The not-so-vast right-wing conspiracy…
…to legitimate torture. Read Andrew Bacevich’s review of Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side.
In The Dark Side, Jane Mayer, a staff writer for the New Yorker, documents some of the ugliest allegations of wrongdoing charged against the Bush administration. Her achievement lies less in bringing new revelations to light than in weaving into a comprehensive narrative a story revealed elsewhere in bits and pieces. Recast as a series of indictments, the story Mayer tells goes like this: Since embarking upon its global war on terror, the United States has blatantly disregarded the Geneva Conventions. It has imprisoned suspects, including U.S. citizens, without charge, holding them indefinitely and denying them due process. It has created an American gulag in which thousands of detainees, including many innocent of any wrongdoing, have been subjected to ritual abuse and humiliation. It has delivered suspected terrorists into the hands of foreign torturers.
Under the guise of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” it has succeeded, in Mayer’s words, in “making torture the official law of the land in all but name.” Further, it has done all these things as a direct result of policy decisions made at the highest levels of government.
Our editorial “War Crimes?” just went live on the main site.
Would the people of the United States be able to establish a Truth & Reconciliation Commission?
The horror of all this is Bush clearly believes he is God’s representative in all this. He is the chosen one. Here is where Benedict can show more courage and speak specifically to W on this. So should the bishops. Make the application. Risk your tax exemption,etc.
So the truth comes out, irrefutably. Too late for the many who have died, been driven insane, or been maimed for life. Too late for the American people, who have let corruption lodge in their minds and hearts (but America patronized torture for decades, notably in Latin America). You may well say: THE HORROR.
Bush, Cheney and all who have participated in this horror need to be carted off the Hague and put on
trial. They started it in Iraq for no other reason than greed for oil and lucrative contracts. If they had concentrated their efforts to catch the criminals responsible for 9/11 instead of waging wars on countries,
they might have redeemed their stolen offices and gained respect from the whole world. But isn’t it strange that not one 9/11 terrorist was from Iraq? Most of them were from Saudi Arabia. Mmmmmmm.
And the torture of the American soldier, left alone, abandoned, forgotten. Sound the trumpet…Don’t we love to glorify war..The reality is….http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/opinion/15tue4.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
Bill,
Thanks for directing our attention to that article. Everyone should read it.
Re: the article referred us to … very moving, and sobering.
Just wish to note that mental illness and torture are very different things. The tragedy of Joe Dwyer’s illness and death could happen whether or not we systematically torture and maintain a gulag.
I don’t know what it says about me that yesterday I bought Jane Mayer’s book as my birthday present to myself, but the book is very good. Here is one sentence that focuses the mind.
“Yet, almost precisely on the sixtieth anniversary of the famous war crimes tribunal’s judgment at Nuremburg, which established what seemed like an immutable principle, that legalisms and technicalities could not substitute for individual moral choice and conscience, America became the first nation ever to authorize violations of the Geneva Conventions.”
To the editorial’s question: War Crimes? the answer is yes. And they should be prosecuted.
Wolf Blitzer interveiwed Ms. Mayer on the Situation Room yesterdy afternoon.
When asked to “name names” on responsibility, she started from the top down, Bush Cheney, Rumsfeld, Fife, etc.
I see no chance of these folks being held really responsible for what they’ve done – too much power being misused!
All of these postings would have some emotional credibility if anyone of you were ever to demand war crimes trials for the beasts that strapped a bomb on a Downs Syndrome woman and sent her out to be blown up (along with innocent women and children) in Iraq not long ago. But you are all so blinded by your venomous hatred of President Bush et all that al queada and friends get a free pass. I have long observed this unpleasant phenomenon on this blog. Very depressing…
Bob, please! Noone is excusing terrorist horrors to legitimately criticize the administration which is not “hated” but certainly seen as both morally and politically damaged.
Sorry Nunz, but your disclaimer comes much too late to have any credibility. And please, you’re insulting my intelligence denying the hatred on this thread. Hey, admit your hatred, own up to it, and face it like a man. I hate the terrorists and I nurture it like a small blue-white flame. I want them to be abused and mistreated. They are pathological murderers, festering shambling shells, all of whose humanity has been consciously discarded. And if the Lord is going to judge me on it, so be it. He knows where I stand.
To Bob Schwarz:
It’s one thing to speak generally, as you’ve done here (“the hatred on this thread,” “you are all so blinded by your venomous hatred,” etc).
It’s something very different to specifically accuse a person, as you’ve also done here: “Sorry, Nunz, …. Admit your hatred, own up to it, and face it like a man.”
If you’re going to make that kind of accusation, you have to be able to back it up with citations from his earlier posts; and if you can’t back it up, you owe him an apology. Myself, I don’t recall seeing anything I would call “hatred” in Bob’s posts; criticisms, yes, but not criticisms that reflected hatred.
I’ll see what I can do.