Normalizing torture: Mukasey, a man for this season
The operative definition of torture, delineated as the "the only relevant definition of torture" in the memo linked to in this story, is contained in the United Nations Convention Against Torture, ratified into law (United States Code):
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/03/waterboarding-abc-news-levin/
It was natural and commonplace, not to mention “criminal law, centuries of Anglo-American law, longstanding policy of The United States, “ to repudiate torture.
Who ever thought that “we” would have to hedge, dumb down, play footsy with the definition of torture, enabling some enthusiastic sadists in the military and the CIA (not to mention rendition nations), aided and abetted and very likely specifically authorized by a fascist administration out of control.
“9/11 changed everything”.
Its as if no other nation has ever suffered a terrorist attack.
Suddenly our system of law, justice, and policy that had served a nation BORN IN REVOLUTION for over two hundred years was instantly obsolete.
American “exceptionalism” taken to its sickest conclusion -- fine for the rest of the “civilized” world, but they’d better understand we’re different.
As if just repeating ad nauseam, louder and more insistently “the United States does not torture” somehow makes believers. Like some dumb yahoo shouting to make himself heard by someone with another language. Worse, as if we have neither language nor logic to counter the message of Big Brother.
What would have happened had the 9/11 attacks not succeeded in causing the carnage they did? Would American deaths, of those on the planes, still have been sufficient and so much more precious than any other signatory to the UN anti-torture convention, to justify jettisoning it, along with all other legal markers of civilized behavior? Somehow, in the hands of this government and its bipartisan enablers, I don't think it would have made much difference.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/03/waterboarding-abc-news-levin/
It was natural and commonplace, not to mention “criminal law, centuries of Anglo-American law, longstanding policy of The United States, “ to repudiate torture.
Who ever thought that “we” would have to hedge, dumb down, play footsy with the definition of torture, enabling some enthusiastic sadists in the military and the CIA (not to mention rendition nations), aided and abetted and very likely specifically authorized by a fascist administration out of control.
“9/11 changed everything”.
Its as if no other nation has ever suffered a terrorist attack.
Suddenly our system of law, justice, and policy that had served a nation BORN IN REVOLUTION for over two hundred years was instantly obsolete.
American “exceptionalism” taken to its sickest conclusion -- fine for the rest of the “civilized” world, but they’d better understand we’re different.
As if just repeating ad nauseam, louder and more insistently “the United States does not torture” somehow makes believers. Like some dumb yahoo shouting to make himself heard by someone with another language. Worse, as if we have neither language nor logic to counter the message of Big Brother.
What would have happened had the 9/11 attacks not succeeded in causing the carnage they did? Would American deaths, of those on the planes, still have been sufficient and so much more precious than any other signatory to the UN anti-torture convention, to justify jettisoning it, along with all other legal markers of civilized behavior? Somehow, in the hands of this government and its bipartisan enablers, I don't think it would have made much difference.
