In a Washington Post op-ed today, a former Special Operations interrogator who worked in Iraq in 2006 sharply criticizes American torture techniques as ineffective and dangerous. “Torture and abuse cost American lives,” he writes:
I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. … It’s no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me — unless you don’t count American soldiers as Americans.
The writer, who used a pseudonym for the article, adds that when he switched his team’s techniques to a rapport-building method, they found enormous success. One detainee told the author, “I thought you would torture me, and when you didn’t, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That’s why I decided to cooperate.”
At a press conference today where President-elect Barack Obama announced his national security team, a reporter asked Obama if he still intended to “withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq in 16 months after Inauguration.” “I believe that 16 months is the right time frame,” said Obama, adding that he has “consistently” said he will listen to the recommendations of his commanders on the ground.
Obama noted that during the presidential campaign he promised to “remove our combat troops from Iraq in 16 months with the understanding that it might be necessary, likely to be necessary, to maintain a residual force.” Obama then said that the status-of-forces agreement passed by the Iraqi Parliament last week means that “we are on a glide path to reducing our forces in Iraq.” Watch it:
Obama’s re-commitment to the 16 month withdrawal timeline is significant because the status of forces agreement passed by the Iraqi legislature last week contains a longer time frame for withdrawal. In the agreement, U.S. troops must be withdrawn from Iraq by December 31, 2011. Obama’s continued endorsement of the 16 month timeline is also important because some in the Pentagon are wary of Obama’s time frame:
Many senior military officials agree with Mr. Obama’s call to withdraw tens of thousands of troops from Iraq next year. They believe that the large U.S. military presence in Iraq is causing significant manpower strains on the armed forces and preventing needed reinforcements from being sent to Afghanistan, where conditions have worsened in recent months.
Still, there is a fair amount of skepticism within the Pentagon about Mr. Obama’s call to have all U.S. forces out of Iraq by 2010. In recent interviews, two high-ranking officers stated flatly that it would be logistically impossible to dismantle dozens of large U.S. bases there and withdraw the 150,000 troops now in Iraq so quickly. The officers said it would take close to three years for a full withdrawal and could take longer if the fighting resumed as American forces left the country.
This isn’t the first time since winning election that Obama has argued that his cabinet choices are not an indication that he will abandon campaign promises. At a press conference last week, Obama said that “the vision for change comes” from him. He said that he will “provide a vision” and his team will implement it.
One of the reasons millions of people rely on NBC as a news source is that it's objective and driven by a fidelity to covering the news. So when one of the network's most visible anchors is reported to be exploring a run for elected office, the network has an obligation to remove that person from its airwaves. At the very least, it must disclose any and all deliberations and actions being taken by that person to explore a run.
Of course, one could split hairs: as the host of Hardball, Matthews is probably more of an opinion-meister/pundit wrangler than he is an "anchor" in the Brian Williams/Katie Couric mode. And one could extend the same sort of criticism to, say, Mike Huckabee, who could redevelop designs on another presidential run and use his eponymous cable news show as a platform to subtly advance those ambitions. (And let's throw in the potential multi-platform threat of Sarah Palin becoming the Oprah of Wasilla.)
Nevertheless, Matthews has been coy to the point of misleading as to his intentions. <a href="http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1227925511137970.xml&coll=1";>According to reports, Matthews is sending trial balloons aloft. Generally, it's the formation of an exploratory committee that signals the official intent to run for office, but Singer, having repped Clinton, is probably well aware of how much ripple can be created by prolonging the toe-in-the-water stage.
Singer enumerates some specific objections, of which this one strikes me as the most consequential:
How does NBC make coverage decisions involving the people in the PA primary? If the bookers turn down a Specter pitch to be on "Meet the Press," the network (fairly or unfairly) will be vulnerable to charges that it is protecting one of its own. If Specter gets on NBC's air, the other Democrats thinking about a run will rightly say they want equal time. And then there's the fact that Matthews himself is on the air for large chunks of the day.
Of course, another question of Singer's stood out to me as well: "How could he do an interview with Ed Rendell?" Maybe Singer should take a peek at some of Matthews' interviews with Rendell from over the past year! They are highlighted by a lot of gooey ass-kissing and unending mythologizing of Matthews' working-class cred. While there's no conclusive proof in any of these exchanges that he's serious about making a run for the Senate, it sure seems like he's desperate for Pennsylvania's affection.
It is an unequivocal Good Thing that someone has made a movie --- Cadillac Records --- about the down-and-dirty Chicago music that began as blues and morphed into rock. Not enough of us know about Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, Otis Spann and Little Walter. The early days of Chuck Berry are far too obscure.
Beyonce singing "At Last" and "I'd Rather Go Blind"?
Whatever your opinion of that star turn, I'm still beating a drum for the idea of the film --- Etta James should be at least as well known as Aretha Franklin.
As a singer, Etta James has more range than Montana. She began her career with heartbreaking ballads. She moved on to nasty and guttural. But in every period, her songs address the only topic worth caring about: love and loneliness. And on those topics, she had all the necessaries --- she was "born to sing the blues."
She was christened Jamesetta Hawkins by a mother who was 14 and completely uninterested in the parenting grind. She never knew who her father was (although, decades later, she was semi-reliably informed he was Minnesota Fats, the legendary pool hustler).
Her childhood, she said, was like a series of one-night stands; she was passed from relative to relative. At five, she joined a gospel choir in Los Angeles --- and was soon proclaimed a prodigy. At 15, she and two friends formed a vocal trio. They got noticed --- their recording of "Roll With Me, Henry" (a title so sexy it had to be renamed: "The Wallflower") went to #2 on the R&B charts. Etta was, at 16, touring with Little Richard.
It took her only a few more years to get to Chess Records, the Chicago-based label that knew how to get hits for blues musicians. At 22, Etta had a big voice --- and a big, brassy personality. And she had History; she'd been a professional musician for six years, she'd been around.
Leonard Chess liked "triangle" songs, and he found a great one for Etta's Chess debut: "All I Could Do Was Cry." The set-up: Etta watching her lover marry another woman. The refrain: "I was losing the man that I loved, and all I could do was cry." Etta needed only one take. When she was finished, she was crying --- and so were some of the engineers.
Success can be harder than failure, especially for musicians on endless tours. Etta used her money and her down time to take drugs. "Some people can't work high, but I can," she boasted. "I may be one of those singers who has enough power to overcome the fog and filters of drugs." She couldn't overcome the cost of drugs, however; she was arrested for writing bad checks. But she kept pumping out the hits: "I'd Rather Go Blind" and "Tell Mama." After a few lost years, Etta re-connected with Chess Records. By 1978, she was the opening act for the Rolling Stones.
I own most of the Etta James catalogue. I return to it often, for a woman who has lived this hard --- who loved and lost and paid the price for everything she got and a lot she didn't --- oozes the kind of wisdom you don't find in books. One title says it all: "If I Had Any Pride Left At All." Been there, felt that? Then she's inside your head, your heart --- hell, your arteries.
That's the thing about Etta: She has total credibility. She's lived the blues, and you'd best believe she's going to tell you about them, and in the bluntest (and thus, most poetic) way possible. (If you have ever seen Etta live, you know that she is, even in her dotage, a great deal raunchier than the new kids).
"The blues is my business, and business is good," she sings, and that's true of most the CDs she has released since 1989. I prefer these to the early, Chess hits; the production is cleaner, the songs are less pop. If you're making the complete tour, start with Tell Mama or The Definitive Collection, then skip ahead to Love's Been Rough on Me, Life, Love and the Blues or Seven Year Itch.
These later CDs are marinated in jealousy, anger, revenge ("feel like breakin' up somebody's home"), lust --- this is Shakespearean stuff. The band rocks. Etta kills.
So lower the lights. Stop all conversation. This is an Immortal.
