Tag: torture

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Secured Confessions

“Still, our team pressed ahead and, together with agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, we tracked down many of the Qaeda members responsible for the attack, secured confessions from them and prosecuted them. We were aided by courageous Yemenis from the country’s security, law enforcement and judicial services who shared a commitment to justice and an understanding that ignoring Al Qaeda would only embolden it. We left Yemen with most of the terrorists locked up. ” Ali H. Soufan in the New York Times, October 11, 2010

Isn’t that amazing? They “tracked down” the terrorists who then “confessed” to the crimes, were prosecuted and imprisoned. Case closed, Perry Mason. On to the next injustice!

Listen to the glibness of “secured confessions from them”. What do you think that means? I guess Al Qaeda is not as hard-nosed as some people make them out to be! They were arrested. They were put in cells. The interrogator from the CIA or FBI said, “all right now — tell us the truth!” And the Al Qaeda member wept. Do I have to? All right…

I’m guessing that most people don’t pause at that “secured confessions” and wonder just what that means. I’m guessing that most people would just assume that the evidence that these men were responsible for the attack on the Cole is overwhelming and definitive.

I’m guessing that most people don’t wonder why confessions were necessary if this gentleman, identified as an FBI agent, had clear and convincing evidence.

I’m guessing that most people don’t wonder how the confessions were obtained– these men were held in Yemen, a Muslim state governed by Sharia law, whose elections are rated as “partly free” by international bodies.

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There is a War: Necessary Evils

“Perhaps,” he added, “they should clarify it. We were in the middle of a war, and there was no teaching on that. But the church only gives general moral guidance, and people of good faith have to interpret that guidance.”

Reverend Brian W. Harrison, Catholic Apologist for Torture, NY Times, February 26, 2010.

That’s lie number 1. Reverend Harrison, defending a Catholic defender of water-boarding, rather glibly qualifies his stance: we were in a war. In a war, torture is allowed. In a war, water-boarding is not torture. In a war, human dignity doesn’t count. In a war, all the things we live for, all the things of the greatest spiritual and moral significance, don’t matter.

No, it’s just torture. Torture is torture is torture. Torture is the act of a savage, a barbarian, of a people so utterly bereft of morality and spirituality and ethics, that they should be sponged off the face of the earth. I say “sponged”– not killed or beaten or abused or– heaven forbid– tortured. Sponged– sucked out of government and institutions; squeezed out of positions of authority and influence. Torture is what we, in that remarkable compact called “society” and “culture” and “democracy”, cannot abide, and the right to be treated with dignity at all times– no matter what the suspicion or crime or act– cannot be abridged.

It’s too late to undo much of the damage now. When America’s enemies capture a soldier or a scientist or journalist– why not torture? Reverend Brian W. Harrison, defending the American government, has declared that torture is morally acceptable, as long as it is necessary, and by God, when America attacks us, whether we are Muslims or communists or negroes, it is necessary.

Perhaps the most amazing facet of Reverend Brian Harrison’s remarkable hubris is the astonishing arrogance of it: I have the authority to proclaim that God himself approves of one of us violating the most sacred right of another of us, to deprive him of dignity, to extract whatever information he will give, to enact a sadism, an indignity, a violence, a cruelty beyond imagination for most of us.

Ye humble sinners: cower before Brian Harrison and quake with tremulous awed appreciation! Then go forth and torture, because it is something, according to Harrison, that Jesus would do, if necessary, and if Jesus were here today, he would find it necessary.

Reverend Harrison, like most apologists for torture, falls back on the canard that lives can be saved through torture. He proposes that a terrorist exists who knows where a bomb is located and when it will go off and he is caught and interrogated and refuses to hand over the information voluntarily and we will know when he hands over accurate information after we beat or cut or electrocute or nearly drown him. All we have to do is beat, or cut, or electrocute or almost drown him. God will forgive us because we will have saved lives. End of movie.

There is the argument that this actual scenario is extremely unlikely. How often do we find out a bomb has been planted and then catch one of the people who planted it? How likely is that? 

It’s possible. Just not at all very likely, except in the TV program “24”, a homage to the art of torture.

I suppose it’s possible. It’s one of those nice little moral arguments that college students like to play with, just to see how far the logic applies. What if you had to abort the baby to save the life of the mother?

It strikes me that Harrison might not like the argument that without an abortion, a vulnerable young woman might commit suicide, or physically abuse her child. Not really very likely, right? Not a good basis upon which to decide whether or not abortion should be legal. No, it’s not, is it?

Are we in a war, which justifies the use of torture, according to Harrison and many other torture apologists? Only if you define “war” as something that we are perpetually in. And if we are always in a war, than torture is approved– said the Mad Hatter.

We are not in a war. There will always be criminals out there willing to commit criminal acts. That is completely different from an organized, national government committing the resources and manpower at their disposal to an attack on another sovereign state. 9/11 was no different than dozens of other criminal attacks that have occurred over the past 25 years, other than the remarkable profile it gained through sheer spectacle.

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Janet Jackson’s Nipple

Apparently the exposure lasted about 9/16 of a second. Janet Jackson’s breast.

Not very long– you would think. But long enough to require a stern response from the guardian of public morals, the Bush Administration’s FCC.

Meanwhile, prime-time television continues to broadcast an unending stream of knifings, shootings, beatings, and torture. All shown tastefully, of course, so as to not cause offense. “24” tells us that torture works: the bad guys immediately tell the truth, even when the torturer has no idea what the truth is and, well, will just have to take the victim’s word for it because there is no time to lose.

This may sound strange, but was it ever so clear that the U.S. government wants to encourage young people to enjoy depictions of violence and abuse and hatred? By all means– let’s prepare our youth for a world in which we will ask them to kill and torture and destroy on behalf of our national interest. Of course it does. Think about all the episodes of “24” and “Lost” and “Dexter” which incurred not the slightest censure or approbation of the U.S. federal government: torture may not be nice but sometimes it’s the only way to find out if someone is hiding an inhaler (“Lost”, Season 1). The government pats TV on the head: that’s cute. It’s nice that our children learn to regard sadistic serial killers as redeemable if they only focus their efforts on suspected criminals (“Dexter”). The audience is assured– as it can never be in real life– that the victim deserved it.

Actually, shows like “Dexter” encourage you to feel that it is right and good to commit the same atrocity we find so reprehensible when committed by our enemies. Even for someone who is a little inured to the raging hypocrisies of television, this show reaches a new level of nauseating deviance: Dexter, a psychopathic serial killer, is actually heroic. I don’t understand why, even in post-9/11 America, there has not been a furious outcry about this show.

And it’s cute that the authorities torture people because, of course, then they instantly tell the truth, as on “24”. How does Jack know it’s the truth? The only possible explanation is that he read the script; there is nothing in the set of facts supplied to us by the story that would justify his belief that he has now heard “truth” and that the victim is not just saying whatever he thinks will make the torture stop;.

And I’m not sure “children” doesn’t include the infantile half of the U.S. population that regard it as their birthrate to carry guns and drive Hummers and biggie-size their fries if they damn well feel like it.

But one thing that cannot be permitted: the sight of a woman’s breast! As at the 2004 Super Bowl. For 9/16th of a second, as determined by a lower court. Our children will imagine the sickening, disgusting things that are done to a woman’s breast, like kissing and caressing and fondling and suckling!

Since it is scientifically proven that children imitate what they see on TV, this must be stopped, at all costs. CBS must be fined $500,000 or more to ensure that they won’t do it again. America will be pure again, and safe for Rush Limbaugh.

 

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Those Whacky Lovable Lawyers!

“Lawyers are often asked to offer their views on complicated questions with significant real-world consequences, and the idea that offering the wrong answer could implicate an attorney in criminal wrongdoing is a frightening prospect to many in the profession. It is not surprising, therefore, that lawyers are reluctant to condemn fellow lawyers on the basis of the advice that they give.” Washington Post, December 17, 2008

Wow. Those lawyers! And I’m sure I’ll hear some more complaining about how lawyers are unfairly targeted for vilification and abuse…. but maybe the lawyers should get together and disbar Mr. Woo, a Bush Administration flunky, and Jack Goldsmith, a law professor (!) responsible for the muck- worthy insidiousness above.

Mr. Goldsmith asserts here that lawyers that advise government officials to do something illegal shouldn’t be held accountable because otherwise, in the future, they will hesitate to offer good advice to the government, like, “hey, why don’t you torture them”, or “arrest and detain them without evidence or due process”.

The discussion relates to the question of whether Bush Administration lawyers and other officials should ever be investigated for authorizing acts of torture. Hell, no, says Mr. Goldsmith. It will have a chilling effect on the ability of lawyers to encourage breaking the law in the future.

Normally at this point I would think of some kind of analogy to try to make clear how wrong I think it is to torture people. But that would be an insult to the idea that torture itself is about as evil an act as one can imagine. And the fact that you start thinking, “does someone need to explain to the Bush administration why torture is wrong…. do they not understand what torture is? Do they not care that, in the future, they won’t be able to complain about American soldiers being tortured because our enemies will be more than happy to adopt our rationale?

We know what will happen: the torturers will be forgiven because they only obeyed orders. The authorizers will be forgiven because they didn’t actually carry out the torture. Everyone else will be pardoned by Bush.

Will Bush pardon them all? It almost makes we weep to anticipate that Bush will probably pardon them without admitting that any of them did anything wrong. Even a child knows that you can’t be forgiven for something you won’t admit you did. It would not be enough to merely force them to acknowledge committing crimes before they are pardoned for them, but it would be infinitely better than what will happen.

Ford pardoned Nixon in a similar fashion. Nixon, if he had something like integrity, should have refused the pardon. He should have said, “but I didn’t commit any crimes.”

What if Obama chooses, for political reasons, not to prosecute the Bush torturers. But what if Obama changes government policy. If he says we will not torture any more because torture is wrong. Torture is illegal. It is immoral. It is deeply offensive to human dignity and constitutional democracy. Then how can he not allow the Justice Department to investigate allegations that government officials broke the law? That would also be repugnant.

Stay tuned…

 

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Obama’s Next Compromise

Barack Obama supported and voted in favor of the recent wiretapping bill that grants immunity to telephone companies that cooperated with the Administration’s illegal requests for wiretaps on Americans receiving or making foreign telephone calls.

The so-called liberal media has completely dropped the ball on this one. Why is this not a scandal? George Bush refuses to admit that his Administration acted illegally when they requested the wiretaps. He continues to assert that the requests were legal. If they were legal, there is no need for immunity. The courts, as is their role in a constitutional democracy, have the authority and right to decide the lawsuits filed by plaintiffs against those Telcos. This law circumvents the constitution by providing retroactive immunity for crimes the government refuses to admit were crimes. This is insane. This is impeachable. This is obscene.

This is an out and out betrayal of all the bullshit platitudes about constitutions and freedoms and due process that America constantly foists on the world as justification for all the lives lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Barack Obama also supports the ethanol industry in its Disney-esque fantasy of replacing foreign oil with domestic plants. Everyone can already see what the results of this policy will be: oil will continue to cost more, and ethanol will have an absolutely negligible impact on domestic consumption while driving up food prices in the poorest parts of the globe. Even worse, Obama does not support dropping tariffs on imported Brazilian sugarcane ethanol which at least provides a far better return on the energy conversion (8-1, vs. ethanol’s 2-1). Why?

Because Iowa.

Because he wants the support of the Midwestern farmers who stand to benefit enormously from the ridiculous government subsidy of ethanol prices.

Put it this way: the oil industry is not worried about ethanol.

Think about that a lot. Think carefully about it: the oil industry LOVES ethanol. The oil industry’s stooges in the White House are pushing ethanol enthusiastically. The oil industry’s stooges in the White House have, so far, successfully torpedoed a bill that continues giving tax incentives to other alternative forms of energy like wind and solar power.

For those who think Obama will bring a sprig of fresh ideas to the White House, these two issues are bad omens. The first is a classic political compromise, an opportunistic sell-out to the enduring Democrat fear that they won’t appear to be tough enough to take on all those zillions of terrorists out there blowing up buildings in Des Moines, Iowa, or Cedar Rapids, or Flint, or Greensboro, and so on. Oh my God– we can’t let them think that John McCain will be more willing to undermine the constitution than we are!

The second is the classic trade-off of special interests against the genuine interests of the American people. There are numerous lobbyists or other agents associated with the ethanol industry working with Obama’s campaign. That’s disappointing.

The optimist hopes that Obama is making these compromises to get into office, so that once he gets into office he can resume his principled leadership and persuade Americans to support the right course of action. I tend to think it is more likely that once he gets into office, he will make the same compromises that most politicians usually make and things will not be so different after all.

It’s all relative. So we have here the shocking realization that Obama is human after all, and capable of making the same kind of moral and ethical compromises that most politicians make… it is still probable that the election of Obama will improve the U.S. government by a huge margin for the simple reason that we are more likely to have competent people in charge of government policy for the first time in 8 years.

Just how perverted is this generation of voters? McCain feels no need to hide the fact that he would allow the CIA to continue to use torture. TORTURE. On human beings. As if we were not morally superior to terrorists and murderers and torturers.

No candidate in this coming election– wait, is Ralph Nader running?– has proposed to return the U.S. to democratic constitutional greatness and honor and decency. There are no Christian candidates in this election. There is no god in this election.

Torturing the New York Times: Why, in this article, does the New York Times– supposed bastion of liberal dissent– refer to torture as “enhanced interrogation techniques”. Who the hell told them to use this phrase instead of the word “torture”? Is this because they are giving McCain and Bush the benefit of the doubt? Well, it might not be torture, after all? It might be the euphemism? Geez, where are the real liberals when you want one!

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A “Finding” Does not Make it Legal

You might think that torture is actually presently legal in the U.S., given all the efforts by Bush and his Attorney Generals to make it so. And maybe you just don’t care that it is– or you approve– because you are a God-fearing patriotic American and you don’t take bullshit from foreigners– whatever— I don’t care. Jesus loves you, whatever, because you approve of the use of torture, and you really can’t remember or think of or imagine any reason why that would make you less of a human being than, say, believing in witchcraft or astrology. Whatever.

Back to my point: I don’t believe torture is, technically, “legal”. It is, in fact, quite illegal, no matter what Bush says it is. Then why hasn’t anybody been arrested? Who would arrest who? Because Bush is in command of the only apparatus that can enforce the law: the Attorney General’s Office and the FBI (which is accountable to it) and he has ordered it not to.

[added October 22, 2008: if a New York City cop on the beat, for example, stumbled into a group of men treating an individual the way they are, in fact, treating the detainees in Guantanamo, he would surely make an arrest and lay charges.  Nobody would or could excuse the crime with a “finding”.]

If Bush or his Attorney-General issues a “finding” that torture is legal (he calls it “enhanced interrogation techniques” but no court is so stupid as to not see through that), and thereby instructs federal officials to abide by that “finding”, he hasn’t really changed any aspect of the law. What would it take to activate the apparatus on behalf of the courts? Well, how about a new executive who believes in the constitution?

Take for example any prisoner being held currently in Guantanamo, who had previously been tortured, either through rendition, or by CIA officers at locations outside of the U.S. Bush has succeeded in blocking this individuals access to any court with the power to respond to his circumstances with directives that will actually be obeyed by Federal agencies. At the moment, Bush simply ignores any legal motions he doesn’t like and then obfuscates.

Now suppose a new Chief Executive– a new President– instructs the new Attorney General (John Edwards?) to investigate whether anybody involved in the handling of prisoners by American forces or intelligence agencies or proxies has broken the law, or violated the rights of these prisoners.

I think about this a lot. I can imagine that nothing will happen, if the new President turns out to be gutless and decides that he can live with simply stopping any more torture from happening. That’s hard to imagine, however, because the lawyers for all of the prisoners being held by agents of the U.S. Federal Government will be clamoring for due process and habeas corpus and dozens of other constitutional rights we all used to think Americans treasured dearly. And I can’t see this new President doing what Bush did, which is, instructing his staff to find ways around the courts, so we can suppress the rights of these individuals.  [Update: that is, in fact, exactly what Obama did.]

So imagine instead that President Obama (or Clinton) allows the attorney general to investigate and he finds out that there has been some torture going on… and he decides that his interpretation of the constitution is that torture is never allowed.

Just imagine.

[2011-03: of course, it didn’t happen. Odd, but not really surprising now that I think about it. Would a politician who was seriously intent on enforcing the law survive the primary process in the U.S.? I doubt it. ]

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Torture

“The fact that an act is undertaken to prevent a threatened terrorist attack, rather than for the purpose of humiliation or abuse, would be relevant to a reasonable observer in measuring the outrageousness of the act,” said Brian A. Benczkowski, a deputy assistant attorney general, in the letter, which had not previously been made public.
NY Times, April 27, 2008

This is the Bush Administration at it’s most astonishingly acute. This is from a letter drafted by the Attorney-General’s office to the intelligence services to enlighten them as to how they may torture.

Or was it drafted by the Arch-Bishop of Seville in 1300 to enlighten the Jesuits as to how much torture could be applied to a heretic? Let’s paraphrase: “the fact that an act is undertaken to prevent the spread of heresy rather than for the purpose of humiliation or abuse…” Or if Marxist guerrillas in Guatemala in the 1970’s had captured a suspected CIA mole: “the fact that an act is undertaken to prevent the oppression of the proletariat and exploitation of the working classes…”

Are there any government or military or paramilitary entities out there who only torture for the purpose of humiliation or abuse? Stop that right now– you are violating international law! But if you have some purpose, divine or otherwise, in mind, well, we do it, so why shouldn’t you?

We had formerly thought that such people were monsters of depravity, bereft of all that makes us human and civilized. They used to be our enemies. But now, they are merely like us, as long as their first reason is not “humiliation or abuse”. As long as they do not, as they approach their helpless victims with a tong, or electrodes, or a barrel of water, tell them, “and now I will inflict terrible suffering on you for the sole purpose of humiliation and abuse! Once I have humiliated and abused you, I will stop!

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Dexter

I just happened to catch part of a new TV series tonight– “Dexter”. As far as I can tell, this is a new low or high in television drama: Dexter is a heroic serial killer splatter-analyst who only tortures and murders “deserving” victims. And there it was– in the first episode I watched– Dexter duct-taping a slime-ball to a table in some remote location and perusing his collection of knives and then asking the victim if he was guilty. The victim tried to be evasive– for a second or two– but a quick jab in the head clarified his position and he confessed. He did it. Yes, he offed the girl. Now kill me please.

Dexter does not fly. He does not have x-ray vision. He can’t transport himself from one location to another in the flick of an eye. He can’t bend steel rods with his bare hands. If he did those things, the show would be a fantasy instead, and many people would not watch because they would find the premise silly. I think. But these same people see a man taped to a table being threatened with a knife and somehow believe that he would confess to a heinous crime right away because… because why? Because he believes the man wearing the saran wrap on his face is going to let him go if he only tells the truth?

No wonder over 30% of the population supports George Bush and Dick Cheney. Bush and Cheney are right. If you catch an Islamic fundamentalist and torture him, he will tell you the truth. He won’t make anything up. And it’s enjoyable to inflict unspeakable suffering on deserving individuals, regardless of whether we have an investigation and trial first.

Do most Americans believe this scene? Do they actually believe that torture makes people tell the truth, as opposed to what they think their torturers want to hear so that they will stop the torture?

The CIA doesn’t even do us the courtesy of demanding new information to prove that that the adduced evidence has any kind of validity. They supply the names. “Is Ahmed Mohammed from Egypt a terrorist?” “No? Yes? Which is it you want me to say?” “Whatever is the truth Hamdi.” “Yes, he is a terrorist.” “Are you telling the truth?” “Yes, yes, please don’t hurt me.” “Okay. Thank you. Call the White House and tell them we kept America safe for another day.”

Dexter’s adoptive father knew that he had problems. But Dexter’s problems aren’t the result of an addiction to porn– James Dobson didn’t consult on this series, though he should have (to make it even more stupid)– but the result of some kind of mysterious abuse he suffered before his wise adoptive father steered him towards a constructive expression of his dark impulses: there are evil people out there… people deserving of your deviant attentions…. So Dexter resolves to join the police force so he can find out who, exactly, out there, is “deserving”. And no one is more deserving in Bush’s American than the mythical serial killer — who everybody knows dun it– who gets off on a technicality. Hell, why doesn’t Dexter just off all the lawyers, and the ACLU, and journalists, and environmentalists… and get it over with? Because, in this tract of American entertainment, I’ll bet you Dexter is an environmentalist– but not one of those extremist tree-huggers! He believes in clean coal, and planting grass on those open pit mines once we’ve extracted all the carbon.

All this beauteous dismemberment and sadism, and the concomitant warnings about “adult” content… and Dexter, it turns out, like Bush, is hilariously chaste. No sex education here! Dexter is dating a lovely blonde mother of two– after all, sooner or later someone Dexter personally cares about will have to be imperiled– it’s as inevitable as Dr. House himself becoming sick– but he doesn’t want to have sex with her. Alleluia. At last a program with some family values. At last something James Dobson can approve of for white middle America to watch in between spankings!

Go Dexter Go!

I say it’s peculiar that after all of the reversals of verdicts due to DNA testing in the past few years, television audiences are still so eager to believe that it’s easy to identify who the real murderer is and the TV hero– serial killer or not– never makes a mistake when he goes out there and exercises a little vigilante justice on our behalf.

And America never tires of enjoying the carnage as long as the fig leaf of just desserts is employed correctly. I am not a monster just because I enjoyed the scene in which he butchers a man because the man deserved it. I am not a bad person just because I tuned to this station to watch this show because I couldn’t wait to see some kind of sadistic violence… no no– not me.

This is why audiences have the perversity of Dexter backwards. Dexter is not really a serial killer who conceals his true nature behind the façade of a police man.

In fact, behind the façade of a serial killer, what we really have a is a policeman.

And that is why Dexter may well be the sickest, most obscene program ever broadcast on television. It seriously invites the viewer to enjoy fantasies of dismemberment and torture and inflicting unspeakable pain on human beings under the fig leaf of retributive justice. If you had any shred of belief left in the basic decency of human beings, pray that this show gets cancelled because too few people watch it.

I’m being coy here– okay. I said that Bush and Cheney believe that an Al Qaeda operative would not make things up under torture. But that’s ridiculous. Of course he would, and I have to theorize that most people involved, the torturers, the authorizers of torture, and the monsters in the Bush Administration, and maybe even the victims themselves, all understand that it doesn’t matter if they make things up– all the better. Name names. Tell us what they “did”. They will be arrested, which constitutes proof that the torture worked. They will be tortured and asked if what the first torture victims said was true. Of course it was. Torture works. Lives have been saved. Americans can rest easy tonight in their trailer parks and school gyms and gated communities: Bush and Cheney have preserved your way of life. And it only took a little torture.

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Water-Boarding

Up is down and right is left and water-boarding is not torture.

And we have this from the White House:

Dana M. Perino, the White House press secretary, said Democrats were “playing politics” with the waterboarding issue, noting that Mr. Mukasey had not been briefed on classified interrogation methods. “I can’t imagine the Democrats would want to hold back his nomination just because he is a thoughtful, careful thinker who looks at all the facts before he makes a judgment,” Ms. Perino said.
– New York Times, October 31, 2007.

Ah! If only Mr. Mukasey were briefed on the facts, he would be able to render an intelligent opinion on the subject of torture. But until he gets that briefing, he’s not too sure. Did any Democrat think to ask him how he felt about truncheons or cattle prods? Would he have said, “well, I personally would find it unpleasant to zap a prisoner in the genitals with a cattle prod, but I can’t say whether it would actually be illegal or not until I have all the facts.” So once Mr. Cheney assures him that this bad guy has important information that can save American lives– by golly, give me that cattle prod, I’ll do the deed myself.

I refuse to waste even a single punctuation mark on the question of whether or not torture of any kind is morally wrong. I refuse to accept that we have entered an era– only 60 years after the defeat of the Nazis– in which such questions are seriously debated.

On the other hand, the depressing fact is that many Democrats– not most, and not all, but many– have voted in favor of legislative fig leaves to cover the potential liability of high ranking government officials should a future administration actually come to the shocking, devastating, astounding conclusion that torture should be illegal.

On the other hand, be it noted that the Department of Defense has issued an official directive (in the Army Field Manual) that instructs soldiers not to use water-boarding, and the CIA has apparently asked Bush for permission to not have to use it. Why? Did these officials suddenly acquire a smidgeon of decency and humanity? Or did they suddenly realize that a new administration may some day start investigating crimes committed by officials of a previous administration?

It must be acknowledged– hallelujah– that Republicans John McCain, Lindsay Graham, and John Warner, have publicly expressed the wish that Mr. Mukasey will, after confirmed, declare water-boarding illegal. If he does, there will be a lot of itchy hemorrhoids in the Bush Administration. But then, isn’t that what presidential pardons are all about? Just wait for it– that last month before leaving office– Rumsveld, Cheney, Bolten, Wolfowitz– everybody gets pardons for crimes they may or may not have committed.

And maybe this is why John McCain scored at the bottom of the straw poll taken by “Values Voters”, sponsored by Family Research Council. These “Christians” think that God is more concerned with gay marriage than torture. McCain was also high on campaign finance reform– something Jesus was distinctly against, don’t you know.

What happened to soldiers accused of water-boarding in Viet Nam?

In 1947, a Japanese Officer was convicted by a War Crimes tribunal of using water-boarding– torture– against a U.S. soldier.

>
Amazingly, when threatened with physical torture, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to numerous crimes. Wow. That’s efficient and effective. Let’s use it all the time. We’ll get more truth that way.

Vice President Dick Cheney says that using water-boarding is a “no-brainer”. In his case, that’s exactly right.

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“Al Qaeda a bigger Threat to the World Than Hitler Ever Was” – Manchester Union Leader

The Manchester Union Leader is a newspaper. This is a newspaper that might like to regard it self as sober and rational and intelligent. This newspaper insists that the “war” on terror is “the most difficult and challenging war we have ever faced”.

Okay. The other wars include World War I, World War II, Korea, Viet Nam, and the Cold War. Small potatoes compared to a 2-bit Arab millionaire hiding in the hills of Tora Bora.

The editorial went on to question whether the nation could afford to have a president (McCain) who isn’t willing to torture people. We want a torturer. Can you torture? I will vote for you. Because I want a torturer.

[Note: now that the so-called compromise Senate bill has been revealed, it turns out to be more of a cover-your-ass bill than a genuine concession to the Geneva Accords. No real protections, legal or otherwise, are extended to the prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay or anywhere the U.S. may have renditioned any person any 2-bit bureaucrat might have decided is a terror suspect.]

This is ridiculous. The U.S. has faced more than a few military opponents over the years, nearly all of which have actually carried out a war against the U.S. All of them were genuine threats in one form or another.

Well, now that I think about it, Viet Nam obviously was never the threat it was sold to us as– it did collapse and the world continued to spin as it did before. No dominos.

Panama.  Oh.  No dice.

In the five years since the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, there has not been a single terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Not one. Not a single one. Not one. None. Zero. If you believe the government– and you know how conservatives just automatically trust the government– they have nipped several conspiracies in the bud. I happen to believe that not a single one of those conspiracies was anywhere near the stage of realization.

Yet the Manchester Union Leader believes that the U.S. is more threatened now by Al Qaeda than it was by Germany or Japan or even the Communist Block at the height of the cold war, with their thousands of missiles pointed right at us.

Remember the communists? Remember the thousands of nuclear missiles pointed at us, and ours at them? Remember the Cuban missile crisis? Not as scary as the “Lackawanna 5”, I guess.

It is a dire threat indeed that does not manifest itself in five years. The Bush administration gingerly tested the idea, recently, that the reason for this is because of Bush’s brilliant successes at rooting out terror. Right. Just as, if the police doing their job well, a large city could expect to have no murders or thefts or break-ins. Seriously.

The real agenda is the oil and the tax cuts and deregulation and running up a deficit so the progressives won’t be able to afford any new programs when they finally do take office.

But since most people eventually become dimly aware of how bad Bush’s other policies are, the only way to sell them on this government is to convince them that there is this horrible war going on out there and if you don’t vote for Bush, they’ll be coming to get you, right there, in Duluth and Peoria and Gary and Orange County and Iowa City.

What they are doing seems contrary to all reason and common sense. It is contrary to all reason and common sense. And it doesn’t seem to matter. We want our government torturers. We believe they are out to get us. We have lost our minds.

When does Bush cross over into “big lie” theory? At a meeting with conservative columnists last week (why mess things up with someone who might ask hard questions), Bush insisted he had absolutely no doubts about the rightness of his decision to invade Iraq. Surely no matter how conservative you are or how loyal to Dick Cheney, you would have a doubt or two when your actions now result in the deaths of 3,000 people a month, and torture, and mayhem, in a nation you thought you could rebuild into a Western-style democracy in a “cake walk”. No regrets?

The theory of the big lie is that if you pretend to have not the slightest doubt that what you are saying is true, a large number of people will assume that it must be true, because it would be inconceivable that someone would lie on such a grand scale. How could they get away with it?

And from the ‘what is, “is” ‘ department, this gem also from the Union Leader:

Let us be clear that we do not advocate torture. We advocate that the law be written to protect CIA officers from criminal prosecution if they use certain techniques that could be interpreted as forbidden under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

“Certain techniques”. “Play rough”?

Just how many more euphemisms do we need before Americans can advocate torture with a clear conscience?  This is a shitty little dodge by the Union Leader to avoid using the more accurate word: torture.

More detail: The Bush administration has authorized six “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” to be used by the CIA on only a dozen al-Qaida members. The techniques include grabbing a prisoner’s shirt and shaking him, slapping, slapping the stomach (punches are not allowed), extended standing (which might include sleep deprivation), containment in a cold cell, and water-boarding.

Water-boarding? By golly, sounds like surfing! Slapping– no punching– someone might get hurt there, boys. “Extended standing”? That’s easy. You just tell him to stand there. And stand. And if he stops standing, you make him surf, or slap his face, or grab his shirt. Oh, the horror!

Manchester Union Leader Advocates Torture

On September 17, the same newspaper said this: If playing rough with a captured terrorist can save lives — and there is strong evidence that it can* and has — Congress must not forbid it, no matter what the Supreme Court has said.

How nice. Another euphemism for “torture”. They are not torturing anybody– they’re just “playing” rough. Like little boys, wrestling around in the den.

If these editorialists had any guts and any integrity and any morality, they would use the word they do, without any doubt, mean. They want to allow the CIA and the military to torture people. Torture, torture, torture. They want our men to be brutal and violent and absolutely diabolical, because they think that will help us win war on terror.

The editorial writer should publish his name so we all know who is willing to torture.

Aside from the enormous, insurmountable question of morality, history seems to suggest that the long term damage to the west’s credibility and respect will far exceed the benefits of obtaining information that won’t be trustworthy anyway.

An Oddity

I’m not advocating this– torture is wrong under any circumstance, at any time, and any place, and no matter what you call it. But it is curious that the Bush administration wants the cover of law. Why not do as has always been done: leave the law alone, but know that your men in the field will occasionally take liberties– as they did at Abu Ghraib prison? As they did when they trained torturers for Pinochet in Chile? Those men will understand that if exposed, the government will not protect them. They are on their own. In the meantime, they understand– too well, so it appears– what their superiors really want.

The fact that the Bush administration won’t go this route is compelling evidence that our leadership now consists of true vampires.

In fact, the best evidence is to the contrary.  Firstly, people will say anything to make the torture stop, so you cannot know if what they are telling you is accurate or not.  Secondly, some prisoners become more stubborn and more determined to not cooperate if treated badly.  Thirdly, the pertinent issue is that you will inevitably torture by mistake someone who is innocent and who really doesn’t know anything.  Fourthly, you will have innocent victims because when you torture other people they will volunteer any name they can think of if they think it will stop the torture.  Fifthly, you have no legal defense against any nation that decides to torture American prisoners of war.  Sixthly, your boys will deny that they gave any information away at all under torture.

Well, number 2 and number 6 cannot both be true.