Homegrown Time Bomb

by digby

I can’t remember when I first argued that the torture regime was logically going to lead us to questions about using it here at home, but it was a long time ago. You simply cannot argue that the danger of al Qaeda is so much more dangerous than say, drug gangs, or organized crime that it requires a total abandonment of the rule of law and you can’t argue that Islamic fundamentalist terrorism has more of a chance at success on its own terms than homegrown political terrorism. After all, the liklihood of America actually withdrawing from the world and becoming an Islamic state out of fear is vanishingly small. Homegrown anti-abortion terrorists have shown a remarkable success rate.

I have always felt that torturing American criminal suspects would probably garner at least a 50% approval rate among Americans. We are, after all, a bloodthirsty culture. And now, after five years or so of heavy discussion about the merits of torture, the necessity of keeping people safe from terrorists, protecting the American way of life etc, we have a test case:

In a jailhouse interview with the AP over the weekend, Scott Roeder, the anti-abortion zealot who’s been charged in the murder of Dr. George Tiller, revealed:

I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal.

Roeder declined to elaborate. That means we have a suspect in custody who has admitted to having knowledge of specific terrorist attacks planned for the future. In order to thwart those alleged plots, we need more information from Roeder — information he doesn’t seem likely to give up voluntarily. By the logic of the ticking time-bomb scenario, we should be waterboarding Roeder already — or at least banging his head against the wall. After all, terror attacks could be imminent, with an unknown cost in terms of human lives and the creation of a climate of fear. It’s a no-brainer, right? Maybe not so much. For some reason, we haven’t seen any torture advocates clamoring to see those “harsh interrogation techniques” applied to Roeder. In fact, we asked four prominent defenders of torture for their views on the issue — and all four stayed mum.

Not surprising. Those most prone to support torture of criminal suspects and terrorists abroad are also those most prone to agree with the political aims of our homegrown terrorists. After all, the only people who’ve been murdering and blowing up buildings for political purposes in the last 40 years or so have been right wingers.

And it still doesn’t get to the nub of the problem. What is the logical distinction between some Islamic fundamentalist who wants to kill Americans because they are the infidel and some American Christian anti-abortion zealot who wants to kill Americans because they perform abortions? If both are suspected of having information about further terrorist attacks, why should one be tortured for the information and the other not?

There are, of course, illogical and arbitrary reasons, like that set forth by torture lover David Rivkin, who told TPM that the difference was that the Islamic fundamentalists were treated under the laws of war (which also ban torture, but never mind) while American criminal suspects are treated under the criminal code. That’s perhaps correct, but the effect of the threats is the same — someone is saying that further attacks are planned and refuses to tell their interrogator. In the one case, torture is prohibited and in the other it is permitted, but the logic of the ticking time bomb scenario is the same. Simply designating people into different categories doesn’t change that.

The fact is that if torture is acceptable for Islamic terrorist suspects there is no reason it shouldn’t be acceptable for domestic terrorist suspects. Indeed, as I said, there is a good case to be made that domestic terrorism has more liklihood of succeeding in intimidating the citizens of the nation into giving up its freedoms. We’ve certainly seen that to be the case in terms of the constitutional right to abortion, which is now largely unavailable in most parts of the country due to abortion zealots intimidating the population.

I am not for waterboarding Roeder, of course, any more than I would be for cutting off each of his fingers until he told the interrogators what they want to hear. I think it’s a disgusting, barbaric thing to do under any circumstances. But these torture apologists believe it is a “no brainer” to use against Islamic fundamentalists. They are the ones who are logically inconsistent and the incoherence of their position is glaring. Not that they care, of course. But it’s not exactly reassuring to know that the only thing really standing between an embrace of torture in the American justice system is the fact that the home grown terrorists of the moment happen to be right wingers in sympathy with conservative political aims.

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