 |
September 21, 2006A Deal?A deal on tribunal law and detainee treatment? Devils in the details, of course, which don't appear to be public yet. UPDATE: I've just gotten off two long-haul flights and am pretty much in wall-to-wall meetings. Still, I have had a chance to review the developments on the Hill, and hope to post commentary in the next day or so. Meantime, don't miss Ariel Dorfman in today's WaPo, asking "Are We Really So Fearful"?: Can't the United States see that when we allow someone to be tortured by our agents, it is not only the victim and the perpetrator who are corrupted, not only the "intelligence" that is contaminated, but also everyone who looked away and said they did not know, everyone who consented tacitly to that outrage so they could sleep a little safer at night, all the citizens who did not march in the streets by the millions to demand the resignation of whoever suggested, even whispered, that torture is inevitable in our day and age, that we must embrace its darkness? Judging from a comment left on this blog (whose proprieter opposes the use of torture), the answer to Dorfman's questions look to be a resounding yes, alas: At the most basic level, we are fighting to keep Muslim apes from flying planes into buildings. I dont care if we have to cut their arms off while we interrogate them. The point of fighting will not be lost if cut off arms. The point of fighting will be lost if we are treated to spectacle of people jumping out of buildings again. I use the term Muslim apes in reference to Muslim men who would kill because they are too lazy to go out and get a job. I dont use it in reference to all Muslims.Posted by Gregory at September 21, 2006 11:51 PM Comments
This "agreement" looks pretty suspicious to me. I was reading over at Balkinazation blog: http://balkin.blogspot.com/ The headline is: "Senators Snatch Defeat From Jaws of Victory: U.S. to be First Nation to Authorize Violations of Geneva". Marty Lederman offers a first take on the agreement. Secondly, the habeas cut off is rarely discussed. It is really hard to believe that we are a country willing to throw people in jail, torture them and not allow for habeas rights to contest your imprisonment. It make me sad. Posted by: Dilbatt at September 22, 2006 12:25 AM | Permalink to this comment
The New Republic -- following Jack Balkin's earlier lead -- has pointed out that the McCain-Warner-Graham bill in its ORIGINAL form "takes the administration's proposals as a starting point and then proceeds to roll back only a few of its more odious provisions": http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20061002&s=editorial100206 . I can hardly wait to see what the watered-down version looks like. I hope that we have not just been gulled by yet another exercise of political Dingbat Kabuki (as Mark Kleiman calls it), but I suspect we have. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at September 22, 2006 12:31 AM | Permalink to this comment
well, I hate to say I told you so...but just hours ago I wrote ( http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/2006/09/detainee_treatment_development.html#034609) Reid sounds way too slimey on this issue for my taste -- my guess is that he suspects (with good reason) that associating himself closely with the likes of McCain, Graham, and Warner makes Democrats vulnerable to being cut off at the knees at the last minute when those three partisans reach a last-minute "compromise" with Bush that they know will be unacceptable to Democrat -- Democrats would take the fall for the failure to pass the bill, and pay for it poltically. But Reid's approach is completely wrong. (McCain, Graham, and Warner may be "principled" on torture, but they are not principled when it comes to politics, and simply cannot be trusted to maintain a consistent position if they see an opportunity to exploit "the war on terror" politically.)
Marty Lederman has the new "compromise" ( http://balkin.blogspot.com/2006/09/senators-snatch-defeat-from-jaws-of.html ). McCain, Warner and Graham have folded COMPLETELY -- and, for good measure, they've also permanently stripped all US courts of any power ever to punish any Geneva violations whatsoever by any US official or soldier, and provided retroactive immunity to all Americans for any past Geneva war crimes (Section 7.A). Nice fantasy you had for a little while there, wasn't it, Greg? This will, of course, take in the American people completely for a few years, until the consequences of legalizing wholesale torture become belatedly apparent (and by then, the nukes may be so freely flying all over the world that the extent to which this bill helped contribute to it will be forever concealed from them). In any case, by then Bush will be safely out of office, and McCain (he hopes) will be safely in it; he may hope to assuage his conscience by reinterpreting the Geneva Conventions (which the
I also suspect that Lukasiak's analysis is correct. With Honest John McCain now providing official cover for Bush by the simple technique of lying through his teeth, the Democrats are now in the impossible position of either supporting a cleverly written bill which they know perfectly well legalizes torture, or opposing it and being called "appeasers" by McCain himself. This little move may thus, by itself, have assured a Republican upset in the 2006 elections, for which McCain doubtless hopes the GOP will be grateful to him. Again, I think he's deluding himself. If I were in the Dems' shoes, I'd resort to the Machiavellian tactic of voting for the fake compromise at the SAME time that I announced publicly that it was a complete pack of lies, and saying publicly that McCain's false reputation for honesty had given me no choice in the matter. (Jerry Brown, you'll recall, once promised to do something similar regarding the B-1 bomber if he got elected to the US Senate.) Then hope for that Democratic win in Congress (or at least the House), start making as much trouble for Republicans in general as possible, and simply wait for future events to confirm McCain's dishonesty. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at September 22, 2006 01:07 AM | Permalink to this comment
IIRC, some folks predicted McCain would fold. He's not what you hope he is, Greg. Look elsewhere for your 2008 candidate. Posted by: CaseyL at September 22, 2006 01:45 AM | Permalink to this comment
McCain is and always will be a show boat. I expected he would fold after gaining a little publicity as a stand-up guy. Graham is the author of the legislation that deprives the prisoners at Gitmo the right of habeas corpus. Expect this bill to do the same thing. The US will remain a country that seizes people from foreign countries, locks them up for life without access to a court. Beyond that, I get sick to my stomach when I hear, as it seems more and more lately, how well the prisoners at Gitmo are treated. Senator Frist recently said they receive better medical treatment than most Americans. Some other senator or rep said they have gained weight while incarcerated there. It is totally inane that we are being told how people who will be imprisoned for life without trial do not have it so bad. What about the idea of justice, liberty and freedom. By the way, the argument that if we violated the Geneva Convention others will do it to us does not wash for me. The same about imprisonment without trial. The argument should simply be it is wrong. It is not the way we act as Americans. It is what makes us different. I'm sorry I meant to say it once was what made us different.
Greg--I concur entirely with what Lederman would wrote, and would add: it looks like this is drafted to: 1) immunize past acts of waterboarding from prosecution It's horrible. I've always been a pessimist on this and it's worse than I expected. This is why you should not call McCain, Graham, and Warner giants. This is exactly what I warned you about a few days ago. There are almost no giants in the Senate on this. Levin and Leahy do their best. Feingold helps but tends to focus much more on surveillance issues. Durbin used to be very very good, but seems to have lost his nerve after that fiasco about his Guantanamo comments last summer. Kennedy cares but isn't very effective. Bingaman's been consistently one of the most decent in a very low key way. A few of the house Democrats have been just tireless--Markey of Massachusetts has been the loneliest man in Washington on rendition issues. But that's it. There are giants on this, there are heroes, but they're not in Congress--they're people like Lederman, Charles Swift, Alberto Mora, habeas lawyers, researchers at human rights organizations.... Posted by: Katherine at September 22, 2006 03:49 AM | Permalink to this comment
And that unsual tolling sound of doom folks, is the sound of the bell tolling for the end of democracy and freedom as we know it... Posted by: Aran Brown at September 22, 2006 06:50 AM | Permalink to this comment
And that unsual ringing sound folks, is the sound of the bell tolling for end of democracy and freedom as we know it... Posted by: Aran Brown at September 22, 2006 06:50 AM | Permalink to this comment
If Republicans continue to stay in power, I fear we've not even seen the worst that they can do. Think about it, Greg. Why are they making a deal with the devil here, (not calling any individual the devil. torture is the devil). This is for ensuring that voters this fall vote for Republicans. This is the way they want to ensure they keep Republicans in control of our government. How low do you think they will go in the future? If they can legalize torture, what can they not do? They are playing you and all Republican voters. Posted by: Dan at September 22, 2006 02:30 PM | Permalink to this comment
I'm not surprised. By now, you've got to be a real sucker to put ANY faith in "moderate", "prinicipled" Republicans. They've had endless opportunities to mitigate the disasters that Bush & Cheney propagate, but their preferred position is belly up. They're slime. What's next? We gonna hold our breath waiting to see exactly how many minutes it'll take "courageous" Arlen Specter to perform his next rollover? None of these clowns deserve the trust or respect of any American who gives a damn..... Posted by: sglover at September 22, 2006 03:10 PM | Permalink to this comment
Bruce, I owuldn't count on Giuliani getting the nomination either. As soon as the religious right learns four facts about him, his presidential ambitions are dead. First, is his divorce, really messing involving affairs and his girlfriend being forbidden from staying the Mayors residence in NYC. Second, after his divorce, he lived with two gay men. Finally, there are at least two pictures of him in full drag, for the New York version of the White House correspondents dinner. Finally, there are his views on gays rights and abortion. I know that he is pro-choice, and believe that he is in favor of same sex marriage, or at least civil unions. Posted by: jon at September 22, 2006 03:15 PM | Permalink to this comment
Well, I'd be delighted if neither Giuliani nor McCain got the GOP nomination -- those two are infinitely stronger in the general-election polls than any other possible GOP nominee, thanks to the public's entirely incorrect belief (eagerly propagated by what passes for the American press) that they are tremendously more moderate in nature and policy than all other Republicans. (In fact, Hillary currently leads all other possible GOP nominees by landslide margins.) But given both their current landslide leads among rank-and-file GOP primary voters, and the fact that the party's money men and central figures are well aware that those two are probably the GOP's only hope of holding the White House in 2008, I have great difficulty seeing the Christian Right being able to stop either one of them from acquiring the nomination. We're more likely to see a far-rightist get the Vice Presidential nomination as a sop, while the party's Presidential nominee kowtows verbally to the C.R. at every opportunity (in much the same way that Democratic Presidential contenders kowtow to Al Sharpton, although he has tremendously less clout within the Democratic Party than the C.R. has in the GOP). Getting back to the main subject: really, it was crazy of us to assume that the US would ever try to prevent itself from committing war crimes. No nation that I can think of in US history -- including the democratic ones -- has EVER prevented, or seriously tried to prevent, itself from doing so as a result of internal political pressure, or punished any of its own officials for committing them. (Consider that not a single US soldier was ever punished for My Lai -- unless you count Calley's few weeks under house arrest before Nixon pardoned him --or for the numerous other massacres which we now know US troops carried out in that war, such as My Khei and the Tiger Force's activities. Our crimes so far in the current war have been small by comparison.) Nations and peoples restrain themselves from war crimes only when forced to do so by outside pressure from other nations, and that factor isn't going to restrain the US -- or sway its citizens -- in the current situation. At most, we'll hear some regretful tut-tutting about it from historians decades later (which the general public will remain totally unaware of, just as Gallup discovered in late 2001 that one-third of Americans now believe the US was on NORTH Vietnam's side in the Vietnam War). That's assuming, of course, that there are any historians by then, since by then the smuggled nukes will probably have started going off in various world cities and human civilization will have collapsed completely. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at September 22, 2006 05:46 PM | Permalink to this comment
"Bruce, I owuldn't count on Giuliani getting the nomination either. As soon as the religious right learns four facts about him, his presidential ambitions are dead" Don't you nimrods ever get tired of being wrong? McCain sold you out eh - gee - whatta surprise Now its back to "Guiliani won't be acceptable to those red-state bible reading dumbasses" You'll be surprised again And when you run Hillary on a ticket run by Howard Dean - and try to run on "we're the ones who wanted to stop playing Red Hot Chili Peppers to the planner of 9/11 - vote for us!" platform - you'll lose worse than Mondale in 1984 Posted by: Pogue Mahone at September 22, 2006 09:14 PM | Permalink to this comment
I am with Pogue. Torture seems at first glance like it wouldn't sell to Americans, but it sells if you wrap it in antisemitism. Goebbels sold it in a package of antisemitism and fear to parlay Hitler's victories into absolute power. There is no reason the current Nazis - er, Republicans - cannot continue to follow the exact same path: wrap torture as a small bite inside the largely appetizing package of antisemitism and fear, to slither the democracy into a de facto dictatorship. It is a good road to get to power, as long as you don't have moral scruples with the sleaze, lying, and general evil required -- and politicians don't have these scruples (especially the current Republicans).
Yes, it's amazing how often one can "win," provided one doesn't care how much damage one does along the way. Posted by: CaseyL at September 23, 2006 01:49 AM | Permalink to this comment
Hank I have been reading all these impressive posts and have learned something, indeed. Thank you. Posted by: Russ at September 23, 2006 08:18 PM | Permalink to this comment
Well, the Congressional GOP has now lined up -- unanimously --behind the fake McCain "compromise" (which, I see, our resident knuckle-dragger happily admits was always a fake), and is eagerly preparing to beat the crap out of the Democrats in the remaining 2006 campaign on a pro-torture platform: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/22/AR2006092201355.html - Meanwhile, one of Josh Marshall's readers makes a point, which really should be obvious, about those rare cases in which torture may be justified: (via Tim F. in "Balloon Juice" -- "Besides prosecutorial discretion and jury nullification, there is always the presidential pardon option. To me, this demonstrates that Bush doesn't have in mind rare cases of torture -- which, if proved vital, could be pardoned. He wants it to be a REGULAR procedure, for which pardons would be unwieldy given the number of people needing them." Tim F. adds: "The president does not want to reserve the right to torture on the rare occasions when it might help. He wants torture to become who we are." (Which may not be surprising: there is that 1968 Yale student newspaper -- dug up by Garry Trudeau -- which reported that Bush, while head of his fraternity, got a kick out of personally branding the backsides of new pledges with red-hot coat hangers.) But, to repeat: where ARE you guys going to go now? Not only can you no longer honestly call yourselves Republicans (which Cole, in fact, has now stopped doing), but you're now official members of a non-fascistic political MINORITY in the US -- and you will continue to be part of that minority until the current wave of national hysteria recedes. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at September 23, 2006 08:28 PM | Permalink to this comment
If you haven't noticed how the right-wing is using anti-Semitism, please take another look. It all seems quite familiar to how it was used earlier last century. These semites, with their funny language and their dangerous religion are not to be trusted. They don't integrate with the west. They stick to their own kind, in ghettos. They are troublemakers, and their loyalty is not to our western countries. Modulo the tiny change that the US right-wing is now demonizing the Moslem Arabs instead of the Jews, it is all amazingly similar anti-semitism, and not at all surprisingly successful.
The central issue in the orture debate is, I think, not just that Bush wants to legalize torture, but that he wants to legalize ROUTINE torture.
Perhaps it is time to read what a reporter said during a previous time in American life, when public figures were using the very real menace of Communism to justify Fear & Repression at home: "We must not confuse dissent with disloyality. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason. If we dig deep into our history ... and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot eacape responsibility for the result. ... We proclaim oursevles, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom - what's left of it - but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. " Edward R. Murrow on the CBS program "See It Now" , Mar. 9, 1954 Good Night & Good Luck Posted by: David All at September 25, 2006 10:57 PM | Permalink to this comment
I comfort myself in this morass with two thoughts: 1. The US government has been taken over by a "disciplined minority," who through a combination of propaganda, intimidation, and internal discipline can control the debate, competing institutions, and events. This disciplined minority has a permanent base within the general population of perhaps 25-35%, whose prior disenfrachisement has now fueled their current resentments and belllicosity, and their unlimited and wholesale support of the War Party, its policies, its purposes, and its tactics. 2. The "war fever" is just that, and is a temporary mania that will pass. It is unrealistic to expect a Senator, or group of Senators, to withstand this Zeitgeist with any consistency or enthusiasm. The best that they can do is to argue tactical adjustments within the assumed reality, which Warner and McCain have done. At some point, a moment will arrive for the revelation of truth, both about ourselves, our condition, and external reality. When that moment comes, a speaker will emerge to state the obvious, an obvious that is ripe for acceptance, at which point all and sundry will renounce and deny any former association or sympathy with this administration, and the people, the policies, or the events of our time, and it will become accepted wisdom that the Bush administration was a cabal of gangsters. Who knows when that time will arrive, but it surely will. Keep in mind that there is much going on, and which has gone on, within this administration that is secret, about which we know nothing, and of which in the future we will know much. In looking back, this era will look very much different than it appears at present. Posted by: MD at September 26, 2006 04:44 PM | Permalink to this comment
The Bush Administration & its defenders argue that the USA faces an unpreccedented threat in fighting Islamic Terrorism and for that reason we need to give this Administration unlimited power including the rights to suspend habaes corpus & to torture whoever the Administration feels like torturing. I do not believe that as murderous as Islamic Terrorists are they are a worse threat then Nazi Germany & Imperial Japan were in WWII or the Soviet Union & China were during the Cold War. MD is right that the US has been struggling with War Fever since Sept 11th. The horrible atrocities of that day & the very real menace that produced them stunned & angered us all. The threat of more 9/11s allowed this Administration to hijack this country and lead it into doing things such as invading Iraq that otherwise there would have been little support for. Now that fever is receeding as time passes since 9/11. People who had previously supported this administration, such as myself, are realizing that this Administration's course, particularly in Iraq, is disasterous. It is not that we have forgotten about 9/11, most people know that we are in a long shadow war with Islamists, but that we are no longer willingly to give this bunch of incompetents in Washington, a blank check for whatever action they wish to take. The mid-term elections in November will hopefully show that we are in the majority. Posted by: David All at September 26, 2006 10:28 PM | Permalink to this comment
I think it is well-said that if nothing else, we are relearning how cockroaches multiply in the darkness. I speak of the darkness of no oversight, because the Republicans control all of the government, and they have a adopted a philosophy of great secrecy, and great control and coercion of their members, and great concern with guiding the ever-present flow of sleazy money through Washington to get as much bribery as possible targetting only Republicans. Now, it might be that this all-Republican control sleaze-fest is more disgusting than an equivalent all-Democratic one would be. It certainly appears likely. But that is not as important, I say, as learning that this type of centralized sleazefest should be AVOIDED. The proliferating incompetence, the raising of sycophants and punishing of whistleblowers and the honest or semi-honest, are all symptoms, I say, of the "cockroaches multiplying in the darkness". That is, I advocate the (naive? simplistic?) philosophy that the most important thing is to avoid granting so much control to one party. To be repetitive, this is to avoid the problem (as so painfully evidenced at present) that the most effective and diaboloical of the sleazy politicans and power-players rise to power in such circumstances, and our general national interests suffer rather strikingly. Posted by: powerman at September 28, 2006 04:08 PM | Permalink to this comment
alqubar It's hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what's wrong with these people," he said. "Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion? Why do they hate the Israelis and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me. "They all look the same to me." What an asshole. Posted by: russ at September 30, 2006 01:41 PM | Permalink to this comment
|
|
About Belgravia Dispatch
Gregory Djerejian, an international lawyer and business executive, comments intermittently on global politics, finance & diplomacy at this site. The views expressed herein are solely his own and do not represent those of any organization. More About the Author Email the Author Recent Entries
Lunch w/ the FT...
Robert Strange McNamara Biden on Israel/Iran Mea Culpa (Part II) Something of A Mea Culpa Search
The News
Financial Times
New York Times Wall Street Journal The Economist The Times The Spectator Daily Telegraph The New Yorker Washington Post New Criterion New Republic National Review The Atlantic The American Conservative Harpers The Week The Guardian Weekly Standard The Nation Real Clear Politics Le Figaro Le Monde El Pais Pravda The Blogs
Across the Aisle
Marc Ambinder American Footprints The American Scene Bainbridge Jack Balkin Becker-Posner Balloon Juice Steve Clemons Juan Cole The Corner Crooked Timber Cunning Realist Democracy Arsensal Daniel Drezner Washington Monthly James Fallows Glenn Greenwald Nikolas Gvosdev Huffington Post Mark Kleiman Joshua Landis Daniel Larison Marc Lynch Josh Marshall Progressive Realist Obsidian Wings George Packer Gideon Rachman Andrew Sullivan Katrina vanden Heuvel Volokh Conspiracy Steve Walt James Wolcott Matthew Yglesias Foreign Affairs Commentariat
Law & Finance
Barron's
Bloomberg Bull and Bear Wise Calculated Risk Marketwatch Contrary Investor Corporate Counsel Blog DealBreaker Deal Lawyers Blog Financial Sense Forbes Fortune Hussman Funds Bruce MacEwen Barry Ritholz Nouriel Roubini Safe Haven SCOTUS Blog Seeking Alpha The Street 10b-5 Daily Yahoo Finance Think Tanks
Security
Books
American Scholar
LRB NYRB NYT Book Review Paris Review TLS Granta Grand Street Arts & Letters Daily TNR's The Book The City
Curbed
Eater Gothamist NY Magazine NY Post NY Press New York Observer Tribeca Trib Vanishing NY Village Voice Epicurean Corner
Archives
Syndicate this site:
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|||
|
||||
