Wither Innocence

One of the great concepts bequeathed the world by the British was the revolutionary idea that every man, no matter the crime of which he was accused, was presumed innocent until he was proven guilty. This concept is now accepted if not practiced in nearly every country, and life without this critical bulwark against government totalitarianism is unthinkable in our bastions of liberty. And yet the idea is in fact under attack, in many different forms, and for myriad reasons. When such a vital freedom is threatened, it would be normal to expect the attack to come from some covert and secretive cabal, seeking to extend their power over the population for their own aggrandization. It is almost scarier to find that these protections have been willingly, even eagerly if unknowingly ceded in an attempt to assuage our fears. And while some of those fears are understandable, a fear of the unknown, fear of that that is beyond our ken, fear of the outsider and the stranger, we are also driven by a fear of the darkness that lurks within ourselves, a fear of what we dare not face and which can be hidden only in the deepest dungeons, and if the presumed innocence of our fellows must be the sacrificed to silence the demons within our breast, then we appear more than willing to pay that price.

Over the last few months, two cases have revealed our slide away from the heights of liberty. These cases while providing an almost ridiculous counterpoint to our slower descent into self-imposed serfdom, nevertheless reveal much about our indifference to the principles that are our greatest shield of liberty and freedom. Earlier this year,  a woman was accused of killing her own child in a selfish attempt to trade the burden of single parenthood for the carefree party-filled life she'd once known and seemingly craved once more. There was an outpouring of anger towards this young woman, and she was tried and convicted time and time over in the media; yet when finally brought before a jury of peers, she was found innocent of her crime - the prosecution could simply not build a case that established her guilt beyond doubt. While few people doubted that she'd lied many times and to nearly everyone about the facts of the case and her role in and knowledge of the events, in the end there was no compelling evidence that she had actually killed her own daughter, and the jury, I believe, did the right thing when they chose not to convict her. Her guilt, and the actual crimes she may have committed, distract from the more worrying issue here; the public trial of and later the threats against this woman were a sad violation of the concept that every accused criminal is innocent till proved guilty. When the freedom of a person, or their life even, hangs in balance, the burden of proof lies with the prosecution.

The second case, still at a pretrial stage was part of an earlier discussion, and is somewhat personal to me by virtue of the effect it has had upon my Alma Mater. Jerry Sandusky has been accused of molesting and forcibly raping young boys, a crime that if proved will likely see him spend the rest of his natural life in some form of imprisonment. But the key fact is that right now we have accusations and a Grand Jury indictment, not a conviction. The man, no matter how much his crimes may appall, is entitled to his day in court, and the presumption of innocence till proven guilty. And that proof of guilt must come in court, when he has the chance to face his accusers and challenge their evidence. However, few commentators afford him this curtsey; to be fair to them, perhaps Sandusky has done all he could to destroy his own credibility as an innocent man through his own interviews, and the general population when confronted by crimes of which he stands accused largely react with a lack of rational thought.

I have observed that many people, even a majority perhaps, react with great vehemence when forced to confront crimes against children, be it murder or rape. Perhaps it stems from outrage at such an injustice towards the most defenseless and innocent section of society, perhaps it is driven by an idea of the moral outrage that is expected in the face of these crimes, perhaps it is a fear that to not denounce the accused as a monster deserving of immediate lynching will suggest a sympathy for the alleged criminal and his actions. Whether the desire to bypass the path of slow justice is prompted by our inner angels or demons is moot; it weakens our greatest protection against capricious injustice and imprisonment, and the fact that it's done in the name of swift justice makes it even more dangerous. We do not react, in general with the same bloodthirsty fervor to man who might steal a trifling amount to keep his children from starving. But we cannot reserve our justice for the criminal who arouses our sympathy. Every person, good or bad, is and should be afforded the same protection before the law, and if we would suspend it in cases where the accusations appall us, inevitably we will find ourselves at the receiving end, convicted without trial and summarily punished, guilty by virtue of being accused.

While warnings of danger to our entire civil society may sound like the rantings of Cassandra, it's worth recalling that Cassandra's dire warnings were proved accurate when it was too late to prevent the destruction of Troy. And the writing is on the wall, if we would only stop to read the signs. When the agents of al Qaida brought down the Twin Towers, their actions launched the War on Terror, a nebulous poorly defined fight with an undeclared enemy. And in the name of security we imprisoned people on suspicion of terrorist actions, and ten on suspicion of terrorist plotting, and even on suspicion of sympathies towards terrorism. And since the people we arrested were "foreigners", from countries that hated us, we turned away while they were imprisoned in secret prisons in remote corners of the world and we pretended that they were being arrested because they were guilty. We were unfazed by the fact that they would not be tried, not even before military tribunals but would be left to rot in dungeons till the undeclared undefined war was over; after all they were not like us, and the fact that they were in jail was all the proof we needed to satisfy ourselves of their guilt. Now, a new law is proposed that would extend those same possibilities to all US citizens, complete with provision that would empower the government to hold anyone suspected of terrorist sympathies without trial till the end of hostilities. Imagine for a moment if this concept was used in the War on Drugs, which has been underway for over thirty five years with no end in sight. The War on Terror, with no clear protagonist and hence no real way to have an ending, may drag on as long or longer.

I have never embraced the libertarian concept that the government is some alien entity to be feared and destroyed. I believe that the government is nothing but our collective civic bargain, and that it can and will be anything we want it to be. But a government, like an soulless entity is programmed to increase its power, unless we actively remain a part of it. And when we abdicate our civic responsibilities and allow our prejudices to trump the procedures and principles of law, no matter how noble or fearful our motives, we move a step closer to a day when we will no longer have those procedures and principles to be our Aegis in our moment of need.

Rights of the Children of Ham

This past week has been eventful, to say the least, from activists massed in New York protesting something regarding Wall Street to further rumbles in Greece portending the collapse of Europe's dream of unity to the latest blow against al-Qaida when an aptly named Hellfire missile met Anwar al-Awlaki halfway and sent him on his merry way to discover in person the truth of stories of paradise and dozens of virgins. It is the latter topic that forms the burden of my song, for matters economic are harder to understand.

After a few days of quiet exultation, the dissenting voices began to be heard questioning the legality of executing al Awlaki. Amid the liberal voices was an unlikely protester in the person of Dick Cheney, demanding that the President recant his criticisms of Bush Administration policies. Perhaps nothing spurred me to think this over quite as much as our former vice president; it's usually a safe bet that we will be on opposite sides of near any argument. And as I listened to the debate, a sense of disquiet stole over me. True, there was much questioning of the legality of the strike, which executed an American citizen without trial or due process. And therein for me, lies the dilemma. I fully appreciate the concerns of the liberals, but inherent in their dissent is a suggestion that trial and due process should be extended only to American citizens but foreign nationals who we have identified as enemies may be eliminated by any means necessary.

To be fair to my liberal brethren they likely are not comfortable with our actions against non-citizens but must choose their battles with care, given the general mood in America. Public opinion is firmly in favor of muscular response to any perceived enemies and such niggling problems as lack of evidence and reasonable doubt are blithely brushed aside in favor of security over freedom. I've argued before that we need to heed the maxim that forsaking liberty for security oft leaves one with neither, but this is beyond pragmatic arguments. The overriding issue for me is moral: do we have the right to execute, without trial, anyone who we declare to be our enemy? Does it really matter if that person is an American citizen or not? From a narrow constitutional focus, the citizenship question is paramount, but the wider question should be if those guarantees of due process are meant only for those born within these blessed shores. We are not bound to uphold the rights of any foreign nationals against their treatment by their own government, but when their freedom and liberty are held forfeit by us, our actions should be constrained by the same constitutional fetters that protect citizens. It is no coincidence that any resident of the US enjoys all civil rights as an American. But when fear blinds us, we are happy to pretend that those rights are complimentary, to be withdrawn at our pleasure in the name of national security.

If, as I argue, non-Americans in the so called "war on terror" should enjoy the same protections as US citizens, one would argue that we would be hobbling ourselves and depriving ourselves of any chance of striking at our enemies as they plan attacks upon us. Some, including Christopher Hitchens argue along those lines basically that since al-Awlaki is evil and our enemy, actively engaged in attacking us we have the right to execute him, be he a citizen of USA or not. But this is a false argument, because it conflates two different issues; I do not gainsay the evil or enmity of al Awlaki, but that is no justification for executing anyone. But al Awlaki's engagement in attacking us is a very different matter - this is specific, concrete action that opens him to retaliation or even preemption. But what  I would prefer to see would be a clear policy declared by the government of who they perceive as enemies, what actions constitute a threat to America, and how the US government would respond. Transparency has been sorely lacking in government response to terrorism for the past ten years. Advocates of this secrecy might argue that we cannot reveal our knowledge to our enemies. But it is unlikely that bin Laden or al Awlaki expected anything but death from us, and President Bush was fairly clear that he intended to "get bin Laden, dead or alive". We do not have to reveal our powers, but it would be in everyone's interest if we tried these terrorists in-absentia if not in person. Once we have a conviction against them, their killing is simply an execution of sanctioned punishment. And if we cannot obtain a conviction of a terrorist when they're not even available to mount their own defense, then we really need to re-think our policies and ask ourselves if we know who our enemies really are. But most importantly, as a nation, we need to ask if we know what our policy truly is and once we declare our policy, are we comfortable with the ramifications. I cannot state for sure what policies I would support or oppose, but knowing those policies would be the first step along the path of decision.

Not-Quite-Paradise Lost

The recent release of Dick Cheney's book just as the machinery of remembering and hallowing the victims of the attack on the Twin Towers gets underway, reminds us of just what we really lost ten years ago. We did not see a paradise crumble and fall, but we surely moved into a darker world than we'd enjoyed, closer to Mordor than Gondor, and saddest of all,we chose to do so willingly. Dick Cheney underlined just how far down the path of darkness we've come.

As when the execution of bin-Laden was portrayed as a victory for the techniques of torture, the calluses on our soul have grown so thickened that we spend our time parsing the irrelevant  - did Condi Rice "tearfully" admit Cheney was right when he advised George Bush to not accept responsibility for false information presented to the public, did Cheney take cheap shots at his erstwhile opponents like Colin Powell - while basically accepting the most disturbing assertions with nary a murmur of dissent. Cheney remains, unsurprisingly, a firm advocate of torture. I'm not sure, but he may be the only advocate who also accepts it for what it is rather than attempting to hide behind fig leaf terms like "enhanced interrogation techniques". One must salute the man for his willingness to acknowledge torture for what it is; there is nothing else in his position that I cold commend. When did torture cease to be morally acceptable?  When the accounts are finally tallied, that may be the worst legacy that Cheney bequeathed us.

Previously when torture was discussed, we talked about the "ticking clock" and how maybe, moral positions needed to be changed when thousands of lives were at stake and we could gain the information to save them with a little judicious torture. We grappled with the agonizing questions that followed - how many lives need be at risk to justify torture? How small a window did we need to justify torture above conventional means? If we were unsure of the culpability of our suspect, should we torture a potentially innocent man in hope that we may save hundreds? Cheney basically circumvents all moral questions about torture by flatly accepting the need to torture terrorists - we have the right to torture these people because they're terrorists. And we know they're terrorists, otherwise we wouldn't be torturing them! Torquemada wold have approved the logic, since it was the exact principle of the Inquisition - and how useful torture proved to be, if we have any lingering doubts about the new morality of Dick Cheney.

In the end, Cheney with his narrow antagonistic world view, where everyone is either an unquestioning and uncritical friend or an enemy to be destroyed, has succeeded in defining a new enemy to hate and fear. The terror of the Red Menace has been replaced by loathing of the green crescent. When Americans object to intrusive searches of their persons, they qualify it with a willingness to see "the others" humiliated and searched in those same objectionable ways. I've said before that the stupidest part of targeting Muslims is that most Americans have no idea what a Muslim would look like. To a majority of them, A Muslim is a brown-skinned man, maybe wearing a turban. Not only did this simplistic view lead to the tragic killing of a Sikh man in Phoenix  - especially ironic given the historic animosity between Sikhs and Muslims in the Punjab  - but it is patently false. The Muslim world sweeps from West Africa, all along the north coast of that continent through west Asia, where it splits to plunge into Central Asia and the edges of China, while the southern branch twists across India and all the way down to the Philippines and Indonesia. So every African, and Asian, and even European - for the Kurds, Turks and Central Asians are not so easily distinguished from their European cousins - may be potentially a Muslim. Names too can take you only so far - while a name that includes Mohammed is likely enough Muslim, there's plenty of names that offer little evidence either way; some of those names may be distinguishable to someone from the same area, but would likely be as obscure to the average American. And a name like Kieth Ellison and John Walker Lyndh offer absolutely no clue to the faith of the men.

The only thing that distinguishes our enemies from the vast majority is their ideology. That remains the place they must be fought and defeated, but instead in this scared new world of ours, we spend our time attempting to block the construction of mosques and passing meaningless laws banning Sharia - all we do is alienate the as yet, liberal pro-America Muslims who live amongst us. emphasizing that they are not part of our country, that in a land that celebrates the freedom to follow any religion, the exception is theirs. The debts and economic inequalities of the Bush era will pass long before this legacy of fear, hatred and distrust that is the poisonous gift of Dick Cheney even as he robbed us of a part of our very souls, leaving us morally crippled and blind to the Furies he unleashed in our hearts.

Time to Negotiate Tough - Send for Shatner or The Rock

For the past week, the biggest issue relating to the killing of Osama bin Laden has been the one no one wants to confront directly: did the Pakistani government know of bin Laden's hideout and what do we do next? It's an issue that is likely being furiously debated at the highest levels of the US government and every other level besides, including the very inefficient waiter at the pizzeria by my office who told us he was a cousin of Leon Panetta. It is equally clear that Pakistan must be pondering the same question and wondering what the fallout for them will be.

Pakistan would have us believe that they had no idea that bin Laden was hiding just a short journey from their capital, a neighbor almost to their military academy. In a nation that has suffered multiple vicious and bloody attacks by terrorists committed to destroying the status quo and Pakistani state, it certainly stretches credulity that a large compound could be maintained so openly without the slightest knowledge of the government. Now, it is likely that the Pakistani intelligence service is no KGB or secret police service, that they are far from omnipotent, no matter what the Indians and Afghans may claim, and they may not have had the ability or even the mandate to investigate that mysterious complex. But one thing that makes hiding in south Asia so difficult is the pervasive corruption. I do know that the local police would have known there was something strange about that compound and would have suspected that it was either a mujaheddin commander, either Pakistani or Afghan, or a drug dealer. In  either scenario, they would have expected to be bribed to stay silent.  And the most troubling question is whether they could be bribed or coerced into silence regarding the world's most wanted man, that never once did they allow the news to slip out, say in hope of snagging that American reward. If the local security forces were willing to keep secret of this magnitude from the federal government in Islamabad, that may be far scarier than the possibility that the government was sheltering bin Laden. It suggests that even in a seemingly peaceful oasis, the government writ has ceased to run and from greed or fear, the local authorities answer to a different power. For the safety and survival of the Pakistani state, we must hope that is not so.

For the same reason, it is time for India and Afghanistan to face the truth they would rather not: fun as it is to crow over Pakistan's discredited government, we all need that government to remain stable and survive for none of us want to see a failed state with nucleur weapons in the hands of the boldest rather than the sanest claimant. There is but a small window of opportunity now and it will take the greatest act of statecraft since Disraeli bought the Suez canal, but the US must seek to  bring Pakistan, Afghanistan and India to the table together. India has till now resisted all attempts to engage with Pakistan on the larger issues of the region, retreating into a shell of Cold War hostility and knee jerk reactions, opposing even having Special Envoy Holbrook's title mention them at all. But India is deluding themselves, as much as the US does. The three countries, linked by common heritage that predates even the Mughal invasion of the Indian subcontinent, cannot address their issues bilaterally, when the issues go way beyond bilateral interests.

India likes to see all issues with Pakistan through the prism of their conflict over Kashmir. Afghanistan sees Pakistan interference in the Pushtun areas as a mischievous precursor to annexing the southern provinces. And so India plays Afghanistan against Pakistan, cultivating the Tajik and Uzbeks against the Pushtun south, while Pakistan supports a pushtun based insurgency against the Afghan government to remain relevant in Afghanistan. Back in 2001, the US offered Pakistan a stark choice, to join our war on the Taliban or become our enemy. We forced them to drop their tool against India, the strategic depth they desired and then were surprised when they kept their back channels open to their erstwhile clients. We offered the Pakistani government military aid in return, but in doing so we robbed them of all legitimacy in the eyes of their people. And with each drone strike, we further emasculate their government, even as we destroy common enemies. It is this failure to appreciate the nuances of the south Asian imbroglio that has most hampered US interests. We asked Pakistan to act against their own perceived strategic interests to further our own needs and never stopped to ask what the cost for them would be, And equally strangely, we pretended that a dictator ruling by proclamation represented the will of Pakistan when he paid lip service to our demands.

The only way to solve this problem is by ending the three way struggle between India, Afghanistan and Pakistan. By now, even Pakistan's most chauvinistic leaders must know that they will never gain all of Kashmir, just as the most bloody minded Indian knows that no matter what they call the northern part of Kashmir under Pakistani rule, it's never becoming a part of India. And no matter how much they harp on the UN mandated plebiscite, at this stage India knows that no Kashmiri north of the Line of Control is going to vote to join India. Since neither nation is going to give up territory to the other, much less allow an independent Kashmiri nation, it's time for them to quit pretending and convert the Line of Control into a permanent border. Once they drop claims on each other's territory, it will be a lot easier to stop supporting insurgencies in the opponent, and the need to fight a proxy war in Afghanistan will also decrease. If Pakistan accepts that they no longer need the strategic depth to the north, and India no longer seeks to encircle Pakistan, it will become a more straightforward battle in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, there are deeply entrenched attitudes that will make such a bargain difficult to achieve. Pakistan has since its inception worked on the assumption that India seeks to destroy them; the claim on Kashmir is as old. Changing that mindset is only part of the challenge, since even an elected government must now fear the reactions of the fundamentalists as well as the military whose very raison d'etre is based on the existential threat of India. A bargain would have to involve the government as well as most of the centrist opposition. Winning over the military is best achieved by clearly showing them the cold hard facts and their own interests rather than trying to bribe them as we've done over and over in the past. India is no easier to deal with, stuck in some ways in Cold war prickliness to any American "interference". But in reality, few Indians want the rest of Kashmir as part of India - the last thing they want is more Muslims, much less a group that has no wish to be in India. Strategic needs have long since receded - after all, India has managed without Kashmir for most of its life as an independent nation and the current generation do not even know a time when Kashmir was not a bomb wracked battleground. The diplomatic equivalent of a hard shake and a presentation of harsh reality may actually be so unusual an experience for India that it just might work. And secretly, both India and Pakistan know that their continued conflict helps no one and costs both of them enormously in lost economic possibilities. It's not going to be easy, but if we want to ever get out of Afghanistan and not see another bin Laden rise, we're going to have to engage all the players, even those, like India, who want to pretend that they aren't playing.

Playing the Wet Blanket....As Usual

It is the unfortunate but vital task of killjoys to shine at moments when most people would like them to fade away and hide. This week, as Osama bin Laden was executed in a scene that came straight out of a Tom Clancy novel, it was obvious that it was time to get out the old water hose and reprise the familiar wet blanket impersonation.

When I saw the first headlines, I thrilled and exulted as much as anyone around. While bin Laden never threatened me personally and I didn't lose any relatives to his terror, nor risked that loss, he has declared a war on the West in general, and the USA in particular and having chose to make my domicile in these more temperate climes, I consider his declaration of war a threat to my personal comfort at the very least. I never believed he could win, unless his intended opponents allowed him to win through fear; there were moments when I feared that America would hand the man greater success than his achievements ever warranted. Fear was what bin Laden dealt in, and America increased his stock and infamy every time they reacted in fear to the actions of his minions. America striped herself of freedom and dignity in a vain attempt to guard themselves against a terrorist who actually posed almost no threat whatsoever, and for that I help bin Laden responsible. He did not cancel our rights against government eavesdropping or spirit us away to secret prisons, but he inspired a fear in the population at large that condoned such actions in a false search for safety. He was the boogieman, the monster under the bed at night, and missteps had built him to a level that only defeat or capture could ever change that mindset. My one fear, greater than any fear of another terrorist attack, was that he would die quietly in hiding and we would never vanquish our fear of him.

And so when I heard that a US commando raid had invested him in a few pound of parabellum and stamped his exit visa, as I said, I was happy. Bin Laden finally got to personally experience the martyrdom he craved for others and that alone was cause for happiness.  Not flag waving, chest thumping happy - for one thing thumping my chest leads only to a dull cottony sound, and I leave that atavistic form of behavior to our great ape cousins, while  descending into the streets waving the flag to which I nominally owe allegiance would likely get me shot, something I fear I may be allergic to. As the news spread and scenes of tumultuous celebrations poured in, I began to feel a sense of disquiet. This was not the mature closure I hoped for, this was Rome watching Vercingetorix in chains and screaming for blood. To be sure there was plenty of restraint on display, but on every forum they were jostled equally by jingoistic posts claiming exceptionalism, and damning bin Laden to the innermost circles of hell.

President Obama spoke, as always, in measured terms, striking a great balance between triumph and somber realism, but his words were largely drowned out in the din from the population in general and the talking heads of television and politicians fighting for a share of the reflected glory. Two issues struck me above all. Firstly, this was almost universally declared an act of justice and it fell to a lone writer at Slate.com to point out that this was anything but. Amazingly, for a man declared our most wanted terrorist, bin Laden was never charged with the attack on the World Trade Center, much less tried and sentenced for his crimes. To be sure, he claimed personal responsibility, but so do terrorists often for the acts of others. And that omission by our arm of justice troubles me of many levels. If we intended to capture bin Laden, as George Bush promised immediately after the Towers fell, what would we do to him? Were we so afraid of a single man that we were going to lock him away in a secret prison to never see the light of day again? What does that say for us as  a nation and a people that a scruffy old man, with little charisma and no towering intellect, terrifies us to the point that we would not dare try him for the crimes we accuse him of committing? Do we accept the concept of two levels of justice, one for citizens and another one for people who scare us? Today that person is bin Laden, but it could be expanded to include others, as it has in the past. We were too scared to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and forced the Obama administration to drop their plans to finally try the one terrorist we had from the WTC attack. We locked away dozens if not hundreds of suspected al Qaida supporters - not all terrorists mind, just supporters - and took years to determine if they were even threats to us. Sixty years ago, we locked up thousands of Americans of Japanese descent in an action that was eventually acknowledged to be wrong, yet we've not learned from Roosevelt's admonition that there is nothing to fear than fear itself. We tried Slobodan Milosevic for his crimes in Kosovo on the reasoning that shining a light on his barbaric actions would rob them of the power to terrorize and would bring liberation and closure to his victims. But in the end, for all our brashness and chants of "USA" and braggadocio, we were as scared of bin Laden as the puniest kid confronted by a bully in a dark street. Killing bin Laden exorcised our fears for a day, but the near hysteria in our reaction is a pointer to the deeper fears that will only be buried and never confronted.

The other troubling factor was the return of the supporters of torture. They still dance around the term and hide behind the fig leaf of "enhanced interrogation techniques" but I fear very much that the day when America accepts torture as a legitimate police action has just become so much closer. When the debate first began, torture was justified in vague terms about the need to collect urgent actionable information that would save American lives. It was easy to blast aside traditionalists by invoking the safety of these imaginary victims; who would shed tears for a few dirty terrorists when their hours of pain would save lives? It was impossible to prove that torture was not needed, because the debate was argued within the framework defined by the supporters of Torquemada. But till now they shied away from calling torture by its true name and cited it only as a final resort to be used in direst need. Last week, they were emboldened to claim that the execution of bin Laden was justification for torture in wider circumstances. If torture of al Qaida operatives in 2007 led the SEAL team to his lair four long years later, that alone should suggest that it was never needed in first place. that there was never the urgency that was used to justify it in first place. Add in the  fact the actual actionable intelligence was collected not under torture, but months later by regular interrogation and one would imagine that the case for torture would be weaker than before. Yet in a bizarre reflection of the world we live in,  just the fact that the men who gave up information on bin Laden had been tortured at some point previously is now justification that torture works. It doesn't, and this should prove it. More importantly, we should be rejecting torture as a method, irrespective of its efficacy. Today it's a technique talked about in the abstract, to be used against unknown others, who are mostly Muslim, Arab and non-American citizens, but when we legitimize the idea we open the door for all of us to share that fate in future. And by then it will be too late to object.