The
Providence Journal ran an
editorial on Friday cheering on President Chimpy's torture bill. Naturally, I couldn't let that lie, so I took the opportunity to fisk the wretched thing on my blog. And if it's good enough for my tiny Rhode Island audience, then it's good enough for the good people here at the Orange Mothership.
For those of you not in the know, the Projo (as we call it) is owned by the Belo Corp., the same company that owns the wingnut Dallas Morning News, and every so often they prove it with an editorial like this one.
It's pretty obvious that one of the higher ups at Belo sends the editorial board of the Projo orders from time to time about what their editorials should say. This is clearly one of those times. So, if you'll follow me below the fold, you can witness "The Fisking of the Projo":
I imagine the Projo has had today's editorial waiting in the wings for some time now. If you wanted the GOP's talking points on the torture bill laid out in perfect detail, you couldn't ask for a better example than this editorial. Let's take a look at it in detail:
Half a year after the nation thought it had put the torture issue behind it, the ugly word is back.
Gosh, I wonder why? Could it be because the Bush administration is still torturing prisoners?
The Supreme Court's ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld requires the United States to treat detainees in the campaign against terrorism as if they were covered by the Geneva Conventions.
As opposed to the Bushies making up their own rules as they go along, which is what they've been doing for the last five years.
President Bush has proposed legislation to accomplish that.
President Bush has proposed legislation to circumvent Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, because he doesn't want to give up the right to make up the rules as he goes along.
Part of the legislation refers to the Geneva accords' Common Article 3, which bans "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." Mr. Bush contends that this language requires clarification, so that U.S. military and intelligence personnel will know which interrogation techniques are legal.
Mr. Bush seeks to obscure the perfectly clear language of Common Article 3 as a prelude to circumventing it.
We oppose torture,
Unless we call it something else like "aggressive interrogation", in which case we're all for it.
and note that Mr. Bush denies that U.S. interrogators use it.
And note that every word that passes Mr. Bush's lips is a lie, including "and" and "the".
The techniques banned under Common Article 3 are not considered torture, either.
Which is why Mr. Bush feels a need to "clarify" it.
The need for clarity arises because some aggressive methods
See, we're just talking about "aggressive methods", not torture. Because, like we say, we oppose torture, but we're totally cool with aggressive methods.
used in a Central Intelligence Agency counter-terrorism program that may have prevented attacks on the U.S. and our allies
Note the weasel language employed here: "may have prevented". This progam may also have prevented a plague of locusts, a Martian invasion, and tooth decay.
may or may not fall under the prohibition of Common Article 3 -- depending on how it is analyzed.
So, how should we determine whether or not this CIA program is prohibited by this international treaty? Should we go to an international body whose job it is to monitor compliance with the Geneva Conventions, tell them what methods the CIA is using, and let them decide? Of course not! We should let Mr. Bush decide, because he is The Decider!
The White House proposes legislation to clarify the prohibition to allow, for use on high-value suspects,
But only for use on high-value suspects. And who determines whether a suspect is high-value? Mr. Bush, of course, because he is The Decider!
stress techniques
But not torture. Because, as we noted before, we oppose torture, but we're all about the stress techniques.
such as sleep deprivation,
Here's an experiment you can try. Get some friends together, let them tie you up, and whenever you start to fall asleep, let them smack you around until you wake up. Keep letting them do this for the next week. Then report back on whether you consider this to be torture.
temperature changes,
Here's another experiment you can try. Get some friends together, let them tie you up naked in a meat locker, and let them keep the temperature below freezing for a few days. Then report back on whether you consider this to be torture.
and loud rock music.
Here's yet another experiment you can try. Get some friends together, let them tie you up, and let them blast a Metallica song into your ears at a painfully high volume over and over and over for a few days. Then report back on whether you consider this to be torture.
We believe that these are important clarifications to make; they would help U.S. interrogators steer clear of actual torture.
Because we are perfectly all right with subjecting "high-value suspects" to "aggressive methods" and "stress techniques", but we oppose torture.
Four Republican senators, including John McCain (a Vietnam War war prisoner who was tortured), along with most Democrats, favored an alternative bill that simply adopted the Common Article 3 language. Mr. Bush said that that would kill the useful CIA interrogation program,
Because, although we oppose torture, we're perfectly happy with Mr. Bush's CIA interrogation program, even though we don't know what actual methods it employs, and we don't want to find out, and we don't want anyone else to find out, either.
although he did adopt for his bill Mr. McCain's language in the law passed in January for detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
And which he subsequently said in a presidential signing statement that he intended to ignore.
A compromise that appears to satisfy the needs of both sides
Except for the side that thinks torture is a bad idea.
now lets the legislation go to the full Congress. It should be passed swiftly.
So we can get on with the important business of <strike>torturing</strike> aggressively interrogating those high-value suspects without having to worry about whether Mr. Bush might be hauled off to the Hague to face charges as a war criminal.
Let's be realistic.
Warning flag: we're about to bury you in tons of bullshit.
While experts disagree on whether torture works,
Major, major weaselness here. Whenever people want to muddy the waters on an issue, they always resort to the old "experts disagree" dodge: "experts disagree" about global warming, "experts disagree" about cigarettes causing cancer, "experts disagree" about evolution, and on and on and on.
Anyone who isn't a moral cripple knows that torture doesn't work. All torture lets you do is make somebody say what you want them to say. Here's how it goes:
INTERROGATOR: Was Saddam Hussein working with bin Laden to attack America?
CAPTIVE: Of course not, they hate each others' guts.
INTERROGATOR: Wrong answer.
CAPTIVE: AAAAAAAAAHHH!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!! AAAAAAAAAHHH!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!! AAAAAAAAAHHH!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!
INTERROGATOR: Now, I'm going to ask you again. Was Saddam Hussein working with bin Laden to attack America?
CAPTIVE: YES!! YES!! AAAAAHH!! AAAAAHH!! ANYTHING YOU SAY!! AAAAAHH!! AAAAAHH!! AAAAAHH!!
INTERROGATOR: Williams, contact the President, tell him we've confirmed the link between Saddam and bin Laden.
and surely the same can be said of less aggressive methods,
No, it can't. And don't call me Shirley.
U.S. security cannot rest on methods that amount to polite questioning. Just imagine a nuke hidden in an American city; in seeking to learn its location, who would object even to torture?
Why, us, of course, because as we noted above, we oppose torture. Except when we don't. Oh, yeah, and regarding that hidden nuke:
1ST INTERROGATOR: Okay, mister, where's that nuke hidden?
ACTUAL TERRORIST: In a black van parked at the corner of Weybosset and Dorrance.
2ND INTERROGATOR: Is he telling the truth?
IST INTERROGATOR: Damned if I know. He could keep on giving us false leads until the damn thing goes off.
We would expect a U.S. president to disobey the law banning torture under such circumstances
Especially this president, since he believes he has the right to disobey any law he feels like. But we don't think he should, because as we stated at the beginning of this editorial, we oppose torture.
-- and face a jury later, with confidence.
Though, since we oppose torture, we believe that a jury should find him guilty, and that he should face the full penalty of the law for his illegal actions. Especially since torturing people wouldn't actually help us find any hidden nukes.
The current debate does not involve such extreme circumstances, but it could come close.
Still more weaselness: "it could come close", but it won't, because we live in the real world, not an episode of 24. And of course, since torture doesn't actually work, this whole editorial is pure crap.
Some terrorism suspects who planned to blow themselves up might resist any interrogation technique; others who welcome a swift death (followed by entry into Paradise) might talk under conditions of, say, discomfort or deprivation far short of torture.
And some terrorism suspects who weren't actually terrorists might be tortured to death while we try to extract information they don't have. But we're not concerned about that, because we have no sense of decency.
So who knows?
Not us, that's for damn sure. We've made it painfully obvious that we don't have a freakin' clue. We just print what our lords and masters in Dallas tell us to print.
Clearly, though,
Warning sign: more bullshit ahead.
U.S. interrogators need to know what is legal and what is not.
And they do know what is legal and what is not. But they need an excuse for when they use illegal methods. And even more important, their superiors in the White House need an excuse for when they order them to use illegal methods.
We oppose torture
Except, of course, when we don't. See above.
but support methods of interrogation that stop short of torture,
Unless we decide we shouldn't stop short of torture. See above.
at least with the most dangerous suspects.
And who decides who the most dangerous suspects are? Why, The Decider, of course!
We do not think that clarifying Common Article 3 amounts to amending, let alone withdrawing from, the Geneva Conventions.
At any rate, that's our story, and we're sticking to it.
And we do not believe that al-Qaida will chop off heads with any greater alacrity if the language is clarified.
Which neatly ignores the question of whether we put our troops at greater risk of being tortured by other countries by "clarifying" the Geneva Conventions.
Choosing the words to codify actions ranging from the unpleasant to the inhumane requires delicacy, to say the least.
That's why we think the job should be left to our dim-witted Decider-in-Chief and his clique of unrepentant war criminals.
Let us hope, however, that the White House and Congress can summon enough statesmanship
And when we say "statesmanship", we of course mean "cynical political posturing".
to balance the claims of both humanity and national security.
To gin up some ammunition to use against the Democrats in November.