The current flogging of the torture issue may very well drive this blogger to a scream: the loathsome and without scruples Dick Cheney says such treatment called forth city-saving intelligence. Others argue that other, legal means would have had equal success.
And both side fog endlessly about who bears the ultimate responsibility: those who carry out the torture, those who justified the torture in legal memos, or those at the top who manipulated the system to justify their lawbreaking?
Anyone remember Nuremburg where the Allies tried the defeated for war crimes. Remember the plea of the Nazi subordinate who tossed bodies into ovens, claiming “I was just following orders.” Remember how eager the Bush club was to punish the lower orders for Abu Ghraib while never indicating that the shame of the soldiers and General Karpinski were the direct result of Administration orders?
Ever hear of the real hero of the Iraq war, Alyssa Peterson who killed herself rather than participate in torture?
The issue at hand is not whether or not torture works. The issue is that it is illegal; it is barbaric; it is the last resort of a bullying and clumsy mind; and it is NOT what this country has historically been about.
Not its leaders. Not its servants to the law. Not its people.
We should try and judge each participant from the non-com diapering a prisoner or leaving a threatening bug to the desk jockey administering the program to the shyster carving the law for the appetites of savages to the president, vice president, secretary of defense, etc.
Or, if real justice is impossible, I hope the current Administration along with Congress, the Supremes, and the media unites in sending a huge wad of spit on all those we are too preoccupied to try.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Julian Long // Apr 23, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Right on! Apparently the tactic of the former administration is now to try to decenter the moral argument against torture by claiming that torture “worked.” Ben Smith at Politico is suggesting that Obama should take this as an opportunity for a major speech. I’m hoping for the same.
2 admin // Apr 23, 2009 at 2:38 pm
I hope so as well. Interesting how Cheney continues to reveal himself as a corrupt turd the more he tries to defend what cannot be defended.
3 Julian Long // Apr 23, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Amen to that. It’s good to see you back here.
4 admin // Apr 23, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Thanks much.
5 Michael // May 2, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Comparing our present torture scenario to Nuremburg is a far stretch. An U.S. commanders decision to follow orders of enemy torture to obtain intell compared to WW Germany’s Comanders in Concentration camps to the just plain torture and murder/elimination / human experimentation /mayhem of all sorts to non-combatants, please! After all we all are in favor of accomodating enemy combatants with love and affection, showering them with gifts and favors in hopes taht they will tell us some impertanant info. Really what are we to do? That’s right I said it, i’m not too rah-rah about the rights of Terorists, to me they are just a hate club with a narrow point of view and a messed up ajenda. Are we torturing anyone else? Maybe I would care more.
6 admin // May 2, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Nice to see you, Michael. Ya know, it is possible to ape the behavior of another culture (fascists, terrorists of whatever stripe, etc.) and lose in the process what makes one’s own culture worth defending. Aside from practical matters—e.g., torture does not work; torture leaves our service professionals open to similar treatment and destroys the perhaps bizarre notion of civilized wars—by accepting torture, I believe we wholly lose the moral base that we Americans brag about. Means and ends and all such. Important stuff to me.
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