So, This Happened (TW: medical procedure)

I may have mentioned my ulcer.

I've got this ulcer, caused by my hiatal hernia, caused by having a baby -- well, by being pregnant.

From over by Ta-Nehisi Coates' Place

This is on the subject I was on about yesterday. It isn't Coates himself, but a commenter, who identifies himself only as Cynic. He's Comment 18 on this post; you'll have to scroll down.

Repercussions rarely prevent recurrence - banks robbers, for example, are almost always caught and face harsh punishments. There's no evidence that retributive justice is an effective deterrent for war crimes.The more effective restraint on morally repugnant behavior is moral repugnance. Even people willing to engage in criminal misconduct often balk at behavior that, while perfectly legal, is universally viewed as immoral.

That's why I find the arid legalism of the Cheneyite defense so dispiriting, and graphic descriptions like Benjamin's, although difficult to read, so important. Law is merely a codification of rules, subject to change and interpretation. Morality runs much deeper.

The real damage that the Cheneyites wrought by sanctioning torture was in breaking a taboo, and then insisting that they had not. Under the cover of secrecy, officers of our government have been doing disgraceful things since before the inception of this nation. But when these things have come out, as they often do, they've generally been shamed and penitent. Or, at the very least, acknowledged the evil of their actions even as they defend their necessity. Cheney and his minions chose another route, commissioning legal memoranda that would sanction torture. They still insist that they did nothing wrong.

And that's why this is likely to happen again. There is now a small and vocal minority that believes that there is nothing wrong with torturing our enemies. And those we suspect of being our enemies. And those we mistake for our enemies. Ten years ago, anyone advancing that view would have instantly compromised his credibility and drawn near-universal condemnation. Now, behind the thin shield of legalism, that view has become commonplace.

But although recurrence is possible, it's not inevitable. We don't need trials and jail-time to prevent a recurrence; in fact, I suspect, such measures would simply reinforce the existing and pernicious debate, encouraging the obdurate to dig in their heels. I think a better model lies in something you recently wrote. The Civil Rights era wasn't built around the demand for systematic prosecutions of those who had committed heinous crimes, though they certainly deserved as much. It relied on a two-pronged approach.

The first was education. Activists courageously laid bare to the world the depth and brutality of the oppression. It wasn't a revelation, of course - it was always there for those who cared to know it. But the activists made that knowledge unavoidable and unignorable, no matter how reluctant others were to confront it.

The second prong was shame. Over and over, the leaders of the Civil Rights movement hammered away on a single theme - that institutionalized racism betrayed the great ideals of this nation. They asked Americans to live up to those ideals, or at least to try.

If we want to make torture a thing of the past, this is the path to follow. First, education. Articles like Benjamin's are a start. But it's not Salon's readership, nor this blog's, who need to be made aware. And then, shame. We defeat the normalization of torture by reminding Americans what they purport to believe, and asking them to live up to that creed. It's no Rosewood, of course, but it just might work.

The GOP these days...

I don't usually agree with Andrew Sullivan, but I gotta give him a big heh yeah for this post.

If you believe in torture, support the GOP. That's what conservatism is now all about.

Meanwhile, I can't stop listening to Rilo Kiley.

More on Maddow & Torture

Here's another link to a segment last night on Rachel Maddow, with Col. Wilkerson, the fella who has been investigating torture over the past years.  He's put together an impressive case (which the Right, predictably, dismisses as "fantasy," since, after all, facts or the use of evidence to create an argument have never interested them) that he explains succinctly in this segment, showing that Cheney and his crew tortured prisoners into giving the answers they wanted, to justify the war they were determined to have.

It's a vile story of a vile regime, and no post hoc claims of how they have kept America safe (which they did not -- they've very nearly destroyed this nation, in case no one has looked around lately) can change that truth.

Further, even if they had, which they did not, if you destroy what America is in some attempt to protect it -- which I deny utterly is what any of these men were doing -- what have you gained?

War Criminals

If you haven't seen this Rachel Maddow Segment (it's been linked everywhere), you need to.

She lays out, in clear detail, timelines and evidence showing that the Bush administration did not only torture a few bad people a few times; and that they did not simply use torture to prevent attacks in "ticking bomb" situations.  In fact, they were using torture to try to save their political careers; and Cheney is the engine that powered these criminal acts.

She ends with an interview with Jane Mayer.  It's powerful stuff.

And another reason why everyone should be watching Rachel every night, as rough as it sometimes gets.

Ooo! Banned!

I've been banned by RightWingI'mMissingASparkPlug!

Just because I questioned her morals when she posted this, where she suggests that Jesus kills Mexicans to put Obama in his place. Odd how those on the Right can't take anyone who talks back, isn't it? Their kids they just bat around until they shut up. Prisoners, they torture. I guess I'm lucky I just got banned. So much for the Marketplace of Ideas.

But never mind her! Look here! Hannity has offered to be waterboarded for charity! Let's all give him all our nickels! Hey! It's for the Troops!

It's just LIKE being on the Swim Team...

Waterboarding, say the Torture Apologists on the Right, is just like joining the swim team.  Or watching a speech in the rain, or bobbing for apples, or sixteen other things.

Over on No More Mr. Nice Blog he's linked the famous Hitchens' clip again, the one where Christopher Hitchens agrees to be waterboarded, to find out if it's actually torture.

Go watch that puppy and talk to me about how it's just like playing in your daddy's hose in the backyard and so how is that torture, exactly?  

Prosecute!

Glenn says why, and many other wise things too.

Obama thinks he can make everyone happy on this one.  No.  The Right is Wrong here.  War Criminals can't be allowed to skate, or what stops the next Cheney-in-Power from deciding he'll just make up the rules as he goes along?

(And the Right might be cool with that now, but what if the next Cheney is named Che?  We have laws for a reason.)

No. No. No.

What Glenn says here.

This was decided at Nuremberg.

Saying I was only following orders is no defense. An illegal order is not followed.

These people are war criminals. As much as I feel for anyone who wants to move on, who thinks the economy matters more, whatever, no. This matters. If we let this go, we are saying to anyone who thinks to cross this line in the future that they will cross it in safety.

Then what about the next prisoner who happens to be the wrong color, or the wrong religion, or the wrong sex? Muslim this time. Jew next? Maybe some atheist? Or a gun-toting psycho fundie who has spent too much time in the basement with his lunatic blog?

No. Draw the line now.

Stupid and Evil

I saw this on Rachel Maddow last night, but Fred over at Slacktivist has put it into an excellent post.

Anyone with any moral compass knows, from the first time they watch a bug or a frog or a grasshopper being tortured by a fellow six-year-old (or whatever your formative experience was--- mine was watching the kid next door set fire to a caterpillar) that torture is wrong.

But here, we have it explained to us in detail why torture is wrong, why Bushco screwed up so badly: not only did they torture this man, this prisoner in our custody, but they tortured him knowing they would get bad results; they spent millions of our dollars to get those bad answers; and then they spent hundreds of hours pursuing those bad answers: hours that might have been used productively, pursuing, oh, I don't know, actual criminals?  Actual evil-doers?

Assuming those exist.

I guess they do now, that Bushco has tortured them into existence.