Torturing the Facts

I don't normally consider myself to be a liberal. My views range all over the left/right spectrum, and sometimes simply don't fit on that nice, neat two-dimensional graph. But over the last few years, the conservatives and Republicans have become so consistently illogical and dishonest that I find myself almost forced into a liberal mindset in reaction.

Cal Thomas' most recent editorial on releasing evidence of detainee abuse is an excellent case in point. In the course of his article, he sets up a strawman caricature of the liberal view and, of course, completely destroys it - while totally avoiding addressing any of the real issues involved. And even with that seemingly overwhelming advantage in his argument, he still seems to need deceptive tactics to make his point. I'd like to point out a few of the more glaring fallacies and deceptions.

"In any game, much less a war, when one player plays by a set of rules and the other plays by no rules at all, it does not take a genius to conclude who will win."

Of course, that assumes that the players are relatively equal. Frankly, the terrorists with whom we are "at war" are enormously weaker than the U.S. Thomas' statement implies that the only way we can win is to descend to the same level as the terrorists - and I don't really believe that to be the case.

"America-haters...want us to believe our behavior is directly linked to theirs and that if we don’t use techniques to extract information from suspected terrorists — information that might save American lives — then they won’t torture Americans who might have information they need to help them kill more of us."

Three lies for the price of one. First, it isn't the terrorists who are working the hardest to stop our use of torture. That would be counter-productive for them - as that use of torture is a huge boon to their PR and recruiting efforts. It is, instead, the liberals who want us to live up to our own principles. Second, their reason for trying to stop the torture is not to keep the terrorists from torturing our people - anyone with half a brain knows that won't happen, they're called "terrorists" for a reason. It is, instead, to turn that public relations bonanza around on them, restore us to our proper place as the morally superior side, and stop helping them recruit new fighters to kill our soldiers. And third, the idea that these techniques are necessary to extract information and save American lives is completely debunked. One of the interrogators has gone public, noting that traditional interrogation provided useful, actionable intelligence, while the "enhanced techniques" merely provided false answers, false leads, and wasted resources chasing them down.

Thomas quoted former CIA Director Peter Goss: "The suggestion that we are safer now because information about interrogation techniques is in the public domain conjures up images of unicorns and fairy dust."

No one is suggesting that releasing these memos and photos makes us safer. That's not the point. We should be using regular, legal interrogation techniques to make us safer - releasing these memos is to put a stop to the crimes committed by our own government.

He also quoted Mark Lowenthal, formerly with the CIA: "We ask people to do extremely dangerous things, things they’ve been ordered to do by legal authorities, with the understanding that they will get top cover if something goes wrong. They don’t believe they have that cover anymore."

Frankly, they never should have believed they had "top cover." The Nuremberg Defense has been considered flawed for decades - and all U.S. military personnel (and, presumably, CIA personnel) know that they have an obligation to refuse illegal orders. And these techniques are clearly illegal - waterboarding, for instance, is a technique borrowed from the North Koreans, who used it to elicit false confessions from captured American prisoners. We have prosecuted enemy soldiers in the past, for using waterboarding on our troops. Should we now assume that it is legal simply because it has become convenient for us?

The facts are that these techniques are torture. They violate our own laws, they violate our international treaties, they make us appear as bad as our enemies, and in so doing, provide some level of justification for their further attacks on us. While Cal Thomas and other conservative columnists want us to believe that "the ends justify the means," it turns out that even if we accept that horrible ethical standard, it still isn't justified - because the means of torture produce huge amounts of false information...which keeps us from recognize any truth that might accidentally slip out.

Cal Thomas knows all this. Why is he defending the indefensible?

Unintended Consequences?

My adopted state of Georgia is considering an amendment to the state constitution. I quote from the Georgia General Assembly website:

Paragraph XXIX. Paramount right to life. (a) The rights of every person shall be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life. The right to life is the paramount and most fundamental right of a person.

(b) With respect to the fundamental and inalienable rights of all persons guaranteed in this Constitution, the word 'person' applies to all human beings, irrespective of age, race, sex, health, function, or condition of dependency, including unborn children at every state of their biological development, including fertilization.

Now, the obvious intent of this amendment is to make abortion illegal – in fact, it would immediately include abortion under the definition of premeditated murder. I have to wonder, however, if the proponents of this amendment have fully considered the other consequences of the wording. I’m not a lawyer, of course, but it seems to me that under this amendment:

• Engaging in some action that causes a miscarriage could be charged as involuntary manslaughter, even if the woman didn’t previously know she was pregnant. That could apply to any number of women in highly physical professions – notably including members of the military, police forces, and fire departments.
• Any pregnant woman who has an alcoholic drink is guilty of child endangerment, providing alcohol to a minor, and child abuse. This could also be charged retroactively – a woman who drinks every weekend could be charged with eight separate counts of those crimes when she discovers she is two months pregnant.
• Likewise, a pregnant woman who smokes is guilty of child endangerment and child abuse – again, potentially retroactively.
• Intra-uterine devices, which are designed to prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterine wall, would be illegal. Putting one in and then having sex might be chargeable as murder. It goes without saying that the “morning after pill” would be equally restricted.
• The wording also seems a little unclear – it could be argued that this amendment protects the unborn child even during the act of fertilization itself. This would make ANY form of birth control equivalent to murder.

This amendment would also have interesting effects on Living Wills and other “right to death” issues – if the “inviolable,” “paramount,” and “most fundamental” right is life, then it seems unlikely that anyone could choose to take actions to end a life, no matter how heroic the measures required to continue it. But the consequences I find most interesting are the ones surrounding embryos – it seems that they would serve to sharply curtail various rights that women have taken for granted for decades, while affecting men slightly, if at all. Remember that this was written by professional lawmakers, with staff available to analyze these issues. I suppose it is possible that all these consequences to women are unintended…but I don’t really believe it.

Heroes

I found out about four heroes yesterday.

Three of them were wounded in Iraq. One was hit by an IED, and lost one leg below the knee. Another was hit by shrapnel, receiving damage to his arm and torso, with one piece penetrating his liver. The third was blown from his position in his HMMWV’s gun turret when a car bomb went off next to it. He flew 50 feet through the air and came down, impaled on a fence post. He was, fortunately, not hit in the ensuing firefight that delayed his treatment.

None of those horrific incidents make them heroes – at least, no more than any other volunteer Soldier who is over there right now, bearing the same risks. They merely had the bad luck to be one of those for whom the risks became reality. No, their heroic acts came later – which is how I met them. All three have declined medical discharge or retirement, and are currently performing duties at a major Army command near Washington D.C. Their willingness to stay in uniform to accomplish necessary duties here frees up three other Soldiers to perform necessary duties elsewhere.

The fourth hero’s acts have little to do with combat. SPC Jeremy Hall is a Soldier. He is also an atheist. While in Iraq last Thanksgiving, he declined to join hands and pray when others around him formed a prayer circle to say grace. Challenged by the ranking NCO, he explained his beliefs, and was ordered to find somewhere else to sit. Bravely, SPC Hall refused the illegal order and stayed put.

Last month, SPC Hall asked for permission from his chaplain to hold a meeting for fellow atheists and other free-thinkers. The chaplain, realizing his duties towards ALL Soldiers, including atheists, granted his request. However, his supervisor, MAJ Paul Welborne, intruded on the meeting, disrupted the discussion, and verbally attacked the attendees. In particular, he threatened SPC Hall with criminal charges and a bar to reenlistment, simply because SPC Hall had organized a meeting that offended the Major’s religious beliefs.

SPC Hall, with the assistance of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, has filed suit against MAJ Welborne, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and the Department of Defense. He isn’t asking for money – instead, he’s only asking for an injunction on those parties to prevent them from interfering with other’s religious beliefs. Or lack thereof.

I don’t know if his suit has any chance of success. I do know that, no matter what the outcome, he is likely to receive retribution in any number of ways, from any number of people. There will be Soldiers angry at him for challenging the military structure, and causing damaging news stories. They will be Soldiers angry at him for challenging their fundamentalist religious beliefs, and their intent to evangelize. There will most certainly be Soldiers angry with him for BOTH reasons, and sooner or later, some of them will be his immediate supervisor, or his first sergeant, or his commander. If he chooses to stay in, he’s likely to have a rough career. If he chooses to get out, any potential civilian employer who Googles his name will find it – and may illegally choose not to hire him for his beliefs. In fact, the threat may be both more severe, and more immediate. In a response to my e-mail of support, SPC Hall told me he has already received threats of violence.

With all these reasons to swallow his anger and his principles, he has instead chosen to stand up for them. In this, he has been true to his oath to protect and defend the Constitution, and amply demonstrated three of the Army Values: Selfless Service, Integrity, and Personal Courage. He won’t get a medal for it…but he’s a hero, nonetheless.

Nutball Bait (Kevin, are you there?)

One of the reasons I've been blogging even less than normal lately is that I've been frequenting someone else's blog, instead. Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars presents five or so entries daily, usually about the conflicts between science and religion, civil rights and religion, civil rights and security measures, and so on. Not only are the posts interesting, but the regular readers and commenters are mostly a remarkably civil and literate bunch. I've been having a fine time adding my own opinions to theirs - and it's a lot more fun to argue with people who argue back.
Mind you, sometimes a less desirable debater comes along. In a recent post, I foolishly offered to provide a spot for a nutball named Kevin to spew his brand of vitriol, and for myself and others to point out his errors, or at least improve his grammar. I did this to keep a long, rambling argument thread out of Ed's blog, since he tries to keep the comment threads at least vaguely related to the entry to which they're linked. That's what this post is for - a starting point for the argument. I don't really expect him to show up, because he got rather soundly trounced on what little content his initial comments contained, and he hasn't been back. But just in case - here it is, Kevin, go nuts. Anyone who shows up here that isn't a Culture Wars regular is encouraged to go back and check out that post - and for that matter, the rest of Ed's blog.

Our Days Are Numbered

There will come a time when every human on Earth is dead.

The only questions are when and how.

Nuclear holocaust. If a global thermonuclear war happens, then the resulting clouds of fallout could kill most of those who lived through the blasts. Anyone who manages to avoid that might starve trying to find uncontaminated food supplies. Even if that problem is solved, they might find themselves with no healthy mate, thus preventing the next generation. And if they pass all those hurdles, then their reproductive organs might be damaged enough to prevent viable offspring.

That could happen tomorrow. On the other hand, it could have happened yesterday, or thirty years ago, and it hasn’t yet. There is at least some hope that it won’t happen at all. In any event, there may yet be time for other options.

Global Warming. A few degrees one way or the other won’t kill off humanity, but there’s no real reason it has to stop there. It is at least vaguely possible that the greenhouse effect could feed on itself and become a runaway. For the end result of that, take a look at Venus – surface temperatures averaging over 860° F. It’s going to be hard for anyone to stay alive in temperatures too hot for baking.

This one isn’t real likely – the theory of global warming is fairly well-established, and there’s not much room in it for a runaway greenhouse effect. On the other hand, theory is not a substitute for testing – and this test could have a very high learning curve.

Ice Age Maximus. Current theories in physics indicate that nuclear fusion produces neutrinos. These faster-than-light particles are hard to spot – they’ve got a 50% chance of getting through a light-year thickness of lead. Nonetheless, there are theoretical means of capturing them, and sites constructed to do just that – capture the neutrino’s produced by the Sun’s fusion. Unfortunately, they haven’t found any. This leads to a few possible conclusions, but one is that the nuclear furnace of our nearest star has gone out.

That would mean that all that light and heat we currently enjoy is just the remnants of earlier fusion percolating up through those thousands of miles of compressed gas – and that at any time now, it could stop. If that happens, it’s gonna get chilly. Not just the ice caps expanding and glaciers forming. Not just the oceans freezing over. I’m talking about the atmosphere freezing out, one gas at a time – a layer of dry ice, buried under a blanket of frozen nitrogen, with drifts of oxygen settling out on top. I’m talking about trying to choose between breathing frozen air or breathing vacuum – not that your choice will make a lot of difference.

This is another one that could happen at any time. But again, it hasn’t happened yet.

Various other methods – a massive comet strike could crack the Earth like a coconut. The Sun’s fusion might restart, igniting a massive solar flare that would blast our atmosphere off the surface, frying half the planet instantly while the other half struggled – briefly – with storms that would make a hurricane look like a summer breeze. A bioweapon gone wrong that wipes out such a high percentage of humanity that the few survivors die of other diseases, infrastructure collapses, or simply can’t find each other to reproduce and keep us going. If nothing else, the Sun will eventually expand to a red giant, turning the Earth to a charred cinder similar to Mercury.

There will come a time when every human on Earth is dead.

It would be nice if my descendents lived somewhere else when that happens.

Hobson's Choice

The recent attacks in Great Britain got me thinking about terrorism, specifically foreign terrorism. Here’s what I’m coming up with – I’d really like someone to point out my errors.

Assumption #1: In our society, constructing an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) with sufficient power to kill or maim large numbers of people is a trivially simple exercise.

Analysis: High-powered explosives are somewhat controlled. However, ammonia-based explosives are simple to make from easily-available materials. Gasoline, propane, and other fuels can also be used to develop explosive devices. Ample material to provide fragmentation effects can be found in any hardware store or junkyard. While mass purchases of some of these materials (e.g. ammonia-based fertilizer) might be controlled, a series of smaller purchases over a longer period of time could provide raw materials for an IED of any desired size.

Assumption #2: Emplacing such an IED is also a trivially simple exercise.

Analysis: So-called “important” targets are increasingly protected. Government buildings, large office buildings, airports, power plants, chemical facilities…the list of protected sites is seemingly endless, but the key word is “seemingly.” Schools, shopping centers, fairgrounds, parade routes, smaller office buildings, restaurants, bars – even just an area on the road that frequently suffers traffic jams – are all possible targets for a terrorist attack. There’s just no way to protect all of them.

Assumption #3: Foreign terrorists bear sufficient enmity against the United States that any form of engagement between our country and theirs is sufficient to encourage terrorist acts against us.

Analysis: This one is purely my opinion – but I think it is nonetheless correct. Our support for Israel, our financial and political involvement with several Middle Eastern countries, and the immense popularity and availability of our entertainment media all provide ample sources of outrage for Islamic fundamentalists. While other sources of foreign terrorism in the U.S. may exist, they are so much rarer that I don’t see a need to analyze the roots of their hatred for us.

Conclusion: Foreign terrorists will continue to attack our nation and our allies as long as any significant contact remains between our culture and theirs. While some attacks may be stopped through luck, good police work, or incompetent terrorists, others will inevitably succeed. This may someday be stopped by the foreign culture adopting more democratic and liberal principles – but that will not be soon, and is unlikely to come from our direct intervention.

Responses:

1. Status Quo. We can accept some level of innocent casualties as a cost of doing business in the regions from which the terrorists come. While our intelligence and police forces will improve their capabilities, so will the terrorists. As long as our basic political structure is unchanged, our open society is vulnerable to attack. The question becomes – how many dead citizens are a fair price for supporting Israel, exporting TV shows, and importing oil? And how long are we willing to pay that price while we wait for them to turn away from violence?

2. Disengage. That entails cutting down our crude oil usage by about two thirds, to live off our own domestic production – if we continue to import any oil at all, the fungible nature of the product means that some of it will come from the Middle East. It means cutting off Israel from our support – and thus likely leading to the use of one or more nuclear bombs when Israel is forced to defend itself without the threat of allies coming to assist. It means cutting off all immigration, student visas, and even tourist visas from the area, lest some of them become contaminated by our culture and then return to spread that contamination. I suppose we can ask the countries involved to handle censoring TV, books, and movies, and provide our assistance in censoring the Internet. Politically and economically, I think this one is beyond any realistic expectation.

3. Retaliate. Announce to the world that any country or culture that attacks us with acts of terrorism will in turn be attacked. Violently, and without too much regard for the nature of the targets. I’m pretty sure that we could strike fear into the heart of the most rabid terrorist – if a ten to one casualty ratio isn’t enough, how about a hundred to one? Thousand to one? An air raid over Mecca and Medina? We have the physical means to do whatever it takes to get their attention. Only political will and morality prevent it.

Of course, such violence breeds anger and resentment, which breeds more terrorists. That could end up as a genocidal war.

Is there a flaw in my assumptions? My conclusion? A fourth response? I don’t like any of the answers I’ve come up with – I could really use another one. Anyone?

Creating Excuses

I’ve been reading a lot of other blogs and postings lately regarding the theory of evolution vs. creationism/intelligent design. Anyone who’s read my archives knows my feelings on the matter. However, I’ve finally found a way to articulate the difference between the THEORY of evolution, and the NOTION of creationism.

To develop the theory of evolution, scientists looked at the facts available, and tried to imagine an explanation that would cover them.

To develop the notion of intelligent design, theists determined that a Creator was responsible for the world around them, and then identified specific facts and arguments that supported it.

That’s it. And to me, it explains so much. For instance, a lot of the IDer arguments against evolution hinge on holes in the research – gaps in the fossil record, lack of a detailed chain of alterations for a complicated survival mechanism, and so forth. The concept that a hole in the research might later be filled by new research is lost on them – to a creationist, a failure to completely explain every detail is a failure of the theory as a whole. From their viewpoint, and with their base assumptions, this might even be reasonable. After all, their theory DOES explain every detail – God did it. (For IDers, an unnamed Creator did it.)

Of course, that attitude causes the other major disconnect that leads to long useless arguments between the two sides. Creationists can ignore or minimize the importance of any contrary evidence by again turning to God. This leads me to another conclusion:

A valid test of the intellectual honesty of a person or position is to ask what it would take to prove them wrong.

For a scientist, the answer is easy – provide convincing data that contradicts the established theory. Such events have occurred in the past – the terra-centric view of the Solar System gave way to the helio-centric. The theory of a solid Earth was supplanted by plate tectonics. Newtonian physics has been replaced by Einsteinian physics, and further refined by even more esoteric theories. I note that in many cases, individual scientists failed to adapt their beliefs to new theories, but as they retired or died, the newer theories have become generally accepted as experimental or other evidence provided support. This is true of evolution, as well. The basic concepts from Darwin’s The Origin of Species have been refined over time as scientists have gained a better understanding of the mechanics of evolution.

But what would it take to prove a creationist wrong? I have yet to find any evidence, no matter how overwhelming, that can shake the faith of a committed theist. For example, the Creation Museum and its parent organization, Answers in Genesis, make the claim that hundreds of feet of rock in multiple layers were all deposited during the Great Flood. (Examples: chalk cliffs and rock and fossils.) The fact that some of those layers are igneous or metamorphic, surrounded by multiple layers of sedimentary, is conveniently ignored in favor of the idea that it all came about as a result of the Flood.

The evidence of species changing as a result of selection is fairly obvious in domesticated animals – for example, the Chihuahua and the St. Bernard. But, creationists reply, that’s merely MICRO-evolution. They haven’t completely differentiated into new species yet, because they can still interbreed! (Mind you, those puppies are unlikely to be born alive, but mere fertilization qualifies them as the same species.) Of course, the idea that such micro-evolution could eventually lead to actual species differentiation is considered absurd – there is apparently a barrier between species that cannot be broken, no matter how different the breeds become.

Other creationists cry out, “If life can form independently, then why can’t that be replicated in the lab? You can’t take a beaker of chemicals, swirl them around, and have a microbe or a virus appear…so it couldn’t have happened!” In this, they ignore the wonders of small odds vs. large numbers. We’ve been trying such things for a few years – maybe even a few decades – in some small number of labs, in some relatively small number of beakers. The universe provided a large, possibly infinite number of planets, and several billion years for a result to occur – and so far, we only have evidence that it happened once. That’s even worse than lottery odds…and yet, sooner or later, SOMEONE always ends up taking home the jackpot. But let’s take their side for a moment – does that mean that if we do at some point manage to create life in the lab, they’ll shut up?

It turns out that scientists at the University of New York at Stony Brook did just that. In July 2002. That’s five years ago. Any signs of the creationists shutting up? Well, that Creation Museum just opened this year – I’d take that as a “no.”

So…what will it take to get a creationist to admit he’s wrong?