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October 25, 2005
Torturing the Law
By blog standards, this is a little old, nearly one whole day. The New York Times reported that the Senate defied the President and
Approved, 90 to 9, an amendment to a $440 billion military spending bill that would ban the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of any detainee held by the United States government.
But wait, Vice President Dick Cheney and the C.I.A. director, Porter J. Goss, had offered a compromise.
. . . the measure "shall not apply with respect to clandestine counterterrorism operations conducted abroad, with respect to terrorists who are not citizens of the United States, that are carried out by an element of the United States government other than the Department of Defense and are consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States and treaties to which the United States is a party, if the president determines that such operations are vital to the protection of the United States or its citizens from terrorist attack."
What a compromise. Senator John McCain, the bill's author, and the other 89 senators rejected this ridiculous suggestion.
As John J. McKay through Archy the cockroach said,
The problem with torture is not that the wrong people were doing it; the problem is that it is ineffective, it is unreliable, it antagonizes our allies, it creates a negative perception of American values among populations that we are trying to win over, and it is just plain wrong--even when the CIA does it.
What is it about torture being wrong and against basic American values that Cheney and company don't understand? If we have an expert on torture in our government, it is certainly Senator McCain and its time the Administration started to listen to him on this issue.
Posted by DuaneSmith at October 25, 2005 08:27 PM | Read more on Current Events |
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Comments
Pardon me for quibbling, but it is "Archy", not "Archi", and he's a cockroach re-incarnation of a blank verse poet.
The problem with terrorism is not that it is ineffective. That's like saying the problem with cannibalism is that babies aint all that nutritious. The problem with terrorism is that it requires the objectification of the victim, both in his person and in his class, and that the cognitive dissonance caused forces us to re-invent ourselves as the avenging army of some philosophy or deity; allowed to perform any outrage or atrocity to advance our good cause.
Posted by: David Tisdale at October 26, 2005 07:35 AM
David is completely correct on the first count and I have made the appropriate change above. I don't know what I was thinking.
On the second count, I agree completely that problem with "terrorism is that it requires the objectification of the victim." I also think this applies to torture. Or did you mean torture? I also believe that torture is ineffective. One the other hand, terrorism can be very effective.
Posted by: Duane at October 26, 2005 08:25 AM
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