Second, I still remain amazed that we are still debating the ethics of torture. And conservatives made the rounds on the media yesterday complaining about any investigation into these "legal" practices. Note to Obama. The precedent is clear. Whatever you do, just find a lawyer with absolutely no moral center (can't be that hard) and get him to write a memo for your OLC that says whatever nefarious thing you are about to do is legal. That will make it ok. The conservatives have said that, and, of course, the Obama administration is going along with it. And still being accused of undermining our security.
Sigh.
And speaking of the GOP, I think Steven Pearlstein has run out of patience with the party who now claims to defend medicare. Yeah, the same party who has pledged to kill Medicare on every possible chance. A friend of mine sent me an email yesterday saying that the latest economic news meant that now was a terrible time to reform healthcare because we just can't afford it. That sent me into a bit of a rage, as it is very hard to make that argument with a straight face when conservatives have never wanted to reform healthcare in the first place. Cost, then, is just the latest excuse.
Unfortunately, the party of the GOP has turned into a party of nothing. Seriously. They encourage their base to believe nonsense about reform--things that are demonstrably false. In two recent instances, (one with Senator Grassley) members of their town halls either bragged of being a "right wing terrorist" or told Grassley that he would "take a gun to Washington." In the first case, the "right wing terrorist" was called a great American. Grassley said nothing to someone who just threatened to take up arms against the country.
Country first, my ass.
And finally, a couple of items. One is the aforementioned recently released torture report that lays out what most of us already knew in rather scary detail. This is what we did to people in custody:
• Threats of execution, using semi-automatic handguns and power drillsThat's right. We killed people in custody. But let me just say this. I have no faith that conservatives will read that (or this next story about a Texas man who may have been wrongly executed) and feel anything except, "so?"
• Threats to kill detainee and his children
• Threats to rape detainee's wife and children in front of him
• Restricting the detainee's carotid artery
• Hitting detainee with the butt end of a rifle
• Blowing smoke in detainee's face for five minutes
• Multiple instances of waterboarding detainees, of the type we prosecuted Japanese war criminals for using:
• Hanging detainee by their arms until interrogators thought their shoulders might be dislocated
• stepping on detainee's ankle shackles to cause severe bruising and pain
• choking detainee until they pass out
• dousing detainee with water on cold concrete floors in cold temperatures to induce hypothermia
• killing detainees through torture techniques, whether accidental or not
• putting detainee in a diaper for days
I think that has made me the saddest. The conservatism that taught me about right and wrong and morality--don't really care if we execute innocent people, and they certainly don't care if we torture people in the name of protecting us. I have had several recent conversations that drive that home.
It makes me sad.
11 comments:
I like Paul Krugman's take on Pearlstein--it's a nice column, but where was he for the past ten years?
Heh. Welcome to the reality based community. Indeed.
I'm conservative, and I know many conservatives. I don't know a single one who wants to kill innocent people, or approves of someone else doing it.
I don't doubt that, anonymous, but the fact remains that we have killed people in our detention. We have a system of law that suggests that we don't just kill people who we "think" might have done something, but that we take steps to actually prove their guilt.
My comment was directed to the fact that I really doubt that my conservative friends will care about the details in this report. I stand by that comment, and await them to voice some outrage about what was done in their name. I have been waiting since the torture allegations first surfaced, and each time, I have been horrified to see moral people (supposedly moral) defend torture as ethical.
Most conservatives probably think, as I do, that threatening someone, or waterboarding them, in order to try to get information that could save the lives of people that the one being "tortured" wants to kill is morally justified.
Yes, the justification is to save us. What if it doesn't actually accomplish that? Do you realize that those techniques were designed by the Soviet KGB and other totalitarian regimes to elicit "false confessions" for show trials? You don't sleep deprive someone to get good solid intelligence. And under waterboarding people will say just about anything to make it stop--even if it is false.
The moral justification, btw, is an incredibly weak one. If our morality is defined this way, then we are not a very moral nation. It means that we can torture others when it serves our purpose, but we have justified wars and sanctions for other countries doing the same thing.
You have made the choice that potentially saving lives is not worth "torturing" someone. All right. But then, can you complain that the government isn't doing its job if people are killed by "terrorists"?
Hmm, Anon, there are a few problems with your logical construction here. Let me point out what I see.
1), if utility is the standard and what defines our morality, then what if we substitute any of the following in your sentence where you say "torturing someone." In other words:
a)"You have made the choice that potentially saving lives is not worth "cutting someone's fingers off."
b) "You have made the choice that potentially saving lives is not worth "bringing in the detainee's family and threatening to rape or kill them."
c) "You have made the choice that potentially saving lives is not worth "actually killing or raping the detainee's family."
Still like your construction, because that is the moral ground you create there. If waterboarding is acceptable because it "might" work, then why not a little vivisection? Boiling in hot oil?
Second, I would suggest that your logic suffers as a fallacy because it suggests two options as our only options. The choice you have given me is to say that either we torture or we die. Surely there are other alternatives? Perhaps better regular intelligence? Perhaps addressing those areas where terrorists train? Or perhaps applying known interrogation techniques that actually work?
The documentation so far suggests that we gained all of our useful intel from legal and morally acceptable techniques. The torture just encouraged more martyrdom and more terrorist enlistment, while muddying the legal water of those detainees.
You have suggested that our moral standards are not good enough to actually stand up to terrorism or crime (after all, if torture works on terrorists, why not use it on drunk drivers, or gang members?)
I would humbly submit that our value system, our laws and our belief in human rights are more valuable than that.
Who complains about "the government" doing anything, anyway? Surely any useful complaint would be more specific than that. I might gripe that CIA sucks ass at human intelligence, and that NSA relies way too much on foreign-owned contractors, and that to date the Obama DOJ hasn't presented an adequate response to torture (they seem to be moving, but it remains to see where this goes), and that in general, Congressional oversight of the executive branch's adventures abroad, for all intents and purposes, hasn't existed at all in at least 8 years. But I don't have much at all to say about "the government."
Anon,
For an anonymous, I commend you for being fairly reasonable, and not blasting and running, but remaining engaged.
You brought to the fore something that continues to shock me. That most conservatives think torturing someone is morally justified.
I certainly hope these are not Christian conservatives, but I am afraid that they are.
Torture is an unmitigated moral evil, both to the person subjected to it, AND to the person conducting it.
What ghastly seeds we have sown in the lives of the people who have committed the torture will be reaped in our culture for decades to come.
In my prayers this morning, this scripture was part of it, perhaps it is a bit illuminating to this conversation.
James 2:13 For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.
Saw this morning that both John McCain and Tom Ridge said that waterboarding was torture and that we shouldn't have done it. McCain is opposed to the inquiry into the torture regime, but at least he stands against torture.
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