Replies to AIPAC Article

The Christian Science Monitor picks up more comment about the article on AIPAC's extraordinary influence on US politics. Alan Dershowitz weighs in for a Harvard rebuttal of a Harvard colleague. One of his worst arguments (on page 15) is, "Several years ago, I challenged those who made similar accusations to identify a single Jewish leader who equated mere criticism of Israeli policy with anti-Semitism. No one accepted my challenge, because no Jewish leader has made such an absurd claim." Dershowitz's paper is just the thing he claims does not exist. He attacks his Harvard colleague as an anti-Semite for daring to criticize Israel.

Everybody attacks the original article because David Dukes of KKK fame agreed with it. But does that necessarily make it wrong? If David Dukes said the sky was blue, would that necessarily mean that it was green? The fact that someone who is frequently wrong says that something is right does not logically mean that he is wrong in this case. The argument should be judged on its truthfulness, not on some kind of guilt by association.

Supreme Court Hears Vienna Convention Case

According to the New York Times, yesterday the US Supreme Court heard arguments in a case involving the Vienna Convention, which grants access by home country consular officials to people arrested in a foreign country. When I was a US consular officer in Brazil, I considered this the best guarantee against mistreatment, even possible torture, of arrested American citizens.

The virtue of this convention for Americans is not so much what it does for foreigners in the US, but the protections it affords Americans overseas. Similarly, the virtue of the Geneva Conventions is not so much the restrictions against torture that it places on American soldiers (although why the American government should embrace torture is beyond me), but rather that adhering to the Convention is a protection against torture for American soldiers captured by foreigners.

The report in the Times indicates that the Supreme Court may not find that any enforceable rights are created in US courts by the Vienna Convention, but the very idea that the issue made it to the Supreme Court, and that the Court may encourage local police and defense lawyers to notify the appropriate consuls is progress.

From the Supreme Court calendar, these cases, one from Oregon and one from Virginia, appear to be Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon and Bustillo v. Johnson. A more legalistic report of the case is on the Northwestern University web site.

Problems with Non-American American Diplomats

American Ambassador to Iraq Khalilzad wins high praise for his work in trying to bring a stable government to Iraq and end the religious strife (or civil war, depending on your viewpoint) there. As an American from a family that has been in America for several generations, I always thought that the US should give some sort of favoritism to native-born Americans, because immigrants or first generation Americans often have an advantage in that they know the language and culture of their country of origin well, which is important. But it is also important to know the US well. I worry that intimate knowledge of the US is something that is does not show up as well in testing as language proficiency does. In addition, most immigrants left their home countries for some reason, which means that they do not share some important values with the citizens of their home country who did not leave. This was often on view during the Cold War, when many of the most virulently anti-Russian policymakers were of Russian extraction.

Born in Afghanistan, Khalilzad is, according to Juan Cole (who was just on PBS), "an Afghan Pushtun of Sunni extraction." I think that because of this, he may be viewed with suspicion by Shiite Muslims, who are the leaders in forming a new government in Iraq. In looking for confirmation that Khalilzad is of Sunni extraction, I found a somewhat questionable website says that Khalilzad's wife, Cheryl Benard, is an Austrian who works for the Rand Corporation, whom he met at the University of Chicago while they were studying under leading neo-con Albert Wohlstetter.

The fact that Khalilzad was born a Sunni Muslim, but that one of the main influences on his thinking was Wohlstetter, a Jew at Chicago who influenced many of the Jewish neo-cons, including Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, has got to be confusing. Maybe it shows religion doesn't matter. Or maybe it shows that there is nobody as radical as a convert to a new religion (or a new political philosophy).

Israeli Election Implications for AIPAC

It will be interesting to see what effect yesterday's Israel elections have on American politicians' good buddies in AIPAC. According to CNN and other sources, Likud under Netanyahu did poorly. However, Likud has been the party of ethnic hatred and warfare (mainly against the Palestinians, but also against Arabs and Muslims in general) that has endeared itself to AIPAC, to many American Jews, and through AIPAC (with help from some Christian Armageddon theorists) to American politicians (Republican and Democratic). Will they become more dovish if Israel becomes more dovish? Or will the US, which started a holy war in Iraq, continue to implement Likud's policies after they have been rejected by Israel?