Two months ago, The Economist published a far more damning account of the Maliki government, detailing numerous government policies of torture, media attacks and other forms of censorship:

Human-rights violations are becoming more common. In private many Iraqis, especially educated ones, are asking if their country may go back to being a police state. Old habits from Saddam Hussein’s era are becoming familiar again. Torture is routine in government detention centres. "Things are bad and getting worse, even by regional standards," says Samer Muscati, who works for Human Rights Watch, a New York-based lobby.

Yesterday, The New York Times reported that former Blackwater officials claim the company plotted to bribe Iraqi government officials to withhold criticisms of the American contractor for its wanton slaughter of Iraqi civilians and other crimes (here is leading Blackwater expert Jeremy Scahill discussing with Rachel Maddow the potential criminal implications of the story -- as well as the U.S. Government's ongoing use of Blackwater for multiple functions).

All of this underscores the painful folly of those who continue to justify American wars with the claim that we're going to magnanimously spread freedom, democracy and human rights to the countries we invade, bomb and occupy.  That so plainly isn't our motive -- or anyone else's -- for fighting wars, notwithstanding whatever good intentions individual soldiers may have.  And even if it were our motive, trying to re-shape other countries and cultures with military invasions is a task that, while not impossible, is close to it (I discussed that topic at length in the Bill Moyers interview I did last week in the context of reports that we have Afghan "drug kingpin" Ahmed Karzai on our payroll).  

In Iraq, here we are almost seven years after the invasion -- hundreds of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and more than 4,000 American lives later -- and the primary remaining "justification" is that we're bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq.  Yet the government we helped install and which we empower is becoming increasingly tyrannical, oppressive and brutal.  We at least ought to take that strongly into account as we hear government claims that we need to remain, and escalate, in Afghanistan for the good of the people there.

* * * * * 

This website, compiled for Veterans' Day, contains numerous videos of American soldiers returning home and being greeted by their dogs  (h/t John Cole).  Particularly for dog owners, but really for anyone, there is something quite affecting and even illuminating about these videos.

Most people select stories that lead toward cooperation and goodness. But over the past few decades a malevolent narrative has emerged.

That narrative has emerged on the fringes of the Muslim world. It is a narrative that sees human history as a war between Islam on the one side and Christianity and Judaism on the other. This narrative causes its adherents to shrink their circle of concern. They don’t see others as fully human. They come to believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so.

This narrative is embraced by a small minority.  But it has caused incredible amounts of suffering within the Muslim world, in Israel, in the U.S. and elsewhere. With their suicide bombings and terrorist acts, adherents to this narrative have made themselves central to global politics. They are the ones who go into crowded rooms, shout “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” and then start murdering.

But Brooks himself was a vehement, vicious advocate for the attack on Iraq, which caused this:

The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq has resulted in the deaths of many Iraqi civilians . . . Many international organizations, governments and non-governmental organizations have counted excess civilian casualties using such methods; however all have reported different numbers. Reports range from 128,000 to 1,033,000.

That's at least 128,000 innocent human beings -- at least -- whose lives were eradicated by the war Brooks repeatedly cheered on.  It also resulted in this:  "More than 4 million Iraqis have now been displaced by violence in the country."  But Brooks accuses Islamic fanatics -- but not himself -- of "causing incredible amounts of suffering."

Brooks also justified the Israeli attack on Gaza, including its worst excesses -- a war that wiped out the lives of 1,400 Palestinians (including 252 children under the age of 16) and that entailed "the shooting of [Gazan] civilians with white flags, the firing of white phosphorus shells and charges that Israeli soldiers used Palestinian men as human shields," all of which, according to a U.N. investigation, were "the result of deliberate guidance issued to soldiers."  He also cheered on the Israeli bombing campaign of Lebanon and derided those calling for a cease-fire, even as the war wiped out more than 1,000 Lebanese people, at least 300 of whom were women and children, during which "Israeli warplanes also targeted many moving vehicles that turned out to be carrying only civilians trying to flee the conflict."  And Brooks is now demanding escalation of the war in yet another Muslim country, this one in Afghanistan -- making it the fourth separate war on Muslims he's cheered on in the last six years alone.

So here's a person who is constantly advocating and justifying the killing, bombing, and slaughtering of Muslims, including well over 100,000 innocent civilians.  And yet today he writes a column saying:  Look over there at those radical Muslims; can you believe how degraded and inhumane they are?  In fact, he says, "they" -- those Muslims over there -- "don’t see others as fully human. They come to believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so."  That's from the same person who cheerleads for the endless deaths of Muslims and destruction of the Muslim world while thinking that it makes him strong, resolute, Churchillian, righteous and noble -- exactly that which he accuses "fringe Muslims" of doing.  And even as he blames the U.S. for "absolving" radical Muslims for the "evil" of their choices, Brooks will never make the connection between what he does and its results because he believes he is free from accountability and that his righteousness justifies the killings he desires -- again, exactly that which he says today is the hallmark of Islamic monsters ("They come to believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so"). 

The tribalistic narcissism and depraved refusal to accept responsibility for the consequences of one's actions on vivid display here is hardly unique to Brooks.  The very same people who express such moral outrage and self-righteous horror over events like the Fort Hood shootings themselves have immense amounts of innocent human blood on their hands, but they simply avert their eyes from what they have caused or believe that they are too inherently Good to be responsible, let alone culpable, for what they unleash.

 

UPDATE:  Ramesh Ponnuru reads this and claims to believe that the point I was making is this:  "If you didn't oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you have no standing to object to the Ft. Hood murders."  That has nothing to do with what I wrote.  

If one needs to reduce my point to a single sentence, one can try this:  "if you constantly cheer on one war after the next that results in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings and the extreme suffering of millions more (as Brooks has done -- beyond Iraq and Afghanistan -- and continues to do), then you can't coherently claim that the targets of your wars have a unique disregard for human life; that they -- but not you -- "don’t see others as fully human"; that they -- but not you -- "cause incredible amounts of suffering"; and that they -- but not you -- "come to believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so." 

Brooks advocates exactly that which he condemns -- and he does so over and over again.  That doesn't mean his condemnations are wrong (criminals can coherently condemn other crimes).  But it does mean that his claim that such sentiments are unique to Muslim radicals is plainly false.

 

UPDATE II:  Brooks' claim here recalls the statement of Gen. William Westmoreland that "the Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner; life is plentiful, life is cheap in the Orient, and as the philosophy of the Orient expresses it, life is not important."  The willingness of Gen. Westmoreland -- of all people -- to make that claim of superiority about "the Orientals" versus Westerners strikes me as quite similar to neocon David Brooks' similar claims about those Muslims over there versus people like him (h/t reader cl).

The lead House sponsor of the bill is Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.  He's my guest today on Salon Radio to discuss why these limits are so imperative, how the Obama DOJ has been abusing the privilege, and why internal, voluntary DOJ safeguards are inadequate.  When the Judiciary Committee approved the bill on Friday, Nadler said:  "The state secrets doctrine, as it has been reinvented in the last few years, is the greatest threat to liberty in this country. It must be limited and controlled."  In the interview, he explains his rationale behind that striking claim, and he also explained this about the dangerous reinvention of the privilege over the last several years:

JN:  The Bush administration made two changes, both of which have been embraced by the Obama administration. One, it started using this doctrine, which was used very sparingly before, all the time. And secondly, it invented, not only to say, you can't see a document, but it invented the use of saying, you can't have a lawsuit, of coming into court right on the pleadings, right after the initial filing of the initial complaint, to say, stop the lawsuit, because, not that you can't see a document, but the very consideration of the lawsuit, the very consideration of the case, will endanger state secrets, and dismiss the case right off the bat.

And that hides everything. If you dismiss the case right off the bat, then you can't use the case to find out what's going on, to prove that the government is violating rights, is engaging in torture, or is wiretapping without a warrant or whatever. That's what I meant by reinventing. It was never used until the Bush administration to dismiss a case right upfront.

GG: And you feel that it's fair to say, as I think you just did say, that in cases involving rendition, brought by victims of torture, people alleging they were subjected to illegal warrantless eavesdropping, that the Obama administration has been using this privilege in exactly the same way, meaning in this way that's reinvented, by saying not just these specific documents are subject to the state secrets privilege, but the subject matter itself is?

JN: Yes. They said that in court on a number of occasions, and they've in a number of cases, the al-Haramain case, in another case the Jeppesen case, they've taken exactly the same position, saying that you can't consider the case, as the Bush administration did, and they've argued in courts, in appellate courts, they've sought review, to defend that position.

Indeed they have.  And that's why this legislation is as imperative as ever.  Nadler characterizes the threats posed by these abuses as far more odious even than those posed by the excesses of the Patriot Act.  But as he put it in the interview:  "One of the basic problems is that I have to think that the administration is not going to support the bill, and it's going to be very difficult to pass it."  I'll be writing much more about ways to apply pressure to induce enactment of this legislation.  If nothing else, it's refreshing to see Democratic members of the House fulfilling their duty to act independently of the executive branch and try to impose limits to curb presidential abuses of power, even when the President is a member of their political party.

The discussion is roughly 10 minutes in length and can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder below (as always, the podcast can be downloaded as an MP3 here, or iTunes here).  A transcript is here.

The obvious problem with answering that question is that, as even the U.S. State Department recognizes, "no one definition of terrorism has gained universal acceptance" -- despite the centrality of that term in our political discourse.  In its 2001 publication, Patterns of Global Terrorism, the State Department did define "terrorism" to mean "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets," and in turn defined "noncombatant targets" to include "military personnel who at the time of the incident are unarmed and/or not on duty."  Only by accepting that definition (or one similar to it) could the attack on Fort Hood possibly be defined as "terrorism."

But if one accepts that broadened definition of "terrorism" -- that it includes violence that targets not only civilians but also combatants who are unarmed or not engaged in combat at the time of the attack -- it seems impossible to exclude from that term many of the acts in which the U.S. and our allies routinely engage.  Indeed, a large part of our "war" strategy is to kill people we deem to be "terrorists" or "combatants" without regard to whether they're armed or engaged in hostilities at the moment we kill them.  Isn't that exactly what we do when we use drone attacks in Pakistan?  Indeed, we currently have a  "hit list" of individuals we intend to murder in Afghanistan on sight based on our suspicion that they're involved in the drug trade and thus help fund the Taliban.  During its war in Gaza, Israel targeted police stations and, with one strike, killed 40 police trainees while in a parade, and then justified that by claiming police recruits were legitimate targets -- even though they weren't engaged in hostilities at the time -- because of their nexus to Hamas (even though the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said the targeted recruits "were being trained in first aid, human rights and maintaining public order").

Is there any legitimate definition of "terrorism" that allows the Fort Hood attack to qualify but not those above-referenced attacks?  The U.S., of course, maintains that it is incapable of engaging in "terrorism," by definition, because "terrorism" is something only "subnational groups or clandestine agents" can do, but leaving that absurdly self-serving and incoherent exclusion aside, how can the Fort Hood attacks targeted at soldiers be "terrorism" but not our own acts?  

Just to provide what ought to (but won't) be an unnecessary caveat:  whether the U.S. is noble, righteous and good, and radical Muslims are rotted and evil, is completely irrelevant to the issue here.  The laws of war and definitions of terrorism apply -- as is true, by definition, for all things that we call "laws" and "definitions" -- equally to everyone, regardless of how good or bad someone is.  Nor do any of these issues have anything to do with whether an act is justifiable; many things that are wrong and evil -- indeed most -- are not "terrorism."

Isn't it fairly clear that the term "terrorism" is being applied to what Hasan did due to his religion rather than the acts themselves?  Put another way, as ThinkProgress' Matt Duss put it:  "the definition of terrorism is not 'any violence by any Muslim anywhere at any time for any reason'."  But that -- along with the repellent claim that saying "Allahu Akbar" is "suggestive of terrorism," rather than suggestive of someone who is Muslim (obviously the same thing in the minds of the people claiming that) -- is exactly what seems to be driving discussions of this attack.  It's likely that there will always be a lack of clarity about exactly what motivated Hasan -- some combination of mental instability, religious fervor and political conviction -- but, regardless of motive, the only way to define an attack on soldiers as an act of "terrorism" is to indict ourselves in the same way.

 

UPDATE:  I don't quite know how to explain this, but National Review's Jonah Goldberg actually constructed a cogent argument today, arguing that Hasan's attack cannot be classified as "terrorism" because terrorism is "an attack on civilians intended to strike fear in the non-military population" and "Hasan didn't attack civilians, he attacked uniformed members of the U.S. Army in advance of their deployment to the frontlines."  In a subsequent post, responding to angry reader emails, he even explained that it's difficult to classify Hasan's attack as "terrorism" without doing the same with regard to our drone attacks in Pakistan.  More bizarrely still, National Review's Cliff May then chimed in to agree that "a terrorist is someone who intentionally targets non-combatants with violence for political purposes. The shooter at Fort Hood, by contrast, was targeting uniformed combatants. In that sense, he was not a terrorist."

That even the fanatical play-acting-tough-guy-warriors at National Review are more restrained and thoughtful on this topic than Joe Lieberman reflects just how radical and unhinged the Connecticut Senator is when it comes to anything Muslim.

That, of course, is exactly what American neocons have long been screaming about negotiations with Iran -- that they're crazed, untrustworthy Persian Hitlers who shouldn't be negotiated with and that Obama is being "naive" or worse by trying.  It's so striking how identical is the mentality of America's "hard-line" right-wing extremists and those in Iran.

Ignatius also claims, correctly, that the Iranian regime relies on anti-Americanism to sustain its legitimacy because the constant demonization of a foreign enemy unites the population behind the government.  Of course, the continuous demonization of foreign enemies has also long been the favorite tool of America's political leaders for the same reasons.  That's because exploiting foreign threats for domestic political gain is a virtually universal tool of governments.  That, of course, is exactly why the belligerence and threats towards Iran long advocated by America's Right has as its prime beneficiary the very Iranian mullahs they claim to oppose.