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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
The Pentagon this week approved a major policy directive that elevates the military's mission of "irregular warfare" -- the increasingly prevalent campaigns to battle insurgents and terrorists, often with foreign partners and sometimes clandestinely -- to an equal footing with traditional combat. (h/t Moon of Alabama)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/03/AR2008120303495.html?nav=rss_nation --- or click sig ...
It is now War Department policy to conduct independently guerrilla warfare, subversion, sabotage and intelligence activities to establish or re-establish order in a fragile state.
These activities were CIA activities back in the day of the cold war. Now the DoW (Dept. of War) is going to do as they damn well please anywhere on the planet. Hosanna in the Highest?
...we may see some Republicans start to rediscover the value of civil liberties, as some did during the Clinton years...
Thanks, Glenn, for expanding the public eye on this development. I look forward to the statement from Wyden's spokesperson.
Do you understand why your position makes no sense?
"If someone kidnapped my family and intended to kill them, if I caught someone else who knew where they were but wouldn't say, would I torture the captured person if that was the only way to get the information? I would."
If this scenario was real, rather than a scene from a Charles Bronson movie, then you would certainly have the agency to do whatever you thought necessary. Then you would have your conscious to live with, and, of course, the distinct probability that your actions would probably cost the lives of your loved ones. But most importantly, you would have to make that decision to torture with the full knowledge that you were violating the law. I'm sure it would be a small price to pay for any narrative actor real or imagined, but pay for it you would.
Likewise. If a democratically elected leader leading an agency tortures using the same logic, then they would also would be held accountable under US law. The fact that their judgement led them to believe that torture was the only way is something that they must wrestle with their own conscience about; but it makes no difference to the law. The law is quite clear, you can choose to break it as any person can, but when caught, brother you must also do the time.
Returning to your specific question about Bush/Cheney: The law re: torture should provide an exception for emergencies of the kind I identified (and you have not addressed).
I've addressed it and it's extremely easy to address. The law should make torture illegal, period.
Since you disagree: do you think we should withdraw from the Geneva Convention? As you might know, that doesn't provide exceptions to torture, and we are a signatory to it, which means -- pursuant to the Constitution -- that its absolute prohibitions on torture are binding law in this country.
Since you favor having our leaders be able to violate the Geneva Conventions, are you in favor of having the U.S. abrogate that treaty?
Even the criminal law recognizes "necessity" of this kind -- self-defense, defense of others. I assume this is what the senators are alluding to and, if so, I agree with them.
You're confused about how the criminal law works. "Necessity" is a very narrow defense in general. We don't write necessity exceptions into our criminal laws.
We don't say that it's a crime to shoot someone in the leg unless doing so is necessary to extract life-saving information
from them.
What you're advocating is a complete violation of Western justice since the Nuremberg trials. People who believed what you believe were tried and convicted as war criminals. You can dress it up all you want, but anyone who advocates that the law explicitly legalize torture -- as you do -- is advocating about the most morally repugnant act one can think of.
Glenn:
Obviously, the CIA can and should develop specific interrogation tactics that are classified
Why? How is legality ensured? Though we are light years away from a discussion regarding what should and shouldn't be secret and at the risk of being perceived as naive and more radical even then "ideologues," purity trolls and civil liberties extremists," government secrecy is part and parcel to excessive executive power, infringed civil liberties, and other unconstitutional activities.
At the very minimum, I'd like to see the secrecy pendulum swing toward openness, but I'd also like an honest debate about eliminating secrecy altogether. Is it possible that the benefits would outweigh the risks?
Of course, I'm not holding my breath.
http://tinyurl.com/6qy42g
http://tinyurl.com/y63nwv
~
One question. Is that you in the corner blinking like: `Derbig Mooser?
... what in a barn-name happened to you? art g. punch your eye for P.?
art g. will be okay. art g. needs to tote right. He twirls wood soup bowls.
art g. is sore and sorta angry.
who a.i.n.t.? O, my poor art g.
we need calm smiles on heads.
no have grouchy frown if dead.
smile as the head is lopped off.
free mohawk at art g. galleries.
Jebbie. mouse tickles Pedinska.
straw broom is her tooth brush.
Consider this my formal application for the Bitch of the Week Award. Let me know if the title comes with a tiara....I've got this collection, DYK. ;-}
Off to pack.....
would I torture the captured person if that was the only way to get the information? I would.
This is a point I see apologists for torture resort to again and again, as if it actually made sense. My question is: how would you know if abusing someone is "the only way to get the information?" How exactly? This is not a question of "principle;" it is a very, very "practical" question.
laws DO NOT and CAN NOT cover every situation that may arise in the real world.
What an interesting position. Under what circumstances should laws not apply, and what do you propose to put in their place?
law re: torture should provide an exception for emergencies of the kind I identified (and you have not addressed).
The "emergencies" you identified are, in actuality, unlikely to the point of impossibility. If a time-traveling lawman could go back to the morning of September 11 and capture Mohammed Atta, what need would he have to torture him, knowing all we know about the attacks? How likely is it really that we would know so much about an impending crime except for one critical piece of information held by someone conveniently in our custody... and even in that incredibly unlikely scenario, how could we be sure that torture is an effective way of getting that information?
Why do some people have such a need to do intellectual backflips to justify torture? Why not just say "because I want to," and leave it at that? Such a position, while morally vile, would at least have the virtue of being honest.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
