Journalists write 'torture', people lose minds
Edward Gomez has written an article entitled, Bush signs torture bill; Americans lose essential freedom.
If I were to write an article, it would be called, “Journalists write ‘torture’, people lose minds”.
To be clear from the start, the purpose of this post is not to defend or condemn the recently signed Military Commissions Bill. The purpose is to defend the Bush administration against claims that they are despots, tyrants, and idiots. It is a response to a post by a friend and the ensuing comments. It’s faddish to dislike the leaders of the Republican party with a passion. I think it’s an ugly fad.
Mr. Gomez claims in “Bush signs torture bill, American’s lose essential freedom”, that
Now, technically, as in Stalin’s Soviet Union, Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China or Pol Pot’s Cambodia, anyone labeled an “enemy combatant” – again, by whom; by Bush? – can be whisked away and never heard from again.
Ignoring the polemic comparisons for a moment, it is worth pointing out that this claim is simply untrue. First, the Bill does specify the authorities capable of defining “unlawful enemy combatant”.
Second, Americans have not lost an essential freedom, and Mr. Gomez would know that if he had read the bill he confidently condemns. It is clear that the law only applies to unlawful enemy combatants, which are defined strictly against lawful enemy combatants as specified in article 4 of the Geneva Convention. These can indeed include American citizens, but the category is nevertheless quite limited, and were the President, the Secretary of Defense, or parties acting under their authority to ostensibly use the Bill for their own purposes, they would be culpable in American, and not just international courts.
Third, a number of reporters have latched onto the word “torture” as the ideal description of what the bill allows. The central purpose of the bill is to allow military commissions to try unlawful enemy combatants, on the grounds that a regular trial is usually impossible, for a list of reasons clearly enumerated near the beginning of the bill. It is precisely the ideal of a fair trial for all that the architects of the bill are trying preserve, in situations where the regular procedures are unenforceable. I’ll refrain from describing the whole thing. Go read about it yourself. Torture is repeatedly prohibited, and the accusation that the Bill allows it is a polemical extrapolation.
Nevertheless, the bill could, and some believe already has, been misapplied to allow for extended detention of non-civilians (in particular) in situations where a fair trial in regular courts is in fact possible. So Micheal Dorf believes, though I can’t help but notice that the link he provides to the bill excludes the section enumerating reasons why the bill must be enacted. He simply says the reasons given are insufficient, and hopes you take him at his word.
My personal belief is that the bill is justified in form, but that reliable committees should be established to monitor it’s use carefully on the level of individual cases. My understanding is that this is already the responsibility of the Secretary of Defense, but an independent committee might also be a good idea. I don’t know enough about national and international politics to say who would ideally make up such a group.
I looked into and wrote all of this because I can’t believe how hungrily people gobble up accusations against Bush and his administration, even when they are framed in unabashedly heinous terms. People compare him to Mao and Stalin and Hitler without batting an eye. He may be wrong with many of his policies – the bill in question may not be wise, but he certainly isn’t a monster, or even the colossal idiot most people seem willing to believe right now.
Perhaps people have forgotten what tyrants are really like. Remember 100 flowers? That’s heinous. Passing a controversial law in a time when terrorist plots and attacks are increasingly common worldwide does not make it right, but it doesn’t make the legislators psychos either.
Lindsay said,
Oct 19, 12:44 #
Thanks, Tristan. As usual, there’s a pretty solid middle ground.
If I were American, I would not have voted for Bush – but I’m a believer in supporting your leaders once they’re elected. At that point, what’s done is done, the majority has spoken (though we can revisit the 2001 US election debate and the perils of bad ballot design if you’d like…), and it’s time to let the guy in charge do what you’ve tasked him to do.
But it’s still fun to make fun of them a little :)
L
Brad said,
Oct 19, 17:33 #
He’s a smart man, but only in the sense that he and his closest advisors know how to pull the right strings when the nation is at it’s most vulnerable. America as a whole, and all the truly good people ‘stuck’ within it, are trapped in a cycle where the “Military Industrial Complex” that President Eisenhower warned about has materialized. There is no war right now, but somehow our neighbors to the south have convinced a large chunk of the population that an enemy is not only at the doorstep, but sneaking inside. No, this legislation doesn’t make the current administration ‘psychos’, but it truly is a sickening, frightning, and dark day for the things America fought for in it’s brief ideological peak in the decade or two leading up to the cold war. It’s just another sign that President Bush and the financial/corporate bodies that hold so much sway over American foreign policy aren’t really concerned about a stable geopolitical situation a decade, or even century from now. And yes, the CIA does torture. It doesn’t matter if they’re using somewhat mild techniques on truly bad people. The administration, who’ve proven themselves to be embarassingly wrong in the past (cough WMD cough), has given itself the right to violate basic human dignities in the face of ‘intelligence gathering’. It takes those people under s CIA/NSA/etc. suspicion and strips their humanity away with labels like ‘evil’, ‘suspected terrorist’, and ‘eneamy combatant’. Need I metnion Arar? In that case the United States not only sent the poor guy to another country, but released him into the hands of a government with a truly pathetic human rights record. All this occuring even before they had the legal right to do so under the new legislation.
Tristan said,
Oct 19, 19:29 #
The case of Maher Arar and similar cases are terrible blots on the record, and I agree that those responsible should be held accountable.
However, I cannot agree with the implication in your post that the US is not at war, or that it is a made up war for the convenience of its leaders. Back in 1998 al queda made an open declaration of war on the US and wasn’t taken seriously until 9/11. It was a mistake that cost many lives. France didn’t begin taking terrorist threats seriously, and the possibility that they might have to do something other than wait for Muslim discontentment to go away, until the rioting began in their streets.
Europe and the UK are full of Muslims, most of whom are happy to live in harmony with the dominant culture, but enough of which have other intentions that they cannot be ignored. The fact that both groups live side by side mean that the kind of war being waged is one in which they have the political advantage though not the military one. It’s easy for governments to make bad decisions that only discontent their own people, and the whole Muslim community (not just the terrorists). This is something European governments are dealing with right now. The US has been right all along that action must be taken, though this war cannot be fought as a conventional war, and steps like moving into Iraq may only aggravate the problem.
Personally, I think the move was at least justified, and had nothing to do with WMD, though that was one of the reasons given when the war began (since then, people forget that there were others as well – and that the fact that Saddam wouldn’t give UN representatives full access was already a breach of the Gulf War agreements). I doubt it was the smartest move possible in the greater context of the war on terror; at the very least it would appear it could have been handled better: with more protection for the Iraqi citizens, controlled more carefully against abuses from within the military, and with a clear plan to pull out and set let the Iraqis set up their government. Having said that, in a situation as complex as this, I have no idea what the smartest move would have been. Imagine the US had done nothing – it’s a blissful thought, unless you include a counterfactual major second successful terrorist attack, in which case the government would have hung out to dry for take inadequate measures in the war on terror, and failing to take terrorist threats seriously not once, but twice.
Back to torture though, a little sleep deprivation and a few missed meals don’t strike me as out of order when you’re talking about things on the order of bombing airlines – the “truly bad people” you spoke of. And the idea that officials take a frustrated swing at known enemies from time to time is no surprise to anyone whose ever watched a movie and cheered when the ‘bad guy’ got his. Of course, movies aren’t real life, and we don’t always really know who the bad guys are, hence the actual restrictions. But I’m curious what gives you the grounds to confidently claim: the CIA does torture? Arar was a mistake – but a deportation mistake, and the CIA can’t be blamed for the poor practices of the Syrian government. Perhaps you’re aware of other examples that I am not.
njero said,
Oct 19, 19:48 #
Thank you T. The second thing I heard about this mess was in the form of an MSNB special bulletin (an interesting watch, beware of flying rhetoric ). ‘Twas pointed directly at the gut of the viewers.
Tristan said,
Oct 19, 21:48 #
You sir, have provided us with a worthwhile link.
My response to Olbermann is simply: when the government begins declaring journalists or men-on-the-street “unlawful enemy combatents”, then it will have gone too far.
And my response to those who say, “What about…” and go on to repeat Olbermann’s points about the Bill is: read the thing for yourself and decide.
Brad said,
Oct 20, 13:08 #
Some peer reviewed journal articles related to the CIA and the American Armed Forces’ views and practices regarding torture. Note that each article also contains a host of good sources for further research.
1.) Controversy Continues regarding Detainees Held by the CIA, Renditions to Other Countries (in Contemporary Practice of the United States Relating to International Law)
The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 99, No. 3. (Jul., 2005), pp. 706-707.
2.) Application of Fifth Amendment to Overseas Torture of Alien (in Contemporary Practice of the United States Relating to International Law)
The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 95, No. 3. (Jul., 2001), pp. 641-643.
3.) Continuing Controversy regarding Secret U.S. Rendition and Detention Practices (in Contemporary Practice of the United States Relating to International Law)
The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 100, No. 1. (Jan., 2006), pp. 232-236.
4.) Torture
Henry Shue
Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 7, No. 2. (Winter, 1978), pp. 124-143.
5.) Toward Truly Outlawing Torture (in Letters)
Anatoly Koryagin
Science, New Series, Vol. 241, No. 4871. (Sep. 9, 1988), p. 1277.
And I would define sleep depravation and witholding meals as a form of psychological torture. It’s widely accepted among the social sciences that even some harsher forms of police interrogation lead to false confessions.
There a whole host of things that America could be doing to shift it’s position in the world. True, given the hole they’ve dug, there is little choice but to throttle up the paranoia and international meddling. It’s just that they’re making no attempt to get off the slipperly slope they’re on. Violence is bing met with more violence. Terrorism has killed thousands of American innocents. but the “war on terrrorism” has killed hundreds of thousands of foreign innocents. You can try to rationalize this mess until the cows come home, but the results are the same. The world is getting angrier and angrier at America and they’re refusing to focus on the underlying causes. America has adopted a policy of “power at the expense of others” and they’re shooting instead of talking whenever they come accross a group of people who’ve become pissed off to the point of madness. I’d love to talk further, but I gotta run to work. But seriously, it’s nice to have someone to debate politics with who isn’t just riding a fad or trend, even if they are half a world away.
Kelly Wilson said,
Oct 20, 17:01 #
Brad, clarify your clam that the ‘war on terrorism’ has killed “hundreds of thousands of foreign innocents.”
You might benefit by employing fact.
Should you find such a venture convenient to your rhetoric, I’d also ask you to insert any respectable data into your entire last paragraph, but that would be too much after all, so I won’t request it.
That said, I was pleased to see that while you’d love to talk longer, you have to go to work.
Brad said,
Oct 20, 22:18 #
In response to Kelly Wilson
Perhaps my last comment was a touch harsh, likely fueled by the fact that I’m quite angry and hot headed about the issue. Then again, the response was meant for Tristan, and like many of our face-to-face conversations over the years he knows that after a few volleys I tend to calm down and take on a more civilized tone. You have my apologies should you have taken offence to my comments, but yes, I would be happy to support the basis of my last post. First, the Iraq war and ensuing regional destabilization alone may well have led to the death of one hundred thousand civilians. The highly regarded British medical journal Lancet argued for a death toll of 600,000. This is indeed a high number, probably far too high given the data collection methods, but a number of 100,000 is often used as a reasonable figure among varying parties. This article is full of links to both sides of the argument, most of which should work for those who do not have access to academic journal archives online:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/worldopinionroundup/2006/10/is_iraqs_civilian_death_toll_h.html
The site itself is a blog, and while it takes a fairly neutral standpoint, the links are far more credible.
Even if one were to take the most conservative estimates, looking solely at casualties caused by coalition forces, the numbers are unacceptable given the basis for war in the first place.
This of course brings us to the reason for the war itself. We all know wars are highly complex, unpredictable, multifaceted entities. The reasons and rationalizations for going to war are usually confusing at best. Saying that the Civil War was about slavery and World War 2 was about fascism would, in both cases, be a dangerous oversimplification. What we can be certain of is that the Republican government told it’s citizens that Iraq was a DIRECT threat to American security and that they had irrefutable evidence that Iraq was in possession of both biological and chemical weapons (nuclear as well). In truth, they probably were, and at some point we may find a bunch of VX nerve gas cylinders in the desert. Of course, much of that technology was supplied to Iraq by the United States in the first place; perhaps we can recall Donald Rumsfeld’s meetings with Hussein in 1985 as a private businessman representing the Regan administration. But that’s getting into specifics, something I’d be happy to discuss, but I already suspect this is entry is going to get quite lengthy. Anyhow, the point lies in what happened after the US found itself without WMD’s to parade about with as banners of validation. Indeed many countries, including Canada, were surprised to find such little evidence of chemical, biological, and nuclear production/capability.
In a series of speeches president Bush began moving the focus from weapons capability to the so-called “Al Qaeda connection”. This was the point at which I see the preemptive invasion becoming a fully-fledged part of the war on terror. This is how I would connect the massive civilian death toll with the war on terrorism. We can argue about whether or not these people died in vain another time, but my person belief is that they did.
Now we proceed to the second paragraph where I accused American foreign policy of being, well, disgusting. I can provide examples from throughout the last century. First, the use of military force in Latin America up until 1934 to help maintain the United States’ economic strangle hold on the region through companies like United Fruit, the so-called ‘Banana Wars’. In this case many countries, both regionally and abroad, accused the United States of both the unjust use of force and walking the path towards renewed colonial control over the region. Next we’ll look at actions during the Cold War. Time after time the United States put it’s disagreements with the Soviet empire before the well being of the countries on which this harsh ideological battle was fought (the Soviet Union guilty of the same, if not worse). America created and deposed a whole host of puppet dictators in the Middle East, Saddam himself being one of the last. Most of the small, surface to air missiles fired at allied forces during the Afghan campaign had been supplied by the US during the Soviet invasion in the 80’s. To this day the United States imposes strict embargoes and controls upon communist Cuba, saints compared to some of America’s other trading partners around the Globe. I’m talking about the 4-5000 tons of gum from Sudan, not to mention oil from Middle Eastern countries enforcing rules and laws unthinkable to most Americans. The United States shows a startling trend, flexing its muscles when they don’t stand to loose much yet willing to overlook some of the most disgusting human rights violations in recent history when they face a greater economic impact. Again, this is my personal view, but I fail to see how the United States can claim to carry the torch of freedom given their track record. They don’t have the moral weight to garner respect from the world at this point. I’d love to go on, but anybody reading this is probably tired of me already. I’m also encroaching upon another rather inflammatory subject, the role of corporate America in the country’s policy decisions. I’m reminded of an excellent documentary called “Why We Fight” from last year, perhaps worth a look to anyone interested.
Yes, it is unfortunately trendy to bash Bush and the republicans these days. Sometimes it goes to far. On top of that, America has done a great deal of good as well. They played a strong role in the UN led Balkan intervention. Afghanistan is far better off without the Taliban… until the US bailed and left the other NATO countries their mess when they left for Iraq. Western Europe owes much of it’s freedom to America’s efforts in World War 2… of course they came a bit late to that one as well… and refused to let Jews take refuge on their soil… and imprisoned the Japanese… but heck, so did Canada. Honestly, Canada’s hands are damn near as dirty.
Now I’m tired, I’m going to bed. If you want more detailed sources for ANYTHING let me know and they will be provided.
And specifically to Tristan… I hope this massive post doesn’t mean you have to pay for more web space J.
Brad said,
Oct 20, 22:23 #
I also realize this has diverged quite a bit from torture… this always happens doesn’t it Tristan. I seem to recall us talking about religion one time and quickly finding ourselves in the thick of geopolitics.
P.S. Remember when I beat you twice at Pool!
Miss ya dude…
now I’m really going to sleep.
Tristan said,
Oct 21, 09:46 #
To Brad (and anyone else still reading), I do intend to respond to your lengthy posts, which I have read, as soon as I have time. It is now the weekend and peak teaching period here in Chongqing so a thoughtful reply will have to wait a day or two. Sorry for the delay. I too, appreciate the chance to discuss these things with someone willing to discuss them in depth. And don’t worry, I also know all about the heat of debate and the calm that follows (or generally ought to if the debators are rational people, or even simply friends {how can I claim myself to be a rational person?}).
njero said,
Oct 21, 19:29 #
Still reading? Ha, you humble little shyster you.
Tristan said,
Nov 2, 21:43 #
I deleted my last post by accident while cleaning up some spam. I have no intention of rewriting it. There you have it.