More on Burger (Sandy That Is)
 

Good rewrite. "Reframing the issue", of sorts.

He took five sets of identical (almost!) docs. Each set had circulated to different groups of people for review and comment, and so each set had a bunch of different handwritten notations all over them. He looked at the five sets, carefully destroyed three sets with his scissors, and then returned two sets.

Gee. Think it was the report body he was concerned with?

More on Burger (Sandy That Is)
 

Never forget to add the part that he "stuffed the documents into his pants and socks..."

Although it is commonplace for Democrats to stuff their underpants and pretend they actually have a pair, the socks are a bit over the top.

So Peggy Noonan agrees with me . . .
 

Really? You think hating someone because, well, she was married to their mortal enemy, and she was for socialized medicine, and, frankly, because she was a woman and a first lady who dared be substantively involved is less incredible than hating some because he is a religious vealto who isn't especially bright but yet never questions himself because he, alone, has the ability to see moral truth, who sees himself as divinely inspired and who seems to view program as a substititute for policy (e.g. tax cuts for all situations, invasion of Iraq at all costs, etc.)? Honestly?

One person is a bit annoying because you didn't necessarily vote for her and don't often agree with her. The other has the power and inclination to impose his divinely-inspired will on anyone who disagrees (and who is therefore and enemy of the state). Surely there is a difference.

So Peggy Noonan agrees with me . . .
 

Like nearly every originator of high level policy....

April fool
 

And Ian Paisley never incited loyalist violence either...

So Peggy Noonan agrees with me . . .
 

Since you're in DC, it would be worth your while to learn the difference between originator and implementer.

While you're at it, you might also want to consider who, in fact, truly "originates" policy--it's not all bottom-up; most often it's top-bottom-top.

More on Burger (Sandy That Is)
 

Oops, sorry. Thought that you were a sock that someone had just rediscovered. But I do like the moniker --- ".....and now, it's Guy SMI-ley!"

So Peggy Noonan agrees with me . . .
 

You must be thinking of the EU.

So Peggy Noonan agrees with me . . .
 

Uh... you remember we were talking about Hillary's health care proposal, right?

So Peggy Noonan agrees with me . . .
 

You were going to explain why torture is justified on grounds other than self-defense.

More on Burger (Sandy That Is)
 

Who are his friends who cut him this deal? Serious question....

More on Burger (Sandy That Is)
 

My understanding is that the Public Integrity Section (within DOJ's Criminal Division -- Noel Hillman, its chief, is the government lawyer quoted about the case in today's NYT) is run by career prosecutors with particular integrity, and that political influence does not get you anywhere with them. I suspect that politics played very little part in the judicial proceedings against Berger. What club has completely forgotten is that the anger among Democrats about what Berger did had much more to do with the leaking of grand jury material to the press, and timing of that leak to serve GOP political interests.

And the Berger and Stewart cases are clearly different, which explains why the government is gunning for Martha but not for Sandy. Notwithstanding bilmore's inclination to read the worst motives into the facts, no one is suggesting that Berger destroyed documents in order to mislead people or sabotage the work of the 9/11 Commission. Were this the case, the Public Integrity Section would come down on him like a ton of bricks. And Stewart can go back to making money, but Berger's not going to get a security clearance again. (I'm not saying that's wrong, BTW.)

April fool
 

Quick post -- have to run.

What issues are you discussing and what would you suggest?

I personally think that electing judges is an abomination which leads to any number of bad things and certainly wouldn't produce less bias. So, I strongly favor an appointive system.

I think an independent judiciary is critical, so I like lifetime appointments for federal judges (part of why I hate judicial elections).

With an appointment system -- any fix essentially has to be with the ones doing the appointing. If folks stop appointing and confirming partisan hacks, you'll have fewer. How do we do that?

Maybe Grey has a point that, if the judiciary is seen as less political, the appointment process cn become less adversarial and political, and we'll get more moderate/neutral folks.

S_A_M

So Peggy Noonan agrees with me . . .
 

What I said was that the use of force is justified in certain circumstances even if not for self defence. I also said there are utility arguments justifying the use of torture (assuming torture is effective to get information, put overwhelming fear in the heart of the enemy, etc.) but you don't seem to buy those.

More on Burger (Sandy That Is)
 

What does this have to do with anything?

How are they different (serious question). I believe Martha Stewart got off light as well. I know people close to the case. Martha most likely knowingly traded on inside information, but for some reason they didn't have enough evidence to get her for this. She also blatantly lied to the Justice Department lawyers, which really pissed them off and that is why they went after her.

More on Burger (Sandy That Is)
 

One obvious reason as to why they are different is that Sandy copped a plea and Martha went to trial.

I suspect that you are right about why the Justice Department really went after Martha -- they assumed she was guilty, she didn't roll, they thought she lied to them, and boom.

The (presumably) unintended consequence of her situation is that there will be less willingness to be "voluntarily" interviewed by the SEC. I know that when they come calling for me after I make some money or avoid some losses in a suspisciously-timed trade in Piggly-Wiggly stock, I will lawyer-up faster than they can say "how the hell can he afford Harvey Pitt?"

So Peggy Noonan agrees with me . . .
 

And I asked what they were, and you never answered.

I find it very, very odd that someone with such a strong commitment to individual property rights subscribes to a utilitarian justification for torture. If you think torture is justified because the harm to the tortured individual is outweighed by the benefit to the torturers, so be it, but don't go invoking individual rights at other times.

More on Burger (Sandy That Is)
 

If you look back at the exchanges last summer on this topic, I think you will see that they were primarily focused with why the stuff was leaked, and why then.

It appears that Berger did not lie to DOJ lawyers. Someone here said that he acknowledged something in court that was inconsistent with past public statements by his defenders -- I've been away, so I haven't kept up lately -- but even that is not what Stewart did. The very fact that you have Berger making a plea bargain suggests that the DOJ feels differently about him. (ETA: STP)

Mugabe:Hussein::Zimbabwe:Iraq

Presumably we'll be invading Zimbabwe shortly to prevent mass murder and bring back democracy.

More on Burger (Sandy That Is)
 

I think you just answered your own question.

April fool
 

Do you really think there are a lot of baldly partisan rulings? How many ruling are there that are really even directly political?

You've got Bush v. Gore, obviously, and I'll grant you Roe (although I'm not sure it is partisan), and of course a long history of legal/constitution issues that are part of the ongoing political debate. But I have a hard time thinking of the disagreements about those issues, while part of the political discourse, as partisan.

I don't have your level of experience with bias for or against insurance defendents, so I will defer to your description. But I took his comments primarily to be in response to the distraceful things that have been said about the Schiavo judges who were just doing their jobs.

I wish we would. But unfortunately there is no oil in Zimbabwe and the powers that be think we have no "strategic interest". Like we had a strategic interest in Kosovo.

More on Burger (Sandy That Is)
 

I think his friends are out of power. Are they not? I have friends with security clearance and they tell me you could not believe the stuff they classify. They would classify toilet paper if they could. And how top secret could they have been if they were in the national archives. I have not heard of a security level clearance on this stuff. I smell political hot air. I don't think this is a big deal. Does anyone really think that Sandy Berger is out to undermine the national security of the United States? Or the fact that he took this stuff out undermined the National Security of the United States?

There was a strategic concern about Kosovo that is not mirrored in Zimbabwe. Unrest in the Balkans threatens to destabilize Europe. Think 1914.

Strangely, I'm under the impression that we intervened to "protect" the rights of a Muslim Albanian minority whose KLA had exacerbated tensions with the Slavic majority.

The Russians showed their consternation at our choice to intervene by sending their army racing to something like an airport in Kosovo under U.N. auspices.

I'm not sure how aggravating the Slavs balanced the "protection" we afforded to a people who were basically nobodies in Europe.

Therefore, I don't think even Bubba himself would claim it was done for strategic concerns..., and I don't recall hearing him say it back then (though I can't promise he didn't).

I suspect it was way more on humanitarian grounds, and partly a way of saying "hey, we're the U.S., sorry we didn't get to Bosnia quicker, but its certainly not our policy to let everybody in Europe kill their local muslims". The decision would be a lot more clear and justifiable if the KLA were not in the picture and the Montenegrans/Serbs or whatever were left without pretext for whatever killing they were doing over there.

Bottom line: I don't think I've ever heard anyone argue that it was strategic, and it wouldn't really be credible if they did, as all we did was align ourselves against the Slavs. Sorta like the Kaiser in 1914, but not so much the World's Lone Superpower intervening to keep the Kaiser and the Czar apart.

If bilmore has proved anything on this board, it is that there can be multiple facially plausible rationales for the same foreign-policy intervention. This article in The Nation, by opponents of Clinton's intervention, disagrees with "the ideas and concerns Clinton invoked" in attempting to justifying the bombing of Serbia: "the notion of instability spreading from country to country (much like falling dominoes), the perception that world politics is a bipolar ideological confrontation between democracy and dictatorship, the obsession with reaffirming US leadership and resolve, the anxiety about the vitality of alliance commitments and the conviction that US security is tied to peace in an area of little inherent strategic importance"

And hey, that was only the second result on my first Google search.

Yes World War one was started in the Balkins. But I don't think anyone really believed that Bosnia or Kosovo was gong to lead to another world war. At the time I remember Clinton tried to say we had strategic interests but the Republicans kept arguing there was no strategic interest. In the end we went in for humanitarian reason, which I think are fine. But Clinton did argue we are not being the worlds policeman. Which we were. We stepped in and stopped a Genocide. I have no problem with that. We should have gone into Bosnia earlier and we should have gone into Rwanda. When you are the biggest guy on the block, and there is no police force, it is your obligation to intervene when you see someone getting rapped or killed. We spend all this money on the military and it is the biggest in the world so we might as well use it.

I don't want to argue about whether Clinton was motivated more by humanitarian reasons or strategic ones. I don't recall the period all that well, although I do recall a concern that Yugoslavia's descent threatened NATO, not in a military sense but in a political one. All I was saying was that Zimbabwe lacked the strategic implications that Kosovo had, regardless of the subjective interplay of those two factors with the actual policymakers.

Strictly interpreted, that's not an acknowledgement of Clinton making an affirmative statement that Kosovo was strategically important. Rather, that's whoever wrote that article pointing out that it wasn't.

To put it another way, just because Hank calls someone short doesn't mean that this someone first called themself tall.

More on Burger (Sandy That Is)
 

Perhaps this is the reason for the different treatment, but my feeling is that Berger's crime was worse than Martha's.

So Peggy Noonan agrees with me . . .
 

How bout defense of property. How bout defenece of others, which is particularly apt here.

And what I've said several times now is that when the very system of a country, such as ours, is threatened, extreme measures may be necessary. What good are our beliefs in individual rights if we are forced to live under a regime where such rights are not enforced? Perhaps you think I am defending torture at Abu Garib? I'm not. But let's put this in the context of a war where the future of this country was more imminently at risk. Given a choice between torturing German soldiers for legitimate purposes and living under a Nazi regime, I'd choose the former.

efg

You're very wrong about the not "strategic" issue -- there was a veritable cacaphony of clucking about both the strategic ramifications of civil wars in Europe, and the humanitarian issues involved in preventing the massacre of civlian populations in Europe.

Now, as it turn out, the KLA was just as radical as the Serbs on the other side, and committed their own share of war crimes - but after what happened in Croatia and Bosnia, the Serbs had kind of a "rep."

Another strategic issue involved our military intervention in Eastern Europe against Russia's Slavic brothers. This intervention was one of the relatively early thumbs in the eye of the creaky post-Soviet Russia, a precursor to everyone joining NATO and/or the EU. It helped change the ways a lot of folks on both sides viewed the world and the balance of power.

If you read Clarke's book, it also describes this intervention and the Bosian intervention as useful in that they allowed us to root al-Qaeda cells and networks out of those countries.

I'm sure the desire to avoid another Bosnia played a role in the decision to intervene.

Still, I think that's good, as I view the U.S. failure to act in earlier Bosnia when it could have prevented at least tens of thousands of innocent deaths at relatively little cost as one of the great shames of U.S. policy since the fall of South Vietnam [Rwanda is in there too (on a larger scale)). It was well-worth doing on both humanitarian and strategic grounds.

S_A_M

I won't address the humanitarian aspects in your post, as it only reinforces the point I've made (and I note that I agree that Bosnia was truly one of our most shameful failures).

You say there was something about "strategic ramifications" for civil wars in Europe. I say 1.) all Ty has shown is someone who said there weren't, not someone like Bill who said there were; and 2) Not too many ramifications (at least within Europe itself) when one side of the civil war is a muslim minority.

You say sumthin about Al Queda... I say Clarke's book is amazingly prescient in 20/20 hindsight. I don't recall if I'd heard the term by '98, at least not in association with Kosovo.

Lastly, I'll grant you that there is at least an argument to be made that putting a thumb in Russia's eye was done intentionally. I don't recall that being the viewpoint of the U.S. media at the time, when they described Russia sending an armored column racing into Kosovo as a "crisis".

Don't get me wrong about this. In hindsight, we could all argue that just about any military action had strategic ramifications which *might* have been in play at the time the action took place.

But I don't recall anyone in the WH ever giving one up as justification at the time, and all I've seen now is Ty showing someone arguing that it wasn't strategically smart, and you giving an amazingly credit to an amazingly self-serving 20/20 hindsight justification for something 4 or 6 years after the fact.

Well said. Also our screw up in Vietnam led to the massacre in Cambodia. Nixon and Ford tried to keep up the military assistance to enforce the treaty but the Democrats in Congress wouldn't go along.

Everything is our problem
 

The united states, having its economy intertwined with every other economy in the world, has a strategic interest everywhere in the World. The more stable the world is the better for us. We have a strong interest in all countrys being Democratic and free market economies. The more stable and prosperous the rest of the world is the more prosperous we become.

Obviously our interest in Sub Suharan africa is less than other countrys because their economies are so small. Yet a properous and stable Africa would benefit the United States. And interventions are not that costly.

There is just no excuse for ethnic cleansing and genocide when the United States has twelve Carrier groups.

So Peggy Noonan agrees with me . . .
 

Defense from whom? My point is that it's not defense of anything from the person you're torturing, since that person is in custody and can be prevented from harming you. You rationalizing the harming of one person to protect something -- property, life, etc. -- from other people. You're treating that person as the member of a group, not as an individual.

Under this test, when in the history of this country has torture ever been justified? Because there's never been any prospect that we would be "forced to live under a regime where such rights are not enforced," unless you're referring to what the present administration has done to Jose Padilla.

So Peggy Noonan agrees with me . . .
 

If your child was kidnapped by two people, and the police caught one, who had information which could bring your child back alive, would torture not be justified?

Probably never. Hitler was not far enough along in his plans to take America. But again, I'm just arguing against an absolute prohibition.

So Peggy Noonan agrees with me . . .
 

My child? Sure. If it's my child, I say anything goes. (The failure to get this is just one reason Dukakis lost in '88.)

You've also rigged the hypo in another way. You never know before the torture that the person you're going to torture has useful information. You hope they do, but people who are being tortured often tell their captors what they want to hear.

In any event, we don't torture people in these circumstances.

Since you say that, I'm a little confused by your views. On the one hand, you subscribe to the notion that torture is OK if the benefits are great enough. On the other hand, you seem to think that the benefits haven't ever -- as an empirical matter -- been that great. How can this be, if the harm caused by torture is simply the pain experienced by the victim?

So Peggy Noonan agrees with me . . .
 

I said probably, because I'm assuming there aren't some unknown horrors that have been avoided by use of torture.

The harm is more than the pain to the victim - it is the harm to torturors and to humanity as a whole.

Unrest in Zimbabwe threatens to destabilize South Africa, and unless South Africa can thrive there is really no hope for Africa. (There is only a little if South Africa can thrive.)

And, yes, that's a little tongue-in-cheek. There was nothing strategic about Kosovo. 1914 was a long, long time ago, and the circumstances in 1914 involved alliances that were all threatening to go to war with each other.

If unrest in the Balkans could have threatened the stability of Europe, then Europe would already have been at war by the time of Kosovo -- or do you view the situation in Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia throughout the prior years as somehow more restful than was the situation in Kosovo?

Kosovo was a true humanitarian intervention, and was the right thing to do.