The Yin Blog

Jack Bauer is "amateurish"!!

That's what interrogation experts would say about his techniques for questioning suspected terrorists:

Some of the study participants argue that interrogation should be restructured using lessons from many fields, including the tricks of veteran homicide detectives, the persuasive techniques of sophisticated marketing and models from American history.

The Doomsday Clock

I have vague recollections from the Cold War in the 1980s of the "Doomsday Clock," whose time supposedly reflected experts' predictions of the likelihood of nuclear annihilation.  The idea of the clock is that its proximity to midnight denotes the world's nuclear climate.  It was initially set at 7 minutes to midnight in 1947, and got as close as 2 minutes to midnight (1961, H-bomb tests by the U.S. and U.S.S.R.) and as far away as 17 minutes to midnight (1991, arms control agreement reached).

The keepers of the clock are apparently prepared to move it from its current position of 7 minutes to midnight, based on worsening conditions.

Here is what I'm wondering: if midnight marks "global catastrophe," does that mean that someone actually intends to move the clock to midnight in the event of thermonuclear war?

Is "Battlestar Galactica" must-see national security TV?

(Mild spoilers for the first two episodes of season 3 of SciFi's "Battlestar Galactica" ahead. . . .)

At this point, I think it's a fair question to ask whether "Battlestar Galactica" is must-see TV for anyone interested in national security law.  Yes, it is just a TV show, and it's "science-fiction."  Yet, just as literature can inform the world of legal academics (hence, the existence of law and literature courses), so too can a different medium such as TV.

But why "Battlestar Galactica"?  Interestingly, during the summer at the SEALs conference, co-blogger Bobby and I had a discussion about the show wherein Bobby accurately predicted that season 3 would present a situation that looked like Iraq today, with a militarily superior occupying force oppressing a conquered people, members of whom become insurgents and resort to sneak attacks, suicide bombings, and assaults against collaborators.  Sounds familiar?

Only, imagine that the insurgents are the humans, and the occupiers are the enemy Cylons.

Done exploitatively, such a set-up could quickly devolve into thinly-veiled partisan demagoguery, either in favor of or against the Bush Administration.  And if that's how the show had proceeded, I would not be wondering if it's must see national security TV.  Instead, the first two episodes show that the humans struggle with the idea of sending suicide bombers to attack dual-use military/civilian areas, especially ones where humans may be killed.  The insurgent leader's efforts to rationalize the practice as the same as sending a soldier on a one-way mission do not convinced the others as to the correctness of his decision.  I found that exchange especially thought-provoking, because it is all too easy to fall into an "us" vs "them" mentality that overlooks the fact that even amongst the enemy, there may be differences of opinion.  (This point is reinforced in Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower, which reports that even some top Al Qaeda leaders argued against directly attacking the United States pre-9/11.)  Similarly, even among the Cylons, there is a division of thought about the best way to put down the insurgents, with the more militant Cylons arguing for round-ups and mass executions.

Problems with an assassination policy

My colleague Nick Johnson responds to a provocative idea of targeted assassinations instead of traditional warfare.  (Nick raises a number of reasons that it would not be a good idea.)

"Death is life for us"?

So says Al Qaeda about yesterday's killing of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi:

"We want to give you the joyous news of the martyrdom of the mujahed sheik Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

"The death of our leaders is life for us. It will only increase our persistence in continuing holy war so that the word of God will be supreme."

I hesitate to apply Western thinking to this statement, as there's a danger in applying one's own cultural biases to expressions by persons from different cultures/values/etc.  Still, does Al Qaeda's statement make sense?  I mean, if they think it's joyous that al-Zarqawi was killed (and therefore "martyred"), we seem to share a common goal.  I'm sure that our military would like to help bring them more joyous news.  If only Osama bin Laden would just surrender . . . .

I should be clear that I don't mean to be mocking Al Qaeda's perception that al-Zarqawi has martyred himself, or even that his death might not inspire more terrorism.  All of that is entirely possible.  What I do wonder is how it can be "joyous," as opposed to something like "regrettable but constructive."

Irony, thy name is the Air Line Pilots Association

Hmm, I wonder who pro-labor groups root for in this fight. . .:

In a twist of irony Friday, the Air Line Pilots Association closed offices around the country as a number of its own members walked out on strike.

Since March, the union's clerical and support services have been in negotiations, hoping to reach an agreement before the contract expired at midnight Wednesday.

Is it pro-union to support the pilots' union, or to support the pilots' union's union?

Disturbing TSA news

Not exactly what you want to hear, considering it's been more than five years since the 9/11 attacks and we still can't reliably keep bombs off planes?  I don't mean with 100 percent certainty; the government can't guarantee that.  But this news story about how 21 out of 21 airports failed to detect bomb-making materials that federal agents snuck through screening is pretty disturbing.

Deontology vs. antiterrorism efforts

Hmm, Germany's highest court has ruled that the German government cannot authorize its air force to shoot down hijacked airplanes, because such a law violates the German constitution:

The Aviation Security Act "is incompatible with the fundamental right to life," said the court in an e-mailed statement. The legislation, which "authorizes the armed forces to shoot down aircraft that are intended to be used as weapons in crimes against human lives, is incompatible with the Basic Law and hence void."

This is, of course, the ultimate deontological stand against utilitarianism and commendable, I suppose, in its idealism.  At the same time, consider if hijackers do crash a plane into a German skyscraper, killing thousands of persons in the building and on the ground, and it turns out that scrambled jets could have shot down the plane.  I have to believe that the German citizenry would demand a constitutional amendment.

Prof. Wing on the Hamas election victory

My colleague Adrien Wing is an expert on international law and on the Palestinian government.  She offers thoughts on the Hamas election victory in this news release from the university (along with MP3 links to a Q & A session):

"There were a wide range for reasons people voted for Hamas," Wing said. "I talked to a lot of people who do not endorse in any way the destruction of Israel...They were voting for Hamas because Fatah had failed."

As for whether the U.S. and Israel should work with Hamas, Wing said that depends on whether Hamas is truly willing to give up its campaign of violence and terror.

"If Hamas can credibly renounce its calls for the destruction of the state of Israel, then the United States and Israel will have to engage with it," she said. "But not until they can commit to (ending) their calls for the destruction of the state."

   

A different view of Iraq

Here's a write-up of the talk last Friday by my buddy Ryan Stiles, who spent almost a year in Iraq working as a senior advisor within the Iraqi Department of Border Enforcement.  Best line from the write-up:

"If you work in Iraq, you have to accept the fact that when you wake up in the morning, people are going to try to kill you," he said. "It gets to the point where, when you hear an explosion, you pay attention for a minute and then you go on with your job. If you can't accept that fact, you shouldn't be working in Iraq."

Yep.  There's a reason that I'm happily ensconced in the ivory tower. . . .  In all seriousness, this just underscores the sacrifices made by so many Americans, whether members of the armed forces or civilians engaged in reconstruction efforts.