to what today’s “mainstream” conservative followers remember, Reagan’s presidency featured a blend of neoconservative and paleoconservative policies (for example, while Reagan believed largely in free trade, he did not allow Harley-Davidson to be victimized by cutthroat foreign competitors). His United Nations ambassador, Jeane Kirkpatrick, famously distinguished between authoritarian regimes (bad guys aligned with us) and totalitarian regimes (bad guys working against us). Once upon a time in this country, we used to put our own national interest ahead of sweet-sounding ivory tower dreams about filling the world with daisies and democracy. Now, in a world in which we have disavowed working with authoritarians who could be useful to us, we have been exposed as powerless without them. Did that decision make us safer? I think not.

Tom Tancredo has big brass stones

By Rick Morris

Many people, myself most certainly included, routinely decry the poll-obsessed, stand-for-nothing wimpiness that characterizes most politicians of both parties. Republican Congressman and presidential candidate Tom Tancredo of Colorado has always been an exception to this rule, as he has been the leading opponent of illegal immigration in this country and has stated that we should bomb Mecca if Islamic terrorists detonate a nuclear weapon in our country. He's at it again, stating that the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are the recipients of overly generous federal "gravy train" spending. Agree or not, and I only do to an extent, you have to admire the big brass ones of this guy. He's somebody who will get up in front of a microphone and tell you exactly what he thinks on any issue. In this day and age, that's enough to get you labeled an extremist by the power brokers of both parties. But that's a sad commentary on them, not Tancredo, voice of the common man.