Torture

A few scattershot comments about the release of the torture memos:

• I heard David Gergen say that, Yes, the acts described in these memos are horrible, but we must keep in mind that the architects of this policy literally had to run for their lives on September 11. Well, we can all agree that fear makes us act irrationally at times, but what Gergen is really saying is, These people massively failed to defend the country and therefore, they get a free pass to resort to great evil as a way to compensate for their incompetence. Does that make any sense?
• If these people were waterboarded dozens of times in a month, that puts to rest the ticking time bomb scenario, doesn't it?
• The memos acknowledge that what agents of the U.S. government were doing to detainees in the War on Terror is routinely condemned by the U.S. government when done by agents of foreign powers to detainees in their custody. In other words, It's not torture if we do it. I think the word for people who believe that there are rules but that they aren't obliged to follow them is "sociopath."
• It seems like I heard some torture apologist somewhere say that we ought not be talking about what we do or don't do to prisoners in order that the imaginations of would-be terrorists might run wild and thus be deterred from launching attacks. This is the Pretend to Be Crazy Strategythat Ed Kilgore described a couple of months ago applied to foreign affairs. In other words, these people think that the way to ensure our security is to "carefully (cultivate) a reputation for barely contained psychotic anger and utterly reckless disregard for consequences," i.e. the U.S.A. is that guy at the end of the bar who'd just as soon break a bottle of beer over your head as look at you.

We've been ruled by people who were part nuts and a whole lotta evil.

When Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, the latter already been chased from the White House in disgrace. But nothing of consequence has happened to the people who made torture an instrument of U.S. policy, in violation of U.S. and international law and human decency. One of them is serving on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. It is not sufficient to let history render a verdict on these people. A U.S. criminal court needs to as well.

Comments

[Michael Westmoreland-White]

I do think Ford's pardon of Nixon started us down this road, though.
If there are no trials, then this will continue to be treated as "policy differences" and a future regime will reinstitute torture and, since the right is upset at having these methods exposed, this seems to be to be code for "we will use other, even harsher, techniques next time."