- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Right on cue, and on message with the "they were only protecting America" line, here is Mukasey yesterday:
"There is absolutely no evidence that anybody who rendered a legal opinion either with respect to surveillance or with respect to interrogation policy did so for any reason other than to protect the security of the country and in the belief that he or she was doing something lawful," he said.
"In those circumstances, there is no occasion to consider prosecutions, there is no occasion to consider pardons," Mukasey said.
Link: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N03517147.htm
Granted, Mukasey never was in a position similar to Feinstein and Wyden from which he is now backtracking; he's had this horrid position from the start. His argument here strikes me as:
"Your honor, I was told by my attorney that the speed limit in that school zone was 75 mph, not 15 mph, so those deaths are not my fault."
Going back to the "need for flexibility" regarding the Army Field Manual standards, I was struck recently by a passing mention in Susan Faludi's "The Terror Dream", on page 179, pointing to this observation from Human Rights First. After they first noted the large increase in the number of torture depictions on primetime television, they then make this observation:
It used to be that only villains on television tortured. Today, “good guy” and heroic American characters torture — and this torture is depicted as necessary, effective and even patriotic.
Link: http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/etn/primetime/index.asp#problem
When did it become heroic to torture detainees? Right after 9/11. From that same link, we see data where the number of torture depictions on primetime had been in the single digits per year in the late 90's, but increased in 2000 to over 100. When I traced the links a bit further, I found from a Christian Science Monitor article in 2002 that the pre-9/11 increase in primetime torture was in programs like CSI, where the torture was carried out by the villian. The two biggest offenders of heroes carrying out torture, Alias and 24, debuted in September (30th) and November, 2001. Isn't it interesting that Hollywood was so well-prepared to pump up the torturer as hero in such a short time?
Sigh, I guess I'll be making calls to the offices of Feinstein and Wyden today, asking why they are changing their tunes.
