Closing Guantanamo.

This article by Dahlia Lithwick at Slate does important work in cutting through the bullshit enveloping the Guantanamo debate, and re-focusing the public on the facts.

Her main point:

"[W]hether we are looking to answer questions about where to repatriate the last Guantanamo detainees, where to hold them until we try them, or how to try them, let's attempt to get past the undifferentiated orange jumpsuits, which tell us what they have always told us: virtually nothing at all."

The money quote for me, though, is:

We also know that among the remaining prisoners at Guantanamo there are several who clearly come under the definition of child soldiers, including Canadian Omar Khadr, who allegedly threw a grenade at an American soldier and was first taken to Guantanamo when he was 15. Khadr, we learned this week, allegedly identified, under abusive interrogation, another Canadian, Maher Arar, as a visitor to an al-Qaida safe house in Afghanistan. The problem here is that there is no dispute that Arar was in Canada at the time. Mohammed Jawad is another prisoner at Gitmo, and like Khadr he was also a child soldier (between 15 and 17; his birth date is unknown) when he threw a grenade and injured U.S. soldiers. As Glenn Greenwald chronicles here, Jawad allegedly suffered such brutal abuse and torture, his chief prosecutor resigned and is now a witness for Jawad in his habeas corpus proceeding. As Greenwald writes, the centerpiece of the government case against Jawad is a confession he " 'signed' (with his fingerprint, since he can't write his name) … and yet, it was written in a language Jawad did not speak or read and was given to him after several days of beatings, druggings, and threats—all while he was likely 15 or 16 years old."

[UPDATED] The Children of Hamas.

Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God say, "No." Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61."

This was the lead in a story I came across this morning:

Israel dropped a one-ton bomb on the home of a Hamas strongman Thursday, killing him along with two [actually, 4] wives and four [actually 9] children in the first attack on the top leadership of Gaza's rulers.

Really hard to read. Euphemisms are a wonderful thing, and "collateral damage" is a great one, but the wrenching specificity of assassinating a leader in such a way that you take 9 of his children with him is terrible to contemplate. And I am so certain it must be condemned.

And then I read further in the same article, and I learned:

[The assassinated Hamas leader] was closely tied to Hamas' military wing and was respected in Gaza for donning combat fatigues and personally participating in clashes against Israeli forces. He sent one of his sons on an October 2001 suicide mission that killed two Israeli settlers in Gaza.

And in a world where that is possible, the need for euphemisms (not just "collateral damage," but "suicide mission," "settlers," and especially "sent") starts to overwhelm. Starts to seem like the rules I live by (consciously recognized or not) are...well...quaint.

Starts to. But then: I just cannot believe that son would have killed himself to murder others without the encouragement of his father (understood broadly). I don't like writing children off as delinquents, much less as terrorists. And so I'm left struggling to find the rationalization for their innocent deaths.

In various philosophy courses, I've always been troubled by the doctrine of double effect -- that is, essentially, judging an act not based on the results of the act but based on the intent (on "the risk posed," as Alan Dershowitz argues in today's WSJ). My tendencies toward consequentialist ethics rearing up, I suppose. I closed a poem once: "the doctrine of double effect is/ no venial sin, it is/ an abattoir of lifetimes." I still believe that -- despite my sympathies for its various expediencies. The lack of particular intent to murder the 9 children (in exchange for 1 Hamas leader) just isn't enough.

I am generous with abstract sympathy -- I feel it, at various times, for all sides in this interminable conflict. I suppose, in the end, all I'm saying is that I find the strategic choice Israel made in this instance to be deeply awful and readily condemnable -- as is, I understand, the fact that it was faced with such a choice. But, here, I think, the decision was worse than the choice (if language holds up that far).

Fittingly, I'm not sure how to end this post. So bookends will have to suffice:

Now the rovin' gambler he was very bored
He was tryin' to create a next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before
But yes I think it can be very easily done
We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it on Highway 61.

[UPDATE: Apparently, the final death toll was 4 wives and 9 of 12 children. I've changed the numbers throughout.]

[NOTE: Various other updates/changes were made throughout since the original posting, and are not marked.]

"Shake and Shoot" Coca-Cola douches, and Other weird science.

There are several strange items in this article about funny little scientific studies -- actually makes me want to read an issue of the British Medical Journal.

Highlights:

• "Studies showed that children who consume large amounts of sugar are no more hyperactive than those who don't. But parents who think their kids have eaten sugar, even when they haven't, tend to rate them as being hyperactive.
  
  The ill-mannered behavior, the authors wrote, was 'all in the parents' minds.'"

• "Coca-Cola douches for pregnancy prevention were a part of folklore in the 1950s and 1960s, before the contraceptive pill. People thought that the acidity of the soda would kill sperm and that the classic Coke bottle provided a convenient 'shake and shoot' applicator.
  
  Dr. Deborah Anderson of Boston University School of Medicine had previously reported that Coke can impede the mobility of sperm in a test tube. But further study, she said, shows that sperm get to the cervical canal so quickly that postcoital spritzing is ineffective.
  
  For it to work, she wrote, the soda would have to be put in the vagina before sex, 'but that would undoubtedly be messy.'"

• "Drs. Christopher J. Boos and Howard Marshall, cardiologists at University Hospital Birmingham, treated a 25-year-old woman who suffered repeated fainting episodes, particularly when eating a sandwich or drinking a fizzy drink.
  
  A full medical work-up showed her to be healthy overall, but the team ultimately diagnosed a condition called swallow syncope, which caused her heart to stop beating for as long as three seconds after some types of swallowing -- especially sandwiches, for no clear reason.
  
  The woman was fitted with a pacemaker and has had no fainting episodes since, Boos and Marshall reported in the Lancet. They suspect that many other patients suffer the problem without being diagnosed."

Ok. So sandwich-fainting is weird. But these doctors think there are many other people who faint when they swallow, and don't notice? Really?