Word is now coming out that the Bush administration lied about torture. The fact that Bush lies is not news to me - that's his m.o. (as it was his father's) but this is beyond anything we have seen yet. While and after proclaiming that the US does not commit torture, the Gonzalez "justice" Department authored secret opinions explicitly authorizing torture.
No, they don't call it "torture." Amazingly, according to NPR, these memos say it is only torture if it "shocks the conscience" and then went on to say that that which might shock the conscience if performed on an ordinary prisoner would not shock the conscience if performed on a suspected Al Qaeda prisoner. And what are we talking about? Keeping someone naked at 50 degrees, starving them (oh, "reduced food rations") and sleep deprivation, all at the same time. This is Soviet Gulag material. To quote Jefferson, he is acting with "cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. " My conscience is shocked. Anyone who has a conscience would be shocked! There is no excuse for torture. None. These are crimes against humanity.
Why do Republicans support these crimes? Why do they scream "traitor" to anyone who dares object? As RBR has said, the party base has decided to subordinate all human values to serving The Leader and The Cause and The Faith. I am so furious I can barely write coherently (as y'all can tell). Plainly, these conservatives have no conscience left, no morals, no values to speak of. Their pretense at "christian faith" is a sick joke. If Jesus had known what these people would do in his name, he would have just turned back to carpentry. It is no longer extreme now to say that anyone who votes for another Republican administration is an accessory to crimes against humanity.
Bush and Cheney both must be impeached. This is imperative, if only to achieve some measure of redemption. To quote Jefferson again, "A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. "
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Shock the Conscience
Posted by The Law Talking Guy at 9:28 AM
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13 comments:
I completely agree with LTG. The first target should be Gonzalez. He should immediately be charged with lying to Congress and forced to either accept the full weight of prosecution or reveal that he was ordered to make these decisions by the President and Vice President.
I am disgusted but, sadly, not shocked.
We need to crush the Republican party in 2008 so completely that it will be forced to remake itself in a new form that severs the ties to its current leadership.
By the way, CNN is not making any noise about this at all. The supposed liberal media is focussing on the Craig sex scandal and an armored car robbery in Philly.
We all knew that the Bush administration had done this--now we have a growing paper trail to prove it. But the American media will look the other way so long as the American public at large supports torture. Oh, they may not approve of it in so many words, but we have all heard the "ticking time bomb" scenario.
Hillary Clinton finally went on record last week saying that even such a scenario, the use of torture, "cannot be American policy, period." (When informed that Bill Clinton had said otherwise, Hillary replied to great applause, "Well, I'll talk to him later.") Her statement is, however, far more nuanced than I would have liked.
I would like to hear a candidate state clearly that torture is never justified under any circumstances, and that even if faced with the "ticking time bomb" scenario he or she would simply find another way to get what was needed, "because there is always another way." LTG and RbR have said before that the struggle against torture and tyranny is the defining moral issue of our time. It saddens me that so many of my countrymen are on the wrong side of it.
Dr. S. Obama has made just such a clear statement. http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/04/obama_foreign_policy_speech_te.html
RbR: perhaps you linked to the wrong page? I did not find any such statement in the text.
Dr.S. - I know Obama has made such a categorical statement. I will look for it.
Here's today's comment from Obama.
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/obama-torture-is-part-of-the-problem-not-the-solution-2007-10-04.html
See also John Edwards at Youtube.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/03/john-edwards-no-more-secret-prisons-no-more-torture-or-condoning-torture/
By contrast, HRC is still trying to triangulate the issue.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/2007/09/28/2007-09-28_hillary_flipflop_on_torture_inspired_aft.html
I don't see the kind of categorical statement yet I have been hoping for--the kind I imagine we have all been hoping for. It was not in any videos or articles to which you referred me.
In the debate last week, all of the major Democratic candidates were asked about whether they would permit torture in the "ticking time bomb" scenario, and all of them said no. But if you read the transcript I think you will see that only Joe Biden actually delievered the categorical NO I was hoping for. The others were either more nuanced or did not quite deal with the issue.
OBAMA: America cannot sanction torture. It's a very straightforward principle, and one that we should abide by. Now, I will do whatever it takes to keep America safe. And there are going to be all sorts of hypotheticals and emergency situations and I will make that judgment at that time. But what we cannot do is have the president of the United States state, as a matter of policy, that there is a loophole or an exception where we would sanction torture. I think that diminishes us and it sends the wrong message to the world.
BIDEN: No, I would not. And I met, up here in New Hampshire, with 17 three- and four-star generals who, after my making a speech at Drake Law School, pointing out I would not under any circumstances sanction torture, I thought they were about to read me the riot act. Seventeen of our four-star, three-star generals said, Biden, will you make a commitment you will never use torture? It does not work. It is part of the reason why we got the faulty information on Iraq in the first place is because it was engaged in by one person who gave whatever answer they thought they were going to give in order to stop being tortured. It doesn't work. It should be no part of our policy ever -- ever.
CLINTON: You know, Tim, I agree with what Joe and Barack have said. As a matter of policy it cannot be American policy period. I met with those same three- and four-star retired generals, and their principal point -- in addition to the values that are so important for our country to exhibit -- is that there is very little evidence that it works.
DODD: [T]his was all part of the Military Commissions Act which was adopted last fall. There were only a handful of us that voted against it at the time. And I've written legislation to overturn it. I'll offer no better witness here than John McCain, who said that during those terrible years he was incarcerated and tortured, he would say anything to those interrogators in order to stop the physical pain. So we need to reinforce the idea here; this is a dreadful way to collect information...
RICHARDSON: No. I will do everything I can to fight terrorists. That's the main obligation of the American people. But that doesn't mean we become like terrorists and abridge our own freedoms. What the Bush administration has been using is called waterboarding. That is unacceptable not just with the Geneva Conventions, but in the spirit of our nation being a nation that respects human rights. That's not us. I would not permit it.
EDWARDS: The only thing I would -- I agree with what's been said. The only thing I would add is the problem is much bigger than this specific hypothetical illustrates. Because what's happened is, what America is has been undermined over the last seven years. And torture is a component of that, or the condoning of torture is a component of it. But it is only one component...
OK, leaving aside the fact that Drake university (and it's law school) are in Des Moines not New Hampshire...
Here is the passage I was thinking of when I said Obama had been clear as being against torture: "But if the next President can restore the American people’s trust – if they know that he or she is acting with their best interests at heart, with prudence and wisdom and some measure of humility – then I believe the American people will be ready to see America lead again. They will be ready to show the world that we are not a country that ships prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far off countries. That we are not a country that runs prisons which lock people away without ever telling them why they are there or what they are charged with. That we are not a country which preaches compassion and justice to others while we allow bodies to float down the streets of a major American city. That is not who we are."
Granted, it's not what Biden said but its a far cry from what any of the Republicans are saying about "enhanced interrogation techniques" etc.
RbR: Indeed, what Obama said there is far a far cry from what the Republicans are saying. All Democratic candidates have said something along those lines.
LTG: Do you read Obama's answer as an attempt to "triangulate" also?
No, I don't read Obama's answer as an attempt to triangulate. I read his answer in the context of his book, which is also clear on the subject. HRC's answer I read in connection with her prior answer on the subject that was more permissive. The bottom line is that I believe that Obama has a moral commitment not to torture, but I do not see that in HRC. Others can have other opinions. I will look for more from her.
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