We don’t do torture — do we?

This from today’s New York Times:

“WASHINGTON, May 12 — The Central Intelligence Agency has used coercive interrogation methods against a select group of high-level leaders and operatives of Al Qaeda that have produced growing concerns inside the agency about abuses, according to current and former counterterrorism officials.

At least one agency employee has been disciplined for threatening a detainee with a gun during questioning, they said.

In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, C.I.A. interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as “water boarding,” in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown.

These techniques were authorized by a set of secret rules for the interrogation of high-level Qaeda prisoners, none known to be housed in Iraq, that were endorsed by the Justice Department and the C.I.A. The rules were among the first adopted by the Bush administration after the Sept. 11 attacks for handling detainees and may have helped establish a new understanding throughout the government that officials would have greater freedom to deal harshly with detainees.

Defenders of the operation said the methods stopped short of torture, did not violate American anti-torture statutes, and were necessary to fight a war against a nebulous enemy whose strength and intentions could only be gleaned by extracting information from often uncooperative detainees. Interrogators were trying to find out whether there might be another attack planned against the United States.”

So if “water-boarding” isn’t torture, then what is, exactly? There may be a case for torturing these folks (it’s a philosophical dilemma that’s been set for countless generations of philosophy students), but there isn’t one for denying that you’re doing it.

Girl in a red sweater

The Pre-Raphaelites have a lot to answer for. Just imagine what they would have done with PhotoShop (or the GIMP).

Exotic Business

I had a meeting in the Judge Institute of Management — Cambridge’s Business School — today. Couldn’t help reflecting on how exotic and unbusinesslike its interior is. More like an Oriental bazaar. Lovely though.

Diebold boss admits error

It would be nice to think that my column had something to do with it, but I think it unlikely. Alas. Still… According to today’s NYT,

“Walden W. O’Dell, the chairman and chief executive of Diebold Inc., said on Monday that it had been a ‘huge mistake’ for him, as the head of a voting machine company, to express support for President Bush’s re-election in a fund-raising letter last year. Mr. O’Dell also said the company was working to address computer security problems and build voter confidence in its wares.

In a meeting with reporters and editors from The New York Times, Mr. O’Dell by turns apologized for mistakes and stood up for what he said the company had done right.

‘The country had a crisis’ after the 2000 debacle, he said; his company realized that ‘we could help; it would be an opportunity to serve, and it would be a good business.’

Mr. O’Dell drew criticism of his company in August when he sent an invitation to a fund-raising party that said, ‘I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.’ He said he had not written it himself, though he declined to say who had, and intended only to sign a ‘party invitation.'”

The china shop rule

Notice often seen in shops selling delicate porcelain: “If you break it, you own it”. Does this apply to Iraq? Yes and no. ‘Yes’ because the success of the invasion led to a vacuum which was predictable, could have been planned-for — and wasn’t. ‘No’ in the sense that Iraq was broken long ago, by Saddam and his regime. What makes the current unfolding disaster so depressing is that no matter what one thought about the original decision to go to war, the US and Britain cannot quit now. Retrospective moral outrage is no longer a credible position. And that’s very uncomfortable for everyone.

What’s really important about Google

In the end, it isn’t the search engine — important though that is. The real significance of Google is that its techies have built the most powerful computing cluster ever created, and this will in due course enable the company to provide web services that nobody else can match. So what investors will be buying into is not just revenue streams from search-related advertising (lucrative though those may be), but the strategic potential of technology that nobody else — not even the DoD — possesses.

Big Music gets it wrong — again!

Sony, which is normally very good at creating attractive consumer products, has launched its own online music store. And guess what? It’s a turkey — obsessed with control-freakery, using a proprietary format that only plays on Sony hardware, etc. See the Washington Post review. In a nutshell: “This service is an embarrassment to the company that gave the world the Walkman.”

So who’s responsible for the torture and abuse in Iraq?

I watched Donald Rumsfeld’s Congressional performance and wondered where the buck really stops for the ill-treatment of Iraqi prisoners. Rumsfeld and Bush express horror about how the abuses are profoundly un-American. There’s a lot of talk about “bad apples”, etc. But two things published on the Net make one wonder.

The first is a remarkable New York Times account of the circumstances under which untrained reservists came to be in charge of a teeming prisoner population under unspeakable conditions. Why is this so revealing? Well, it vividly shows the extent to which Rumsfeld & Co did absolutely no planning for dealing with Iraq after the invasion and the defeat of Saddam’s regime.

As to the “bad apples” argument, well it doesn’t wash either. It’s a terrible truth about human beings that whenever some people have absolute power over other human beings, (whether in concentration camps, children’s homes, old people’s care centres, prisons) some of them behave badly, and some do truly terrible things. So any civilised country takes great pains to ensure that this kind of unaccountable power is exercised as little as possible by its forces. No pains were taken by Rumsfeld & Co.

The second salutary item on the Net is a sequence taken from the video-recording system of a US Apache helicopter operating in Iraq. If you have a strong stomach, you can find the MPEG here. If you don’t want to watch it, the gist is this: it’s night-time, so all the action is shot through night-vision lenses; there are three Iraqis on the ground, near a truck which may contain a Stinger anti-aircraft missile; as the chopper approaches, the Iraqis run in various directions. One by one they are picked off with the precision of a video game. The last survivor chooses to hide under the truck. The gunner fires at the truck, and vaporises it — and presumeably the Iraqi. But then a figure appears, on the ground, crawling away from the wreckage. The gunner is ordered to kill him. And he does — poof!

What’s interesting about this is not so much the growing similarity between real and virtual warfare, but the way overwhelming force is used to kill a wounded soldier, who was clearly beyond posing a threat to the helicopter. And what this says about the mindset of US forces in Iraq.

Through a glass brightly

Saw this hanging in the porch of a friend’s house yesterday.

Things to bear in mind when giving Commencement Addresses

One of the dubious pleasures of middle age is that your Alma Mater may decide you’re now sufficiently old/prominent/rich (delete as appropriate) to be invited back to give an Address on Graduation Day. I know — it’s happened to me. The temptation to give a pompous sermon to a captive audience is difficult to resist. (I’m not sure I succeeded.) In the meantime, here are some useful guidelines.

“Banana Republic has always been a store, not a puppet government in Latin America.

The statement ‘You sound like a broken record’ means nothing to them.

They do not have a clue how to use a typewriter.

They’ve never heard, ‘Where’s the beef?’

Paul Newman has always made salad dressing.

Michael Jackson has always been white.”

My favourite Commencement Address is still Woody Allen’s. It begins:

“Today we are at a crossroads. One road leads to hopelessness and despair; the other, to total extinction. Let us pray we choose wisely.”