Heard of the "Al Qaeda Training Manual"? For those who are unwilling to accept the fact that some pretty nasty stuff is going on at our gulags rehabilitation centers at G-mo, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere, the "Al Qaeda Training Manual" (hereafter, the "AQTM", or the "Manual") is what explains why all those terrible allegations about beatings, torture, and Koran-flushing have been made by detainees. You see, the thinking among certain circles in the blogosphere and talk radio (see here, here, here, here, and here) is that the detainees who've been making some of these claims were told what to do and say out of this Al Qaeda playbook (including the detainees who have been released after we concluded they weren't connected to Al Qaeda), so that even though much of the alleged torture was well-documented by our guys (and, in the case of Abu Ghraib, well-photographed), the prisoners are still lying about everything, or at least lying about everything that didn't involve Pvt. England.

Having an hour to kill this afternoon, I decided to read the AQTM, to see how it was that I, Amnesty International, the Red Cross, Newsweek, the Washington Post, and the rest of the MSM had been so completely duped. Let's just say that if I wanted to draft a brief for the defense in this matter, showing that the Koran-flushing tales are little more than an Islamist version of the hippies-spat-on-Vietnam Vets urban legend, the AQTM would probably not be the strongest evidence at my disposal. For one thing, much of the material is clearly dated, as this passage (p. 16) reveals:

The member of the Organization must be Moslem. How can an unbeliever, someone from a revealed religion [Christian, Jew], a secular person, a communist, etc. protect Islam and Moslems and defend their goals and secrets when he does not believe in that religion [Islam]? The Israeli Army requires that a fighter be of the Jewish religion. Likewise, the command leadership in the Afghan and Russian armies requires any one with an officer’s position to be a member of the communist party.

One would hope that our enemies would crack open a newspaper at some point over the past fifteen years, or at least know that their former allies in the Afghani government were not communists. This error is ironic, since later in the AQTM the reader is instructed (pp. 21-2) to avail himself of the benefits of the Free Press:

In order to gather enemy information, the Military Organization can use means such as magazines, publications, periodicals, and official printed matter. Through these means, it is possible to learn about major government events and about the news, meetings, and travel of Presidents, ministers, and commanders.

Thus, it isn't just the violent rhetoric, the apocolyptic attitude, and the bellicose manner that the bloggers of the Right and the jihadists have in common; they also share a parasitic connection to the news media, which they use voraciously (and selectively), all while trying to destroy that very institution. And, assuming the authenticity of the AQTM, both groups apparently have a hard time believing that the Cold War is finally over.

Another interesting fact is that the names "Al Qaeda" and "Osama" never appear anywhere in the manual. In fact, the AQTM seems more consistent with an "old school" terrorist network that concerned itself with the random assasination, kidnapping and spying than on the ambitious program of OBL. There's nothing in the manual that would provide tips on how to get into a flight school, or how to strap enough explosive material onto one's body to blow up the Rose Bowl, or even survival tips for living in caves. Most of is is just common sense advice, such as don't discuss what you're doing with your wife, or don't try to be conspicuous in a crowd.

And a lot of it is quite chilling, too, if one assumes the authenticity of the AQTM, in the same manner that The Anarchists Cookbook isn't an easy read. But unfortunately for the Soft-on-Torture crowd, nowhere in the Manual does it instruct anyone to lie about torture, or to fabricate instances of Koran-abuse. There is a passage (p.16) that instructs prisoners to "...insist on proving that torture was inflicted upon them by State Security [investigators] before the judge," but considering that this was probably written well before 9/11, and was aimed at movements within Arab countries (p.9), such as Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt and Syria, where the torture of prisoners would have been the rule, not the exception, this is merely evidence that they should document the pain inflicted upon them for reasons of propoganda, and can hardly be construed as evidence that our accusers are plying misinformation about their treatment.

As it turns out, the Bush Administration is now acknowledging that they did have reports that the Koran had been deliberately mistreated by interrogators. Better luck next time, fellas.

Quickie Trivia: With his release by the Phillies yesterday, the major league career of Jose Offerman is apparently at an end. Assuming that another major league team is not gullible enough to sign him, Offy will go into the record books as the second player in major league history to have homered in both his first, and his final, plate appearances. Who was the first?

Last night's season finale of Alias sure had the feel of a Final Episode Ever, at least up until the last two seconds of the show. The Rambaldi mystery solved, Sloane saving the day by sacrificing his own daughter to save the planet, and the oh-so-cool offing of the Palpitinesque Derevko sister, Elena...all seeming to indicate a valedictory of sorts for the show, which has finally achieved respectable ratings in its fourth season. Then, out of nowhere, the shocking final moment; I doubt that any show has ever thrown in a cliffhanger on such sudden notice, almost as if the producers tossed in the car crash at the last second once they were assured the show was going to be renewed for another season.

I noticed 24 did much the same thing on Monday. The shot of Jack Bauer walking into the sunrise, having been disowned by the government he served and by the woman he loved, officially a non-person; no cliffhanger, just a dangler for the fans in the event the show (or Kiefer S.) didn't return.

I think it should go without saying that the agreement to let Owen, Brown and Pryor receive floor votes on their nominations should not be seen as setting a precedent for future Supreme Court nominations. The standard should naturally be higher for the nation's highest court than for the Court of Appeals; a judge whose politics may be acceptable in the context of an appellate court with dozens of sitting judges, and whose decisions are appealable, may be deemed too extreme in the context of a smaller court whose decisions are final and binding. And since one of the three judges (ie., Janice Rogers) may be headed for a defeat before the full Senate, it would hardly behoove the Bushies to interpret the agreement as a license to nominate Clarence Thomas for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

In addition, the agreement to maintain the filibuster against at least two other nominees is evidence that the agreement was based more on political horsetrading than on anything that could be used as binding precedent for the future. William Myers and Henry Saad are no less conservative than the Fortunate Three, and there doesn't appear to be anything in the public record that would indicate that either is personally corrupt. Their exclusion was clearly intended by the Gang of Fourteen to be a signal that the filibuster could be used in certain circumstances against judicial nominees, without defining what those circumstances might be. Pretending that this language ties the hands of any Democratic Senator when it comes to the next Supreme Court nominee reflects the stupid tendency of liberals to find defeat in any compromise.

This is not unqualified good news for Democrats. The filibuster remains an option for the future, and it may prevent the rubberstamping of a Clarence Thomas or an Antonin Scalia to the position of Chief Justice. Republican Senators also stood up to the Christian Right on this issue; the long-term ramifications of defying Dr. Dobson and his acolytes will be felt on future nominations. The agreement also affirms the principle that "advice and consent" entails the consultation with members of both parties before nomination, a proviso that Democrats can use in the future to justify any "extraordinary circumstance" triggering a filibuster.

It's also a defeat for Bill Frist, who clearly didn't have the backing of his party's rank-and-file, so that's cool as well. By allowing votes on some of the appellate nominees, the Democrats look reasonable and moderate, while forcing Snowe, Chafee, DeWine, et al., to take a position on the worthiness of Janice Brown and Patricia Owen that is really going to matter; the "threat" of the filibuster allowed them to vote for some of Bush's more extreme picks without fear that their vote would matter, a safety net that at least with some of these picks no longer exists. And lastly, keeping enough Democrats in line on future cloture votes was going to be more difficult than it was last year, when the party had four more Senators, so this deal strengthens Harry Reid enormously.

But the advantage of having a vote on the nuclear option was that if Frist lost, it would effectively act as a vote of confidence on Frist, as well as preventing Bush from stacking the appellate courts with the likes of Janice Brown. If Frist won, it would mean the beginning of the end of the filibuster, which would cause short-term pain for liberals, but as I wrote a week and a half ago, it would also allow the achievement of some wonderful progressive goals in the future. So I guess the best-case scenario would be for Bush to try to nominate some wack-job from Texas or Alabama to the Supreme Court, then have the Senate revisit this issue when more people are paying attention.

Smythe sez...Revenge of the Sith wasn't bad at all; better than Return and Clones, and much better than Phantom. What worked: great effects (if you can, see this film on a digital projection screen, or better yet, IMAX); the two Scottish actors (Ewan McGregor and Ian McDiarmid) playing Obi-wan and the Emporer, respectively; the final 45 minutes, which features the slaughter of the Jedi and the emergence of the Empire. What didn't: uninvolving battle scenes; General Grievous; Natalie Portman and Hayden Christenson, neither of whom strikes a true note in their scenes together.

I saw the movie at the multiplex next to Universal Studios, a place I had not visited in awhile. In fact, I can recall the exact date I was last there: October 11, 1998. That was the day my father died. He had slipped into a coma a few days earlier, and it was clear that it was just a matter of time. I think I ended up seeing a movie, then going to Gladstones, a seafood restaurant which is sort of a pretentious version of Red Lobster, to nosh and watch Game 5 of the ALCS, plus whatever assorted football games were playing that Sunday.

Obviously, I wasn't really in the mood for sports that day, so I came home to be with my dad. I held his hand and spoke to him, read him the battlefield speech from Henry V that he loved so much, as well as speeches from Winston Churchill ("Sail on, O Ship of State...") and John L. Lewis ("It ill-behooves those who sup at labor's table...") that always seemed to inspire him. I don't know if he heard me, but I figured it couldn't hurt. He died that evening, in the middle of Game 4 of the NLCS; like Nick Hornby in Fever Pitch, sports play way too important a role in marking the chapters of my life. There isn't a day that goes by when I don't think back to that night, nor a week that goes by without a vivid dream about my father.

Just asking...who is Kylie Minogue?

Santorum Time: It's about time someone went after those little Eichmans in the Senate supporting the filibuster....

Ed Wood Lives: That howlingly bad script Julie Delpy was pitching about the legendary Countess Bathory last year is finally set to come to life, starring the bland/blonde French actress, who will also make her directorial debut, and her frequent screen collaborator, Ethan Hawke.

Credit Where It's Due: Here's one area where No Child Left Behind has been an unqualified success....

Almost four years ago, less than a week after 9/11, Andrew Sullivan made this especially disturbing attack on the patriotically incorrect:

The middle part of the country - the great red zone that voted for Bush - is clearly ready for war. The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead - and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column. But by striking at the heart of New York City, the terrorists ensured that at least one deep segment of the country ill-disposed toward a new president is now the most passionate in his defense.

As someone who lives in one of those coastal enclaves (Los Angeles) and matriculated at another (Berkeley), I took that very personally. Having studied American history, I knew that civil liberties are often a casualty of war, and Sullivan's broadside set off alarms to those of us who were not willing to bow down unquestioningly at the feet of our Maximum Leader. The sentiments expressed in that column was one of the reasons I decided to start this website back in April of 2002.

Having said that, I cannot think of anything that is less important to the issues of 1) Gay civil rights; 2) our use of torture and human rights deprivations at Abu Ghraib, G-mo and elsewhere; 3) the efforts by the Bush Administration to quash the free press when it attempts to look behind the curtains; 4) the troubling state of the Catholic Church, and its declining moral relevance; and 5) whatever else he may be expounding on this week, than what Andrew Sullivan wrote four days after the collapse of the Towers. Certainly, Sullivan's opinions carry no greater weight by how far he has apparently traveled in the past four years, but neither are his eloquent opinions on the above issues diminished in any way by what he said just after the Towers collapsed.

OK, so he had a louder megaphone than the rest of us did four years ago, and in the heat of the moment, he was too quick to find a scapegoat. Like so many other people, he was hopeful when he should have been skeptical, and he got suckered by the Bushies. All of that might be an interesting chapter to his biography, but it also just so happens that the GayCatholicTory is writing the most interesting s*** in the blogosphere lately. What he said four years ago should be no more germane to the present topics than Earl Warren's support for the internment of the Japanese during WWII was at the time of the Brown decision, or Robert Byrd's opinions on civil rights six decades ago are during today's filibuster debate. Grow up.

The Good German: Glenn Reynolds defends the soft-on-torture position.

L.A. Mayor: Absentee returns give Villaraigosa a narrow margin (<3%) over Hahn. A bit of a surprise, considering that the polls consistently gave the challenger a double-digit lead over the incumbent, but it still seems likely Los Angeles will have a new Mayor. The L.A. Times has a group blog covering the election, and Villaraigosa has the support of Hugh Hewitt, who feels Antonio V. is a nice, charismatic guy who will get clobbered in any gubernatorial run.

UPDATE: About a quarter of the vote is in, and Villaraigosa now has a 16+% lead. It's over.

The most frustrating type of fandom is to be an American fan of a British stage actress. If she's really good at what she does, she will spend her career doing plays at the West End, or the odd TV-movie for Channel Four, and never feel the need to go Hollywood or do anything that will make its way to my small corner of the world. While less-talented performers will come over to this country, become stars, and fade away into obscurity after their fortieth birthday, she'll be perfecting her craft, playing for the long haul.

Thus, the bittersweet discovery this week that the woman pictured at the top right corner of my website, Phoebe Nicholls, is set to appear in a play opening at the Hampstead Theatre in London, commencing in mid-June. No movies, no TV, as far as I can tell, just a performance in the one medium I have absolutely no access to, thousands of miles away. Any true fanatical interest in the work of an actor or director, whether great or mediocre, compels a desire to be a completist, to see anything and everything he's done, in order to gain a more detailed perspective of his career, to compare performances, but mainly just to indulge some idiosyncratic weirdness in oneself. Yet with Mrs. Sturridge, I can't see the one avenue in which she has most excelled; its almost like having access only to Shakespeare's sonnets, and not his plays. Sigh.

Lord, I'm pathetic....

Andrew Sullivan calls Scotty McLellan's bluff on G-mo.

It's easy to forget how stupid the Far Right is, especially when they always seem to win national elections. They do seem to have a knack for appealing to base public sentiments, and I suppose religious demogoguery does entail a certain genius, but when it comes to the actual skills necessary to govern, these people just don't have it.

Witness the on-going tour de farce concerning the Senate sub-committee investigating the "Oil-for-Food Scandal". The investigation, designed to score cheap political points against the U.N. (wow, there's corruption in the Middle East; who knew?), has now completely boomeranged. This morning's revelation by the committee that more than half of the money went to American oil companies, and was signed off by the Bush Administration, has finally caught the attention of the media. And as if that wasn't bad enough, today was the day that Loony Left M.P. George Galloway was called to testify in open session about allegations he personally received kickbacks from Saddam. There was only one problem: the committee was relying on evidence that seems to have originated from the same mill that produced the Killian Documents. Quote the Beeb:

[A] spokesman for Mr Galloway's Respect party told a press conference the document used by the Senate hearing was a forgery. The spokesman said: "The actual first document, we don't know where it is, they don't know where it is and all they have is a photocopy handed over by an unnamed source." Typographical analysis showed Mr Galloway's name was in a different typeface, a lighter shade and at a different angle to the rest of the document, he said. The spokesman suggested Mr Galloway's name had been stuck to the bottom of the list, and the document photocopied. He also cited testimony from an Iraqi who claimed he forged lists of people who profited from the oil for food scheme.

Galloway, who won a libel suit against the Daily Telegraph after revealing a similar scam, then tore the sub-committee chairman, Norman Coleman, a new one, before forcing the rest of the Republicans to strip naked and stacked into a human pyramid.

Hey, look who's got a blog...just in time, too. [link via WOC]

Query: Isn't the fact that the Bushies are "categorically" denying the Flushed Koran story strong evidence that the allegations are true? They haven't told the truth about anything else....

UPDATE: More examples of the allegation that predate the Newsweek story, here, here, and here. I don't know if this story is true, or if it is an Islamic version of the urban myth that war protesters spat on returning vets after Vietnam, but I do believe that the publishers of Newsweek should politely tell Scott McClellan where to shove his demands for a full retraction.

UPDATE [II]: TalkLeft has an even more thorough review of the allegations, all published before Newsweek ran its story, that should give the soft-on-torture crowd some pause.

Attn. Nerds This morning brings four pivotal reviews for Revenge of the Sith: the LA Times (qualified thumbs-up), the New Yorker (pan), the NY Times (full-throated rave), and Newsweek (ditto).

The problem with using Newsweek's entirely honorable correction of its story that the Pentagon was about to admit in a report that some of its soldiers had flushed the Koran down the toilet during interrogation of POW's, as yet another excuse for lib'rul media bashing, is that the story has been around for some time:

Afghan men freed today after spending months in legal limbo as U.S. prisoners in the war on terrorism said they were generally well-fed and given medical care, but housed in cramped cells and sometimes shackled, hit and humiliated.

(snip)

Some of the men released today were close-shaven, but most kept their beards. The men who wore their beards in the long fashion of the Taliban complained most about poor treatment at the hands of Americans and insults against Islam. Ehsannullah, 29, said American soldiers who initially questioned him in Kandahar before shipping him to Guantanamo hit him and taunted him by dumping the Koran in a toilet. "It was a very bad situation for us," said Ehsannullah, who comes from the home region of the Taliban leader, Mohammad Omar. "We cried so much and shouted, 'Please do not do that to the Holy Koran.'"

Merza Khan, who had been captured in northern Afghanistan while fighting for the Taliban, said Americans in Kandahar tied him up and alternately forced him to lie face down on the ground, then squat with his hands on his head for hours. He also said he saw American soldiers throw the Koran on the ground and sit on it while in Kandahar. (emphasis mine)

--Washington Post, March 26, 2003 [link via Atrios/Avedon Carol]