The Senator Would Like to Add that He is Vewy Sowwy
Daniel Koffler | June 22, 2005, 5:08pm
Dick Durbin finally gives the people what they want, a (sort-of) retraction of his (sort-of) comparison of U.S. interrogation techniques to those of the Nazis, the Soviets, and the Khmer Rouge:
"Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line," said the Illinois Democrat, at times holding back tears. "To them I extend my heartfelt apologies."
I, for one, am glad to see that this national crisis is over. Words have consequences, a "lesson that we all learn over and over again and again," as Bill Frist aptly noted. To pre-empt the occurrence of any similar atrocity, perhaps the White House press apparatus, in conjunction with the Office of Legal Counsel, could put together an exhaustive list of acceptable metaphors, similes, historical analogies, proverbs, and various turns of phrase that will enable criticisms of government policy to lead to lively debates about...government policy.
Josh | June 22, 2005, 7:00pm | #
It's a shame that
President Bush, Senator Frist, and the Right-Wing Blogospheric
Noise Machine can't summon the same level of outrage they've mustered over Durbin's comments over the account he read in the paragraph before - or the countless others like it. Don't hold your breath for a word from Bush or Frist this week to condemn the use of starving and freezing as interrogation techniques.
Instead, they're accusing Senator Durbin of comparing all of America's servicemen and servicewomen to Nazis, a charge as willfully inaccurate as Frist's
claim that Durbin called Guanatanamo a "death camp" (that's what
happens when you get all of your news from the
Washington Times). While Durbin's phrasing is awkward, his plain meaning is clearly not that America is a Nazi state but rather that torture is a practice which better befits an oppressive regime than the United States. Leaving people restrained without water in oppressive heat to defecate on themselves, Durbin reminds us, is a violation of the values of this country. The obvious question, then, for Durbin's critics is this: Do you see leaving people restrained without water in oppressive heat to defecate on themselves as as expression of the values of this country. Only a truly perverse definition of patriotism would demand, when we see unamerican crimes perpetrated under the American flag, that we change our values as a country to justify our behavior rather than the other way around. There's no need to mention Nazis in order to make this point. But there's no justification for reading it as a smear of the US as Nazi Germany or men and women in the service as Nazis.
The latter - the
accusation that Durbin attacked Americans in the military - is even more insidious than the accusation that he attacked America itself. The
implication is that anyone who criticizes a policy military personnel carry out is expressing scorn, distrust, or murderous rage towards every American in the service (this is analagous to the strategy Thomas Frank documents in
One Market Under God of dismissing criticisms of business as expressions of elitism towards the American consumer). It's a strategy we saw in the
Presidential debates, as Bush implied that criticism of our Iraq policy showed a lack of faith in our troops in Iraq. It's a strikingly tendentious rhetorical move and a pox on a discourse we desperately need to be having as a nation.
Most of all, pretending to hear criticism of the policy as an attack on the troops is a show of incredible cowardice. Faced with much-deserved rhetorical volleys, George Bush is essentially dragging American soldiers in front of him as an unwitting buffer between himself and the rest of the American people. In this rhetorical draft, American soldiers are called to act as a symbolic first line of defense against justified outrage over the administration. Never mind the number of those soldiers and their families who share that outrage, or who have no interest in being drafted -voiceless - into ideological warfare on behalf of the chickenhawks and policies which lead to needless death. Critics of torture and critics of war are taking on our leaders, not our troops. That those leaders, rather than defending their choices, make a show of rising to defend the honor of the troops just shows how little shame they have.
Joshralphus | June 22, 2005, 11:40pm | #
"Unless, by "these guys," you really mean to say "brown people." If that's the case, my bad."
Come on Rick, you're better than that. If you want to paint me a racist just say it and don't be a flippant little pussy about it. You were scoring points with your argument up until that point. I assume that many of the detainees are in fact "brown people". There are most likely white people, black people, beigish people, and yellow people as well. I don't care. The only prejudice I hold is against people who want to blow me the fuck up.
Now to your worthwhile arguments; You are correct. The Constitution says every citizen has the right to due process and the presumption of innocence. The key word being citizen. These brown, white, yellow, black, beigish detainees are not citizens. However we are providing them with a chance to state their case.
"We do know that a significant portion of Gitmo detainees have been simply released (after years of imprisonment)without apology."
So obviously there is some form of process at work to filter out the wrong place wrong time guys from the hardened jihadist. I admit it kind of shitty we didn't apologize and that we picked them up in the first place. But I'm willing to wager that more than two or three hardcore jihadist played the "I am but a simple cabbie" card. I'd rather they cast a wide net and nab a few unlucky shlubs and sort it out later than let one lucky, deadly bastard get away.
Ken,
"One of the differences between our practices and the gulags/death camps is that when we do shit like that, loyal Americans and some of their political leaders publicly condemn it and cry out for accountability."
I agree. I'm not as bloodthirsty a racist as Rick would like to think. Dissent and oversight are good things. I just don't want to lose sight of the fact that we are fighting a dirty fight with some real hardasses. I don't mind that there is a place on the planet that every terrorist is afraid of. They may not fear death, but they fear Gitmo.
Accountability is a good thing and for the most part I think those who step over the line are being held accountable. But lets not be naive about who we are fighting and lets also not be naive to the fact that when you get rough sometimes people get hurt and die. The point I was trying to make with my near-drowning comment is that death is not the results we seek but, unlike other countries of the past and present, when it does happen people are punished.
I still ask all you non-bloodthirsty folks, what should we do with this racially diverse group of terrorist guys? If you were in charge of dealing with captured enemy combatants what would be your policy? I�m not trying to be a dick, I just really want to hear some better ideas than our current solution.
rob | June 23, 2005, 12:46am | #
Yes, by all means, go back and read the threads where I mopped the floor with every single one of Ken Schultz's claims. Like Ken does, I also urge you to read the Schlesinger Report, which supports NONE of his claims, but which Ken refers to frequently.
That's the report he claims shows orders & policy to torture, but which actually contains Bush's presidential order to extend Geneva to all detainees - even those who don't qualify for it!
Ken, give up, let it go, you're just plain wrong. Unless you can prove that the Bush memo is a secret code that means "break out the dog leashes and commence Operation Sodomy."
"Is there a more clear, concise or meaningful way to describe the way we treated these prisoners other than comparing it to other well known instances of abuse? ...Go ahead, give it a shot." - Ken Schultz
Yeah, Ken, I've given you nursing homes, US prisons, etc. I'd even throw in some military training environments (boot camp, Ranger school, SERE training etc.) as equivalent or considerably worse treatment.
Deaths at Gitmo, Abug Ghraib? Well, yes, people have died while in military custody. People DO die. It happens even OUTSIDE of military custody, to large numbers of people every year. If it was a murder, it will be dealt with by the same sort of military justice that EVERY Gitmo detainee has had. As much as I hate to use Michelle Malkin as an example, she has a good editorial that discusses the military tribunal system and briefly discusses why it is used at Gitmo and why the claims that "detainees are locked away with no due process" are BS, pure and simple. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20050622.shtml
rob | June 23, 2005, 12:49am | #
Jon H – You’ve obviously had a long, deep drink of the Ken Schultz Kool-Aid. In his version, the Schlesinger Report is a smoking gun showing policy & orders to torture. (No such claims are in the Report.) In your version, which you ALSO have no evidence for, the military was going to give the Abu Ghraib dimwits a free pass. That no officers were tried spells cover-up, rather than the more likely "no officers were involved." Of course, I'm sure you can provide photos of Lynddie England and some dumb-ass Lieutenant playing "hide the light-stick" in some guys butt... (Like Ken has the memo to Lynddie England and the package Rumsfeld sent her the dog leash in with his return address on the package…)
You reference "crushing a man's legs to a pulp and letting him die, even though they thought he was innocent." This is new to me. I'd appreciate a reference to something that corroborates it. If it’s true, then I suspect it’s going to get more crowded at Leavenworth. But pardon my skepticism…
"then I don't see what the point is of the abuse, coercion, and torture”
Apparently Bush doesn’t see the point either, which is why abuse and torture has (and continue to) be prosecuted under the UCMJ. Even the abuse at Abu Ghraib doesn't rise to the level of torture, tho - with the possible exception of sodomy. (But then, most US prisons are torture institutions by this logic, and I’m hard-pressed to defend US prisons on this point.)
“Context? If you bring context into play, then you're dealing in rank moral relativism.”
What??? You mean like the context you claim makes Amnesty International’s use of the word “gulag” okay? (Oh no, they meant it as a term of organization… Apparently no matter how ridiculous the argument, you’ll go with it if it’s on your side of the issue, Jon.)
“What happend to absolutes? Black and white? Wrong and right? Good and evil?”
Nothing. But you may have noticed that the detainees don’t fit into nice, clear-cut categories the way POWs in WW2 did.
One note for the record, in the North Sea I wasn't naked - I was in uniform AND wearing cold weather gear during my watch. And I guarantee you it was colder than the AC turned all the way down at Gitmo. Clothed or naked. I nearly lost body parts during that idiocy, and no one raised a bit of fuss over it. Pardon me if I don't feel too bad about a naked detainee in a chilly cell. Cry me a river.
Ok, the caffeine buzz is wearing off, and my capacity to muster indignation at some of the loonier bits of this thread. Maybe we'll pick this up in the morning...
Rick Hall | June 23, 2005, 1:19am | #
Ralphus, not everything revolves around you. There are plenty of bloodthirsty morons; I was addressing those who, like you, conflate the word "terrorist" with the phrases "enemy combatant," "detainee" and "guys who talk funny and wouldn't obey our commands in English at the checkpoint." Even after conceding that they might not all be guilty of anything except running too slow, you still, in your last paragraph, call them terrorists. This is a major point. THE point, IMO.
You seem to proceed from the idea that this is the first time in history that America has had to contend with the enemy combatant issue. Excuse me, but there are a few protocols that had evolved from wars fought previously. Some of them were pounded out in jazzy, all-night diplomatic bull sessions in places as far away as Geneva, Switzerland. Before 9/11 (which changed everything, yeah, we know, we know) certain agreements protected OUR captured soldiers, by giving the U.S. a moral high ground that didn't require niggling calculations of relative degrees of pain and/or disingenuous parsing of language to defend torture, torture-lite, forced sodomy, fraternity fun or whatever the Republicans are calling it.
"I'd rather they cast a wide net and nab a few unlucky shlubs and sort it out later than let one lucky, deadly bastard get away." Well, that's one big difference between you and me, and I think it's a fundamental view of justice - some of us would rather the State set free a couple of guilty people than to punish one person unjustly, while others would rather see many innocent eggs get smashed in order to make an omelet that nobody escapes from. I'll add that those of the latter opinion never seem to imagine themselves in the role of the innocent victims... only as badass punishers of the clearly guilty.
The problem isn't that jihadists "fear Gitmo." I fear Gitmo, and what it represents. As should anyone with a conscience, anyone who sees a future for the ideals in our founding documents.
As a beigist myself, I'll take you at your word that your arguments don't spring from racism. There are much, much worse things in this world than racism. For example, moral exceptionalism.
thoreau | June 23, 2005, 2:02am | #
As I recall, they were released because the Administration was forced to try them, and the Administration didn't have sufficient evidence to prosecute. To me, that doesn't mean that they weren't dangerous; in fact, I don't see any reason not to believe that they are dangerous. I think this is further evidence that Rumsfeld and company are incredibly incompetent.
Now you know how those of us in southern California feel with our security in the hands of LA prosecutors and juries!
But seriously, that's a good reason to run these investigations like criminal investigations, with documentation of evidence. We need to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, and prove that we did so.
Now, it would be tempting to say "Oh, look at that liberal weenie thoreau, demanding that we give these guilty guys the benefit of the trial." But in fact, what I'm suggesting is that we
keep the terrorists locked up rather than release them. It's just that if you want to keep people locked up you have to have a trial. And no, it's not for their benefit. If they're terrorists I don't really give a damn about them.
It's for
our benefit: The executive branch needs to be kept on a short leash at all times. No, I'm not paranoid enough to think that they'll start arresting opposition candidates tomorrow if they get to hold terrorists without trial. But neither am I naive enough to think that if we let them off the leash they'll never, ever go down that slippery slope. It won't happen tomorrow, it won't even happen under this administration, but if we let them off the leash it will eventually happen. Call me paranoid if you will, but history is on my side.
kwais-
I might not agree with you on exactly what the parameters should be, but I agree 100% that they should be explicitly defined and strictly enforced. In fact, I'd be willing to (reluctantly) accept a lot of things if they were done in a controlled manner. My biggest fear is not any particular thing that might be done. Rather, it's what might happen if government agents learn that rules are meaningless.
rob | June 23, 2005, 9:31am | #
"The due process they get is what landed them at Gitmo. Someone had good reason to believe that the person was a terrorist." - kwais
Exactly! And the military tribunal that is used to determine that they should stay at Gitmo IS due process.
In fact, similar procedures can be used to try OUR military personnel for crimes. But according to some of the posts here, that's not enough due process. So how is this good enough for our military personnel but not good enough for the guys detained while trying to kill our military personnel?
The detainees get "appeals" to a military tribunal periodically - that's how 200 or so have been released. And how some of them got back to Iraq and Afghanistan to shoot at our folks again.
Here's a primer on military tribunals: http://cfrterrorism.org/responses/tribunals.html
"What makes this inquest significant is that these prisoners represent sinister influences that will lurk in the world long after their bodies have returned to dust."
Taken out of context, how would one EVER guess that I was talking about Nazis and not the current breed of dangerous, illegal enemy combatants being detained at Gitmo?
In fact, if I didn't know better (due to context), I'd think that was quoted from a Congressional dimwit complaining about our military personnel serving at Gitmo. But no, it was Justice Robert H. Jackson, Chief of Counsel, Nuremberg, during his opening address about ACTUAL Nazis.
It may shock many posters on this thread to discover that military tribunals were used during the Nuremburg trials to try Nazis fair and square. Oddly, this was done without anyone accusing the U.S. of BEING Nazis or of running gulags without granting benefit of due process to the enemy.
