Simplicius Redivivus

Note on tweet from Bikya Masr editor

2009-07-06T23:51:00.002-05:00

Note that the editor of Bikya Masr contacted me via Twitter:

@sternfels note the dates on the original postings. they were early Friday! Thanks. I see German papers have now written extensively on it [emphasis mine--ed.]

Note in turn that the German papers started reporting on the incident on the day it occurred, July 1. The pace of reporting I observed seems to me to correlate well with the pace at which the police generally release information in such cases. Would the pace of reporting in German papers have been any different had the victim been an atheist in Dresden murdered by a Muslim? I seriously doubt it.

Timeline of reporting of Marwa Sherbini murder in Die Welt

2009-07-06T23:01:00.001-05:00

Here is the claim made yesterday about the coverage of the murder of Marwa Sherbini in Germany on the Bikya Masr blog:

All the talk of ethics and equality in the Western media has gone out the window with the recent killing of Marwa Al Sherbini in Dresden, Germany. The failure to report the killing has highlighted the gulf that exists in mainstream media across Europe and North America. It is a horrible state they find themselves in when Bikya Masr is the first English language source to report the killing. We did so on Friday, before even the wires found time to issue a few limited paragraphs on the situation.

It should not come as a surprise for those Arab observers, however, that a hate crime against an Arab, a veiled woman and an average citizen was not reported. The unfortunate bias that the West has against middle-class Arabs reared its ugly face and we should all condemn their lack of honesty in over this situation.

In recent years, foreign media appear only willing to report on the radical, extreme or crazy Arabs and the things they accomplish. Marwa was an average citizen who was fighting for her rights in Germany. The result was her murder by a crazed psycho that wanted nothing more than to kill Muslims. But, the West has remained silent, even through the weekend, that there was .

Perhaps Bikya Masr was the firet English-language source to report on this crime. But note that the claims on the blog are much stronger than that: the editor claims that "the West remained silent, even through the weekend." The editor claims that the killing "was not reported". The editor claims that there was a "failure to report the killing". The editor claims that this failure is evidence of a "gulf that exists in mainstream media across Europe and North America."

I submit that it was a good thing that Bikya Masr report the killing. I submit further that Bikya Masr is attempting to create a false appearance of indifference in the West to this killing. I submit that the vast majority of Germans (and the vast majority of other westerners who have learned about this event) are far more troubled by it than the Muslim world would be about an equivalent killing of a Christian or a Jew or a Bahai in a Muslim land.

When a crazed psycho (to use Bikya Masr's apt phrase) kills another person out of hate, it is almost never reported internationally. Hate crimes occur in Egypt as well as in the West (or does the editor of Bikya Masr claim that Egyptians or Arabs or Muslems are more virtuous in this respect than Westerners?), but I don't recall them being reported in U.S. papers. I don't find that terribly surprising. Why would Bikya Masr's editor find it surprising that this crime wasn't reported in the English-language press?

The killing of Marwa Sherbini was certainly reported in the German press, even on the day it occurred. I selected Die Welt, a relatively conservative German daily, to sample for its coverage.

7/1/2009: Angeklagter ersticht Zeugin im Gerichtssaal (Accused stabs witness to death in courtroom)
7/1/2009: Zeugin nach Streit um Schaukel im Gericht getötet (Witness killed after dispute about swing)
7/2/2009: Rassismus als Motiv für Bluttat im Gericht vermutet (Racism suspected as motive for killing in court)
7/3/2009: Täter in Dresdner Gericht stach 18 Mal zu (Culprit stabbed 18 times in Dresden court)
7/3/2009: Messerattacke von "fanatischem Einzeltäter" verübt (Knife attack committed by "fanatical lone culprit")
7/3/2009: Polizei ermittelt wegen heimtückischen Mordes (Police investigate treacherous crime)
7/6/2009: Tote aus Dresden in Ägypten als Märtyrerin verehrt (Victim from Dresden venerated as martyr in Egypt)
7/6/2009: Islamisten fordern Vergeltung für Mord im Gericht (Islamists demand retribution for killing in court)

Note that the last article indicates that some in the Muslim world are calling for retribution against Germany or Germans over this killing. I contend that this view is much closer to the mainstream in the Muslim world than the equivalent view toward the Muslim world would be anywhere in the West.

Bikya Masr misleads about coverage of Dresden murder

2009-07-06T11:36:00.001-05:00

First draft. I read this story at Bikya Masr, checked German newspapars, and found that the claim that the West was silent about Sherbini's murder was totally bogus. Here is the comment I left at that site. It awaits moderation. If I have time, I will expand on this topic later.

You are just plain wrong about this story not being reported in the German media.

Angeklagter ersticht Zeugin im Gerichtssaal (FAZ.net)
Haftbefehl wegen Mordes erlassen (FAZ.net)
Bluttat im Gerichtssaal (Süddeutsche)
Haftbefehl wegen Mordes (Süddeutsche)
"Wir wollen Vergeltung" (Süddeutsche)
Polizei ermittelt wegen heimtückischen Mordes (Die Welt)
Dresdner Messerstecher offenbar von Hass auf Araber getrieben (Die Welt)
Tote aus Dresden in Ägypten als Märtyrerin verehrt (Die Welt)
Islamisten fordern Vergeltung für Dresdner Mord (Die Welt)

I'd like to read your comments on the threats of retribution by Islamicists.

Endlich

2009-05-01T23:57:00.002-05:00

Hier folgt eine erste Fassung meiner Übersetzung des untenerwähnten Artikels mit Beiträgen von Robert Zahn und Johannes Reil zum Amulet des Orpheus, das angebligh ein Beweisstück dafür ist, daß Jesus eine Erfindung auf Basis der Orpheusfigur ist. Ich habe bis jetzt nur Leipoldts Einleitung und Robert Zahns Beitrag übersetzt. Den Antichristen möge es bestens schmecken.

ΟΡΦΕΟΣ ΒΑΚΚΙΚΟΣ

Thus reads the inscription of an amulet that is preserved in Berlin's Kaiser Friedrich Museum (cf. _Museen zu Berlin. Beschreibung der Bildwerke der christlichen Epochen, 3. Band: Altchristliche und mittelalterliche byzantinische und italienische Bildwerke, arranged by Oskar Wulff 1 1909 p. 234 Nr. 1146). Above the inscription a crucifix is depicted (see illustration, from an enlarged photograph of a plaster cast; also in Hans Achelis's Das Christentum in den ersten Drei Jahrhunderten 1925 Table V 2). In recent times, this amulet has often been the subject of discussion, since Otto Kern placed it in a larger context (Orphicorum fragmenta 1922 p. 46 Nr. 150). Most recently, Robert Eisler made reference to the "cylindrical seal" (Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg. II. Vorträge 1922-1923. II. Teil 1925 p. 338f). Age, meaning, authenticity of this piece are difficult to judge. I therefore asked two specialists for their opinions: Prof. Dr. Robert Zahn of Berlin, as an expert in gems, and Pastor Dr. Johannes Reil in Chemnitz, as an expert in ancient Christian depictions of the crucifixion. I thank both gentlemen for their cordial responses. Robert Zahn sent a long letter on January 28, 1926, and permitted its reprinting. Johannes Reil contributed an essay on December 13, 1924. As Hans Achelis informed me, Erwin Panofsky had already expressed doubts about the authenticity of the Berlin amulet on December 13, 1924, in a letter directed to Achelis. Panofsky points out that the crucified figure is depicted "with feet nailed on top of each other, and with bent knees", "thus [is] of a type which is seen nowhere else before the 13th century, and which occurs in this form for the first times in the 14th and 15th centuries" (cf. A. Goldschmidt in the Jahrbuch der Preußischen Kunstsammlungen 1915).

Leipoldt

I.

I closely examined the stone with the depiction of the crucified figure and the inscription ΟΡΦΕΟΣ ΒΑΚΚΙΚΟΣ closely in the Kaiser Friedrichs Museum. First a bit about the shape of the stone itself. It is not a cylinder seal, but rather the stump of a cone. The stone would therefore be inconvenient to use as a seal. Since the inscription runs from right to left, the whole depction may not have been conceived as a seal. Such cones and similar forms are known from very early days of the gem-cutting art (Furtwängler Beschreibung der geschnittenen Steine im Antiquarium p. 9 Nr. 81 Table 2; Furtwängler Die antiken Gemmen III p. 60). These, however, when they are to serve as seals, have the impression on the surface of the base, and were thus used like signets. It is thus conceivable that the gem-cutter used an older stone cone that was only intended to be a pendant [1. The Berliner Antiquarium possesses an example acquired in Syria (Inv. der Miszelaneen Nr. 905I). It has the same longitudinal grooves as the above stone.].

Based on the form of the letters, the piece cannot be dated later than into the 3rd century, and certainly not to the 5th century at the earliest, as J Dölger Ichithys I p. 234 (cf. II p. 256 n. 4 and III Table XXVI 2 and 2a) wishes. It would thus belong to the series of early depictions of the Crucifixion on gems, such as are collected by Leclercq in FCAbrol Dictionnaire d'Archéolgie Chrétienne et de Liturgie III 2 Sp. 3048ff. comfortably under the rubric "croix et crucifixe". Dölger also assigns (as I believe) too late a date to these. They fit together completely with the other glyptic works of the later imperial period (2nd and 3rd centuries). However, when I compare the stone in the Kaiser-Friedrichs-Museum with precisely these representation [evidently, the glyptic works of the alter imperial period are meant], and even with more recent ones like the relief on the door of Santa Sabina in Rome and the ivory panel in the British Museum (Dalton Catalogue of Early Christiian [sic] Antiquities No. 291 Table VI), I cannot at all comprehend how such a discrepancy in the representation of the crucified figure is possible contemporaneously. On the above-mentioned monuments, Christ stand in front of the cross on the ground or on a footrest. The cross is almost completely obscured; in particular, the horizontal member is not visible, elelvated high overhead. Here [on the amulet], by contrast, Christ hangs limply on the cross, with crossed legs and feet laid over one another, as in much later art.

In the enlarged illustrations in Dölger ibid., it appears that the head is gazing painfully upward. In the original [the Orpheus amulet] I was not able to confirm this [pose]. On a crude stone depicted in Leclercq op. cit. (Fig. 3356) as well as in his Manuel II p. 369 Fig. 269 (according to the Bulletin de la Societé Nationale des Antiquaires de France XXX, 1867 p. 111f)), Christ is indeed represented (without cross) with somewhat bent knees. But there is a world of difference between this representation and the depiction on our cone. Therefore I cannot escape according the greatest suspicion to this [depiction on the cone]. Dölger I p. 334 discusses counterfeiters of Christian engraved gems around the middle of the previous century. Our piece passed in 1869 into the Antiquarium from the estate of Eduard Gerhard (A. Furtwängler Beschreibung der geschnittenen Steine Nr. 8830); later it was transfered with other gems with Christian engravings to the Altchristliche Sammlung of the Kaiser-Friedrichs-Museum. However, I have no explanation whatsoever whither, on my supposition, a counterfeiter can have taken the quite clever [Ger. 'verschmitzt'] inscription. He must have had an exceedingly erudite accomplice.

Robert Zahn

Court Reporter asserts intellectual property rights over O.J. Simpson trial transcripts

2007-08-23T09:43:00.000-05:00

Via The Patry Copyright Blog I learn that the maintainer of a website that hosted the transcripts of the O.J. Simpson trial has shut the site down, temporarily at least. Here's the message he left:

Alas! I have been instructed by Christine M. Olson, court reporter of the Simpson criminal trial, that the trancripts are intellectual property and that I may no longer publish them on the Internet. Until I can get further clarification, I'm shutting down this archive for now.

I wonder why it took over a decade to tell me this.
Jack Walraven

Patry questions how the transcripts could be intellectual property.

The Wayback Machine won't give access to older versions of the transcripts site, or to the rest of Jack Walraven's site for that matter, though it does work for other sites I tried. Perhaps Christine Olson also convinced the Internet Archive to block access to the transcripts.

Update 2007/08/23 12:37: I finally thought to look at the Wayback Machine FAQ, as suggested in the error message. Here is the FAQ's explanation of that message:

Failed Connection: The server that the particular piece of information lives on is down. Generally these clear up within two weeks.

The server that serves walraven.org/simpson/ probably also serves walraven.org/, and if it is down, then it makes sense that both sites are unavailable. So let's keep checking back to see if they become available again.

Prager slaps butt, fails to ask questions later

2007-08-21T23:28:00.000-05:00

Via a posting at Pajamas Media I found this article by Dennis Prager about his efforts to help two junior-high boys who were arrested and jailed for slapping the bottoms of girls at their school.

I think it's ridiculous that these boys were jailed for what they are alleged to have done. At the same time, I have no interest in helping Mr. Prager support them until I receive assurance that Mr. Prager would also support me if I were charged with assault for paddling their asses after I caught them slapping my junior-high-aged daughter's bottom.

Prager concludes with a sentiment I can agree with:

A democracy cannot long survive the contempt more and more Americans feel for American law.

That's a serious matter, and the incident Prager describes is a good illustration of it. However, I have the sense that that some conservatives also want to justify any almost any asinine or inconsiderate thing that boys do because "they're just being boys." I don't know that Mr. Prager holds to this point of view, but it's one for which I have no respect.

Svenska Dagbladet reports on Lars Vilks controversy

2007-07-24T20:13:00.000-05:00

From Baron Bodissey's post at Gates of Vienna I learned of the controversy over three drawings by a Swedish artist of Mohammed as a rondellhund (här på svenska). The organizers of Swedish exhibition of art featuring dogs in Karlstad withdrew three drawings by artist Lars Vilks because of concerns over how Muslims would react to the portrayals of Mohammed.

Svenska Dagbladet first featured a very brief report on 20 July 2007 from the TT wire service, from which I translate this quote by exhibition organizer Märta Wennerström:

We didn't understand how serious this was at first. Now we know that it is an incredible insult to represent the prophet Mohammed as a dog.

SvD followed on 21 July 2007 with a story by a named reporter (Bosse Brink), from which I translated a quote in my comments on the GoV post. Here's the wider context of that quote as given in SvD:

[MW:] I think that the drawings are good. But there is also a fear hear at the homestead museum that it [their showing] will lead to problems and uproar.

[BB/SvD:] Is this another example of compliance [undfallenhet] and self-censorship within the art world in the wake of the publication of the Mohammed drawings in the Jyllands-Posten?

[MW:] Yes, of course it is, I think they should still be there [in the exhibition]. But I was compliant [undfallen].

Note that I translated undfallen[het] as "compliance" and "compliant" in the above quote. It could also be translated 'submissive[ness]', which seemed appropriate to the question but sounded funny in Wennerström's answer. Comments on the translation (by email, as I have no time to monitor comments on the blog) are welcome.

Gates of Vienna blocked by Google/Blogger

2007-07-18T09:32:00.000-05:00

UPDATE: Gates of Vienna is back online. Should have noted this here sooner. Great news!

This is a brief placeholder post about the blocking of the Gates of Vienna blog.

Please let Google/Blogger know that their spam-detection measures have gone wonky. On the other hand, if, as is suggested here, Google/Blogger is just getting hit by a lawsuit designed to silence those deemed politically incorrect, then Google/Blogger just need to grow a pair.

If you use Google Reader, consider aggregating the feed from Gates of Vienna in Google Reader.

Fannie Mae's Auntie Phil

2006-07-30T12:45:00.000-05:00

I was searching Techorati for blog posts on the Fannie Mae fraud scandal, when I came across a posting "There will be one byword for the Bush Admin" by one calling himself Auntie Phil. In Auntie Phil's mind, the byword will be "unaccountability", as illustrated by the Fannie Mae fraud.

On the most charitable construction of this post, we have to think that Auntie Phil is ignorant of the fact that those at the helm of Fannie Mae during the scandal were Democrats, not Bush cronies:

So far, the Fannie fiasco has cost Chief Executive Officer Franklin Raines and several other top executives their jobs. The stock has dropped from nearly $80 a share to around $50 -- roughly $30 billion in lost value. And the company recently settled with the federal government and agreed to pay $400 million in fines, stemming from allegations the firm fiddled with the books to ensure bigwigs got performance bonuses.

To top it off, the Fannie Mae leadership was quite well-connected in D.C., especially to the Democratic Party. The Washington Post on May 23 made this all clear in black and white. The front page of that day's Business section showed how James A. Johnson, a former campaign manager for Walter Mondale's presidential run, had created "a political powerhouse."

That story had a photo of Mr. Johnson, who had been chairman and chief executive of Fannie Mae, flanked by two other photos -- both other prominent Democrats. On one side was Mr. Raines, a former head of the Office of Management and Budget under Bill Clinton. On the other was Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick.

While the rest of the graphic listed other prominent Democrats and Republicans, the titanic captains at Fannie Mae were clearly Democrats.

["A $40 billion scandal", by Dan Gainor, Washington Times, June 21, 2006]

I commend to Auntie Phil the whole of this article for his edification and delectation. In fact, there is a lesson in it not only about the bipartisan nature of corruption, but also about media bias--or does Auntie Phil wish to propose different explanation for why the mainstream media seem to have overlooked the fact that the key players in the fraud were Democrats?

I have to say that this post of Auntie Phil's is no worse than the others I've read of his. The ones I read are all characterized by a superficial presentation of the issues they purport to deal with, mentioning only the points relevant to the conclusion Auntie wants his readers to draw, and pretty much lacking in cogent argumentation to support his conclusions. This superficiality doubtless led to his ignorance of the deeper story in the Fannie Mae fraud.

Further recommended reading:

Doubts about the "crucified Orpheus" amulet

2006-03-13T23:41:00.000-06:00

I first became aware of the amulet depicting a crucified Orpheus through a posting at Bede's Journal. As can be seen from book cover in the above linked-to image, a picture of it adorns the cover of a book The Jesus Mysteries by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, the thesis of which evidently is that early Christians built their religion out of elements adapted from pagan mystery religions, including Orphism.

As Bede notes, Freke & Gandy accept a 3rd century A.D. dating of the amulet, though they also claim that the amulet is not a central part of their evidence, but rather that it "did play a psychological role" for them in their research and that it "makes a very striking cover."

Others have also found this amulet compelling evidence in their rejections or reinterpretations of Christianity. See e.g. Difficult Questions for the Church, The Celestial Cross, and Eisogesis.

However, there appears to be a real question as to the genuineness of the amulet. Bede points to a review by Otto Kern of W.K.C. Guthrie's book Orpheus and Greek Religion in which Kern discusses various literary and monumental witness to the Orpheus myth and its cult. When Kern comes to this amulet, he admits that he had been fooled by it, and that on his say-so other scholars (including Guthrie) had accepted it as genuine. Bede was unable to read the article in German, so I will here reproduce the relevant paragraph in German and offer a translation of it. The review appears on pp. 473-78 of Gnomon, 1935. The paragraph appears on p. 476.

Wenn ich hier die Freude habe, ein neues Denkmal an die Spitze aller Orpheusdarstellungen zu setzen, muß ich ein anderes, das mir fast als das jüngste aller monumentalen Zeugnisse für die orphische Bewegung erschien, streichen und bekennen, daß ich allein daran die Schuld trage, daß es nach der Publikation in den Orphicor. fragm. S. 46 test. 150 von R. Eisler und anderen jetzt auch von Guthrie, ohne Bedenken als glaubwürdiges Dokument gewertet wird. Diesem ist es offenbar entgangen, daß das Amulett mit dem Bilde des Crucifixus und der Inschrift ΟΡΦΕΟΣ ΒΑΚΚΙΚΟΣ im Kaiser Friedrich-Museum zu Berlin höchst wahrscheinlich eine Fälschung ist. Solchen hervorragenden Kennern dieser Materia wie Joh. Reil und Rob. Zahn, die dies im Ἄγγελος 2, 1926, 62ff. ausgesprochen haben, muß man Glauben schenken, und es ist daran kein Anstoß zu nehmen, daß auch dieser italienische Fälscher wie soviele -- das Amulett stammt aus Italien, kam aus E. Gerhards Nachlaß in das Berliner Museum -- gelehrte Kentnisse hatte und von der Beziehung des Orpheus zu Bakchos wußte.

If I have here [in this article] the pleasure of placing a new monument at the apex of all representations of Orpheus, I must discard another that seemed to me almost the most recent of all monumental witnesses for the Orphic movement, and admit that I alone bear the fault that, after the publication in Orphicor. fragm. S. 46 test. 150, it is being accepted without question by R. Eisler and others, and now by Guthrie, as a credible document. It evidently escaped his notice that the amulet with the image of the crucifix and the inscription ΟΡΦΕΟΣ ΒΑΚΚΙΚΟΣ in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin is almost certainly a fake. One must grant credibility to such outstanding connoisseurs of this material as Joh[ann] Reil and Rob[ert] Zahn, who asserted this [i.e. that the amulet is a fake] in Ἄγγελος 2, 1926, 62ff., and one must not be put off by the fact that this Italian counterfeiter, like so many--the amulet is from Italy and came from E. Gerhard's estate to the museum in Berlin--possessed some learning and knew of the connection of Orpheus to Bacchus.

Today I received via interlibrary loan a copy of the 1926 article in Ἄγγελος, with the contributions from Reil and Zahn. I have only skimmed the article, but when I get a chance I'll blog about it as well, as it promises to make the case against the amulet.

Herzinger on Europe and Human Rights

2006-01-15T22:40:00.000-06:00

Since the beginning of this blog I have linked to Richard Herzinger's essay "Whisky für die Taliban" ("Whisky for the Taliban", as you might guess) in Die Zeit. Beginning with a scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian, he reminds Europe of what distinguishes Western civilization from the culture in which the Taliban or al-Qaida thrive. If you read German, you must read this piece.

Herzinger has also kept a blog "Ideen und Irrtümer" at his various places of employment: at die Zeit, at the blog site of Die Weltwoche, and now at Die Welt am Sontag.

On December 25, 2005, he had a posting on the double standard concerning human rights that Europe employs when criticizing the U.S. for its policies. He concludes his blog entry thus:

Where, then, were the storms of protest when Spain, with the explicit approval of the E.U. and in knowing disregard for the humanitarian rules it set up for itself, deported African refugees to Morocco, where torture is a matter of course? Where was the storm of outrage when the Moroccans abandoned many of these refugees in the desert without shelter or provisions, thus leaving them to certain death? And where, by the way, are the protests of the "Stop the Wall" activists, who oppose the Israeli border fence, when it comes to the European border facilities, adorned with barbed wire and razor blades, intended not to keep out suicide bombers but rather desperate economic refugees?

It is difficult to avoid the impression that the high humanitarian standard that the Europeans parade about so demonstratively applies only so long as their own interests are not affected. In that case, they transgress against [the standard] without compunction. Maxeiner&Miersch have compiled a small exhibit from the European list of sins in this connection.

One of the external articles he links to reports on criticism of the U.N.'s anti-terror policies by a center-left politician Ehrhart Körting (Interior Senator for Berlin from the SPD). Here it is:

Körting: U.N. Violates Human Rights

24. December, 1:55 PM

Berlin's Interior Senator Körting accuses the U.N. of human rights violations. One a person is registered as a terror suspect, there is no chance to defend onesself.

Ehrhart Körting (SPD), the interior senator of Berlin, has accused the United Nations of human rights violations in the world-wide search for terrorists. For people who are entered on the U.N. lists as terror suspects, there is "insufficient legal protection", said Körting to the Tagesspiegel. Being placed on this list is tantamount to a "verdict". The bank accounts of such a person are locked, without the chance for appeal at the United Nations.

Since the end of 2001, the U.N. Security Council keeps a list of terror suspects. The lists are continuously kept up-to-date with the help of German intelligence officials. According to the Tagesspiegel, actual suspects are listed there, but also people who purely coincidentally bear the same name.

Banks, government offices, and even the employment office help in the identification [of the suspects]. "There is no legal opportunity to have one's name removed from the list", said Körting. This violates the principle of human worth, which is enshrined in the U.N. Charter. The Federal Government therefore must lobby for the preservation of legal protection.

And your point was ... ?

2006-01-15T16:26:00.000-06:00

Melanie at Just a Bump in the Beltway posted without comment a couple of stories about the BND scandal: one from the Independent, and one from the Boston Globe. In the comments, "Paul in Mexico" opines that "the Germans sure voted against their own self interest when they elected this ultra-right wing nut, did they not?"

The blog advertises itself as presenting a left-wing point of view. E.g., Melanie in a different posting faults the Senate Judiciary Committee for not inquiring further into Alito's CAP membership. So I have to wonder what her purpose was in posting the two news stories on the BND. From what I've read, the Germans have been the staunchest opponents of the war in Europe. The goverment under which the alleged assistance to the U.S. was given was a coalition of the Green party and the center-left Social Democrats, and arguably the most anti-American government in the post-war period. It doesn't appear to me that the conservatives and the libertarians are tarnished by this scandal at all. Absent her actual commentary on the reports, I have to assume that she was being fair-minded by reminding us that the European left can be hypocritical, too.

Paul in Mexico's comment, however, makes little sense to me. Was he under the mistaken impression that the scandal reflects badly on the CDU/CSU? Or did the stories of the potential scandal for the SDP and Greens make no impression on him, such that he could only mention the right-wingnut Angelika Merkel? Or is he perhaps just being sarcastic?

Curveball

2006-01-14T01:30:00.000-06:00

Die Zeit, one of the very best news periodicals I know of, has blogs. One blog is "Beruf Terrorist [Profession Terrorist] The Enemy of all the World", by Jochen Bittner. I haven't followed his blog, but I decided to check it to see if he had anything to say about the BND scandal. I wasn't disappointed. Here it is in English:

What did Steinmeier know? (January 12, 2006)

The tip of the iceberg has in the meantime many names: Khalid el-Masri, Reda Seyam, or even"Curveball". It is slowly becoming clear what the extent of the German-American hanky-panky was and probably still is in the so-called War on Terror. Today the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the ARD [television] magazine "Panorama" are reporting that during the Iraq war agents of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) delivered target coordinates to American bombers.

In retrospect, the chasm between actual German foreign policy and high-flown red-green rhetoric about human rights is so wide that it makes the onlooker dizzy.

Yes, one is inclined exclaim in revisionist fashion, "Who has betrayed us...?"

But of all the questions that are asked in such cases, one poses itself with the very highest urgency. It is:

What did Steinmeier, Fischer, and Schröder know?

What did the former head of the Federal Chancellor's Office and the present foreign minister know, what did the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor know about that informant to the BND, whom the Americans called "Curveball"? Before the war, this Iraqi provided to German intelligence services the decisive reports about alleged mobile bio-weapon labs of Saddam's regime (die ZEIT reported on several occasions). He served as Colin Powell's start witness in the Security Council for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. In the BND, in whom "Curveball" had confided, this man was considered a total crackpot. However, the "peacepower" [pun on "superpower"] Federal government apparently lacked the backbone to share this assessment with the world before the Iraq war.

What did these three know of the practice of CIA abductions? It must have been clear in the Federal Chancellor's office at the latest after the case of Reda Seyam (die ZEIT reported) that the Americans would not shy away from hauling off German citizens. Could the later abduction of el-Masri have been prevented by a corresponding diplomatic intervention?

What did the Federal Chancellor's office know about the visits of German intelligence officers in the Guantánamo internment camp? What did they know about the cooperation of the BND with the American military during the Iraq war?

Enough. Cheap references to "certain gray areas" that there are in the anti-terror battle will no longer do. Steinmeier, Fischer, Schröder, and also Ernst Uhrlau, until now the coordinator of intelligence services in the Chancellor's office, must explain themselves. Preferably before they are called in front of an investigative committee.

Here is Dr. Bittner's bio from his blog:

Dr. Jochen Bittner, born 1973, studied law and philosophy. He gained journalistic experience with the Kieler Nachrichten, the FAZ and Die Welt. During a stay in Belfast he authored the book Ein unperfekter Frieden - Die IRA auf dem Weg vom Mythos zur Mafia (An Imperfect Peace: The IRA on the Path from Myth to Mafia; with Christian Ludwig Knoll, R.G. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2nd ed. 2001). After that he worked as a research associate of the chair for constitutional law and jurisprudence of the University of Kiel, where he earned a doctorate on the topic of the concept of the legal system. Since 2001 Jochen Bittner has been the editor of the politics department of die ZEIT. He deals with the areas of terrorism and intelligence services, among others.

High points of SZ article

2006-01-14T00:26:00.000-06:00

The Cliff's Notes, so to speak. We shouldn't assume that this one article provides a complete picture.

The information for the SZ article and the ARD program segment came from a high-ranking German security official, and from at least one Pentagon source.
Two BND staffers stayed in Baghdad and provided the U.S. military with information.
The cooperation was explicitly approved by Ernst Uhrlau (coordinator of intelligence services in the Chancellor's office) and August Hanning (president of the BND).
Unnamed sources in security circles said ["Aus Sicherheitskreisen hieß es ..."] it was a political decision of the SPD/Green government.
The German security official said that it wasn't a decision by a department head.
The BND mission was to inform the Americans of targets that shouldn't be bombed.
U.S. sources paint a different picture: the BND provided direct support in the acquisition of targets.
At American request, a BND staffer personally inspected a target area in Mansur where Saddam Hussein was said to be in a motorcade. Two buildings were then bombed, and twelve people died.
BND staffer awarded American decoration along with the pilot of the Mansur mission.

Parity among dictators

2006-01-13T23:59:00.000-06:00

There is a certain logic in these statements by Hans Blix, but it strikes me as perverse. He seems to take it for granted that the world must live with a cartel of blackmailers.

LONDON, December 9 (IranMania) - The European Union has scope to offer Iran more incentives in exchange for guarantees that Tehran will not build nuclear bombs, former head of the IAEA nuclear watchdog Hans Blix said, according to AFP.

Blix, who has also been the UN's chief weapons inspector in Iraq, said North Korea had obtained more concessions than Iran from Europe.

"I am not convinced that the EU has offered sufficiently interesting things to the Iranians," Blix told AFP on the sidelines of a seminar on nuclear policy in Stockholm.

Iran had been told that it "could expect World Trade Organization membership, access to spare parts for Boeings, and a fuel supply guarantee", Blix said.

"But when you compare these things that have been offered to Iran with what has been offered to North Korea, I am not sure that one is at the negotiations' end," Blix said.

Süddeutsche on BND scandal

2006-01-13T19:36:00.000-06:00

Here is a translation of part of the first article I found about the emerging scandal in Germany about the assistence given by the BND, the German federal intelligence agency, to the U.S. in the Iraq war. This is about half of the article.

We all knew that Schröder was a demagogue, but if it turns out that he approved the BND's assistance to the Amis in their illegal and immoral incursion into Saddam's Iraq, then this hypocrisy seems likely to tarnish his reputation somewhat, given that he based his popularity on anti-Americanism to a great extent.

Secret Cooperation

BND helped Americans in Iraq War [12.01.2006]

In spite of official repudiation by the Federal Government of the military strikes, the German intelligence services is supposed to have supported the U.S.A. in the reconaissance of bombing targets. The Chancellor's office was informed.

By Hans Leyendecker and Wolfgang Krach

The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) supported the American troops in Spring 2003 during the Iraq war, and possibly even helped identify bombing targets.

According to the information of the Süddeutsche Zeitung and of the ARD television magazine "Panorama", at least two members of the BND remained in Baghdad during the entire war and supplied the U.S. military with information. The cooperation was explicitly approved by Ernst Uhrlau, then intelligence service coordinator in the Chancellor's office, and August Hanning, then president of the BND.

A high-ranking German security official who wishes to remain anonymous, told the SZ on Wednesday that two BND agents had found refuge in the French embassy after the German embassy had been vacated on March 17, 2003--three days before the start of the war. The BND staffers continued their work during the war.

In addition, there was eooperation with the U.S. intelligence service Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). On the level of intelligence services "there was to be no speechlessness". "The situation in Baghdad was virgin territory for the BND", added the official.

On Wednesday, the word in intelligence circles was that the decision to cooperate with the Americans had been a "political decision" of the Red-Green federal government. Publicly, the government of Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had always maintained that it rejected the Iraq war, and that it therefore also didn't participate in it.

The high-ranking intelligence official said that the leadership of the BND decided after consultation with the Chancellor's office to continue its cooperation with the Americans during the war. "That was not a decision of some division head". Part of the assignment of the BND was to report targets that should not be bombed to the Americans. This "non-targeting of hospitals or embassies" was one of the assignments of the BND in Iraq. The U.S.A. had requested this assistance.

Hans Blix interview in Svenska Dagbladet

2006-01-12T00:21:00.000-06:00

Melchior presents for your edification and delectation a translation of an article in the Svenska Dagbladet excerpting an interview with Hans Blix, conducted by the Swedish news agency TT. There was one word ("partsinlaga", pl. "partsinlagor") I wasn't sure how to translate. Lexin translates it as a legal term "party writing", adding to the Swedish meaning also the English gloss "figuratively 'pleading one's own case'". I chose to render it "self-justification", which may be too idiomatic, but I'm not sure there is a good but more literal English equivalent. I found the word used in a way compatible with that translation in this book review.

Blix is trying to sound reasonable and even-handed, but the things he fails to mention (or at least the things that aren't included in this brief write-up) suggest to me that he is far too blasé about the threat Iran poses. The Iranian president's repeated calls for the obliteration of Israel are not even noted, much less the "asymmetrical" situation in which Israel must defend itself.

Han Blix Critical of the Iran Debate

Too many self-justifications, threats, and bad arguments dominate the debate about Iran's nuclear program, says Hans Blix, the former head of the international nuclear energy organization IAEA.

To get control of the problem he wants to see a broad solution for the whole region.

"It would be desirable if Iran didn't continue with its program to enrich uranium. It [the program] will have the effect of raising the political temperature in the Middle East", said Blix to TT.

At the same time, Blix lacks a free and critical examination of the question and believes that the debate consists chiefly of self-justifications.

"It is correct as the Iranians say that they have the right to enrich uranium according to the non-proliferation agreement. But one isn't compelled to make use of all the rights one has in the world. Sweden has ten nuclear reactors and we don't enrich uranium, but rather we import it instead, because it is cheaper. It surely ought to be cheaper for Iran as well," says Blix.

"On the other side, those on the West's side say that Iran has oil, there is no reason to have nuclear power, therefore it must be for weapon purposes. But Mexico also has oil, and the USA, and Russia. That is a bad argument. It is true that Iraq for a long time flouted its commitment to the IAEA to report its program for the enrichment of uranium. But was the only conceivable reason that they were trying to make weapons? Could they perhaps been afraid of sabotage from abroad?"

The threats that have been advanced against the Iranians, for example to bring the matter before the UN Security Council, will mostly have the effect of strengthening the hardline regime in Tehran. And even if the matter were to be brought before the security council, he doubts that sanctions will be an option, because the IAEA has not yet been able to establish that Iran has transgressed against the non-proliferation agreement.

Instead, Blix raises the possibility that the USA's UN ambassador John Bolton is perhaps driven by other concerns:

"Could one fear that Mr. Bolton, who is no great friend and admirer of the UN, wants to demonstrate that the Security Council is impotent, and that in that case someone else, someone stronger, ought to do something about the matter?"

Hans Blix nonetheless believes that not even Washington desires any real "blossoming" of the conflict with Iran as long as the war in Iraq continues. [Blix] himself would like to see a broader solution for the whole region--including Israel, which is believed to have up to 200 nuclear weapons.

"It is completely legal for Israel to produce plutonium because they aren't members of the non-proliferation agreement. There should be some advantage in all states in the Middle East to agree neither to produce plutonium nor to enrich uranium," said Blix to TT.

STOCKHOLM TT

Translation of Michael Scheuer interview in Die Zeit (part V)

2006-01-02T00:52:00.000-06:00

Part 5 of Die Zeit's interview with Michael Scheuer.

Back to Part IV

Completed: 01:24 CST.

ZEIT: Mr. El-Masri says that he was tortured. He was in a CIA prison in Afghanistan.

Scheuer: If he was in a CIA prison, he was certainly not tortured. Period.

ZEIT: But he claims that he was.

Scheuer: That doesn't surprise me. Maybe he wants to see some money. Everybody wants that.

ZEIT: He further maintains that a German interrogated him in Afghanistan. How is that possible?

Scheuer: I don't know if that is true. It's possible. Our government and our intelligence agencies do try to help NATO allies. If Germans interrogated him, then that suggests that the Germans believed that they could learn something from him.

ZEIT: How many such cases of European Muslims are there?

Scheuer: Not very many, because the Europeans don't usually cooperate. Therefore we tried to get these people when they weren't on European soil.

ZEIT: El-Masri was surprised that the American interrogators knew details from his daily life. This knowledge could only come from German intelligence agencies. Or did the CIA spy in Germany?

Scheuer: I am certain that such information didn't come from us. If we had information about El-Masri's activities in Germany, then they came from one of the German agencies. And that suggests that it was more than just a rumor or a suspicion that led to his arrest.

ZEIT: What is the future of the extraordinary renditions?

Scheuer: The program is probably dead. Because of the leaks, the revelations, and the criticism. And for those who bear responsibility in the intelligence agencies, the effect is sobering. None of those who ordered us to act as we did now admits it.

The questions were posed by Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff.

Zum Thema:
Michael Scheuer left the CIA in November 2004 after 22 years of service. From 1995 to 1999 he led the unit that hunted Osama bin Laden. From 2000 he was one of the counter-terrorism leaders in the CIA. During his service there he wrote a critique of American anti-terror policy (Imperial Hubris). Within the CIA Michael Scheuer is regarded as someone who "fouled his own nest" [idiomatic expression "Nestbeschmutzer"]. He lives with his family in Virginia.

Translation of Michael Scheuer interview in Die Zeit (part IV)

2006-01-02T00:00:00.000-06:00

Part 4 of Die Zeit's interview with Michael Scheuer.

Completed: 00:30 CST. Updated: 00:49 CST.

ZEIT: Why was the cooperation so changeable, apart from the question of capital punishment?

Scheuer: Churchill said in the late 1930's: the Europeans always hope that the aligator eats them last. As long as the target of the terrorists was the United States, many in Europe were asking themselves why they should endanger themselves together with America.

ZEIT: How do that work when you wanted information in one of your cases? Let's say, from your German colleagues?

Scheuer: Sometimes there was just no answer. Sometimes some of the questions were answered. Sometimes the response was: we don't have much. Here is the little bit that we do have. There was just a lot of hemming and hawing.

ZEIT: Has that changed since the attack of 2001?

Scheuer: Yes, completely. But even after the attacks in New York, Madrid, and London, there is still this belief in Europe that they shouldn't get too involved. This idea that you only endanger yourself if you support the Americans.

ZEIT: The invasion of Iraq gave many adherents to that point of view.

Scheuer: The Iraq invasion without a doubt broke the back of our whole anti-terrorism operation. And in the long term, the war will certainly have the effect that a second generation of well-trained fighters, European Muslims and European converts, will return to Europe. The first generation came in the 1990's from the Balkans and Chechnya.

ZEIT: There's the case of the German-Syrian Mohammed Haydar Zammar, who had connections to the so-called Hamburg Cell, that prepared the attack on the World Trade Center. The German justice system could bring no proof of a crime. The CIA seized the man in Morocco and took him to Syria. How am I supposed to imagine cooperation with the Germans in such a case?

Scheuer: It would surprise me if there wasn't someone in the German intelligence service who was informed, though perhaps after the fact. In Washington there is a lot of fear of the Europeans' criticism. That may sound odd in light of this president, but it's still true.

ZEIT: Could it perhaps be the other way around? That German intelligence informed you where the man went when he left Germany?

Scheuer: Nothing is impossible, but I have no reason to suppose that.

ZEIT: The new Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble let it be known that the interrogation of Zammar in Syria had yielded useful results. Is that correct?

Scheuer: That is the case for the entire "extraordinary renditions program". It strikes me as dishonest of the Europeans to critizes this operation so strongly. Because all the information from the interrogations, everything that that had to do with Spain, with Italy, with Germany, with France, with England, was passed on. And if you were to ask the intelligence agencies of those countries, they would say: the information that we received from the "extraordinary renditions program" of the CIA helped us.

ZEIT: So the Germans were the beneficiaries of your methods?

Scheuer: Of course.

ZEIT: The German Interior Minister has spoken in Parliament of three cases, in which German officials abroad were in the prisons with the German citizens. Would it be an exaggeration to say that the CIA is doing the dirty work for us Germans?

Scheuer: As I said: some criticism strikes me as hypocritical.

ZEIT: Would you rule out the possibility that mistakes were made and the wrong people were seized?

Scheuer: I am certain that there were mistakes. Clausewitz talked about the fog of war. Right now we are in the middle of it. If mistakes were made, reparations should be paid.

ZEIT: One of these cases appears to concern a German citizen, Khaled El-Masri, who was apprehended in the Balkans, brought to Afghanistan, and months later was released in the Balkans.

Scheuer: There you have a symbol for the confusion in a war. He would certainly not have been apprehended if there had been no dubious information.

ZEIT: The case seems more to be a symbol that it is better to entrust such questions to the police, prosecutors, and courts and not to the CIA.

Scheuer: If you want to consider Al-Qaida as a matter of criminal prosecution and then wait until we've lost, then you are correct. However, we are in a war. And the sooner we remove such matters from the realm of criminal prosecution and get them under the rules of the Geneva Convention, the better it will be for America, for Europe, and also for the Germans. If these people are prisoners of war, there is no legal process.

Translation of Michael Scheuer interview in Die Zeit (part III)

2006-01-01T22:07:00.000-06:00

Part 3 of Die Zeit's interview with Michael Scheuer.

Completed: 23:02. Updated: 23:05 CST.

ZEIT: And since that time?

Scheuer: Fewer and fewer countries are taking these people back. That's why most are in American hands. Naturally the number climbed. We are talking about hundreds, certainly not thousands.

ZEIT: One of your earlier colleagues is quoted with the remark that "extraordinary renditions" are "an abomination".

Scheuer: If it's an abomination to defend America, then this critic would feel right at home in the left wing of the Democratic Party. I think it's more of a matter of lack of courage to handle the dirty work onesself.

ZEIT: Internal critics claim that the program went out of control after 2001.

Scheuer: The process of getting the approval of the lawyers for an operation is to this day a tortuous process. Europeans should not underestimate the crippling nature of American system of government.

ZEIT: What has changed legally since 2001?

Scheuer: Well, because we detain the people ourselves now, we are no longer such Pharisees [the English may well have been "hypocrites"]. You have to credit the Bush administration for behaving a little more courageously and doing its own dirty work. And in the newspaper I read that there are so-called "improved interrogation techniques". That sounds as if one can now be a little rougher than before.

ZEIT: How do you explain that people died while being detaind by the CIA?

Scheuer: I don't know anything about that. I just read about it in the newspaper.

ZEIT: There are reports of seriously abused people, even pictures ...

Scheuer: As far as I understand the new interrogation methods, none of them should lead to deaths. If there were deaths, then I would assume that there was an excess. And of course that isn't okay.

ZEIT: Apparently there were hundreds of CIA flights crossing Europe. Why was that necessary?

Scheuer (laughs): Somehow surreal, all that. The CIA operates throughout world. We transport people, equipment, and money around theglobe. If you want to supply the CIA in Iraq, you have to fly and refuel over Europe. That doesn't mean that in each of these planes is a "bad guy".

ZEIT: If I understand you correctly, you find the outcry in Europe amusing?

Scheuer: Very amusing, really.

ZEIT: Why do you need prisons in Eastern Europe?

Scheuer: I'm not sure there are any. It would surprise me.

ZEIT: I had hoped you would reveal where they are.

Scheuer (lacht): I'll go along with Franklin Roosevelt D. and say: I think they are in Shangrila. Just this much: I don't know why we would need such prisons. We have sufficient capacity elsewhere, especially in Iraq and Cuba. I knew nothing about these prisons in Eastern Europe when I was in the Agency. That doesn't necessarily mean anything. Perhaps I didn't need to know. And if there were any, then I can only assume that our European allies believed that they were supporting an operation that protected them as well as us.

ZEIT: How did the cooperation work with European allies, especially with Germany?

Scheuer: Before 2001, variable at best. I don't believe that Germany is among our best allies. The Italians were always good, the British somewhat. The fundamental problem in Europe is of a basic sort: the immigration and asylum laws have have made the establishment of a hard core of terrorists who have been convicted elsewhere, and who are now citizens of European states. In addition, no-one can be deported to a country that has capital punishment.

ZEIT: The attitude to the death penalty has hindered cooperation?

Scheuer: Not just hindered. It was like a barrier. Out of principle we didn't work in Europe. There are agreements from the Cold War, according to which we can't state any operations in Europe. The CIA is bound to those to this day. We simply went to those places where it worked. There is no sense in banging your head against a wall.

Translation of Michael Scheuer interview in Die Zeit (part II)

2006-01-01T17:28:00.000-06:00

Part 2 of Die Zeit's interview with Michael Scheuer.

My translation of part 1 here.

Completed at 20:45 CST. Updated at 23:23 CST.

ZEIT: Didn't you have concerns about torture in these countries?

Scheuer: No my job was to protect American citizens by taking Al-Qaida people off the street. The Executive branch of our government have to decide if they consider that hypocritical. This operation was 90% a huge success and only 10% a disaster.

ZEIT: In what did the disaster consist?

Scheuer: Everything was made public. Now the Europeans will help us a great deal less, because they have to fear that everything will be in the Washington Post. And then there is this blowhard in the Senate, John McCain, who practically concedes that the CIA tortures. All completely false. But that's how the whole program was destroyed.

ZEIT: Why did you take these people to their home countries instead of the the U.S.? Couldn't you have kept these people more safely under lock and key?

Scheuer: It was always a case of violent crime. We had little doubt that these countries would not let anyone go. And we didn't bring them to the U.S. because President Clinton didn't want us to.

ZEIT: Why not?

Scheuer: Our leadership didn't want to treat them like prisoners of war, but rather as criminals. At the same time they feared that it wouldn't be possible to gather enough evidence to hold up in court.

ZEIT: Is that so difficult?

Scheuer: In order to convict someone in the United States, an American officer of the law has to read him his rights when he is arrested. In foreighn countries that is impossible. Second, the agents have to certify in court that none of the confiscated documents was modified. If no-one can swear to that, the court automatically refuses to accept them. Thus it becomes almost impossible to get a verdict.

ZEIT: On the other hand: How can have insufficient evidence for a court but at the same time feel certain enough to apprehend someone in a foreign country? Doesn't the operation become illegal and illegitimate for that reason alone?

Scheuer: No, there are arrest warrants in their home countries for most of these people. Even if we don't like the Egyptian or Jordanian justice system, it is still a justice system. We were simply helping to return people to their home countries, so that they could be punished for crimes they committed abroad.

ZEIT: The CIA sees itself as a global police force?

Scheuer: No, we are an arm of the U.S. government that has as its mission the protection of Americans. We would have preferred to bring these people to America as prisoners of war. In any case, Osama bin Laden declared war against us twice, 1996 and 1998. But President Clinton simply didn't that. Nr did Präsident Bush. Both assumed that we would legitimize members of Al-Qaida if we treated them as prisoners of war. But that's nonsense. Bin Laden and his fighters are heros in the Islamic world. Nothing that we could do would confer greater legitimacy than they already had. Anyway, it is simpler to make the Egyptians and Jordanians do the dirty work.

ZEIT: Human rights played no role in the Clinton administration?

Scheuer: The CIA raised this question. People aren't treated in Cairo the way they are in Milwaukee. The Clinton administration asked us: Do you believe that the prisoners will be treated according to the standards of the local laws? And we said: yes, [we are] fairly certain.

ZEIT: So the Clinton administration didn't want to know that precisely what went on there?

Scheuer: Exactly. The CIA officials in charge were pretty certain from the that in the end we would take the blame. And you yourself notice: in this debate we hear not a word from Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, or Richard Clarke.

ZEIT: What laws were broken?

Scheuer: I really don't know. No American laws in any case. The CIA does have the right to break any law except an American one--just like any intelligence agency. And abroad we always acted with the approval of the local officials.

ZEIT: CIA anti-terror boss Cofer Black said after the 9/11 attack that now "the gloves are coming off". What did that mean internally in the CIA?

Scheuer: A great deal more pressure for results. And we began to house the people in our own facilities--in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in Guantanamo. The Bush administration wanted to hold these people themselves, but they made the same mistakes as the Clinton administration in that they didn't treat them like prisoners of war.

ZEIT: How many people did you catch?

Scheuer: I don't know exactly. Shortly before the attack in September 2001 CIA director George Tenet told Congress that it had been approximately 100 up to that time. The operations that I lead personally got barely 40 persons. One hundred seems far to high to me.

Translation of Michael Scheuer interview in Die Zeit (part I)

2006-01-01T14:36:00.000-06:00

This is my translation of part 1 of 5 of Die Zeit's interview with Michael Scheuer. You can find this part of the interview in German here. As I forgot to mention earlier, I was apprised of this interview by Captain Ed.

Forward to Part II.

"The CIA has the right to break any law"

Does the US intelligence service have the right to kidnap suspected terrorists? Michael Scheuer, one of those chiefly responsible [for that policy], gives answers for the first time.

DIE ZEIT: You helped develop the system of renditions at the CIA. Terror suspects were apprehended outside the U.S. and turned over to other countries. Were these "extraordinary renditions" a success from the point of view of the CIA?

Michael Scheuer: Absolutely. For a decade it was the United States' most successful anti-terrorism program.

ZEIT: Why?

Scheuer: Because the goals were so clearly defined. First, we wanted to identify the members and contacts of the terror-group al-Qaida and put them in jail. Those in fact who had either taken part in an attack on the United States or who were possibly planning an attack. Second, papers and electronics were to be confiscated. It is being claimed in the media that we had apprehended and hauled off people on the basis of some suspicions, in order to interrogate them. But that isn't right.

ZEIT: You didn't want to interrogate?

Scheuer: If it was possible to interrogate, we considered that the icing on the cake. We just wanted the man and his documents.

ZEIT: Why?

Scheuer: We knew from experience that aggressive interrogations that border on torture don't work. People say whatever the interrogator wants to hear. Either the people lied or they gave us precise but outdated information.

ZEIT: Who invented the system of "extraordinary renditions"?

Scheuer: President Clinton, his security advisor Sandy Berger, and his terrorism advisor Richard Clarke tasked the CIA in Fall 1995 with destroying al-Qaida. We asked the President: what should we do with the people we've apprehended? Clinton: that's your concern. The CIA objected: we aren't prison guards. We were again told that we should solve the problem somehow. So we developed a procedure, and I was a member of this task force. We concentrated on al-Qaida members who were wanted in their home countries or who had been convicted there in absentia.

ZEIT: How did you decide who should be apprehended?

Scheuer: We had to present a huge amount of incriminating evidece to a group of lawyers.

ZEIT: Lawyers? In the intelligence services?

Scheuer: Yes, lawyers everywhere. In the CIA, in the Justice Department, in the National Security Council. We developed our list of targets under their supervision. Then we had to catch the person in a country that was prepared to cooperate with us. Finally, the person had to come from a country that was prepared to take him back. A terribly cumbersome process for a very limited group of targets.

ZEIT: Why did countries want to cooperate with you on their own territory? Couldn't they have dealt with it themselves?

Scheuer: They believed that only America was threatened. And that they would themselves only become targets of terror if they arrested suspects. If we hadn't gotten the ball rolling, no-one would have done it.

ZEIT: Your partner countries wanted the CIA to do the work for them?

Scheuer: Yes, but they had no interest in holding these people in their own country. The CIA itself didn't apprehend or imprison anyone.

ZEIT: Excuse me?

Scheuer: That was done by the local police or the local intelligence service. We always remained in the background. The U.S. government is full of cowards. It doesn't permit the CIA to operate independently at all.

ZEIT: Did the interrogations take place in the destination countries?

Scheuer: We always submitted our questions in writing.

ZEIT: The CIA was never present at the interrogations?

Scheuer: Not that I ever heard. The lawyers forbade us from that.

Michael Scheuer in Zeit about special renditions

2006-01-01T01:23:00.000-06:00

Just read about Scheuer's interview in Die Zeit concerning the special renditions. The Zeit site (sorry for the rhyme) is having problems at the moment, so I couldn't get the full article. Here is one page I was able to get and translate. I hope to be able to do more tomorrow.

ZEIT: Mr. El-Masri says that he was tortured. He was in a CIA prison in Afghanistan.

Scheuer: If he was in a CIA prison, he certainly wasn't tortured. Period.

ZEIT: But he claims he was.

Scheuer: That doesn't surprise me. Perhaps he wants to see some money. Everyone wants that.

ZEIT: He further claims that a German interrogated him in Afghanistan. How is that possible?

Scheuer: I don't know if that is correct. It is possible. Our government and our intelligence services are trying to assist NATO allies. If the Germans interrogated him, then it seems reasonable that the Germans thought they could learn something from him.

ZEIT: How many such cases are there with European Muslims?

Scheuer: Not very many, because the Europeans mostly don't cooperate. That's why we tried to get these people when they weren't on European soil.

ZEIT: El-Masri is surprised that the American interrogators knew details from his daily life. This knowledge can come only from German intelligence services. Or did the CIA spy in Germany?

Scheuer: I am certain that such information didn't come from us. If we had information about El-Masri's activites in Germany, then it came from one of the German intelligence services. And that makes it probable that it was more than a rumor that led to his arrest.

ZEIT: What is the future of the "special renditions"?

Scheuer: The program is probably dead. Because of the leaks, the publications [of details], and the criticism. And for those who bear responsibility in the intelligence services, the effect is sobering: none of those who ordered us to act in the way we did will now admit it.

The questions were posed by Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff.

On this topic:

Michael Scheuer left the CIA in November 2004 after 22 years of service. From 1995 to 1999 he led the unit that hunted for Osama bin Laden. Since 2000 he was one of the head terrorist-fighters at the CIA. While he was still serving at the CIA he wrote a critique of the American anti-terror policy (Imperial Hubris). Since that time Michael Scheuer has come to be regarded in the CIA as "one who fouls his own nest" [idiomatic expression "Nestbeschmutzer"].

Der Kurier: Sponsorship lie about porn posters

2005-12-31T00:30:00.000-06:00

The Austrian opposition parties seem agreed that the ÖVP must give an accounting of its support for the "25 Peaces" poster campaign that included the posters referred to in my previous post. Here is my translation of one of the articles ["'Sponsorship lie' about the porno posters"] I listed in that post:

The FPÖ and SPÖ [the two main opposition parties] are united in their criticism of Federal Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel [of the ruling ÖVP] in the discussion concerning the EU poster campaign "25 Peaces".

FPÖ leader Heinz-Christian Strache accused the head of the government of hypocrisy. "Schüssel is trying in a hypocritical way to [die Kurve zu kratzen], because the values-conservative Austrians are resisting these stupid provocations," opined Strache. In fact it was the case that the payment of half a million Euros for the whole campaign was in the area of responsibility of the chancellor. Schüssel knew precisely "what bizarre subjects" were to be foisted upon the people. The FPÖ chairman was concerned that Austria had made a fool of itself internationally "to its very marrow". A detailed investigation of all events was now called for, especially of the support of art with tax monies.

Lie about sponsorship

After the numerous falsehoods in which Wolfgang Schüssel and the Chancellor's office have entangled themselves in recent days, the latest trick with which Schüssel wishes to deceive Austrians is flopping as well: the lie about the sponsorship", said SPÖ chairman Josef Cap. It is in fact the case that the government resorted to using a dividend of the state holding company ÖIAG--"and thereby public funds", in order to subsidize the "EU porn posters", rather than (as the Chancellor's office had claimed) that the support relied on an external sponsorship by the ÖIAG. Finance minister Karl-Heinz Grasser must also explain himself, according to Cap.

Bungling

The federal spokesperson for the Greens, Madeleine Petrovic, regarded the poster campaing as a good idea in principle. However: "It has clearly gone completely awry." Some consideration should have been given to the timing before the presentation was made. Furthermore, policy could have been prepared for the debate that followed. To drop the controversial subject-matter "like a hot potato" demonstrates lack of spine--especially on the part of Chancellor Schüssel and Secretary for Art Morak, who was apparently "taken completely by surprise" by the content of the works. Petrovic regards it as inappropriate to simply say now "My name is Bunny, I know nothing" [idiomatic expression with rough semantic equivalence to Sgt. Schulz's "I know nothink!"]. She demands a "complete accounting" for the financing of the campaign.

Austrian Billboards depict Elizabeth II, Chirac, Bush Having Sex

2005-12-30T22:23:00.000-06:00

(Scroll down for updates)

I haven't checked the Swedish papers lately, but when I toodled over to Svenska Dagbladet to find info on Cheap Monday jeans, I came across this interesting and "revealing" story: "Sexskyltarna togs ner i natt" ("Sex billboards taken down over night"). Here is my translation of the article:

The controversial billboards that showed Queen Elizabeth and European heads of state having sex together were taken down in the night.

Vienna

Early this morning the billboards with Queen Elizabeth, President Jacque Chirac, and President Bush were taken down from streets in Vienna. Also a placard portraying a woman in only panties with an EU symbol was removed.

The signs threatened to become a painful matter for Austria, which now assumes the chairmanship of the EU. The chancellor of the Union Wolfgang Schuessel had appealed to the artists behind the works to have them taken down. The signs had received much criticism in the press and on television. They were regarded as sexist and pornographic and an embarrassment for Austria's chairmanship, which was inaugurated on Sunday.

The Spanish artist Carlos Aires, who is behind the work with Bush and Chirac, says that he received the vision of the three heads of state having sex with one another while everything around them collapses. Tanja Ostojic, who created the panty billboard, complained about what she called "the censorship of the general public".

But both went along with the idea that the works of art had to be taken down so that they didn't overshadow the 23 other works of art which were included in the same project.

Now I'll have to run over to Die Presse, Der Kurier, and maybe even Die Neue Kronenzeitung to get more info. Assuming the Kronen Zeitung hasn't changed since the late 1970's, it will probably have hi-res pictures of the billboards.

UPDATE: Die Presse has the panty poster here. You can see a reasonably good image of the Bush/Chirac/Elizabath sign here.

Die Presse and Der Kurier have slide-show like webapps that lets you browse the posters.

Der Kurier has the following headlines (my translations):

Intelligent Design and the PA Ruling at ChicagoBoyz

2005-12-29T17:00:00.000-06:00

James Rummel at ChicagoBoyz has a post about the Pennsylvania ruling on intelligent design titled "Science in the Classroom". He begins by describing his efforts at breeding golden retrievers, which leads him to the success of selective breeding in producing the many dog breeds we see today. He continues:

That is pretty much at the heart of evolution. Some sort of environmental cause either reduces the chance for organisms with a certain inherited trait from breeding, or it increases the chances for individuals from the same species with a different trait. Undesired traits are bred out of the species while those that increase the chance of hooking up become commonplace. This is, in fact, the basis for just about all of our modern biological science.

The key phrase here is "some sort of environmental cause". While human-directed animal husbandry in all its useful forms makes a dandy illustration of the power of genetics and heredity, it represent precisely the opposite sort of environmental cause to what naturalistic evolution calls for. Naturalistic evolution (as opposed to something like theistic evolution) is predicated upon the notion that the all the environmental causes that bear upon the origin of the species and their traits are strictly ateleological, that is, without any goal, purpose, or intention whatsoever. Yet the actions of dog breeders like James are nothing if not goal-directed and purposeful--that is to say, teleological to their very core. Human-directed animal husbandry is the opposite of Dawkin's blind watchmaker (unless perhaps you are an eliminative materialist), and therefore it provides no confirmation at all for natural selection taken as a strictly ateleological process.

In this post James also says:

If the judge had ruled the other way, then graduates from PA universities would have had a real problem finding positions in the medical and biological fields. It¿s true that higher education has little to do with what is taught in public grade school, but they probably would have been tarred by the same brush.

If James is correct about this, then it speaks quite poorly for the medical and biological fields. Are the practitioners of those fields really so blinded by prejudice that they think that anyone who has been exposed to ID is necessarily an intellectual reprobate? Is the situation of such high school graduates so hopeless that one needn't bother to evaluate their actual merits? Surely scientists would demand actual empirical evidence of taint before consigning whole groups of people to the trash heap--at least one well-designed study demonstrating a statistically significant correlation between exposure to ID in high school and the inability to do good science or medicine later.

I also entered the fray in the comments: one, two, and three.

The Suburban Intifada

2005-11-05T23:10:00.000-06:00

France has frequently been a seismograph for social upheavals that later manifest themselves elsewhere. But what is happening now in the suburbs is someting new.

By Rudolph Chimelli
(my translation of "Die Vorstadt-Intifada", Süddeutsche Zeitung, 04.11.2005 17:59 Uhr)

France has a long history of training itself to be accustomed to lawlessness. For centuries, angry farmers have dumped imported food goods on the asphalt, without anyone ever being held accountable for it. Striking workers detain their bosses, and no-one complains about the wrongful deprivation of personal liberty.

Fishermen block harbors and receive higher catch quotas. "Grim reapers" (faucheurs) defend the national culture by clear-cutting test fields of genetically-manipulated crops. And above all the small eruptions of tangible interests shines the last reflected glow of great revolutions against the established order. Governments have foundered on truckers' toll-gates. Even in the time of the Résistance and near-civil-war for Algérie française, the idea that there could be a higher legitimacy than that of the reigning circumstances gained strength.

The rioters in the burning suburbs know nothing of all this. But a substrate of such collective experiences has penetrated their consciousnesses: not much will happen to one, if one throws rocks and firebombs at the cops, sets cars alight, and destroys traffic signals. A gang member can easily handle two months with or without probation, since his biography consists of failure at school, unemployment and lack of vocation, boredom and drug crime. Such a rebel does not wish to be integrated into society. He hates it.

Longing for Rebellion

France has frequently been a seismograph for social upheavals that later manifest themselves elsewhere. But what is happening now in the suburbs is someting new, alone in terms of the extent of the unrest. Since the beginning of the year, 30,000 cars were burned and 9,000 police cars attacked, not only around Paris, but also near Lille and Marseille, as well as in Alsace.

Only security experts realized what was happening. Jaded by the rough customs of social conflicts, the political powers and the media tended for a long time to dismiss these occurrences as an ugly routine, as an agitation that would die out again on its own. Rather late they noticed that Henry Miller's Quiet Days in Clichy were long past.

Frequently overlooked in all this are the decisive changes that new techniques introduce. Frustrated youths are no longer isolated loners, who two years ago little by way of means of self-expression except spray-paint. Now they find themselves in the Internet, where some cleverer than they know how to articulate their amorphous longings for rebellion. Tirades of hate on the television screen lead the surfers to radical organizations and to virtual religious wars. Even the instructions for making weapons are provided. Cell phones in turn make the tactical direction of a riot possible, in a way that earlier was unimaginable for both police and gang leaders.

"We, the Muslims"

These gangs have barely any understanding of the Koran and the teachings of Islam. The suburban intifada has no directly political aims. It is therefore scarcely to be ended by concessions (which ones?). It doesn't enjoy the sympathy of the Muslim majority in these quarters, who suffer the most from the violence, just as the terror attacks in London or Madrid mostly caused disgust among them. Nonetheless, the nights of fire strengthen the perception of different categories: "We, the Moslems" on one side, "the others" on the other side of a rift that is getting deeper. After the horror of September 11 and the attacks in the London subways, an ambivalent feeling began to emerge even among the moderates: The Americans deserved it, or the Brits, anyway.

Explosives, atom bombs, and social tensions have their critical masses. The worst-case scenario is the continued decay of a society into ethnic, religous, national, rich, and poor splinters. Again France is in the vanguard with its at least 5,000,000 Muslims. There, the limits of the well-functioning multicultural neighborhood have in many cases been reached. In suburbs like Vénissieux near Lyon, the proportion of immigrants and their children comprises 50 percent. There, the pressure to conform among the immigrants is greater than the pressure from secular France to assimilate.

England recently experienced the clash between blacks from the Caribbean and Muslims from the Indian subcontinent. Other European countries have been spared the explosions, although the potential discharges from time to time in small episodes. The Netherlands have a million Muslims. In Switzerland, one tenth of the population lived in Kosovo. Germany is also familiar with the problem of parallel societies. In the big cities are compact Turkish communities, whose members want to be Turks in Germany and not Germans. A passport doesn't change that, any more than French citizenship by birth prevents the rebels of Clichy from booing the Marseillaise in the nearby Stade de France.

A Conversation among the Deaf

What can the Europeans do about the French sickness? In any case they must prevent whole quarters of their cities from becoming, like Clichy-sous-Bois, enclaves that the police can no longer enter. Police beats on foot and in the daytime, in the course of which the police officers can get to know the residents, were long ago stopped because they were "provocative". The identification of gang leaders didn't take place. Now they must look for unknown suspects by the light of flames. Even more important is that the opinion leaders stop lying shamelessly to themselves and to the citizens. The dangerous groups recruit among Muslims, not among Hindus or Buddhists.

In no case does that mean that the Muslim faithful are more asocial or more criminal than other groups. They must be treated with respect, and especially with understanding. For among the deaf no conversation is possible, and especially not the much vaunted dialog of civilizations. It can only be successful if each participant understands the categories of thought of the other participant, as well as one's own. Both sides have an obligation. That of the immigrant is necessarily greater. They must not only learn the language of their new home, but, even more importantly, the cultural grammar.

(SZ, November 5/6, 2005)

Tengo una remera del Che y no sé por qué

2005-07-28T09:54:00.000-05:00

It is customary for followers of a cult not to know the real life story of their hero, the historical truth. (Many Rastafarians would renounce Haile Selassie if they had any notion of who he really was.) It is not surprising that Guevara’s contemporary followers, his new post-communist admirers, also delude themselves by clinging to a myth—except the young Argentines who have come up with an expression that rhymes perfectly in Spanish: “Tengo una remera del Che y no sé por qué,” or “I have a Che T-shirt and I don’t know why.”

the whole thing

My thoughts on vodka

2005-07-22T22:31:00.000-05:00

... should you be interested, can be found in the comments here and here. Yes, I'm enjoying a garlic "martini" right now.

Multiculturalism & identity politics

2005-07-22T22:25:00.000-05:00

Perry de Havliand says:

For decades the supporters of multiculturalism have used tax money and government regulations to actively discourage assimilation of immigrants into the broader society, preferring to see communities develop which favour 'identity politics' better suited and more amenable to their own collectivist world views. And now we are paying the price for that. We will not be able to defend ourselves physically or preserve our liberal society unless we stop tolerating intolerance, and that includes not just fundamentalist Islam but also the anti-western bigotry of the multiculturalists.

the whole thing

Oh happy, happy day!

2005-07-14T09:38:00.000-05:00

Le Sabot Postmoderne is back. I hadn't noticed, but I haven't been reading blogs (much less writing in my own) much lately.

Pinkerton and the Argument from Ignorance

2005-06-17T09:44:00.000-05:00

In his Tech Central Station column "The Real Intelligent Designers", James Pinkerton characterizes and rebuts Michael Behe's argument in Darwin's Black Box like so:

Behe argues that it just isn't possible that random evolution could have produced the flagellum -- the propeller/tail -- on a bacteria. Such an organ, he concludes, is "irreducibly complex," which is to say, only a Master of Complexity could have created it.

But it's a fallacy to argue that just because one person -- or even all the people of an era -- can't figure out how something works, therefore such mysterious workings are beyond any human comprehension, ever. To take one humble example, years ago I saw Siegfried and Roy perform their tiger-based magic in Las Vegas, and was frankly astonished at some of the illusions they generated at the aptly named Mirage casino. I had no idea how they did their tricks, but since I knew that they employed mechanics, not metaphysics, to do their show, I was content just to enjoy it, marveling all the while at human ingenuity. And of course, if one waits long enough, he will get a peek behind the conjuring curtain, learning how tricks are done and also that like the rest of us, Siegfried and Roy suffer from Murphy's Law, too. And so it is with science: eventually, some scientist will figure out how the "trick" of the bacteria's flagellum is done.

According to Pinkerton, Behe argues something like this:

(1) Behe "can't figure out how something works" (in this case, how gradualistic natural selection could produce the flagellum);
(2) therefore, no-one can ever figure it out.

Though Pinkerton doesn't name this fallacy, it is clear that he is accusing Behe of offering an argument from ignorance--one of the fallacies most commonly attributed to critics of Darwinian evolution. In fact, the charge of arguing from ignorance is a mainstay of those critiquing ID (see, e.g., 'anonymous's comment at 6:40 AM on this posting of Macht's). But is that really Behe's argument? I don't think so.

It is one thing to assert that a certain explanation of a phenomenon should be rejected because one cannot figure out how it can be true; it is quite another to assert that it is impossible for that explanation to be true, and then to give positive reasons why it is impossible. Behe does the latter. And one does not refute the latter sort of argument by claiming that the arguer is arguing from ignorance--one refutes it by (a) showing that the reasons given are false, or by (b) showing that the reasons given don't entail the impossibility of the explanation in question, or by (c) showing by demonstration that the explanation can indeed account for the phenomenon, that is by reproducing the phenomenon according to the explanation.

Suppose person A asserts that it is impossible for person B to jump unaided over a 6-story building, and A argues for her assertion by citing what she takes to be the relevant laws of physics and what she take to be the relevant properties of the objects concerned (B, the building, the earth, etc.). B doesn't refute A's argument by declaring that she is arguing from ignorance; B refutes it in one of the ways (a), (b), or (c) I noted above. Either he defeats one or more of the reasons A gives in her argument, or he shows the form of A's argument to be logically invalid, or he demonstrates that she is wrong. Suppose B is from planet Krypton and can easily leap over buildings much taller than 6 stories. B could provide A with evidence that he is from Krypton, such that A is persuaded that her views of the relevant properties of B were false, and that B does indeed possess the strength to overcome gravity and friction to the point of being able to leap over the building. Or, alternately, B could simply leap over the building in A's presence, thus obviating any need for argumentation (and compelling A go review her premises and the logical form of her argument). But as a matter of discourse, B doesn't refute A's argument merely by asserting that she is arguing from ignorance.

But the form of Behe's argument is exactly like A's. Behe asserts that something is impossible (namely that step-wise gradual evolution accounts for certain phenomena). And he gives reasons in support of his conclusion. Perhaps some of his reasons are untrue. Perhaps the form of his argument is invalid, such that even if his premises are true, the conclusion doesn't follow from them. Perhaps someone is prepared to show by demonstration that he is wrong. One would refute his argument by addressing any of these flaws. But if one simply declares that Behe is committing a fallacy by arguing from ignorance, then one has failed to address his actual argument, and it seems to me you can't refute an argument without addressing the points it makes and the way it makes them.

In fact, Pinkerton in his TCS column mischaracterizes Behe's argument so badly that he fails to identify it altogether. What for Behe is an argument about the way things are and work (an argument in the domain of ontology, if you will), becomes in Pinkerton's column some kind of epistemological train wreck: a bad argument about what we can and cannot know. It's as if he went out to catch the 10 lb. catfish lurking at the bottom of the pond, and returns with a brace of quail: he may be having dinner tonight, but he didn't do what he set out to do. I do not attribute this to malice on Pinkerton's part--this kind of objection to intelligent design, creationism, and to other movements critical of Darwinism, is so prevalent as to be a almost an instinct, a reflex of mind and speech among critics of ID. One observes that they cannot restrain themselves from transmuting their opponents arguments (be they good or bad) into something else altogether. Perhaps anti-creationists do believe in alchemy after all.

One can imagine ways to formulate an valid kind of argument against Behe's position. Here is an example:

(3) Behe claims that there are reaons that structures like the flagellum cannot be produced by gradualistic evolution;
(4) However, there are reasons (of which Behe is ignorant) that make it possible for structures like the flagellum to be produced by gradualistic evolution;
(5) Therefore, Behe is wrong in his claim about structures like the flagellum;
(6) Therefore, either some of the reasons Behe gives for the impossibility of gradualistic evolution's accounting for the flagellum are wrong, or his conclusion does not follow from his reasons.

Perhaps Pinkerton really has something like this in mind. Note that it (unlike Pinkerton's TCS argument) addresses Behe's actual argument, if only in general terms. It does have one shortcoming: (4) does not follow from (3), and therefore it needs a sound sub-argument of its own to establish it, and thus to make the whole argument sound. If one could produce a sound argument for (4), then Behe's claims would be refuted. I suspect that people have provided reasons that are candidates for supporting (4), and I suspect that Behe and others have responded trying to show why the reasons given don't amount to a sound argument for (4). I know little of the scientific reasons themselves on either side, but I do know that the real action in this question lies in their neighborhood, and not in the neighborhood of epistemology, as Pinkerton seems to think.

The upshot is that Pinkerton in his TCS column so badly mischaracterizes Behe's argument that his critique of it misses the point entirely and is thus without force. He does give brief mention to Behe's concept of irreducible complexity, but Pinkerton seems to say that "irreducible complexity" is just another way of saying "only a Master of Complexity could have created it". Perhaps he is just being careless with his words. Perhaps we are meant to take "which is to say" to mean "from which Behe infers that", which would be a more accurate, if still very incomplete characterization of Behe's view.

The un-aptness of the analogy of the Siegfried and Roy show that Pinkerton uses to refute the argument from ignorance would also be worth a discussion, but I'm not sure when I will get around to that.

I regard this entry as a first draft of my treatment of the trope of the argument from ignorance. I welcome comments by email that will help me improve my analysis.

For some reason, Timothy Sandefur at The Panda's Thumb thinks that Pinkerton's article is excellent.

UoC study overturns conventional theory in evolution

2005-06-16T10:42:00.000-05:00

This just in:

New data suggest that the accumulation of genetic changes is not solely determined by natural selection. A study by University of Chicago researchers contradicts conventional theory by showing that the percentage of mutations accepted in evolution is also strongly swayed by the speed at which new mutations arrive at a gene: the faster the speed of new mutations, the greater the percentage of those mutations accepted.

"We've discovered a striking phenomenon that challenges a paradigm of molecular evolution that has been around for several decades," said lead author Bruce Lahn, PhD, assistant professor of genetics at the University of Chicago and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. "As such, it may cause a significant shift in the field."

Please note that I am not claiming that this research refutes natural selection or evolution or anything of the sort. In fact, a careful reading of the title makes it clear that one aspect of the orthodox view of selection is being called into question, and not the whole neo-Darwinian synthesis. However, a reassessment of this aspect of molecular evolution may have big consequences for the understanding of the role of natural selection in evolution.

If this research is borne out, it makes patently clear just how uncertain many aspects of evolutionary theory are. The Darwinian is frequently left in the position of saying "I know that naturalistic evolution explains the origin of life and its variations, I just don't know how it does it." In the absence of a closely-reasoned explanation of molecular evolution fully supported at all points by evidence, the neo-Darwinian synthesis is held together by the conviction (whether metaphysical or merely methodological) that it all must be explained by naturalistic means only. Perhaps natural selection is the "theory of the gaps", holding place until the real explanation is discovered.

One scientist's assessment:

"Lahn and his associates have found a most striking result, one that is totally unexpected," said geneticist James Crow, professor emeritus of genetics and zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "If this result is indeed confirmed it would cast doubt on use of this ratio [Ka/Ks] as an indicator of selection."

Via this posting at William Sjostrom's AtlanticBlog.

Tight Brain/Mind Linkage as Evidence against Dualism?

2005-06-12T08:32:00.000-05:00

In a comment in the Maverick Philosopher's blog entry "Naturalistic Versus Theistic Ultimate Explanations", Kevin Kim had this to say about his view of the mind/brain relationship:

Regarding mind-- I lean toward a naturalistic explanation because I'm scientifically biased: show me a disembodied mind and I'll change my position. From what we've learned through science, mind (consciousness, or however we define "mind") is inextricably tied to physicality. When something affects the physical brain, it always observably affects the workings of that person's mind, as can be seen through alterations in a person's behavior: the case of Phineas Gage is a classic example of someone who suffers an extreme head injury and literally comes out of the experience a different person.

How does the tight linkage between brain and consciousness (which I'll abbreviate 'TL') mitigate against substance dualism (SD)? Because TL is not inconsistent with SD, it can't logically rule out SD. Does it function inductively to make SD less probable? I don't see how, but if you think it does, show me your argument. As far as I can tell, the most it can do is to leave open the possibility that some day there will be an explanation of consciousness in materialistic terms that will make SD superfluous.

Deep background

2005-06-10T23:45:00.000-05:00

Eamonn posted on May 27 about the desire of many in contemporary Europe to overlook the Christian heritage out of which European civilization and culture grew. He exemplifies this overlooking in Giscard d'Estaing's omission of any mention of Christianity in the preamble to the EU constitution.

Stephen, the first commenter on the post, started thus:

Any intelligent human being does not require religion for "moral guidance". We are well able to tell the difference between right and wrong ourselves, thank you very much.

Here is my response:

This is an interesting contention. However, if you regard ethics and morals as being transcendently normative (and what meaning does normativity have if it doesn't transcend individuals and particular societies?), and if you take a strictly naturalistic (and hence Darwinian) view of human nature (and what other option is open to the consistent secularist?), then I think you will have an exceedingly difficult time arguing for this contention.

The naturalistic, materialistic worldview ultimately reduces to a mechanical determinism. Where else can it go? And Darwinism (taken as science) gives us no reason to prefer human society over that of chimpanzees. Is it the chimps' fault that they are warlike and territorial? Is it perhaps George Bush's fault, or John Ashcroft's fault? Did Nature make a mistake for which she is to be censured in permitting creatures so cruel as humans or chimps (or tapeworms, or kudzu) to come to the earth? And can you really find fault with us that we are as we are, when the way that we are is only the result of mechanistic processes sifting our genes for fitness based on criteria of survivability and reproduction, and the refraction of the light from the environment through the prisms of our genes?

Science and its findings are strictly descriptive. The only "ought" nature knows is the "ought" of proper function and not of moral obligation. A specimen whose genes express themselves in a creature adapted in an inferior way to its environment ought, as a matter of proper function, to die before reproducing. As one philosopher says, "So far as nature herself goes, isn't a fish decomposing in a hill of corn functioning just as properly, just as excellently, as one happily swimming about chasing minnows?" What spark, Mr. Secular Moralist, will you strike that will bridge the gap between the descriptive "ought" of proper function, on the one hand, and the normative "ought" of moral obligation on the other? And until you show me a solid bridge between the two, then I maintain that your moral sense is floating in midair, supported by nothing more than your wishful thinking (and by the nearly spent spiritual capital of Judeo-Christian Europe).

On a Darwinian view, any ethical sense we experience is merely the outworking of a mechanistic instrumentality aimed at furthering the survival of a particular creature's genes, or the survival of the genes of a family or a species. Any transcendence of the "ought" we experience is an illusion subservient to the drive of the genes.

So, Mr. Secular Moralist, it seems to me that you face a choice: you can either acknowledge that the morality of which you speak really isn't normative in any non-illusory sense, or you can offer some account of human nature that isn't rooted ultimately in naturalism and Darwinism. And if you can do neither, then I say that you stand condemned before God and men as a fool.