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The Moral High Ground
Sen. Chris Dodd gave a speech in Iowa the other day, and one statement he made is worth pondering. After praising the conviction of Zacarias Moussaoui, Dodd said:
Compare that case to the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who organized the attacks of 9/11. He was held in a secret prison, where he claims he was tortured severely. Whether he is lying or not, by our actions we have allowed Khalid Mohammed to claim the moral high ground. Khalid Mohammed plays martyr to a world that is inclined to believe it.
Imagine if a U.S. senator in 1945 had given a speech denouncing the bombing of Dresden and solemnly declaring, "We have allowed Hitler to take the moral high ground." Such a statement would have seemed disloyal, and it would have been not just erroneous but monstrously so. That America's conduct in World War II fell short of moral perfection does not mitigate the fundamental evil of Nazi Germany. (Bret Stephens develops the point further in his column this week.)
Dodd does not quite have the courage of his convictions in this matter. He does not actually make the primary assertion: that KSM is morally superior to USA. Rather, he relies on a secondary claim: that unspecified other people--"a world," presumably meaning Earth--are "inclined to believe it."
Is even this secondary assertion true? Color us skeptical. Sure, a significant portion of the "world" is inclined to believe bad things about America. How much weight such opinions are due, both as a practical matter and as a moral one, is a legitimate topic for debate. But we don't recall ever hearing a serious person say that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has the moral high ground vis-à-vis the U.S.
Possibly our information is incomplete and someone actually has said such a thing. Doesn't Dodd agree that this is an outrageous slander? And if America is being slandered, doesn't Dodd, as an American political leader, have an obligation to set the record straight?
Either Dodd is condoning the most vicious defamation of America or he is engaging in such defamation himself via a straw man. Whichever the case--and regardless of the merits of the policy under debate--his rhetoric is despicable.
Walking on a Thin Line?
We could file this under "Homelessness Rediscovery Watch," but we think it merits some sustained attention. The Associated Press reports:
Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.
And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job. . . .
Some advocates say the early presence of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan at shelters does not bode well for the future. It took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless. Advocates worry that intense and repeated deployments leave newer veterans particularly vulnerable.
"We're going to be having a tsunami of them eventually because the mental health toll from this war is enormous," said Daniel Tooth, director of veterans affairs for Lancaster County, Pa.
We feel confident in predicting that there will be no such tsunami. Because far fewer troops are in Iraq and Afghanistan than were in Vietnam, the current wars will produce far fewer veterans. As of 2000, according to census data, nearly 8.4 million "Vietnam era" (August 1964 through April 1975) veterans were alive. The figure for the post-Gulf War period (August 1990 through April 2000) was barely 3 million--and this was a younger population, so that a smaller proportion would have died by 2000. The size of the active-duty military shrank drastically in the '90s and has not recovered (although the services have compensated by calling up National Guardsmen and reservists).
In addition, there are no conscripts in Iraq or Afghanistan, and we hypothesize that draftees are less masters of their own fate, and thus more prone to personal dissolution, than volunteers.
What about the "early presence" of Iraq and Afghanistan vets in homeless shelters? We would speculate that this is entirely a function of media stereotypes.
Homelessness itself did not become a media cause célèbre until Ronald Reagan's presidency--i.e., "roughly a decade" after America fled Vietnam. To illustrate the point, we searched the phrase "plight of the homeless" in the New York Times archives, which, in an unwitting memorial to Reagan, are divided into two eras: 1851-1980 and 1981 to the present. The former, 130-year period turned up 28 results, of which all but five predate America's involvement in Vietnam. The latter, 27-year period produced 207 results.
The AP states that "it took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless." America fled Vietnam in 1973, and sure enough, the first mention of "homeless veterans" in the Times's post-1980 archive is in 1983, almost exactly a decade later.
But most Vietnam veterans were discharged before 1973. If the "roughly a decade" assertion is true, they should have begun showing up in the shelters in the middle to late 1970s. Yet the last pre-Reagan reference to "homeless veterans" in the Times was in 1954, in a review of a novel set in Germany in 1948.
What actually happened is that roughly a decade after America left Vietnam, Reagan became president, and the media noticed the homeless in general and homeless vets in particular. So hardy is the stereotype of the "homeless vet" that journalists are projecting it into the future. We are now reading "reports" about a "tsunami" of them that has yet to materialize.
A Tortured Analogy
We heard from a couple of readers who took issue with our argument yesterday that "warterboarding" is not torture because a "protester" voluntarily underwent it in a futile political gesture. Patrick Gallagher makes the case:
I find your logic (tongue in cheek or not) entirely unconvincing: Just because people are willing to subject themselves to torture does not automatically disqualify said procedure from being torture. One needs look no further than this brave man. I think we can agree that lighting a prisoner on fire qualifies as torture, no matter how many monks practice self-immolation.
Actually, it would be murder, not torture. It would also be murder if one protester deliberately set another ablaze, even if the immolatee consented. For the analogy to hold, then, anyone who believes waterboarding is torture should be calling for the prosecution of the protesters who "tortured" this guy.
Andrew Sullivan Is Shocked to the Core
"Water Board Races Remain Up in the Air"--headline, San Gabriel Valley (Calif.) Tribune, Nov. 8
Uncivil Servants
The Federal Times reports on a brainstorm from Capitol Hill:
"The federal government is one of the places that has not been doing enough to help give people a second chance," said Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill. "We can't lead where we haven't been."
Davis said he's considering introducing a bill early next year to make the federal workplace more felon-friendly.
Davis said agencies should work with federally and locally funded rehabilitation programs to hire recently released felons as a way to help them reintegrate into society and reduce recidivism. . . .
To make such a program work, Congress would need to direct agencies to cordon off a certain number of nonsensitive jobs--such as mail room, janitorial or maintenance work--for ex-offenders, he said. Such a program would likely start off as a pilot program.
Great idea! Wouldn't you love to have, say, a convicted embezzler working in the mailroom of the IRS?
The Sarkozy Nodder
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, reporting on Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to Washington, notes this detail from the French president's speech before Congress:
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), proud of his French-language skills, sat in the second row without using his translation device, nodding regularly to show his comprehension.
Hey, that's la politique de la destruction personnelle!
We Blame Global Warming
"Chainsaw-Wielding Mayor Enrages Museum Board"--headline, Globa and Mail (Toronto), Nov. 6
There Was No Room at the Inn
"Nativity Proposal Falters"--headline, Detroit News, Nov. 7
This Credit Crunch Is Just So . . . Oh, Look! A Squirrel!
"Credit Crunch May Last Longer Than Thought"--headline, CNBC.com, Nov. 8
That Was Clumsy
"Lopez Spills Beans on Baby"--headline, CNN.com, Nov. 8
So What's All This Fuss?
"Paul McCartney Spied With Another Woman"--headline, CNN.com, Nov. 7
We'll Try to Stay Serene and Calm
When Alabama Gets the Bomb
"After Ohio State, What's Next?"--headline, Columbus Dispatch, Nov. 6
The Wildcats Sound a Bit Overconfident
"Little Expected to Play for Wildcats Against Vanderbilt"--headline, Associated Press, Nov. 6
Good Luck With That
"Police Hope 'Pee-Wee Herman' Can Help Them Solve a Violent Crime"--headline, Star Tribune (Minneapolis), Nov. 6
He Was Tired of Getting Shot At
"Target Pulls Violent Video Game"--headline, Associated Press, Nov. 7
Aren't You Supposed to Tell Us?
"Who Will Be Person of the Year?"--healdine, Time.com, Nov. 8
Breaking News From 221 B.C.
"China's Founder Agrees to Preinstall Windows on More PCs"--headline, IDG News Service, Nov. 7
Breaking News From 1980
"Georgia's President Moves Up Elections"--headline, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 8
News of the Tautological
"Uncounted Ballots May Decide Close Races"--headline, Dayton Daily News, Nov. 7
News You Can Use
- "Police Station No Place to Smoke Weed"--headline, Associated Press, Nov. 6
- "No Justification for Using Taser on Grandma"--headline, Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 6
Bottom Stories of the Day
- "It's About to Get Quiet at the Sponge Docks"--headline, St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, Nov. 8
- "Rosie Says Deal With MSNBC Fell Apart"--headline, Associated Press, Nov. 7
- "Rubin Is Reported Set to Back Clinton"--headline, New York Times, Nov. 8
The Silence of the Hams
The Associated Press reports from Caracas on Venezuela's incipient dictatorship:
Gunmen opened fire on students returning from a march Wednesday in which 80,000 people denounced President Hugo Chavez's attempts to expand his power. At least eight people were injured, including one by gunfire, officials said.
Photographers for The Associated Press saw at least four gunmen--their faces covered by ski masks or T-shirts--firing handguns at the anti-Chavez crowd. Terrified students ran through the campus as ambulances arrived.
A lot of Hollywood actors have flocked to Caracas in recent years to pay tribute to Chavez. But surely they're just naive and don't condone this sort of thuggishness. We're sure they'll have something to say about it as soon as their writers go back to work.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Scott Wright, Peter Iorio, David Skurnick, Avi Cutler, Ken McKenna, Randy Rohn, Ken Hennesay, Dagny Billings, Mary Yonts, Mark Girsovich, Michael Stevens, John Williamson, James Eckert, Radu Aghinii, Tom Dziubek, Jay Zilber, Joel McLemore, Alan Utter, Lindsay Osbon, Steve Thom, Chris Engel, John Sanders, Ron Miller, Buddy Smith, Ed Jordan, Dan O'Shea and Ray Hull. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: Schip wreck: Oregon voters send a message on HillaryCare.
- Dan Henninger: What would Atticus Finch make of the "high-tech lynching" of Clarence Thomas?
- Arthur Herman: Churchill understood that the Jews are the bedrock of Western civilzation.
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