24 September 2006 - 9:15am
Why do Republicans consider torture an American value?
I cannot believe we're even talking about this.
On the key issue of detainee treatment that had caused the impasse between the White House and the dissident Republicans, the two sides agreed on a list of specified crimes that could provoke prosecution of CIA interrogators and others. They also agreed that past violations of the Geneva Conventions, an international treaty barring degrading and humiliating treatment of detainees, would not result in criminal or civil legal action.
The White House, for its part, yielded in its demand to adopt, with congressional approval, a restricted definition of its obligations under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. That article requires humane treatment of detainees and bars "violence to life and person," such as death and mutilation, as well as cruel treatment and "outrages upon personal dignity."
The compromise language gives the president a dominant -- but not exclusive -- role in deciding which interrogation methods are permitted by that provision of the treaty. It also prohibits detainees from using the Geneva Conventions to challenge their imprisonment or seek civil damages for mistreatment, as the administration sought.
The torture provisions, which are staunchly defended by hawks who, for the most part, have not served in the military, are still a mystery.
What methods of torture were being employed by the CIA on terr’r suspects? 495 of the 535 members of Congress, including the Senate can’t tell you. With the recent redefinition of the Geneva Conventions between the President and those
"maverick"politicking, stumping, fooling Republican Senators McCain and Frist, which methods were kept, and which ones were dumped? Again, only 40 of our 535 most important national leaders can answer that question. It’s “secret”, as are so many other actions this President and his Administration take behind closed doors.What is even more disturbing about this whole thing is the fact that in just a couple of days, 495 of our members of the Halls of Congress will be asked to, and most likely will be participating in the vote to finalize this so-called “anti-torture” legislation; the brainchild of President Bush. And they don’t even know what they’re voting for or against, only that the President wants it quite badly; some on the left going as far as to speculate for the self-serving purpose of staying out of prison for war crimes.
The temptation to cave into fear and descend to the level of the terror criminals out there seems to be irresistible to these conservatives.
We fought the Nazis and did not descend to their level. What enemy we have faced since has been more horrible in goals and tactics? The instances of our past, where Americans let fear short-cut American values -- such as the Japanese internment camps and the witch-hunt against American citizens under McCarthy -- have been shameful episodes. Have we learned nothing as a nation?
And yet these Republicans, in their bed-wetting fear, insist on twisting and distorting American values, working contrary to their oaths of office in errant and unconstitutional means to gain intelligence, even though torture does not work.
America is at a crossroads here. George W. Bush took our mandate -- which was largely the world's mandate -- to deal with the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and twisted it into a horrific war of choice in Iraq. That's bad enough. We're in a fucking mess there.
But he's not only taking us into imperialist adventurism, but also into the darker depths of base and inhumane behavior. Torture? Do we really need to shred our Constitution in order to be safe, as the Republicans claim?
If they cannot perform their jobs within the framework of the law and the U.S. Constitution, then they should have a chance to resign, then be impeached if they don’t. A lack of creative ideas and the ability to perform critical thinking does not give anybody the right to hover above the law. And that is exactly what these people are trying to do.
It's time America responded with integrity and intelligence, and not easily-goaded rage and stupidity.
It's time, before it's too late.
media girl also blogs at other places.
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Comments
Nobody is asking me to run a war, we have experts that actually like the idea of doing that part.
It is so strange to write, and not hear the talk I expect, so yesterday a friend calls and tells me to check out a site he liked called the gun toting liberal, I am not into guns or people who freak out about anything, but I got on there and they are talking about some intense stuff.
So somebody is talking.., and mostly what they are talking about is that nobody seems to be talking very much.
The research here is excellent, and I am a guy, not a feminist, and I gave up plenty of ground in my life to allow the ladies to be secure, seriously, I think I was trying to be 'trendy" by letting all the wrong girls walk all over me.
This layout and the focus rocks, so I will ride along with the people who are talking even if I am not a gun toting anything or a feminist.
Maybe about 1975, I was about ten , around fifth grade, and the neighbors and friends were talking about how I would probably be alright, when I had two parents and a home that was paid for, and that there were a lot of kids they had heard about , someplace far far away, and their parents were living in three hundred thousand dollar houses , pretty much ignoring the kids and letting the school system raise the kids.
Perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfect shoes,and mostly perfect grades... if the parents pretended the schools knew what they were doing.
They were decorated like they were the smart kids. They were wearing the costume of intelligent successful people.
Then in the 80s they got all the good jobs as the personnel managers..., when mommy and daddy got them a cool car, a condo, and all the right clothes, and they, would not hire people who were not part of their peer group.
When I was 35 years old, I could not walk outside, in Arizona or Montana or Utah without the neighborhood watch people calling the police and then the cops would show up and claim that walking was a suspicious activity. Actually that started when I was about nineteen.
I always knew the cops anyway, I would check in and tell them I walked at night, I have a bad back and the walking helps, and also the presence of any civilian will make the streets safer, idiots run at the sight of a sober healthy anything.
In 1981 I saw idiots decorated like strait A students and it worked. That is pure marketing, put in the hands of parents and schools as a substitute for providing.... "instruction, tools, and materials to generate a useful product or service for the community in a reasonable amount of time."
The entire generation faked it, for twenty years.
We have a generation of pathetic whining baby boomers with no exit strategy and they are going to get old and demented when that is just so trendy, and easily marketable.
We have a gerneation of 35 to 40 year olds who couldn't have a bake sale without having a nervous breakdown or going bankrupt.
Dementia,plus a checkbook, plus a telephone, and a boomer can wipe out a decade worth of preparation for almost anything.
They are management fanatics. With forty years of manipulation behind them.
So are you asking for a solution? Or getting ready to bite my head off?
Our conditioning between eleven and seventeen years old was built on the concept of our frontal lobes in our brains developing, not about being nice..., or thinking the flag was pretty, or church was dress up time, it was about those frontal lobes.
Nobody is really sure if a frontal lobe even exists, but they know the conditioning works.
Psychology gets us to talk about our superstitions and traditions, and psychiatry is neurology to keep us mostly a little uncomfortable all the time.
They know our superstitions and traditions are about good against evil, and sorcery and witchcraft, so they create monsters that we would believe are these things.... and then they are the heroes that save the day..., by defeating the nasty monster.
The second a real monster shows up they will bolt. Anything remotely peculiar they will lose it.
So in real life, when a militant system is no longer needed the civilians fire them, they starve the military into submission and dispersal. That basically means don't feed the school system.
The historical function is that the people who occupied the ground will want to keep it, the boomers occupied the ground and they don't want to give it up.
What normally happens is the Veterans will wander around for a while and find other jobs or another conflict to get into in some other place.
But you need to tell them to get lost first and replace that ludicrous personnel format with agriculture, minerals, livestock trade and a family, mostly trade.
Name three military leaders that are fighting in Iraq. I don't think I have met anybody who can name a high ranking officer.
I like the idea of a President being the boss, I don't like the idea of writing this stuff we all knew... by eighth grade, all over again feeling like it is new.
There is this impending feeling like most of the guys in the news for the last five years might just sort of go out and play golf for a day or two and not come back and we will be sandwiched between endless retiring boomers and a desert full of pissed off jerks who will fight anything just for the fun of having a cool hobby.
Lots here... and I don't expect anybody to like my self centered cynical whatever.... I am slamming everybody and myself included, but the problem has to be me... if I don't like what you are doing, right? Isn't that the cool thing nowdays?
It is all about my ego and my pride and not followintg the authorities and never working as a team member?
This team got perfect teeth and a fifty thousand dollar pickup but they can't tell you the name of the leader, on our side in the war.
I promise you this team will report me walking at night when the stars are out. But they will never get out and walk with me.
All we can do is be ready to step in and be calm if these leaders bolt on us....
And it will be regular folks, like us who will at least give it a shot, and try, before we quit.
Thanks
Teeg
The Administration is trying (and to a large extent succeeding) in selling torture as an American value. We are told that passing a law in the American system will protect those who torture others. After World War Two, Germans and Japanese were tried (and executed) without German or Japanese laws playing much of a role.
In a way, the new laws defining what is and what is not permissible torture is the old "I was merely following orders" argument. If we can define what acts are desired, and the torturers follow these rules, surely they are merely following (lawful?) orders.
If you look at the rampant child abuse and prisoner abuse in this country, and the failure to do anything about factory farming (millions tortured daily), you're looking a a society that does approve of torture.