Torture: The Blackest of The Black Marks
I happen to believe that history will judge the Bush administration’s embrace of torture as the darkest of the dark marks against it. But history is something happening now that we will look back on in the future, so I have been beating the anti-torture drum pretty hard over at my own blog, Kiko’s House.
If you share the views of daveinboca, an uber patriot and TMV troll who exalts in his government embracing Nazi-like interrogation techniques, then read no further. (Just one question, Dave: Do you think the CIA would have gotten any useful information out of Jesus?)
If you are revolted like I am and believe that torture not only undermines the core values on which the U.S. was founded but also calls into question who we really are, then stop over and read my latest piece.
It concerns the Justice (sic) Department not only giving those nasty Chinese commies access to indigenous Chinese being held at the Guantánamo Bay branch of the Rumsfeld Gulag, but also having them “softened up” for Beijing’s thugs — or allowing its own thugs to torture them.
If you’re on the fence, you can click here for an index and links to my other posts on torture and make up your own mind.
13 Responses to “Torture: The Blackest of The Black Marks”
Thanks for continuing to write about this stuff Shaun.
Embracing torture destroys any of our arguments about moral superiority. Torture is notoriously bad for getting good intelligence. Torture hurts our image around the world. Torture puts our troops in more danger of being tortured themselves.
[sniffle] A little self-control would help when dealing with this.
Bush and Cheney are on their way out. The home stretch is after the Dem convention and the final countdown is between the election in November and Inauguration Day. Even then, you're failures if you overdo the celebrating.
From Andrew Sullivan:
“What … torture advocates fail to do, moreover, is confront the fact that what they are defending is illegal and requires amending US law and withdrawal from the Geneva Conventions. Like so many “conservatives” today, they refuse to take full responsibility for their actions.”
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily…
So what if they are on their way out? You think it should stop there? I don't. They have had innocent people imprisoned and beaten, in several instances at least beaten to death. How does that not light a fire of outrage in you?
Just when I thought it couldn't get worse, I read about our friends, the Chinese yesterday.
The damage done by torture as a defense will live on and on and on.
When we left the 'above suspicion' boat, we opened ourselves up to false accusations that will be hard to refute. Trust is much easier to lose than to regain.
I'm not fond of the idea of impeachment or other forms of public humiliation and punishemnt. It causes more strife and hatred than it cures.
But on this one issue, torture, I'm really tempted. It's the only effective way I can think of to wash ourselves clean for the world to see and believe.
From Glenn Greenwald:
“So what if they are on their way out? You think it should stop there?”
I certainly think the hyperventilating should never have begun. So much outrage has simply been another outlet and target for Bush hatred, which always was unseemly (to be very, very kind).
“The torture, detention and surveillance policies in question are still the formal and official position of our government “
Few actually support it (yes, such people exist) and fewer still are going to forget it and pretend it never happened after next January. The (obvious) point is that so many need to start to be grown-ups about this rather than expressing faux higher principles along with their apoplexy. (They just resent that Bush won two straight elections, more than anything else.)
“How does that not light a fire of outrage in you?”
I'm grown up, and not given to tantrums or fits. I'm disgusted, as are so many who tend to lean Republican at election time because the Dems are so typically worse.
You saw the 2006 election results. You see the current Bush approval ratings. Both are not only due to sentiments and actions of Dem and Dem-leaning voters.
Of all the things to get worked up over, I think sanctioned torture is one of them. This kind of stuff makes the Clinton BJ saga and even Watergate seem trite in comparison.
I'm not worked up over it — among other reasons besides maturity, because I cannot stop it; but the end of Bush's term will stop it (neither Democrat is likely to approve of torture, nor McCain, and no, that isn't a bogus accusation of “appeasement”). Now if they decided to kill everyone in the camp before leaving office, not merely execute those deserving of such punishment, to conceal at least some of what they did or simply to prevent legitimate future lawsuits, then I might get worked up.
Plus as other instances of misconduct by the current administration has surfaced, it is less surprising, as well as “outrageous.” Given what we know now, if we just now learned about torture, we'd be offended, but would any of us be surprised?
It's immature to get too Outraged! [tm] over this — stridence or volume level doesn't constitute the degree of morality behind your position — once you're older and wiser you'll simply get more cynical. That it has exceeded your already-low expectations and assumptions about the Bush administration, well, it surprised many of us, now didn't it? Abu Ghraib alone was a warning things weren't being run 100% well.
Now to me what's truly ugly (as oppposed to immature) is that a few people actually support and cheer the torture. (such as on Town Hall)
All I'll say is this, “NO TORTURE!”
All I'll say is this, “NO TORTURE!”