 Torture & Redefining Justice | Sep. 16th, 2006 @ 01:13 pm  |
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So the President doesn't want military and CIA operatives to be open to prosecution for war crimes & human rights violations... Is this not an even more clear warning sign as to the authoritarian direction Bush & Co. have been trying to lead this country since 9/11? We've had the Patriot Act, warrantless domestic eavesdropping, randomly data mining phone call information of innocent Americans, tracking financial records at home and abroad on little if any suspicions, accusations of treason when the press exposes non-classified information about government programs whose constitutionality are highly questionable, or at least debatable, secret prisons and detention centers in other countries, and dissent is demonized as traitorous, anti-war folks are called appeasers, concerns of torture is akin to terrorist sympathy, and so forth. And now on top of everything else the Administration wants to change Article III of the Geneva Conventions.
The claim being made by Bush & Co. is that they believe there should be clear definitions as to what constitutes torture so that our operatives that question so-called terrorists will not be prosecuted by the whims of foreign courts for violating vague notions of torture. Oh because this has been such a big problem so far... Funny but there hasn't been one case of it in this war on terror, well of course excluding the instances where over a dozen people were apparently butchered by some of our troops, or the case in which a 14 year old girl was raped and burned and her family killed again allegedly by some of our soldiers. In those cases the suspected troops are facing U.S. military inquiries and will be prosecuted in our courts.
I've tried to imagine why we would need to alter international agreements on the treatment of prisoners of war and human rights that have been in place for decades. I'm trying to figure out why they would have a problem with something like this. We seem to expect other countries follow it. I guess it stems from the same reason the Administration finds fault in the 1st and 4th Amendments — they interfere with our ability to win the war on terror. Every time I hear of this tired ploy being used again I see quite clearly the fundamental dynamics at work here: we must destroy civilization in order to save it.
In regards to this debate Bush has recently said, "It is very important for the American people to understand that in order to protect this country, we must be able to interrogate people who have information about future attacks,"
I don't know of any one who is proposing we don't interrogate people... But I suppose by interrogate he means 'wring information out of them at all costs' and not only do many of us believe this is grossly unethical, but it has also been proven time and gain to be very unreliable. Deprivation, coercion, and torture can certainly get people to say all kinds of things, most often they tell you whatever they think you want them to say. Of course another great concern is the precedent it sets. If we get to redefine what constitutes torture and what level of humane treatment detainees should receive why shouldn't everyone else? Do we really want countries with extremely low standards on human rights to be coming up with their own interpretation of the treatment when they've captured some of our soldiers?
We've never needed such clear definitions before, why do we need it now? Obviously they intend to use tactics that would at least loosely be considered 'torture'. They are going to have to really split hairs in determining what degree of torture is legal for them to commit. Therefore they have a need for the law to be very specific about what constitutes torture so that they can use whatever tactics do not fit those specifics. Bush admits that to "clarify" {redefine} the wording will arm operatives with the "tools" necessary to do their job of interrogation without fear of prosecution.
It's so obvious the reasoning behind all this, but we get nothing but spin, rhetoric, scare tactics, propaganda. According to Bush, "Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that al Qaida and it's allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland,"
Bush has also said he, "will resist any bill that does not enable this program to go forward with legal clarity. If there's not clarity, if there's ambiguity, if there's any doubt in our professionals' mind if they can conduct their operation in a legal way, with support of the Congress, the program won't go forward and the American people will be in danger..."
Legal clarity? It should be clear enough. I don't see why it needs to be made any clearer. The Geneva Conventions among other treaties and conventions establishes that governments may not torture those who have come into their custody, nor subject them to violence, humiliation, deprivation... I would rather it be a more vague or general than specific. The reason is because specificity in what cannot be done can allow governments or even lone interrogators to excuse acts of torture on the grounds they are not clearly prohibited. What any country, soldier or government official should be thinking about when deciding what Article III of the Geneva Conventions means is, 'if you have to ask yourself 'is this torture?', then it probably is'.
At a press conference in the Rose garden at the White House Bush said, "We can debate this issue all we want, the bottom line is ... this program won't go forward if there's vague standards applied." In another press conferences he threatened, "If Congress passes a law that does not clarify the rules ... the program is not going forward."
So basically, if you don't get to redefine torture to fit your needs then you'll shut the program down? Fine, fucker, shut it down. Problem solved. Maybe you should put your people to work on finding a way to interrogate people that doesn't include torture. How about also finding a way to prosecute terrorists that doesn't require the use of kangaroo court tactics. Supposedly this is the greatest country in the world with the highest reverence of justice and fairness, right? So how about we act like it! And how about Bush stop acting like a spoiled brat throwing a titty tantrum when he doesn't get his way...
I can think of several governments that would have been particularly loathe to adhere to such notions as treating prisoners & detainees with dignity and respect, valuing human rights, and not using torture as a way to extract information from people, like Communist China, the Soviet Union, Imperial Japan. But I'm thinking of one government in particular that has an infamous reputation for a lack of reverence for humanity and the treatment of detainees — Nazi Germany. It's fitting to compare the attempts by Bush to change the legal definition of torture and the judicial proceedings of detainees since he likes to compare his enemies and/or political opponents to Nazis all the time. The more time goes on and the more we find out about Bush's tactics the more it becomes clear that they parallel that of totalitarian regimes we have vehemently opposed in the past.
I'm amazed there isn't more outrage at what's taken place over the past 5 years. It doesn't seem nearly as obvious to most people it seems. By listening to others, reading blogs and letters to the editor I notice that a lot of people in this country are so naive, so scared, so brainwashed {braindead!} that they see nothing wrong with Bush & Co.'s race toward a police state. They don't see the signs; the parallels between tactics used by the Nazis and those being implemented in modern times. They seem so obvious but then perhaps these people just don't want to see them. They don't see it and the excuses keep coming as to why we need more war, more limits to liberty, more unchecked power for the White House, the use of torture, indefinite detainment in foreign prisons, and strict military tribunals for 'enemies of the state' held in secrecy.
One thing I'm going to do to take a stand on this issue is to withhold my vote for anyone I become aware of that votes in favor of Bush's plan on this issue.
Redefining Justice
As if the torture aspect of this debate wasn't enough Bush also wants the law changed to allow the use of evidence against terrorist suspects that has been kept in secret from them. They would not be allowed to hear, see, know of certain evidence used to convict them. Normally evidence used against a person must be available for examination by the defense so as to refute it's validity. Bush & Cheney are pushing hard to do away with other due process in these military tribunals for supposed terrorist cases. Like the right of the accused to face their accuser in court. They feel this could compromise national security be revealing sources. Bush also wants the courts to be able to use hearsay and coerced statements against people. So after they've tortured a person, for instance by nearly drowning them in a process called 'Waterboarding', they can get them to admit to any number of false statements and then convict people on such bogus information. Essentially, Bush's argument is that we can't have our ability to prosecute terrorists impeded by such things as the bill of rights, human rights, due process of law, etc. Since this is a battle for civilization we just can't take any risks.
Of course some people think we really shouldn't care, afterall these are terrorists we are talking about here. Well, setting aside the unethical nature of all this and its serious departure from an ancient and formerly sacred legal jurisprudence that our Founding Fathers wisely put into place, it requires the supposition that the accused in these instances are all indeed guilty of terrorism. I find absolutely no reason to make such an assumption merely because the government says so. Terrorist or not, I find no reason to suspend the notion that people are innocent until proven guilty. These people haven't been proven anything, merely alleged, accused. There is always some grey area when it comes to law enforcement. The accused is not always guilty, the circumstances not always so obvious. Not only will the accused not always be guilty, but sometimes the proof of innocence is deliberately suppressed. So all of these despicable "tools for winning the war on terror" will not merely be brought to bear on the guilty, nor only on foreign terrorists. They will be used against the innocent as well, and American citizens.
I say it will be used against Americans meaning not only supposed American terrorists, but also American citizens who have committed or are suspected to have committed crimes that have nothing to do with terrorism. The logic will go, as it already has, that if these 'law enforcement tools' are useful in one capacity they can be useful in others. Take for instance the increased police powers put into the Patriot Act. It was sold to us on the premise that it would help us fight terrorism. However, those same increased police powers have been used in a variety of domestic cases which had nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism involving American citizens. You will find few who support using such methods against terrorists who will not also argue that we should use it to fight organized crime, drugs, child pornography. And what's next?
There are some who ignorantly conclude the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy. They would be correct, I suppose, if water didn't flow downhill. The fact is, often one thing does lead to another. One can but need not look any farther than what we've seen so clearly since 9/11. Since that time in particular we have taken one previously unimaginable step after another closer toward a dreaded police state that simply becomes 'the new normal in a post 9/11 world'. With each new threat we take another step. The direction this administration has been taking us has indeed been a slippery slope leading to a very dark and draconian place.
Of all the grim news about this issue though there is at least one glimmer of hope. Some of us do see a larger picture here and strongly oppose what is going on. And while many of us are fooled, a great many others are not. Even some very influential persons are deeply concerned about what is going on and are trying to do something about it. While it may do little more than slow our march toward totalitarianism, I'm glad that our Dictator in Chief is meeting so much resistance right now. I'm especially pleased that he's getting much of that resistance from people in his own party, and moreover from respected veterans who really should know what the fuck they're talking about, war heroes like John McCain and Colin Powell.
Bush & Co. is painting many of us in opposition to his neoconservative agenda as either traitors, appeasers, or perhaps just confused. It's amazing how many of us would have to be dead wrong in order for him to be right. Hopefully some of us are wrong in fearing that things have already gone too far and much of what we've lost cannot be reclaimed.
Feeling like:  accomplished |
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