Barry Eisler's Blog: The Heart of the Matter, page 4

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Fear, With Good Reason

Last week, Dahlia Lithwick had a terrific piece in Slate in which she ponders America's "Terrorism Derangement Syndrome." America does seem to be in the grip of morbid fear, doesn't it? KSM could irradiate Manhattan if he's given a trial there... terrorists can melt the walls of supermax prisons... the Underwear Bomber is so diabolically clever he would laugh off traditional interrogation methods. With all this terror, you might even think... I don't know, that terrorism is working pretty ...

Torture Tales

There are various factors behind America's growing embrace of torture, but among them, largely overlooked, is a brilliant campaign of cross-promotion between right-wing ideologues and right-wing entertainment.

First, the right reduced the entirety of torture to a simple talking point: "Can you really say torture never works?" And then answered the question through thriller novels and television shows.

There's a reason Glenn Beck so assiduously hawks what he calls the "conservative porn" of no...

Paper Earthworks and Digital Tides

Don't be misled by the self-serving narratives Amazon and Macmillan have advanced following their recent eBooks battle. Amazon's narrative is "We're Pro-Consumer;" Macmillan (and paper publishers in general) counter with "We're Anti-Monopoly." Neither of these narratives is untrue, but neither addresses the real cause of this war.

What's happening is this. Amazon is doing everything it can to speed the transition to eBooks because, in a digital world, Amazon's costs of shipping and storage ...

If the Hippocratic Oath Applied to Intelligence

I'm just about done with Tim Weiner's phenomenal Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. Two themes are at the heart of the book.

First, the Agency has been incompetent from its inception. The roster of incompetence includes subversion operations that cost the lives of hundreds of agents and accomplished nothing; CIA-managed coups that backfired; the Bay of Pigs; and many others. Even operations that "succeeded" were pyrrhic. Installing the Shah via a CIA-sponsored coup in Iran in 1953, f...

The Best Lack All Conviction

If you want a pristine example of why people view Democrats as feckless wimps, here's Obama's statement from yesterday on what the Dems should do about health care reform following Brown's Massachusetts victory:

"Here's one thing I know and I just want to make sure that this is off the table. The Senate certainly shouldn't try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated. People in Massachusetts spoke. He's got to be part of that process."

Translation:

"It's not enough that the rules m...

Democratic Crybabies

The Democrats are so pathetic.

Their latest plea is that if Martha Coakley doesn't win in Massachusetts today, they'll lose their critical 60-seat Senate block and with it, health care reform.

It's bullshit. If the Democrats wanted to pass health care reform, or anything else, they could do it today. Any time they wanted, with a simple majority vote, they could end the filibuster rule that enables Republicans to block legislation.

This is so simple, it's useful to break it down the way a child...

It's Good to Be The King

President Obama's Nobel acceptance speech has been praised by a number of people I admire. I wish I could agree with them. In fact, even apart from the "War is Peace" elements inherent in a man accepting the Nobel Peace Prize immediately after escalating one of the three wars he is waging, I thought the speech was insidious and appalling.

The speech is fulsome in its praise of the law, and in its call that nations that break the law be punished. "Those who claim to respect international law...

What Happens When a War Isn't Winnable?

Foreword:

I wrote the following piece over four years ago for Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind and the Philadelphia City Paper. On the eve of President Obama's announcement of a major escalation in Afghanistan, it's sadly timely. I hope there won't be cause to reprint it four years hence.

Remember when Blockbuster Video charged three dollars for a two-night video rental, and one dollar per night if you were late? They made most of their profits from late charges. Why? Because if you di...

Fear Itself

This morning, while reading The Washington Independent's Daphne Eviatar's excellent report on the death penalty for terrorists, two things occurred to me.

First, there's been much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the right about trying Khalid Sheik Mohamed in New York City because, apparently, KSM said he wanted to be tried in New York. As Rudy Giuliani said, "I didn't think we were in the business of granting the requests of terrorists."

Giuliani's point is of course silly -- as Dahlia Lithwi...