Jon Perr is, of course, correct when he points out that “If, as President Obama so casually admits, ‘we tortured some folks,’ then we have to prosecute some folks, too.” We can all come up with good excuses for why we haven’t prosecuted anyone. But, we’re still obligated to do it. I’m glad that the New York Times will no longer equivocate and prevaricate when it comes to calling torture “torture,” but their unwillingness to take a stand was nothing compared to our government being unwilling to take a stand. Looking back, it didn’t even buy President Obama any good will. At best, it prevented a war with the Intelligence Community that no sensible president would welcome. But being afraid, however sensibly, is not a legal excuse for allowing violations of the law to go unpunished.
The “landscape” may have “shifted” under the feet of the New York Times, but it will surely shift under the current administration once posterity goes to work. Future generations will not give a single shit why it might have made some sense not to prosecute people in the middle of one of biggest financial collapses in our country’s history, nor will they care about Obama’s rhetoric about bringing the country together rather than tearing it apart. All they will want to know is why we allowed people to torture folks and get away with it.
That’s because the vagaries of the day pass away, but the principle against torture will not.
We’ve killed presidents for less…
Garfield, for example.
With apologies to A.G. I was thinking more of this…
as soon as i see white progressives shouting for native american and black reparations, i’ll take this righteousness seriously.
after all, we stole land from some folks, and robbed some other folks of zillions of things, RIGHT?
until then, spare me the indignation.
You are right.
White people should demand reparations from blacks (for all the lives lost freeing them from slavery) and Indians (I’ll think of a reason. Give me a minute.).
Or isn’t that what you meant?
Uh, right here, red herring. Keep changing the story. I’d gladly support reparations for both. In fact, I’d even be willing to carve up some of New York and South Dakota to form actual states if you’d like.
Sheriff, you make every fucking issue about race, straw men, and red herrings. Logical fallacies galore.
In fact, I see many white conservatives (libertarian usually) saying they don’t really take Guantanamo that seriously because of the prisons back home. Again, where is the argument from “white pwogwessives” that prisons bak home shouldn’t be reformed at all? It’s changing the subject so we don’t have to deal with issues being discussed.
“China’s buying our coal why even care about global warming when they won’t agree to stuff?”
“Rape and murder of women happens far more often ‘over there’ so stop calling us patriarchal and misogynist!”
Plenty of other examples. Oh, most recently: “160,000 dead in Syria, yet you only yell about Gaza, cough antisemite cough“
Because the line-in-the-sand drawing and outrage and wailing about America permanently losing its innocence and becoming a land of bullies comes off as ahistorical and hypocritical. I don’t agree at all with the idea that just because you didn’t feed an orphan yesterday it taints your feeding of a different one today, but it comes across as outright suspect when the outrage flares up on seemingly random atrocities. Which shouldn’t be surprising to us, as progressives should be extremely suspicious when Real America decides to get on its moral high horse.
Oh, I am not like many pwoggies on this front. I don’t believe we ever “lost our way”. I don’t even believe our present involvement in Iraq is humanitarian at its heart (though I think it is part of it). But don’t lecture people on comparing the need to prosecute for a torture that started at the executive branch and was a conspiracy on the highest order to the need to dole out reparations. At the very least it’s comparable to the torture the US has been involved in with the past, but IMO this is a different kettle of fish.
But don’t lecture people on comparing the need to prosecute for a torture that started at the executive branch and was a conspiracy on the highest order to the need to dole out reparations.
No, the situations are very comparable. When you understand why we (as in the non-morons of America) can’t award reparations, you’ll immediately understand why we can’t hand out the richly deserved punishments to the bastards who tortured in our name.
your argument is “I’m right, if you understood the situation you would see that”??? how about explaining why they are comparable ?
Oh, that one’s simple. Joe and Jane Sixpack won’t allow it. If the past 50 years and certainly the past 12 years have taught us anything, it’s that they absolutely despise politicians even leaning in the direction of policy initiatives that do anything but assure them that America’s All That And A Bag of Chips. I mean, passively eroding this image in a way that conforms to their idiotic stereotypes is all well and good, but challenging it through actions like admitting wrongdoing and punishing the head of state? Or making a case that Real America stole much of the labor and capital of blacks and that they deserve a bigger portion? Nuh uhh.
I mean, really, let’s say we do manage to put Bush et al. into Guantanamo. Do you think that J&J are going to appreciate it? Like, make them question the American exceptionalism and authoritarianism that led us to torture in the first place? Or, like with Vietnam and Reagan’s various debacles, they’ll shriek like castrated goats and vote in the first batch of conservative politicians who promise to make the Big Bad Liberals who committed the unspeakable crime of making them feel bad go away?
???? on the torture issue and reparations, the distinction between or lack thereof? I don’t see how your comment pertains
???? on the torture issue and reparations, the distinction between or lack thereof? I don’t see how your comment pertains
tl;dr version: setting off the inferiority-superiority complex of Real America leads to electoral calamity and woe, regardless of how necessary or moral doing so was.
When you bring up reparations, you set off the complex by A.) implying that they’re sitting on reserves of undeserved and unexamined privilege and B.) that they should deign to redistribute some of that privilege to people who aren’t Real America.
When you bring up punishing the architects of the Iraq War, you set off the complex by A.) implying that Real America shares much of the blame for the atrocities in Iraq since they were the ones who willingly put Bush, Cheney, et al into office, and B.) imply that America and Americans have something to be ashamed of and amends must be made.
America: Hubris ‘R’ Us.
What does it say about us that the same President who calls upon our military men and women to risk injury and death on a daily basis in terrible conditions has no interest in punishing those who willingly and substantially raised the risks faced by those military people? No, I won’t say that our vaunted two parties are the same. They aren’t; one is shit and the other is slightly less shit.
“Yeah when the old men do the fighting and the young men all look on…” Things will be about right.
You can’t be serious.
Muslims became more likely to torture because our troops tortured?
My God, what drivel.
Teach your grandmother to suck eggs.
Uh yes, I can actually see that argument holding water. Arab and Muslim regions of the world were becoming more and more secular in the 1950’s, and even slightly to the 1970’s. But when the west kept overthrowing them, and showed that the west never really believed in their own supposed “principles”, it’s not really a surprise that they turned to a different ideology.
You seem to be unbothered by the fact that waterboarding was legitimatized. I am awestruck by your well thought through dismissiveness, Philo. Do you have a newsletter or do you just fling poo?
I think liberal critics of Obama don’t always realize that he very well understood well before he took office and right through to the foreseeable future that he is not just governing for the current term and not just as an African- American.
He fully understood the likelihood, but not the extent, of racist projection on to his every move. The ‘Whitey Tape’ accusations certainly let him know that any move on his part that would upset of challenge the establishment generally and the Bush war criminals in particular would both derail his presidency and impact his successors (women, Asians, gays) by making charges of unconventional (by historical – and hysterical – standards) political figures just waiting to visit their revenge on white male privilege a credible charge.
This longer view, in my opinion, makes him too cautious, but that’s his judgment and there is no doubt that his calming influence with establishment types was a key factor in his political success through his election. Even many Nazis did not get justice delivered to them for several decades. My guess is that Obama is banking on the longer term delivering some justice and that sacrificing the long run good he can do for that one issue is not a good choice.
I agree if that is the calculation he is making. I also think that if he swings and misses on those criminals, they may never be prosecuted. On the other hand, leaking damning documents under the next Democratic administration 15- 20 years after the fact ( 2018) could be the thing to get belated justice. Yoo, Addington, the Gitmo general, and Bush could all suffer the Pinochet fate. Cheney will go to his final resting spot in Hell next to Nixon before that of course.
“On the other hand, leaking damning documents under the next Democratic administration 15- 20 years after the fact ( 2018) could be the thing to get belated justice. “
Who are you thinking would leak these documents?
The next Snowden, hopefully. Ostensibly Snowden 2.0 is already in there and figuring out how to do it even better.
The leaking in this case isn’t uncontrolled to the press, it’s people in the later administration who see the opportunity and timing for justice on the issue and the audience for the leaks are either internal authorities or more likely The Hague.
1. At first we deny we torture. 2. Then we call it something else (enhanced interrogation). 3. Then we say we tortured, but only because we thought it was necessary, or we were just following orders from those who thought it was necessary. 4. Then folks in a later administration start assembling some indirect evidence that hasn’t been destroyed and weaving it with public statements of the perps (Cheney, Yoo, Addington, the dog general from Gitmo, etc.). Then the full record of Abu Ghraib becomes available. 5. Then the guilty folks start resigning their jobs or retire under pressure as The Hague steps in and starts leveling charges.
We are at step 3. I hope step 4 & 5 happen but it will take years, if not decades.
What also happens at Step 5 is that people who were disturbed by the actions of the torturers in real time are able to speak out on items that are now part of the public discussion. They are asked to corroborate the previously unavailable evidence or verify the indirect evidence as being accurate under oath.
I’m hoping for this type of outcome, I wish I could be confident enough to predict it.
I read somewhere a few years back that if the USA had started any investigation or whatever, the Hague could not step in. is that correct?
LosGatosCA, what makes you think that some future administration would be any more inclined than this one to prosecute? Justice deferred is justice denied and 13-20 years is one heck of a deferment. Not only is there a high probability that some of the principal offenders may well be dead by then there is also the fact that the deterrent effect of prosecutions will be lost for another decade or two. The president cannot simply state that we tortured and then leave it at that because doing so leaves us without any grounds for prosecuting those who torture our people.
I’m not saying Obama’s position is ideal, I’m saying it’s pragmatic in the sense that it keeps him within the establishment CW envelope for now. But as the precedents of the Nazis, Pinochet, and Milosivic have established, a form of delayed justice can be obtained later.
If Obama had made his administration’s mission one of prosecuting the war crimes of his predecessor that would have been the defining issue (rather than health care) AND he would have become the perfect example of why other ‘unconventional’ candidates can’t be ‘trusted.’ I think he’s been mindful of avoiding both of these outcomes.
He appears to have firmly committed himself to the concept that an ‘unconventional’ candidate can be as safe and conventional towards the white, MI&IC establishment as any dull ethically challenged white guy. That’s sad but I agree it’s necessary. Otherwise, Hillary just becomes the women candidate who’s out to p***y whip every white male by confiscating their external penis AND shrinking their real penis. And then the Asian candidate becomes the one that will make us pay reparations to the Japanese for Hiroshima/Nagasaki or the Vietnamese, etc, etc, etc,
These charges will always be made anyway, but Obama seems determined to make sure he doesn’t provide any example that those lunatics can point to.
It’s not just torturers that aren’t getting prosecuted. It’s also any number of murderers.
Granted, some of the deaths of prisoners (can we please stop with the weasel-word “detainees”) killed while being tortured may not have been intentional. Or, they may have been. But in any civilian circumstance, someone who kidnaps someone and beats and tortures them until they’re dead would be charged with murder, not manslaughter. “Oops, I meant to do those felonies, just not THAT one” tends not to cut it with prosecutors. Or juries.
The US generally has a terrible record throughout its history of prosecuting anyone who kills “some folks” while wearing any kind of uniform (military, law enforcement, Klan, etc.). But that doesn’t require us to whitewash the crimes, too.
You are absolutely correct. I’m hoping these murders keep the people in a position to do something about these injustices motivated to do something about these injustices.
Really? Principles? Our country has lost its moral compass, we’ve ceded the high road and whatever claim we had to being the world’s good guys. Our religious leaders spew hatred and support a culture of selfishness and greed. Our press, politicians and judges are bought and paid for. It will take one hell of a courageous leader to overcome the inertia of our sorry state. Frankly I am not holding my breath…
Our country has lost its moral compass,
What moral compass?
No, Racer X, I hate to tell you this but the United States is the least vile it has ever been. Yes, even with the drone war and aftermath of the Iraq War.
Future generations will not give a single shit why it might have made some sense not to prosecute people in the middle of one of biggest financial collapses in our country’s history, nor will they care about Obama’s rhetoric about bringing the country together rather than tearing it apart. All they will want to know is why we allowed people to torture folks and get away with it.
Only if they are all mini-BooMen.
I’m not so sure about that. Once upon a time torture was not only accepted but expected, and while that is not the case today (in America) there is nothing that says that preferences and expectations in the future are obligated to remain consistent with today’s preferences and expectations. What’s right becomes wrong and what’s wrong becomes right all the time – I remember an article about how America has become much more prudish about food and much less prudish about sex over the last 60 years.
You may be right – torture might be on the naughty list for many generations to come – but you may be wrong as well. There is no accepted authority that eternally declares torture to be verboten.
The United States has never truly been against torture. That’s just such a laughably naive position. The United States could start to think about whether it really opposed torture after the end of the Vietnam War and the bulk of American Civil Rights legislation. Of course, that’s a pretty narrow window of time and many of the people who lived through the period of time when it was considered acceptable to torture and oppress noncombatants to get the policy that you want are still alive. Running shit, even.
But wha daur bell the cat?
The more that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court are seen by the rest of the world as the usual Western imperial “do as I say not as I do” principles, the more likely torture and other human rights abuses will become normalized again as government practices. The hypocrisy of the United States in its international legal exceptionalism has undermined the principles it claimed to put in place in 1945 to reduce and prevent wars like World War II.
That is the damage that weasel-wording and impunity have done. It has reversed a trend toward expectations of humane action and accountability and an international political culture in which organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (totally unprecedented in most of history) were possible.
It has also reversed the trend in attitudes of Americans, which was moving thirty-five years ago toward more demands for acting for justice and human rights.
Thinking that he would avoid a confrontation with the national security and intelligence communities run amok in the Bush years was an illusion. Impunity in those agencies provides legitimacy for extra-Constitutional and extra-legal actions that undermine democratic governance. The confrontation was going to come at some time from one of the three branches of government, or democracy is as dead as a doorknob. Furthermore, that same attitude of avoiding confrontation was evident in the approach of the Department of Justice to the fraud of the banksters that destroyed the economy and still threatens to be repeated.
Both of those confrontations are still on the agenda. They haven’t gone away. At worse they await de jure legitimation of de facto reality and the validation of cynicism. At best we will arrive with an overdue change in America’s political culture like the one in the 1960s that broke the politics of the Red scare and segregation and religious domination of piety in the political agenda.
A signal event of reform would be the White House release of an unredacted version of the full 6000-page Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on CIA torture. It would destroy the cover of every person who participated in the development and implementation of the policy of torture and rendition. And it would send the message of oversight that if you follow an illegal policy, you will get burned; “I was following orders” is not a defense. The intelligence community will talk about possible retaliation and try to create a political firestorm, but their hypocrisy is this: Where were they when Dick Cheney insta-declassified the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson in order to politically punish her husband for raising doubts about the lies the administration was using to go to war? Except for a very few who resigned, crickets. And if the operations division of the CIA is empowered to operate beyond laws, the only check on its potential for abuse is exposure. If someone seeks revenge for actions of a particular CIA employee or contractor, that is just the consequences of operating beyond the law. I never authorized my government to torture anyone; I have no sympathy for the consequences to people who planned and carried out torture in my name. I do not authorize my government to shield or protect them. As is harshly said so many times about other, less egregious things: they knew what they were doing.
And then there’s the Yoos and Bybees in this whole affair, who still are deferred to on their opinions of the law. They crossed the same line that Nazi doctors crossed with their grotesque medical experiments. They should long ago have been denied employment and honor as should every psychologist or psychiatrist who helped meter the torture in the attempt to evade the label of “torture”.
It is time for the American people to have to face up to this bureaucracy of darkness. It is every bit as bad as any other reign of terror in other countries. And it was and still is creeping into domestic law enforcement. We dismiss it at our peril.
The White House has been officially above any laws, US or otherwise, since 1974. In other words, it doesn’t really matter.
Doesn’t matter to whom?
To the White House and those that get to direct policy from it.
Not to mention the 27% of Americans who would howl in outrage if one of their fascist authorities were actually held criminally liable for their crimes.
As long as this country is able to cruise along pretending to not be an Empire and the Amurican people all tacitly agree to look the other way while we go about Empirin’, no one above a certain paygrade is ever going to be brought to justice.
What happened to Nixon? Pardon. Nothing happened, move along, folks.
What happened to Libby? Commutation. Pay a fine that I’m sure 100,000 good authoritarians would help pay for him. Come on folks, move along.
It all stems from Empire. Empires don’t obey laws, they ARE the law.
BooMan, why don’t you create one of those petitions where the administration has committed to a direct response if 100,000 people sign on to the petition.
Don’t make it some vague “why didn’t you prosecute on torture” question where the answer can be “look forward, not backwards”. List all the terrible stuff – torture, CIA out of control, etc and ask a very pointed question that can’t be answered with “look forward”.
In fact, ask several pointed questions so that it’s completely obvious if they answer with bullshit. One BS answer is one thing; you can’t hide behind five bullshit answers.
I can’t believe that you couldn’t get 100,000 signers – especially if you coordinated with some other blog hosts to post the link to the petition.
All they will want to know is why we allowed people to torture folks and get away with it.
No, they won’t.
If they’re smart enough to question the sublimated authoritarian violence of Real America, they’ll be smart enough to understand lifeboat ethics.
After all, how many people complain about Lincoln’s inability to get women’s rights passed? How many times has the racist implementation of the New Deal been shot down with ‘that was the best FDR could get at the time’?