Wilful Wrongdoing

Today in explanations that just don’t help:

Netanyahu’s speech is set for March 3.

Some Democrats plan to skip it because they consider it a divisive stunt and a breach of protocol that suggests the U.S. is taking sides in coming Israeli elections.

Boehner was asked by “Fox News Sunday” why he told Israel’s ambassador to the United States not to mention the invitation to the White House in advance.

Boehner says he “wanted to make sure that there was no interference.”

(Associated Press)

Look, it’s not exactly a coup or anything, but still, come on, John, give us a fucking break.

Not Quite the Obvious Question

What Milt Priggee asks is not quite the obvious question. Rather, it presumes the obvious question answered obviously, and moves on to a necessary corollary.

But that merely begs its own subsequence: To whom is it a major revelation? Why is it such a surprise? What are the implications of such ignorance about stupidity?

As history repeats itself it also becomes more apparent that while nobody can be perfect, there really is a substantive difference between one frailty and the next as shown from one human being to the next.

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Priggee, Milt. “Stupid Voters”. The Cagle Post. 16 December 2014.

What It Comes To (Choke On It Mix)

Rule number … er … I don’t know, give it a number: Don’t fuck with the nurses!

The case of a Navy medical officer who refused to force-feed prisoners on a hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay prompted the country’s largest nursing organization on Wednesday to petition the Defense Department for leniency, citing professional ethical guidelines that support the officer’s decision.

The officer is a nurse and 18-year Navy veteran whose commander has called for an internal inquiry into the refusal, his lawyer said.

(Carey)

Okay, look, this is a problem. We have heard versions of it before, dealing with “enhanced interrogation”, but to what degree are war crimes really worth redefining the role of medical professionals in our society?

And that is the whole of the question; everything else is a matter of policy and procedure, but at the core is this fundamental question.

We are holding these prisoners for no good reason, in violation of our own principles and in dubious relationship with our own laws. To the one, they have every reason to try a hunger strike. To the other, if you’re going to force-feed them, do it your fucking selves.

Which is the other thing: We’re Americans, damn it! Get your heads out, close this atrocity of a prison, and stop trying to redefine our society for the purposes of fostering warfare.

This should not be our heritage and legacy, yet for some reason history defies American principle. Indeed, Guantánamo will become one of our shameful tales, like biological warfare and genocide in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It happens, we don’t like to talk or think or give any sort of consideration about it, so it happens again.

The military’s aggressive interrogation policy, at Guantánamo and elsewhere, has forced agonizing decisions on medical professionals. Psychologists have helped design the torturous techniques, which have included sleep deprivation and isolation; they have also monitored the interrogations. Medical doctors have advised on caring for the detainees. Details of these professionals’ roles have fueled debates within major medical associations; such debates have played a role in elections in at least one major group, the American Psychological Association.

One of the main issues is whether the medical associations should discipline members who have taken part in interrogations in any way, even as observers. The Navy case represents the flip side of the equation. It is the first known defiance of Guantánamo’s force-feeding procedure, and the nurses association is acting to defend, rather than to condemn, the medical officer’s actions.

But, seriously, do not screw with the nurses.

And, no, you don’t need a proverbial slippery slope to understand the problem; all you need is some comprehension of what medical professionals pledge their lives to, and a modicum of human decency.

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Carey, Benedict. “Nurses Urge Leniency Over Refusal to Force-Feed at Guantánamo Bay”. The New York Times. 19 November 2014.

Required Reading

And the award for Best Supporting Moron In An International Tragedy goes to … Immigration and Customs Enforcement:

I quickly texted him back and told him that help was on the way. He wrote back to say Immigration and Customs was holding him, his wife, Soraya, and their 8-year old son (and “star” of the movie) Gibreel in a detention room at LAX. He said they would not believe him when he told them he was an Oscar-nominated director on his way to this Sunday’s Oscars and to the events in LA leading up to the ceremony. He is also a Palestinian. And an olive farmer. Apparently that was too much for Homeland Security to wrap its head around.

And, you know, when Michael Moore shows up to help resolve the situation, the folks at ICE must know, deep in their hearts, that they just picked the wrong Oscar-nominated Palestinian documentary filmmaker to screw with.