Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Kael Syndrome

77 Comments

Charles Murray thinks that the White House is extremely prone to it:

The graph is based exclusively on non-Latino whites (because that’s who the book is about). If you want to see a visual representation of the development of the bubble that Barack Obama has been living in since he left Hawaii, that graph is it. Judging from the GSS data, every white socioeconomic class in America has become more conservative in the last four decades, with the Traditional Middles moving the most decisively rightward. But the Intellectual Uppers have not just moved slightly in the other direction, they have careened in the other direction.

They won the election with a candidate who sounded centrist running against an exceptionally weak Republican opponent. But they’ve been in the bubble too long. They really think that the rest of America thinks as they do. Nothing but the Pauline Kael syndrome can explain the political idiocy of letting Attorney General Eric Holder go after the interrogators.

On a related note, polls like the one he’s describing make me crazy. When someone asks how liberal or conservative I am, the answer is no. None of the above. I wouldn’t know how to characterize myself on that simplistic one-dimensional axis. But I don’t know how typical I am in that regard. Apparently they get a lot of people to provide an answer. And it’s not a good answer for the Democrats.

You know, this reminds me a lot of Iran-Contra. For those unfamiliar, that was the affair in which the Reagan administration was doing deals with the Iranians, giving them arms in exchange for hostages and providing financial support to the anti-Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua. Sensible people were upset over the trading arms for hostages, but the loony Dems were outraged that we were helping defeat communism in Central America, and fantasized that the American people shared their love of Danny Ortega. It blew up in their collective face in the Congressional hearings with Ollie North.

The same thing seems to be happening here. The radical left insists on prosecuting people who got valuable intelligence that probably saved American lives, destroying morale at the CIA, and probably putting us at greater risk. And they imagine that the American people share their outrage over “torture” of terrorists, and hope that they will finally get their great white whale, Dick Cheney. But the notion that waterboarding Khalid Sheik Mohammed outrages Americans is nutty. If they persist in this nonsense, the political blowback may make Iran-Contra look like a Sunday picnic. The Republican ads will almost write themselves next fall.

[Late afternoon update]

Charles Murray has a clarification of his post.

[Early evening update]

Andy McCarthy says that no one should be surprised the Holder has politicized the Justice Department:

Lots of indignation out there about Attorney General Holder’s appointment of a prosecutor to go after the CIA. Disgruntled folks include many who voted to confirm him despite the politicized Rich pardon and the politicized FALN pardons and the politicized recommendation against an independent counsel for Gore’s indefensible campaign-finance violation, etc. Lots of quiet, meanwhile, from the Republican cheering section that helped steer the attorney-general to confirmation. Put me in mind of something I wrote weeks before that happened…

Read the whole thing.

[Another update a few minutes later]

Victoria Toensing explains why it’s such awful policy:

“All volunteers step forward. We have a person in custody who is high-ranking al-Qaeda. He taunts that an attack on United States soil is imminent but laughs mockingly when we ask for specifics. We need interrogators.” Such was the threat in the summer of 2002 when the CIA asked the Justice Department for guidance on what its personnel could do to get such information from captured al-Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubaydah.

Since then, the lawyers who stepped forward to provide carefully structured counsel have been criminally investigated and told that, even if they are not prosecuted, their conduct will be turned over to their state bars. The interrogators who stepped forward were promised in early spring by President Obama that, even if they erred in judgment while protecting our country, the president would rather “move forward.” However, in late summer, they are under criminal scrutiny.

Even though an earlier investigation by career prosecutors reviewed the same conduct and refused prosecution of all but one contract employee who was brought to trial in 2007. Even though congressional leaders had knowledge of the interrogation techniques and made no attempt to stop them. Even though the conduct is more than six years old. Even though the CIA has taken administrative action against some of the personnel involved in the interrogations. Even though being just a target of a criminal investigation costs thousands of dollars in legal fees. Even though being just a target of a criminal investigation takes a horrendous mental toll. Even though the morale of the CIA will plunge to the depths it did in the wake of the Church Committee attacks. Even though the release of the names of those being scrutinized will make them terrorist targets for the rest of their lives. Even if they are cleared.

The next time our government employees are asked to step forward to get information of a possible, even probable, imminent attack, no one will. Even though…

No good will come of this.

77 thoughts on “The Kael Syndrome”

  1. No, it is a conclusion drawn on the basis of memos that the administration (finally, and reluctantly) released, in redacted form, at the urging of the former vice president

    Except that’s not what they say.

    But no one expects you to pay attention to things like facts, or reality.

    Back at you.

  2. After the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, Al Queda wasn’t able to pull anything off for 8 years.

    1998 US embassy bombings

    2000 Attack on the USS Cole

    I don’t know why some people forget these happened.

    Perhaps Gerrib meant after the second WTC attack in 2001, Al Qaeda wasn’t able to pull anything off for 8 years. That’s not quite true either, as they did a few attacks in Algiers in 2007 and bombed the Danish Embassy in 2008 in Pakistan. Though, only the latter could the US possibly been in a position to help prevent, but by then “torture” was no longer allowed.

  3. “You did? You sure about that? Really? Or is that a conclusion drawn because there hasn’t been another attack in the US?”

    From IG John Helgerson, no fan of EIT.
    “He provided information that helped lead to the arrests of terrorists including Sayfullah Paracha and his son Uzair Paracha, businessmen who Khalid Shaykh Muhammad planned to use to smuggle explosives into the United States; Saleh Almari, a sleeper operative in New York; and Majid Khan, an operative who could enter the United States easily and was tasked to research attacks [redacted]. Khalid Shaykh Muhammad’s information also led to the investigation and prosecution of Iyman Faris, the truck driver arrested in early 2003 in Ohio.”

    I know a good place for you to put your condescension.

  4. This claim rests purely on Jim’s credibility, and how gullible would we be to take that?

    Unlike Cheney, I’m not claiming to have seen secret documents that prove me right (but that are conveniently unavailable, so you’ll just have to take my word). This week the CIA released a bunch of said documents, and they don’t back Cheney’s claims. Now I expect he will claim that the evidence is in the redacted sections. If those are ever released he’ll claim that the evidence is in some other documents. He can keep up this goose chase indefinitely.

    [KSM] provided information that helped lead to the arrests of terrorists including Sayfullah Paracha and his son Uzair Paracha

    The memos indicate that KSM gave up a lot of information quite easily, because he erroneously believed we already had it. The memos do not show that the information would not have come out without waterboarding, or that the information made the difference in saving U.S. lives.

  5. Leland – I meant 8 years between attacks in the US. We are not, alas, in complete control of the security conditions in Kenya or Yemen.

    I am going to go back to my original point. It used to be that only the bad guys beat prisoners to death with flashlights, chained them standing up (AKA “sleep deprivation”) and some of the other abuses we have committed. Hell, threatening people with a power drill was popular with Saddam’s secret police.

    What changed?

  6. We also ignore here that Al Qaeda mounted several attacks in Europe over the last eight years. For example, why didn’t Al Qaeda mount a bomb attack on US subways? They did in both Madrid and London. Wouldn’t New York City be a much more effective target than London? What’s the explanation for this mysterious fact?

  7. Karl Hallowell – the reason for the “mysterious” attacks in London and Madrid is because the bombers lived there. Al Queda did not have to infiltrate the attackers into the country.

  8. The next time our government employees are asked to step forward to get information of a possible, even probable, imminent attack, no one will.

    Nonesense. There have been plenty of interrogations since we stopped waterboarding, and no shortage of volunteers willing to use traditionally legal techniques. If this experience makes interrogators less likely to volunteer to use freshly-approved techniques that appear to violate the Conventions Against Torture, that’s all to the good.

    And as for “imminent attack” — please. Give the “24” ticking bomb fantasy a rest.

  9. I am going to go back to my original point.

    Good idea, your sidebar was rather foolish.

    Hell, threatening people with a power drill was popular with Saddam’s secret police.

    I don’t think threatened is what they did.

  10. “And as for “imminent attack” — please. Give the “24″ ticking bomb fantasy a rest.”

    It’s unfortunate I need to point out to you how stupid that line really is. If you don’t get it, go read the 9/11 report and see the dots that weren’t connected and why.

  12. I had not heard of the London Cage before. There are several issues here.

    1) That was a British thing, not US.
    2) Did Churchill authorize torture, or was he even aware of it? If he was, then he was wrong.
    3) The fact that it was done does not make it right.

  13. Perhaps Gerrib meant after the second WTC attack in 2001, Al Qaeda wasn’t able to pull anything off for 8 years. That’s not quite true either, as they did a few attacks in Algiers in 2007 and bombed the Danish Embassy in 2008 in Pakistan. Though, only the latter could the US possibly been in a position to help prevent, but by then “torture” was no longer allowed.

    He also conveniently forgets the 2006 plan to simultaneously blow up something like a half-dozen 747s over the Atlantic, taking off out of NY and London. The one that got suddenly stopped about a month before it was scheduled to go off. Or the millenial plots, plural; the ones targeting LA and jetliners flying out of the Phillipines (or was it Indonesia? So many of these plots that get broken up fairly late in the operational stages that it’s kind of hard to keep up sometimes). And the attack on the USS Cole. And the other myriad attacks between 1993 (which was designed to knock one tower into the other, recall; before they figured out that a measly truck-bomb didn’t have enough force to do the job) and 2001 because they conveniently attacked American prestige-targets overseas instead of hitting home in the CONUS. And that doesn’t even get into attacks on other nations ostensibly on the “Western Civ” side of “Radical Islam v. Western Civ,” such as the Bali bombings or the Madrid attacks.

    Look, just because we took great pains to ignore the Dane (so to speak), even occasionally “paying him to go away,” doesn’t mean we haven’t been at war. A war only requires one side think of it as such. If we continue to deny the reality that we’ve been at war, then we’ll have the dubious blessing of it being a short war – because we’ll lose. Speaking for myself, I’d rather win, and that means using every tool at our disposal to do so at the appropriate time.

  14. In the US, the SS Captain would have been executed after a closed military trial, and the US Supreme Court, packed by FDR, would have said that was just fine. But what’s really bad is if instead of executing the guy, you make him scrub the floors in his uniform.

  15. Leland – not unless the SS man sneaked into the US in civilian clothes. The London Cage folks were POWs.

    He also conveniently forgets the 2006 plan to simultaneously blow up something like a half-dozen 747s over the Atlantic, taking off out of NY and London not stopped via torture – stopped via British police work.

    Or the millenial plots, plural; the ones targeting LA and jetliners flying out of the Phillipines (or was it Indonesia? Stopped by Clinton’s people, also not by torture.

    haven’t been at war We managed to win WWII, against a much more powerful and capable enemy, without torturing people.

  16. We managed to win WWII, against a much more powerful and capable enemy, without torturing people.

    Yes, we just incinerated them by the tens of thousands.

    Do you really believe that we didn’t do things much worse than anything the Bush administration has been accused of in WW II to extract information?

  17. Do you really believe that we didn’t do things much worse than anything the Bush administration has been accused of in WW II to extract information?

    Considering we imprisoned Japanese soldiers as war criminals in WWII for waterboarding, something that is now approved, I hope not. Interestingly enough, the author of the cited article claims we court-martialed US soldiers for this going back to the Philippine Insurrection.

  20. Yes, actually, just for that.

    Show me someone who was convicted of waterboarding who wasn’t convicted of other (worse) things as well. And it was different kind of waterboarding.

  23. WTF? What kind of stupid logic is “it was a different kind of waterboarding?” Or “except for the 150 times we waterboarded the guy, we treated him nice, so it’s not abuse of prisoners?”

  24. I’m kind of amused at someone so naive that he thinks that an administration that incinerated tens of thousands of civilians in Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, et al would have qualms about the thought of slapping an SS officer around, or holding a gun to his head, to get actionable information to win an existential war. It shows how far our culture has come, and not for the better, despite what he’d like to think.

    If Chris had been in charge, fascists would be running the world. Which seems to be what he’s aiming for, if not intentionally.

  25. would have qualms about the thought of slapping an SS officer around

    Note the SS officer complaint was about being slapped around, but being slapped around by non-ranked officers. In other words, he was indignent about a lesser touching him. He didn’t necessarily find it surprising to be roughed up.

  26. What frosts my chaps is that more of these illegitimate combatants didn’t succumb to rule .303 at the point of capture as is right and proper IAW Hague and Geneva.

  27. Rand – obviously you have never served in the military. There is a difference between treatment afforded to somebody or some place that has surrendered and somebody or some place actively engaged in combat.

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