When you've lost the language, debate is impossible.
As the Obama Administration moves beyond its first 100 days, the hyperventilation over "torture" continues at a fevered pace. Not only is sawing off a person's head with a rusty saw considered "torture," so is putting a caterpillar in their prison cell. There's no real discussion of types of actions, degrees of action, whether it's been declared legal/illegal in the U.S. vs. illegal per another country or institution, Geneva Convention restrictions for uniformed combatants vs. non-uniformed combatants vs. entities that never signed the Geneva Convention. You know, what some people call "details," and other people refer to as "just details."
When you've lost the language, debate is impossible. What we have instead are opinions disguised as analysis. Torture — according to today's definition — is severe mental or physical stress (no actual lasting, or permanent, physical or mental harm is necessary). The concept of torture is not just synonymous with "enhanced interrogation techniques;" today anything that is identified as "enhanced" is automatically considered "torture." The two words are treated as if they are identical, even though they mean qualitatively different things.
We could talk about a legal definition of torture — whom it applies to, whom it doesn't, how its abstract terms ("severe," "intimidating," "coercive," "mental anguish," etc.) are actually defined in a legal and practical sense, and what entities have the authority to make these determinations regarding the actions of American officials. We could actually have people versed in the law debate this.
But what's the fun in that when we can just apply our own (or some commentator's or website's) standards to the subject, and decide that something is torture if we wouldn't want that done to ourselves. Or, think that it's really not a nice thing to do to someone who wants to kill innocent people, because torture produces unreliable confessions (even if we're after information, not an admission of guilt). In other words, why ask questions like: if torture involves something "severe," what exactly is the non-abstract definition of "severe"? Is "severe" a quantified state (and if so, quantified by whom?). Or is it simply what you yourself consider to be stressful, and therefore "severe"?
Like I said, though, actually treating this subject like a real topic puts a crimp in a lot of people's style, not to mention interfering with blaming Bush for certain things that Obama is excused for doing. So, putting all the boring, technical stuff aside, I've compiled a list of opinions (since real analysis is so passé these days) about what constitutes "torture."
You can use these as a practical guide to condemn people you disagree with politically by pretending to take a moral high road that bears almost no resemblance to the real world in which you live. But, it does let you state things emphatically that require nothing more substantive than your (or some commentator or official somewhere) assessment to support your opinion.
1. Torture is anything described as "harsh" (as in "harsh interrogation techniques"), "severe," "intimidating," or "coercive." That makes amputating a person's head with a rusty saw "torture." It also makes coming home at 3 in the morning with lipstick on your collar "torture" when you are harshly and severely treated by your wife who intimidates you with a rolling pin (or a threat of divorce), and coerces you into getting rid of your bimbo girlfriend.
2. Waterboarding is torture as practiced by the U.S. against terrorists. It is not torture if practiced by the U.S. against American soldiers in training.
3. Sawing off a person's head is torture if practiced by a signatory to the Geneva Convention. Sawing off a person's head is not torture if practiced by a terrorist not formally affiliated with a recognized state. Rather, it's just a really bad thing (particularly for the person whose head is being detached), but understandable in some quarters because the person being decapitated is either a Jew or American (or both).
4. Rendition is a form of torture if practiced by the Bush Administration. However, rendition is part of keeping one's options open when practiced by the Obama Administration.
5. "Supermax prison is torture and death." This was written by someone with first-hand experience and must therefore be true, since it is just like journalists who experienced waterboarding and therefore have first-hand knowledge to assert that it is torture. This opinion is also backed up by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado, which said that moving Gitmo detainees – including many only suspected of crimes – to the country's most secure prison "is simply another form of torture . . .."
6. Loud music and sleep deprivation are torture when practiced on captured terrorists. Loud music and sleep deprivation when partying on a weekend at college is not torture. However, it isn't just any kind of loud music that constitutes torture. In one of the few, rare instances where the word "torture" is actually defined in concrete terms in an award winning documentary on torture (instead of simply repeating the phrase the Bush Administration practices torture), the specific "loud music" used to torture some random Arab guy picked up off the street named Abu Zubaydah was "The Red Hot Chili Peppers" which was "blasted at full volume for hours on end." So, now you know. Playing Aerosmith or Bing Crosby at full blast is not necessarily torture, but playing The Red Hot Chili Peppers really is — or tracks from Eminem's "Slim Shady" album.
7. Prolonged kneeling is a form of torture when practiced on captured terrorists. Amazingly enough, preventing people from prolonged kneeling to protest torture is also considered an action supportive of torture.
8. The use of mind altering drugs is a form of torture, unless used by liberals and college students in general, in which case it is a manifestation of the right to privacy and an exercise of basic freedom.
9. Arresting someone without prior notification that they are going to be arrested is a form of torture. "The torture process can begin at the moment of arrest . . . Taking someone by surprise is more jarring than if someone has time to physically and mentally prepare himself or herself for arrest." Legislation is needed immediately within the United States requiring all law enforcement agencies to notify suspected serial killers, drug dealers, child-rapists, and other criminals of an intent to arrest them within the next 24-48 hours to give them sufficient time to "mentally prepare" for their incarceration. Remember, like the terrorists at Gitmo, these people have not been convicted of anything. There's just a suspicion that they might have done something wrong, but no actual courtroom-quality "proof" of their guilt at the time of their impending arrest.
10. "Scenarios designed to convince a detainee" that their family may be harmed is torture. In other words, if Big Tony threatens to bust your nephew's kneecaps unless you pay him the "Ten Large" you still owe him from last month, Big Tony is not a loan shark. He is a torturer. Interestingly enough, no follow through action on this threat is required to constitute torture. Sticks and stones will certainly break one's bones, but words alone make you a torturer.
I hope this clears up any confusion on this matter. If not, remember the words of Mr. Spock from a Star Trek episode a long time ago. "In an insane world, only the sane are considered insane."
That last ‘So what?’ was an typographical orphan.
It need not be construed as a philosophical commentary on these proceedings, but it might not be far off either.
Oz
>I seem be hearing that if people are not legally trained or legal analysts, they cannot coherently analyze or meaningfully comment on the issue of torture.
*** Opinions are not analysis. ‘I don’t support waterboarding because of X reason’ is an opinion. It is no more or less valid than any other opinion.
By contrast, “Waterboarding is a Crime” is a legal issue. More than an opinion is needed to make this statement.
People who cannot recognize the difference between the two statements “cannot coherently analyze or meaningfully comment on the issue of torture.”
See here: http://documents.nytimes.com/new-york-times-cbs-news-poll-obama-s-100th-day-in-office#p=19
(How the poll was conducted, here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/us/politics/28mbox.html?_r=1 )
In terms of jury selection, I like those odds…
Are you saying that if a matter concerns a legal distinction, then George Will should be disregarded as a source of productive analysis?
Did George Will produce an analysis of the legal definition of torture in which he defined the legal terms (like “severe”, “harsh”, etc) currently used to describe torture so that a universal legal definition of torture could be understood within the current legal? If he didn’t, then his analysis doesn’t have anymore to do with the question that Phil posed in his original piece than any of your responses have, as Phil has pointed out succinty in post #102. Or: Why is George Will’s “analysis” that concurs with your “analysis” any less valid than the legal “analysis” the Bush DOJ used to conclude that waterboarding is not torture, and therefore not criminal?
^Should read “current legal context”. I seem to have omitted a word.
Hey great! We have an actual citation for a statement.
Of course, it’s still an opinion survey, and as guy making the initial comments said that “I agree that public opinion polls should not drive any kind of debate,” so as far as contributing anything of substance to the discussion, it’s on par with Elvis, aliens, fake moon landings and 9/11 conspiracies in dealing with a policy matter.
Once again, opinions are not analyses. And, when making claims that something is a “crime”, it’s necessary to actually understand and address the law (court rulings, not opinions about the law) before making this emphatic statement.
When you want to debate an opinion, debate it as an opinion. When you want to debate the law, actually debate a legal ruling (not an opinion about the law).
For those still “baffled by this sudden awe of the legal profession being shown here”, it’s the difference between talking about immigration, and illegal immigration. You can support the former without supporting the latter. But you can’t discuss the issue intelligently if you insist that both only require an opinion survey, Google hit, commentator’s own opinion, or a sympathetic website to support your position.
Here it is with the correct coding —
Hey great! We have an actual citation for a statement.
Of course, it’s still an opinion survey, and as guy making the initial comments said “I agree that public opinion polls should not drive any kind of debate,” so as far as contributing anything of substance to the discussion, it’s on par with Elvis, aliens, fake moon landings and 9/11 conspiracies in dealing with a policy matter.
Once again, opinions are not analyses. And, when making claims that something is a “crime”, it’s necessary to actually understand and address the law (court rulings, not opinions about the law) before making this emphatic statement.
When you want to debate an opinion, debate it as an opinion. When you want to debate the law, actually debate a legal ruling (not an opinion about the law).
For those still “baffled by this sudden awe of the legal profession being shown here”, it’s the difference between talking about immigration, and illegal immigration. You can support the former without supporting the latter. But you can’t discuss the issue intelligently if you insist that both only require an opinion survey, Google hit, commentator’s own opinion, or a sympathetic website to support your position.
Instead of confining this topic merely to torture, it may be beneficial if we expand our reasoning to other areas of the law. Let’s take drunken driving for example. Let’s imagine that drunken driving is defined in the law as “operating a motorized vehicle after having drunk to excess”. Without a definition of the term “to excess”, how do we determine when someone has drunk enough to be convicted of drunken driving? We could each give our various opinions as to what constitutes drinking “to excess”. One of us may say 2 beers, or 2 1.5 ounce shots of hard alcohol is drinking “to excess”. Another may say 6 beers or 4 1.5 ounce shots of hard alcohol. Another may say 5 beers or 6 1.5 ounce shots of hard alcohol. We could bring in the likes of George Will, Michael Moore, Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, Alberto Gonzales, Oprah Winfrey and Perez Hilton to provide their opinions. We could each vigorously and passionately debate the merits of our personal definiton of “excessive” drinking. But it still would not provide an actual legal definition of the term “drunk to excess”. An actual legal definition would be something that is both objective and universally applicable – such as, “‘drunk to excess’ may be defined as having a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) reading of .08% or above”. Since it hasn’t been said before, I’m going to go ahead and say it: When you’ve lost the language, debate is impossible.
Patrick: Exactamundo.
Here’s an example of why opinions are not analyses. And, why opinions are not a substitute for policy or the law.
Question: Is torture wrong?
Answer: Yes
Conclusion: So you must condemn waterboarding.
Nowhere has waterboarding been established as “torture”. It’s been claimed to be torture; some people believe it is torture; but there is no legal ruling that pertains to the US that “waterboarding is torture”.
To do this, torture-waterboarding must first be precisely defined to distinguish it from SERE training, what the Japanese did during WWII, what was done in the Spanish Inquisition or the Salem witch trials, etc.
Relying on a public opinion survey where the media has “defined” waterboarding is not sufficient. The media is not required to place the action in context, to discuss in detail what the actual technique is, etc. Pictures, experiences of journalists who have been “waterboarded” (again begging the question if what has happened to them is strictly analogous), people’s own personal feelings about treating captured terrorists in a certain way, etc., are not substitutes for “defining waterboarding” as a legal/criminal practice.
The media has portrayed the Tea Parties as “Tea-baggers”, and in past years anti-war protesters as Communist sympathizers. The media has an agenda, which is at times conservative, and at times liberal. This is why we require criminal issues to be defined in strictly legal terms, not as popularity contests.
When the legal issues are fully described in a legal context [“if torture involves something "severe," what exactly is the non-abstract definition of ‘severe’? Is ‘severe’ a quantified state (and if so, quantified by whom?), etc.], the courts will make an actual ruling. This then allows one to state definitively that “X is torture”, and that “X is a crime”.
In the absence of this, assertions that “X is torture”, and that “X is a crime”, is pure b*llsh*t (or to use the technical term, “your opinion”, which is no more or less valid than my opinion.)
What makes one opinion better than another is the way that facts or evidence are brought into to support it. But these “facts and evidence” cannot just be some other person’s opinion that happens to support yours, and it certainly isn’t supported by idiotic claims that “X is torture and a crime” when nothing of the fact has been established.
And instead of simply repeating the mantra that “X is a crime”, or “X is bad”, the discussion moves to a wider field: why was X action undertaken; was it effective (within the limits of what classified information can be revealed to make such a judgment); what adverse consequences (if any) are there to this action, etc. In short, it invites an intelligent discussion.
But, it’s my experience that the “waterboarding is Torture/a Crime” crowd have no interest in supporting their beliefs; they have an interest in stating their beliefs. They have no interest in looking at the assumptions behind their beliefs; their interest is in quoting sources that support their opinions.
Like I said before, it’s the difference between “what some people call “details,” and other people refer to as ‘just details.’
When you’ve lost the language, debate is impossible. What we have instead are opinions disguised as analysis. … We could talk about a legal definition of torture — whom it applies to, whom it doesn’t, how its abstract terms (“severe,” “intimidating,” “coercive,” “mental anguish,” etc.) are actually defined in a legal and practical sense, and what entities have the authority to make these determinations regarding the actions of American officials.
“We could actually have people versed in the law debate this. But what’s the fun in that when we can just apply our own (or some commentator’s or website’s) standards to the subject, and decide that something is torture if we wouldn’t want that done to ourselves.”
random points on the issue:
1]Ultimately, Congress has long had the option to simply declare that waterboarding is torture and thus illegal. Simple, really. They chose not to do so.
2] The time to have spoken up about waterboarding was “before the fact.” This would have been when it was brought before Pelosi et al, who could have made it illegal. They didn’t. Why?
3] Making things illegal after the fact is a gross miscarriage of justice.
4] The majority of citizens in our country – liberals and conservatives – oppose abortion on demand. Yet, it is still legal. Obviously,merely using the consensus standard is insufficient to determine whether someone has transgressed the law.
5] Japanese torture was brought into the equation by LIBERALS who asserted that the Japanese were executed/punished for doing the SAME thing the Bush admin. authorized. In fact, the method used by the Japanese had no similarity to the procedure used on the three detainees. Hence, there is no relevance to the discussion. As for the historical note, the one Japanese guy explixity noted waterboarded CITIZENS.
6] Looking at decisions that were made during a terrifying time when it was widely thought – with reason – that further attacks were imminent must be evaluated within context.
7] My liberal friends have unilaterally stated that they would not hesitate to maim someone to prevent the murder of a loved one IF they truly believed that maiming was the only way to save that life. Interesting…While it is true that this is different from a Commander in Chief who believes that thousands of those he has sworn to protect are in grave danger of being slaughtered, but it certainly puts the “I am shocked, I tell you…shocked” into proper perspective. I am grateful that I have never carried the burden of protection on my shoulders in a the times that we live in. A suicide bomber with a bomb on his back can do a lot of damage.
8] It is difficult to take anyone seriously who thinks that pulling the limbs off of the 3rd trimester unborn infants and crushing the skull to suck out the brains is fine while waterboarding is repugnant.
9]While there have been hysterical claims about the a83 times that one terrorist thug was waterboarded, the thug himself has claimed that he was waterboarded between 5 and ten times.Hmmmmmmmm…..
jb:
As part of the so-called anti-war movement, these anti-torture Leftists aren’t really anti-torture at all. They are an anti-American element out to make America lose whatever war it just happens to be in at any given time. Torture is just a catalyst.
If the anti-torture Leftists were really anti-torture, they would have been demonstrating against Saddam’s acid showers, rape rooms, and his human shredders. Where were they?
The American Left is not against oppression as they claim; they just want to oppress those who disagree with them, and pretending to own the moral high ground is just one tactic in their struggle to cause America to lose.
P
Your articles & your defense of them in the comments section are always so intellectually stimulating, while giving emoto-NPR listeners & trolls “negative psychological repercussions”. And commenters like jb on the YLJ article, Big Mike on Ann C, Pat Mulligan, & sedonaman on no protest re Saddam, actually add, you know, intellectual heft.
But as a result of the “Nevermind, no prosecution” current status, including, nevertheless, a referral to the respective Bar associations for further harassment (in one case too late!), I’ve come to the conclusion that this is really a message to young lawyers who might want to serve in future Republican Administrations, if we ever have one: stay away or we’re gonna ruin you financially when we get back in power.
And as Ray’s reference, in # 44 brings out, though he hinted at more in Judge Bybee’s regrets than was there, Bybee is having some kind of Buyer’s Remorse, possibly because he is concerned about his possible impeachment proceedings or maybe because he’s no longer getting invited to the right neighborhood or professional cocktail parties. I doubt impeachment would come to fruition (I’m sure that Arlen Specter would invoke Scots Law; you know Braveheart didn’t treat his enemies kindly), but the threat makes one have to lawyer-up, a not inexpensive matter.
And apparently the Madame Defarges & Meiseur Defarges are out with their pitchforks at Prof Yoo’s house & University. Can you imagine the Left outrage if someone had done that to some Leftist’s house or employer?
The Dems are ruling like a banana republic: it’s not enough to win; you’ve got to destroy your predecessor lest he threaten your power. This is not just an old time “in with the new….” This time it’s for real.
Finally, since Oz & others try to practice law thru Google, I’m sure that there’s a case in some JP court in the Adirondacks, which is now readily retrievable in this “information age”, on kids having caused negative psychological repercussions to a kitten up a tree, where the Justice of the Peace, a non lawyer, uses the word “torture”. Please add Kids & kittens to your list in future references. (And, please, no trolls saying that I’m condoning cruelty to animals, please).
Oh, & for Ray, who likes to see the deeper meaning of it all, try a classic, according to my wife (no sniggering here, please):
“A History of Torture” by George Ridley Scott (1940), a Cambridge historian who (& I repeat the book blurb, since I haven’t read it but which my wife who has says is accurate) “chronicles the use of torture over a period of more than two thousand years. Through wide-ranging research, and with over fifty illustrations, he builds up a picture of the techniques used, the extent to which they were practiced, and the underlying psychology of the act. Scott’s intention is not to titillate but to inform.” “Go for it”, says my wife. I just picked up her copy & read the parts referred to in the index about “water”, like the “cold water ordeal” (illustrated, no less), the “Torture of the [hot] Bath”, the playing of water upon a sensitive body part, & the water on the heads & wet cloth stuff. Scott seems to be against these things.
NEWS ALERT
Ooops! It looks like Pelosi, er, has known about — and approved of – waterboarding for some time now.
You know what this means: We now have prima-facie evidence that waterboarding is NOT torture. It can’t be if Nancy Pelosi knew about and approved of it. No need to discuss whether we need an actual legal decision or not. This issue is now “settled science”, er, I mean “settled, period.”
Next: We need to prosecute the Bush Administration for torturing innocent terrorists by playing loud music. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Loud music …
Washington Post May 7, 2009; 7:29 PM —
CIA Says Pelosi Was Briefed on Use of ‘Enhanced Interrogations’
Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners, seemingly contradicting her repeated statements over the past 18 months that she was never told that these techniques were actually being used.
In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings, intelligence officials said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) were the first two members of Congress ever briefed on the interrogation tactics. Then the ranking member and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, respectively, Pelosi and Goss were briefed Sept. 4, 2002, one week before the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The memo, issued by the Director of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency to Capitol Hill, notes the Pelosi-Goss briefing covered “EITs including the use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah.” EIT is an acronym for enhanced interrogation technique. Zubaydah was one of the earliest valuable al-Qaeda members captured and the first to have the controversial tactic known as water boarding used against him.
The issue of what Pelosi knew and when she knew it has become a matter of heated debate on Capitol Hill. Republicans have accused her of knowing for many years precisely the techniques CIA agents were using in interrogations, and only protesting the tactics when they became public and liberal antiwar activists protested.
In a carefully worded statement, Pelosi’s office said today that she had never been briefed about the use of waterboarding, only that it had been approved by Bush administration lawyers as a legal technique to use in interrogations.
“As this document shows, the Speaker was briefed only once, in September 2002. The briefers described these techniques, said they were legal, but said that waterboarding had not yet been used,” said Brendan Daly, Pelosi’s spokesman.
Pelosi’s statement did not address whether she was informed that other harsh techniques were already in use during the Zubaydah interrogations.
Ms. Pelosi has been hoist by her own petard. Much to my amusement, her petard includes telling several different versions of the story. “I never heard anything about waterboarding.” “Well, I was told about it BUT I had NO idea that it was actually going to be used so I didn’t think I needed to voice any concerns.”"I only lied because I was confused about the nature of the inquiry.”
Methinks she doth protest too much.
jb: The question is, for those who are arguing opinions instead of the law that ‘waterbording is torture is criminal’, are they going to be intellectually honest and call for Pelosi’s prosecution too since she authorized it?
Or, will they now suddenly discover that, by Jove, this issue is a bit more complicated than just expressing an opinion, and we ought to take a serious look at whether waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” were indeed unlawful and/or criminal.
Tout le monde:
All this boils down to what the definition of “is” is.
Phil,
My prediction, based upon a wealth of empirical data, is that the sputtering outraged will rediscover “nuance.”
As sedonaman says, “It all boils down to what the definition of “is” is………
OZ #67
You originally (# 47) quoted Bradbury as saying something he didn’t. A “choice quote” no less. Not good lawyering; not good virtual lawyering; not even a half-assed attempt at quoting.
You said, as a gotcha, that you “couldn’t resist returning with another choice quote from Steven Bradbury….”
I challenged you to tell me where Bradbury had said that (‘cause I hadn’t remembered him saying anything like that in any of the documents recently released).
You have now given me your gotcha cite.
I went to it. The report to which you refer is not a document of Bradbury’s.
OK, you relied on a news report of what Bradbury supposedly said. Sorry.
But it’s clear from the quoted language in the news report that Bradbury wasn’t expressing his own opinion, but repeating the opinion of the IG. You do understand the difference, no?
But wait, it gets worse for you:
You again purport to quote Bradbury himself in this comment #67, even tho your revised typing shows that it is obvious that Bradbury was noting an opinion not his own. Making the same mistake twice, department.
And, the news report notes that, despite the quote from the IG report which you misattributed to Bradbury himself, “Nevertheless, Bradbury concluded in his May 2005 memos that the program had been effective….” & “Despite the information from the IG’s report, Bradbury subsequently concluded that the techniques weren’t torture.”
You are not a serious person. But we knew that.
P
Unlike OZ, I don’t have a direct quote of Nancy’s, but according to the WSJ
“Ms. Pelosi’s spokesman Thursday reiterated the speaker’s earlier contention that she was told in the briefing that waterboarding had been authorized but not yet used.”
Hey, that’s not even “They never indicated that they were actually going to use or were seriously thinking of ever using waterboarding, so we moved on.”
OK, let me follow the logic, or illogic, as I understand it:
I, Nancy, was informed that what I now espouse to be illegal, i.e., “waterboarding” had been authorized but not yet used.
I never tried to determine if they really, really meant to waterboard.
I don’t remember challenging them on their legal bona fides.
I did not say “stop, stop before you actually do something illegal”.
QED, I am a good girl.
In the Military we called this “conduct unbecoming”.
If a congressperson with a (D) after his/her name had so acted, would we be hearing the word “impeachment” being bandied about?
Also can’t we say, as a practical matter, that one word from her & this would’ve been stopped in its tracks unless the Bushies were comfortable that they could ignore her, which I doubt?
I think that we need a Truth Commission.
I really really think we need an alert MSM to properly inform the public of this nonsense.
Inwood: RE your last two comments: this is “what some people call ‘details,’ and other people refer to as ‘just details’.”
As I was sitting here pondering on the nature of hubris that would impel Pelosi into such gargantuan lies, an alternative [admittedly tongue in cheek] explanation popped into mind. Perhaps Pelosi found waterboarding to be of such insignificance the way it was presented to her that it slipped her mind. Only now, in politicized retrospect, does the nature of waterboarding seem repugnant to her. After all, we know Ms. Nancy is above deceit. How will this woman weasal out of the web she has woven????
On a more serious note…Powerline has a nice piece titled “In Which Nancy Pelosi Tortures the Truth.” Apparently, the Wash Post adopted Inwood’s suggestion and is alerting the public.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/05/023513.php
jb:
Re: “How will this woman weasal out of the web she has woven????”
You have to look at it from her point of view, that is the liberal Democrat one, which is to say she hasn’t woven such a web. In his “The Looney Liberal Chronicles: Chapter 8,” [http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/the-looney-liberal-chronicles-chapter-8] Phil mentions this as one of the attributes of being a good liberal Democrat:
“…The end justifies the means if the end is good and just, as I define those terms. What I say … is valid only insofar as it supports my present arguments; if I need to change my reasoning tomorrow to support a contradictory position, it’s unfair to bring up my past position, because that is no longer relevant.”
Sedonaman, I fear that you, chandelling Phil, may be right here. As Ann Coulter says about Liberals: History begins today.
jb
To continue the alliteration, how about
What web will wicked wascally woman we-weave when weaseling out of wecent whimsical web wrecked with a williwaw?
Apologies to Barney Frank.
The public would, I think, give her a pass if she said: “Look, they told us that they’d waterboarded but they said they’d stopped. I thought it was illegal, but I said to myself, ‘what’s done is done & let’s move on’ “. But here she had a chance to stop it by her own admission.
Oh, wait she thought it was legal before she thought it was illegal. Or something like that.
But unless Leno, Letterman, & Stewart bring this up & keep it up, it will go into the memory hole. Yes the press has reported on what she said, but they have to do a job on her as they did on Bush. And Nixon. You know, incessant “what did she know & when did she know it? Followed up with “what did she do with what she knew & when did she do that?” Followed up with an incredulous face.
Of course, in Nancy’s case with substantive things, it’s always dicey to assume that she “knows” anything in the sense of understanding what she has been told.
She’s starting to make Joe Biden look good.
I’m getting “negative psychological repercussions” from Nancy’s babbling.
It’s always fascinated me that amidst all this debate, there is not more emphasis on how humane waterboarding is. We truly have lost perspective on this one. This really is an issue between us and our enemies.
If waterboarding under the supervision of doctors is torture, and we apply it to so few, and if this heinous act sends a message to our enemies of how brutal we are, I can only pray that our enemy will apply the same “brutal” technique, so judiciously and with such safety precautions, to our troops if captured. It really would put my mind at ease to know that getting their head sawed off with a dull knife was not the default for our people.
We are setting a good example using a technique that does not cause physical harm, yet provides enough of a lever to get vital information that could save lives in an age where those lives could number in the thousands or millions. Considering what’s on the line, and our desire to steer clear of techniques that physically harm or disfigure, waterboarding seems like a good compromise.
Like I said, I only wish our enemies were as brutal as we.
Yeah, nobody’s tried that before here.
Of all the issues raised since Raymond’s last remarks, the only thing he can do is link to a discussion where his assumptions were thoroughly explored and refuted.
Put a fork in it. It’s done.
Yes on 1, no on 2. (And you might want to check – more than one ‘discussion’ was linked…)
Happy to accommodate.
Raymond: “lots more U.S. citizens have died from terrorist attacks than in the Clinton years. (Most of them soldiers.)”
Phil: We just lost WWII. “Lots more” soldiers died in fighting Germany and Japan than in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
What is irrelevant is the goals that these soldiers fought for, and the conditions of international security their death’s established (vs the appeasement of the 1930s which had fewer actual deaths during that decade, but created the conditions for a world war in the 1940s).
This is how Liberals keep score. There is no value/goal/principle worth defending. The only way they can view the world is as if it was a cartoon. [Remember: This comes from the guy who sees torture everywhere, but can't define it, and becomes indignant when other people won't define it for him].
Like I said, the best way to make my case is to watch Liberals try to make theirs.
Raymond: “Now, if you could show me a situation where there were a nuke counting down, and this one guy knew where it was …”
Phil: It’s good to know that deeply held values should remain deeply held as long as the real world doesn’t test them, But once the test become real (i.e. the threat becomes evident), then those values can be modified or set aside to deal with an exigent threat.
In Raymond’s world, values matter only when they’re not put to the test. If Raymond believes there’s no real threat, then we maintain a strict definition of “torture”. But when he can personally see the threat, it’s okay to torture (as long as a court gives him permission), or if a “ticking time bomb” was sitting in his front yard and he was personally threatened, then by all means torture or use any means necessary to disarm the threat (with or without court approval).
Once disarmed, we return to a state where we define torture broadly and condemn anyone who would use enhanced interrogation techniques to protect the country, (even going so far as to hold them criminally or civilly liable for their actions), until the threat to Raymond becomes obvious enough for him to see the threat or feel personally threatened, at which time we adjust our value system again to deal with it.
“Values” is just another word for “politics”; it’s used as a club to criticize your opponents and excuse your own, similar actions. This is the best operational definition of moral relativism I’ve seen in a long time.
Raymond: “Throughout all of history, no one’s come up with an example of an actual situation that resembles the ‘ticking bomb’ scenario usually used to justify “aggressive interrogation”.
New York Times: “Leon E. Panetta, the White House pick to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, on Thursday left open the possibility that the agency could seek permission to use interrogation methods more aggressive than the limited menu that President Obama authorized under new rules issued last month.
“Under insistent questioning from a Senate panel, Mr. Panetta said that in extreme cases, if interrogators were unable to extract critical information from a terrorism suspect, he would seek White House approval for the C.I.A. to use methods that would go beyond those permitted under the new rules.
“ ‘If we had a ticking bomb situation, and obviously, whatever was being used I felt was not sufficient, I would not hesitate to go to the president of the United States and request whatever additional authority I would need,’ Mr. Panetta said in his nomination hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“He gave no specifics about what interrogation methods he would suggest, but he said that the agency would always abide by the law. He also said he believed that interrogators could reliably get information from detainees using noncoercive means.
“ ‘We can protect this country, we can get the information we need, we can provide for the security of the American people and we can abide by the law,’ Mr. Panetta said. ‘I’m absolutely convinced that we can do that.’”
Phil: Maybe Raymond should give Leon a call and tell him that a ticking time bomb is impossible because the US government has not declassified all of it’s actions and intelligence and revealed a similar situation to the general public, so it’s not possible for such a scenario to exist.
But at least he shares Raymond’s principled stand of strict adherence to strict definitions of torture unless there’s a perceived need to do otherwise.
Raymond: The “ticking bomb” scenario … Dr. Jackson certainly can’t cite one. He hints that it’s possible that there might be some in some secret government records. There may also be secret government records of crashed UFOs. But should we base policy on what we can’t prove didn’t happen? That opens up a fascinating line of thought…
Phil: What an asshole. The President’s nominee for the CIA is discussing “ticking time bombs”, but Raymond still maintains that because he, Raymond, hasn’t read about it in the newspaper yet, it can’t be a realistic possibility.
“ ‘If we had a ticking bomb situation, and obviously, whatever was being used I felt was not sufficient, I would not hesitate to go to the president of the United States and request whatever additional authority I would need,’ Mr. Panetta said in his nomination hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/us/politics/06cia.html?_r=2
This is what passes for political analysis from the Left. Panetta gives testimony about how such a scenario would actually affect real world policy, but Raymond says it’s still no evidence that it’s a real world option because “people are talking about it”, and well, because they are, Leon had to tell how it this ‘bogus’ option would actually influence Obama’s policy instead of saying “even though you’re talking about it, it’s not real, so there’s no need for me to elaborate.”
[And I didn’t even get to the dubious logic Raymond advances that Torture is wrong. Torture is ineffective. Torture doesn’t produce reliable results. Torture is immoral. But if torture is approved by a court, then Raymond says it’s ok to torture.]
Phil:
Re Raymond’s “The ‘ticking bomb’ scenario … Dr. Jackson certainly can’t cite one. He hints that it’s possible that there might be some in some secret government records.”
Maybe we don’t have to speculate on what might be in secret government records. Does the KSM incident count?
“Before they were subjected to “enhanced techniques” of interrogation that included waterboarding, KSM and Zubaydah were not only uncooperative but also appeared contemptuous of the will of the American people to defend themselves.
…
“After he was subjected to the “waterboard” technique, KSM became cooperative, providing intelligence that led to the capture of key al Qaeda allies and, eventually, the closing down of an East Asian terrorist cell that had been tasked with carrying out the 9/11-style attack on Los Angeles.”
http://www.cnsnews.com/PUBLIC/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=46949
Sedona; Don’t you know that the absence of new attacks is only evidence of absence?
Besides, enhanced interrogation is only designed to elicit confessions of guilt (which would then be thrown out of court) — not to secure actionable intelligence. It’s just crazy to think that KSM or any other terrorist gave us any useful information because I haven’t read the full details yet in the newspaper, so it obviously never happened.
Sedonaman – Well, actually, not so much.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html?_r=4&ref=opinion
“One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use…
There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.
Defenders of these techniques have claimed that they got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a top aide to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Mr. Padilla. This is false. The information that led to Mr. Shibh’s capture came primarily from a different terrorist operative who was interviewed using traditional methods. As for Mr. Padilla, the dates just don’t add up: the harsh techniques were approved in the memo of August 2002, Mr. Padilla had been arrested that May.”
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/05/the_lies_on_torture_just_keep.php
“One of the most unusual figures in the recent revelations about torture is John Kiriakou, a former CIA agent who helped capture Abu Zubaydah. In December 2007, Kiriakou went on ABC News and talked about the capture of Zubaydah and said some things that have now been shown to be clearly untrue. Here’s some of what he said at the time:
In the first public comment by any CIA officer involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou, now retired, said the technique broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds.
Right. Except that we now know that Zubaydah was in fact waterboarded 83 times, not just one time. And now Kiriakou admits that he was basically talking out his ass, that he had never participated in any of the interrogations of Zubaydah and was just repeating what he had heard second hand…”
Dr. Jackson – Anyone can follow those links and see if I tried to raise the exact issues you claimed to want raised, and if your characterization of what I stated there bears any relation to what I actually wrote.
P & Sedona
First, make my previous comment “channeling” Phil. Not enough to use spellcheck, you gotta take the right choice when it tells you that you only used one “n”.
To the point: The absence of new attacks.
Don’t make me look it up, but in a criminal law situation the same non-argument was made. I’m speaking about Rudy G’s crime clean up in NYC. BTW, I hate to use crime as an analogy since many folks, indoctrinated in our schools, see everything through the ACLU glass, including Warfare.
Anyway, those who suffer from GDS (Giuliani Derangement Syndrome) couldn’t argue with statistics or with polling where NYC people said they felt safer or with anecdotal evidence like mine where a friend & I (two AARP-age white males) walked down Broadway from 242nd St to 125th St on a nice Fall Saturday Afternoon, including stopping at the hospital where I was born, in what is now referred to as Harlem (131 & Convent Ave).
One of the GDS answers to why I felt safe & had the stats to back it up was that birth rates had declined & so there were fewer young males to commit the crimes & QED, no credit to Rudy since he was the unintended beneficiary of demographics. Really. And, besides, it was the Police Commissioner who was the hero & Rudy took all the credit. What, Rudy appointed the Police Commissioner? Nevermind!
But then some give Gorby credit for ending The Cold War, with Ronnie just lucky to be President then.
>There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics.
*** Love it. This is an assertion, not backed up with actual facts, that as an assertion, now becomes a ‘fact’.
>Dr. Jackson – Anyone can follow those links and see if I tried to raise the exact issues you claimed to want raised, and if your characterization of what I stated there bears any relation to what I actually wrote.
*** And this is the amazing thing about the English language, and those who can read it. It’s all there for people to see.
How did we miss this little tidbit? Am I reading this right?
Court Of Appeals Rules Detainees Are Not “Persons” in Guantánamo Torture Suit
Court Agrees with Obama Administration that Detainees Still Have No Constitutional Right Not to Be Tortured
April 24, 2009 Washington, D.C. – In a suit brought by British men imprisoned for two years at Guantanamo, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals today reaffirmed its previous ruling that Guantanamo detainees lack the fundamental constitutional right not to be tortured and are not “persons” under a U.S. statute protecting religious freedom.
…
In its decision today, the Court rejected the detainees’ argument that the Boumediene decision compelled the recognition of fundamental constitutional rights for detainees. Instead, the Court of Appeals held that the Supreme Court’s Boumediene decision applied only to the right of habeas corpus, and that no additional constitutional rights could be extended to detainees unless the Supreme Court specifically authorized and approved such rights.
…
http://www.worldcantwait.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5551:appeals-court-rules-gitmo-detainees-are-not-persons-&catid=91:anti-torture&Itemid=262
Sedona:
Great citation on “Court Agrees with Obama Administration that Detainees Still Have No Constitutional Right Not to Be Tortured.”
And many thanks to Raymond for reminding us of our past discussions on this issue, specifically:
Ozzie: I hope that the courts get a chance to determine whether unlawful torture occurred—that’s what courts do. Comment by Ozzie_M | April 9, 2009 http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/04/06/danners-fury/#comment-77232
Raymond: I’ve argued that we need a process [the courts] for determining guilt or innocence. …I’ve also noted that morally, I’ve no problem with torturing terrorists (once convicted) – but also argued that in a “real-world setting” it’s no more effective than other means and has major drawbacks, like recruiting more terrorists.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | February 13, 2009
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/02/10/the-hopelessness-of-debate-part-ii/#comment-76482
Phil: “How anyone could justify deliberately “torturing” another human being just because it’s “legal” — particularly when they don’t believe that “torture” will produce any real results — only goes to underscore the complete moral bankruptcy of other associated arguments to define what is in fact “torture”. Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | February 13, 2009 http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/02/10/the-hopelessness-of-debate-part-ii/#comment-76482
So, the Great Waterboarding-Is-Torture-Is-Criminal Debate ends on three counts:
1. Nancy Pelosi helped authorize the activity, so it can’t be a crime. And,
2. Ozzie was waiting for a court to “determine” the issue, which it now has. And,
3. Now that the Courts permit it, Raymond is on-board with torturing people even though it doesn’t work and produces adverse consequences.
Next: How loud must the music at Gitmo be (and by which recording artists) before we indict Bush Administration officials for “torture” since waterboarding is no longer torture?
Is there a liberal among us who would not use enhanced interrogation on a terrorist possessing critical knowledge about the planned death of their beloved child????
………………………..I didn’t think so……….
In fact, the bottom line is that those most outraged by waterboarding seem to ultimately disagree with the efficacy of the process rather than being guided by immutable principle.
This reminds me of the philosophical debate on abortion with one side adamantly claiming to be passionate about the principle of choice. YET, when asked whether a woman should have the choice to abort her full term infant, as some are wont to do, the self-professed defenders-of-choice-at-all costs shuck their passionate principle and cry “Hell, no!”
In the end, they are no more in favor of choice as an overriding principle. Rather, they simply have a different timeline than the one I subscribe to.
I always appreciate those who understand the distinction between principles and opinions.
In the tortured debate about waterboarding, the debate is actually not about our values/principles as a country, but about 1]the nature of the threat, and 2]the efficacy of enhanced interrogation.
Ray
Have you ever, you know, taken the time to actually, kinda, sorta, you know, read the so called “torture memos”, instead of some leftist site’s description of what happened?
And welcome to the world of “recovered memory”, where some guy in your organization disremembers why you took the position which everyone now in 20/20 hindsight thinks is not kosher & remembers telling you that he would never take the course of action that you did. Happens in any organization, a corporation, a church, the ACLU.
So Bybee in informal circles apparently expresses buyer’s remorse so that he doesn’t have to defend himself in front of his kids as a 21st Century Eichmann but then has to backtrack & then when only the remorse gets out & people say he’s 100% recanting on his position.
Since we’re arguing by questions, let me ask you one: If the CIA was getting beaucoup info from these guys without EIT, why would you think that they’d ask for permission to use EIT? Are you saying that they are sadists?
Another question: Do you think that the lawyers & Bushies were stupid & just accepted some CIA guys’ request along the following lines, without crossing their “t”s & dotting all their “i”s: “Hey, counsel, we’re not getting anywhere with these guys & we feel we need to up the ante. So write us up some legal gobbledygook to cover our asses. Oh, & BTW, don’t ask us to describe in detail what we’re gonna do, just so you wusses can assure yourself that what we’re gonna do is distinguishable from Torquemada & the WW II Japanese sadists.”
And no one was waterboarded on your “83” or the usual leftist “183” occasions. Your guys are counting drops of water or something. This misrepresentation led some “Conservative” poseurs gleefully quoted by trolls to get out & cry “waterboarding is torture” before they had the facts. See: Despite Reports, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Was Not Waterboarded 183 Times – The number of times Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded was the focus of major media attention — and highly misleading.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/28/despite-reports-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-waterboarded-times/
Hey, based on Nancy’s incoherent answers to questions, I’m ready for the Torture Committee Investigation right now.
And let’s get all CIA operatives involved under oath & see if they can hold up under cross examination as to some “recovered memory” that they came up with so that they could face their kids who think they are war criminals, because their teachers tell them so.
Inwood: Re your Fox News link.
1. It’s a “right wing” news source, and thus not credible. Unlike left wing news sources, which are just news sources.
2. Re: this passage “The confusion stems from language in the Justice Department legal memos that President Obama released on April 16. They contain the numbers, but they fail to explain exactly what they represent.”
This is what some people call “details,” and other people refer to as “just details.”
What I see here from Mr. Ingles is to bring America down by demanding that it be perfect. I observed this in others.
As a resident of Arizona, I wrote to Senator McCain about his comment on NBC’s Meet The Press that, “the weight of evidence has got to be that we’ve got to adjudicate these (Guantanamo detainees) people’s cases.” His response to my letter was that he felt the United States’ image was suffering because of “alleged and documented abuses” of the detainees, and that the United States should hold itself up to a “higher standard”, with which I vehemenently disagree. I believe the US should follow the letter of the applicable international laws with regard to the detainees (or any issue, for that matter) as an incentive for other signatory countries (and individuals) to do likewise. To hold ourselves up to a “higher standard” by conferring special privileges (e.g., POW status) on unlawful combatants is to undermine the law that is intended to discourage unlawful combatants in the first place, much like erasing the distinction between criminals and honest people would undermine the rule of civil law. I think Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir put it just right when confronted with condemnation from many nations: “We are not going to die just so the world will speak well of us.”
McCain’s response did not address the lack of incentives his approach would have.
McCain’s comments rang in what author Peter Beinart said in an in an interview for frontpagemag.com http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23176 , in which he “seeks legitimacy” for America’s power and also desires to hold America up to the “highest standards” of democracy and human rights. For him, the morality of a nation is determined not by its actions measured against an objective standard such as international law, but subjectively and inversely to its perceived degree of military power. To this Leftist way of thinking, because America is strong, it is automatically immoral and needs to be made “legitimate”. This is nothing more than a faux attempt to claim the moral high ground because America will never live up to McCain’s and Beinart’s “higher/highest standards” because they can always raise the standards.
Therefore, having jettisoned objective international law as a yardstick, McCain, Beinart, and other liberal Left-thinkers, will always seek to impose ever more higher standards no matter how well America acts. Herein lies the trap they have set: The more America does to overcome its shortcomings, the worse – not better – America appears. The reason for this is built into the dynamics of human nature: the better America is, the more unbearable and unjust seem even its slightest remaining imperfections.
None of these Leftists give one hoot about the treatment of the detainees, who are pawns in their grand scheme of things. They know that whoever has the strongest military, deployed in battle or not, will win in the end; therefore, they invented this morality game to disarm us, and it appears to be working.
jb: Re: “Is there a liberal among us who would not use enhanced interrogation on a terrorist possessing critical knowledge about the planned death of their beloved child????”
Sorta like a liberal is a conservative who hasn’t yet been mugged?
Sedonaman,
Yup….reality is a real eye-opener!
Speaking of which…ever notice how liberals love the poor as long as they don’t live among them or educate their children with them? If one has the handy-dandy good fortune to be able to insulate oneself from the pain of one’s ideologies, all kinds of idiocy “feels” appealing.
Sedona
You’re right in # 141. sadly, McCain has to be honored & ignored if we want to survive.
Re # 136
You have become aware, through Loony Leftist sites throwing hissy fits, of the “case against terrorism”, here a case that is part of the 21st Century Jarndyce v. Jarndyce terrorist cases. It’s just the latest installment in which the D.C. Circuit Court kicks it back to SCOTUS.
In short, where we are is that while all good men, OOPS persons, are against torture, though no one is quite sure what constitutes torture, details, details, the Gitmo guys can’t yet bring their alleged torture before a US Federal District Court since last June they can petition for habeas corpus. And The One may reinstate the Military Commissions, the new & un-Bush MCs, that is.
So we have a vacuum, an anomaly, a barrier to truth & justice &, more important, an obstacle to embarrassing The Bush Regime yet oh once more.
So all the country’s lawyers will keep on, er, trying, by golly, to fight the case against terrorism, not the war against terrorism.
And even tho the Bush “Regime’s” “torture” techniques stopped in 2004 or 2005, The Bushies have to adhere to their position that the EITs, including “waterboarding”, ≠ Torture. Except, that is, for the fainthearted members of The Bush “Regime”, with “recovered memories” a/k/a, “false memories” or with some form of “buyer’s remorse”. (And, BTW, now only Dem Kool-Aid Drinkers still believe that the appropriate Dems in Congress were not briefed.)
Yawn. Why fight this? Why argue over the meaning of torture? Because of the alleged global perception of evil, the scorn of the Left, & the threats from the thugs of the present Administration & Congressional bullies, all suffering from BDS, which is more important than protecting the country from more 9/11s. Now with the CIA pushing back, “Pelosifreude” seems to be helping the Bushies, here!
So, you must understand that we’re dealing with what people would refer to as Talmudic, or more to my personal background, Jesuitical or Scholasticism. Or maybe it’s whimsical. A Grand Guignol, if you don’t stop & think that the terrorists want to kill us. Or maybe it’s Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief & we’re in some kind of acceptance.
Remember the WW II movies? A bad guy German spy or a good guy member of the irregular French Resistance is caught & questioned, under less than ACLU circumstances, & summarily shot. Finis.
And, despite Obama’s historical illiteracy, German spies were tortured by Merrie Old England, at least in the sense of techniques that ACLU wusses think are torture, like sleep deprivation & other not so nice things.
So at some point after WW II, the victors, a/k/a, The Good Guys, including the masters of Torture, The USSR, agreed to “outlaw” torture, formalized in UNCAT (& for us, the US Torture Statute). What, Slick Willie used “extraordinary rendition” so that the guys we wouldn’t torture here would be, um, handled more efficiently & appropriately by the Israelis or Egyptians, don’t ask, don’t tell? Nevermind.
So, by the time of the time of the torture memos in 2002, it seems that under GAAT (Generally Accepted Accounting for Torture) principles (that’s a joke, a play on GAAP), everyone in the U.S. Government understood that the US did not have any right to torture & that torture against even irregulars was beyond the pale, if not illegal. Moral Preening in order.
And since everybody then, including The Bushies, had seemingly decreed that torture of anyone anywhere is illegal & immoral (& apparently fattening, since all these detainees have gained weight!), when the CIA was asking for CYA, The Bush “Regime” obviously could not give CYA unless it believed that the CIA’s “waterboarding” & “EITs” (boo, hiss!) were not torture under UNCAT or the US Torture Law. And The appropriate Dems were briefed & assented.
But the Bush “Regime” has been holing these guys up in Gitmo (Obama dithers so far) & so they can never get into a Federal Court to show their “torture scars” & they were, er, falling through the cracks, boo hoo!
Ya see, at the time of their detention, SCOTUS had never held that aliens captured on foreign soil and detained beyond sovereign U.S. territory had any constitutional rights — under the Fifth Amendment, the Eighth Amendment, or otherwise.
But, last June, SCOTUS (Boumediene) held that that jurisdiction-stripping provision of the Military Commissions Act was an unconstitutional suspension of these detainees’ right to habeas corpus. Got it? Egad, these detainees have at least this, albeit limited, constitutional right.
In the case you referred to Rasul et al. v. Myers, et al., the D. C. Circuit Court held that, while the detainees now maintain that SCOTUS in Boumediene has eroded the precedential force of all limiting cases, “whether that is so is not for us to determine….” It does note that SCOTUS in Boumediene specifically disclaimed any intention to disturb existing law governing the extraterritorial reach of any constitutional provisions, other than the (habeas corpus) Suspension Clause.
And, it did hold that Boumediene does not affect what it had held earlier, that “No reasonable government official would have been on notice that [these detainees] had any Fifth Amendment or Eighth Amendment rights.” Or otherwise.
And where will this all end? Perhaps like Dred Scott, a war, here without a big battle that we can handle, will solve a legal conundrum.
As Drudge would say, “Developing….”
Mr. Inwood:
Re: “But, last June, SCOTUS (Boumediene) held that that jurisdiction-stripping provision of the Military Commissions Act was an unconstitutional suspension of these detainees’ right to habeas corpus.”
Actually, the way I read their ruling, the SCOTUS didn’t really say that part was unconstitutional, but rather interpreted it to mean not what it plainly says but what they wanted it to say; that is, Congress’ intent wasn’t to deny the courts jurisdiction. Ipso facto, they have it. [An interesting side note here is that the court used original intent to reach this conclusion!]
Sedona #141
(I’ll respond to your #145 later)
First, McCain vs. Deborah Burlingame.
I got to thinking about your comments to McCain in church today during a boring (surprise) Mothers’ Day sermon.
I’ve said the same thing at lunches, & boy the remarks or looks one gets from the unaware. Good for you.
Let me tell you about last Friday’s lunch & Deb B’s article that day in the WSJ, which I brought into the conversation. (As we know she’s the sister of a Flight 93 casualty.):
“Obama and the 9/11 Families -The president isn’t sincere about ‘swift and certain’ justice for terrorists.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124174154190098941.html
Friend Joe, who usually controls the conversations & who, for some reason (polishing up his reputation as a contrarian), has a bug up his a$$ about Deb, piped up with his usual ritual denunciation of her as “milking this stuff, which has gone on too long….”. I replied that he was callous, as usual, but that she had something to say in the article which he might want to read if he wasn’t so prejudiced.
Rule # 1 at our lunches: Joe must never be dissed.
Rule # 2 at our lunches: Joe must never be cornered.
Rule # 3 at our lunches: Joe must never lose on substance.
So he sidebars:
He tells me that I had dissed & dismissed McC on torture &, QED, I was now inconsistent.
Silly me, I let the conversation revolve around what I’d said in the past about McCain. It didn’t help that one of the other guys said something like “Well, you guys can have at it about who said what, but as far as I’m concerned McCain certainly knows torture, for gosh sakes.”
@#$%%$#@!
On to A-Rod.
Anyway, esperit d’escalier: What I’d said in conversations past, perhaps not as articulate as you or even what I now write, was that McCain was not helping Intelligence Gathering by making it personal; it was only business with us, whereas the N Vietnamese had clearly tortured him & had done so for sport. Moreover, our guys knew that in future Administrations with the opposing party in control, if anything bad had happened, it would be brought out. For sport.
I had also asked whether, in some sense, McCain, based on his horrendous experience & actual survival, for which we all are eternally in awe, was not a mirror image of those 9/11 survivors who want a public hanging in The Sheep Meadow in Central Park. After the terrorists have had their testicles removed without anesthesia, of course.
We sympathize with both McCain & them, but we demur.
And, here Deb has brought forth something of substance.
BTW, I would note that some self-styled “independent” “centrist”, “moderate” friends, etc. (not to mention the “peace & justice’ parents of one of my son-in-laws) think that the scenario of a terrorist setting off a nuke in the US is the sin of “unhope” or something.
And that we should deal with these guys in a civil manner lest we force them to become uncivil. (Funny, I thought that they were already far out on the uncivil side of the scale, but maybe that’s just me). Gosh, we must not “stoop to the level of our enemies” if there’s just any way of avoiding it. The vicious disregard for human life expressed by a small minority of some people must not lead us into the temptation of adopting a “symmetrical policy of brutality & immorality”. A civilized, intelligent policy of effective self defense need not be divorced from “humane values & basic decency”, ya see. Otherwise “in the attempt to save our necks we run the risk of losing our souls”!
Apparently, it’s not even enough for us to provide these killers with “three hots & a cot”. Attention must be paid to their further needs.
And when I point out that we could’ve killed these thugs when we saw them in flagrante delicto or flagrante bello I just get them started on “Why War is Not The Answer”.
I tell these people that hope may be a Christian virtue but it’s not a good working hypothesis for dealing with insane thugs. I try to explain to them that humane values & basic decency demand that insane, thuggish agglomerations never be allowed to develop deliverable nukes which will be a risk to our necks & that if we ignore this we have, indeed, lost our souls. Also, that prevention of nuke-ability is much more humane & decent than the inevitable punishment, after the fact, of those who did it. I suspect, tho, that they would let a lot of nuking go on before they would agree to a retaliatory strike on our part (vengeance is mine, saith the Lord).
Sadly, it’s not working.
Let me repeat the words of Heather MacDonald on terrorists & torture:
“In fighting them, we must of course hold ourselves to our own high moral standards without, however, succumbing to the utopian illusion that we can prevail while immaculately observing every precept of the Sermon on the Mount. It is the necessity of this fallen world that we must oppose evil with force; and we must use all the lawful means necessary to ensure that good, rather than evil, triumphs.”
Let me cite Henry V:
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the actions of the tiger;
Stiffen up the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favor’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect.
Sedona #145
I think you are basing your interpretation of the decision on where SCOTUS, or the five justices in the majority, are obviously leading, but the Boumediene opinion said what I noted.
And I think that the D.C. Circuit Court decision in the case on remand which started this exchange, where it agrees with what I said as the Boumediene holding, will force a SCOTUS decision enlarging its Boumediene habeas result. This will please the Leftist mob which is, er, up in arms because of that Circuit Court decision.
So I’m not arguing that you will not be proved ultimately right in your understanding of what’s really going on. I’m just stating what Boumediene actually said.
And, I understand & agree with Justice Scalia’s blistering dissent, where he noted “a pose of faux deference to Congress and the President”:
“THE GAP BETWEEN RATIONALE AND RULE LEADS ME TO CONCLUDE THAT THE COURT’S ULTIMATE, UNEXPRESSED GOAL IS TO PRESERVE THE POWER TO REVIEW THE CONFINEMENT OF ENEMY PRISONERS HELD BY THE EXECUTIVE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.”
(My emphasis; context:
“But so long as there are some places to which habeas does not run—so long as the Court’s new “functional” test will not be satisfied in every case—then there will be circumstances in which “it would be possible for the political branches to govern without legal constraint.” Or, to put it more impartially, areas in which the legal determinations of the other branches will be (shudder!) supreme. In other words, judicial supremacy is not really assured by the constitutional rule that the Court creates. The gap between rationale and rule leads me to conclude that the Court’s ultimate, unexpressed goal is to preserve the power to review the confinement of enemy prisoners held by the Executive anywhere in the world. The “functional” test usefully evades the precedential landmine of Eisentrager but is so inherently subjective that it clears a wide path for the Court to traverse in the years to come.”)
Regards
Inwood
Trolls: Told ya so!
Pelosi torture story du jour (not Dijon, as in Dijon-gate)
“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted Friday that she was briefed only once about the ‘enhanced’ interrogation techniques being used on terrorism suspects and that she was assured by lawyers with the CIA and the Department of Justice that the methods were legal.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/08/pelosi-says-told-interrogation-methods-lawful/
Hey: That’s what we have been saying that Bush was advised, trolls.
Remember the syllogism I constructed based on what the Bushies are saying:
Torture is illegal
Waterboarding* is not torture.
QED, Waterboarding* was not illegal.
*Meaning the process used by the 21st Century CIA not those of either the Japanese in WW II or Torquemada.
Told ya so!
How You Know You’re Winning
“When the best the left can come up with in response to the growing opposition to closing Gitmo and moving the terrorist to a neighborhood near you is the absurd suggestion that the GOP is, by extension, disparaging corrections officers….”
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/05/how_you_know_youre_winning.asp
Inwood – First off:
Thanks for the information – it’s nice to know they weren’t as completely barbaric as the first reports had indicated. However, five to ten times is still too much. (‘I didn’t burglarize 83 times. I stole 83 items, sure, but I only actually broke into five houses.’) It also indicates that Mr. Kiriakou was misinformed – apparently it took more than ’35 seconds’ to break Zubaydah.
That doesn’t actually seem to be the case. According to what’s coming out now, they were pressured by people in the Bush administration (e.g. Wolfowitz, apparently) to find ties between Al Queda and Iraq. Maj. Paul Burney:
Seems consistent with the timing.
As to Nanci Pelosi el. al., I’m more than happy to say “a plague o’ both your houses”. I’m no fan of the Democratic Party, any more than the Republican Party, and the policies I’ve been objecting to could not have been implemented without complicity from both “sides”. Here’s a link you might find interesting: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/24/democrats/index.html