President Bush will sign it today and no doubt proclaim this a great moment in something or other. We are all torturers now.
Yesterday I blamed the Democrats for enabling this monstrosity, among others, and I will never forget, but ultimately, we’re all to blame. Did the world not condemn the German public for allowing Nazism to flourish? Did our enraged troops not parade German townspeople through the newly-liberated concentration camps so they could see what they claimed not to have known about for years? Finally I understand what it feels like to be on the other end. Sick at heart, with no recourse but to save our sorry skins.
On a very much related issue, the attacks on the veracity of the recently-released study showing that more than 650,000 Iraqis have died as a result of our invasion, Arthur Silber has a new post up entitled “These People Are Sick, Dangerous, and Insane.”
The attacks are obviously motivated by one concern above all: the study offers a view of reality that entirely contradicts the perspective of the pro-war ideologues. That view is one that cannot be countenanced to any degree at all, because it calls into question on the deepest level their conviction that the United States represents the culmination of human civilization, and that our achievement grants us the “right” to bomb the rest of the world into submission and obedience. That bombing need not be confined to actual threats: our inherent and eternal moral superiority banishes any possibility of error (except in the narrowest strategic sense) or grave immorality in advance. We can murder hundreds of thousands, or even millions, and we remain forever pure.
The essays preceding that one are killers, too.
On one level, it astounds me that people in this country still go to church. This morning I don’t even want to vote next month. Something has happened here that completely trivializes a shift in party dominance, and each of us is on his own.
UPDATE: Froomkin is all over this:
The new law vaguely bans torture — but makes the administration the arbiter of what is torture and what isn’t. It allows the president to imprison indefinitely anyone he decides falls under a wide-ranging new definition of unlawful combatant. [my emphasis] It suspends the Great Writ of habeas corpus for detainees. It allows coerced testimony at trial. It immunizes retroactively interrogators who may have engaged in torture…
Here’s the clear message the law sends to the world: America makes its own rules. The law would apparently subject terror suspects to some of the same sorts of brutal interrogation tactics that have historically been prosecuted as war crimes when committed against Americans.
Here’s the clear message to the voters: This Congress is willing to rubberstamp pretty much any White House initiative it sees as being in its short-term political interests. (And I don’t just mean the Republicans; 12 Senate Democrats and 32 House Democrats voted for the bill as well.)
The operative words among the Democrats these days are, “Had enough?” Yes, by God, I certainly have, and NOT VOTING may be the only way I can live with myself in whatever country this is.
UPDATE #2: Digby gets it. Under the circumstances, it’s small comfort to be right, but there you go.
UPDATE #3: I don’t know who this is, but the post is well worth a read. Same topic.
No related posts.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
JHF,
I read your post about the torture bill signing and your comment at FDL. This was definitely a deal-breaker for my husband, who will not vote for Menendez in the Senate race here in NJ. We even discussed staging protests at campaign events, with an Abu Ghraib costume, hood, wires, wooden box. Mr. NJP has gotten involved with two local peace organizations that have national affiliations.
I’m holding my nose and voting for Menendez because I believe that winning back control of the senate is the most important thing that can happen.
I hope you find a progressive organization to which you can devote your thoughtful energies and talents.
I certainly sympathize with both of your positions. I’ve considered a silent protest of some sort at my polling place, but I doubt anyone would understand. I honestly don’t know what to do. This “getting along” and affecting to be pragmatic have to end. The announcement of the signing today brought it all home to me.
“Had enough?” You bet. I really, really have.
Thank you for your kind words of encouragement.
Also, in case you are not aware, the term “progressive” is an East coast code word for those who are resentful or ashamed of being called “leftist”. They also have a secret handshake!
Still gotta vote, still gotta try. To not vote is to silently acquiesce.
Normally I would agree that to not vote is to silently acquiesce, but BOTH parties have broken the covenant.
I’m also just not sure that “vote” equals “try” any more. As a symbolic act, not-voting may have a far greater impact. I’m feeling this out for the first time. It feels very clean and liberating, like I saw through the veil and I’m not afraid any more. It’s very refreshing to consider.
If I do vote, the act will come from this new place.
I don’t know if you can do this in your voting system, John, but up here, if we have no candidates we can support, we can go to the voting place, get our names checked off the list, receive a ballot, open it, then return it to the election officials. They HAVE to note and mark the ballots as returned.
Of course, we only vote for one office at a time, and actually mark a ballot paper for our national elections, so it may be easier for Elections Canada to do this that would be the case down there in the Excited States.
Not really “excited” down here. Not very united, either. I wanna go to France or Spain and wait for the end in a little nowhere village.