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No True Believer

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It’s tough being a scholar sometimes. Just ask Pope Benedict. In the course of a long speech, he took the time to tell a little story about a 600-year-old meeting between two educated thinkers, one Christian and one Muslim. And now he has the whole Islamic world angry at him. His story went something like this:

The Pope’s speech quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

“The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war,” the Pope said.

“He said, I quote, ‘Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached’.”

Benedict described the phrases on Islam as “brusque”, while neither explicitly agreeing with nor repudiating them.

Hey, this is a popular blogging technique! Just link to a story somewhere else, without giving any explicit endorsement. I wonder if Benedict has been reading Instapundit, or Little Green Footballs?

So now apparently Muslims are upset, as they don’t appreciate the linkage between Islam and violence. Personally, I find it unpersuasive to claim that the two are unconnected when so many people persist in connecting them. Also, if your goal is to insist that your religion is one of peace and tolerance? Probably burning the Pope in effigy is not the best way to get that message across.

Burning the Pope in Effigy

The real problem with the Pope’s speech was his claim that violence had no place in true religion (you know, like Christianity).

“Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul,” the Pope said.

We all know that most big-time religions have many examples of terrible violence in their past, and Christianity is certainly no exception. Even putting aside the many recent incidents, it’s interesting to consider the record that is part of official Church doctrine, as recorded in Scripture. Steve Wells has done the hard work of going through the Old Testament and counting up the death toll for both God and Satan, taking care not to exaggerate by only including those examples for which specific figures are given. (Via Cynical-C.) The final tally:

  • God: 2,270,365.
  • Satan: 10.

This doesn’t include stuff like the Flood, for which reliable figures are unavailable. If violence is incompatible with the nature of God, He sure has a funny way of showing it.

To be serious for a second: my thing about religion is generally not that it’s bad, but that it’s false. The history of religion is far too complex to be summed up as “good” or “bad,” and there are obviously components of both. The Salvation Army, odious discrimination policies notwithstanding, does a tremendous amount of good. Religious people are generally better at donating to charity than non-religious ones (last I heard; I don’t have specific figures, so this could be wrong). And I like a lot of the art and architecture.

The overall effect of religion may be good or bad, I don’t know how to judge. But if you’re going to talk about it (which the Pope is definitely going to do, given his job description), you should at least be honest, including all the ugly parts. Pretending that either Islam or Christianity is all about non-violence and peaceful dialogue is patently false. You can try to say that the episodes of violence are aberrations, not reflective of the “real” religion, but that’s just the No True Scotsman fallacy. What a religion is, for all important purposes, is revealed by what its adherents actually do, for better or for worse. If Pope Benedict had said “We are all fallible human beings, and people of our faiths do not always act wisely, but we should all strive to promote peace over violence within our churches,” perhaps there would have been fewer effigies.

No True Believer Read More »

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Pandora’s box

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The Wikipedia article on countries with nuclear weapons is sobering reading. This map is from the article, although the color-coding is a bit misleading. (3quarksdaily points to more maps.)
Nuclear powers

  • The United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France and the People’s Republic of China are the five nuclear powers recognized by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Not coincidentally, they are also the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The US and Russia have about 6,000 active warheads each, while the others have a few hundred each. According to the NPT, only these countries are permitted to have nuclear weapons, and they are prohibited from sharing weapons technology with other countries.
  • India did not sign the NPT, and exploded its first nuclear weapon in 1974 (in a test perversely named “Smiling Buddha“). In 1998 they tested “weaponized” nuclear warheads (I don’t know what that means) in Pokhran-II. Numerous complaints and sanctions followed, none of which had any appreciable effect, and the controversy eventually died down. Possession of nuclear weaponry is considered to be a crucial part of India’s self-image as a world power. They are now recognized by the US as a “responsible nuclear state.”
  • Pakistan is also not an NPT signatory. They performed their first nuclear test in 1998, in response to India’s test. In 1999 they signed accords with India, agreeing to a bilateral moratorium on nuclear testing. A.Q. Kahn, leader of the Pakistani program, confessed to being involved in a clandestine network to share nuclear weapons technology with Libya, Iran, and North Korea; he was pardoned by President Perez Musharraf in 2004. There is some evidence that his network was also collaborating with the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
  • Israel has not acknowledged possessing a nuclear arsenal, but it is an open secret; Israel is not an NPT signatory. (In fact, India, Pakistan, and Israel are the only sovereign states not to ratify the NPT — although see below.) They probably have several hundred warheads, comparable to the stockpiles of China, France, and the UK.
  • North Korea, in contrast to Israel, has publicly claimed to have nuclear weapons, although some analysts remain skeptical. After ratifying the NPT in 1985, they withdrew in 2003; no other countries have ever withdrawn from the treaty. In September 2005 they agreed to scrap their existing nuclear weapons and rejoin the NPT, but later stated that no such steps would be taken unless they were supplied with a light water reactor.
  • Iran is of course an interesting question.
  • South Africa produced a few nuclear weapons in the 1980’s, but later dismantled them. They are the only nation to build nuclear weapons themselves and later give up the capability.
  • Saudi Arabia has stated that they might need to develop nuclear weapons, although they deny actually having done so. Some recent reports claim that the Saudis have embarked on a weapons-development program, with aid from the Pakistani nuclear program.
  • Several republics of the former Soviet Union found themselves in possession of nuclear missiles upon the collapse of the USSR in 1991: Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. All have subsequently transferred the weapons to Russia and signed the NPT, and are currently nuclear-free. Concerns persist over the possibility that weapons technology was sold through the black market; Ukraine, in particular, was known to be active in selling at least conventional technology.
  • Several industrialized nations are thought to be capable of putting together nuclear weapons with very little effort, including Canada, Italy, Germany, Lithuania, and Japan. For the most part there is no evidence that these countries have any desire to pursue such a course. However, former German defense minister Rupert Scholz has argued that Germany should consider nuclear weapons as a way to respond to terrorist attacks.
  • Iraq, of course, had a program to develop nuclear weapons that suffered a number of setbacks, notably the Israeli air strike on the Osirak nuclear facility in 1981. After the 2003 invasion, the Iraq Survey Group concluded that the nuclear program had been abandoned in 1991, along with most other WMD programs, but that Saddam Hussein had plans to re-start the program once multilateral sanctions were lifted.
  • As part of NATO agreements, the US provides tactical nuclear weapons for use by Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey.
  • A number of countries are known to have begun programs to develop nuclear weapons, only to abandon them and eventually sign the NPT; these include Sweden, Switzerland, Egypt, Philippines, Libya, Australia, Poland, Romania, South Korea, Brazil, Argentina, Taiwan, and Yugoslavia.

What are the chances, with all those weapons out there, that someone will use one, say in the next fifty years? Extremely high, I would guess. None has been used in the last fifty years, it’s true, but for most of that time we lived in a bipolar world with clearly defined lines of engagement and relatively symmetrical capabilities and liabilities. (The above list doesn’t even mention non-state groups, of course.) A more fragmented situation exponentially increases the number of events that could lead to a nuclear strike, including the possibility of accidents. And the number of nuclear-capable states shows little signs of decreasing in the near future.

For what it’s worth, Russia, India and China have officially adopted a No-First-Use policy regarding nuclear weapons; the United States, United Kingdom, France, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea have declined to do so. In the 2005 revised Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations, the Pentagon listed the conditions under which a nuclear first strike could be requested, which includes basically any situation in which someone might want to use them. The Doctrine itself was originally published freely on the Pentagon web site, before being cancelled — that is, removed from the site, but not necessarily revised as doctrine. The original document can be read here. Britain and France have similarly asserted the right to nuclear first-use. It is hard to imagine that countries generally thought of as less responsible than the US, UK and France would feel much compulsion against using nuclear weapons if they felt threatened.

Once any country strikes another using nuclear weapons, the presumption against further use will be considerably lowered. The consequences are hard to imagine, simply for being so terrifying.

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Thank Stanislav Petrov Day

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Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov is arguably the most influential person who ever lived, although I had never heard of him until seeing this post on Cynical-C and this tribute.

Our story unfolds on September 26, 1983. Lieutenant Colonel Petrov was the officer on duty at the Serpukhov-15 bunker near Moscow with the responsibility of alerting Soviet command if there was any indication that the U.S. had launched a nuclear missile strike against the U.S.S.R. The response, of course, would be massive retaliation, and the deaths of many millions of people.

Just after midnight, the computers indicated that an American missile had been launched. Petrov was skeptical, since it wouldn’t make much sense to just launch a single missile. However, soon thereafter, the computer indicated that another four missiles had been launched.

To make a long story short (see Wikipedia for more), Petrov decided that the multiple launches were still a computer error rather than a real attack, and declined to alert his superiors, putting the Soviet Union at risk if he were mistaken. As it turned out, Petrov was right, and he had certainly averted an accidental worldwide catastrophe. But he had disobeyed procedure in the process; his superiors gave him a reprimand and reassigned him to a lower-profile post. The entire incident was kept secret until 1998.

Stanislav Petrov

Forget Easter, here’s a guy who deserves our thanks.

The question is: what would you have done? Presume that you were in an equivalent situtation, responsible for the defense of your country, a mission in which you believed with all your heart. But you have no desire to have millions of people die unnecessarily. How certain would you have to be that an attack was actually occuring before you would set massive retaliation in motion? Fifty-fifty? 100-1? A million to one? Or would you never retaliate, knowing that your decision would lead to hundreds of nuclear warheads raining down on your homeland, and your mortal enemy presumably taking over the world?

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How quickly can Iran get the bomb?

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Obviously a lot of smart and well-informed people have been thinking about this. Many, like Juan Cole, think that the Iranians are nowhere close to a bomb; ThinkProgress is slightly less sanguine. They are taking the trouble to make this argument because the US is claiming that it would only take 16 days for Iran to make a bomb. There are all sorts of reasons to disbelieve this particular claim: a history of crying wolf, an apparent misunderstanding of the concept of significant figures… Still, is it more like ten days, or ten years?

Steinn Sigurðsson looks at the problem as a physicist, and isn’t optimistic.

I don’t know Iran; I don’t have access to any classified information on nuclear weapons.
I do know something about physics…

First of all, Iran is clearly been working on putting together a full nuclear cycle for about 20 years

That means they want to be able to do it all in-house: mining, enrichment, burning, plutonium extraction, power generation and bomb production.

It is clear that they did the science in the early-to-mid-90s, they tested centrifuges, built small high neutron flux reactors and got small amounts of plutonium extracted.

So, they learned Pu chemistry, what isotopes you get with different burns, and maybe some metallurgy.

They then set up centrifuge halls and played with an AVLIS (laser isotope separator).

They also ordered a 1GW reactor from the russians, and refined uranium oxide (aka “yellowcake”) into both uranium tetrafluoride, uranium hexafluoride and uranium metal.
Supposedly several tons of uranium oxide were processed.

Now: there are two ways to make bombs, at the basic level.
Get highly refined uranium-235 metal; or, fairly pure plutonium-239. In kilogram quantities.
U-235 bombs are simple and need not be tested. “A grad student could make one of those”.
Pu-239 bombs are notoriously fickle and are said to need testing (although maybe not so much any more…)

Read the whole thing.

Hofstadter’s Law says “It always takes longer than you think, even when taking into account Hofstadter’s Law.” For nuclear weapons, unfortunately, the word “longer” should be replaced by “shorter.” Historically, we always underestimate the proximity of other nations to full nuclear capability (unless we’re trying to cook up reasons to invade them). I don’t know what to do about it, but there’s every reason to believe that, left to its own devices, Iran will have some sort of bomb sooner rather than later.

How quickly can Iran get the bomb? Read More »

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The language of Science

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From a footnote on page 69 of Seth Lloyd’s new book Programming the Universe (about which more later):

I happened to be in [Nobel Laureate Norman Ramsey’s office in Paris] when two members of the Academie Francaise came to call. “Why, Professeur Ramsey,” they inquired, “is French not the international language of Science?” Ramsey immediately answered them in his fluent French, with a thick midwestern accent. Horrified, they dropped the subject. In fact, the French Academy of Sciences caused the adoption of English as the international language of science in the seventeenth century by being the first national academy to abandon the previous international language, Latin, and publish their proceedings in their own language. The English and the Germans followed suit. The rest is just an accident of history.

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Message discipline

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You may have heard that 72% of U.S. troops in Iraq think that the U.S. should leave the country before the end of the year. Presumably that’s because they can see for themselves that it’s a bit of a sticky wicket over there. On the other hand, they don’t seem to be getting very accurate reports from the outside world, since 90% think that the war is retaliation for Saddam’s role in the 9/11 attacks.

Hmm, I wonder why their information would be so faulty? Wonkette reported recently on an email from a soldier stationed in Iraq, reporting that their site was blocked by the censors at the USMC Network Operations Center in Quantico. Perhaps the military doesn’t want to distract the troops with salacious stories of Washington sexcapades? In a more recent followup (via firedoglake), the same soldier reports on just which sites are blocked, and which our troops are allowed to spend time surfing.

  • Wonkette – “Forbidden, this page (http://www.wonkette.com/) is categorized as: Forum/Bulletin Boards, Politics/Opinion.”
  • Bill O’Reilly (www.billoreilly.com) – OK
  • Air America (www.airamericaradio.com) – “Forbidden, this page (http://www.airamericaradio.com/) is categorized as: Internet Radio/TV, Politics/Opinion.”
  • Rush Limbaugh (www.rushlimbaugh.com) – OK
  • ABC News “The Note” – OK
  • Website of the Al Franken Show (www.alfrankenshow.com) – “Forbidden, this page (http://www.airamericaradio.com/) is categorized as: Internet Radio/TV, Politics/Opinion.”
  • G. Gordon Liddy Show (www.liddyshow.us) – OK

Interesting. I wonder if there is any pattern there? I suspect that there is, but somehow I just can’t put my finger on it. Probably just being paranoid.

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The godless North

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Greetings from chilly Vancouver, where I’ve been visiting the University of British Columbia for the last few days. Besides breathtaking topography and amazing Pacific cuisine, a big advantage of the region is that you can’t swing a cat without hitting an atheist around here. That’s right: no religion was the largest reported “denomination” among B.C. residents, with more than twice the number of Roman Catholics, the second-biggest group. Thanks to Scott Oser for pointing this out.

(There don’t seem to be many Jewish people in B.C. I suspect that Moshe is the only one, and he was traveling during my visit.)

I have to admit, though, that I’m confused. People here seem relatively friendly, and there is quite an effective social safety net, including universal health care. Where did all this niceness and compassion come from, without God to tell them how to behave? I’m pretty sure that I’ve heard that godlessness leads to a selfish, cutthroat, me-first attitude, so much unlike the selfless regard for the less fortunate that characterizes our religious culture in the States. These Canadians are probably a bunch of backstabbing Enlightenment hedonists under their smiling facades.

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The company you keep

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Good news: U.S. launches charm offensive to bridge new ties with some of our traditional rivals! Bad news: our new point of agreement is the need to squelch gay rights. From Human Rights News, via Sadly, No!

In a reversal of policy, the United States on Monday backed an Iranian initiative to deny United Nations consultative status to organizations working to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, a coalition of 40 organizations, led by the Human Rights Campaign, Human Rights Watch, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, called for an explanation of the vote which aligned the United States with governments that have long repressed the rights of sexual minorities. […]

In voting against the applications to the NGO committee, the U.S. was joined by Cameroon, China, Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, Senegal, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.

I miss the days when we were the good guys.

Perhaps to show solidarity with our newfound friends, ballot measures for the 2006 elections are springing up around the country, concentrating on denying homosexual couples the right to adopt children. (USA Today, via Balloon Juice.) Do you think these efforts arise from a sincere desire to protect children, perhaps bolstered by studies showing that it’s better to be raised in an orphanage than by loving same-sex adoptive parents? Of course you don’t.

Election-year politics. Republicans battered by questions over ethics and Iraq “might well” use the adoption issue to deflect attention and draw out conservatives in close Senate and governor races in states such as Missouri and Ohio, says Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, University of Southern California political scientist.

The aim is to replicate 2004, says Julie Brueggemann of the gay rights group PROMO: Personal Rights of Missourians. She says marriage initiatives mobilized conservative voters in 2004 and helped President Bush win in closely contested states such as Ohio. Republicans “see this as a get-out-the-vote tactic.”

You can look back through history and see people arguing passionately in favor of all sorts of positions that today we would characterize as absolutely beyond the pale: slavery, denying women the right to vote, the divine right of kings, and so on. I used to wonder, what is it that we are doing now that will seem most embarassingly backward a hundred years from today? Major contenders, off the top of my head:

  • Denial of civil liberties to gays and lesbians.
  • Erosion of privacy and the right to a fair trial in the name of homeland security.
  • Attacks on science and on intellectuals and experts more generally.
  • Arrogant and uninformed unilateralism in foreign policy.
  • A startling lack of urgency on issues such as nuclear proliferation and alternative energy sources.

Okay, that’s depressing, I’ll stop now. Happy day-after-President’s Day!

The company you keep Read More »

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Cartoons

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I’m guessing that you’ve heard about the Mohammed cartoon controversy (see Wikipedia article). To make a long story short, Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, just trying to do their bit for world peace and harmony, invited artists to submit cartoons with the prophet Mohammed as their subject. They published twelve of them, featuring various degrees of ridicule of Islam. (You can see the cartoons here.) Muslims worldwide reacted with outrage, featuring protests, rioting, arson, and at least one counter-cartoon contest — sponsored by an Iranian newspaper, asking for cartoons about the Holocaust. (Presumably because they think that Danes were the major targets of the Holocaust?) There is no shortage of blogging on the topic; for contrasting views, see series at Daily Kos and the Volokh Conspiracy.

I haven’t said anything about the controversy, both because I’ve been busy and since I thought the major points were perfectly obvious. The most-discussed points of contention seem to have been: “Did the Danish newspaper have the right to publish such offensive cartoons?”, and “Did the protestors have the right to resort to arson and rioting in response?” Put that way, the answers are obviously “Yes” and “No,” and there’s not much more to say.

Denmark, as far as I know, is not covered by the First Amendment, but in a democratic society newspapers should be permitted to publish just about whatever they want. The fear of offending people is no reason to suppress public speech. (Speech within private associations is a different matter.) The correct response, if something is said with which you disagree, is to say something else in return — the free market of ideas. True, the cartoons in question are low-brow and intentionally provocative, not the expression of any subtle argumentation. But quality of the speech is not relevant. If you don’t like it, let your displeasure be known, like this London (!) protester is doing:
Freedom Go To Hell
A little self-undermining, maybe, but certainly taking advantage of an appropriate outlet for his own personal expression.

The violent reaction from some Muslims (not all, certainly) is completely inappropriate by any standard. This kind of destructive impulse is not something unique to Islam; it’s a familiar human response, one that is encouraged by fundamentalism of all kinds. At its source, it’s the same impulse that leads people to bomb abortion clinics or set fire to rural churches. Demonization of people unlike you, and violent action against them, is a frequent feature of extreme religious belief; not all religious belief, obviously, but a particularly virulent strain. It is antithetical in every way to the values of a liberal democratic society. This is a paradox of free societies: they must tolerate all sorts of belief, even those that are incompatible with freedom.

The subtleties of the cartoon issue only arise when we move from the question of whether Jyllands-Posten should have been allowed to publish the cartoons (since they obviously should have been), to whether it was a good idea to actually do so. Just because speech is allowed doesn’t mean it is mandatory. Knowing that the cartoons would offend the sensibilities of many Muslims, should the newspaper have printed them?

It’s easier to defend freedom of offensive expression when you’re not the one being offended. The same newspaper has apparently been less willing to publish potentially offensive cartoons about Jesus, for example. And many of the folks who are vociferously defending the cartoons are less willing to stand up for freedom of expression when it comes to flag burning. On the flip side, they have asked whether those who wring their hands over giving offense were all that bothered about works of art that offended Christians, such as Andre Serrano’s Piss Christ or Chris Ofili’s Holy Virgin Mary (you know, the one with the elephant dung).

Whether or not a group should offend another group (granting that they have the right to) isn’t a matter of fundamental rights, it’s a matter of politeness and civil discourse. The analogy between the Mohammed cartoons and Piss Christ is not a very close one. The former were published in a newspaper, almost begging to be distributed as widely as possible. The latter was shown in an art museum; if you didn’t want to go, nobody was forcing you. Art is (sometimes) supposed to be shocking and provocative; the idea that a gallery should refrain from displaying pieces that offend some people’s sensibilities is dangerous and counter-productive.

Still, even though it was a much more public forum, I don’t think that requirements of civility and politeness are paramount here. It’s true that, although I personally am happy to explain to Muslims why their ideas about religion are completely incorrect, I wouldn’t go out of my way to simply be offensive to their beliefs. But it’s not my newspaper. The editors of Jyllands-Posten weren’t being offensive by mistake; they were making every effort to be offensive, but it’s not like they were putting up posters in downtown Mecca. I may think it’s juvenile and stupid (and I do), but it’s their choice. I doubt that many of the rioters are regular readers of Jyllands-Posten, a right-wing Danish rag; they should have just ignored it.

Unfortunately I can’t demonstrate my good faith by my willingness to allow anyone to offend my own beliefs in the same way, since my beliefs are of a somewhat different character. But, for the record, if anyone wants to draw some offensive cartoons about Galileo, or John Stuart Mill, or Charles Darwin, or Virginia Woolf, or Einstein, or Shakespeare, or Jane Austen, or Bertrand Russell, be my guest. I promise not to riot.

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