reflectivepundit

Voting: Individual Candidates or Parties?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

When Americans go to the polls a week from Tuesday, many of them will cast their votes for candidates regardless of their party label. As one traditionally Republican-leaning Independent said on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” this morning, she will split her vote in this year’s mid-term elections. But unlike this caller from Ohio, who obviously examined the records and agendas of individual candidates in various races, many voters will be less inclined to vote for individual candidates and more guided by their preference for one or the other party. In this respect, as Michael Kinsley notes in his Washington Post column, “this year seems to be different [from most elections].” Given the low presidential approval ratings, the growing public opposition to the Iraq War, and the outrage over corruption and misbehavior in Washington, chances are indeed that many voters cast protest votes against the ruling Republicans. While attack ads in the most competitive races are more numerous and more vicious this year, most of them are exclusively or partially aimed at discrediting the other major party, its leaders, and its flaws.  

Waterboarding: A No-brainer for Mr. Cheney

By Brigitte L. Nacos 

When Republicans and Democrats adopted legislation earlier this month that was supposed to prevent the torture of terrorists or suspected terrorists, they left it to the administration to decide what constitutes illegal interrogation methods against “enemy combatants (see my post “First De-Humanization, then Rendition and Torture” of October 16, 2006). Vice-President Richard Cheney for one is not squeamish when it comes to tough interrogation methods. As Richard Eggen reports in today’s Washington Post, Cheney told a radio talk show host that “dunking terrorism suspects in water during questioning was a ‘no-brainer’ prompting complaints from human rights advocates that he was endorsing the use of a controversial technique known as waterboarding on prisoners held by the United States.” If you want to know what waterboarding is and whether it is torture, take a look at the visuals on the No Quarter site.

Drowning simulations were reportedly first used during the Spanish Inquisition and, as Eggen writes, “In 1947, the United States prosecuted a Japanese soldier for war crimes and sentenced him to 15 years hard labor for using the technique on a U.S. prisoner.” Then the U.S. considered waterboarding torture. Now, it is merely a "tough interrogation" method.

Quite a double standard.

Fighting the Propaganda War Against Democrats Rather Than the “War Against Terrorism”

By Brigitte L. Nacos 

Obviously shocked into action by the media hype surrounding predictions of a Democratic victory in the midterm elections, members of the cabinet have joined President Bush and Vice-President Cheney in mounting an all out end run against a possible but far from certain Democratic take-over of congress. According to the Washington Post’s Peter Baker, at a tent festival on the North Lawn of the White House, administration biggies were interviewed by dozens of radio hosts. Besides Carl Rove, others “on hand included, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, presidential counselor Dan Bartlett, White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend, and budget director Rob Portman. With all the big guns fighting the campaign war against Democrats, one wonders who is minding the store and who is directing the war against terrorism--not only during the interview blitz on the North Lawn and the wave of presidential news conferences in the pre-election months with the latest of these events earlier today.

Direct Diplomacy Rather Than Media-Diplomacy

By Brigitte L. Nacos 

“If you want to know what Democratic gains in this midterm election would mean for national security policy,”  David Broder of the Washington Post writes in today’s column, “[Senators] Levin and Reed can provide the answer.” While it is not surprising that Carl Levin and Jack Reed, Democrats and members of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, would push for direct negotiations between the U.S.and North Korea, there is no reason to believe that the administration would retreat from its long refusal to engage in bi-lateral talks with the communist government of North Korea. After all, President Bush and his team will still be in office and call the shots after the next congress constitutes itself in January. Still, by going public with their preference for U.S.-North Korean talks, Levin and Reed side with direct and traditional diplomacy that has been replaced largely by media diplomacy. Sebastian Mallaby of the Washington Post is wrong when he writes, "In North Korea and Iran, the United States has tried every diplomatic trick to prevent nuclear proliferation..." The U.S. administration did not try the most obvious "diplomatic trick," namely traditional diplomacy in form of person-to-person contacts.

“The Stakes” Ad: RNC Pushes the Fear Button Again

By Brigitte L. Nacos 

Republicans' mood may be grim as the Washington Post reports this morning but they obviously hope that the fear tactic might still work in their favor on Election Day. Exploiting Americans’ fear of terrorism helped Republicans winning the elections of 2002 and 2004. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that Republicans once again push the fear button in the last phase of this campaign hyping up an existential terrorist threat against America in an ugly campaign ads reminiscent of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s infamous “Daisy” ad of 1964. So far only placed on the Republican National Committee’s web site but already shown this morning in a CNN newscast, the ad shows bin Laden and some of his lieutenants threatening the U.S.and the devastating results of terror attacks. The spot ends the words “These are the stakes. Vote November 7” (In the "Daisy" ad, Lyndon Johnson spoke the same words, "These are the stakes").The implicit message is what the President, Vice-President and other Republicans say explicitly in their stump speeches, namely that Democrats are not tough on terrorism and defense. Only Republicans are. With the ad reportedly on its way to be shown on cable-networks and -stations, the question is: Will the fear tactic work again this time around?

New Law Backing "Tough" Interrogation

By Brigitte L. Nacos

As European allies pressed for the closing of the Guantanomo Bay prison, President Bush  signed a bill into law that allows tough interrogation of terrorists and terrorist suspects and establishes military commissions to try these detainees. The only comforting news surrounding the event was the protest against torture outside the White House. The President used the signing ceremony to hail the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and assure Americans that the new law “sends a clear message: This nation is patient and decent and fair, and we will never back down from the threats to our freedom.” The truth is, however, that this nation has backed down by retreating from our most esteemed values. The legislation that Congress adopted and the President signed into law is the latest proof of this retreat. While Republicans control both houses of the Congress and the White House, a number of Democrats also supported the un-American piece of legislation—12 members of the Senate and 32 in the House. This begs the question whether a big Democratic victory in November and majorities in both congressional chambers would bring about changes and deny the President the legislative support he has enjoyed. 

First De-Humanization, then Rendition and Torture

By Brigitte L. Nacos 

As TIME magazine reports, the new book Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program by Stephen Grey reveals details about the CIA’s controversial rendition practices after 9/11. However shocking such accounts may be, the mass-mediated discussion about the interrogation of terrorists and suspected terrorists began after 9/11, intensified after the capture of prominent Al Qaeda members and after the Abu Ghraib revelations. All along, there were voices that suggested a double standard in this particular case: torture or let others do it for you and deny everything. And all along, the media granted access to those who dehumanized the enemy in the war on terrorism. In this climate, it was hardly surprising that torture and extraordinary rendition (meaning to torture abroad in U.S. run facilities or to outsource torture to agents of other countries) became acceptable to legal experts in the administration and to American interrogators and guards in detention facilities. If you want an idea about torture methods that proponents consider "torture lite," take a look a this linked material on the No Quarter site.

"Air America" Out of Air

By Brigitte L. Nacos 

Rumors became reality, when the progressive radio network “Air America” filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The news was hardly surprising given the rather modest audience (reportedly between two and four million daily) in comparison to the regular listening audiences of conservative talk show stars, such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. But the reason for Air America hosts’ failure to build comparable followings is not, as Limbaugh suggested, that the liberal radio network was simply created to win elections (Limbaugh must have forgotten the central role that he and his ideological bedfellows on the air played for example in the 1994 off-year election that gave Republicans control of the House of Representatives). Instead, part of the answer might well be found in the profound differences between conservatives and liberals, when it comes to propagate their respective ideological views and objectives in mass-mediated sound bites. Democrats seem to ignore the sound bite gap.

Manhattan Plane Crash Raises Question: How Safe is the Homeland?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

As they heard the news of a plane flying into a building at Manhattan’s East Side, most New Yorkers had the same reaction: In sudden flashbacks of horrific 9/11 images they feared that another terrorist attack had occurred. One man in the neighborhood thought that a dirty bomb had been exploded. Although it became soon clear that the plane crash was the result of an accident without any relation to terrorism, the incident raises nevertheless pressing questions—ironically shortly after the President had assured Americans once again a high state of security. This is the time to ask: How safe is New York City ? How safe are other cities around the country? How safe is the homeland?

The Litmus Test of Free Speech

By Brigitte L. Nacos 

I grew up in post-war Germany and came to learn most about the country’s fascist past—not from my parents and teachers but my own efforts once I was old enough to ask questions and find answers. In the 1970s, when I learned that Neo-Nazis were marching in Skokie, Illinois, and that the ACLU supported their right to freedom of expression, I was outraged. But I remember so well what a wise and true American, who had lost his father in a Nazi concentration camp, taught me: To support freedom of expression and freedom of the press is easy, when you agree with what is said or written. But the litmus test of your commitment to this fundamental civil liberty, he said, is your support of these First Amendment rights, if you are very opposed to what is said or written or shown. I remembered his words the other day, when I learned that Columbia University students prevented an invited representative of the self-appointed border-patrolling Minutemen Project from speaking on campus. There is no excuse for what a small number of students did but many of the comments cited and posted on popular and obscure blogs transcend justified criticism as do the hateful and threatening e-mails.