Good men with honor

Just how far have we come? When you’re a child, twenty years is a theoretic span; as an adult, that period is a paradox. What seems so far away passed by so quickly. What seemed so familiar recedes into strangeness, transforms into myth.

I don’t remember what I said. I mean, it had something to do with the Reagan administration, and characterized someone, or some people, within that cadre as criminals. I despised Reagan; my political conscience came online about the same time he was elected. I cannot recall ever thinking nice, or merely positive things about the man.

I was seven when he was elected. The only thing I remember clearly from that election was that Reagan struck me as condescending and dishonest, exactly the kind of person my parents would repeatedly through my childhood tell me I didn’t need. And that stuck with me. By the time we got to Iran-Contra, the pretense (that later proved at least partway true) of Reagan’s senility was insufficient to excuse him in my eyes.

What? It was how I was raised; those conclusions reflected the principles impressed upon me especially by parents, but also teachers, my pastor, and any number of talking heads inside the idiot box.

But this isn’t about indicting Reagan. He’s dead. He’s gone. Whatever.

This is about a moment that stands out despite the dissolution of its details. My father, disgusted, glaring at me. “You can’t say that about people,” he stormed. “These are good men. They’re trying their best. You can’t say that about people.” It was not an explanation. It was not a retort. It was an order.

Whatever condemnation I had poured over the Reagan administration had upset him. And, yes, there is also a story to the difference between the man I remember and the one I know today. Maybe someday I’ll try to tell it.

Perhaps it had to do with an adolescent daring to condemn the president. Maybe he was so fiercely Republican during those years that he could not face the possibility that his president was a sack of shit. Maybe it had to do with respecting elders, and respecting authority. Maybe, maybe, maybe ….

Yeah, but … the Iran story?

So it sounds like a bad spy novel, doesn’t it?

She had probably done this a dozen times before. Modern digital technology had made clandestine communications with overseas agents seem routine. Back in the cold war, contacting a secret agent in Moscow or Beijing was a dangerous, labour-intensive process that could take days or even weeks. But by 2004, it was possible to send high-speed, encrypted messages directly and instantaneously from CIA headquarters to agents in the field who were equipped with small, covert personal communications devices. So the officer at CIA headquarters assigned to handle communications with the agency’s spies in Iran probably didn’t think twice when she began her latest download. With a few simple commands, she sent a secret data flow to one of the Iranian agents in the CIA’s spy network. Just as she had done so many times before.

But this time, the ease and speed of the technology betrayed her. The CIA officer had made a disastrous mistake. She had sent information to one Iranian agent that exposed an entire spy network; the data could be used to identify virtually every spy the CIA had inside Iran.

Mistake piled on mistake. As the CIA later learned, the Iranian who received the download was a double agent. The agent quickly turned the data over to Iranian security officials, and it enabled them to “roll up” the CIA’s network throughout Iran. CIA sources say that several of the Iranian agents were arrested and jailed, while the fates of some of the others is still unknown.

This espionage disaster, of course, was not reported. It left the CIA virtually blind in Iran, unable to provide any significant intelligence on one of the most critical issues facing the US – whether Tehran was about to go nuclear.

The excerpt of James Risen’s The State of War goes on to suggest something even more bizarre: a scheme in which … are you ready? … the CIA gave a Russian defector technical data for nuclear weapons to hand over to the Iranians in order to figure out what they knew and had in their nuclear program.

Wait a minute … it doesn’t sound like a bad spy novel, per se. I mean, well, that’s the thing. I never read LeCarre’s The Russia House, but I saw the movie. And, well … yeah. There seems to be something familiar here going on. And while the stories aren’t identical, the outcome of Risen’s seems almost predictable.

The Russian studied the blueprints the CIA had given him. Within minutes of being handed the designs, he had identified a flaw. “This isn’t right,” he told the CIA officers gathered around the hotel room. “There is something wrong.” His comments prompted stony looks, but no straight answers from the CIA men. No one in the meeting seemed surprised by the Russian’s assertion that the blueprints didn’t look quite right, but no one wanted to enlighten him further on the matter, either.

In fact, the CIA case officer who was the Russian’s personal handler had been stunned by his statement. During a break, he took the senior CIA officer aside. “He wasn’t supposed to know that,” the CIA case officer told his superior. “He wasn’t supposed to find a flaw.”

“Don’t worry,” the senior CIA officer calmly replied. “It doesn’t matter.”

And perhaps it didn’t. Perhaps that was the point. Maybe the CIA intended that the Russian defector should tip off the Iranians that the data he was giving them had problems.

In Vienna, however, the Russian unsealed the envelope with the nuclear blueprints and included a personal letter of his own to the Iranians. No matter what the CIA told him, he was going to hedge his bets. There was obviously something wrong with the blueprints – so he decided to mention that fact to the Iranians in his letter. They would certainly find flaws for themselves, and if he didn’t tell them first, they would never want to deal with him again.

The Russian was thus warning the Iranians as carefully as he could that there was a flaw somewhere in the nuclear blueprints, and he could help them find it. At the same time, he was still going through with the CIA’s operation in the only way he thought would work.

The whole thing seems bizarre. James Bamford reviewed the book for Risen’s paper, The New York Times, and noted,

And despite the critical need for intelligence on Iran, Mr. Risen says, a C.I.A. communications officer accidentally sent detailed information to the wrong indigenous agent in Tehran that outlined the agency’s entire network. “The Iranian who received the download was actually a double agent,” Mr. Risen writes. The mistake enabled the Iranians “to ‘roll up’ the C.I.A.’s agent network throughout Iran,” says Mr. Risen, although the details are disputed by the C.I.A.

But while “State of War” has interesting and important new details, it also has almost no named sources – not even the comments of former intelligence or government officials, who might provide perspective, context and credibility. It is an unusual move for someone writing about such an important subject.

So … right. There are all manner of reasons one might do this. Perhaps the information is sensitive. Maybe Risen was shooting for a certain narrative quality that would be marred by footnotes and the usual qualifiers. Walter Isaacson, in a second review for the Times, noted,

So what are we to believe in a book that relies heavily on leaks from disgruntled sources? We are in an age where the consumer of information has to make an educated guess about what percentage of assertions in books like this are true. My own guess is that Risen has earnest sources for everything he reports but that they don’t all know the full story, thus resulting in a book that smells like it’s 80 percent true. If that sounds deeply flawed, let me add that if he had relied on no anonymous sources and reported instead only the on-the-record line from official spinners, the result would very likely have been only half as true.

So the whole thing sounded bizarre, and I wondered if it was even true. I went so far as to look up the book at my local library. And it was there, waiting for me. That was early November. I still haven’t read it. In fact, I forgot all about it. Until I read Glenn Greenwald’s post yesterday at Salon.

Ever since the President’s illegal warrantless eavesdropping program was revealed by the New York Times’ Jim Risen and Eric Lichtblau back in December, 2005, there has been a faction of neoconservatives and other extremists on the Right calling for the NYT reporters and editors to be criminally prosecuted — led by the likes of Bill Kristol (now of the NYT), Bill Bennett (of CNN), Commentary Magazine and many others. In May, 2006, Alberto Gonzales went on ABC News and revealed that the DOJ had commenced a criminal investigation into the leak, and then “raised the possibility that New York Times journalists could be prosecuted for publishing classified information” ….

…. Eighteen months have passed since Gonzales’ threats, and while there have been some signs that the investigation continues — former DOJ official Jack Goldsmith, for instance, described how he was accosted and handed a Subpoena by FBI agents in the middle of Harvard Square, demanding to know what he knew about the NSA leak — there had no further public evidence that the DOJ intended to pursue Risen and Lichtblau. Until now.

Yesterday, the NYT reported that Jim Risen was served with a grand jury Subpoena, compelling him to disclose the identity of the confidential source(s) for disclosures in his 2006 book, State of War. The Subpoena seeks disclosure of Risen’s sources not for the NSA program (for which he and Lichtblau won a Pulitzer Prize), but rather, for Risen’s reporting on CIA efforts to infiltrate Iran’s nuclear program. Nonetheless, Risen’s work on State of War is what led to his discovery that the Bush administration was illegally spying on Americans without the warrants required by law.

Say huh? Really? The Iran story?

The Iran story?

Let me get this straight: Mukasey has issued a subpoena for Risen’s source on the Iran story?

Greenwald reflects on the reasons for such a subpoena, but the clamor for prosecuting New York Times journalists Risen and Eric Lichtblau, and also editor Bill Keller had to do with the wiretapping story. Nonetheless, Greenwald notes, Commentary Magazine‘s Gabriel Schoenfeld gloats and even suggests he’s responsible for nudging Attorney General Mukasey to issue the subpoena.

But, still … the Iran story?

It wasn’t so much that I didn’t believe it. Rather, I didn’t want to believe it. It was at once strange and mundane. Strange because it seemed so much like a movie or novel or something. Mundane because they got screwed in the end, and while I didn’t expect it eighteen years ago watching Connery and Pfeiffer on the screen, LeCarre’s story was the first thing I thought of when I got to the part about the Russian defector tipping off the Iranians. It seemed almost obvious. Like a Dear Abby letter: if he leaves his wife for you, he will leave you for the next one.

I felt like I could see it coming. And if I can see it coming ….

I mean, really, that’s what the subpoena is about? The Iran story.

God damn it.

As long as we’re thinking about words like “stupid” and “law”

(Note: It has taken, quite literally, years for me to figure out a certain point about the Alabama story, and I now realize I completely blew the point. Oh, well, that’s one less to carry around with me, but still, I’m left in need of a new anecdotal comparison. It’s a safe bet that whatever that is won’t be as spectacular as accusing a bigot of corruption. I suppose I owe Judge Pryor an apology for the corruption accusation. To the other, there’s still no justification for putting a bigot on the bench. It is, after all, worrisome when civil liberties and human rights are left to the aesthetics of a man who cares so little about the role of consent in sexual intercourse.)

Apparently some stupid laws need to be made because, well, people do stupid things. During the fracas surrounding the ascension of William H. Pryor to the 11th Circuit bench, I came across an amicus brief he signed his name to in the landmark Lawrence v. Texas case before the supreme court. Pryor, who was Alabama’s Attorney General, signed onto an amicus brief arguing in favor of anti-sodomy laws. Part of that brief argued the usual line that allowing gay men to have sex without fear of the law “must logically extend to activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia“. The problem, of course, is that among the laws left to Attorney General Pryor to enforce was section 30-1-3 of the Code of Alabama, which states that, “The issue of any incestuous marriage, before the same is annulled, shall not be deemed illegitimate“.

Rather than dwelling on a federal judge who filed a false brief with the United States Supreme Court, though …. Well, actually, that is a fine thing to dwell on, but I’m not sure it means much these days. But what happened is that, after I finished scouring Alabama’s laws to see what other strangeness might be on the books, I hopped over to view similar laws in the state of Washington. I was unsettled at first to see that our laws about incest were actually more permissive. The people you can sleep with are a degree closer than they are in Alabama, I think, and the statute of limitations was only a year. That may have changed, of course, but I never did go back and look it up after the bit with the horse.

Because it was, for a few minutes, jaw-dropping when, after a man died while having sex with a horse, we discovered that up here in the evergreen state we apparently had no law against it. In fact, the most prominent charge I can recall was against the man who filmed the act. And that charge was trespassing.

And so it was that I was chuckling with some friends about the situation when someone pointed out the obvious. When I pointed out that Alabama had tighter laws about incest and bestiality, it was in fact my brother who pointed out, “They need them.”

It seems a satisfying argument. I can sleep at night. Okay, it’s not like I was losing sleep over what happened in Enumclaw.

But we have come to the relevant point: Certain laws are made only when it becomes necessary to make them.

We find ourselves, however, in an age where nitwits increasingly pick nits. I mean, one would think that driving a car while blindfolded would be at least somewhat reckless. But in Alabama, apparently, they needed to make a special law about it. And in Ohio, something compelled a law against getting a fish drunk.

I mean, there must be something more to those stories. Say the words. Just try: “There is a law in Ohio that makes it illegal to get a fish drunk.”

What is the back-story? What is the gray area? What lawyer made the point that there was no explicit law against it? Did someone say, “Well, dude, you know. It’s not actually cruel“?

Which brings me to my point. NPR’s Nina Totenberg reports:

All of the Democrats and most of the Republicans who spoke agreed that waterboarding is illegal under both U.S. and international law. Feinstein said she was troubled by Mukasey’s refusal to agree with that.

“But I don’t believe that Judge Mukasey should be denied confirmation for failing to provide an absolute answer on this one subject,” Feinstein said.

And Feinstein relied, too, on assurances Mukasey had given to Schumer:

“He has personally made clear to me that if Congress passes a bill banning torture, he will enforce it,” Schumer said.

That prompted this response from Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD):

“Does that mean we have to outlaw the rack?” Cardin asked. “I’m even more troubled.”

And Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) asked why, in essence, the Senate should trust Mukasey’s assurance about enforcing a new law when laws on the books already prohibit waterboarding.

“We are supposed to find comfort in the representation by a nominee to the highest law-enforcement office in the country that he will, in fact, enforce the laws that we pass in the future? Can our standards really have sunk so low?” Kennedy asked.

It’s a fair question.

NPR on “waterboarding”

It is a macabre reflection that Americans can make torture sound hip, like the latest fad sport. Waterboarding. Soon enough, they’ll have a players’ union.

At any rate, NPR took a look at the history of this “controversial” interrogation technique.

Its use was first documented in the 14th century, according to Ed Peters, a historian at the University of Pennsylvania. It was known variously as “water torture,” the “water cure” or tormenta de toca — a phrase that refers to the thin piece of cloth placed over the victim’s mouth.

Eric Weiner’s article accompanies the audio for Jacki Lyden’s interview with Darius Rejali, of Reed College, on the same subject.

A turning point for waterboarding — in any form — came around 1800. As the Enlightenment swept across Europe, many countries banned the practice and people, in general, found it “morally repugnant,” Peters says. Waterboarding moved underground, but did not disappear by any means. In fact, it has experienced something of a revival in the 20th century.

Enlightened civilizations may have condemned the practice, but convenience makes it attractive to those who would call themselves noble, true, and honorable. No marks, no foul. The only object is suffering.

Why is it so important to be able to hurt other people senseless? Information extracted via torture is unreliable. It seems that, at some level, torturing our enemies is simply about being able to torture our enemies. An eye for an eye is impossible, so let us do useless things and pretend they make us feel better.

My fellow Americans, have we yet realized just how badly our twenty-first century has opened? Do we realize yet that things are likely going downhill from here? Seriously, let us pretend for just a moment that global warming is not some bizarre conspiracy hoax designed to weaken human resistance to the final invasion by our reverse-vampire overlords. It would be nice to have a few years of common decency before the next crisis begins when the whole place officially goes to hell.