COUNTERCOLUMN: The Adjunct of Evil

"The dangers are multiple, from a hijacked airliner being crashed into the stands at the main international ceremony at Arromanches to a tiny bomb being detonated remotely. But we are stretching an impenetrable fabric of protection above Normandy."

The CBS poll uses only 1113 registered voters, broken down in an unusual manner: 346 Republicans, 390 Democrats, and 377 independents. Since when are there that many more Democrats than Republicans? The poll then shows its "weighting" (although it doesn't explain what it means), and the numbers get even worse: 330-R, 401-D, 381-I. According to the University of Pennsylvania in 2003, Republicans accounted for 32.5% of the registered electorate, while Democrats accounted for 33.7%. In a sample of 1113 voters, you would then expect to see 361-R, 375-D, 376-I. The result CBS's sample is to throw off representation for Republicans by 8.6%, while bolstering Democrats by 7% and independents by 1.3%, using CBS' weighting.

This female Beavis and Butthead duo illustrate what normal Americans hate about the Capitol scene: narcissism, moral bankruptcy and self-congratulatory media-political incest. The Washington Post's legitimization of this shallow "story" illustrates something else: the mainstream media's perverted moral values. The paper's recent profiles and features of social conservatives drip with condescension and ridicule. Religious activists are portrayed as intolerant homophobes; Republicans as gun-toting rubes; abstinence promoters as freaks.

But give The Washington Post two vain, young, trash-mouthed skanks who couldn't care less about what their parents think of their sex-drenched infamy, and the newspaper can't wait to help make them full-fledged members of the media elite.

Pew reports that just 7 percent of journalists and news executives call themselves conservative, compared with 33 percent of the general public. The self-identified liberals (34 percent) are five times as common as conservatives in the news business. As you might imagine, this got very little play in the mainstream media. Howard Kurtz did a good job with it at the Washington Post. But that was about it. Those who did report or comment on the survey tended to play up the large number of news people (54 percent) who call themselves moderate. Why is it such a big deal to have a newsroom that's only a third liberal? asked Eric Alterman, author of What Liberal Media?

I would say that the big deal is that media workers are becoming more liberal at a fairly rapid pace--up from 22 percent nine years ago to 34 percent now, according to Pew. It would be a bigger deal if the hiring of liberals reached the point (as it has in the academic world) where conservatives don't bother to apply for jobs.

I'm writing because I just read your reply to the critical e-mail from the
"moderate conservative". I'm asking you, please, to stay the course (Bush
41 :-)). The liberal media is becoming more extreme in its slanted
reporting and you're just holding them to account. It's almost as if the
closer Bush 43 comes to succeeding at anything, this media goes out of its
way to try to smear any success. So please do not alter your editorial bias
nor your meticulous critical style. This leads me to a simple, yet vexing,
question that you may wish to explore with your readers.

We know that free speech has limitations. The typical example given is
hollering "Fire" in a crowded theatre. We know that the right to dissent is
guaranteed by the Constitution. But my simple question is: "At what point
does dissent cross the line into unpatriotic and at what point does
unpatriotic cross the line into treasonous?". I'm reminded of Jane Fonda's
acts during the Vietnam War.

Now it's official: American troops occupying Iraq have become virtually indistinguishable from the SS. Like the Germans during World War II, they cordon off and bomb civilian villages to retaliate for guerilla attacks on their convoys. Like the blackshirts who terrorized Europe, America's victims disappear into hellish prisons ruled by sadists and murderers. The U.S. military is short just one item to achieve moral parity with the Nazis: gas chambers.

How should we assess first hand accounts of the situation in Iraq?
Sullivan prints, quite uncritically, even without any attempt at authentication, e-mails from the front. Other bloggers do the same.

Quite a few on the pro-war side, notably Roger Simon, promote a few Iraqi bloggers as proof that things are better than the media is telling you.

Most striking is the unanimity of opinion these bloggers reproduce. For all the support our troops have, at least according to these sources, it's a wonder that any uniformed American ever gets shot at.

Partly, this is because of the sources they choose. Anyone writing to a pro-war blogger is likely to be pro-war. The English-language Iraq bloggers are, whatever else they may be, capable of writing in English. Moreover, dissenting voices, or even different ones, don't get linked to as often, as least not from these bloggers. Riverbend comes to mind, as does this gripping account of an American soldier Alex Zucker linked. (To be fair to the right, Juan Cole doesn't link to Iraq the Model.)

Time and time again, bloggers and soldiers are given primacy over journalists. Which is not to say, of course, that newspaper accounts shouldn't be taken with some salt, but rather to question the practice of wolfing down some information without any seasoning at all.

Let me focus on the anonymous e-mails from soldiers. They run to a type, as Neal Pollock pointed out. Without in any way challenging the authenticity of the experiences of these soldiers, the honesty of the letter-writers, or the value of first-hand experience, there is much reason to be skeptical of an account by any particular soldier.

I don't challenge the validity of the blogs and emails from Iraq. But I question whether they are exhaustive.

The difference between soldier-bloggers and journalists is that they rarely claim their reports are reflective of all events in the country. They almost universally use the term "from my foxhole" or one like it. They don't pretend they understand the totality of the situation from their own limited experience. The same cannot be said for most of the 'journalists' who file reports from the Al Rasheed Hotel that are based on press releases, not even their own experiences. Many or most of them claim an understanding of the environment that a mere soldier doesn't have the intellect to grasp.

splashheads? you know, you're cultivating a nice little right-wing radio program. i'm a moderate conservative, so theoretically i should be lapping
all this up, but i'm not. i dislike extremist conservatives more than moderate liberals. i've been reading your blog for a while now. in recent weeks
its content seems to have taken a hard right.

the biting, sardonic analysis of the war was what hooked me in the first place, but the comparison of al gore to ted bundy, the chops against jesse jackson (too easy),

and all of these amber alerts about missing headlines are, quite frankly, lame. you seem to confuse editorial restraint with a media blackout. some of the so-called missing headlines, such as the possible al qaeda attack this summer, appeared the day after your alert. good journalists and editors resist pressure to be the first, when the facts are still unclear. case in point: CNN.com is this comment under its front page story:
"After two days of conflicting assessments and mixed signals on the urgency of the terrorist threat within the United States, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge late Friday issued a joint statement citing "credible intelligence" of a threat to the nation."

under such conditions, do you really think there is a massive conspiracy involving the new york and los angeles times to keep the public uninformed about a potential repeat of 9-11, especially since such headlines would undoubtedly sell lots of papers?

or is it more plausible that the nation's newspaper editors, having been burned big time by one fiasco after another (WMD, jessica lynch), are taking extra time to corroborate the info they're getting from the government?

don't you think these newspapers would love to publish that story about the marine winning the navy cross?

war heroes and war stories sell papers. from what i've read, this guy sounds like he's the real deal, but so did jessica lynch, and she turned out to be manufactured by the pentagon.

i would expect journalists and editors to do some hardcore fact-checking this time around...

and if the story could not be corroborated I would expect them not to report it.

p.s. i don't disagree with all your media analysis. the stuff about the san francisco chronicle and howard zinn was right on. just please be more careful about "calling out" respected newspapers.

Personal income jumped 0.6 percent in April, up from 0.4 percent in March, for the biggest monthly increase since November, the Commerce Department reported yesterday.

And I don't think "slave" is too strong a word to describe someone who is not permitted to quit his job no matter how dangerous it becomes or how much he hates it. For most of us, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and guaranteed that we have the right to withhold our labor. It doesn't protect soldiers.

The U.S. Army has an official video game that can be downloaded at www.americasarmy.com It's a recruiting tool aimed to win the hearts and minds of children of all ages. The goal is catch them before they develop critical thinking skills that might lead them to question the wisdom of volunteering for slavery.

Parents are further assured that the brainwashing of their kids will be conducted without undue exposure to the horrific reality of warfare.

If we truly care about our young slaves, we should do everything we can to get them out of harm's way.

Bush went to Fort Campbell, Ky., to tell soldiers that they had liberated a nation "in which millions of people lived in fear, and many thousands disappeared into mass graves. That was the life in Iraq for more than a generation until the Americans arrived."

The soldiers applauded. There was no mention of the civilian carnage caused by the arrival of the Americans.

At both Fort Campbell and in another speech in Orlando, where the crowd chanted "USA! USA! USA!" Bush said America will do whatever it takes to defeat and destroy the terrorists "so that we do not have to face them in our own country."

In his three speeches, Bush made no mention of the Iraqis who were permanently defaced.

Bush cannot mention them because the invasion had no grounds. Neither weapons of mass destruction nor proof of an imminent threat was found. Bush cannot mention them because he knows a needless invasion was not worth up to 10,000 Iraqi civilians killed by US and British forces. [emphasis added.]

On its website, the organisation says: "So far, in the 'war on terror' initiated since 9/11, the USA and its allies have been responsible for over 13,000 civilian deaths, not only the 10,000 in Iraq, but also 3,000-plus civilian deaths in Afghanistan, another death toll that continues to rise long after the world's attention has moved on. "Elsewhere in the world over the same period, paramilitary forces hostile to the USA have killed 408 civilians in 18 attacks worldwide. Adding the official 9/11 death toll (2,976 on 29 October 2003) brings the total to just under 3,500." (Again, emphasis added.)

Our methodology requires that specific deaths attributed to US-led military actions are carried in at least two reports from our approved sources. This includes deaths resulting from the destruction of water treatment plants or any other lethal effects on the civilian population. The test for us remains whether the bullet (or equivalent) is attributed to a piece of weaponry where the trigger was pulled by a US or allied finger, or is due to "collateral damage" by either side (with the burden of responsibility falling squarely on the shoulders of those who initiate war without UN Security Council authorization).

My best guess is that within about 4-6 weeks the Sadr brigade and Mahdi militias will have gone to ground once again, or be destroyed by American forces, at which time we will see a return to the baseline levels of violence and insurgent activities we have seen over most of the winter.

I hate to fall into the tired saw that "the only thing Iraqis understand is force." Iraqis aren't dogs. But they do understand force very well. And they will soon find out that amateur militias unsupported by regular troops don't last very long in the face of a determined onslaught by the opposing force's regulars.

The militiamen have taken control of several cities at the moment. They cannot hold them. If they try, they will be dispatched very handily. Which will cost the militia a lot of the short-term support they've built up--which is still a minority of the Shia community.

Sistani is still the stronger and wiser man. Iraqi's aren't totally clueless--they'll figure this out, soon. And they'll realize that Sadr brings nothing but suffering to his people.

Mostly, Iraqis don't want to kill or be killed. They want to keep their heads down, rebuild their country, send their children to school, and get on with their lives. More than anything, they want security. So far, Coalition forces and our allies in the Iraqi Police have been hard-pressed to provide it. But Al Sadr will be further discredited when it becomes apparent to the Iraqis that he can provide even less.

Insurgency will come in and out of fashion. But Iraqis will soon tire of the idiots in their midst causing trouble and attracting disruptive coalition troops. And when their towns are retaken, there will be many willing sources eager to finger the militia ringleaders.

While leading his platoon north on Highway 1 toward Ad Diwaniyah, Chontosh's platoon moved into a coordinated ambush of mortars, rocket propelled grenades and automatic weapons fire. With coalitions tanks blocking the road ahead, he realized his platoon was caught in a kill zone.

He had his driver move the vehicle through a breach along his flank, where he was immediately taken under fire from an entrenched machine gun. Without hesitation, Chontosh ordered the driver to advanced directly at the enemy position enabling his .50 caliber machine gunner to silence the enemy.

He then directed his driver into the enemy trench, where he exited his vehicle and began to clear the trench with an M16A2 service rifle and 9 millimeter pistol. His ammunition depleted, Chontosh, with complete disregard for his safety, twice picked up discarded enemy rifles and continued his ferocious attack.

When a Marine following him found an enemy rocket propelled grenade launcher, Chontosh used it to destroy yet another group of enemy soldiers.

When his audacious attack ended, he had cleared over 200 meters of the enemy trench, killing more than 20 enemy soldiers and wounding several others.

When I was in the Marines (1966-70) we had to be able to field strip every
weapon we famfired and might conceivably have to use in combat. My tour
came while the M-16 was being phased in over the M-14. I could field strip
and reassemble both of those blindfolded (had to, or have a big green meanie
screaming in my ear). Besides that I could keep an M-60 machine gun going.
Field strip an M-whatever grenade launcher (now integrated with some
M-16's), 45 cal pistol, a Winchester 12 gauge pump action shotgun, AK-47,
and WWII vintage M1's and BARs for good measure. The only weapon we didn't
get to blow lots of ammo through was the grenade launcher. That ammo was
costly so we only got one each, and I was Air Wing. Yeah. Even a guy who
was never likely to go on patrol knew how to put rounds on target with a
half dozen different weapons. Infantry got to fire grenades until they got
good at it.

That kind of training was a big part of why I picked the Marines in the
first place. I wanted to come back alive.

Nevertheless, Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.

President Bush "has exposed Americans abroad and Americans in every town and city to a greater danger of attacks by terrorists because of his arrogance, willfulness and bungling at stirring up hornets' nests that pose no threat whatsoever to us,"

But the election of George W. Bush, combined with the furies of 9/11, jolted the editors. Since 2001, the Review's temperature has risen and its political outlook has sharpened. Old warhorses bolted from their armchairs. Prominent members of the Review "family"--a stable that includes veteran journalists (Thomas Powers, Frances FitzGerald, Ian Buruma), literary stars (Joan Didion, Norman Mailer) and academic heavyweights (Stanley Hoffmann, Ronald Dworkin, Arthur Schlesinger Jr.)--charged into battle not only against the White House but against the lethargic press corps and the "liberal hawk" intellectuals, some of whom are themselves prominent members of the Review's extended family.

Longtime editor Robert Silvers is not eager to discuss the Review, but he does allow, "The pieces we have published by such writers as Brian Urquhart, Thomas Powers, Mark Danner and Ronald Dworkin have been reactions to a genuine crisis concerning American destructiveness, American relations with its allies, American protections of its traditions of liberties." He worries that critical voices are being silenced: "The aura of patriotic defiance cultivated by the Administration, in a fearful atmosphere, had the effect of muffling dissent."

Thanks for your note. In the newspaper's archives, I can't find any instance
of the phrase "special reserves" occurring in 2004, so I assume you are
referring to the May 19 headline on Kentucky.com, "Army may send special
reserves to active duty involuntarily."

This story seems to have been placed on the Web site by the national office
of our online editors. The online editors at Knight Ridder Digital sometimes
add their own stories to the Web content of the various Knight Ridder
papers. This headline was not written by anyone in Lexington; the headline
we used in the print version of the newspaper was: "Army calling up
involuntary reserves -- Soldiers normally considered off-limits are needed
to maintain troop levels in Iraq."

To respond to your broader point, the headline-writing staff of the
Herald-Leader includes two Army veterans as well as several others who have
had family members in the service.

Thanks again for keeping us on our toes
Brian Throckmorton
Copy Chief
Lexington Herald-Leader

"I wanted to make sure I got out what I could in what time I had before I was silenced at a higher level," he said. "I'm standing behind my First Amendment right to free speech, and it's a matter of does the constitution have more weight than a company level commander?"

Pew asked, "How much trust and confidence do you have in the wisdom of the American people when it comes to making choices on election day?" Thirty-one percent of national journalists replied "a great deal," compared to 68% who said "a fair amount," "not very much," or "none." Here is what is interesting: as recently as 1999, 52% of journalists said they had a great deal of confidence in the wisdom of American voters. What has caused the press' sudden and precipitous dropoff in confidence in the American public? There is no possible explanation other than the fact that President Bush was elected in 2000, and the Republicans gained in the 2002 Congressional elections. Conservatives who have always suspected that national journalists are mostly elitists who don't trust the voters, and try to shape the news to move readers in a more liberal direction, are right.

when asked to name "any daily national news organization that you think is especially liberal in its coverage of the news," only 38% answered "yes," while 58% said they couldn't think of a single liberal-leaning news organization! Not the New York Times, not PBS, not the L.A. Times. Keep that in mind when you read that most journalists describe themselves as "moderates."

Unnamed Reporter: What happened yesterday at 3 a.m. in Al Qaim? Was there a wedding on? A wedding celebration?

Gen. Mattis: You joined us a little late, as I said to the young lady here, I said how many people how many people go to the desert 10 miles from the Syrian border and hold a wedding 80 miles from the nearest civilization? Over two-dozen military-aged males... let's not be naïve. Let's leave it at that.

(Question unintelligible)

Gen. Mattis: I can't...I've seen the pictures, but I can't...bad things happened. Generally...in Fallujah, I never saw a Marine hide behind a woman or a child or hold them in their house and fire out of the building. I don't have to apologize for the conduct of my Marines.

Major General James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division, was scathing of those who suggested a wedding party had been hit. "How many people go to the middle of the desert ... to hold a wedding 80 miles (130km) from the nearest civilization? These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let's not be naive."

When reporters asked him about footage on Arabic television of a child's body being lowered into a grave, he replied: "I have not seen the pictures but bad things happen in wars. I don't have to apologize for the conduct of my men."

Maj. Gen. James Mattis, the commander of the First Marine Division responsible for the remote stretch of desert where the strike was carried out, asked, "How many people go to the middle of the desert 10 miles from the Syrian border to hold a wedding 80 miles from the nearest civilization?"

At a news conference in Falluja, west of Baghdad, he said that two dozen men of military age were among those killed.

"Let's not be naive," he said. "Bad things happen in wars."

"I don't have to apologize for the conduct of my men," he added.

"How many people go to the middle of the desert 10 miles from the Syrian border to hold a wedding 80 miles from the nearest civilization?" Mattis said in Falluja.
"These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let's not be naive...Bad things happen in wars.

"I don't have to apologize for the conduct of my men."

Asked about the footage, Mattis said: "I have not seen the pictures, but bad things happen in war."

"These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let's not be naive," Major General James Mattis, commander of the US 1st Marine Division, said. But he had no explanation of where the dead women and children in the video came from. "I have not seen the pictures but bad things happen in wars," he said cryptically. "I don't have to apologise for the conduct of my men."

There was undoubtedly some initial support of the Khmer from the NVA, but it was the US supported overthrow of Prince Sihanouk by General Lon Nol and the destruction of much of easter Cambodia by US bombing and invasion that provided the Khmer Rouge with their root. The relationship between the Khmer Rouge and the North Vietnamese Communists was always strained by competing interpretations of what it means to be Communist and by the historical rivalry between the two peoples. Note that it was the Vietnamese who put an end to the Khmer reign of terror in 1979. Certainly our failure to support our South Vietnamese allies against the invasion in 1975 made it clear that there would be no intervention to support Lon Nol, but what little support we supplied prior to '75 had not been enough to deter an inevitable Khmer victory; the people of Cambodia hated the Lon Nol devil they knew more than they feared the demonic Khmer that did not know.

The only rational argument for continuing on the present course is that things will be worse if we leave. In Vietnam, they promised a bloodbath if we left. That did not happen.

More than 5,500 Iraqis died violently in just Baghdad and three provinces in the first 12 months of the occupation, an Associated Press survey found. The toll from both criminal and political violence ran dramatically higher than violent deaths before the war, according to statistics from morgues.

Here's an email from 1SG Chisholm to his civilian boss, Sherriff Dean.

"I just wanted to inform the Sheriff that I did receive quite a bit of harassment from my higher command, namely Colonel (Robert) Kenyon of the 641st ASG (Area Support Group) out of St. Petersburg, and the Command Sergeant Major of the 641st ASG," Chisholm said in the e-mail received by Dean's staff.

"It appears that know (sic) matter how hard I try to help keep my guys alive, they keep trying to cover up the real concerns that concerned leaders as myself may have. The last few days have been extremely difficult to work in this environment. I have even been told that this may resort in me being relieved. Well, I told them if by me asking for help to try to take care of my soldiers, then I guess I deserve to be relieved."

"I keep receiving emails as to what I was thinking. Well, I was thinking 'Safety.' I've tried normal channels in the military and it just doesn't work. I've asked around for different things, and that doesn't work as well. The one thing I can say is that the Sheriff Department and the citizens of Ocala have always stood behind what we do over here. Sometimes it appears that I am fighting a never ended battle over here. Again, thanks for the support."

In a statement concerning the disputed attack in western Iraq, the U.S. military said that U.S. forces came under hostile fire during an operation in the western desert before dawn. Ground troops moved against a suspected safe house used by foreign fighters when they were fired on, the statement said. A Pentagon official said U.S. warplanes provided close air support.

In the aftermath, U.S. soldiers found "numerous weapons," large amounts of Iraqi and Syrian currency, foreign passports and a two-way satellite radio, the military statement said.

U.S. officials suggested that the village, 16 miles east of the Syrian border, had been a focus of intelligence efforts for some time.

Iraq has also admitted the development of prototypes of binary sarin-
filled artillery shells, 122 mm rockets and aerial bombs. However, the new
documentation shows production in quantities well beyond prototype levels.
Iraq has also admitted three flight tests of long-range missiles with
chemical warheads, including one, in April 1990, with sarin.

"If you're obsessed with a metric, then focus on the number and type of weapons captured--not the number of bodies.

Weapons counts cannot be faked. They cannot be padded. They can be inventoried by serial number and easily verified by commanders or media. There is no perverse incentive to take credit for the deaths of the innocent along with the enemy. The commander still has an incentive to exercise restraint until he is in decisive contact with the enemy.

Finally, and most crucially in Iraq, a focus on weapons counts and the rejection of the logic of body counts aligns the interests of commanders and good Iraqis.

SCOTTISH troops fixed bayonets and fought hand to hand with a Shi’ite militia in southern Iraq in one of their fiercest clashes since the war was declared more than a year ago, it was reported last night.

Soldiers from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders mounted what were described as "classic infantry assaults" on firing and mortar positions held by more than 100 fighters loyal to the outlawed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, according to military sources.

At least 20 men from al-Sadr’s army were believed killed in more than three hours of fighting - the highest toll reported in any single incident involving British forces in the past 12 months.

Nine fighters were captured and three British soldiers injured, none seriously.

Kimmitt said the chemical munition appeared to be left over from the 1980s, when Baghdad secretly produced hundreds of tons of poison gas. United Nations records show that the sarin Iraq produced in the mid-1980s degraded quickly, however, and was no longer lethal by the early 1990s.

I think your criticism of Bowden's position - based on the extracts
you have quoted - is unjustified. What Bowden appears to be doing
is arguing for substituting one sort of wiggle room for another, in
a perfectly understandable way.

Basically, there are two major lines of defense a U.S. soldier
accused of torture could use.
1) I and my victim are not covered by the Geneva Convention or any
other anti-torture laws.
2) I had to do it to avert a larger harm.

Bowden doesn't like the first type of wiggle room, and condemns the
President's "equivocations on the terms of the Geneva Convention".
He much prefers the second type. Consider that the first defense
is available regardless of the soldier's conduct; the second is
available only when the interrogation really was necessary.
Therefore, the second type of wiggle room regime will have a much
greater, and beneficial, impact on soldiers' conduct than the first.

I don't think your response reflects this point. You say, "Bowden
is trying to have it both ways. One cannot recognize a moral
imperative to torture in the reasonable certainty it will save
lives, and then criticize a leader for coming to the same
conclusion."

But actually, one can. One can recognize the applicability of the
doctrine of necessity (wiggle room type 2) while criticizing a
leader for equivocating on whether the general anti-torture
imperative applies (i.e., trying to set the ground for a wiggle
room type 1 defense).

You write:

"The President has only two reasonable choices:

1.) Allow the use of questionable techniques in certain high value
cases, either overtly or tacetly--and thereby risk compromising the
integrity of the Geneva Conventions, or...

2.) Consistently prohibit any aggressive questioning altogether,
and thereby ignore the very moral imperative to save lives that
Bowden himself recognizes."

In fact, the President doesn't have to choose. He should
consistently prohibit all torture - no equivocation about whether
this treaty or that protocol applies - and then allow defendants to
use the doctrine of necessity. (Assuming this is the President's
choice to make, which is a gross oversimplification). Note that
using the doctrine of necessity will not risk compromising the
integrity of the Geneva Conventions, any more than the doctrine of
self defense risks compromising the integrity of the laws against
murder.

As a final note, it is my understanding that the solution Bowden
suggests is hardly his own. A blanket outlawing of torture, with
the understanding that defendants will raise the defense of
necessity in court, is the solution adopted by the Israeli Supreme
Court, whose moral experience and legal competence outweigh, I dare
say, Bowden's.

The Bush Administration has tried to walk a dangerous line in these matters. The President has spoken out against torture, but his equivocations on the terms of the Geneva Convention suggest that he perceives wiggle room between ideal and practice.

By all accounts, military and CIA interrogators at the prison were using coercive tactics—sleep deprivation, deception, fear, or drugs—on large numbers of prisoners, and even recruiting prison guards to assist them. I have written in this magazine about the moral imperative for using these methods on uncooperative individuals withholding critical, life-saving information. No doubt there are some imprisoned in Iraq who fall into that category. But such instances are rare.

The only way to prevent interrogators from feeling licensed to abuse is to make them individually responsible for their actions. If I lean on an insurgent leader who knows where surface-to-air missiles are stockpiled, then I can offer the defense of necessity if charges are brought against me. I might be able to persuade the court or tribunal that my ugly choice was justified.

May 17 (Bloomberg) -- A small shell containing Sarin nerve gas was discovered and partly detonated in Iraq today, U.S. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said during a briefing televised from Baghdad.

President George W. Bush's folly is a bloody, costly, tragic, world-dividing disaster that has led to more acts of terrorism by more groups.