Stoopid Stuff

All this Talk about Torture is TORTURE!

I know. There are a lot of other things we need to think about and discuss, but the fact that the American government openly sanctioned torture is a very big, very evil thing, and it's kind of hard to get past it. So, allow me to offer two more thoughts on torture.

First, all this conversation about a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" or some kind of independent inquiry modeled on the 9/11 Commission has got to stop. It's nothing but cover, a fall back position for the apologists and enablers of these criminal acts. First, the thought of an American "Truth and Reconciliation" commission is sickening. Typically, this kind of process is used when a democracy emerges from the rubble of a dictatorship. It is not one legitimate government passing judgement on it's predecessor, but rather one SYSTEM of government trying to find a way to deal with the outrages and excesses of a previous system. It is an early flexing of democracy's muscles, offering transparency and a chance for the people who participated in the crimes of the previous regime to publicly reject those methods and make a positive contribution to the new government.

Here in America, we have had the rule of law for centuries. We aren't trying to heal the wounds of an authoritarian dictatorship's savagery in the name of power. We have continuity, we have laws, and we have processes for investigating violations of those laws.

A 9/11 type commission would be even worse. There would be a "bipartisan" investigation where all the obfuscations, false "debates" and facile justifications would be presented right alongside the brutal crimes themselves. At the end, a volume would be published, "closure" would be attained and we could move on, secure in the knowledge that...What, exactly? That crimes were committed, discussed, analyzed and ultimately ignored. A beacon of freedom and liberty are we.

Nope. The answer is as simple and obvious today as it always has been. You do what the law of the land requires. You have an investigation, which in this case, as members of the Department of Justice are compromised and under suspicion, would be run out of a Special Prosecutor's office. At the end of the investigation, the Special Prosecutor presents his or her evidence to the Grand Jury. If the Grand Jury finds it persuasive, they hand down indictments and the accused have their day in court. Not hard to grasp, not hard to do, certainly not "political retribution". Just dusty, dry laws, followed where the evidence takes them. We should ask for no more, but we should expect no less.

Second, after the revelation that KSM was waterboarded 183 times, let us never again hear any discussion of the odious "ticking time bomb" scenario as justification for inhuman behavior. It is clear that no act of torture, no matter how barbarous, can be expected to yield even the most inaccurate of results in a timely manner. If our damp friend Khalid Sheik Mohammed HAD known about an imminent attack, it is now unquestionable that he could have held out for the day or two necessary for that operation to go forward.

Looks like the bloodthirsty wing of the Republican Party will have to find a new justification to indulge their sweaty fantasies of blood and terror. I suppose that's the problem with actually living out your fantasies. The myth of America's invincible military might died as soon as it was tested in the Mesopotamian sands, and the Jack Bauer - reinforced mythology of using torture to save Western Civilization is exposed as the ridiculous imaginary construct it always has been. Perhaps the lesson they will learn is that they are better off when grownups are actually in control...

posted by mikey @ 12:16 PM