The Occasional Dissident

“The society must be purified of these people.” - Holocaust denier and perhaps reelected Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (“Iranian Candidate Exhorts Protestors,” Washington Post, June 15, 2009) Dear citizens, we have to accept that the Washington Post may have erred in some degree in its translation of the remarks by the current and perhaps future Iranian President.  However, a leader who calls for the eradication of Israel and who pretends that the destruction of the Jewish minority in Nazi-controlled areas simply never happened is ... Read More

"When I said no negotiations I meant no negotiations. We know he's guilty. Turn him over. There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt." - U.S. President George W. Bush (“Bush rejects Taliban offer to surrender bin Laden,” The Independent, October 15, 2001.) Dear citizens, I came across a rather disturbing report yesterday—disturbing in part because I believe I was unaware of the information and disturbing largely because it reveals some brutally painful truths that shock the conscience.  I was appalled to see the ... Read More

Looking out my window, I can see clearly the Air Force Memorial.  It looms over the Pentagon, bordering the vast expanse of sacrifice-filled Arlington National Cemetery.  I returned to this area as the memorial was being constructed and watched its completion in rapt fascination.  I passed by almost daily on a bus that runs from my home to the Pentagon terminal, coming within a hundred yards or so of the base of the arcs that soar overhead.  I had passed countless times ... Read More

“So the record is clear:  Rather than keeping us safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security.  It is a rallying cry for our enemies.  It sets back the willingness of our allies to work with us in fighting an enemy that operates in scores of countries.  By any measure, the costs of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it.  That's why I argued that it should be closed throughout my campaign, and that is why ... Read More

“If even a stopped clock is right twice a day, this could be Cheney’s time.” - Richard Cohen (“What if Cheney’s Right?” Washington Post, May 12, 2009) Dear citizens, let us engage in a thought experiment.  And, I beg you to allow it only to be a thought experiment, for the consequences of engaging in this in real life, with real people, can only be bad.  We prefer bad things do not happen.  All we wish to do is to determine whether torture is ... Read More

“The devil came here yesterday.  He came here talking as if he were the owner of the world.  In this very spot it smells like sulfur still.” - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, describing then-United States President George W. Bush to the United Nations General Assembly, September 20, 2006 (MSNBC.com, “Venezuela’s Chavez calls Bush ‘the devil,’ September 20, 2006) Dear citizens, how do you perceive these three people?  What do you make of Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?  I suppose you ... Read More

A heartless cold has settled over this ground.  I am wearing a shirt, a sweater, and have the collar of my field jacket turned up against the wind.  Yet, when I am inactive in body or mind for more than a moment, the oppressive cold attacks me.  I am forced to be inactive repeatedly, and the cold seems each time to reach inside my protections and directly squeeze my heart.  Perhaps you felt it, too. The vista before me is one of small ... Read More

“By deciding to torture, we freely chose to embrace the caricature they [militant Islamists] had made of us.  The consequences of this choice, legal, political and moral, now confront us.  Time and elections are not enough to make them go away.” - Mark Danner, “Tales from torture’s dark world” (IHT.com, March 15, 2009) Dear citizens, we are torturers.  I know.  I know.  You feel uncomfortable hearing that.  So do I.  We are torturers, nonetheless.  In our names, Our President and Our Government have ... Read More

Dear citizens, who is your enemy?  Over and over during my Air Force career, I took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”  We are learning more and more that our domestic enemies have posed a graver threat to our Democratic way of life than has any outside actor.  “They hate our freedom,” we were told.  Those telling us were aggressively destroying exactly that. We can hardly offer enough thanks to the new Attorney General.  Eric ... Read More

“An American hand reaching out to an unclenching authoritarian fist: This is the dominant foreign policy metaphor of President Obama’s first month in office.  It is a simile of hope, as the president intends—but also one of vulnerability, as Obama may discover sooner than he expects.”  - Jim Hoagland, “Obama vs. Clenched Fists” (Washington Post, February 22, 2009) Vulnerability?  Dear citizens, please bear a discussion about risk and the management of risk.  And please accept that this is not an expression of ill ... Read More