This article is about Tom Daschle and the long-term problems that could result if Obama's health plan passes. I don't agree with a lot of it and unfortunately it is largely written from the doomsday perspective of a post-election Republican, but one point that stood out to me was that if the government picks up a program that doesn't work, it'll be like social security - we won't be able to get the people to let it go even if better solutions arise.
This article is about what closing Guantanamo would mean for US foreign/counterterrorism policy, as well as the very relevant question of what exactly we'll be doing with the detainees there.
I'd like to have a conversation going at some point about this sort of stuff, as well as torture. I'm not on the hardcore side, but in my experience, my views on torture lie to the right of most of my friends.
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Torture/Guantanamo/etc. are topics I know little enough about not to have formed particularly strong opinions on them. I'm reading that WaPo article now and thinking about it, though.
ReplyDeleteWhat are your thoughts, generally?
I liked the Guantanamo article - interesting and accessible - but I wonder about this part:
ReplyDelete"Detainees who pose a grave national security threat might be unprosecutable for a variety of reasons: because of deficiencies in the criminal law as it stood in 2001, because evidence against them would not stand up in court, because the government might not have enough evidence to convict or because it obtained key evidence under coercive conditions."
In such an absence of evidence, how do we know what kind of threat they pose? Unless there's clear evidence, this seems like a rather arbitrary category...
[Everything in this comment is focused on the Gitmo article, though I did enjoy the Daschle article.] It is uncommon for an article in a major periodical to sacrifice its own popularity in favor of honesty and truth. Let me explain: too many writers, editors, publications, and publishers today sacrifice a nuanced discussion of a murky issue in favor of attention-grabbing headlines that make extreme, irresponsible generalizations. I am adamant that irresponsible is a necessary word here because of the disproportionate influence of many of these giants of publishing. To intentionally eliminate subtlety from the public discourse on a topic is to intentionally attempt to create ignorance in the knowledge of readers, most importantly (and harmfully) the already staggeringly-uninformed masses.
ReplyDeleteObviously a publication cannot achieve popularity with the general public, and thereby economic viability, by writing only dense policy pieces that explore all aspects of a topic; that's a given. The problem with modern news reporting is that the coverage tends to the opposite extreme: every article attempts to summarize the 'clear' policy position that should be taken and implies that there is next to no uncertainty in the matter. [As a caveat in what has quickly become a poorly-organized rant: many publications also use one example to demonstrate the correctness of their position. This goes against my uncle's argument that, "The plural of anecdote is not fact." That is a rant for another time, though.]
The Washington Post article on Gitmo takes the risk of sounding uncertain in order to present the facts of an uncertain situation. The author makes the well-organized, if not always eloquent, argument that any policy suggestions made by outside commentators on the Guantanamo situation can only be considered meritorious if the suggested plan includes a discussion of the uncertainty surrounding the composition of the detainee population (By composition I mean the breakdown of the population along a number of different axes: ethnicity, organizational affiliation, nationality, risk level, etc.). The author of the Gitmo article made a conscious decision to inform readers about the situation and allow them to choose their position rather than to inform readers of their position, a subtle but important distinction.
To ignore the fact that only a handful of people have the security clearance to understand the situation at Guantanamo is to willfully emasculate one's own points in favor of simplicity, an unseemly compromise at best. I would love to have a discussion on the role of uncertainty in the press and the role of journalists in reporting that uncertainty. (As an example I am thinking of public criticisms of military strategy. Obviously the generals have more details than the press ever will, but what should the role of the press be in presenting that disparity of information?)
Two caveats: 1. This is obviously a holier-than-thou argument on my part as I fall prey to the same flaws of reasoning and simplification; and, 2. This argument is not intended to imply that all simplification is wrong, but rather that a simplification is wrong if it is intended only to remove a variable that would cast doubt on the author's argument.
As a last thought: I agree with Katie's concern about the legitimacy of the existence of this third category of detainees "[...] who pose a grave national security threat [and] might be unprosecutable for a variety of reasons." Using the 'I can't tell you why, but this guy can't be released' argument places one on shaky ethical ground. (Is it proper to use a single quote when creating a fake quotation? Is this the proper usage of air quotes? Help!)
excellent comment and, in my opinion, acceptable usage of apostrophes as air quotes.
ReplyDelete