I love this ad's implication that if one were tortured, they would be better suited to be President. Now while McCain has been an outspoken advocate against torture, he did fail to vote against a bill condemning waterboarding, probably because he knew the President was going to veto it. Regardless, it is difficult to use torture as a credential for being President while failing to vote against its use. Also, does this mean that one of the people we have tortured could one day use their experience as a credential for being President of some Middle Eastern country if Bush's plan to democratized the region succeeds? Now wouldn't that be ironic.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Warning: Non-class related material.
Ok, so this is non-class related, but I posted a lot on class earlier so I think I'm in the clear.
Apparently the brilliant anchors over at Fox News are discussing whether or not Bill Richardson grew a beard so he could look more Hispanic to pander to this demographic on Obama's behalf. As you may recall, Richardson recently endorsed Obama, and the "news anchors" over at Fox think this is a ploy to get Hispanics' vote. As the one Mensa candidate pointed out, Richardson "also is the son of an American-born man and a Mexican-born woman, which is something he shares in some ways with Barack Obama's background." So now Obama is Mexican? I'm confused. Perhaps you can figure out what the heck these yo-yo's are talking about:
Also, Chris Matthews said that "4,000 people are dead now because of decisions made by politicians like the Clintons." Ummm...you mean George Bush? Is he the politician you are referring to? Cause otherwise...you're sort of completely crazy. I mean...more than normal.
Apparently the brilliant anchors over at Fox News are discussing whether or not Bill Richardson grew a beard so he could look more Hispanic to pander to this demographic on Obama's behalf. As you may recall, Richardson recently endorsed Obama, and the "news anchors" over at Fox think this is a ploy to get Hispanics' vote. As the one Mensa candidate pointed out, Richardson "also is the son of an American-born man and a Mexican-born woman, which is something he shares in some ways with Barack Obama's background." So now Obama is Mexican? I'm confused. Perhaps you can figure out what the heck these yo-yo's are talking about:
Also, Chris Matthews said that "4,000 people are dead now because of decisions made by politicians like the Clintons." Ummm...you mean George Bush? Is he the politician you are referring to? Cause otherwise...you're sort of completely crazy. I mean...more than normal.
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
So I have to say that I was throughly horrified by this documentary. It's one thing to read about things like this in the news and another to hear the people involved talk about it. One of the things that was most chilling was how little remorse some of the guards actually felt. I mean, I definitely agree that they were pawns who were used as scapegoats for a situation that was created by higher level officials, but on some level it seems that they still don't understand the gravity of their actions. The one woman kept speaking about feeling "uncomfortable" and this choice of words just seemed discordant with what occurred.
Overall this film paints a pretty damning picture that shows that the administration knew that torture was occurring in this jail. While it may be technically true that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld did not order the exact types of techniques used by the guards (and even that is hard to believe given the exactness of the methods and the similarity to techniques used in other wars), it is obvious that if you encourage some kinds of torture, others become more accepted. In addition, having untrained guards facilitate these techniques makes the administration culpable for neglect, if not fully responsible for what occurred there. Again, this just highlights the overall lack of planning that went into the Iraq war.
This film is applicable to class because it highlights to ease with which people are influenced by their situation and normative cues. Once the other guards saw Graner being thanked for his service, they felt that this was the military condoning their actions. This is similar in the Stanford Prison experiment. No one kept the guards in check, so they continued to treat the prisoners badly. Sometimes when I was reading the webpage I was unsure if the author (who I assume was a graduate student working with the project) was overseeing the project or a guard himself. He talked about the "jail" as if it were real and clearly fell into a role himself. It is amazing that so many people, including parents, priests, lawyers, police and other students just went along with this experiment as long as they did! I mean, these people just volunteered for what they thought was a simple experiment and were subjected to psychological torture and no one seemed to find a flaw with this! It wasn't until the PhD graduate spoke up that the experiment ended (from what Dr. C said in class I was under the impression that one of the guards had spoken out, but in actuality it was an outsider visiting the experiment).
I think this experiment, and Abu Ghraib, have extreme implications for those of us who want to create policy. On the ground, it means that people can't always be considered rational actors. Policy makers must take group mentality and group dynamics into consideration when attempting to ameliorate harm. Clearly having strong oversight and a review board are important for any kind of prison system. Also, the soldiers in Abu Ghraid consistently said that they had no idea what they rules were, so it is clear that these need to be more accessible. Having said that, it doesn't seem as if the military has any incentive to do this. The insular system where troops are tried by military tribunals means that the military isn't beholden to outside rules. Even the "amnesty boxes" that were placed out in Abu Ghraib after the picture scandal erupted speaks to this atmosphere of protecting one's own (I would have liked to have known more details about what these boxes were). As the one soldier said, no one would have done anything if pictures weren't involved.
On the other hand, this mentality speaks to the in-group perspective of both militaries and governments as well. Foreign citizens are seen as "others" who are not to be trusted. Because of the location of their birth, they are seen as less than us, and their lives are automatically not as important. Differences are magnified for political gain and nationalism blinds us to the similarities we all share as humans. I'm not quite sure how policy can change as long as this mentality remains pervasive in both politics and the military.
One final note...I found this article interesting in light of the documentary and the Stanford experiment. Apparently people in California were more likely to cut down their energy consumption if they knew how much they used in reference to their neighbors. Also, the usage of smiley faces and sad faces could nudge them to use more or less electricity. While I don't agree with the article's absurd suggestion of global warming jewelry, the idea that people can be motivated to save energy if faced with a norm of conservation can be highly useful for policy makers attempting to reduce individuals carbon footprint.
Overall this film paints a pretty damning picture that shows that the administration knew that torture was occurring in this jail. While it may be technically true that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld did not order the exact types of techniques used by the guards (and even that is hard to believe given the exactness of the methods and the similarity to techniques used in other wars), it is obvious that if you encourage some kinds of torture, others become more accepted. In addition, having untrained guards facilitate these techniques makes the administration culpable for neglect, if not fully responsible for what occurred there. Again, this just highlights the overall lack of planning that went into the Iraq war.
This film is applicable to class because it highlights to ease with which people are influenced by their situation and normative cues. Once the other guards saw Graner being thanked for his service, they felt that this was the military condoning their actions. This is similar in the Stanford Prison experiment. No one kept the guards in check, so they continued to treat the prisoners badly. Sometimes when I was reading the webpage I was unsure if the author (who I assume was a graduate student working with the project) was overseeing the project or a guard himself. He talked about the "jail" as if it were real and clearly fell into a role himself. It is amazing that so many people, including parents, priests, lawyers, police and other students just went along with this experiment as long as they did! I mean, these people just volunteered for what they thought was a simple experiment and were subjected to psychological torture and no one seemed to find a flaw with this! It wasn't until the PhD graduate spoke up that the experiment ended (from what Dr. C said in class I was under the impression that one of the guards had spoken out, but in actuality it was an outsider visiting the experiment).
I think this experiment, and Abu Ghraib, have extreme implications for those of us who want to create policy. On the ground, it means that people can't always be considered rational actors. Policy makers must take group mentality and group dynamics into consideration when attempting to ameliorate harm. Clearly having strong oversight and a review board are important for any kind of prison system. Also, the soldiers in Abu Ghraid consistently said that they had no idea what they rules were, so it is clear that these need to be more accessible. Having said that, it doesn't seem as if the military has any incentive to do this. The insular system where troops are tried by military tribunals means that the military isn't beholden to outside rules. Even the "amnesty boxes" that were placed out in Abu Ghraib after the picture scandal erupted speaks to this atmosphere of protecting one's own (I would have liked to have known more details about what these boxes were). As the one soldier said, no one would have done anything if pictures weren't involved.
On the other hand, this mentality speaks to the in-group perspective of both militaries and governments as well. Foreign citizens are seen as "others" who are not to be trusted. Because of the location of their birth, they are seen as less than us, and their lives are automatically not as important. Differences are magnified for political gain and nationalism blinds us to the similarities we all share as humans. I'm not quite sure how policy can change as long as this mentality remains pervasive in both politics and the military.
One final note...I found this article interesting in light of the documentary and the Stanford experiment. Apparently people in California were more likely to cut down their energy consumption if they knew how much they used in reference to their neighbors. Also, the usage of smiley faces and sad faces could nudge them to use more or less electricity. While I don't agree with the article's absurd suggestion of global warming jewelry, the idea that people can be motivated to save energy if faced with a norm of conservation can be highly useful for policy makers attempting to reduce individuals carbon footprint.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Not so related...
Ok, well this is sort of related to class in that the next President will get to make decisions on the rules of war and humanitarian law (I'm stretching a bit I realize). Anyway, Frank Rich's commentary in the NYTimes about the Republican Resurrection is both terrifying and eye opening to me. I sort of appreciate the Easter humor...however discussing Republicans' rise from the dead on Easter Sunday sort of scares the crap out of me.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Tibet and state sovereignty
Here's a link to an interesting article on Tibetans attempting to deal with Han Chinese in their communities. I thought this was pertinent because it brings up the whole issue of state sovereignty.
Here we have an area that, for all intensive purposes, was its own country, but China just came on in and took it over. Despite the rest of the world's allegiance to the notion of state sovereignty, apparently Tibet is immune to this ideal. Why do you think that is the case? Do we just not care about ignoring this norm if the offending country is important to us or is it something that happened so long ago that no one seems to care anymore? It seems to me that for a long time, Tibet just took a back seat to more pressing Cold War issues, and then after the fall of Communism we cared too much about our economic welfare to fight China's control. Anyway, just my own two cents.
Here we have an area that, for all intensive purposes, was its own country, but China just came on in and took it over. Despite the rest of the world's allegiance to the notion of state sovereignty, apparently Tibet is immune to this ideal. Why do you think that is the case? Do we just not care about ignoring this norm if the offending country is important to us or is it something that happened so long ago that no one seems to care anymore? It seems to me that for a long time, Tibet just took a back seat to more pressing Cold War issues, and then after the fall of Communism we cared too much about our economic welfare to fight China's control. Anyway, just my own two cents.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Daily Show interview with Ronald Kessler
So first off, I loved Kessler's complete lack of humor throughout the interview. When Stewart asked him about terrorists' emoticons he just continued on as if nothing was said, which seeing that he's the underdog on a show like this, may not be a bad tactic.
So one of the main thrusts of Kessler's argument is that there haven't been any new attacks, so Bush's methods must be working. This is an argument used time and time again by the administration and frankly it's brilliant because it's so damn difficult to contradict. Logically, it's flawed as hell, but rhetorically, it's brilliant.
Also, he speaks about the Geneva Convention as if it had no guidelines for people outside of uniform. In doing so, he completely ignores Common Article Three and the UN Convention on Torture. Then he goes on to assert that waterboarding isn't really torture because it isn't painful. It's as if he teeters between "yes it's OK to torture these people because they weren't in uniform and killed people" and "water boarding isn't torture so it doesn't matter." I'm not quite sure how one can have it both ways.
Finally, I love how he says that Iraq has been used as a propaganda tool to fuel anti-American sentiment as if in reality, Iraq is flowers and rainbows and it's only those mean Arabs who are misconstruing the realities on the ground for political gain. I mean, innocent people have been jailed and tortured, huge segments of the population have fled due to violence, hundreds of thousands have died and the country is in shambles, but using any of this is merely hyperbole that exaggerates the situation! Now American politics, that's a place where there's no propaganda...only cold, hard facts and straight talk.
So one of the main thrusts of Kessler's argument is that there haven't been any new attacks, so Bush's methods must be working. This is an argument used time and time again by the administration and frankly it's brilliant because it's so damn difficult to contradict. Logically, it's flawed as hell, but rhetorically, it's brilliant.
Also, he speaks about the Geneva Convention as if it had no guidelines for people outside of uniform. In doing so, he completely ignores Common Article Three and the UN Convention on Torture. Then he goes on to assert that waterboarding isn't really torture because it isn't painful. It's as if he teeters between "yes it's OK to torture these people because they weren't in uniform and killed people" and "water boarding isn't torture so it doesn't matter." I'm not quite sure how one can have it both ways.
Finally, I love how he says that Iraq has been used as a propaganda tool to fuel anti-American sentiment as if in reality, Iraq is flowers and rainbows and it's only those mean Arabs who are misconstruing the realities on the ground for political gain. I mean, innocent people have been jailed and tortured, huge segments of the population have fled due to violence, hundreds of thousands have died and the country is in shambles, but using any of this is merely hyperbole that exaggerates the situation! Now American politics, that's a place where there's no propaganda...only cold, hard facts and straight talk.
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