I wrote a post a couple of days ago quoting Admiral Henry Harris, the commander of Guantanamo asying there are no innocent men imprisoned there and that those who committed suicide were committing an “act of asymmetric warfare waged against us.” It struck me as absurd that hanging yourself in your cage could be considered an act of war and I thought this guy was likely taking the notion of “suiciders” to some ridiculous conclusion.
But I came upon another quote from him saying something even more absurd:
Rear Admiral Harris is adamant that the people in his care are well looked after and are enemies of the United States.
He told me they use any weapon they can – including their own urine and faeces – to continue to wage war on the United States.
Where do they find these nutballs to send down there to Guantanamo? First Geoffrey Miller and now this kook. Apparently he believes that any act of resistence by these people who are imprisoned in cages is an act of war.
It seems to me that far too many Americans have worked themselves into some sort of hysteria, including this loon running Gitmo. When heavily guarded people in cages throwing feces is considered assymetrical warfare, we have gone down the rabbit hole. (Either that or a couple of toddlers I know are in training to be the next Osama bin Laden.) Does this man think he’s actually fighting terrorists down there?
The men being held in Guantanamo might have been terrorists, but when they are under the total control of the most powerful military in the world they are most definitely not combatants, they are prisoners. It’s not an act of war to dislike your jailers or resist your imprisonment. That’s absurd.
These people need to get a grip before they give themselves heart attacks from irrational fear. Those prisoners are just human beings not aliens from outer space.
I was just listening to old Huckleberry go on about turth and justice and the American way of torture. He says that all the analysts who say this bill is an abomination and an affront to everything we stand for are just wrong. We should believe him because he is a military lawyer and an expert on these issues. If you listen to the beltway wags you also know that he is a man of honor who courageously went against his president and insisted that we needed to ensure this legislation lived up to our ideals.
While listening to his soliloquy it occurred to me that this might be a good time to take a trip down memory lane and revisit one of Huckleberry’s finest moments:
How can the paper of record write a lengthy puff piece about the brave, maverick integrity of Senator Huckleberry Graham and make no metion of the fact that he and his pal Jon Kyl inserted a fraudulent 12,000 word colloquey into the congressional record to fool the US Supreme Court and were caught red-handed. The Supreme Court merely noted this in the footnotes of the Hamdan decision, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued an unusual order rejecting their amicus brief alone, although they accepted five others. As John Dean wrote: “No one familiar with this remarkable behavior by Graham and Kyl can doubt why the court did not want to hear from these senators.”
This was not a small thing. Huckleberry and Kyl wrote an entire script of a debate that never happened in order to create a false legislative history that they then cited in an amicus brief for the government in the Hamdan case. They defrauded the court and they did it with the express purpose of bolstering the government’s argument that the Senate had intended that the Supreme Court be stripped of jurisdiction in the Hamdan case.
This is remarkable not only because it features two Senators outright lying to the Supreme Court. It is also remarkable because the decision in that case is the one the NY Times says Huckleberry is now bravely defending against the wishes of his own party. I would have thought the reporter might have asked old Huck about where he actually stands on this issue.
This is the thing about Graham and why he is one of the most untrustworthy members of the Republican party. He is the guy who is out there portraying himself as the voice of reason, the man who thoughtfully entertains the whole range of opinion and settles on the reasonable middle ground. The truth is that he pretends to do all that while he ruthlessly advances the Republican agenda — even to the point where he would outright defraud the US Supreme Court while claiming to be a strict adherent to the rule of law.
This is the man whose intepretation of the torture and detention bill we are supposed to trust. He’s one of the men that congress trusted to do the kabuki “negotiation” with the president. Because he’s a man of integrity.
Update: This post by Vagabond Scholar gets deep into the weeds on Huckleberry’s rank dishonesty in this case, but it’s fascinating to read if you’re so inclined. He is an outright lying piece of garbage. He not only scripted a fake colloquy for the congressional record to fool the court into believing that the legislative intent was different than it actually was — he also wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post taking the other side. He should have been disbarred — and nobody should have ever trusted him anywhere near this issue again.
After his history it’s just a little bit difficult to believe he suddenly cares about the Geneva Conventions don’t you think?
Step One: Bush and his entire cabinet leave office.
Step Two: Wait for Step One.
Until then, it is inevitable that Iraq will stay firmly on the path towards becoming a failed state (or it already is depending on the measures of failure used). If anyone thinks Bush will listen to a good idea, let alone follow it, let alone execute it in an effective manner, then that anyone has been comatose for five years. I know: this is a terrible thing to write, that increased tragedy, suffering and death are inevitable for Iraqis. But nothing good has a possibility of happening until Bush is out, meaning until January, 2009.
Oh, and David, you write:
Some extreme war critics are so angry at Bush they seem almost eager for America to lose, to prove a political point.
As Yglesias says, who you talking about, pal? Just to repeat what I said even before the launch of the New Product in Fall, 2002, a pre-emptive, unprovoked invasion of Iraq was doomed to failure. Not that I was happy to realize that. I was, and am, sick to death over it.
Why was it doomed to fail? Because it an unspeakably stupid idea that five seconds of sober thought would have revealed had no chance ever of working. And, no, it’s not that Bush et al were incompetent that it failed. That’s backward. The Bush administration demonstrated its total incompetence because it took a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq seriously and thought it could succeed.
It really takes a lot of gall for the NY Post to obnoxiously ridicule Keith Olberman for calling the police when some asshole sent some white powder to his house with a note that said it was in response to his commentary against the president. The NY Post was one of the places that the original anthrax killer hit in 2001 — and their own employees got sick.
What in the hell is wrong with these people? Jesus.
As we ponder how this torture legislation might develop in the future, it’s probably a good idea to check out how the intelligence community of the United States sees the threat of terrorism developing in the future. From the NIE:
Anti-US and anti-globalization sentiment is on the rise and fueling other radical ideologies. This could prompt some leftist, nationalist, or separatist groups to adopt terrorist methods to attack US interests. The radicalization process is occurring more quickly, more widely, and more anonymously in the Internet age.
Let’s hope that our leaders in Washington don’t decide that the war on terror has expanded to such groups any time soon. (Although all the hoopla about Hugo Chavez’s remarks may just be a precursor to such designations.) But keep in mind, that the generic term “terrorism” is the word used in the new bill that:
blesses detainee abuse and looks the other way on forms of detainee torture; it immunizes terrible acts; it abridges the writ of habeas corpus– in the last, most egregious draft, it strips the writ for alleged enemy combatants whether proved to be so or not, whether citizens or not, and whether found in the U.S. or overseas.
For those in America who think that this only applies to dark skinned foreigners who don’t really deserve the rights that God gave Americans, this should give them pause:
Most of the attention in the press has focused on subsection (i) of the definition, which would designate as an UEC any “person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces).” And that subsection is, indeed, broad, and fairly indeterminate, depending on how “materially supported hostilities” is interpreted (something that the Administration apparently could do without much or any judicial review).
But the really breathtaking subsection is subsection (ii), which would provide that UEC is defined to include any person “who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense.”
Read literally, this means that if the Pentagon says you’re an unlawful enemy combatant — using whatever criteria they wish — then as far as Congress, and U.S. law, is concerned, you are one, whether or not you have had any connection to “hostilities” at all.
This definition is not limited to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It’s not limited to aliens — it covers U.S. citizens as well. It’s not limited to persons captured or detained overseas. And it is not even limited to the armed conflict against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, authorized by Congress on September 18, 2001. Indeed, on the face of it, it’s not even limited to a time of war or armed conflict; it could apply in peacetime.
Therefore if, as everyone is assuming, this definition does establish who may be detained by the military outside the civilian justice system, it would quite literally give the Secretary of Defense the statutory authority to detain just about anyone he wants, indefinitely. And if that’s the case, then the habeas-stripping provision would really be the least of it, because even with all the due process and habeas protections in the world, it would be almost impossible to challenge the grounds on which someone is detained if the Executive itself can establish what the permissible grounds for detention are.
I noticed that Carl Levin just praised the efforts of McCain, Graham and Warner again and said the new bill has two good things about it: it prohibits torture and secret evidence, which is just wrong. But he said that the compromise contains other things which are troubling and he will offer the slightly less shitty bill that came out of the Armed Services Committee later today as an alternative. It will probably fail, but perhaps all this McCain love today and the characterization of his bill as prohibiting torture and secret evidence is a way to bring over some wavering Republican senators, I don’t know. Sometimes the unexpected happens.
I’ll try to watch the debate for the rest of the day as I can. I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to see where I am. If you hear any good speeches, let me know. I’d like to give credit to those who stand up to be counted on this major issue of our time.
I think the bottom line is that most people don’t give a damn about a bunch of swarthy foreigners. They think the people in Guantanamo are animals and even if they aren’t exactly guilty of the things the US says they are guilty of, they are guilty of not being American. I don’t think they lose much sleep over it and they don’t see it as applying to them. But they are wrong. In light of the possibilities outlined above for using this legislation to “disappear” anyone from terrorists to leftists to those who are deemed to be anti-American, this may be a day to remember the famous poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller:
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
By now probably everyone knows that the torture bill that’s working its way through the Senate is even worse than the one they crafted last Friday. It’s so bad that they are now saying it has “drafting errors” when something particularly egregious is pointed out. One wonders how many other “drafting errors” will wind up in this sloppy, hurried mess. They are rushing it through without anybody knowing what they hell it really says:
Democrats, while being careful to say that they had made no decision to block the detainee bill, expressed rising concerns about changes to the proposal that they said went beyond what Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Republican leader, had described Monday as merely “technical changes.”
The changes had been made over the weekend, as negotiators from the House and White House adjusted a compromise that had been reached between the White House and Senate Republicans on Thursday.
In one change, the original language said that a suspect had the right to “examine and respond to” all evidence used against him. Mr. Graham and his colleagues in resisting the White House, Senators John W. Warner of Virginia and John McCain of Arizona, had insisted that the provision was necessary to prevent so-called secret trials. The bill submitted late Monday dropped the word “examine” and left only “respond to,” reviving complaints about secret trials, this time from Democrats.
In another, the original compromise said that evidence seized “outside the United States” could be admitted in court even if it had been obtained without a search warrant, a provision Republicans and Democrats agreed was necessary to deal with the unusual circumstances of seizing evidence on the battlefield.
The bill introduced Monday dropped the words “outside the United States,” which Democrats said meant that prosecutors could ignore American legal standards on search warrants within the country. The bill also broadened the definition of an unlawful enemy combatant, from anyone “engaged in hostilities against the United States” to include anyone who “has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.”
[…] Republicans and the White House explained the change to the provision about viewing evidence as, in Mr. Graham’s words, “literally just a drafting error,” and said the word “examine” would be restored.
Right. And George Allen just happened to make up a word that means n*****r in several different languages. Life is full of such unhappy coincidences.
Republicans and the White House defended the change on unlawful combatants. It is narrower than the definition originally proposed by the White House, which said that anyone who materially supported hostilities could be prosecuted because it added the phrase “intentionally and purposefully.” Senate and White House staff members said this would resolve the problem of what one Senate aide described as “the grandmother in Switzerland” who writes a check for charity that ends up going to a terrorist organization.
“Most of us feel if someone is engaged in actively assisting Al Qaeda or terrorists that they should fall under this legislation,” Mr. McCain said.
[..]
Republicans also said they were trying to reach a compromise on the habeas corpus provision of the bill, which would deny a suspect the right to challenge his detention in court.
“Actively assisting Al-Qaeda or terrorists.” One assumes that would be stuff such as giving “material support.” Like the guy who was arrested for selling Hezbollah TV as part of a satellite TV package. You know the type. (The good part is that rightwing welfare queens are on the case “helping” the government track down these dangerous terrorists. Lucky for us the far right is so level headed, isn’t it?)
I don’t know why the Senators are even pretending to know what’s in this bill. One of the most important pieces of legislation in recent American history is being put together in the dead of night and hurried through the congress for political reasons. It’s a constitutional clusterfuck.
The vote is going to happen and it’s going to pass. But I can’t help but wonder if the momentum wouldn’t have gone the other way if some of the Democrats who constantly exhort the rank and file to be more friendly to religion and values and morals had stood up and said no. Imagine if Barack Obama had staked out a leading position against this legislation making the explicit argument that it is immoral and unamerican to torture. That would have gone farther to demonstrate our respect for religious values than his frequent process talk and scolding could ever do.
Or imagine if Holy Joe Lieberman showed even one tenth the righteous indignation toward this torture legislation that he showed toward president Clinton’s personal affairs. Imagine if the great centrist hawk, the man of morals and religious sincerity whom the Republicans have anointed as a principled example of a Democrat who understands the stakes in the war on terror, went to the floor of the senate and said:
In choosing this path, I fear that the president has undercut the efforts of millions of Americans who are naturally trying to instill in our children the value of honesty and decency toward others — and the absolute taboo against torture. As most any mother and father knows, kids have a singular ability to detect double standards. So, we can safely assume that it will be that much more difficult to convince our sons and daughters of the importance of treating even enemies with humanity and dignity. Many parents I have spoken with in Connecticut confirm this unfortunate consequence.
The president’s legislation allowing torture and repealing habeas corpus may also undercut the trust that the American people have in his word. Under the Constitution, as presidential scholar Newsted has noted, the president’s ultimate source of authority, particularly his moral authority, is the power to persuade, to mobilize public opinion, to build consensus behind a common agenda. As Teddy Roosevelt once explained, “My power vanishes into thin air the instant that my fellow citizens, who are straight and honest, cease to believe that I represent them and fight for what is straight and honest. That is all the strength that I have,” Roosevelt said. Sadly, with his deception about the contents of this legislation, from the meaning of torture to its intentions, President Bush may have weakened the great power and strength that he possesses, of which President Roosevelt spoke.
But I believe that the harm the president’s actions have caused extend beyond the political arena. I am afraid that the actions the president is attempting to codify with this legislation may be reinforcing one of the worst messages being delivered by our popular culture, which is that values are fungible. And I am concerned that his misconduct may help to blur some of the most important bright lines of right and wrong in our society.
As the debate on this matter proceeds, we would be advised, I would respectfully suggest, to heed the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln’s second annual address to Congress in 1862.
With the nation at war with itself, President Lincoln warned, and I quote, “If there ever could be a time for mere catch arguments, that time is surely not now. In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.”
I believe that we are at such a time again today.
There’s so much at stake, we, too, must resist the impulse toward catch arguments and reflex reactions. Let us proceed in accordance with our nation’s traditional moral compass — yes — but in a manner that is fair and at a pace that is deliberate and responsible.
Let us as a nation honestly confront the damage that the president’s decisions in the war on terror and Iraq over the last five years have caused, but not at the expense of our common interest as Americans. And let us be guided by the conscience of the Constitution, which calls on us to place the common good above any partisan or personal interest, as we now in our time work together to resolve this serious challenge to our democracy.
But we aren’t going to see the moral scolds standing up on this, I’m afraid. At least I’ll be very shocked if they do. They believe, as do so many Republicans and members of the press that morals are attached to somebody elses crotch. They apparently don’t see that institutional torture isn’t just something that a few bad apples learn from popular culture.
Joe pondered that very question in thisWall Street Journal op-ed after Abu Ghraib. Even before the investigations were started he was already convinced that the guards were a unique group of deviants and didn’t seem inclined to believe that such things could have become policy. But now the Republicans are going to ram through a bill that makes all that ugly deviant stuff perfectly legal if the president wants it to be. Here were the closing words to his Rumsfeld apologia called “Let Us have Faith:”
But, as we are showing in our response to Abu Ghraib, we are a nation of laws, and therefore must punish only those who are proven guilty. The Iraqi prison scandal has been a nightmare at an already difficult moment in the war in Iraq…With determination and confidence, we should recall President Lincoln’s words at another difficult moment in American history in pursuit of another just cause: “Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us do our duty as we understand it.”
Makes a tear come to the eye, doesn’t it, the way men like McCain and Lieberman keep evoking Lincoln and the Bible as they work to institutionalize torture and continue a bloody, useless war that kills thousands and thousands of people? It’s all very inspirational.
Keep your eyes on Holy Joe as the debate unfolds. If he bothers to show up at all, I will be shocked if his vaunted religious values lead him to vote against the bill. And that says everything you need to know about his sincerity. When it comes to lying about consensual sex he’s all over it, leading the charge. Torture and endless imprisonment with no trial, not so much.
I’m with Atrios. If these religion scolds vote for this bill I will never stand for being lectured by them again about how liberals need to be more respectful of the faith and values crowd. The time is now for them show what they are made of. Let’s see it.
AFTER BARELY three weeks of debate, the Senate today will take up a momentous piece of legislation that would set new legal rules for the detention, interrogation and trial of accused terrorists. We have argued that the only remedy to the mess made by the Bush administration in holding hundreds of detainees without charge at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere since 2001 was congressional action. Yet rather than carefully weigh the issues, Congress has allowed itself to be stampeded into a vote on hastily written but far-reaching legal provisions, in a preelection climate in which dissenters risk being labeled as soft on terrorism.
As we have said before, there is no need for Congress to act immediately. No terrorist suspects are being held in the CIA detention “program” that President Bush has so vigorously defended. Justice for the al-Qaeda suspects he has delivered to Guantanamo has already been delayed for years by the administration’s actions and can wait a few more months. What’s important is that any legal system approved by Congress pass the tests set by Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) months ago: that the United States can be proud of it, that the world will see it as fair and humane, and that the Supreme Court can uphold it.
[…]
White House pressure may have persuaded many in Congress that the easiest course is to quickly approve the detention bill in its present form and leave town. If so, their actions almost surely will come back to haunt them. Until this country adopts a legal system for the war on terrorism that meets Mr. Warner’s standard, the war itself will be unwinnable.
I keep hearing from the right wing talking heads today that it’s time to put all the arguments about how we got into Iraq behind us, that even though it’s now official that it created more terrorists and made the nation less safe, we need to look to future and figure out where to go from here, not live in the past.
That’s very compelling. But there’s just one little thing we need to do before we move on. We need to figure out which people we should trust to lead us as we move forward to fix the mistakes of the past.
The Republicans were in office when 9/11 happened and Islamic terrorism emerged as the nation’s greatest external threat. The entire country and the world rallied around them. They then lied the country into an unnecessary war in Iraq on the basis of an illegal, immoral military doctine. They threw away billions of dollars and created a massive training camp for jihadists to learn how to fight Americans and recruit converts from all over the world while degrading the constitution at home and demonstrating for the world that our ideals are disposable. That’s the record on this issue.
Sure, we have to figure out where to go from here. Everything is a huge, huge mess. But it would seem obvious that this is an administration gravely in need of some oversight. Another two years of undivided government will just lead the Republican congress to give our president more of the bad advice and cover he’s been getting. This country needs a new congress if we’re going to figure out how to get out of this mess. The American people need to decide if they are going to continue to put all their trust in the guys who fucked up and continue to fuck up — or see if the other guys might have some ideas. It’s that simple.
Update: I probably should point out that “solving the problem” will require some very specitic actions for the new guys. Since the Republicans have been so secretive, they new congress will have to force the administration to submit to the constitutional oversight the constitution requires. That means investigations and hearings. In order to fix the mess, they really have no choice.
It’s all about problem solving 101:
1. Define the problem
2. Look at potential causes for the problem
3. Identify alternatives for approaches to resolve the problem
4. Select an approach to resolve the problem
5. Plan the implementation of the best alternative (this is your action plan)
6. Monitor implementation of the plan
7. Verify if the problem has been resolved or not
Just as it is in any business or organization, if in the course of this problem solving it becomes evident that certain people have committed criminal acts or gross acts of malfeasance, then they will have to be dealt with. There’s no moving forward unless the proper lessons are learned and the entire organization is shown that there are repurcussions for bad acts.
It’s not about playing the blame game, oh no. It’s just a matter of making sure that our government runs efficiently and that everyone understands the rules and regulations. Accountability. Nothing political about it.
A memo received by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shortly after becoming National Security Advisor in 2001 directly contradicts statements she made to reporters yesterday, RAW STORY has learned.
“We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda,” Rice told a reporter for the New York Post on Monday. “Big pieces were missing,” Rice added, “like an approach to Pakistan that might work, because without Pakistan you weren’t going to get Afghanistan.”
Rice made the comments in response to claims made Sunday by former President Bill Clinton, who argued that his administration had done more than the current one to address the al Qaeda problem before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. She stopped short of calling the former president a liar.
However, RAW STORY has found that just five days after President George W. Bush was sworn into office, a memo from counter-terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke to Rice included the 2000 document, “Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al-Qida: Status and Prospects.” This document devotes over 2 of its 13 pages of material to specifically addressing strategies for securing Pakistan’s cooperation in airstrikes against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The Pakistan obstacle
The strategy document includes “three levers” that the United States had started applying to Pakistan as far back as 1990. Sanctions, political and economic methods of persuasion are all offered as having been somewhat successful.
Other portions of the passages relating to Pakistan – marked as “operational details” – have been redacted from the declassified memo at the CIA’s request.
The document also explores broader strategic approaches, such as a “need to keep in mind that Pakistan has been most willing to cooperate with us on terrorism when its role is invisible or at least plausibly deniable to the powerful Islamist right wing.”
But Clarke also made it clear that the Clinton Administration recognized the problem that Pakistan posed in mounting a more sweeping campaign against bin Laden: “Overt action against bin Laden, who is a hero especially in the Pushtun-ethnic border areas near Afghanistan,” Clarke speculated in late 2000, “would be so unpopular as to threaten Musharraf’s government.” The plan notes that, after the attack on the USS Cole, Pakistan had forbidden the United States from again violating its airspace to attack bin Laden in Afghanistan.
The memo sent by Clarke to Rice, to which the Clinton-era document was attached, also urges action on Pakistan relating to al Qaeda. “First [to be addressed,]” wrote Clarke in a list of pending issues relating to al Qaeda, is “what the administration says to the Taliban and Pakistan about ending al Qida sanctuary in Afghanistan. We are separately proposing early, strong messages on both.”
A disputed history
The documents have been a source of controversy before. Rice contended in a March 22, 2004 Washington Post piece that “no al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration.”
Two days later, Clarke insisted to the 9/11 Commission that the plan had in fact been turned over. “There’s a lot of debate about whether it’s a plan or a strategy or a series of options, but all of the things we recommended back in January,” he told the commission, “were done after September 11th.”
The memo was declassified on April 7, 2004, one day before Rice herself testified before the 9/11 Commission.
Truly pathetic, Dr. Rice.
Y’know, sooner or later the press will have to consider whether it is in the country’s interest to disseminate any info asserted by the administration that hasn’t been indepedently verified for factual accuracy.
I’ve read the parts of the National Intelligence Estimate cherry-picked by Bush for release. They say exactly what the news reports said they say and they demonstrate that Bush is is full of it:
Excerpts from the report, released late this afternoon, show that intelligence agencies found that “the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives; perceived jihadist success there would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere.”
“The Iraq conflict has become the ‘cause célèbre’ for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement,” the excerpts said. “Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.”
Torture And National Security Are Entirely Different Subjects
by tristero
Yesterday, in making the case that the only strong argument against torture is that nearly every value system, religious or otherwise, condemns it, I criticized Matthew Yglesias for trying to argue against torture by pointing to its inutility. Despite some very intelligent objections to my postion in comments, I still hold to this view: Torture does not become acceptable if it can be shown to be useful in some real world circumstances. Torture simply is immoral. Period.
I’m happy to say that Matt, too, has come to the same conclusion. In his post on American Prospect Online, Rogue State, Matt relies on the moral argument in making his case against torture (the utility arguments he make – that torture lowers our already low world standing – depends upon the centrality of the moral argument).
However, in reading over Matt’s post I realized that there is another, very different issue – national security concerns – that has become deliberately mixed up with torture by the rightwing in their bizarre effort to turn America into a torture capital. While banning torture under all circumstances is an extremely simple-to-grasp moral imperative, a serious discussion about what improves or undermines national security and law enforcement is not. Mixing the two, as the right does, creates an opportunity for them to advance an obscene moral relativism, to base the morality of torture solely on its potential utility for national security.
But these are entirely separate issues that occupy entirely different epistemological domains! Torture is a moral issue and we understand how and why torture is unacceptable by studying the moral codes most human beings live by. On the other hand, discussions of national security focus on tactical and pragmatic concerns, not primarily moral ones. We understand how to improve national security and why certain techniques succeed and fail by examining the empirical evidence, not by passing moral judgment.
Within that latter discussion – how to make us safer – Matt rightly argues you’d have to be a fool to countenance torture, let alone advocate it. Why? Because not only national security but ordinary law enforcement has been shown to dangerously deteriorate if torture is used, an assertion Matt backs up with a relevant link.
I realize that many of you will read the above and think I’m just being political. As if I’m merely trying to say that I realize I foolishly attacked an ally in the fight against Bushism but without directly apologizing. Furthermore, I suspect that some of you will think that my distinction of when the inutility of torture is appropriate is just an academic distinction. Not so.
If I felt I owed Matt an apology earlier, I would apologize, but I see no reason to apologize for a criticism that I believe was quite fair, sincerely made to sharpen both his and my ability to oppose the rightwing, and delivered without resort to ad hominem (which I’ve used in discussing Matt in the past and which use does deserve an apology from me. Sorry!). More to the point, I think the distinction I’m drawing is far from an academic one but a fundamental one. I believe Matt also understands it simply must be drawn in order to have a coherent discourse on either issue. It is a distinction – the moral and the pragmatic – that the incompetent, cognitively challenged pro-torture gang has deliberately blurred and the only way to fight back is to start by clearing up the confusion. In other words, and briefly:
Torture is wrong AND it makes security worse. That’s a helluva lot different than saying torture is wrong BECAUSE it makes security worse.
The latter is the playing field the rightwing wants us to accept as the only valid one. But it’s a false one as it confuses a moral and pragmatic issue to generate the appearance of moral relativism vis a vis torture where there simply is none at all.
