Don't believe the hype. The "
Fuck you, that's why" party is in action again.
Their policies in shambles, credibility in tatters and "mandate" in trouble, the Right Wing Noise Machine is ramping up its criticisms of those deemed "un-American" and "pro-terrorist" for pointing out the egregious violations and practices of the Bush administration and its surrogates in the war in Iraq and the global war on terror.
The abuses, as has been publicized, run rampant at Guantanamo Bay, causing our elected officials - some Republicans, even - to critically examine the U.S. mission in Cuba. One Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin, has been vilified for making these statements on the floor of the Senate this week:
If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.
For simply telling the truth about Gitmo, Durbin - starting even before the ink had dried on the transcript of his statements - was being
criticized for likening U.S. troops to Nazis, which a cursory reading of his speech would reveal he was not. Here's a sampling of the smear campaign:
"I think this is one of the grossest and sickest statements to be made yet," writes blogger Art Green. "This is beyond hyperbole and rhetoric. I really do not have to explain how brutal and murderous the three organizations Durbin compared our soldiers to."
"It really shows his motives and how much affection he has for our troops," he continued. "Whenever I hear Durbin say that he 'supports the troops,' I know it will be a bald face lie. How could you support someone who you think are no better than genocidal maniacs?"
During his nationally broadcast radio show today, talk-show host Rush Limbaugh said he was stunned by Durbin's remarks, and said he was embarrassed Durbin was an American and a senator.
"The Nazis gassed people," said Limbaugh. "The Nazis mass murdered people. The Nazis committed all kinds of atrocities. The Nazis would attach electrodes to genitals. The Nazis would use electrical shock. The Nazis were literally brutal. We have nothing in common with them. The Soviets and their gulags? The Soviets killed over 1.7 million people in their gulags alone. Many of their gulags were in Siberia, where it's often below zero on a daily basis. That's not Guantanamo Bay and what we did - and Pol Pot? The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia? Pol Pot was a mass murderer of his own citizens. ... We deserve to lose this war. If we're going to be led by such idiocy and such ignorance as this, we deserve to lose it."
Again, any sane person reading what Durbin said would realize how moronic Republican mouthpieces like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Matt Drudge are being. Durbin (who
isn't backing down) isn't likening our troops to Nazis, he's saying that our documented - and not officially refuted - actions in Guantanamo Bay would be more at home under Soviet or Nazi regimes than in America. He's asking us to take a hard look in the mirror at what we've become, when our actions have drawn fire from organizations like
Amnesty International and we have the temerity to
criticize the International Committee of the Red Cross for, in the Republicans' eyes, acting against the interests of the United States. Let me repeat that: We're at a point under President Bush where
Amnesty International is criticizing us while we're criticizing the
International Committee of the Red Cross. It's sad that we've fallen that far as a nation.
What you see here isn't a Democrat being unpatriotic or un-American. You're seeing someone bravely speaking truth to power in a time of war, when dissent - a very patriotic activity - is vital to the functioning of the American system. What you're also seeing is the Republicans, in effect, telling us that everything we've fought other regimes doing for the better part of a century is fine as long as we're the ones doing it. They are, in short, pro-torture. And by calling those who would highlight this wrongdoing unpatriotic and un-American - would they rather us march in totalitarian lock step? - they by default group themselves with the very individuals and groups Durbin mentioned.
Speaking of Guantanamo Bay, did you read yesterday where a Bush administration official went on record as saying he thought detainees could be kept there "in perpetuity"? Criticizing this, I'm sure, would brand any Democrat as pro-terrorist and un-American, but it's issues like this and so many more - the move to restrict the Draconian Patriot Act, for instance - that get me to my larger point: Democrats and like-minded Republicans citing the drastic shifts in behavior on behalf of the United States aren't doing so to "defend terrorists" or act "against American interests." They're doing so to protect America and Americans, not only from those who would attack us, but also from ourselves.
What do I mean? Well, as eriposte said so well on The Left Coaster, torture - on a practical level - is much more harmful than it is beneficial. Torturing those who, in some cases, are innocent (and even those who are guilty) lends the tortured credibility in the eyes of their countrymen and throughout the world. It also instantly makes the United States look like a tyrannical regime, as we sink to the level of those we fight. Apart from acting as a recruiting tool for future terrorists, it places our armed forces at risk of being tortured themselves. Now that's un-American. And our administration has signed off on it.
It is my belief, however, that these right-minded politicians - those like Durbin - aren't simply fighting for the rights of the detained. They're fighting for our rights. Is it really that big of a leap of logic to assume that an administration that would condone the torture and, to a greater extent, the legal wrongdoing in Guantanamo - detention without end, loss of due process and equal protection, etc. - would also condone it against its own citizens within the U.S. borders? Without people like Durbin and many, many more speaking out, what's to stop the Bush administration from treating Americans, in many ways, the same way it treats "enemy combatants"? The stories of Aaron Stokes/Aaron Kilner and Barry Reingold in "Fahrenheit 9/11" are, of course, the tip of the iceberg. The continuing intrusions into our private lives and affairs are as depressing as they are illegal - and wanton.
We already know the administration prefers to act in secrecy, outside the scrutiny of the citizens and the media, abusing power to pursue its agenda. We also know now - as we have suspected - that we were led into war based on a pack of lies and that our actions were premeditated. Many in this country have so far given a free pass to Bush and company, claiming their actions are a necessary protection against those who "hate America." But there's a line that we're nearing that, if crossed, there's no going back from. As the brilliant diary on Daily Kos pointed out, "There was a time when the Nazis had never killed a Jew. Then there was the day they did. And then there were the days that followed."
There are many Americans who, reading that, would brand that argument as un-American, saying, "It could never happen here." But do you really believe that? Are Americans so unique a people that what befell Germany - and has befallen many other nations - could never happen here? Could we be that arrogant and shortsighted? I'm afraid so and, without those who dissent in the face of massive opposition, we may indeed soon see ourselves standing at the edge of a very steep cliff.