Memo To Authoritarians: The "Oath" is to the Constitution, Not to Secrecy

It's been interesting to read pundits like David Brooks of the New York Times and Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo prattling about how whistleblower Edward Snowden violated his "oath" of secrecy.  I was in the CIA, and I can tell you there was no secrecy "oath," just a contract.  The oath was to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

I find the misnomer revealing.  I don't think Brooks, Marshall, and the many others like them are misusing the word "oath" in a deliberate attempt to mislead.  My guess instead is that their deference to government secrecy is so strong that they reflexively equate a contract to maintain secrecy -- a nondisclosure agreement, really -- with something as strong as, say, a sworn oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.  You know, like one the president takes.

In fact, I'd go further.  That these pundits aren't even discussing the real oath CIA and other government employees take -- the one to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic -- suggests they don't believe such oaths are important enough to bother mentioning.  Now, admittedly oaths to protect and defend the Constitution are all very pre-9/11, but shouldn't an intelligent and honest pundit at least offer a nod of the head toward the fact that someone like Edward Snowden might have felt faced with two competing obligations -- his secrecy contract, on the one hand, and his sworn oath to protect and defend the Constitution, on the other?

Of course, if deference to governmental secrecy prerogatives trumps all other values, then there's no trade-off even to mention.

And look, even if you think that "oath" and "contract" are interchangeable terms (in which case you'd have to explain why Brooks, Marshall et al consistently use the former regarding secrecy while eschewing the latter, and why the drafters of the Constitution did the same with regard to oaths of office), you still have to explain why various pundits are so intent on referring to only one of the "oaths" while ignoring the other.

Here's another way of looking at it.  Say you're the employee of an intelligence agency.  You've signed a contract to maintain secrecy and also sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.  And you become aware of a secret program that you believe violates the Constitution you have sworn to protect and defend.  Reasonable people can argue about how you might best redress that violation, but reasonable people can't deny, whether explicitly or implicitly, that you are faced with a dilemma and that, if you have a conscience, you should and hopefully will grapple with how to resolve it.

Here's a terrific piece from Daniel Ellsberg, the previous generation's heroic whistleblower, on why in revealing the scale of the NSA's secret spying on millions of innocent Americans, Snowden has done America such a noble service.

Maybe you'll disagree.  That's fine; there are competing interests in all cases of whistle blowing, and reasonable people might balance those interests in different ways.  But arguing as though a contractual obligation to maintain secrecy trumps all other values, including actual sworn oaths to protect and defend the Constitution, just makes you look like an authoritarian.  As well as a fool.

Interview With A Brain Scientist, And More

Updated Below

Three quick items:

1.  Brain scientist (really!) and novelist Livia Blackburne and I had a fun discussion about the extent to which radically low-priced sales are a useful tool for selling digital books, why some readers freak out about lesbian short stories, and whether buyers of 99-cent novels are more apt to leave bad reviews.

2.  The second edition of Violence: A Writer's Guide is now available.  As I said in the blurb I was proud to offer, the book is an amazing resource and written by a man who really knows his stuff.  The beginning to the intro says it all:

"My name is Rory Miller, but I've been called 'Sarge' in a jail, 'sensei' in a dojo and 'abu Orion' in Baghdad.  Rory is fine. 

"I don't write fiction.  I do write fight scenes.  I have written some of the most realistic fight scenes ever… because they have to stand up in court.  Conflict is the core of drama and much of my adult life has centered around conflict.  The good side is that I know a lot about real violence.  One of the many downsides is that I know enough that most fiction is infuriating to read…"

The book is incredibly informative, eye-opening, and at times hilarious.  For under six bucks, you can learn all about what this guy has paid for in blood and broken bones.  I guarantee you this is a bargain you don't want to miss.

3.  The Guardian has revealed that the NSA has been collecting the phone records of millions of Americans daily (glad to see that the New York Times is following up -- more interesting details here).  I posted a link on Twitter and Facebook along with a comment that "This must be okay because it's Obama."  Obviously I meant the comment as a dark joke.  Incredibly, many people are finding ways to at least partly agree with it.  Within the average mind, the battle between principle and partisanship seems barely even a struggle.

UPDATE:  A Facebook reader assures me regarding the NSA program, "If you are doing the right thing and minding your own business you have nothing to hide."  I know I'm being naive, but I can't stop being amazed when Americans blithely spout statements like this one, which would be perfectly at home in the North Korean Politburo or in 1984.  As I said in response:

"It's not a question of having something or nothing to hide.  If you were at a dinner party and someone took out a dictaphone and said he just wanted to record the conversation so he could listen to it later, what sort of impact do you think this would have on people's behavior?  Now, what sort of impact do you think there will be on the creativity, spontaneity, amount of dissent, and other aspects of the free flow of information that are critical to the healthy functioning of a free society if people have reason to believe the government is monitoring everything?

"If the framers had wanted the government to have a free rein surveilling the populace because 'if you are doing the right thing and minding your own business you have nothing to hide,' we wouldn't have or need a Fourth Amendment.  But we do -- unless you would prefer to abolish it."

Democrats Make Defiant Gesture... Scary!

This morning I came across a New York Times article about Obama's impending appointment of Susan Rice as his National Security Advisor.  The Times claims that this is "a defiant gesture to Republicans who harshly criticized Ms. Rice for presenting an erroneous account of the deadly attacks on the American mission in Benghazi, Libya."

What's the message?  That Democrats are strong -- after all, they're defying Republicans!

What's the metamessage?  That Democrats are weak -- after all, in any relationship, only the weak party is in a position to defy.  Children can defy their parents, for example.  But would it be coherent -- can you even imagine -- a situation where parents could be described as "defying" their children?  If you did hear about such a thing, you'd immediately and instinctively recognize that the power balance in that family is radically out of sync.

Now, in all communications, which matters more -- the message, or the metamessage?  You already know the answer from common sense and everyday experience.  The message is always eclipsed by the metamessage.

(By the way, for novelists, this understanding is critical for writing good dialogue.  The greater the gap between the message and the metamessage -- the text and the subtext, the words and the meaning -- the more engaging the dialogue.  For more, I recommend Robert McKee's Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting.)

What's interesting is that the Times is commonly understood to be a liberal media outlet.  To the extent this is true (in fact, I don't think right/left is the most productive prism for understanding the way America's media works -- establishment/insurgent, or corporate-owned/independent, provides a more accurate and useful framework), here we have the spectacle of a liberal-leaning media outlet presumably believing they're portraying the Democrats as tough, while implicitly revealing they believe (correctly, in my view) that Democrats are in fact weak compared to Republicans.

I find this kind of messaging, and Democratic cluelessness about it, fascinating.  If you want to learn more, here's my short book on the subject:  The Ass is a Poor Receptacle for the Head: Why Democrats Suck at Communication, and How They Could Improve.

All My Books, Only 99 Cents, Only Three Days

To celebrate a great partnership, Thomas & Mercer and I are coordinating a limited-time sale of all my titles. For three days only, every one of my stories except The Detachment—self-published, T&M-published, novels, short works, fiction and non fiction—is on sale for only 99 cents. Only in the Kindle Store, and only from today through Sunday (May 24, 25, and 26). Been thinking about acquiring the entire Rain backlist in digital? This is your chance to do it for less than a buck a book. Get 'em while you can!

Click on the covers below to buy—and here's more information on all the books, including the new covers and titles.

Barry
  

Jeremy Scahill's "Dirty Wars"

Last week, I had the honor of hosting a Commonwealth Club discussion with premier investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill in which Jeremy discussed his new book, "Dirty Wars: The World Is A Battlefield."  You can listen to an audio of the one-hour talk here, and see some photos from the event here.

It's a Commonwealth Club tradition to ask participants at the end of a talk to name a 60-second idea for changing the world.  Jeremy's, I thought, was profound:  American kids should be assigned essays in which they would research and report on the lives of innocent people killed in America's drone wars.  The president personally eulogized the three people killed in the Boston bombing, yet we almost never hear the stories or see the faces of the innocent lives our wars cut short (well, in fairness, according to the Obama administration, it's not possible for someone killed by an American drone to be innocent).  Imagine how different the world might be if we were to deny ourselves the luxury of that ignorance.

I don't blurb many books (here's why) but I was honored to blurb Dirty Wars.  Here's what I said:

"Dirty Wars is the most thorough and authoritative history I've read yet of the causes and consequences of America's post 9/11 conflation of war and national security. I know of no other journalist who could have written it:  For over a decade, Scahill has visited the war zones, overt and covert; interviewed the soldiers, spooks, jihadists, and victims; and seen with his own eyes the fruits of America's bipartisan war fever. He risked his life many times over to write this book, and the result is a masterpiece of insight, journalism, and true patriotism."

You can learn more about the book -- and about the accompanying film, which opens on June 7 -- at the Dirty Wars website.

Don't Worry, US Imperialism is Cost-Free

UPDATED BELOW

Recently I watched a terrific exchange between Glenn Greenwald and Bill Maher on Maher's show Real Time.  Maher was arguing that there's something peculiarly violence-prone about Islam; Greenwald countered (devastatingly, in my opinion) that Muslim violence is likely caused more by US imperialism than by anything intrinsic to Islam itself.

This led to an odd post by David Atkins at the excellent blog Hullabaloo (Digby, who runs Hullabaloo, has her own response to Atkins here) in which Atkins argues that because we haven't seen in other countries and cultures subjected to US imperialism the kinds of reactions we've seen in the Islamic world, it means Islamic violence is not being caused by US imperialism -- quod erat demonstrandum.

There's something that's been bugging me about Atkins' post (bugging me beyond the fact that he attributed to Greenwald something that not only did Greenwald not say -- "Imperialism is to blame for everything" -- but that Greenwald specifically and repeatedly disclaimed).  What's been bugging me is Atkins' logic.  Or, more precisely, his lack of it.

I tweeted that the shorter version of Atkins is "If blowback doesn't happen everywhere, it can't happen anywhere," and that's part of what I find illogical about his overall argument.  But here's another way of understanding it.

Suppose I walked up to a dozen people at random and spit in each of their faces.  Maybe some of them would ignore me.  A few might cry.  Others might spit back.  Some might sue.  Some might respond with their fists.  Some might respond with lethal force.  A few might even track down my family members and kill them to teach me a lesson.

The point is, my spitting would likely provoke a range of reactions, each of them different on the surface (different people, like different cultures, will respond to the same stimulus in a variety of ways), but all of them having in common the fact that each is a reaction to my spitting.

What Atkins is arguing is that if some of the people I spit at did nothing significant in response, it means the behavior of the other people must have nothing to do with my spitting.  But this makes no sense, neither the methodology nor the result.  The proper way for Atkins to test his thesis would be ask, "The one guy who went after my family after I spit in his face, even though the other eleven people reacted differently… would he have done so had I not spit in his face?"

(And look, let's not get too sidetracked by my spitting analogy, all right?  Even if you believe that when America supports dictators, and invades, occupies, and drones other countries, it is doing nothing other than protecting these benighted cultures from their own savagery and magnanimously gifting these countries with the blessings of freedom and prosperity, you can't seriously argue that the recipients of these gifts will view them as you do.  In other words, I'm arguing here not about US intentions, but about perceptions of US actions by the people on the other end of those actions).

This is pretty basic, is it not?  If someone theorizes that "Y is being caused largely by X," the most obvious and logical way to test the theory is to remove X, and see if Y persists.  On some level, I think Atkins realizes this.  He mentions America's experience in Vietnam, after all.  There, Vietnamese violence against western forces ceased when western forces departed.  Yet judging from Atkins' conclusions, it's as though he believes the Vietnamese cessation of violence was just a coincidence and had nothing to do with America's withdrawal.

So the question Atkins should really be asking -- and it's so obvious as a matter of logic I can't help wonder what's preventing him from asking it -- is this.  If America withdrew its support for dictators in the Muslim world, and withdrew its military forces from the Muslim world, what would be the likely effect on Muslim violence against the west?

The only reason to avoid asking this question is that the answer is so obvious -- and so obviously uncomfortable for anyone intent on arguing for the benefits of imperialism while determined to deny its costs.

If there's one thing I find continually strange about political discourse in America (actually, there are many things, but this is a big one), it's naiveté -- naiveté to the point of denial.  I would respect (though I would disagree with) an argument such as, "The world is a messy, dangerous, chaotic place.  It needs a strong policeman to enforce rules and order, and that policeman is America.  Certainly many people will resent America's self-appointed role as policeman, and among them some will react violently.  But violence in response to our policing is just a cost of doing business, a cost worth incurring if we're to secure the overall benefits our policing entails."

Instead, what we're continually fed -- and what many people eagerly ingest -- is a self-serving narrative about how they hate us for our freedoms and/or how violence against America is intrinsic, innate, and spontaneous among the people who engage in it (don't you love that phrase "self-radicalized," for example, as though someone is sitting quietly in a room and just -- poof! -- suddenly becomes a radical, all by himself?).  According to this narrative, violence against America never has anything to do with American behavior.  If there's an example of psychological denial more profound than this, I'd like to know what it is.

(I'm not talking specifically about Atkins in the paragraph above -- these aren't his arguments, and in fact he explicitly argues that Islam seems no more violent than various other religions.  But what he does argue is that violence against America is primarily caused by something other than American behavior -- according to Atkins, fundamentalism).

After the last ten years, if they really hated us for our freedoms, don't you think they'd hate us a bit less by now?  With two successive presidents claiming the right to imprison people indefinitely without charge, trial, or conviction, and to spy on Americans without warrants, and with our current president claiming in addition the power to execute American citizens without any recognizable due process, we have a lot less freedom to hate.

I guess we just haven't given up enough freedom for them to stop hating us.  We really should give up even more.

Or, instead, we could try invading, occupying and droning Muslim countries a little less, and see if that helps.  Maybe prop up fewer corrupt and tyrannical Muslim regimes.

Nah.  Islamic violence against America has nothing to do with any of that.  It's all hatred of our freedoms, or something innate to Islam, or it's just that violence is what fundamentalists do.  I mean, people never react violently to violence.  After all, look how calmly and rationally America responded to 9/11.

The most amazing thing about this topic?  That it even needs to be discussed.  Martin Luther King pointed it out almost fifty years ago, when he described America as "The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."  Violence carries terrible costs.  We ought to accept those costs, not deny them.  Not least because the denial is such a large part of what enables the violence.

UPDATE:  Shame on me for not linking to this excellent post by actual middle east expert Juan Cole on Islamic violence and violence we might attribute to other religions.

More on Digital Denial

Here's an article the Guardian asked me to write after the brouhaha over my Pikes Peak Writers Conference keynote:

The Digital Truths Traditional Publishers Don't Want To Hear

Enjoy.

Guest Blogging and Talking Like Dox

This week I'm talking like Dox -- with Brilliance Audio, narrating the audiobooks for The Khmer Kill, London Twist, and my first novel, A Clean Kill in Tokyo.  So much fun, though man, narrating a book is draining!  Will let you know when they'll be available.  In digital download, it ought to be soon.

Meanwhile, I'm guest-posting at Joe Konrath's blog A Newbie's Guide to Publishing.  Topic:  Digital Denial at the Pike's Peak Writers Conference.  Also don't miss the excellent follow-up by Porter Anderson at Publishing Perspectives.

Y'all have a good evening, now.

(Sorry.  Still in character. ;))

Scott Turow and the Politics of Cowardice

Guest blogging at A Newbie's Guide to Publishing today:  Scott Turow and the Politics of Cowardice.  Shockingly, no response from Mr. Turow.

That Power of Accurate Observation Is Called Political By Those Who Have Not Got It

I'm glad to say that most of the Amazon customer reviews for my new short novel, London Twist, have been positive.  Among the negative ones, there's an interesting theme:  that the story is either disturbingly pro-gay or disturbingly anti-drone, and in all events too liberal.  I think it's worth examining these claims, and the premises behind them.

1.  The Story Is Disturbingly Pro-Gay.  I suppose if someone in the story made a speech in favor of marriage equality, or if I depicted the unjust suffering of gays due to discriminatory laws, there might be a basis for the claim that the story is pro-gay.  In fact, the story involves (among other things) two straight women who, while circling each other on opposite sides of an espionage operation, find themselves attracted to each other, and wind up acting on that attraction.  It's hard for me to understand how depicting something like this could be pro-gay.  I'm guessing that some people find implicitly political a depiction of same-sex attraction and of gay sex itself?  In other words, if you don't try to deny the existence of homosexuality, or if you don't try to depict homosexuality in a negative light, you're doing something political.

There might actually be something to this view.  Because if marginalizing gays in fiction is political, then mainstreaming them must be political, too.  If depicting gay sex as immoral and unhealthy is political, then depicting it as normal and healthy must be political, too.

What's revealing, though, is that I don't think I've ever read a critique of a story that has no gay elements as "too pro-straight" or as "anti-gay."  I doubt, for example, that anyone has ever posted the "it's too straight" equivalent of this reviewer's thoughts:  "Eisler's usual good work. But I get a little bit tired of the social cheer leading for gays.  I hear and read enough of that stuff already."

I think what causes this odd reaction is this:  Prevailing political prejudices are rarely recognized as political at all -- an insidious blindness that permits one side to attack the other as "political" when in fact a more honest criticism would be "political in a manner that differs from my politics."  So if you're straight and would prefer to live in an all-straight world, fiction devoid of gays won't feel political to you.  It'll feel normal, comforting, a reflection of the world you take to be true.  But fiction with gay characters or gay sex?  Political!

By the way, I have to add that the odd phrase "pro-gay" is my attempt to paraphrase some of what's been written about the story.  In fact, I don't think of myself as pro-gay any more than I think of myself as pro-straight.  What I am is pro-equality-before-the-law.  And while certainly that means I'm not anti-gay (I'm not anti-straight, either), some people have a worldview in which if you're not anti-gay, you're pro-gay -- one more manifestation of the condition in which someone is blind to his own politics and finds "politics" at work only in those who disagree with or otherwise challenge his implicit assumptions.

2.  The Story Is Disturbingly Anti-Drone.  I have an easier time understanding the basis for this claim than I do for the "pro-gay" one.  After all, one character, Fatima, a Pakistani living in London who lost her two younger brothers as "collateral damage" in a drone strike, gives a speech at an anti-drone rally, and two other characters -- a Mossad operative and an MI6 operative -- discuss the way drone warfare increases hatred for the west.  So here, at least, critics can point to something more political than the mere possibility of a same-sex attraction or the depiction of gay sex.

But is it really particularly political to create a character who lost two brothers in a drone strike and is motivated to take revenge as a result?  After all, it's simply a fact that drone strikes kill civilians.  And it's simply a fact that making war on Muslim countries increases hatred against the west, as a 2004 Pentagon study, undertaken at Donald Rumsfeld's direction, concluded (did we really need an official study to figure out that bombing, invading, and droning people makes them hate us?  Apparently so).  Now, you can logically (if not persuasively) argue that the civilian deaths and hatred of the west are worth it, but you can't reasonably argue that the civilian deaths and hatred don't exist.  So I can only conclude that people who favor drone strikes as a response to our fears of terrorism would prefer to deny that drone strikes cause civilian deaths and hatred, and that such people therefore feel that to acknowledge that drone strikes in fact do cause civilian deaths and do produce hatred is to do something remarkably political.

Again, I wonder:  are stories depicting brown-skinned, dark-bearded Islamic fanatics trying to slaughter innocent Americans solely because they hate us for our freedoms typically criticized for being too political?  Not that I'm aware of.  And this is so because the "we're blameless, they hate us for our freedoms" narrative is the prevailing narrative in America today (easy to peddle because it flatters and comforts its audience), and because prevailing narratives aren't viewed as "political" by the people who've adopted them, but rather simply as "truth."  Only people who challenge that "truth" are guilty of committing politics.

In fairness, I think you could argue that any depiction in a novel of the causes of terrorism will be inherently and unavoidably political.  But what's interesting, again, is that charges of "too political" are typically leveled only in one direction.  What's even more interesting is *which* direction.  Because while there is actual, empirical, Pentagon-sponsored evidence in favor of the incredibly obvious proposition that people who are bombed, invaded, and droned tend to hate the people doing the bombing, invading, and droning, there is no evidence I'm aware of for the proposition that our policies have no causal connection to terrorism and that terrorists simply hate us for our freedoms.  So between depicting something evidence-based, obvious, and accurate on the one hand, and depicting an evidence-free, self-pleasuring fantasy on the other, which depiction is more fairly termed the "political" one?

It's enough to make you suspect that charges of "political!" might themselves be an insidious tool of propagandists, akin to charges of "bias" in journalism.  Because like bias -- which is just the accusatory form of the word "viewpoint" -- everyone's got politics, and there's really no way to avoid it.  Even trying to avoid being political is political.

But more commonly, I suspect what's going on is simply projection.  And more commonly still, just ignorance.  As the saying goes, "Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity."

3.  The Story Is Disturbingly Liberal.  This is another one that's a little hard to figure out, given the absence from the novella of anything about abortion rights, a decent minimum wage, universal health insurance, or other such classical liberal issues.

Instead, at the heart of the story is an Israeli spy whose assignment is to get close to a Pakistani woman, learn the whereabouts of the woman's brother, and provide the brother's location to western governments so he can be killed.  During the course of that assignment, the spy increasingly comes to care about the woman and to feel increasingly ambivalent about the devastation her own actions will cause to the woman and the woman's family.  I'm not sure what would be liberal about such a storyline, but my guess is that anything that acknowledges the humanity of The Other, or that otherwise might render The Other sympathetic, is at the heart of this particular political transgression.  Or perhaps it's unacceptably political to depict any ambivalence on the part of western spies and soldiers about the efficacy of their means and the morality of their ends?  If so, you'd have to argue that only depictions of spies and soldiers untroubled by conscience can be deemed non-political.  To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, I'd call a story like that worse than unrealistic.  I'd call it boring.

And of course it would still be political, too.

It's not that I don't think my stories are political.  They are -- that's why I call them political thrillers.  It's just that they're no more political than are stories faithfully depicting prevailing political narratives.  And while I don't mind my novels being criticized for being political, I do hope that people will recognize that on some level, probably *all* stories are inherently, unavoidably political, and that criticizing someone else's politics for being "political" while believing your own politics are nonexistent betrays an unfortunate lack of candor, or, more likely, a lack of self-awareness.

Another paraphrase, this one of George Bernard Shaw, who was referring to cynicism:  "That power of accurate observation is called political by those who have not got it."

London Twist, Available Today!

Hi everyone, I’m beyond excited (what is beyond excited, anyway?  Ecstatic?  Delirious?  Orgasmic?  Maybe all of the above) to share two big announcements today.  First, my new Delilah novella, London Twist, is available at last; second, my publishing contracts for my first eight novels have been amicably terminated and all rights reverted to me!

Here’s more about London Twist, published by Thomas & Mercer and available exclusively from Amazon (and available in the UK Kindle Store, too):

For Delilah, the Mossad’s top seductress, the parameters of the assignment were routine.  The contractor:  MI6.  The objective:  infiltrate a terror network, this one operating out of London.  The stakes:  a series of poison gas attacks on civilian population centers.

There’s just one wrinkle.  The target is a woman—as smart, beautiful, and committed as Delilah herself.  And for a cynical operative thrust suddenly out of her element, the twists and turns of the spy game are nowhere near as dangerous as the secrets and desires of the human heart.

This story is approximately 36,000 words—the equivalent of about 145 paper pages.  It is a novella, not a novel.

And hey, no skipping to the dirty parts.

For now, London Twist will be available exclusively in digital.  Here are my reasons why, along with information on how to read the novella if you don't have a Kindle.

As for the first eight novels, I’m thrilled to be publishing them with the titles and covers I’ve always wanted.  Why have I changed the titles and covers?  I thought you might ask...

What’s really great is that with my rights reverted, the Rain books will finally be available in digital outside the United States.  This is a huge win for Rain fans in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere—especially at a price of US$4.99 (or foreign currency equivalent).  If you care about more people reading, as I do, then you’ll want books available everywhere, at low prices, as soon as possible, in as many formats as possible.  Anything else comes at the expense of readers, authors, and the general public.  There’s a better way, and I’m proud to be part of it.

Stay tuned for one more big announcement in the coming months—I’m busting to tell you more, but for now, mum’s the word.  Thanks as always for all your support and for enjoying the stories!

Barry

Mali and the Memory Hole

There's a lot to like about The Economist, in particular the magazine's long-time, free-thinking stance on gay marriage equality and an end to drug prohibition.  But when it comes to western military interventions, they have a weird blind spot.  I've been reading the magazine for decades, and I can't remember them ever arguing against the use, or the escalation, of western military force.  Their latest war cheerleading is for western intervention in Mali, where "the real danger is that the world turns its back on another poor place threatened by jihadists."

The support for a western war in Mali isn't itself surprising; as noted above, for The Economist, the support is in fact entirely consistent.  What struck me was something else -- a kind of selective memory at work on the magazine's editorial board, a selective memory that's necessary for anyone who wants to continue to argue for more western involvement in foreign wars.  Here's how the magazine describes the causes of strife in Mali that now require a western military response.  I don't know how they managed it while keeping a straight face.

Since time immemorial, lawlessness and violence have had a toehold in and around the vast Sahara desert and the terrain that stretches eastward across to Somalia in the Horn of Africa.  But in the past few years the anarchy has worsened -- especially since the fall of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi in late 2011, when arms flooded across the region’s porous borders.  Hostage-taking, cash from ransoms, smuggling, drug-trafficking and brigandage have bolstered an array of gang leaders.  Some of them, waving the banner of Islam, have seized on legitimate local grievances fuelled by poverty, discrimination and the mismanagement of corrupt governments.

Has The Economist forgotten that the west's attack on Libya was another war The Economist cheered for?  Apparently they have.  Because how else can you write an article calling for more military intervention while acknowledging the new intervention is necessitated by the results of the previous intervention, without acknowledging or explaining that you yourself supported the previous intervention that caused this new problem you now argue the west must intervene to solve?

Economist, meet George Orwell's Memory Hole.

But wait -- there's still more:

Islamist fighters from Libya and elsewhere brought violent jihadism to Mali in the wake of the fall of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011… How the Mali campaign develops will be shaped by yet another international link forged by extremists.  After the fall of Qaddafi, an insane pack-rat when it came to lethal toys, many loyalists fled into the desert loaded with weaponry, including heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and, it is believed, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.

Again, no mention of The Economist's role in cheering for the previous war that's the magazine's claimed reason for the need for a new one.  And I was also struck by the reference to Qaddafi as "insane" for stockpiling arms.  If the UK, America, and Qaddafi were all to open up their arms cabinets, who would have the most "lethal toys?"  Given which two of these three stockpile lethal nuclear toys, singling out Qaddafi for squirreling away arms seems either demented or propagandistic or both.  And given that NATO deposed Qaddafi in an operation The Economist itself supported, and given that Qaddafi was murdered in the course of that operation, it's hard to argue that there was no rational basis for his attachment to armaments.  In fact, I'd argue that what's insane -- or dishonest -- would be to argue otherwise.

Part of the reason war is so dangerous is because its prospect excites otherwise intelligent people to such a degree that they lose their ability to reason.  When people drink, they know they're impaired.  A pity more people don't recognize a similar phenomenon at work when they're advocating for war.

It all puts me in mind of an Economist ad I saw recently, in which the magazine proudly quotes Oracle founder Larry Ellison as saying, "I used to think, now I just read The Economist."

Perhaps, then, it would be appropriate to include this tagline under the magazine's masthead:  "The Economist.  The Substitute For Thought."

The Governent's Dutiful Spokesperson: the New York Times

Read this New York Times piece accusing Iran of attacking US banks.  Can you identify anything about it that would be at all different if it were a press release posted on the White House's website?

Where did the information in the report come from?  Is there any critical analysis of the information's validity?  Who benefits from its dissemination -- does the Times even bother to ask?

Note the wonderful imagery, too.  "The attachers engineered networks of computers in data centers, transforming the online equivalent of a few yapping Chihuahuas into a pack of fire-breathing Godzillas."  I haven't read one that good since learning that rendered terrorist suspects have to be gagged and hooded to prevent them from chewing through airplane hydraulic cables.  Islamic terrorists... they're just that rabid!

The primary function of America's establishment media is to launder government propaganda into something the citizenry will believe is objective news.  The New York Times is a dutiful exemplar.

David Ignatius, Civics Expert

There really ought to be some sort of remedial civics licensing course for the David Ignatiuses of the world.

Here's the pundit's latest in the Washington Post.  It's about Katheryn Bigelow's new film Zero Dark Thirty, her "almost journalistic" account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Note that in his entire article, not once does Ignatius offer even a single word about whether torture is *legal* (hint:  it is not).  For people like Ignatius, the law is just irrelevant.  It doesn't even enter into his policy calculations.  It's simply not part of his world.  Here's his summation:

Here’s the bottom line, at least for me: We should oppose torture because it’s wrong, not because it doesn’t work. Perhaps the courier’s trail could have been found through other means; we’ll never know. President Obama was right to ban torture, but the public must understand that this decision carries a potential cost in lost information. That’s what makes it a moral choice.

We should oppose torture because it's wrong, but it's irrelevant whether it's illegal?  And "President Obama was right to ban torture?"  Well then, shouldn't the president also ban rape, murder, arson, and embezzlement?  After all, under the Constitution, laws are made by presidential decree.  Some presidents permit such practices; others prohibit them, exactly as the Constitution provides.  Right?

It's hard to imagine anything (beyond Obama's spurious "ban" itself) that could better cement in the public mind the notion that torture is a policy choice, not a crime.  And that America is a nation under the rule of men, not of laws.

There must be something insidiously seductive about torture for it to cause such monumental illogic, willful ignorance, and mis-focused priorities.  Next to the baseline fact that torture is illegal, torture's ability to recruit the minds of people like Ignatius into arguing that in America, the law should have no meaning, is an excellent reason to oppose it.

You Can Vote For Anyone You Like. As Long As It's The Duopoly

UPDATED BELOW (and again)

Okay, a few last thoughts before the duopoly wins its next election tomorrow.

I supported Obama and voted for him in 2008.  His rhetoric and specific promises were inspiring.  But he's betrayed so much of that rhetoric, and so many of those promises, that I think it would be a mistake to reward him with a second term.  I'm not talking about being disappointed with a president who fails to fulfill his lofty promises, or who tries but fails to implement various changes because of an obstructionist Congressional opposition (the usual excuses trotted out for what isn't really the problem).  I'm talking about being outraged at a president who has in numerous key areas done the extreme opposite of what he promised.  Who promised a reversal of the Bush-era extremism and instead has deliberately entrenched and extended it.

Maybe, on balance, some of it I could live with, in exchange for other things.  But Obama has gone too far.  I simply cannot vote for a president who claims the power to have American citizens executed without due process.  It's not a question of lesser evils, of the other candidate being even worse.  I just can't imagine a more un-American, more unconstitutional, more tyrannical power than the power to have citizens executed without due process.  The power to have people imprisoned forever without charge, trial, or conviction would be up there, I guess, but of course Obama claims that, too.

So this unconstitutional assassination power is, for me, a political deal breaker.  I think Conor Friedersdorf made a compelling case for the "deal breaker" argument in the following Atlantic articles.

"Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama"
"The Responses to 'Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama'"

And don't worry, Friedersdorf has equally compelling reasons for "Why I Refuse to Vote for Mitt Romney."

Let's talk about concept of a political deal breaker for a moment.  It's not necessarily easy to understand if you're wedded to the "lesser of two evils" rubric by which most people vote.  So let me try a few hypotheticals:

"I wouldn't care if Obama himself ordered the mass waterboarding of terror suspects -- I'd still vote for him if I thought Romney would order the waterboarding of even more."

"I wouldn't care if I were certain Obama would unilaterally order a nuclear attack on Tehran -- I'd still vote for him if I thought Romney would unilaterally order a nuclear attack on Tehran and Damascus, too."

"I wouldn't care if Obama publicly promised to appoint nothing but hardcore pro-life Justices in the hope of overturning Roe v Wade -- I'd still vote for him over Romney because Romney is worse overall."

"I wouldn't care if Obama publicly promised to eliminate social security, repeal Medicare and Medicaid, and make homosexuality illegal -- I'd still vote for him if Romney seemed marginally worse on these issues and/or worse overall."

"I wouldn't care if Obama turned out to be a serial child molester -- I'd still vote for him if Romney had molested or might molest even more children."

If you're comfortable with the statements above, you might have a hard time understanding how anyone could have a political deal breaker -- a line which, if a politician crosses it, makes it impossible to vote for that politician no matter what.  But if you can't agree with one or more of the statements above, then even if your own potential deal breakers are different, maybe you can understand why some liberals have decided they just can't vote for Obama, even though yes, Romney would likely be worse.

Now, you can argue that the power to have citizens executed is being used rarely and judiciously.  But that just means you're okay with the president assuming tyrannical powers as long as he uses them only rarely and judiciously.  And that's just crazy.  Not least because, if Romney wins on Tuesday, those powers will be his, and what are you going to do at that point, argue that Democrats you like have the power to assassinate American citizens but Republicans you don't like don't?

And for anyone inclined to parrot Eric Holder's infamous argument that "due process," as required by the Fifth Amendment before the government can lawfully deprive someone of "life, liberty, and property," doesn't mean "judicial due process," I think Stephen Colbert has put that claim permanently to rest.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

I know it seems peculiar to a lot of people, but I just can't vote for a president who claims -- and who has exercised -- what strikes me as the ultimate tyrannical power, just because he seems like a nice fellow and after all, has only used that power a few times, and always only against brown people anyway.  I can't.  It's too much.  There has to be a line, and if it's not "The president can order citizens killed if he thinks they need killing," I don't know what it is.

Judging from experience, I'm guessing most of the comments I get in response to this post will be of the "But then you're supporting Romney!" variety.  A few thoughts about that.

First, have a look at these Obama endorsements from The New York Times and The New Yorker.  Not only do they distort what Obama did in Iraq (he didn't keep "his" promise to get America out; he stuck to the timetable negotiated by his predecessor, and only after trying to squirm out of it and extend America's stay there); with regard to Guantanamo (Obama never tried to "close" Guantanamo; he merely tried to move it to Illinois); and regarding torture (Obama's prohibition of torture is hardly praiseworthy.  Torture is illegal and the president has no more power to prohibit it than he does to permit it.  By refusing to prosecute torture, Obama has simply solidified the bipartisan consensus that torture is a policy choice, not a crime. Obama doesn't seem to want to use torture himself, but he's guaranteed that his successors may avail themselves if they choose -- as Romney has indicated he will).  They also ignore his stunning record on civil liberties, which as the ACLU has noted is at least as bad as George W. Bush's, his stated willingness to cut Social Security even more than Republicans were demanding, and other depredations.

Reading these endorsements, I found myself wondering what the Times and New Yorker would have done had McCain won in 2008 and implemented the exact same set of policies for which these publications now praise Obama  -- that is, if the last four years of White House policies and action had been exactly the same, except that the president would have been McCain rather than Obama.  My guess?  Were President McCain running for reelection today, the exact policies these publications praise in Obama would have been ignored, subjected to grudging acknowledgment, or even attacked.  Healthcare reform?  Nothing but a handout to the insurance industry, and an outrage upon the 40 million lower-income Americans who will now be forced to become customers of the giant insurers!  Libya?  An unconstitutional war and a clear violation of the War Powers Resolution!  Etc.  And the exact policies these publications choose to ignore in Obama would have been a attacked, too.  Imagine, for example, if it were a president McCain running an imperial drone war throughout South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, and executing American citizens without due process.  Either way, though, naturally the publications would have us believe this is the Most Important Election Ever, even though in my thought experiment the last four years would have been identical in every way except for the name of the occupant of the White House.  Just swap in the Republican for the Democrat (or vice versa) and keep the policies the same, and every establishment media outlet in the country would, with equal vigor, endorse the opposite of what it endorses today.  Most voters would do the same.  As though the politician is what matters, not the policies.

But won't Romney be an absolute disaster, you say?  Don't we have to hold our nose and vote the lesser of two evils?

Maybe.  But tell me this.  Has there ever been an election where this wasn't true?  All the way back to Eisenhower.  Has there ever been a presidential election that wasn't billed as a choice between a suboptimal candidate, on the one hand, and the apocalypse, on the other?  That billing is never going to change.  If you want to vote for something better, I doubt there will ever be a better time than the present.

It's strange how "hope and change" has become, "Vote for me, or I turn those Supreme Court appointments over to Romney." That's not a progressive platform; it's a hostage taking.  And we all know what happens when you give in to hostage takers.  That's right, more hostages.

My own attitude?  "I don't care who you threaten to turn over the country to.  Cross certain lines, and I won't vote for you no matter what."  It's the same as a negotiation.  If you're not willing to walk away, and especially if you demonstrate that unwillingness to the other party, you will be taken for a long, unpleasant ride.

If Obama loses tomorrow, a lot of people will blame voters like me.  I really don't understand that attitude.  Look, I'm not going to blame you if Jill Stein or Gary Johnson doesn't win.  I could, of course -- if you'd voted for them, they could have won!  But overall, I think the blame for a loss lies with the defeated politician, don't you?  Aren't politicians supposed to court voters' support, not just count on it?  So if Obama loses, and it's because he's alienated his base with his outrageous policies and his obvious disdain, it's not his base's fault.  It's his fault.  It's worse than crazy to suggest otherwise.  It's a bizarre kind of learned helplessness.

In fact, I think voting in accordance with political deal breakers is more morally defensible than voting according to a "lesser of two evils" approach.  If everyone votes for the lesser of two evils, we keep getting… more evil.  If everyone votes for something better, we get… something better.  Or at least the chance of it.  "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."  So if Kant was right, and the morality of an action can be determined by asking, "If everyone did this thing, would the world get better, or worse?", voting for the merely less evil candidate is hard to justify.  I'd like to see "vote for a candidate you can genuinely support" become a universal law.  "Vote for the less evil candidate"… not so much.

If you don't agree, consider this.  Today's Democratic candidate.  The progressive standard bearer.  The champion of the left.  Is the man who has done the following.  Not because he inherited a mess from Bush.  Not because Republicans in Congress obstructed his noble efforts.  Nothing caused Obama to pursue and implement these policies other than his own character and political calculations.

The Progressive Case Against Obama

Emily Hauser’s Disgusting Indifference to Women of Color

The Progressive Retreat from Obama: Who is to Blame?

Where is My Half Glass?

Medical Marijuana: Obama Administration Continues Reefer Madness

How many people who voted for Obama four years ago because they hoped for a better future will vote for him now because they're afraid of a worse one?  Do you think that's progress?  Who is to blame for that change?  And should the politician to blame be rewarded?  What would such a reward signal to other politicians about how seriously they need to take the concerns of their base?

If you demonstrate to a politician that you'll vote for him no matter what, you'll get… no matter what.  And Obama has taken "no matter what" to previously unheard-of levels for progressives.  If they reward him at the polls, the next "progressive" politician can be counted on to offer a double helping.

I recommend voting for something better.  Either Jill Stein of the Green Party, or Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party.

Don't let the duopoly make you believe you have no choice.  You do.  Unless you convince yourself you don't.

UPDATE:

I should have predicted that because I can't vote for Obama based on his Constitutional abuses, I'd get accused of some form of racism and misogyny -- because hey, if you do care about the Constitution, it must mean you *don't* care about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or reproductive rights.  Have a look in the comments to this post; it's happening on Twitter, too.

Not only are these barely-veiled accusations of racism and misogyny self-indulgent, they're also illogical.

First, have a look at the attached article about Obama's impact on women of color.  I've linked to it already, but --shockingly, I know -- my accusers don't seem interested in reading it.

Second, consider that Obama is hardly the champion of, for example, Social Security and Medicare many people want to believe he is.  Again, an article I've already linked to that people seem not to want to read.

Next, if it were true that my political priorities were driven entirely or even significantly by my privileged-white-maleness, why would I even give a damn about Obama's civil liberties depredations in the first place?  They don't affect me personally.  I don't expect to be detained at Guantanamo, prosecuted for whistle blowing, or assassinated by drone.  And why am I vocally opposed to America's policy of drug prohibition (again, read the linked article on how Obama has stepped up that war)?  The drug war disproportionately affects minority groups -- indeed, at least arguably, it is deliberately aimed at them.  As a Privileged White Male (PWM), it has little to do with me.  And yet I'm vocal about the insanity and injustice of the drug war.

How did civil liberties get positioned as a PWM issue?  Are women and lower-income people unaffected by civil liberties abuses?  Aren't civil liberties issues that affect *everyone*, lower-income minority goups most of all?

My public support for gay equality is another one that's hard for me to understand.  After all, I'm not gay, and I am married.  I'm just a straight, PWM.  Why would I give a damn about something that doesn't affect me personally?  I dunno.  Maybe gay is the new PWM.

There are a few ways I can explain the illogic and incoherence of people who accuse me of refusing to vote for Obama because I'm a PWM.  There's the pleasure of dudgeon and self-righteousness, of course.  And the relaxation that comes with not having to think.  But I sense there's something more going on.

The position of the PMW reductionists is so illogical, I have to conclude it's driven by projection.  That is, the PMW reductionists themselves vote purely or at least significantly on their race and gender, and therefore assume this must be true of everyone else, too.  How else to explain someone who gives not a thought to the women and children decimated in Obama's drone wars, and by his increasingly brutal strangulation of Iran by sanctions?  And who argues that anyone who *is* concerned about those women and children is being selfish and self-centered?

A public service message to the PMW reductionists:  it's possible for someone to not share your politics and yet still be driven by conscience.  It's possible to oppose Obama for reasons other than indifference to women, minorities, and the disadvantaged (I would argue in fact that Obama is on balance a disaster for those groups -- again, see the linked articles -- but leave that aside).

I know presidential elections are heated and often bring out the worst in people.  But veiled accusations of racism and misogyny, because someone disagrees with your politics?  That's pathetic.  I hope we can do better.

UPDATE 2

Two more terrific articles on topic:

Election Day 2012: It's the Day After That Matters, by Falguni A. Sheth (same woman who wrote the article I keep linking to but that some people have yet to read)

The S&M Election, by Chris Hedges