Obama failing to defend torture law
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Technically speaking, torture is still against the law. The words are still there, in Title 18 of the U.S. Code:
“Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.”
But thanks in part to President Barack Obama, those words have all the relevance of an archaic law prohibiting pig-selling on Sunday. They mean nothing.
Publicly, Obama claims America has changed course. On his first day in office, he signed an executive order halting “enhanced interrogations.” But that did not restore the rule of law; it weakened it further. If one executive order can ban torture, as Obama claims, then another such order can restore it, simple as that.
And let’s at least be honest — what we have done is torture, sanctioned at the highest levels of government and at least tacitly accepted if not explicitly endorsed by Congress, including leading Democrats. Let’s at least have the moral courage to acknowledge that fact.
In World War II, waterboarding was torture when Japanese soldiers inflicted it on Americans such as Lt. Chase Jay Nielsen, captured in the famous Doolittle Raid on Tokyo. In a tactic that sounds all too familiar, the Japanese claimed the treatment was legal because Nielsen was a war criminal not entitled to protection as a prisoner of war. In later war-crime trials, that defense failed.
To Lt. Col. William Harrison, it was torture when inflicted by North Korean Communists.
“They used the water treatment. They would bend my head back, put a towel over my face and pour water over the towel. I could not breathe. This went on for hour after, day after day. It was freezing cold. When I would pass out, they would shake me and begin again. They would leave me tied to the chair with the water freezing on and around me.”
That is not “fraternity hazing.” It is torture. If it is torture when inflicted on Americans by others, it is torture when we Americans do it. We torture. In the eyes of the world and whatever God you might worship, we torture.
That is difficult for many to accept because we are Americans and we are supposed to be different: Our strength is in our principles and commitment to values.
But what did it take to make us throw all that away? Nineteen men armed with a plan and box cutters?
That is Osama bin Laden’s victory: He scared us into fleeing the high ground.
“All these things vanished when the Mujahideen hit you, and you then implemented the methods of the same documented governments that you used to curse,” bin Laden chortled in 2002. “… What happens in Guantanamo is a historical embarrassment to America and its values, and it screams into your faces: ‘You hypocrites, what is the value of your signature on any agreement or treaty?’ ”
As bin Laden understands, the biggest canard of all is that the strong are willing to torture, to do what is necessary, while the weak shy from it. It takes no toughness to order the torture of a creature who is helpless to defend himself, a creature over whom you have absolute control. To the contrary, you torture because you fear that helpless creature — you do so because your fear is greater than the principles of civilization you tell yourselves you are defending.
On the eve of our invasion of Iraq, President Bush issued a warning to the Iraqi military: “War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, ‘I was just following orders.’ ”
If a president is to have the credibility make such statements again, we have to restore the rule of law. We should do so not through a criminal probe of what individuals may have done — creating legal scapegoats for a policy that too many supported for too long — but with a candid, nonpartisan investigation of what we did as a nation. Rather than block such a probe, Obama should insist upon it.
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206 comments Add your comment
jt
April 30th, 2009
7:01 am
The R&D party of carreer politician will collectively cover their respective asses. Pathetic.
I Report/ You Whine
April 30th, 2009
7:02 am
Obozo doesn’t have to, Pelosi already did.
Release the memos, you hacks.
I Report/ You Whine
April 30th, 2009
7:05 am
Using bookman’s twisted anti American hate logic, buzzing New York City in a 747 scareliner qualifies as torture.
So yes, let’s prosecute.
I Report/ You Whine
April 30th, 2009
7:08 am
Moving from economics to coercion and the use of the state to target political enemies, we have a Homeland Security Department targeting veterans and anti-abortionists as potential terrorists, and a White House leaving open the option of prosecuting its predecessors over honest policy choices made in a time of war and without identifying any specific domestic law supposedly broken. We see selective release of previously classified information for political purposes.-Quin Hilyer, AmSpec
And the libs call us “fascists,” hahahaha.
jt
April 30th, 2009
7:10 am
What a frightening world it must be for those who have faith in this administration.
Mike
April 30th, 2009
7:22 am
Does Obama’s assassination of untried terrorism suspects (which Jay supports) also broach “the rule of law”?
Eric
April 30th, 2009
7:28 am
Excellent article!
Walter Miller
April 30th, 2009
7:28 am
If everything the country stands for is -not- in the toilet, Bush Administration officials will be indicted and tried on charges of torture.
No one is above the law, and the president of the United States should be held to the strictest standard of all.
Jay
April 30th, 2009
7:30 am
No Mike, it doesn’t.
In a war setting of kill or be killed, you kill. I’m fine with that. War’s terrible, but if you’re in one, you win it.
An unarmed, bound captive who is helpless and completely under your control poses an entirely different situation.
@@
April 30th, 2009
7:30 am
And let’s at least be honest — what we have done is torture, sanctioned at the highest levels of government and at least tacitly accepted if not explicitly endorsed by Congress, including leading Democrats.
Absolutely, jay!
FOCA that…
It takes no toughness to order the torture of a creature who is helpless to defend himself, a creature over whom you have absolute control. To the contrary, you torture because you fear that helpless creature — you do so because your fear is greater than the principles of civilization
Liberals can’t have it both ways. Waterboarding can’t be considered torture when late-term abortion never was.
101Airborne
April 30th, 2009
7:31 am
To I Report/You Whine:
Please clarify what this “Anti-American” logic is? Is it believing that rule of law must be followed if this country is to retain ANY credibility. Also, YOU tell me what it means to be an “American”.
101Airborne
April 30th, 2009
7:39 am
Let’s talk “Anti-American” for a moment. I wonder if the Bush Administration’s pursuit of illegal wiretapping–read “domestic spying”–would similarly fall under this broad definition? Maybe Bush’s blatant disregard for the restrictions created by the AUMF shortly after 9/11? Blank Checkin’ it doesn’t work in the end–Germany found out the hard way in WWI. Combatting terrorism in the 21st century is a completely new animal and once-agreed-upon definitions that guided our actions must now be re-thought and re-analyzed if they are to be effective and LEGAL. Just because the other side does not “play fair” should not excuse our leaders and policy-makers from exercising good judgement.
Brad Steel
April 30th, 2009
7:42 am
Whine bloviates: “And the libs call us “fascists,” hahahaha.”
Actually, you are best referred to as an idiot douchebag. “Facist” is too highbrow for you. And I might add you have done yourself a huuuge favor with your wonderfully articulate response to Bookman’s thoughtful and succinct article.
Please, Whiner, bless us with more cut-n-paste drivel and crafty name call’n.
Copyleft
April 30th, 2009
7:42 am
Good point, Jay. Obama ordering a halt to these illegal and anti-American practices was a step forward… but refusing to prosecute the lawbreakers, and refusing to reaffirm that this IS lawbreaking, still keeps the question of torture “open” when it should have been closed, with finality.
And it’s never an option, folks. Never, no matter how many “ticking clock” fantasies you dream up. America has principles and we need to stick by them. As Jon Stewart pointed out: “If you don’t stick to your principles when the chips are down, they’re not principles… they’re hobbies.”
Time to reaffirm American values and close the door on torture once and for all.
I Report/ You Whine
April 30th, 2009
7:48 am
Please clarify what this “Anti-American” logic is?
Comparing our intelligence agency to the Japanese butchers of WW2 and the North Korean genocidal maniacs is not only childish, it reveals an underlying hate of America itself.
Especially when you admire the dictators of China, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba.
~~~~~
Still, a president would rather start well than poorly — and Mr. Obama has a job approval of 63%. That leaves him tied with Mr. Carter, one point ahead of George W. Bush, and behind only Ronald Reagan’s 67%. Four of the past six presidents had approval ratings that ranged between 62% and 67%, a statistically insignificant spread.-Rove, WSJ
Properly uncrating that paragraph could take two hundred pages, so allow me to condense it into something easily understood-
Which one of those four men has an adoring, slavish, lying and sycophant media at his every command?
Susan Myers
April 30th, 2009
7:51 am
“Not because there might have been information that was yielded by these various detainees …but because we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.”
This is the kind of thing that thoughtful, intelligent people who love America and its values say.
We have a real leader now. Not perfect, but someone who can help lift America up, rather than drag it down.
That being said – we’ve gotta keep pressing him on subjects of interest. He’s not a king, he’s our employee.
BDAtlanta
April 30th, 2009
7:57 am
From Salon.com:
Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress
Sen. Dick Durbin, on a local Chicago radio station this week, blurted out an obvious truth about Congress that, despite being blindingly obvious, is rarely spoken: “And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.” The blunt acknowledgment that the same banks that caused the financial crisis “own” the U.S. Congress — according to one of that institution’s most powerful members — demonstrates just how extreme this institutional corruption is.
The ownership of the federal government by banks and other large corporations is effectuated in literally countless ways, none more effective than the endless and increasingly sleazy overlap between government and corporate officials. Here is just one random item this week announcing a couple of standard personnel moves:
Former Barney Frank staffer now top Goldman Sachs lobbyist
Read the rest here:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/30/ownership/
You Distort/We Deride
April 30th, 2009
7:58 am
There is no way that Jay’s blog today is anti-Bush or anti-American. It is anti-EVERYONE who subscribes to torture, Obama and Dems included. The idiot cacophany that follows was so predictable. Everyone associated with lending a blind eye to torture needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and replaced by TRUE Americans. We can not DESTROY Bin Laden by BECOMING Bin Laden.
Susan Myers
April 30th, 2009
7:59 am
In a perfect world…
Someone would pay to have both Hannity and Limbaugh kidnapped…hoods thrown over their heads…spirited away in black vans to some “undisclosed location”…& waterboarded with cameras rolling.
No advanced warning…& no idea that it was some sort of arcane “experiment” or “wager”.
I guarantee that within minutes…both of them would confess to cannibalizing their own mothers.
On camera.
End of debate.
Taxpayer
April 30th, 2009
8:00 am
Jay,
I think that President Obama has made good moves so far regarding the issue of torture. Unlike the Republican administration before him, he opened up the issue to the public instead of trying to hide it and outright lying about it. Also, there are more documents that need to be released and I think he has already mentioned that more are under review. That process understandably takes time since there is the real issue of information that may need to remain classified for some length of time. Further, he did actually stop the practice that he inherited from the Republican administration. I think that this, like many other issues, are going to take time to properly complete. Let’s wait and see where things end up.
Curious Observer
April 30th, 2009
8:04 am
Prosecute them all, Democrat or Republican. If they knew about torture and gave it even their tacit approval by their silence, they are guilty of conspiracy. That goes for members of the intelligence committees in both houses of Congress. If they actively perverted the law to justify torture or actually carried it out, they are guilty of torture itself. We didn’t let post-WWII Germans and Japanese off with the plea that they were just doing what they were ordered to do or that they were persuaded that their acts were legal, nor did Tojo escape the noose merely because he gave only a nod to the barbarous acts being committed by his nation’s troops.
Prosecute right down to the CIA operatives who actually carried out the torture. Put Kerry as well as Bush in the same dock. Only then can we remove the stain that the acts have placed on the fabric of honor and humanity this country has tried to maintain.
WhoCares
April 30th, 2009
8:07 am
and to think that we were in the middle of a drought when they were wasting all that water on terrorists. Wouldn’t it be easier to just shoot them and be done with it. Or at least cut their heads off with a dull bayonet.
WhoCares
April 30th, 2009
8:12 am
Does anybody know it that Marketing prof over in Athens that shot them three people is a Republican or a Democrat?
Mike
April 30th, 2009
8:14 am
Jay –
Pretty thin explanation.
“In a war setting of kill or be killed, you kill. I’m fine with that. War’s terrible, but if you’re in one, you win it.”
And this logic could not as easily be applied to waterboarding? Nonsense.
“An unarmed, bound captive who is helpless and completely under your control poses an entirely different situation.”
And the terrorism suspects who are killed by unmanned aerial drones are not helpless? What about the innocents who also get killed along with them?
Your explanation also doesn’t address the fact that Pakistan objects publiclly to each and every onof these strikes. Does the notion of soveriegnty not apply to Democrats?
Apart from the legality, do these strikes not also enrage Muslims around the world, “creating more terrorists than we are killing?” Do you really think that our killing of innocent women and children in our efforts to assassinate untried terrorism suspects leaves the world thinking that we own “the high ground?”
The notion that it is more moral to kill untried terrorism suspects and their families and neighbors than it is to waterboard three terrorists who nobody denies are the planners of 9/11 is a ludicrous bit of self-delusion. The truth is that if you really cared about morality, you would criticize the assassinations too, but you don’t so you don’t. You just want another excuse to attacks the same folks that your attack on every other single issue.
Now don’t think that I don’t support Obama in his actions. I do. I just don’t draw artificial distinctions for the purpose of partisan attacks.
Mike
April 30th, 2009
8:15 am
WhoCares –
Who cares?
Mike
April 30th, 2009
8:18 am
Susan Myers –
LOL. You are priceless.
You genuinely believe that law-abiding (if mindlessly partisan) pundits are deserving of waterboarding, but KSM is not.
Thanks for demonstrating how mindless partisanship can twist one’s brain.
I Report/ You Whine
April 30th, 2009
8:21 am
There is no way that Jay’s blog today is anti-Bush or anti-American. It is anti-EVERYONE who subscribes to torture, Obama and Dems included.
I know that Obozo is no American, so I guess you have a point, mouth breather, but when did I say “anti Bush?”
The most basic facts and knowledge escape you liberals, is thinking for yourselves too much of a chore?
1) bookman arbitrarily labels putting people into boxes with fuzzy little caterpillars and something that our soldiers “endure” as part of their escape and evasion training as “torture.”
Funny, I don’t remember that debate being “settled.”
2) As I have said before, as since this is a repeat yourself over and over again until it sounds like the truth blog, the liberal anger towards enhanced interrogation methods really makes it seem as though you are upset that we stopped al Qaeda from taking out the Library Tower and killing thousands more Americans.
3) If you are so confident that enhanced interrogation “doesn’t work,” then why were the results of it blacked out on the memos you released?
4) Why did the House Intelligence Committee, including Nancy Pelosi, approve of water boarding and question whether we were being “harsh” enough?
You’re argument is empty.
Pizen
April 30th, 2009
8:21 am
I have mixed feelings about this. I agree that a great nation does not permit torture of captives, whether you consider them combatants or not. Then again, we have faced, and we are facing, an enemy of unusual characteristics; where life and freedom and compassion are all alien concepts. I think in order to be fair that PrezBO and the Congress make it clear that waterboarding is considered torture and thus covered under criminal code. In addition, anyone captured by the U.S. military is to be considered an enemy combatant and thus subject to the Geneva accords. It will make it tougher to obtain information, perhaps, but the nation will at least travel along the high road, and there’s plenty to be said about that.
Mrs. Godzilla
April 30th, 2009
8:24 am
I have faith, that after the whole truth is exposed, prosecutions will
follow.
Solution
April 30th, 2009
8:26 am
Forget water boarding, I still like the tactics that were used in Nam, load 3 or 4 of the terrorist into a plane, ask the first one a question, if he doesn’t answer, toss him out. By the time you get to the third terrorist, you won’t be able to shut him up.
Susan Myers
April 30th, 2009
8:28 am
Mikey,
I know I’m priceless, but I’m already taken. Sorry.
I Report/ You Whine
April 30th, 2009
8:28 am
Vice president Joe Biden said today he would tell his family members not to use subways in the U.S. as the swine flu outbreak spread to 11 states and forced school closures amid confirmation of the first U.S. death.
Aahhh, yes, what a great plan this administration has, the enlightened scientists that they are, induce a panic among the citizenry.
Wonderful.
How about all you people reading this^^ as you fly through the air in a air sealed tube, packed in tight with all your fellow travelers, are you wishing you were someplace else about now?
WhoCares
April 30th, 2009
8:29 am
If it comes down to being killed by terrorists while I’m on the “high ground” or killing them first and living on not so high ground. I’ll take the not so high ground. Politicians on both sides seem to make a pretty good living there.
Susan Myers
April 30th, 2009
8:29 am
D@mn it, but I love this woman.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30483496/
firecynthia
April 30th, 2009
8:32 am
I give concede the liberal talking point that waterboarding is torture as soon as they admit that partially birthing a baby, jabbing a rod into its head, scrambling the brains, sucking out the brains, and then birthing the brain dead baby is torture. Until then, liberals, shut the f up.
101Airborne
April 30th, 2009
8:34 am
Please neocons, tell me WHY we should KEEP torture as a viable method of collecting HUMINT? A large percentage of those who have lived near the operating end of a weapon know that surveillance is by far the more accurate and timely method of gaining the tactical and strategic advantage when it comes to course-of-action development (operational policy).
To give reference to the Japanese policy of torture during WW2, as one example, shines light on the fact that it was torture then and remains torture now. If one is childish by referring to the past to draw examples from or to make a point, why is Glen Beck not similarly derided for continually comparing our present economic crisis to the big one back in the 20’s and 30’s? Any serious student of history knows that history DOES NOT repeat itself–similarities exist, sometimes tremendously so, but the contexts in which it unfolds is completely different.
Overshadowing our current president’s mere 100 days in action is the totally anti-American legacy of “Bush & Co.’s” trampling of solidified qualities that once made this country great–privacy and due-process, obliterated by his domestic spying and subjective/self-serving use of the definition of enemy combatant status (all in the name of protecting the US in the War on Terror). Arresting and detaining American citizens without legal counsel or formal charge (especially when the action was precipitated by unsubstantiated, uncorroborated testimony of a third party–i.e. Michael Mobbs)to me, is a glorious example of anti-Americanism, and all the more reason to view self-professed “conservatives” as suspect.
I consider myself as “American” as the next person and do not share or take part in the plentiful “Oh my God, we heading towards Socialism” banter that chokes the airwaves lately. If this country was really better under Bush and Repub leadership, why did its credibility fall to such a low ebb that an Iraqi journalist felt compelled to throw his shoes at a sitting US President?
BDAtlanta
April 30th, 2009
8:35 am
Good op/ed, Jay.
I think the key is that peole can’t understand this: If it is torture when inflicted on Americans by others, it is torture when we Americans do it.
You can see the same sort of inability to call a spade a spade when people don’t want to admit that the insurgents in Iraq are true patriots to their country – the country they are fighting to defend against an invading army.
If another country invaded the US, and we civilians didn’t fight back, what would we call ourselves? Cowards? Idiots? People who fight for what they believe in are patriots.
Night Train
April 30th, 2009
8:36 am
You know how ‘they’ said “pigs will fly before America elects a black man president’?
Well guess what, the Swine Flu!
Algonquin J. Calhoun
April 30th, 2009
8:39 am
It’s a fact that young Iraqi men would be picked up by American troops and taken to prison for interrorgation. They were suspected of being insurgents because they were young and iraqi. that was cause enough. Interrorgation was done in all the ways pictured in Abu Graihb. The United States quickly went from being a victim of terrorism to being the biggest terrorist on the face of the Earth! The George W. Hitler administration should be charged, tried and have the proper sentence executed!
Copyleft
April 30th, 2009
8:40 am
Solution: Thank you for recommending war crimes as an alternative to… war crimes. Truly, America should have no principles and no standards–at least, according to the cowards.
Mike
April 30th, 2009
8:41 am
101Airborne –
“why is Glen Beck not similarly derided for continually comparing our present economic crisis to the big one back in the 20’s and 30’s?”
Well, he is. Beck is rightfully derided as a lunatic all over the place.
” “Bush & Co.’s” trampling of solidified qualities that once made this country great–privacy and due-process”
Obama is keeping the wiretapping program in place and regularly assassinated terrorism suspects without “due process”. Got a problem with him too?
“I consider myself as “American” as the next person and do not share or take part in the plentiful “Oh my God, we heading towards Socialism” banter that chokes the airwaves lately. ”
I agree that the “socialism” rant is silly, but no more silly than the “Bush is trampling the Constitution” rant. Were you in objection to the “Bush is a fascist” or “we are headed towards a theocracy” claims that were just as prevalent on the left as the “Obama is a socialist” claims that come from the right?
George American
April 30th, 2009
8:41 am
I agree with Mike and the Report/Whine guy.
American intelligence and military are above the other Muslim and foreign animals out there. Our history gives us moral authority and we have a right to exercise enhanced method to protect America!
WE NEED TO BE STRONG.
CAN YOU HANDLE THE TRUTH?
Taxpayer
April 30th, 2009
8:43 am
If someone out there is strapping down pregnant women and removing their living, breathing child without their permission and killing it, then that person is committing torture as well as murder. So, do something about it other than run your mouths, you anonymous off-topic ranters. Identify these people and prosecute them for their crimes. What the hell are you waiting for — someone else to do it for you. If you have seen these horrible things happen, then you are a witness to a crime and you can be found guilty, just as guilty as the person[s] that committed such a horrible act. So, get up off your sorry buttocks and do your duty.
RW-(the original)
April 30th, 2009
8:46 am
Is this story a work in progress? It begins by taking a mild slap at Obama and quickly morphs into mindless Bush bashing, but it doesn’t seem to ever tie the original point back in. Maybe it’s just an overly long and pointless Tweet.
Oddly there’s more incite in the 7:30 response to Mike than there is in the whole article. Assassinating anybody we want anywhere in the world for any reason we decide to use is apparently perfectly acceptable to Jay B, but harsh and harmless questioning to prevent deaths to our own innocents is not.
Is “kill ‘em all” really the moral high ground for the libs these days?
101Airborne
April 30th, 2009
8:46 am
How do you surmise that “Obama is no American”? You answered my first point earlier concerning explaining Anti-American logic–Thanks. But you still have not told us what being an American is. How do YOU decide? I suppose my parents were not “Americans”, even after taking their oath of citizenship after fleeing Germany in 1945? Maybe I’m not American!
How about potical efficacy? Yes, taking part in the political process in this country: advocating, lobbying, voting–all of it. I’d say that Mr. Obama is being “American”. How would you have reacted if he had taken his presidential oath with his hand on the Q’uran? (I am certain he would’ve not won the election had he done that however). Isn’t religious freedom an “American”-esque quality as well?
Mrs. Godzilla
April 30th, 2009
8:46 am
Hot Damn! The rad right has moved from drill baby drill to
torture baby torture. And they say it’s the party of no ideas! pshaw!
21% tehehehe tehee hee
Your morning jolt: Johnny Isakson's homebuyer tax credit again stripped away | Political Insider
April 30th, 2009
8:49 am
[...] Some opinion: Bookman says Obama is failing to defend U.S. laws against torture. [...]
Mrs. Godzilla
April 30th, 2009
8:49 am
Seen this?
New GOP mascot logo….
here:http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/4/30/726233/-Open-Thread
Mrs. Godzilla
April 30th, 2009
8:49 am
damn…try it again
here:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/4/30/726233/-Open-Thread
Brad Steel
April 30th, 2009
8:51 am
Torture, baby, torture! – perfect.
With the current directionless path, Michele Steel might be the next to defect. The GOP has become the party of chubby AM radio pundits and the wingnuts, like Whiner