the guy by the door …

This is news? Well, the Director of National Intelligence has released a new National Intelligence Estimate.¹ It has something that can be taken out of context for pundits of every flavor. So you have a large variance within a single report.²

I would like to offer also the assessment by seven serving military who wrote an op-ed in the New York Times which has rightfully inspired voluminous commentary - on the net at least. It is so powerfully written that everyone feels compelled to comment on it. Some even wondered whether soldiers who may not have college degrees could have written it by themselves. I can’t, at the moment, recall anything by a Harvard author of comparable power.³ I submit that the piece has such extraordinary power in part because they did what no one else does. “Write only what you know.”

The piece has seven authors, yet has a clear unanimous voice. I submit these authors have learned lessons that only shared suffering can teach - the suffering they went to prevent, the suffering they may have caused in the attempt, the suffering they may have felt about that - the suffering that they shared amongst themselves and with the Iraqi people.

As serving military, the authors took a big risk in publishing their piece. Editor and Publisher quotes the military saying they will not be disciplined.

——–

Someone stop me before I blog myself into homelessness.

¹This is not really the NIE. It is the declassified summary. Does this matter? My tautological answer? More than the Bush Administration would care to admit. [The rumor passed along by Rachel Maddow is that the classified version says al-Maliki has got to go.] Also, it isn’t really a new NIE it is an update to the January 2007. Does this matter? I doubt it.

² No wonder nobody besides Noam actually reads these things.

³For this comparison, I include myself.

This Sunday, the American Psychological Association will vote on a moratorium on its members participating in the interrogation of military detainees. Their annual convention in San Francisco started this morning. Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez dedicated this morning’s Democracy Now to the Padilla verdict and the APA moratorium. Reporting from San Francisco, they had on two members of Psychologists for an Ethical APA. Dr. Steven Reisner, faculty member at NYU Medical School and Dr. Stephen Soldz, Professor at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis and author of the Psyche, Science, and Society blog. The APA leadership declined an invitation to appear.

I’m coming late to this story. Democracy Now has 22 segments about it including an in-depth interview with former APA president and perpetrator of the infamous Stanford Jail Experiment, Philip Zimbardo [including video clips from the original experiment]. Underlying the controversy is the secret transformation of the SERE program, initiated during the Korean War, from preparing flyers to resist if captured and tortured to “enhanced interrogation” techniques - scientifically engineered extraction of information from human captives. The APA response to this depends a lot on “what did they know and when did they know it?” The best single account I’ve seen is by Mark Benjamin appeared appeared on Salon and was mirrored by Stephen Soldz on Psyche, Science, and Society. The APA has attempted, over time, to address the issue, but the “dissidents” think a moratorium is the only real answer. According to them, the superego really hit the fan when:

A recently declassified August 2006 Department of Defense report confirms that psychologists were directly responsible for the development and use of techniques defined by the International Red Cross as “tantamount to torture.” These techniques continue to be employed against enemy combatants in Guantanamo and other military and CIA run facilities.

The APA conference has a program series, Ethics and Interrogations: Confronting the Challenge. The presenters page for this track, lists only two names with a connection to Harvard.

Robert Kinscherff, PhD., Esq.,whose gazillion government, professional association, and academic positions, includes an appointment to the Harvard Medical Faculty.

Herbert C. Kelman, Ph.D., is Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics, Emeritus.

I don’t yet know the Harvard connection to the “dark side, if you will.” Stay tuned.

-30-

Zone of Protection around outbreak of hoof and mouth disease, Surrey England August 2007. Graphic: timesonline.com.

In response to an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease in Surrey, England health authorities have established the zone of protection shown above. Near the center of it, is a research establishment [as the Brits say] called Pirbright that houses samples of the offending virus. The establishment was carefully designed. Outbreaks simply cannot occur. But it appears it did.

This is yet another of a continuing history of biolab outbreaks documented by local activists opposing the siting of such a facility in Boston’s largely minority neighborhood of Roxbury. BU is claiming that it is a done deal. Local activists say no!

Dorchester People for Peace Hosts:

Tonight! Monday, August 13, BU’s Bubonic Biolab: Update On A Community Hazard 6:30pm (refreshments), 7-9pm, program. Vietnamese American Community Center, 42 Charles St., next to Fields Corner T Station¹

Boston University is building a Level 4 “Biodefense” Laboratory across the street from Boston Medical Center. When finished, the laboratory will experiment with the most deadly organisms in the world, for which there is no known cure. Laboratory researchers may combine and engineer the organisms to make them even deadlier and more contagious. Roxbury residents who live near the lab have been fighting to stop it for more than two years. Come hear them describe the progress they are making and the crucial court hearing that’s coming up in September.

Speakers:
Klare Allen, coordinator, Safety Net
Laura Maslow Armand, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
and community residents, state and federal attorneys, and local scientists.

• history of the Biolab
• safety concerns
• progress on stopping the Biolab
• the September court hearing
• how to get involved

Don’t miss this timely update!

Wheelchair accessible. Free, refreshments served. For more info or if you need childcare, a ride, please call 617-282-3783.

¹The Red Line splits at Andrew. Take a train destined for Ashmont.

New documentary on the Iraq War Opens in Select Cities Including Cambridge Today!

The official website has trailers and a full listing of cities.

In Cambridge, there are several showings daily at the Kendall Square Cinema .

New in this film, Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Sidney Blumenthal says that this has the White House worried that Colin Powell might become an open critic of U.S. Iraq policy.

See Linda Count the cost of the war.

Economist Linda Bilmes ‘80 from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government documents the toll. I first heard of her when the national press noted her publication, together with Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia University, “The Economic Costs of the Iraq War: An Appraisal Three Years After the Beginning of the Conflict.” Their estimate - $2 trillion - differed by a factor of four from official estimates. Their analysis included the cost of treating wounded veterans. Official estimates did not.

A Pretext for War

author James Bamford also appears. His previous works, The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets, reveal the inner workings of the National Security Agency. He obtained much of the information by filing for declassification under the Freedom of Information Act. Bamford was raised in Natick, Massachusetts and got his law degree from Suffolk County Law.