Saturday, September 30, 2006
Disgrace
Disgrace.
Congress writes a “compromise” bill, legalizing torture while calling it a “compromise.” I agree with Glenn Greenwald in calling this bill, and the tepid and occasionally supportive language it has received from democrats, as evidence of just how “dysfunctional” and “sickly” our political institutions are.
Congress would have the power to specifically spell out which kinds of torture are prohibited. Beyond that, the President would have the sole statutory authority to determine the “alternative techniques” that would be administered to victims. His determinations would be unreviewable, and this legislation would prohibit anyone from even raising the issue of the Geneva Conventions.
This is administrative bullshit, a smokescreen to cover previous war crimes, and a tacit admission to the president that he can use whatever techniques he wants as long as he’s creative and can think outside the box of well-known, hardcore torture techniques like electrocutions.
Forget about the Geneva Conventions. In fact, forget about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the U.N. Convention Against Torture, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Our nation’s word is worth horse pucky on the international stage as we’ve simply ignored the most basic laws of common decency and international governance that we allegedly agreed to follow several decades ago.
Glenn has his excellent Salon.com article here, and Marty Lederman’s good analysis is here. The Wall Street Journal’s celebration is here. Driftglass has a winner up here.
Terrified of being painted as “weak” on national defense, democrats in Congress made no effort to add their opinions to those of republicans like John McCain who called for a less morally repugnant bill. They watched from the sidelines. They were “as mute and neutral as stone.” They were, in short, chickenshits.
But bad fascism was the order of the day last week. The republican bill to legalize the president’s torture program banned anything that might result in disfigurement or gross physical wounds while allowing other torture techniques that are more subtle. So sleep deprivation, stress positions, induced hypothermia, and other tools of the trade will apparently be allowed. Call it pussy fascism: we’re totally willing to torture people, just not in a way that leaves gross wounds.
This, sadly enough, is fine with many in America like Rev. Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition, a purportedly religious organization that, frankly, mixes nationalism with religion in a way that can only be found in the right wing of this country. The website is, of course, red, white, and blue. A banner proudly proclaims that “The homosexual activist movement and pedophiles” (they’re all the same, of course) “are linked together by a common goal: To gain access to children for seduction into homosexuality.”
I’m done with these people. And why they have access to McCain is beyond me. I have, from time to time, questioned the judgment of Catholic priests, bishops, and popes, but never have I seen a Presbyterian minister as political (and as demented) as Louis Sheldon. Drifty’s blog once again comes to mind…
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 2:38 PM 
