An Internet hub with domestic and international news, analysis, original reporting, and popular features from the left, center, indies, centrists, moderates, and right
Torture Spreads To Tennessee
If we start torturing suspected terrorists, where do we stop? Suspected murderers? Robbers? Drug dealers?
From Abu Gharib to Guantanamo to Black Sites to the American south. If you don’t stop inhumanity at the start, it spreads inexorably like the cancer it is.
And now it’s right in our backyard.
32 Responses to “Torture Spreads To Tennessee”
Okay, do you actually have anything suggesting some sort of causal link, or are you just imagining one? The beating in question took place on July 8, 2004. At least two of the now convicted officers had been involved heavily in the Campbell County TN drug wars for many years. Most likely they just got caught this one time.
Police abuse of prisoners has a long history everywhere. Abuse of prisoners in jails and prisons also has a long history. If anything, the inexorable spread of this kind of inhumanity most likely travelled the opposite direction from what you suggest.
For a “moderatee voice” you sound remarkably immoderate.
Bush is behind all lynching that ever happened in the South too I guess. Maybe the lynchers had access to a Bush supplied time machine, saw the 4 contracters burned &tied to a bridge in Fallujah and thought hey, “why don’t we do that to the next voting rights workers coming thru town?”
Rodney King must have had a DU sticker on the Hyundai…
You seem to have left out the link between Bush and the imprisonment of Mandela and the death of Stephen Biko. Of course, Bush’s personal relationship with Jesus Christ sent Christ to his death on the cross as well.
Your comment Black Sites to the American south. Does it refer to secret CIA prisons. Here Dana Priest had us all thinking they were somewhere in Eastern Europe, even thought the Europeans waven’t benn able to find them.
There’s never a disaster anymore in America that can happen as an “Act of God.” No, all disasters are, by default, an “Act of Bush.” On the one hand, George Bush is, in the eyes of many, a stupid and utterly incompetent President. On the other, Bush has absolute power over the winds and the waves and is even now deploying a limitless army of spooks, spies, and repurposed Spetsnaz to listen in on every Americans’ international calls to that transsexual phone sex bank in New Delhi.
Maybe the lynchers had access to a Bush supplied time machine…
Same time machine that was used to plant that Microsoft-loaded typewriter back in the TANG.
Rodney King must have had a DU sticker on the Hyundai…
Ducks Unlimited?
Moderate? Where? I don’t see a moderate post.
I suppose I should disclaim that torture is not a position I consider myself a “moderate” on.
As the conservative Godfather once said: “May I remind you that extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice, and moderation, in the pursuit of justice, is no virtue.”
See also the update to this post: “Asleep at the Gate”
It’s not being against torture that people are calling you a hypocrite (in claiming to be a “moderate” for (since most people are against it), it’s singling out Bush as the one being responsible for torture done by the police, when clearly it’s something that just happens. Is it bad? Yes. But Bush is no more responsible for it than Clinton was for the numerous cases of police torture during his tenure.
Listen you ingrateful pantywaist, you’re only ALIVE because I tortured people. Don’t like it? Cut your wrists so you don’t feel guilty about beng alive because of torture. Solve both our problems.
We don’t have time for this post!
I hardly think torture “just happens” (as if it occurs in some apolitical void) and in any event I’m not holding Bush “responsibile”, I’m merely drawing links between his administration’s torture policy and the Tennessee case. Hence the oh-so-explanatory update.
By all means don’t let the fact there are no links between Bush administration policy and what happened in Tennessee get in the way of a good story.
Actually, I’m afraid Mr. Schraub is correct. According to Section 12, Article 4, paragraph 3a of the Federal Election Statute, the President is required to appear at the end of every incident of torture and announce “I’m George W. Bush, and I approved this torture.”
(as if it occurs in some apolitical void)
Also true. To the best of our knowledge, no one has been tortured inside of an “apolitical void,” or indeed any sort of void. Please report any such void-related incidents of abuse to the FEC.
Tacit consent in immoral action X in location Y certainly qualifies as a link to X when it occurs again in location Z (especially when Z is in one’s own borders).
Honestly, this isn’t THAT complex.
Sorry, I’m going to have to disagree with the earlier commenter. Any incidents involving the void clearly fall under NASA’s domain. PLease report such incidents to us, and we will determine the best course of action, with due regard to all intergalactic treaties and conventions.
David,
You mean all that sexual immorality really was mah fault?
[bites lip]
I am truly, truly sorry for the pain I have caused America.
“Tacit consent in immoral action X in location Y certainly qualifies as a link to X when it occurs again in location Z (especially when Z is in one’s own borders).”
So – to use your thinking – when FDR ordered the roundup of Japanese-Americans in World War II that was somehow “linked” to the illegal arrest and incarceration of black Americans in the South?
Even though action “X” (illegal arrests of blacks) occurred before (and after) the internment of Japanese-Americans?
Sorry, this is just, frankly, a non sequitur.
The problem, David, is that there simply are no “links” between the administration’s “torture policy” and the Tennessee case.
You see, here is the administration’s real “torture” policy, not the one you seem to have made up. These are Rumsfeld’s actual words:
See Rumsfeld Memo to the Head of U.S. Southern Command (PDF)
I don’t know about you, but that certainly doesn’t sound like a “torture policy” to me. Do you have some actual facts, or are you just slinging mud? Where are statements by senior adminstration officials authorizing or encouraging torture? You say they have a “torture policy.” Produce it. Note that the document linked is the actual policy document on the use of interrogation techniques released by Donald Rumsfeld, released April 16, 2003 – over 3 years ago. Do you know of a different one? If so, I’d sure like to see it.
“Tacit consent in immoral action X in location Y certainly qualifies as a link to X when it occurs again in location Z (especially when Z is in one’s own borders).”
Wow, this had got to be the stupidest idea of all time.
Hey, Bill Clinton tacitly consented to genocide in Rwanada. Therefore, Bill Clinton is linked to every instance of genocide that ever happens ever again anywhere in the world.
Sorry, I’m just not moderate on stupidity, and, you know, if I tolerate stupidity here, it’ll be my fault every time stupidity happens ever again anywhere in the world.
Pete Nelson – you know perfectly well that people like David in the Reality-Based Community (TM) don’t need any actual evidence of something to support their faith-based assertions! David believes that there was a “torture policy”, ergo it must be true, regardless of the fact that no actual evidence exists.
The gang beat me to it. Tacit moral consent, blah, blah, blah. How stupid. Every kid getting a hummer these days has Bill to thank for it? Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
George W. Bush gave tacit appoval on my order to ‘shoot to kill any arsonist’ as he is a potential murder and ‘shoot to maim’ any looter during the riots after Martin Luther Kings assasination.
just a guest,
Wow, this had got to be the stupidest idea of all time.
As you know, you publish a blog with the ideas you have. They’re not the ideas you might want or wish to have at a later time.
I just wanted to say that Michael Hiltzik is the smartest, sexiest, wisest man that God ever had the genius to create. This post, on the other hand, is far to stupid to comment upon.
I think the principal in “Billy Madison” had a comment that seems appropriate:
“Mr. Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Maybe police departments looked at the complete lack of accuntability and punishment following the torture and incineration of the Branch Davidians and assumed psychological and physical abuse were tacitly accepted as SOP by the federal government…
Wow. So I guess no one has ever heard of the torture memos, or paid any attention to Bush’s signing statement to the McCain/Warner anti-torture ammendment. Also, if anyone is interested in actually thinking about this issue (which it is pretty clear most of you aren’t), please see Radley Balko’s discussion of the Bush Administration’s conduct of the drug war. No rational, informed person thinks that the Bush administration disapproves of torturing suspected terrorists. Then the White House runs a major ad campaign equating drug dealers to terrorists. And escalates the drug war by sending SWAT teams in to arrest doctors for prescibing pain killers.
And you say there’s no possible connection when cops start torturing suspected drug dealers? No one is saying Bush is personally to blame for this incident. But he’s certainly not a part of the solution.
I’m saying that no one expects the Spanish Inquisition, except for George Bush. Because it was all his fault.
Worm,
Your link says
He ordered that “commanders should “…treat them humanely, and to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, consistent with the Geneva Conventions of 1949.”
Yep, that’s pretty damning. Treat them humanely?! My God, the inhumanity!
The only way that’s a “torture memo” is if someone got a paper cut while reading it.
Signing statements are everywhere, not just on this.
I demand that David Schraub stop torturing logic this way. It is deeply disturbing that he could commit such atrocities.
There are several statements in the comments above which could be used to tie Clinton to the Mena Airport cocaine operation. There is evidence that law enforcement gave tacit consent to what was going on there…
Lessee, the suspect was tortured by local police in Tennessee as part of the ongoing “War On Drugs,” which officially began in 1880 when the US and China agreed to crack down on the opium trade.
I blame Rutherford B. Hayes.
George Bush made me do it!
PING:
TITLE: Tennessee Torture, Ct’d…
BLOG NAME: The Agitator
Blog chatter over the Tennessee torture case has taken an unfortunate turn into petty Red State-Blue State territory. Andrew Sullivan…
PING:
TITLE: If a Tree Falls in the Forest…
BLOG NAME: The Waterglass
It’s because Bush chopped it down to make torture implements! The Moderate Voice once again shows us the true meaning of “moderation,” which apparently means, “Blame Bush.” The best part is in the comments, when the author tries to further…