Posted on 05/04/2009 9:41:43 AM PDT by mojito
Even if you are an intelligent man, reading Andrew Sullivan can make you stupid. It happened to President Obama this week. At his 100-day press conference, President Obama invoked Churchill rejecting the use of torture for interrogation in the days of the Blitz during World War II. Obama instructed the assembled multitude:
"I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, 'We don't torture,' when the entire British--all of the British people--were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat....the reason was that Churchill understood -- you start taking shortcuts, over time, that corrodes what's best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country."
Now if you've ever read much Churchill or any competent history of World War II, you would have a pretty good idea that one thing Churchill never said in the course of a long life is: "We don't torture." As it happens, Churchill scholar Richard Langworth has now attested to the absence of the words from Churchill's vast corpus.
Churchill was not a liberal sentimentalist on the subject of means and ends in war. Is there anything he would not have done to advance Britain's survival and victory in World War II? Not bloody likely. "If Hitler invaded Hell," Churchill remarked with respect to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, "I would at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."
When the Allies first deliberated over the fate of the highest ranking members of the Nazis and German military who were ultimately tried at Nuremberg after the war, Churchill supported their summary execution. He didn't think to send over Hartley Shawcross to represent Hermann Goering or give Goering his day in court. He preferred the "shortcut" (to use Obama's word) between Goering and the gallows.
What on earth would lead an intelligent man like Barack Obama to stand before the world and pronounce that Churchill ever said: "We don't torture"? Now we know. Obama's "knowledge" on this point derived from the recent "Churchill vs. Cheney" post by Andrew Sullivan on his Daily Dish blog calling for the prosecution of Dick Cheney. (I have long held that Sullivan's blog would more aptly be called the Daily Ditch.)
Why call for Cheney's prosecution? Sullivan seems as foggy on the authority of the vice president as he is on British history. Nevertheless, despite the exposure of the fraudulence of his post, Sullivan reposted it after Obama's press conference. A correction would have been more appropriate.
Sullivan is such a crude and hysterical polemicist on matters related to the Bush administration that he has long since become unreadable. His tirades regarding the Bush administration's responsibility for "torture" are a torture unto themselves.
In his post, Sullivan asserts: "Churchill nonetheless knew that embracing torture was the equivalent of surrender to the barbarism he was fighting..." As Langworth notes, Sullivan's "Churchill nonetheless knew" appears suddenly and with no evidence to back it up. Sullivan makes no other reference to Churchill, or to how he divined Churchill's views on torture. The thought of Cheney in the dock appears to have inspired Sullivan's fancy.
Sullivan derives Churchill's purported disdain of torture from a 2006 London Times column by Ben Macintyre on the interrogation of captured German spies in London during the war at the interrogation center codenamed Camp 020. Yesterday Macintyre crowed over his contribution to Obama's learning.
Even Macintyre's original column belies Sullivan's use of it. Sullivan and Macintyre hail the interrogation techniques of Colonel Robin "Tin Eye" Stephens, the commander of Camp 020. According to Macintyre, Stephens eschewed "torture" in favor of psychological duress:
"Stephens had ways of making anyone talk. In a top secret report, recently declassified by MI5 and now in the Public Records Office, he listed the tactics needed to break down a suspect: "A breaker is born and not made . . . pressure is attained by personality, tone, and rapidity of questions, a driving attack in the nature of a blast which will scare a man out of his wits."
"The terrifying commandant of Camp 020 refined psychological intimidation to an art form. Suspects often left the interrogation cells legless with fear after an all-night grilling. An inspired amateur psychologist, Stephens used every trick, lie and bullying tactic to get what he needed; he deployed threats, drugs, drink and deceit. But he never once resorted to violence. "Figuratively," he said, "a spy in war should be at the point of a bayonet." But only ever figuratively. As one colleague wrote: "The Commandant obtained results without recourse to assault and battery. It was the very basis of Camp 020 procedure that nobody raised a hand against a prisoner."
Drugs and drink go well beyond purely psychological duress, and Stephens's "terrifying intimidation" exceeds the "name, rank and serial number" limitations prescribed for prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. Neither in his original nor in his follow-up column does Macintyre quote Churchill for the proposition that "we don't torture" or cite some rule of conduct supporting the statement. Macintyre purports to derive some high standard of conduct from the story of Col. Stephens's interrogation of German spies, but the true story supports quite the contrary point of view.
How do I know? I know it from Ben Macintyre's most recent book. Macintyre's most recent book is Agent Zigzag, the story of British double agent Eddie Chapman. Macintyre's book is essentially a chapter in the larger story of the famous British Double Cross system developed during the war to befuddle the Germans.
Sullivan and Macintyre praise the interrogation methods of Col. Stephens. (Sullivan follows Macintyre spelling the name Stephens in his London Times column; in the book Macintyre spells it Stevens.) Sullivan omits to mention that Stephens's interrogations were only the entry point for the Double Cross system.
The interrogation techniques used by Stephens were instrumental to the Double Cross system of which they were a part. The interrogations were part of a system intended to turn German spies into British double agents. The British did not treat the German spies as prisoners of war and the object of the interrogations was not simply to produce actionable intelligence.
J.C. Masterman was the presiding genius of the Double Cross system. In his book, Macintyre also credits Thomas Argyll ("Tar") Robertson, explaining that "Masterman and Robertson formed the linchpins of the double-cross operation." Masterman coordinated the operation with the military brass and Robertson ran it. If the captured spies interrogated by Stephens were found suitable double agents, they were then handed over to Tar Robertson and his case officers for the operation.
On the other hand, if the captured German spies refused to collaborate, they were either imprisoned or executed. Macintyre quotes Masterman, who was unsentimental on this score: "Some had to perish, both to satisy the country that the security of the country was being maintained and to convince the Germans that the others were working properly and not under conrol."
Like Sullivan, Obama somehow left that out in his invocation of Churchill as a model for the United States at war. Properly understood, Churchill provides a great model. Sullivan, however, is an obstacle to understanding, as vividly demonstrated this week by President Obama following him.
JOHN adds: It's no surprise that liberal media figures like Sullivan and Jon Stewart (see post below) are ill-informed and not very intelligent. But what does it tell us that our own President's knowledge of history is so thin that he relies on them for information?
Once a conservative, and a closeted gay.
Today, Sullivan is a closeted liberal - he continues to insist he's a conservative - and openly gay.
That the closeted gay that is 0 finds Andy's blog of great import, I am not surprised.
Obozo - Totus Dupus Maximus
The British invented the concentration camp during thr
Boer war.
Obama doesn’t think torture has any place in the British soul? Has he ever talked to an Irishman?
putting Churchill aside, what say these liberals morons of their hero, FDR, and his internment of Japaneese living in America and the confiscation of their property in the early forties??? or the secret military tribunals and executions of purported German spies???
Anyone who reads about America’s initial involvement in WWII on the European front realizes at the start of D-Day the command was given that no german prisoners were to be taken (wink-wink)...
Maybe the whole strategy is to USE Churchill to obamas advantage, and if anyone brings up the fact that Winston could have been pro-torture ..then the One can throw Churchill under the bus. I think its pretty common knowledge at this point that obama is no big fan of Winston Churchill!
That's an understatement.
The key word here is "intelligent." Although many have touted Obama as such (even many conservatives) he proves daily that he is not. Clever, yes. But, intelligent he is not. Anyone with 1/2 his education knows more than he does about history, Churchill, and that Churchill would never have said that carte blanche.
Obama is an opportunist, a manipulator, and a narcissist. He is not brilliant, nor brainy. He has learned to be glib and "charming" to use others and throw them off-guard. He has learned to manipulate people to work, rather than doing work himself. And the only "work" he ever did was writing two books about the only subject he knows well - himself. And many say he didn't even do that alone but had his mentor/friend/neighbor Bill Ayers write it with him.
Well, clues to the answer abound.
What does it tell us of the first ladies capabilities that unable to practice law before the US Patent and Trademark Office by virtue of being ineligible to take the Patent Bar exam, she spent her time in her first and only law job at Sidley Austin working on marketing and intellectual property where presumably she could not do too much damage?
That she was assigned to mentor obama who also was ineligible to practice before the US Patent and Trademark Office can only mean obama was pegged from the get-go to also work in the dead end position of marketing and intellectual property.
I would call it the "Daily Bitch".
Since he is holding up Churchill, here’s another Churchill quote for obie:
“”How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”
During the Boer War some British units were instructed to take no prisoners at all.
It may be that the Germans got the idea from the Brits.
During the Boer War, the Boer guerrillas were giving the Brits a hard time. The Brits responded with a "scorched earth" policy of burning Boer farms and putting Boer women and children into "concentration camps"(their term) where tens of thousands died of malnutrition.
Love that movie:
It’s a new kind of war, George. A new war for a new century. I suppose this is the first time the enemy hasn’t been in uniform. They’re farmers. They come from small towns, and they shoot at from behind walls and from farmhouses. Some of them are women, some of them are children, and some of them... are missionaries, George.
[thanks for my new tagline]
A few years back I had an email friendship with him and loved getting his notes and messages. Not anymore. I write off his bitterness and hysteria to the medication he was taking to control his HIV. The loss of his biting, conservative commentary is really huge.
Sullivan and Camille Paglia were my two favorite non-conventional thinkers.
Churchill sure had a way with words. I love the tagline.
Why is that?
The US Patent Office requires a technical degree.
No individual will be registered to practice before the Office unless he or she has:(1) Applied to the USPTO Director in writing by completing an application for registration form supplied by the OED Director and furnishing all requested information and material; and (2) Established to the satisfaction of the OED Director that he or she: (i) Possesses good moral character and reputation; (ii) Possesses the legal, scientific, and technical qualifications necessary for him or her to render applicants valuable serviceIII. SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL TRAINING REQUIREMENTS FOR ADMISSION TO THE EXAMINATION
An applicant applying for the examination must demonstrate that he or she possesses the scientific and technical training necessary to provide valuable service to patent applicants. Applicants bear the burden of showing the requisite scientific and technical training. To be admitted to the examination, each applicant must demonstrate possession of the required scientific and technical training.
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