Obama and Torture

While the French are preoccupied with a new law that will prohibit smoking in public places, their president’s foreign policy is taking a strange turn. Remember how Sarkozy defended his invitation of Gaddafi through contracts that he did not end up getting? And how those contracts included “civilian” nuclear technology (which, we still don’t know for sure, he might have given off against the release of some prisoners)? Well, here’s a new twist.

Purportedly to retaliate for its role in messing up the latest Lebanese presidential elections, Syria was hit with a suspension of diplomatic relations with France -returning to its previous policy. WhileHa’aretz’s Daniel Ben-Simon is probably right to point out that the initiative is part of FM Bernard Kouchner’s personal investment in the resolution of the Lebanese crisis, and while indeed is it to be feared that further terrorist intervention from Syria in Lebanese internal affairs is to be seen again shortly, this move takes place in a larger and much more sinister Middle Eastern context.

Sarkozy’s announcement of diplomatic rupture with Syria might have come around one of his and Kouchner’s protected jogs -in Egypt, freedom of the press doesn’t exclude breaking journalists’ limbs-but it also came while Sarkozy was trying to sell French nuclear technology to the Egyptians… This is becoming a nasty habit, albeit sometimes humorous (as in when Sarko offered a baffled Angela Merkel some French nukes).

Why a possible connection to the Franco-Syrian diplomacy?  Because Syria is both an Iranian stand-in and a possible actor itself in the nuclear rise of the Evil Axis. And what did Iran offer to Egypt right about the same time France did, if not assistance with nuclear projects?

All the while, Egypt is appearing ambiguous in its alliances, probably to emphasise its pivotal role between the two blocks and to appease both sides in order to avert an internal crisis.

As I noted before, there is little new in French presidential foreign policy. However, this continued pragmatism -Sarkozy’s new friend now has the presidency of the UN Security Council- falsely sold as idealism (who can believe that France’s refusal to enter the latest Iraqi conflict had nothing to do with its petroleum needs?) means that Napoleon’s heirs are ready to wreck the world again by contributing to the dissemination of nuclear technology to less than tasty partners -we all remember the Osirak case.

Nothing much has changed in France’s so-called ‘Arab policy’. Paris is still willing to snuggle up to dictators, if it means they could -hypothetically- sell them some armaments or nuclear facilities. Gaddafi’s ridiculous stop in Paris during his European tour (Spain’s motivations for receiving him seem no more glorious) shows that the French are still cozying up to terrorists.

The analysis of the French commentators is also pretty habitual. Serge Moati failed to elicit any positive indignation from his panel -no-one thought that Gaddafi shouldn’t have been invited. Indeed, it was suggested in that same broadcast that it is perfectly normal to welcome the Libyan torturer since France is going to host Shimon Peres shortly: no-one seemed particularly shocked at the comparison. While the majority of the French public was opposed to his visit, it seems that a large part of the intellectuels (except for the usual crowd, including Bernard-Henri Lévy, who was subsequently disowned by his ‘friend’ Sarko) were not opposed to it, and they were joined by a number of… Africans, notably women. This is apparently Sarkozy’s excuse for his public opinion: the Arab world (a reference in matter of democracy, as we well know) doesn’t see Gaddafi as a dictator.

This state visit was, however, sponsored mostly by Sarkozy himself, with very dissonant voices in his very government. Rama Yade and Bernard Kouchner both expressed, in no uncertain terms, their displeasure at the dictator’s visit. This might be a slightly new factor in French politics, but in fact the true novelty lies in Sarkozy’s distraction from the Gaddafi visit -and from its failure to bring the promised lucrative contracts for France.

As soon as Gaddafi had left French soil, Sarkozy, faithful to his “people-isation,” as they say in French, of politics, turned the attention of the media back to a more valuable subject: his private life. While the highbrow media, while still avoiding covering the actual issues, delved into the traditional how-it’s-impossible-to-talk-about-the-serious-issues due to Sarkozy’s tabloid lifestyle complaint, everybody was just rushing to comment on the President’s new flirt -Carla Bruni, of modeling and singing fame.

Thus the real question in French politics this week is: how acceptable is the place of the first official date of Sarko and Carla -Disneyland Paris? Some laments are heard on the devotion of the media to the national authority, but seriously, what do you expect in a country where (all) journalists have historically benefited from an income tax discount?

The funny thing, of course, is the way in which Sarkozy plays with this very controlled publication of his private life. While the attacks on the stars’ private lives by the tabloids -and their leakage into general press coverage- are absolutely senseless and contribute to the dumbing down of content in the media, Sarkozy has no place reacting to paparazzi in the same way Julia Roberts or Nicole Kidman do. The point is not so much that Sarkozy is transforming French, supposedly issues-centered politics into American-style, supposedly personality based public debate; rather, it is that he is providing the French with what they like -sort of like the badly dubbed shitty old American soaps they love watching- while in fact practicing the same old, anti-liberal, public policy.

Michael’s recent post on Mitt Romney’s religious stance made of the later a ‘political enemy.' If his disdain for the separation of church and state wasn’t enough, Romney’s stance on torture should help make him utterly abhorrent to anyone.

During theCNN/YouTube debate, Romney stupidly attempted to spar with McCain on the subject of ‘water boarding.’ The question, as McCain eloquently puts it, is very much about what distinguishes ‘us’ from ‘them’:

My friends, this is what America is all about. This is a defining issue and, clearly, we should be able, if we want to be commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, to take a definite and positive position on, and that is, we will never allow torture to take place in the United States of America.

(By the way, this seems one of only two occurrences of the word ‘defining’ in that debate.)

A quick note on the stupidity of believing that life is “24 and Jack Bauer”, as it seems many politicians seem to do on this issue (for the credibility of Romney’s reference, see here). The Atlantic has some interesting pieces about this, pitting Mark Bowden (in favour of the use of torture; credentials: wrote a coolbook; “author, journalist, screenwriter, and teacher”) against Sherwood Moran (against torture; credentials: U.S. Marine Corps Major, responsible for the interrogation of Japanese prisoners during WWII) , through Stephen Budiansky. Moran’s memoir on interrogation of prisoners was posted online by the Marine Corps Interrogator Translator Teams Association, Budiansky writes

because "many others wanted to read it" and because the original document, in the Marine Corps archives, was in such poor shape that the photocopies in circulation were difficult to decipher. (A MCITTA member) denies that current events had anything to do with either the decision to post the document or the increased interest in it.

I liked Black Hawk Down, the book as well as the film, but somehow I would tend to trust professionals of interrogation on this subject more than a blockbuster author –Bowden may have talked to people on the frontline, but what you’re reading anyway is his interpretation–and dramatisation (so if you buy the book, don’t forget to go support the actual heroes).

Ideology is what has made the U.S. distinctive all along –an ideology of freedom and of progressive moral, the individual aetiology of which (e.g., religious or not) doesn’t matter. To be certain, everything isn’t rosy and good, but unlike what’s happening in many other places, Americans are generally trying to improve things. Despite what justified critics may have been saying, for example, the conditions in Guantanamo are incredibly better than what you would find in many other places. Take France, for instance, a vocal critic of American practices in all circumstances. This year again, the European Council notes the “inhuman and degrading” conditions in French prisons. Prisoners are routinely chained to their beds in the prisons' infirmaries, where guards are present during any and all medical procedures. “Isolated” detainees receive medical treatment under constraint, and are placed naked in their cells. One prisoner had been placed in such solitary detention conditions for nineteen years. Other than the usual account of the European report, little stirs in France against such blatant injustices.

To get back to the torture question and its supposed use for intelligence purposes, one of my personal heroes wrote this back to me after I sent him Budiansky’s piece:

Thanks for the article. The claims are quite true. I interrogated/interviewed (quite different acts in my view) hundreds, perhaps 1,000+ Japanese repatriates from China, Manchuria, & Siberia; NK POWs; as well as a number of Soviet and NK espionage agents. The soft touch was always my approach. I don't think I have ever heard of Moran, but one of the Marine interrogators landed on Guam and the chief of the army interrogation team landed on Saipan were (both deceased) personal friends and both subscribed to Moran's philosophy.

I am surprised by the article's claim that so many inexperienced people were employed as interrogators. Some of the fatigue and apprehension inducing techniques they used were, in my opinion, useful and acceptable, but application of pain or bodily injury are not only personally repugnant -those techniques can cause the subject to say just anything the interrogator seems to wish to hear. Totally counter productive. One wants to extract the truth, not fabrication.

To sum up, rejecting torture as a means of interrogation is not only defining for the U.S. as a country; it is also more efficient in terms of intelligence-gathering. McCain is scoring a lot of points with me on this one.