We give aid to Saudi Arabia???? A tiny nation awash with petrodollars?
While oil-rich Saudi Arabia has never been a large recipient of US aid, the Bush administration channeled a total of more than 2.5 million dollars to the kingdom in fiscal 2005 and 2006 as part of their partnership in the war on terror, congressional officials said.
Oh. OK. It's walking around money.
I'm Sorry I Read It: James Grimmelmann reads Chambermaid — the supposed roman à clef by a former law clerk to Third Circuit Judge Dolores Sloviter — so you don't have to.
Flying from Istanbul to Manchester today; long frequent-flier-ticket layover until tomorrow's flight to Boston, followed by long frequent-flier-ticket layover until evening flight to Miami. Many chances to lose luggage.
This is a fascinating city, but it feels like what we saved on the tickets we pumped into the Turkish economy in other ways.
Seymour M. Hersh interviews Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba (forcibly Ret.), and gets a preview of his testimony at the c. 2010 war crimes trials:
“There was no doubt in my mind that this stuff”—the explicit images—“was gravitating upward. It was standard operating procedure to assume that this had to go higher. The President had to be aware of this.” He said that Rumsfeld, his senior aides, and the high-ranking generals and admirals who stood with him as he misrepresented what he knew about Abu Ghraib had failed the nation.
“From the moment a soldier enlists, we inculcate loyalty, duty, honor, integrity, and selfless service,” Taguba said. “And yet when we get to the senior-officer level we forget those values. I know that my peers in the Army will be mad at me for speaking out, but the fact is that we violated the laws of land warfare in Abu Ghraib. We violated the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We violated our own principles and we violated the core of our military values. The stress of combat is not an excuse, and I believe, even today, that those civilian and military leaders responsible should be held accountable.”
We are enjoying Istanbul. Below is the night-time view of the Blue Mosque from the far corner of the roof terrace of our hotel, which hints at the grandeur of the best of the local architecture.
Indeed, given the number of mosques near here, we are well-placed to hear the muezzins' calls.
Tomorrow, my family and I will be leaving for a week in Istanbul, which is a place I've always wanted to visit. Admittedly, this may not be the very best time in history to be visiting Turkey, given both the domestic tensions between secularists and Islamicists and the Turkish army's provocative shelling across the Northern Iraqi border. We made the arrangements about a week before the current round of unrest began and have been watching developments, especially the bombings, with some concern. So far, however, there do not seem to have been attacks in Istanbul itself, and we haven't called off the trip.
Our hotel in Istanbul promises wireless internet, but I've learned to be wary of such promises, and anyway, this is a holiday. So I'm turning the blog over to a guest until I get back on the 22nd (or more if he wants): my good friend and colleague Patrick Gudridge.
Patrick's willingness to guest blog is a very good thing for readers. Patrick either embodies or exemplifies most of the best things about the University of Miami School of Law. He is intellectually omnivorous, deeply thoughtful, and irrationally charitable and optimistic — all the things that make him a superlative commentator and conversationalist. He's also very nice. Best known, perhaps, for his recent Harvard Law Review article “Remember Endo?,” Patrick's interests range far and wide, but often return to issues of federal and state constitutional law. On the faculty, in addition to his intellectual reputation, Patrick enjoys a special status as a sort of utility player, someone ready, willing, and able to teach almost any course in the curriculum. Patrick is also fond of dogs, having raised, among others, champion bull mastiffs.
Here's the official bio:
Patrick O. Gudridge, Professor of Law, received an A.B. from Harvard College in 1972 and a J.D. in 1976 from Harvard Law School. Professor Gudridge served as a law clerk to Justice Mathew O. Tobriner of the California Supreme Court. He joined the faculty in 1977, and served as Associate Dean at the Law School from 1990 to 1994. He has published articles on the structure of legal interpretation and analysis. His teaching interests are eclectic, and have included courses in federal jurisdiction, U.S. and Florida constitutional law, jurisprudence, business associations, torts, and agency.
I have no idea what he's going to say (I rarely do), but I'm sure it will be interesting (it always is).
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