Comments on: Torture on American Soil

By: masaccio

masaccio — Sat, 03 May 2008 01:25:40 +0000

LHP, have you seen Scott Horton’s comment here at Balkanization?

Several of the senior JAGs have now described to me their direct dealings with Yoo in which they stressed criminal liability as the major concern. Yoo’s response was consistently that he could “fix the problem” by getting the Criminal Division to issue get-out-of-jail cards for all concerned.

By: earlofhuntingdon

earlofhuntingdon — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:20:00 +0000

International treaties and domestic and foreign laws determine what is torture by looking at the treatment of the individual. Was the prisoner slapped or did an officer shove a broken-off broom handle up his rectum (as happened to Abner Louima in NYC)? Did an interrogator throw a Dixie cup full of water at a hooded face, a Dick Cheney euphemism, or force a quart of water into a prisoner’s lungs, inducing terror and preventing the prisoner from breathing.

To be fair to police authorities, and to guard against overly sensitive personalities, courts evaluated behavior by also asking how would an objective imaginary third-person perceive it. Mind you, there aren’t many cases, since torture hasn’t been official state policy in the West since before 1700.

The Bush torture team didn’t find that “quaint” emphasis on what happens to the suspect too helpful. Mr. Cheney wants to be a law unto himself, so his lawyers invented a new twist. The courts shouldn’t just look at how a prisoner or an objective observer might perceive having a garden hose stuck down their windpipe. They must also make a political (disguised as a legal) judgment. They must weigh the severity of the harm done to the individual against the collective need the interrogator claimed to represent.

That need is always presented as avoiding an imminent terrorist attack of gigantic proportions. It’s never presented in the more common context - interrogating for information that might be useful by interrogating the guilty who will die silently, the innocent, the prisoners who know nothing, and those whose wish to harm is matched only by their complete inability to cause it.

We face many risks, including those from small groups of fanatical criminals for whom Mr. Bush’s policies have been wonderful recruitment tools. But Mr. Cheney’s vision of how to fight them is as credible as Mr. Bush’s management of the federal budget. He envisions whatever terror is needed to compel obedience. The greater risks we face from traditional crimes, widespread political corruption and from the forces of nature as well as greed, Mr. Cheney ignores because fighting them isn’t politically useful to him.

By: DWBartoo

DWBartoo — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:18:14 +0000

Thanks for that link, LS, Sami Al-Hajj spoke to truth, most eloquently.

Even the American people would have to agree …

By: PJEvans

PJEvans — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:15:07 +0000

To see what they’re capable of doing, given an opening:
read Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.
Then wonder just how close we are to that world already.

By: LS

LS — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:12:55 +0000

This is what Sami Al-Hajj had to say:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....704/507790

By: DWBartoo

DWBartoo — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:12:48 +0000

Realistically then, LHP, and I apologize if you thought my earlier question to be flippant, which I did not mean it to be, a trifle bemused, perhaps, why should we think that ANY Supreme Court Justice would not receive the same sort of ‘pass’ accorded Bush?

Beyond the blatantly outrageous (which is always, ’subjective’) what could a SCOTUS Justice do sufficient to warrant impeachment?

I think it a moot discussion, frankly.

‘Tain’t gonna happen …

By: LS

LS — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:03:58 +0000

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo.....704/507790

They released Sami Al-Hajj yesterday.

By: JoFish

JoFish — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:00:26 +0000

Hehehe… you hit that right on the head. I wonder if he introduced PopeRatzi to the joys of AstroGlide?

By: JoFish

JoFish — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:57:36 +0000

Margot, no problemo another time. Must be the week for dental emergencies. Finally got the root-canal I was supposed to have done last Tuesday done this morning. Hope your son is okay. Cheers!

By: perris

perris — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:52:28 +0000

there it is, that’s what they want and that’s what they strive for

they want to bring back a robber baron economy where the pions pay for taking a shower and share their drinking well, where only the elite get to use a road or a beach