Who are the fools who claim religion increases morality? If yet another example were needed that religion is associated with evil as often as any other set of beliefs, the Modern Orthodox rabbis have provided an example [Rabbis: Israel Too Worried Over Civilian Deaths ]:
America’s main organization of Modern Orthodox rabbis is calling on the Israeli military to be less concerned with avoiding civilian casualties on the opposing side when carrying out future operations.
Following a solidarity mission to Israel last week, leaders of the Rabbinical Council of America issued a statement prodding the Israeli military to review its policy of taking pains to spare the lives of innocent civilians, in light of Hezbollah’s tactic of hiding its fighters and weaponry among Lebanese civilians. Because Hezbollah “puts Israeli men and women at extraordinary risk of life and limb through unconscionably using their own civilians, hospitals, ambulances, mosques… as human shields, cannon fodder, and weapons of asymmetric warfare,” the rabbinical council said in a statement, “we believe that Judaism would neither require nor permit a Jewish soldier to sacrifice himself in order to save deliberately endangered enemy civilians.”
Don’t tell me all the beneficial effects on morality of religion. In many cases its the opium that dfeadens the moral sense. We all know about those “Islamic terrorists,” but there are plenty of Christian and Jewish killers too. Is there any evidence that religion has a net positive effect in the world? Perhaps the amount of killing would decline if we had more atheists? I can’t see any contrary evidence.
August 31st, 2006
MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann directly takes on Donald Rumsfeld and all the other “leaders” who argue that the public’s role is solely to listen and to obey.
Excerpt:
In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?
The confusion we — as its citizens— must now address, is stark and forbidding.
But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note — with hope in your heart — that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.
The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.
And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a “new type of fascism.”
As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that — though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.
This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.
These comments will be widely quoted in the years to come. The fact that this can come from a commentator on a “major” TV station raises hope that democracy just might survive the monsters who now seek to destroy it.
Make sure to watch the entire seven minute commentary. Only if you can’t watch, read the transcript.
August 31st, 2006
As Iraq deteriorates into full-scale civil war and fades from our TV screens, the Washington Post reports that Sunnis are now being systematically killed at Iraqi hospitals
In Baghdad these days, not even the hospitals are safe. In growing numbers, sick and wounded Sunnis have been abducted from public hospitals operated by Iraq’s Shiite-run Health Ministry and later killed, according to patients, families of victims, doctors and government officials.
As a result, more and more Iraqis are avoiding hospitals, making it even harder to preserve life in a city where death is seemingly everywhere. Gunshot victims are now being treated by nurses in makeshift emergency rooms set up in homes. Women giving birth are smuggled out of Baghdad and into clinics in safer provinces.
In most cases, family members and hospital workers said, the motive for the abductions appeared to be nothing more than religious affiliation. Because public hospitals here are controlled by Shiites, the killings have raised questions about whether hospital staff have allowed Shiite death squads into their facilities to slaughter Sunni Arabs.
And:
‘Tell me where you live!’ “Tell me where you live!” a nurse at Medical City snapped at the arriving patients, Obeidi recalled, as the staff moved residents of mainly Sunni areas into a separate room.
A few moments later, he saw Mahdi Army troops handcuff five Sunni men who were donating blood — including the friend who had brought him to the hospital — and haul them out of the hospital, Obeidi said. A Sunni doctor ran up to him and said he would be killed unless he fled immediately.
As the Post reports, one minor side effect of this horror is that mortality counts are even more unreliable than usual as Sunnis are avoiding hospitals, where their deaths used to officially recorded.
The reluctance of Sunnis to enter hospitals is making it increasingly difficult to assess the number of casualties caused by sectarian violence. During a recent attack on Shiite pilgrims, a top Sunni political leader accused the Shiite-led government of ignoring large numbers of Sunnis who he said were also killed and wounded in the clash, though he was unable to offer even a rough estimate of the Sunni casualties.
August 30th, 2006
Tom Lantos, a key member of the so-called “Democratic Party” has put a hold on US aid to Lebanon until Lebanon submits to Israel’s demands.
“The international community must use all our available means to stiffen Lebanon’s spine and to convince the government of Lebanon to have the new UNIFIL troops on the Syrian border in adequate numbers,” said Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives’ International Relations Committee.
Lantos said he was putting a legislative hold on Bush’s proposal to provide $230 million in aid for Lebanon in the aftermath of the 34-day war between Israel and Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas.
As the top Democrat on the International Relations Committee, Lantos has the power to hold up legislation.
“It is very much my hope that I will be able to lift the hold when the reasons will no longer be present,” he said at Israel’s Foreign Ministry, where he met Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni after talks with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Unfortunately, on the Israel-Arab conflict, the Democrats are even worse than the Bush administration, which takes some doing.
August 28th, 2006
My article Psychologists, Guantanamo and Torture: A Profession Struggles to Save Its Soul has been translated into Spanish by Germán Leyens as Psicólogos, Guantánamo y la tortura. It seems to be making the rounds across Latin America asI’ve heard from it (indirectly) from colleagues in at least three different Latin American countries. I guess citizens there, with their not so distant memories of state torture and its health professional enablers, are more concerned than Americans with their noble vision of their country as one that can do no wrong.
August 28th, 2006
Juan Cole has posted Achcar’s latest analysis, from the Epilogue to Perilous Power: The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy, by Noam Chomsky & Gilbert Achcar, edited with a Preface by Stephen R. Shalom [to be published by Paradigm Publishers September 15, 2006, Hardcover $22.95. To order the book at a 15% individual customer discount please click here.]
A few excerpts [but make sure to read the whole analysis]:
In the past six months, the situation in Iraq has deteriorated in a truly frightening manner, proceeding inexorably toward the actualization of the worst-case scenario — the worst for Iraq, that is, which is not necessarily the worst for Washington, as I shall explain.
…
Iraq has not yet reached a state of full-fledged civil war. Indeed, what I characterized a year ago as a “low-intensity civil war” [2] had not ceased increasing in intensity throughout 2005 and early 2006, even before the sudden and most serious flare-up provoked by the Samarra attack. Nevertheless, drawing on my own Lebanese experience, I would say that there are two elements that at this moment still stand between the present situation in Iraq and a full-scale civil war. The first is the persistence of a unified Iraqi government and the existence of still-unified Iraqi armed forces: In Lebanon, it was the split-up of the government in early 1976 and the disintegration of the Lebanese army that signaled the shift to a full-fledged civil war. The second element is the existence of foreign armed forces playing the role of deterrent and arbiter, like the role that the Syrian army used to play — but only intermittently — in Lebanon from 1976 onward.
To say this is to point to what I hinted at already, namely that the slide of Iraq toward the worst-case scenario for its population does not necessarily represent the worst-case scenario for Washington. Actually, most of what has happened in recent months in Iraq, except for the publicity surrounding U.S. troops’ criminal behavior, has suited Washington’s designs. The sharp increase in sectarian tensions as well as the defeat of Muqtada al-Sadr’s project played blatantly into Washington’s hands. Along with many others, I have warned for quite a long time that, when all is said and done, Washington’s only trump card in Iraq is going to be the sectarian and ethnic divisions among Iraqis, which the Bush administration is exploiting in the most cynical way according to the most classical of all imperial recipes: “Divide and rule.” This is what Washington’s proconsuls in Baghdad, from L. Paul Bremer to Khalilzad, have tried their best to put in place and take advantage of.
Seen in this light, the present flare-up in sectarian tensions is a godsend for Washington, to the point that many Iraqis suspect that U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies stand behind the worst sectarian attacks. Note how the occupation seems now “legitimized” by the fact that many Arab Sunnis in mixed areas, who feel threatened, request the presence of foreign troops to guarantee their safety as they have no confidence in Iraqi armed forces. [3] What a paradox, when you think of the fact that Arab Sunnis were and are still the main constituency of the anti-occupation armed insurgency — though surely not the only one: There has been a growing pattern of anti-occupation armed actions in southern Iraq that is hardly reported, if at all, in the Western media, or even in the Arab media for that matter.
…
ow, if U.S. forces in Iraq are to be compared to a firefighting force, the truth of the matter is that they are led by highly dangerous arsonists!
…
There is no way out of this burning circle but one: Only by announcing immediately the total and unconditional withdrawal of U.S. troops can a decisive step be taken toward putting out the fire.
Read the rest.
August 28th, 2006
One of the defenses of the American Psychological Association (APA) to charges of being soft on psychologist involvement in torture has been to claim that the APA policy is really virtually identical to the apparently much stronger American Medical Association (AMA) policy adopted in June. The AMA policy stated [thanks to Bioethics Blog]:
For this report, we define interrogation as questioning related to law enforcement or to military and national security intelligence gathering, designed to prevent harm or danger to individuals, the public, or national
security. Interrogations are distinct from questioning used by physicians to assess the physical or mental condition of an individual. To be appropriate, interrogations must avoid the use of coercion-that is, threatening or causing harm through physical injury or mental suffering. We define a “detainee” as a criminal suspect, prisoner of war, or any other individual who is being held involuntarily by legitimate authorities.
Physicians who engage in any activity that relies on their medical knowledge and skills must continue to uphold ethical principles. Questions about the propriety of physician participation in interrogations and in the development of interrogation strategies may be addressed by balancing obligations to individuals with obligations to protect third parties and the public. The further removed the physician is from direct involvement with a detainee, the more justifiable is a role serving the public interest. Applying this general
approach, physician involvement with interrogations during law enforcement or intelligence gathering should be guided by the following:
(1) Physicians may perform physical and mental assessments of detainees to determine the need for and to provide medical care. When so doing, physicians must disclose to the detainee the extent to which others have access to information included in medical records. Treatment must never be conditional on a patient’s participation in an interrogation.
(2) Physicians must neither conduct nor directly participate in an interrogation, because a role as physician-interrogator undermines the physician’s role as healer and thereby erodes trust in the individual physician-interrogator and in the medical profession.
(3) Physicians must not monitor interrogations with the intention of intervening in the process, because this constitutes direct participation in interrogation.
(4) Physicians may participate in developing effective interrogation strategies for general training purposes. These strategies must not threaten or cause physical injury or mental suffering and must be humane and respect the rights of individuals.
(5) When physicians have reason to believe that interrogations are coercive, they must report their observations to the appropriate authorities. If authorities are aware of coercive interrogations but have not intervened, physicians are ethically obligated to report the offenses to independent authorities that have the power to investigate or adjudicate such allegations.
In response to this apparently unequivocal policy against physician involvement in interrogation, Stephen Behnke, the APA’s Ethic Director argued in an American Psychologist article that the policies are actually virtually identical. Thus, Behnke states:
“the AMA report states that physicians may consult to interrogations by developing interrogation strategies that do “not threaten or cause physical injury or mental suffering” and that are “humane and respect the rights of individuals.” Substitute “psychologist” for “physician,” and the relevant passages in the AMA report could be inserted into the PENS report with no change in APA’s position whatsoever—that “It is consistent with the APA Ethics Code for psychologists to serve in consultative roles to interrogation and information-gathering processes for national-security related purposes” when acting in accordance with strict conditions. While one recommendation in the AMA report places physician consultation in a training context, numerous statements in the body of the report and in the report’s “Conclusion” convey a scope of involvement that extends well beyond training. As one example, the AMA report states explicitly that the presence of a psychiatrist at an interrogation may serve to benefit the individual under questioning by virtue of a trust that can facilitate the interrogation, i.e., information-eliciting process. The AMA report must be carefully read in its entirety to understand and appreciate the breadth of its position on the appropriate role for physicians in interrogations.”
In response, the President of the AMA issued a letter on August 22 denying the similarity. It states [portions of this letter appeared in Benjamin Greenberg’s “Hungry Blues blog earlier today]:
August 22, 2006
Leonard S. Rubenstein, JD
Executive Director
Physicians for Human Rights
1156 15th St. NW
Washington, DC 20005
Dear Mr. Rubenstein:
Thank you for your letter regarding the AMA’s ethical guidelines regarding physician participation in interrogation. As you correctly state, the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) presented a report on this topic to the House of Delegate at its Annual Meeting in June 2006, and the report’s recommendations were adopted. I certainly believe that the recommendations pertaining to the ethical role of physicians are unambiguous; in part, they state:
(2) Physicians must neither conduct nor directly participate in an interrogation, because a role as physician-interrogator undermines the physician’s role as healer and thereby erodes trust in the individual physician-interrogator and in the medical profession.
(3) Physicians must not monitor interrogations with the intention of intervening in the process, because this constitutes direct participation in interrogation.
(4) Physicians may participate in developing effective interrogation strategies for general training purposes. These strategies must not threaten or cause physical injury or mental suffering and must be humane and respect the rights of individuals.
In developing its recommendations, I know that the members of CEJA deliberated the meaning of every word; I also know that the AMA Code of Medical Ethics does not use the words “must not” lightly. The guidelines, therefore, leave no room for confusion. The AMA has adopted a strict prohibition on physician participation in the interrogation of an individual, and only permits that medical knowledge be used to develop strategies that can be presented in the context of general training. This was clearly reiterated in the statement the AMA released on June 12, 2006 (copy enclosed).
The AMA is aware of the article published in the July/August issue of the Monitor on Psychology. We have found that the commentary analyzing the AMA and the American Psychological Association positions did not accurately represent our ethical guidelines. By arguing that the two positions are similar and by failing to point out critical differences, we believe the readers of the Monitor could be induced in serious error regarding the ethically acceptable role for physicians. For this reason, the chair of CEJA, Dr. Robert Sade, has submitted a letter to the editor of the Monitor to refute the proposition that the policies are similar. In his words: “AMA and APA policy differ substantially in ethical acceptability of supporting interrogation.”
While important differences exist between physicians and psychologists, I sincerely hope that in matters of interrogation, our respective organizations can be united in making sure that professional expertise is used to heal and to protect only, and never to exploit the physical, mental or emotional vulnerabilities of other fellow human beings.
On a final note, let me thank your organization for giving voice to concerned physicians in matters related to human rights and the treatment of detainees.
Sincerely,
William G. Plested, MD
AMA President
Enclosure
cc: Robert M. Sade, M.D.
To be fair, it should be noted that Behnke refers to the “body of the report” and insists that this report must be read in its entirety. I have so far not been able to get access to the text of this full report. AMA officials state that the report is being prepared for publication in a medical journal. Most such journals have a strict policy against publishing papers that have already been reported in the popular press. Thus, they refuse to release the report prior to publication. [In cases like this, of public policy relevance, I find this journal policy to be quite upsetting and immoral.]
Additionally, I was told, however, that the report has no official standing with the AMA. It was not adopted, only the above Recommendations were adopted by vote, and that the Recommendations stand on their own. Only with the publication of this full report can we be certain, but, at this point, it certainly looks like the claim that the APA’s and AMA’s policies are virtually identical is yet another cloud thrown up to obscure the APA’s long-standing policy of protecting psychologists’ participating in the abuses at Guantanamo and elsewhere.
August 27th, 2006
Crooks and Liars has a hilarious Bill Maher skit on the scientists’ demoting Pluto from planethood.
Bill: “I say it’s time for the United States to sever it’s ties with science all together and withdrawal from the solar system”
August 26th, 2006
The Los Angeles Times, via ZNet, has a very interesting article on worker cooperatives being established with state aid in Venezuela. These cooperatives give workers ownership rights and an involvement in decision-making in their enterprises. In many instances, these cooperatives involve only partial worker ownership, with the former owner also retaining partial rights.
A strength of cooperatives is that they pose a democratic alternative to a private market-driven system that gives most social resources and power to the wealthy, while at the same time forming a participatory democratic base that potentially can form an alternative to any centralist, dictatorial tendencies present in the Venezuelan system. [I am not commenting on the extent of such dictatorial tendencies as good information has been hard to obtain as all information providers have strong biases that color their reports on this issue. I am simply saying that such tendencies inevitably exist in any “socialist-leaning” state and need to be countered by participatory democratic forces and structures.]
One problem with cooperatives is that they then function in a market economy and are subject to all the perverse incentives characteristic of markets: profitability triumphs over human needs and markets apparently inevitably tend to increase inequality as profits flow to the successful who then have more capital to invest.
Thus, I am skeptical that a market-cooperative system can build a human society. But I would love to be proved wrong. As a libertarian socialist, I welcome all experiments at trying to increase the participatory democratic forces in society, especially in the workplace. So lets follow this experiment to see what works and what doesn’t.
As a psychologist/psychoanalyst, I would love to study the effects of workplace ownership and participation on the participants’ psychology. How do they cope with the responsibilities and tensions? Do the participatory democratic experiences at work translate into changes in other aspects of workers’ lives? Does the experience of participating in a cooperative lead to a sense of “we,” combating the pervasive individualism of modern capitalist societies? How are values affected by involvement in a cooperative? If anyone has information on these issues, I would love to receive it.
Excerpt from article:
“Before we had a boss. Now we are the bosses,” said Hermogenes Garcia, a longtime maintenance man at the Guaiqueri.
The hotel is among 100,000 cooperatives formed in Venezuela in the last two years that are the centerpiece of President Hugo Chavez’s new socialist model to create jobs and redistribute this oil-rich country’s wealth. They now employ 7% of the country’s workforce, a number that could grow to 30% in a few years, government officials say.
Chavez is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in oil and tax revenue on the cooperatives. Although there have been allegations of gross inefficiency and graft, cooperatives have become a powerful part of the economy and society.
More than 700,000 impoverished workers across the nation have suddenly become stakeholders, such as the 200 families in Bolivar state that were recently given the right to operate a toll road connecting state capital Ciudad Bolivar and Puerto Ordaz. Poor workers are now operating steel and textile factories, fisheries and dairy farms across Venezuela with the prospect of sharing in whatever profits the enterprises turn.
“Before this was just a job. Now you feel the hotel is yours,” said Robert Carreno, head of housecleaning at the 40-room Hotel Kamarata, another hotel on Margarita Island that recently converted to a cooperative. “I have to give much more of myself now.”
August 26th, 2006
While we’ve been preoccupied with other aspects of the sorry state of the world, Revere at Effect Measure reminds us that avian flu is still a major, and growing, threat. We shouldn’t let the absence of headlines lead us to think the potential for a pandemic has passed. Also, we should always keep in mind that, if not H5N1, then another influenza strain will likely become pandemic in the not too distant future.
Excerpt:
If you confront other people who think bird flu has gone away as a concern or read news articles to that effect, consider this. In April of this year there were 45 countries reporting infections in their bird or poultry populations. Now, four months later, there are 55. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) continues to warn us that the virus is spreading throughout Asia, Africa and Europe.
The number of confirmed human cases now stands at 240, with 141 deaths. The true number is likely larger, although how much we don’t know. So far it is still small compared with the SARS outbreak of 2003, but like SARS, there is grave and plausible suspicion a devastating pandemic could occur.
Read the entire article.
August 25th, 2006