Avuncular American

"The Belgian Solution" to Leopold's Congo: 15 November 1908

Can't let this centenary pass unnoticed: 100 years ago today, King Leopold II's "personal property" of the Etat Independant du Congo became a Belgian colony.  This was the "Belgian Solution" that even human rights campaigners at the time saw as an improvement over the bloody personal rule by a sovereign who never set foot in his African domain, but who profited enormously from its rich natural resources. [Stamp image source: Congoposte.be, "Septante-sept ans d'histoire postale en Afrique centrale"]

The "Belgian Solution" to what had become a worldwide firestorm of protest against Leopold's rule was to last another half century, until Congolese independence in 1960.  Thousands of Belgians have roots in the Congo, and much of the country's wealth - certainly its store of mansions and monumental architecture built from the proceeds of mineral extraction and rubber plantations - dates from the "Congo Belge" era, whether under Leopold's personal rule or its time as a colony.

Leopold II's quarter century of direct rule over his "Congo Free State" saw the colony become, according to Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghosts, "one of the major killing grounds of modern times."  Statistics vary on the number of Congolese killed, starved, maimed, raped, or infected at the hands of the Belgians and their private/public militias, but Hochschild cites a figure used by a contemporary source, Mark Twain, at between 5 and 8 million people.

Consider that number, and then remember that "Africa's World War" in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, which was known as Zaire in the Mobutu years) in the last decade has killed an estimated 3.8 million additional people.  Whatever the actual numbers, it is fair to say that in the century since Leopold first left his mark on the Congo, the legacy of colonization and its aftermath has been deadly for millions of Congolese.

But in today's Le Soir three page special on the centenary of Leopold's handover of his Congo Free State, there is still nostalgia among the former colons for their "lost paradise" (handover is too modest a term; after making a billion dollars from his exploitation of Congolese slave labor, Leopold II "sold" his personal colony to the Belgian state and was thanked for "his great sacrifices made for the Congo.")

You can get a sense of this Congo-Belge nostalgia in the pages of the "Union Royale Belge Pour les Pays d'Outre-Mer" UROME, which publishes a trilingual website (though it has an English link, the French appears the most complete).  The "good old days," when an ambitious young Belgian (or Luxembourger) might study "sciences coloniales" and head off on the two week steamer trip to a life of adventure in Belgium's African colonies of the Congo and "Ruanda-Urundi," today's Rwanda and Burundi.  Beyond pure nostalgia, Belgian history professor at V.U.B. Guy Vanthemsche provides some statistics on the legacy Belgium left independent Congo in today's La Libre Belgique.

A hundred years on from Congo's "graduation" from private royal fiefdom to full-fledged colony, and on to eventual independence and civil war, relations with the former colonial power are strained.  Belgium hosts thousands of Congolese immigrants, and there are still a few thousand Belgians in the DRC.  It's hard to say how things might have turned out for the Congo had its transition to independence been better prepared; as it happened, Belgium in the late Fifties and early Sixties could not resist the tide of independence sweeping Africa.

Congo, 1908-2008.  Plus ça change... Adam Hochschild, angry a couple of years ago that George W. Bush referred to having read his "Leopold's Ghosts" without seeing the right historical parallels, drew them for the President in an open letter in the Los Angeles Times:

The long effort by King Leopold II of Belgium to bring Congo under his control was driven by his avid quest for a commodity central to industry and transportation: rubber. Does that remind you of anything?

Hochschild saw the resource grab behind Bush's invasion of Iraq, just like Leopold cloaked his rape of the Congo in "philanthropic" terms.  For present-day Congo, it's no longer rubber, but a "coltan rush" and "blood tantalum" for our mobile phones that has the warlords killing and enslaving Congolese.  The "Scramble for Africa" continues.

Avuncular American's First Anniversary

With all the excitement over the elections in the States, I almost let the anniversary of my first year of blogging slip by.  Looking back at my first posts in November 2007, I see that I wrote a good deal more about Iraq than I have done recently (that is likely to change once Barack Obama is inaugurated).  There were several posts on the complicated Belgian political situation, which though it has calmed somewhat, remains complicated and never-ending.  It's the national sport.

One topic - torture, as in US practice of - is one that I would much prefer never having had to write about.  If today's article by Mark Benjamin in Salon is right - "Obama's Plans For Probing Bush Torture" - we may all be learning more about the truth behind Bush's assertion that "This government does not torture people."  In the past year of blogging, I've noticed that whenever I do a post about torture, much of my readership seems to fade away.  Denial?

During this strange post-election, lame duck, transition, phony war period, there will be plenty to write about.  Like many others who supported the candidacy of Barack Obama, I will be scrutinizing the news coming out of Transition HQ, to make sure that realpolitik does not trump the wishes of real people who elected the next president.

But the advent of a new, popularly elected administration, one which has to undo so much that harmed the very foundations of the United States, should account for a slight change of tone in the months ahead.  After all, "avuncular" is in my URL: "In the manner of an uncle, pertaining to an uncle, hence, kind, genial, benevolent or tolerant" according to Wiktionary.

I think Barack Obama should bring out the avuncular in me.

Algeria, 5 October 1988: Turning Point

Tomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of bloody rioting throughout Algeria in October 1988 - "Black October," which symbolized what many in Algeria call "les annees noires," the Eighties. Things were bad, but how many Algerians could have imagined that things would get even worse, in what became in the Nineties "les annees rouges?"

I'll be reviewing Algeria: Anger of the Dispossessed by Martin Evans and John Phillips in the forthcoming issue of the Middle East Journal, and will provide readers with the full review of this essential work in a future post.  As it happens, I've just read the chapter on "Black October," and if any one chapter captures the sense of the book's title, it is this one.

When I arrived in Algeria in early 1990, the figurative smoke and ashes from the riots barely more than a year earlier were still in the air.  I wish I had had the wisdom of Evans and Phillips' analysis then, as I reported on the effervescent political scene for the American Embassy.  What they write about Algeria's young men, frustrated, unemployed, disillusioned with the broken promises of an increasingly geriatric and corrupt leadership - all of that rings true and creates a vivid mental image of what was a tinderbox ready for a match.

It is still unclear if any specific incident sparked the riots, which were preceded by "wild rumors" of imminent violence.  As Evans and Phillips relate, then Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid benefited - at least temporarily - in the riots' aftermath, winning a landslide re-election weeks later.  But the turning point was that the rioting youth showed that authority was no longer sacrosanct, and that it could be humiliated.  Even more, the savage repression of the rioters revealed that the Algerian Army could and would fire on, and torture, its fellow citizens.  The stage was set for far worse violence in the coming decade.  Check out the excellent trilingual site of Algeria Watch for articles, time lines, analysis.

What had led to this despair of the dispossessed?  Here's Ray Takeyh of the Council of Foreign Relations, writing in 2003:

The year 1988 proved to be a watershed in Algeria's modern history. Declining oil prices and the emergence of a global surge toward free markets led the regime to launch a liberalization and deregulation program that entailed the elimination of many social-welfare services and subsidies. The removal of state controls at a time of financial shortfall disproportionately affected the urban working class and the poor. The socially disruptive ramifications of this policy were exacerbated by high inflation and the emergence of an underground economy. The gap between rich and poor continued to grow while official corruption, an endemic feature of Algerian bureaucracy, reached alarming rates. The much-eroded social compact between the revolutionary regime and the populace ruptured with the October 1988 riots throughout Algeria's urban centers. The brutal suppression of the marches by the military further undermined the legitimacy of a regime that based its power on its historical role as a force for liberation. In the aftermath of the riots, that pillar finally began to crumble.

Sounds a bit like Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine.

What followed was what I saw between 1990 and 1992.  A sclerotic ruling party, the FLN, that took for granted winning elections unopposed for decades, and didn't see the formidable electoral force of the Islamist FIS rising to take over local and regional councils and mayorships of all the major Algerian cities in June 1990.  And which missed the boat again in December 1991 and lost the first round of parliamentary elections to a FIS that again got out the vote.

The only answer that the Army could provide was to cancel the elections, round up the elected, and plunge the country into a decade-plus of barbaric violence.  It all started - though no one knew it at the time - twenty years ago.

The 2009 9/11 Anniversary: Fear Up, Or Fears Overcome?

They had to tread carefully for a lifetime, never speak without thinking twice

Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear (1943)

The Graham Greene novel's setting was London's wartime Blitz, but its title helps us reflect on the institutionalization of fear that came in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  Today will be the last commemoration presided over by a President George W. Bush, who used Americans' fears after September 11 to launch a war against a country that had nothing to do with it.

Who will preside over the 2009 ceremony?  Will it be an unbroken continuation of the Bush line, preached by a fear-mongering McCain-Palin Administration?  Will "fear up" - that term used by official abusers - continue to be the White House stance, succeeding more to strike fear into the hearts of Americans than in any potential terrorist?

"They had to tread carefully for a lifetime."  How long will Americans have to tread carefully, while their leaders' official policy is to tread with massive military footprints across the globe?  When will the electorate come to the realization that true national security comes from an array of societal and individual decisions: how strong is the underlying economic infrastructure, and do we let our bridges crumble for want of a bond issue; is our financial system dependent on other nations' continued goodwill, and will we refrain from using home equity loans to buy additional cars; is the American way of life ultimately sustainable?

Boston University professor (and West Point grad) Andrew Bacevich shows us where we are "9/11 Plus Seven:"

[W]hether the [Bush Middle East] strategy of transformation aimed at dominion or democratization -- today, seven years after it was conceived, we can assess exactly what it has produced. The answer is clear: next to nothing, apart from squandering vast resources and exacerbating the slide toward debt and dependency that poses a greater strategic threat to the United States than Osama bin Laden ever did.

What Americans decide on November 4 2008 will determine how the next President addresses the nation on September 11 2009. Senator Barack Obama has sketched out a much more inclusive notion of what national security is made of.  It starts with reminding Americans that "we are better than these last eight years."  Better than unilateral invasions.  Better than torture.  Better than oil-fueled and funded climate denial. Better than elections decided in court.

Seven years ago, after the September 11 attacks, a young radio journalist interviewed me in Luxembourg.  He reflected the fear of his fellow students of what appeared to be a nihilistic campaign aimed at civilization.  My first reaction was to say that there was safety in numbers, that the United States had like-minded friends in Europe and the rest of the world.  "We're With You!!!" read the message on top of the pile of flowers in front of the American Embassy.

That was true then, and it could be true again.  Fear can be overcome.  I want to give a chance to the side that appeals to our better nature - we are better than these last eight years.

Get With the Program: Tools For Torture

"The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror -- the CIA program to detain and question key terrorist leaders and operatives.  So today, I vetoed it."

President George W. Bush, March 8, 2009 (Weekly radio address - audio)

Torturers Know When It's Torture - For The Rest Of Their Lives

If you're like me, you might not like getting water in your nose while taking a shower.  Nasty sensation, even a few drops, plus it makes you cough and sneeze for a while afterwards.  But there's nothing to worry about - you're in control, and no, you're not going to drown.

"Waterboarding," or simulated drowning, carries none of these reassuring safeguards for the waterboardee, despite the President's assurances about "these safe and lawful techniques."  Imagine yourself strapped down, possibly naked (why not?) on some freezing, dirty toilet floor (the use of nudity and extreme temperatures has been a constant in American "alternative procedures," as the President called them yesterday).  And if you're going to get the maximum effect out of your procedure, who says that the water has to be clean, or even has to be water?

So on a Saturday morning, on a weekend where most Americans might be worried about setting their clocks forward to Daylight Savings Time, President Bush announces that he's going to veto what a majority (but crucially, not a veto-proof two thirds majority) of the Senate and the House of Representatives has deemed a standard of American decency: that US intelligence agencies be limited to using those interrogation techniques found in the Army Field Manual.  That is what Bush vetoed.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned in thinking that it's only the creepy enemy guys in black leather trench coats who torture their prisoners in dingy basements - perhaps I've seen too many films (but, after enjoying the first season of TV's "24," I had to turn it off in the first minutes of the second season, when, as Vice President Cheney would say, the gloves came off).  I guess that I'm in that 32% of Americans who oppose torture - which means that more than 60% approve of torture.

I hope some of these armchair torturers read "Am I a Torturer?" in the current Mother Jones (part of an issue entitled "Torture Hits Home"), where writer Justine Sharrock interviews Ben Allbright, a young Iraq War veteran and former prison guard at Camp "Tiger."  Ben, who is trying to answer his own question through his blog "Operation Comeback" (devoted in part to fellow veterans who suffer from PTSD), at least does not have this on his conscience:

About a month after Ben left Tiger for good, an insurgency leader detained there, Maj. General Abed Hamed Mowhoush, was suffocated in a sleeping bag—a technique that, like waterboarding, Ben had heard was used but had never seen. The General, as he was known, was one of the 160-plus detainees who have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since August 2002, according to ACLU attorney Hina Shamsi. Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer, the man accused of murdering Mowhoush, claimed he'd been following orders. In 2006, he was convicted of negligent homicide and dereliction of duty and sentenced to 60 days of barracks confinement, the equivalent of house arrest.

Confined to barracks for the murder of a prisoner of war - a Major General no less?  But Americans are immune - because we say we are - from international jurisdiction over war crimes.  If an American major general, or major, or private were murdered in the custody of a foreign army, would there not be a massive outcry?  Maybe if the victim's name were Jones or Smith, instead of Abed Hamed...

Words like "program" or "tools" and Orwellian euphemisms like "alternative procedures" have their equivalent in the Bush Administration's approach to war, where "targets" (not people) are flattened, and "collateral damage" is inflicted (on civilians whose misfortune is to be Iraqi).  Maybe the 60% who condone torture are reassured by the President's use of these terms, or his deeming it "an effective program," like a TV ad for an anti-allergy regimen.

Daddy, Were You In The SS Or The Wehrmacht?

Yesterday's presidential veto - supported, yes, by the Senate's sole torture victim, John McCain - may only provide transitory reassurance to Americans who have been involved in torture.  See "Central Intelligence Anxiety" by Laura Rozen in the same issue of MJ:

[A] division emerged between what a former senior Agency official described to me as the "SS crowd" and the "Wehrmacht crowd," the "hard edged" and the "smarter and better informed." He said, "People managed not to take assignments. There were senior people who would not go to meetings if they thought that extraordinary rendition or enhanced interrogation techniques were going to be discussed."

When CIA people start dividing themselves into "SS" and "Wehrmacht" camps and voting with their feet, you know things are going to come to a head, probably starting circa January 21, 2009.

Senators Clinton and Obama, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, were "absent from the vote but have said they support the vetoed bill. Neither has made it a campaign issue, however, and neither commented on Bush's veto."  So here's their chance to stake out a common Democratic candidate position, in contrast to McCain: if they indeed support the vetoed bill, they should - jointly or separately - pledge to sign it when they enter the White House.

If George W. Bush wants Waterboard to be his middle name, that's his personal legacy issue.  As an American citizen, I do not want my country to be branded "Torturers R' Us" - and I would appreciate Madam Experience and Mister Change deigning to vote for a future version of this bill.  Unless either of them are President, in which case they should simply sign it, and start turning the page on this sorry chapter of American history.

Parallel History, 8 Jan 2003: Future of Iraq Project

Members of the press (and the public) may have missed this State Department notice 5 years ago:

Notice to the Press
Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
January 8, 2003

Future of Iraq, Transitional Justice Working Group Meeting

The third session of the Future of Iraq project working group on Transitional Justice will convene on January 9-10, 2003 in Washington, DC.

The State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs will be hosting approximately 15 free Iraqis who have expressed an interest in discussing the law and the transition to democracy in a post-Saddam Iraq. Specific attention will be paid to the progress already made in the areas of prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity, rule of law, restoration of the Iraqi legal system, reform of the judiciary, and possible scenarios for amnesty.

For further information regarding the Future of Iraq project, please contact Gregg Sullivan, Deputy Director for Press Affairs, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, at 202-647-5150.

All Future of Iraq working groups are closed to the press. However, if you are interested in interviewing some of the Iraqi participants at the conclusion of the session, please contact David Staples, Public Affairs Officer, Future of Iraq, 202-312-9839 or 202-374-1216.
Released on January 8, 2003

Not sure what became of the "15 free Iraqis" who showed up at Foggy Bottom five years ago.  Hope they made it through the unruly immediate aftermath ("stuff happens") of the toppling of Saddam Hussein.  And the phase where car bombs decimated entire neighborhoods enjoying the free(d) markets.  Not to speak of the years where a knock on the door at night might be the last time you saw your father or brother or son.

What is certain is that the output of the "Transitional Justice Working Group" wound up in the same circular file that Rumsfeld used for the entire "Future of Iraq Project."  According to "Blueprint for a Mess" by David Rieff, (NYT November 2, 2003 - it was already a "mess" 7 months into the occupation?  Warning to readers: the NYT link above leads to a ten page article)

rivalry between State and Defense was so intense that the Future of Iraq Project became anathema to the Pentagon simply because it was a State Department project. ''At the Defense Department,'' he [Feisal Istrabadi, an Iraqi-American lawyer] recalls, ''we were seen as part of 'them.''' Istrabadi was so disturbed by the fight between Defense and State that on June 1, 2002, he says, he took the matter up personally with Douglas Feith. ''I sat with Feith,'' he recalls, ''and said, 'You've got to decide what your policy is.'''

The Future of Iraq Project did draw up detailed reports, which were eventually released to Congress last month and made available to reporters for The New York Times. The 13 volumes, according to The Times, warned that ''the period immediately after regime change might offer . . . criminals the opportunity to engage in acts of killing, plunder and looting.''But the Defense Department, which came to oversee postwar planning, would pay little heed to the work of the Future of Iraq Project. Gen. Jay Garner, the retired Army officer who was later given the job of leading the reconstruction of Iraq, says he was instructed by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to ignore the Future of Iraq Project. (emphasis added)

Some day those 13 volumes might be of historical interest, but they certainly weren't used by the Republican National Committee and American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) loyalists who made up the staff of Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority and "taught" Iraqis decades older than them how to run a country.

Consider this from Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post correspondent in Baghdad during the CPA days and author of "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone" (interviewed by Amy Goodman on "Democracy Now," 29 September 2006:

It wasn’t so much you had to have Arabic language skills or experience in the Middle East or expertise in post-conflict reconstruction. What you had to be was a loyal supporter of President Bush. In fact, people who were being selected to go out to Baghdad were asked things in pre-deployment interviews that, you know, would have gotten an employer in the private sector hauled into court. People were asked, “Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Are you a member of the Republican Party?” Two people even told me they were asked whether they supported Roe v. Wade.

I also write in the book that one of O’Beirne’s [note: White House liaison at Pentagon] deputies once sort of pointed to a young man’s resume and pronounced him a, quote/unquote, “ideal candidate to go to Baghdad.” The young man’s chief qualification? He had worked for the Republican Party during the recount in Florida in 2000.

If you already know that Iraq needs a flat tax or new traffic laws, who needs a 13 volume State Department report from a bunch of Iraqi exiles and Middle East experts?

Parallel History, 5 years ago, to be continued in future installments...

2008, Year of Human Rights, Human Security, & Reclaiming America's Reputation?

Despite my best efforts to nominate "Americans Against Torture" for Persons of the Year 2007, Time Magazine went ahead and named lame duck Russian President Vladimir Putin instead.  Oh well, I guess I was a year too early: it's December 10, 2008 that will be the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, when the United States deemed the occasion important enough to be represented by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.  Maybe Time will find this year a more auspicious moment to honor those Americans who know that the United States will never reclaim its reputation until it repudiates torture.

Helena Cobban, the former Middle East correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor, whose blog "Just World News" is one of the best sources of informed comment on the region, has proposed that 2008 be declared the Year of "Human Security"

one of the main reasons why military power does not suffice is that it neglects-- and indeed, it also directly undercuts-- the main component of security in the 21st century, that is, the security of actual human persons.

Cobban, who has seen more than her share of conflict over the years, comes from the Quaker tradition of non-violence, though she is proud of being "perhaps the only Quaker who is a member of the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies."  Her understanding of strategy goes far beyond simple application of military power.

It is high time to move beyond the simplistic "national security" approach to international relations, where diplomats negotiate until negotiations lead nowhere, then soldiers shoot until (if you're lucky) the "enemy" "surrenders" (quotes indicate quaintness of this version of warfare).  Then you send in the post conflict development people, and you let them deal with the sorry aftermath.  The problem is, this model can't really be applied to problems like climate change, or development of renewable energy, or massive refugee/migrant flows.  And hasn't been working that well for shooting wars, either.

"Human security" is a term that helps us ease away from the political-military tunnel vision, just as the term "eco-security" suggests that no national security apparatus worth its salt can ignore the century's massive environmental, energy, and demographic challenges and say that it is doing its job.  In very simple terms, Cobban shows why "human security" should be compelling

So in 2008, let's all of us come back to this powerful idea of human security. It is the idea that my country will be more secure if the citizens of other countries near and far also feel secure -- secure, that is, in what counts to us all, as humans. And conversely, that if citizens of other countries feel insecure, that will make my country more insecure, too.

Hard to argue with that.

(Photo source: State Department)

Bali: The Bush Signing Statement: "What Agreement?"

The delegates at the Bali Climate Change conference had barely left the negotiating table.  Maybe some of them were mercifully incommunicado, already in deep slumber on a long haul flight back home.  Other, more stalwart ones, may have even have had a glass or two of bubbly to celebrate the eleventh hour turnaround by the United States, which finally meant consensus after weeks of wrangling.

Maybe even Papua New Guinea delegate Kevin Conrad, who had shamed the US Delegation with his "provide leadership, or get out of the way" zinger, maybe even he allowed himself a little self-congratulatory tipple.  But all of these reactions could not account for the man in Washington, the one who had his fingers crossed behind his back the whole time.  Saying one thing, while thinking another; acquiescing to a law banning torture, then doing another "signing statement," taking it all back.  This is the Bush Method.

"Serious Concerns" was what the world heard coming from the White House, about what it thought was a done deal only hours old.  Look at the body language, the tone of voice, the resigned frown on US Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky as she says that the US was finally, after being the butt of booing and hissing from the rest of the world, "joining consensus."  I don't know where she was, hours later, when the White House issued its "signing statement."  If she, by joining consensus, had overstepped her remit, then she probably had a hollow feeling in her stomach.  If - much more likely - it had all been a ploy to dilute serious proposals to act to counter climate change, just so the prodigal US could be brought back inside the tent, then she and the rest of the US delegation could go back to their champagne.

As someone who used to sit at the table behind a "United States" nameplate, I used to keep in mind the classic Harvard Negotiation Project "Getting To Yes" principle of BATNA.  The Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement.  In other words, you did your best to obtain what was the bottom line for the US (in my case, they were nuts-and-bolts issues involving NATO and the OECD).  If you knew your BATNA, you could always stick to your guns, knowing that if consensus on the agreement in question was not achievable, you could walk away.

But if you wanted to return to negotiate with the same people (representing the same countries) another day, you didn't say, "Sure, I'll join the consensus," only to take it back when the session was over.  That would be called negotiating in bad faith.  Like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, like the apostle who denied his master, like all those good folk expressions ("cheat me once, shame on you; cheat me twice, shame on me"), who is going to trust the American Delegation next time?  On Climate Change.  On missiles in Europe.  On anything where the good name of the United States is the one thing that counts.

With his "signing statement" post Bali, President Bush has effectively done what he has already done vis-a-vis Iraq: "It's over to you, Hillary (or Barack, or John, or whoever inherits the Oval Office in 2009).  The list of major issues to be resolved by that lucky person has just gotten longer.

Americans Against Torture © - My Personal “Persons of the Year”

Photo Source: McClatchy Newspapers

Time Magazine gives everyone their chance to vote for the "Person of the Year" 2007, from a list of ten, including people from J.K. Rowling to Mahmoud Ahmadinajad (I am not kidding).

The little "Copyright" symbol in my "Americans Against Torture" is, unfortunately, whimsical: no such organization exists, though a Gallup poll a couple of years ago showed that a majority of Americans opposed the use of torture: "Gallup pointed out that while President Bush recently said, "We do not torture," most Americans 'think otherwise.'"

Well, if "AAT" doesn't exist, readers near a patent office should feel free to steal the title and band together.  Individually, many Americans have already taken a strong stand against this practice which we all thought had been banned by the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, not to speak of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Worthy of "Persons of the Year" hall-of-fame-ness:

• Former President Jimmy Carter, our national conscience, spoke out early
• Senator John McCain, himself a torture victim, has legislated valiantly
• General Antonio Taguba, who helped awaken the world to the horrors of Abu Ghraib
• Scott Horton, lawyer-turned-blogger for Harper's & scourge of former Atty. Gen. Gonzales
• Jane Mayer, of The New Yorker, whose "Outsourcing of Torture" is must reading
• Mark Danner, same magazine,  author of "Torture and Truth"
• Joe Galloway*(below), war correspondent, author of "We Were Soldiers Once...and Young"
• Andrew Sullivan, blogger for The Atlantic, showed the Nazi roots of "enhanced interrogation"
• Ariel Dorfman, escapee from Pinochet's torture regime
• The US military JAGS, who drafted the torture-free US Army Interrogation Manual
• The Center for Victims of Torture: CVT used to just help victims of rogue regimes
• Human Rights Watch: world-respected voice based in New York

Well, including Chilean Ariel Dorfman in this list is o.k. if we define "American" in the Hemispheric sense.  He wrote "Death and the Maiden," and teaches in the US.  Ditto for Brit Andrew Sullivan.  Apologies to all the brave opponents of American Torture who don't appear on my list - I know there are many.

I guess people in the Bush Administration who have deemed the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and who refuse to believe that "when Americans do it, it can't be torture" have never learned the lessons of "Do Unto Others" and "What Goes Around Comes Around."  What I can't get is this: didn't they watch movies like Judgment at Nuremberg, The Great Escape, and Bridge on the River Kwai during their formative years and see that it's the Bad Guys who mistreat prisoners, who torture, abuse, interrogate in an "enhanced" fashion?  And that it was exactly that reprehensible behavior that landed Nazi German and Japanese camp chiefs before the international tribunals of the day?

My list shows that there are still people who can distinguish between the Bad Guys and the Good Guys, and they want to be part of the latter's team.  Go ahead and vote, if you want, for Time's laughable list of ten usual celebrity suspects.  But I salute the people and organizations in my (incomplete) list who remember what it is to be a truly patriotic American.

* The last word, from Joe Galloway's recent article in the McClatchy syndicate:

When George W. Bush was the governor of Texas, the state investigated, indicted, convicted and sentenced to prison for 10 years a county sheriff who, with his deputies, had waterboarded a criminal suspect. That sheriff got no pardon from Gov. Bush.

I rest my case.

Sarkozy in Algeria: What Can (and Cannot) Be Said About History

President Sarkozy at Roman ruins of Tipasa (Photo Source: AFP/Le Monde)

It's hard to keep up with "Speedy Sarkozy" (as Le Monde has taken to calling him), or my own appellation controlee "The Energizer Bunny."  I was simply going to refer in this post to Sarkozy's speech on his return from Algiers, but I have to specify: his speech to French and Algerian French veterans on the injustices done over the 45 years since Algerian independence.  Not his speech - very timely, touching, and targeted - to the FARC leader Manuel Marulanda proposing a humanitarian liberation of French/Colombian hostage politician Ingrid Betancourt.

President Sarkozy's visit to Algeria - the first French President to do so who does not have historical baggage through military or governmental service in support of colonialism - was, as the Algiers daily "Liberte" said today, "under the sign of business."  As usual, veteran Algerian political cartoonist Dilem (also of "Liberte") got it right in today's sketch ("After Sarkozy's speech on colonialism, Algerians were relieved; 5 billion euros!"):

There's nothing terribly wrong about a state visit that is a glorified business junket.  In fact, given the sensitivities between former colonizer and colonized, it might be more productive to stay away as much as possible from History.  Sarkozy did, however, make a speech in Algiers where he condemned the excesses of French colonialism as practiced in Algeria from 1830 to 1962, but he shied away from the A-word, and did not issue anything like an "apology" that could give comfort to those looking for a clear mea culpa.

But in my book, Sarkozy's most significant Algeria speech was delivered immediately after his return to France.  Last night he welcomed to the Elysee Palace the associations representing the combat veterans of the War in Algeria and the repatriated harkis (those who weren't repatriated in 1962 were horribly annihilated by their Algerian compatriots) and their descendants.   The harkis (Algerians who joined the doomed effort to keep Algeria French) are the real losers in the whole sad story of, as Alistair Horne called it, the "Savage War of Peace" that was Algeria's fight for independence from 1954 to 1962.  Those who survived the vengeful mobs made it to France, only to be shunted off to isolated camps, sometimes for decades.  Their families, born in France like the millions of other "beurs," were looked upon with scorn as the offspring of traitors.

For a thought-provoking look at how wrenching the harkis' choice of loyalties must have been, look no further than the little-known French-Belgian 2005 film "The Betrayal" ("La Trahison").  This is from Variety's review:

The army destroys a village suspected of collaborating with the FLN and moves the residents to a refugee camp. Torture of Algerian suspects is an everyday occurrence at headquarters.  A notebook falls into the army's hands that seems to prove Taieb and the other Arab soldiers in Roque's unit are double agents, planning to slaughter their fellow soldiers.  It could be an FLN trick to sow suspicion and undermine morale -- or it could be the real deal. If Roque arrests innocent men, he will proving the French Army is racist; but if they really are traitors and he doesn't act in time, blood will be shed.  A less ambitious film might have stuck to watching events unfold from Roque's point of view alone, but here plenty of scenes show the Algerian soldiers talking among themselves, their dialogue in Arabic never quite proving or disproving the accusations against them.  The picture cleverly plays with language to draw out suspense, not just to create mystery for its own sake but to allow the full complexity of the issues to sink in.  The performers deftly sustain the air of ambiguity, and there's a soft-spoken intelligence. Even the battle scenes are quiet...

In Algeria, there is still little or no sympathy for the Algerians (some of whom, like those portrayed in "The Betrayal," were drafted into the French Army) who fought with the French.  Finally, in his speech last night, Sarkozy recognized the "debt" owed to those who joined the French cause, and the justification for "reparations" to make up for the shabby treatment they have received.  As Sarkozy said, "Pour la France, il s'agit aujourd'hui d'une question d'honneur" (no translation required).

Here's my question: when will an American director make a film about the Iraqis who joined the Coalition Forces as interpreters, drivers, or civil affairs advisors?  Or those Iraqis who are so identified to the American occupation that whatever regime follows the inevitable American withdrawal will treat them as traitors?  And what American president will have the guts to speak of "honor" when it comes to taking care of those who - for the second time since the Shiites suicidally heeded George H.W. Bush's call to rise up against Saddam in the aftermath of the liberation of Kuwait - joined this particular American Crusade?