Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

Facing polling trends that look like this in Texas, Hillary Clinton pulled out the kitchen sink, wrapped it up with fear, and tossed it at Barack Obama. Today the Clinton campaign released the following ad in Texas aimed at scaring Texans into voting for her next Tuesday:

Within hours Barack Obama responded with the following ad:

With impressive speed Barack Obama’s campaign completely changed the news cycle. Whatever dead cat bounce Hillary Clinton hoped to achieve with her fear-mongering ad was completely neutralized with the Obama ad. The narrative was changed. By the time the evening news came on, the story was about Obama’s swift response to Clinton’s fear tactics.

There are many reasons why Barack Obama is on his way to winning the Democratic nomination. One of them certainly is his well run campaign and their rapid response team.

Facing an almost certain defeat, Clinton has taken to peddling fear to counter Obama’s message of hope. The Democratic voters are however opting for hope over fear. Next Tuesday its quite likely that hope will carry the day in Texas and Vermont. It may even carry the day in Ohio, if the Obama ground game can get the vote out.

UPDATE (2/29/2008 9 PM): It turns out that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is having trouble coming up with examples of Hillary Clinton’s experience where she has been tested by a foreign policy crisis. During a conference call today, Hillary Clinton’s campaign failed to answer this obvious question raised by Hillary Clinton’s own ad. Here’s a video which uses the of the audio from the conference call to make a not too subtle point:

Last week I received an email from a dear friend. The email came from Sweden, on Valentine’s Day. I have spent the better part of this week trying to craft a response. I have failed. This post is my attempt at a response.

This blog is anti-torture. There is a logo on the sidebar of this blog that declares the unequivocal position of this blog and its author. Being anti-torture seems to me to be a commonsense position to hold. It is however not a position that is universally held. There are torturers in this world and there are those who aid and abet the torturers. Then there are the victims. My friend, Tasneem Khalil, is a torture victim.

On May 10th of last year I received an urgent email from a friend. It was 4:04pm and I was at my mundane day job. Soon many other emails arrived with the same news. Tasneem Khalil, a Bangladeshi journalist and researcher for Human Rights Watch, had been picked just hours earlier by the Bangladesh military. Just before 1am on the morning of May 11 (Bangladesh time) members of Bangladesh military’s intelligence services, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), had taken away Tasneem from his home in Dhaka. Tasneem’s wife, left alone with their 6-month old baby boy, managed to get word out of his abduction.

Via email and SMS Bangladeshi bloggers from all over the world came together within minutes of hearing the news. Soon blog posts were going up everywhere. American and British bloggers joined in and the news spread quickly. Soon Human Rights Watch put out a press release demanding his release, and CNN and the Associated Press put the news out over the wire. After sustained pressure from human rights organizations, foreign diplomats, and the press Tasneem was released 22 hours later. He was alive, but he had been tortured.

After his release, Sweden offered Tasneem, his wife Suchi and his baby boy Tiyash, political asylum. Today they have begun a new life in Sweden, in exile.

On February 14th Human Rights Watch released a 44-page report  (PDF) entitled "The Torture of Tasneem Khalil: How the Bangladesh Military Abuses Its Power Under the State of Emergency". The report, in first person testimony, details how the DGFI brutally beat and threatened Tasneem during his 22 hour ordeal.

Tasneem was taken to one of the DGFI’s torture chambers known as a "black hole". The HRW report explains:

In Dhaka alone, the DGFI maintains at least three unofficial detention centers, known as "black holes." "Black Hole 1" is located in DGFI headquarters inside Dhaka cantonment near BNS Haji Moshin naval base. "Black Hole 2" is near Kachukhet, a civilian residential area inside Dhaka cantonment. "Black Hole 3" is maintained in the Uttara residential district near Zia International Airport.

 Of his ordeal Tasneem writes in the HRW report:

The Forum article made my interrogators furious. They started beating me again mercilessly, from all possible directions with hands and batons and kicks. I pleaded with them to give me one last chance. I said I would not do those things again. But one person said I had already "made the blunder." I think this was a reference to my lunch with the diplomats.

I started begging for mercy. The beating continued for some time. Then another person said, "We will think about giving you a chance, but you have to do as we say." He said I had to write a confession to the AIG [Additional Inspector General] of police, saying what they wanted me to say. Then I had to beg for his mercy.

…

There were two CCTV cameras in the corners attached to the ceiling. There was a fan. I was sitting in front of a table and three batons were on the table along with some stationery. One was a wooden baton, about a meter long. The other two were covered with black plastic. Poking out of the end of these were metal wires which appeared to fill the plastic covers. The plastic and wire batons were a little shorter than the wooden one. I assume these were the batons they tortured me with. When one guy saw that I was looking at them, he put them aside. I’m not sure if they used electricity on me. The pain often came like shocks, but they were hitting me so hard that I’m not sure whether it was just the force that hurt like this or if it was electricity.

They tortured Tasneem because he had dared to write an article critical of the Bangladesh military and he had just recently given an interview to the Washington Post. It was not a ticking bomb scenario. It was pure thuggery, as all torture is.

Tasneem’s torturers barked that he was "anti-state" because his journalism hurt the military’s "image":

And then the second voice said, "Baanchot [an abusive word], you have only reported on negative things. And you have fucked Bangladesh by your bloody anti-state reports. Whatever you have reported for CNN in all these years is all negative news. You shit on the same plate you eat, you are a traitor. You work for a foreign agency, and damage Bangladesh’s image outside."

Someone started punching the side and back of my head. I started crying out in pain. Then someone cried out an order, "Bring in salt and nails!"

Tasneem’s torturer was the military government of Bangladesh. It was the state torturing its own citizen. The most fundamental responsibility of a government is the protection of its own people. When a government not only fails to protect its own citizens but instead actively terrorizes and tortures them it has lost all legitimacy, moral or legal, to govern. It has become anti-state.

Yet there are defenders of Bangladesh’s military government. The defenders include elements of civil society within Bangladesh who see the military as their meal ticket to power and foreign governments such as the Bush administration and the British government who believe only the iron hand of the military can control 150 million people who are perceived to be unfit to govern themselves. To these defenders the minor inconveniences of torture, death in custody, extra-judicial killings, suspension of fundamental rights, and the occasional mass beating are the cost of doing business. Certainly to these defenders the torture of one man, Tasneem Khalil, does not matter.

To me it matters. It matters that my friend was tortured. It matters that, save for the overwhelming response to his detention, he would today be a statistic - a dead body as a result of the uniquely Bangladeshi opera known as "crossfire". It matters that the 150 million citizens of Bangladesh, who earned their freedom through blood and sacrifice, are today ruled by the gun.

So, this is my response to the email you sent me last week Tasneem. I was told over the weekend, in a harshly worded diatribe from a man with little regard for this "Virginia-based blogger", that we bloggers are cowards. That we don’t understand real life. That we hide behind our keyboards. That we are irrelevant.

Perhaps.

But I would not trade a thousand words that I write that fall on deaf ears for the one email that you sent me. I am glad you are here my friend. It is, in the sum total of my life, one of the facts I am most proud of.

A remarkable woman has written a book on a remarkable man who lived an extraordinary life. Tonight I went to hear Samantha Power speak at Politics and Prose on her new book Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World. Samantha Power, who is a senior advisor for Barack Obama, currently teaches at the Kennedy School of Government. She is the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. I am a big fan.

Sergio Vieira de Mello was the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights when he was sent to Iraq as the UN special representative in the aftermath of the American invasion in 2003. On August 19, 2003 he died after a truck bomb attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad. With his death the world lost an extraordinary diplomat, a humanitarian and a man who spent over three decades working to resolve conflicts all around the world, from Bangladesh to Bosnia, from Sudan to Lebanon, from Kosovo to Iraq, and many other conflicts. Sergio began his career in Bangladesh, helping distribute food and resettle returning refugees as a new nation emerged from the ashes of a united Pakistan. He went on to become one of the most widely respected diplomats in world. At the time of his death he was on the short list to become the next UN Secretary General.

A biography of Sergio Vieira de Mello is also the story of the major world crises in the last three decades. Its a story of delicate peacemaking,  false steps, dealing with ethnic struggles, negotiating with dictators and bringing hope to refugees and those in need. I have been waiting for this book for a long time. I am thrilled that Samantha Power has brought the story of this fascinating life to a wider audience.

Barack Obama’s victory speech delivered at Madison, Wisconsin after winning Virginia, Maryland and DC:

Virginia County-by-County results (as of 2/13/2008 1:00 AM):

The map below shows how total Barack Obama’s victory over Hillary Clinton is shaping up to be. Obama (counties in dark blue) has taken most of the heavily populated regions of Virginia. Hillary Clinton has taken the sparsely populated rural southwestern parts of Virginia.

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Virginia is at the polls today along with Maryland and DC. Polls in Virginia close at 7pm, about half an hour from now.

I cast my ballot this morning at my local polling station. I received 4 email reminders from the Obama campaign between yesterday and this morning to go and vote today. I received no calls or emails from the Clinton campaign. The Obama emails contained helpful links to look up my polling place. At the polling station in Northern Virginia there was one Hillary Clinton sign and multiple Obama signs. There were also Obama signs all over the neighborhood. Of special note was the enthusiastic and friendly Ron Paul volunteer (in the picture above) who greeted voters as they headed toward the polling station.

There was a steady stream of voters at my station. It appeared that the turnout was heavier than normal for my neighborhood. However, the weather in Northern Virginia has turned icy for the afternoon rush hour. Its not clear how much it will impact the late voter turnout. At my work place, most of my co-workers who had not voted in the morning left early today and were headed for their respective polling stations. CNN is reporting that turnout is high in Northern Virginia, Richmond and the Charlottesville area - all areas that are strongholds for Obama voters. Richmond turnout is reported to be record-breaking.

If the pre-voting polls hold, this could be a big night for Barack Obama in Virginia.

Updates to follow as the results come in…

UPDATE (2/12/2008 7:08 PM): CNN and NBC have already projected that Barack Obama will win the Democratic primary in Virginia. Now it remains to be seen how wide the margin of victory will be and how many delegates Obama will pick up from Virginia.

UPDATE (2/12/2008 8:36 PM): Barack Obama is the projected winner in the District of Columbia. Maryland poll closing has been extended to 9:30PM due to traffic delays voters are encountering on the icy roads. Hillary Clinton’s deputy campaign manager just resigned.

The Virginia primary is shaping up to be a landslide. Currently with 61% of the precincts reporting Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton 62% to 37%. The exit polls from Virginia is also shaping up to be bad news for Hillary Clinton. Obama took the Black vote 90% to 10%. Obama and Clinton split the White vote. Obama won amongst men and women. Clinton won amongst White women only. Obama won two to one amongst independents. Obama also won the Latino vote in Virginia. As was predicted Obama won everywhere in Virginia except rural Southwestern Virginia. This was an overwhelming victory for Barack Obama in Virginia.

UPDATE (2/12/2008 9:30PM): The networks are reporting that as the polls close in Maryland Barack Obama will win by a "significant" margin. This is shaping up to be a huge night for Barack Obama.

UPDATE (2/12/2008 9:54 PM): With 87% of the precincts in Virginia reporting Barack Obama’s victory is turning out to be a landslide. He is now ahead of Hillary Clinton 63% to 36%.

 UPDATE (2/13/2008 1:00 AM): A genuine thumping:

• Virginia: Barack Obama 64%, Hillary Clinton 35% (99% precincts reporting). Obama picks up 28 more delegates than Clinton.
• Maryland: Barack Obama 60%, Hillary Clinton 37% (69% precincts reporting). Obama picks up 4 more delegates than Clinton.
• District of Columbia: Obama 75%, Hillary Clinton 24% (98% precincts reporting). Obama picks up 5 more delegates than Clinton.

The first time I heard the name Barack Obama was in 2004 when he delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. It was a rousing speech. The speech rivaled Mario Cuomo’s nominating speech at the 1992 Convention. The buzz at the time was that we were looking at a future President of the United States.

When Barack Obama entered the Presidential race last year I was excited. I knew the man could deliver a great speech, now I needed to hear his vision for America.

It was not until South Carolina did I hear what I was looking for. After winning the South Carolina primary Barack Obama delivered the speech that earned my vote. I was searching for Bobby Kennedy and on that evening I found his 21st century heir. If Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination and then the Presidency it is the South Carolina speech that historians will point to as the pivotal moment of his campaign.

Tomorrow Virginia votes along with Maryland and the District of Columbia. I will cast my vote in the Virginia Democratic primary for Senator Barack Obama, the next President of the United States.

Looking ahead to March 4th, Barack Obama’s campaign has released what I believe is the most powerful television ad of this election season. The ad has begun to play in both Ohio and Texas. For a number of reasons the ad also touches me personally:

Go vote tommorrow Virginia. Yes we can.

After this weekend’s impressive wins in every state (and the Virgin Islands) that held a primary or caucus, Barack Obama is riding a wave of momentum while Hillary Clinton’s campaign appears to be in disarray. After today’s big win for Obama in Maine (where Obama was behind in the polls), the Clinton campaign stole the headlines - but not in a good way. The Clinton campaign announced tonight that its campaign manager had been replaced.

To date, Barack Obama has won 19 states to Hillary Clinton’s 10. Increasingly the map appears to be filling in for Obama. He is also now ahead in the number of pledged delegates. With a fundraising edge and rising in the polls, Barack Obama heads to the Beltway Primaries this Tuesday when Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia will hold their primaries. Obama is expected to handily carry both Maryland and DC.

Virginia is considered the state where Clinton may be able to slow Obama’s momentum. However, a series of polls over the last few days show Obama with significant leads in Virginia. The latest Mason-Dixon poll has Obama up by 16 points (Obama 53%, Clinton 37%). The latest Rasmussen poll has Obama ahead by 18 points (Obama 55%, Clinton 37%). The latest SurveyUSA poll has Obama ahead by 20 points (Obama 59%, Clinton 39%). A poll taken by InsidersAdvantage also shows Obama with a 15 point lead (Obama 52%, Clinton 37%).

The numbers inside the polls also show Obama with significant advantages in Virginia. Both the Rasmussen and SurveyUSA polls show that Obama is even with Clinton amongst white voters in Virginia, while the Mason-Dixon poll shows Clinton leading amongst white voters (there is no demographic breakdowns in the InsidersAdvantage poll).  All polls have Obama leading by wide margins amongst Black voters in Virginia. In the SurveyUSA poll, Obama leads amongst men and women, and all age groups except those over 65. Clinton still leads Obama amongst Hispanics, although the margin is shrinking. The SurveyUSA poll also shows Obama winning in every region of Virginia except the rural Shanandoahs to the Southwest. If the polls hold up, Obama is headed for a big win in Virginia this Tuesday.

If Obama takes the three primaries this Tuesday and wins the remainder of the contests in February, as he is likely to do, Hillary Clinton’s campaign will be reeling by the time the March 4th primaries in Texas and Ohio are held. Although the most recent polls show Clinton ahead in Ohio and Texas, both states are likely to tighten by the end of this month. With a bigger war chest and the momentum Obama will continue to gain in the polls. If he wins throughout February it is quite likely Ohio will move into the Obama column (a la Missouri). The Clinton campaign is now hoping to survive until March 4th and hold the line in Ohio and Texas. But as Rudy Giuliani’s experience in Florida showed, a string of losses can be debilitating. The early leads in the polls tend to evaporate as the other candidate keeps racking up wins.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign relied very much on the air of inevitability. She was supposed to have the Democratic nomination sewn up by Super Tuesday. However, that inevitability was demolished by Obama’s strong showing last week. Now it is a horserace in which Barack Obama caught up and is now pulling away. The conventional wisdom is that the race is so close that it may go all the way to the Democratic National Convention. However, a long string of losses for Hillary Clinton in February will drastically change the media buzz. Tuesday night, if Barack Obama has a big night (and that means winning Virginia), the headlines about the "neck and neck" race will suddenly change. The money may then begin to dry up and the superdelegates may start to move toward the frontrunner. If that happens this race is over.

You can contribute to Barack Obama’s campaign through my ActBlue page:

My heart is with the New York Giants, although it will be an uphill battle.

UPDATE: The New York Giants have just defeated the (formerly) undefeated New England Patriiots to win the Super Bowl!