Our country is spinning out of control -- morally, that is. Hitting the skids. Going down the tubes. Going to hell. Rotting. I can't find the right language. But it's bad, folks. Really bad. These are dark times. I'm not exaggerating for the sake of a blog.
Yesterday, John Yoo and David Addington, the nation's architects for torture, were given several chances, testifying in front of the House Judiciary Committee, to condemn the very idea of torturing the children of detainees as a way of extracting information.
In several public fora heretofore, Yoo has insisted that no law -- neither domestic nor international -- prevents the president from authorizing the crushing of a child's testicles or the raping of an infant as a way of exerting pressure upon a terrorist suspect.
On December 1, 2005, Yoo notoriously contended in a public debate that the legality of crushing a child's testicles "depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that." Yesterday John Conyers tried to ask Yoo point-blank about that claim in that 2005 debate, namely whether Yoo still believes "that the President can order that a suspect's child be tortured in gruesome fashion."
Yoo's hemming and hawing around the question -- and his inability or refusal to say simply no, no, no -- spoke volumes. Addington evaded the question by telling committee members to consult their own in-house lawyers about such "legal opinions" and then refused to talk further about torture because "al Qaeda may watch C-SPAN."
Yoo and Addington could have answered the question forthrightly and then clarified that they were presenting extremely narrow legal reasoning and then quickly qualified that they personally and professionally considered child-torture a moral abomination, beyond the pale of any hypothetical national security scenario. But they did not.
Which leads us to wonder: To what horrific practices, exactly, did their legal-clearance give the green light? How far were they willing to go to encourage and to protect CIA field-operatives? What "enhanced interrogation practices" did they expressly forbid when the Bush administration authorized extraordinary (look-the-other-way) rendition to secret prisons in rogue countries?
What were the moral limits, if any, to their national security calculations? When they met dozens of times in the White House from 2002-2003 to discuss acceptable torture methods, did Cheney, Ashcroft, Powell, Rumsfeld, Tenet, and Rice take child-torture (or the threat thereof) off the table? It's a simple yes or no question: Did the United States of America permit (or fail to proscribe) child-torture in any way?
Philosophy professors, in introductory ethics classes, easily dispense with utilitarian logic as a stand-alone means of assessing the propriety of social practice. Sure, strapping infant babies to front car bumpers would drastically reduce the number of overall automobile fatalities, but we as a people just wouldn't subject infant babies to that risk and to that indignity, even if the expected benefits far outweighed the costs.
Torture advocates justify their cruel position through a perverse utilitarian calculus: If there is (i.e., might be) a ticking time bomb, extracting information through violent measures is acceptable because it prevents the possible destruction of many more lives. Yet if you start to think that way, the logic is slippery, escalating, and limitless: If it is okay to torture a detainee, then what's the big deal with torturing his child, if it achieves the same national security end? Why stop at one child? Why not level an entire village? And so on.
René Girard has called this violently spiraling kind of thinking "mimetic rivalry." It becomes a vicious race to the bottom with your enemy. In attempting to prevent a calamity, in matching wits with your despicable opponent, you suspend or abandon certain restraining principles, and in the process, you yourself become a moral monster. But at that point you can't simply blame the enemy for what you've become.
David Addington may be right that al Qaeda watches him on C-SPAN. What he fails to realize is that they are gleefully laughing at him. And us.
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Eloquent essay Mr. Seery.
Sadly true - except for the last line - I don't think anyone in the known universe finds any of this even remotely funny, including al qeada. But it certainly is an effective recruiting tool.
You must not have been watching the same TV as the rest of the world. There was a tremendous amount of American chortling during "Shock and Awe", for instance. The fact that these were ordinary people being blown up in the bombing of baghdad didn't seem to matter.
And yet we d not have the testicles to:
Impeach a president who knowingly lied the US into the war with Iraq
Turn down aa attorney general who feels the president is above the law and doesn't know what waterboarding is.
we can start by replacing the people in power.
Reading Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" has been an eye opening experience for me. These goons have taken the concept hook, line, and sinker that it's ok to torture, kill thousands, privatize every facet of a working society and limit government to the extreme in every way, shape and form possible. Even, and ESPECIALLY in forms of justice and moral terms. Rumsfeld is a devoted student to the morally bankrupt Milton Friedman-style of economics that overlooks the worst of all possible vices in leadership, and subliminally forces the look-the-other-way: GREED.
After 911, 12 generals came to a table to discuss policies and strategies. What was on the table in front of them? A manual written by Friedman that details concepts that brought about Shock & Awe.
It's absolutely imperative that Americans realize that these criminals have been working very hard to change everything we believe in and begin their own style of government, which is why America is where it is now... . They must be held accountable.
I am busy this morning; I have things to do and people to see - I am middle class, and my purchasing power has eroded to the degree that I must now work most saturdays. Even so, I believe that to encounter information such as contained in the above article and fail to register my horror and repugnance would itself be a crime of complicity.
If we as a nation do not try, convict, and punish the beasts who have subverted our nation in this manner, we - all of us - are truly no better than those we have been for so long and so haughtily willing to pass judgment upon.
Is there a lawyer in the house who can hypothesize a pardon-proof scenario wherein the charges are deferred until the commode-in-chief no longer has the authority to flush them?
And you squabbling angels-dancing-on-a-pinhead counters below - wouldn't your ire be more usefully directed toward traitors than one another?
Vincent Bugliosi discusses just that in his book - Prosecuting George W. Bush for Murder - if nothing else it is a very satisfying read.
Do we now see why the FISA immunity deal Bill is so vital to defeat???????? If we immunize the telecoms, we are in effect immunizing the Bush Crime Syndicate from ever having to reveal certain other DARK SECRETS that they have meticuosly tried to keep under their rocks THAT is by BUSHCO tries so hard to get this thing passed while he is still in office. Much could be learned from lawsuit discovery if such suits proceeded AND not just about the Telecoms.
It will be interesting to follow how the students and alumni of U.C. Berkeley react to this publicity.
What will Yoo do if is license to practice law is revoked?
This is not someone who has any business teaching young students.
Even if the system can't put him in prison, at least his career may be over.
Bush is the first evangelical President who supposedly is as pro life as they come, but when it comes to crushing the testicles of a child he and his administration are OK with that. It really is unbelievable that anyone in this country still supports Bush and whats most telling is that those who still support him are the far right christians in this country.
Since Congress refuses to do anything to stop Bush and begin redeeming America in the eyes of it's citizens and the world, where exactly are the spiritual leaders of the world? Where are the Pastors, Rabbis, Priests, Cardinals, Popes and Imams on this issue? Why have they the supposed protectors of the weak and innocent stayed silent on this issue? Where is Hagee and wallis and Robertson are these self proclaimed patriots scared to criticize a President who shares their religion?
America is largely Christian and their silence on this issue is everything I need to know about thier beliefs.
Excellent question.
But did you forget god speaks through our commander-in-chief?! Bush gets his marching orders straight from the top - on torturing children and other despicable acts - during his daily dialogues with his heavenly father. He's doing god's work spreading democracy - if a few small testicles get squished in the process, isn't that a small price to pay for protecting our freedom and way of life?
"What enhanced interrogation practices did they expressly forbid" ???
There are 2 things that the USA still considers to be torture, and does NOT do:
1. Mutilation
2. Sodomy
So, you must be the ONLY PERSON ON EARTH that didn't see any of the Abu Graib Prison pictures, because, Honey, according to the dictionary definition of sodomy there was DEFINITELY sodomy depicted more than once.
Re:mutilation -- how do you know what has gone on at Gitmo? At our remote "dark sites"? You don't, because the Shrub will never tell you. My guess is that the Bushies went all the way down the list of what we have never done before and thought -- "Why not?"
And for the rest of the tactics we can use the TORTURE WHEEL OF FUN!!!
We're digging deep and dark for humor today.
There are 2 things that the USA still considers to be torture, and does NOT do openly, and which HAVE not been done-- as far as the public knows*:
1. Mutilation
2. Sodomy
* Not disagreeing, just modifying or amending.
Ask that Diallo guy from NY city if the powers that be use sodomy. I am sure he will disagree with both of you.
"al Qaeda may watch C-SPAN."
You can't say you won't crush a childs testicles because "al Qaeda may watch C-SPAN." ... answer the question ... be a man.
Will you crush a childs testicles for this president ... will you resign if asked to crush a childs testicles ... will you refuse an order to crush a childs testicles ... how low will you go.
If you will crush a childs testicles you've become more animal than man and you can't come home.
Here's torture you can believe in. Threaten to take the children and make them into Christians and Jews. Those terrorists will turn on a dime...
soooooo......by the omission of the other torture 'raping of an infant'.....that is ok?
And...as far as Al Qaeda watching C-Span and hearing that we wouldn't do this......would that be a bad thing? They already hate us for what we have done......OMG...how much more fuel do ya think this adds??
If we heard that was okay for them to do that to our children what in the h--- do you think we would do. Who is doing the thinking in this country?? Who would ever think that they need to believe that we would.
I AM TOTALLY DISGUSTED!
The real question, unanswered, is whether Addington and Yoo remain flaccid when contemplating or discussing "enhanced interrogation procedures." There remains something about this knee jerk torture movement that suggests gratifications other than the alleged national security concerns. Indeed, the very orchestration of this "war" in Iraq questions whether national security was ever really an issue.
It is time to investigate how Yoo got tenure. I watched some of his testimony. He should be held in contempt of congress for not answering questions, wasting representatives time.
Show some balls, Mr. Conyers / Mr. Nadler.
If we are going to ancient Rome, let's be ancient Rome so i can acquire a speak and sword and start filling the streets with blood. The good thing about becoming ancient Rome is their track record for dealing with unpopular leaders.
The reality is that U.S. progressives are willing to turn a blind eye to war crimes and be Good Germans. So Obama has nothing to fear. How do you think Obama would react if he knew that progressives wouldn't vote for him if he voted to fund the war, or if he voted for immunity for the telecoms and the expansion of the infringements on civil liberties that are also in the new FISA law? He'd genuflect to us the way he genuflects to right wing vermin who support the war crimes Obama funds and the new FISA law.
But US progressives lack the principles, conscience or even understanding to act like they really care about the murder, and maimings of Americans and Iraqis and the torture of Iraqis, so they delude themselves into being the Good Germans of WWII who participated in the Nazi body politic, knowing there was genocide going on, but not personally participating in the genocide -- in effect supporting the genocide.
If you want Obama to support progressives, he has to fear we won't vote for him, even when they unleash the Nader-baiting, Democratic Party sycophant screamers at us -- blaming us who vote against funders of war criminals and immunizers of criminal corporations for what we vote against while these "Good German" sycophants vote for the funders of war crimes and immunizers of criminals -- people like Obama.
Whaaaat? Can you translate this please????
"progressives" ???
What's that? Who are these "progressives"?
I hope that law students at Prof. Yoo's school don't sign up for any of his elective courses. He may have had tenure when he left the school to join the Bush administration, so his job is safe, but he does not deserve any respect. Were I a student at his school, I would probably get myself in big trouble harassing this MF.
Watching the hearing I finally understand what 'banality of evil' means. It's all so abstract and theoretical to these guys. They're not the ones that have to do the torturing and they're not the ones running the risk of being tortured. In their world the military never picks up the wrong guy by mistake, innocent people don't get turned in for bounties and the government is always right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banality_of_evil
At least Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mugabe, Pinochet, etc. had the common decency to try to hide what they did. These guys go on tv because they know nobody's going to do anything about it.
"It's all so abstract and theoretical to these guys. They're not the ones that have to do the torturing and they're not the ones running the risk of being tortured."
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Posted June 27, 2008 | 04:42 PM (EST)