WB: A Tortured Definition – Moon of Alabama

September 16, 2006

WB: A Tortured Definition

Billmon:

What this amounts to (and what Powell was really complaining about) is the final decommissioning of the myth of American exceptionalism — once one of the most powerful weapons in the U.S. arsenal. Without it, we’re just another paranoid empire obsessed with our own security and willing to tell any lie or repudiate any self-proclaimed principle if we think it will make us even slightly safer.
[…]
Then again, maybe it’s best if the myth gets permanently busted. Maybe America should take public responsibility for torturing prisoners — instead of just pawning the job off to the Jordanian or Egyptian or Saudi intelligence services, who could and would hook car batteries to testicles with gusto while we piously pronounced our hands (and hearts) clean. A U.S. torture statute would at least bring a certain degree of clarity to the "vague" and "open to interpretation" policies that have long allowed the United States to enjoy the fruits of torture (and other crimes) without actually committing them ourselves. I know that’s not exactly the kind of clarity Shrub was asking for today, but it would still be a refreshing oubreak of honesty.

A Tortured Definition

Posted by b on September 16, 2006 at 07:52 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Or shrub is attempting to justify actions already taken to avoid impeachment!

Posted by: Iron Butterfly | Sep 16 2006 14:09 utc | 1

Billmon,
I agree with what you say. But I also think the American voter doesn’t give a shit about torture or the Geneva Conventions. We have Americans advocating doing stop-and-searches in this country on anybody who looks like an Arab. And we have people openly questioning whether an American who happens to be Muslim can be a “good” American. So somehow I don’t think they are troubling their limited brain cells over the nuances of torture of “terrorists” in some prison cell somewhere.
I was a journalist for 23 years, 16 of them in newspapers. Trying to get international news into a typical daily American newspaper was like trying to push a 2000-pound boulder uphill. The only reason most Americans have a clue where Afghanistan is because they saw Rambo III and they remember seeing a lot of sand. (Billmon, you were a reporter. Remember the joke about “Afghanistanism”?)
Thus, I think BushCo’s lack of worldview pretty much agrees with the typical voter’s worldview. So that’s why I think Bush/Cheney/Rove think they can get away with this and why they are willing to gamble that the Democrats (remember them?) might oppose it.
After you’ve spent a generation dumbing down the discourse in American news and political coverage, you get George W. Bush as president and you get his domestic and foreign policy. It was inevitable that it would happen. I’m only surprised that we got here so fast.
These guys are destroying our country internationally and domestically. And someday — after the world war or the depression or both — the stupid, gullible, good Christian American people are going to wake up and elect a modern-day Roosevelt. Only it’s going to come too late for the millions who may die or have their lives destroyed as a result.

Posted by: phil from new york | Sep 16 2006 14:55 utc | 2

As always with the Cheney administration, I’d be more than willing to consider the value of their “plans” if I could see some evidence of some actual benefit down the pike. Increasingly, however, it’s obvious that there is no plan, no strategy, and no benefit, just a bull-in-the-china-shop approach to foreign policy. Tragically, this is coupled with an intransigence that has no precedent in modern politics, a complete unwillingness to negotiate, to accept advice, to change course based on the realites on the ground. I keep looking for a hidden agenda, a secret brilliant strategy, but all I can conclude is that it’s just a startling level of incompetence, belligerence and cluelessness. Barflies, help me out here: am I missing something?
Other than a possible shield from prosecution, what benefit is there in going to the mat with the Senate over this issue? Are the renegade senators truly opposing Bush, or is this just more theatre, that in the end will end with capitulation and Dear Leader getting his way?

Posted by: montysano | Sep 16 2006 15:25 utc | 3

The Geneva Conventions are regularly broken, but people keep quiet about it, and others are slow to point the finger, for many reasons.
The US has never been that keen – it was Reagan who refused to sign Prococol I and Protocol II – along with a very few other countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan, which has left the US with a lot of leeway in those two countries. The protocols don’t treat the issues being discussed now.
In a way, the US’ legal shenanigans, its perpetual rule-writing, law interpretation, creation of laws, referral to courts, etc. and the present episode, which is a culmination (I recall Rice saying the US respects the spirit of the GE conventions) with a long history, are the sign of hyper-exceptionalism and pride.
The US is a rule bound, law obeying democracy – not a savage state, a failed nation, or just a sloppy mess; this is part of what makes the ‘free’ economy work. Secondly, in an individualistic society, with relations between different parties being ’open’ and often conflictual because of an ethos of competition (to mention only that), the law is the instance called upon to regulate behavior and settle the endless disputes.
In the US, legal expenditure is between 1 and 2 % of GDP, way above any other country. The law, its precise formulation, its interpretation, is enshrined as an upper authority, the texts must hold. Saddam as Dictator or the President of Switzerland would never accord it such importance, and would never fall into the trap of even discussing it.
For the US, it is thus vital that the texts match what they do, how they function, what they wish to do, etc. They also want to show that they refuse to be bound by International agreements, the UN, treaties, or whatever. That is the exceptionalism aspect. They have violated the Geneva conventions again and again (they are not alone of course) but have the hubris to attempt to publicly state they will be an exception. Therefore the tortuous legal wrangling.

Posted by: Noirette | Sep 16 2006 16:42 utc | 4

For the US, it is thus vital that the texts match what they do, how they function, what they wish to do, etc.
The Nazis had the same fetishism, which is why Hitler was very careful to go back to his puppet Reichstag at the appointed times to get an extension of the emergency powers granted to him after the Reichstag fire in ’33. I’ve also been told, although I’m sure it’s true, that the German were careful to declare Jewish citizens stateless perrsons before shipping them to the east, thus denying them even the fictional protections of German law. Bureaucratic dictatorships have their own rationality and methods, and as Noirette says, these often requires that certain procedures be followed, even after their original purpose has been destroyed.
They also want to show that they refuse to be bound by International agreements, the UN, treaties, or whatever.
This is I disagree with. Like many modern authoritarian regimes, and even totalitarian ones (the Soviets, for example) the Cheney junta wants very much to be seen as obeying the norms of the treaties the US has signed, even when it has absolutely no intention of doing so. Thus the charade about “interpreting” Geneva Common Article 3 when the plan is to continue using torture techniques that are recognized as such by even the Israeli Supreme Court.
I think this is primarily for domestic propaganda purposes. They recognize how much leeway they have in a political culture dominated by semi-savages, but they aren’t willing to push it so far as to actually, publicly defy the Geneva Conventions. Americans have an amazing ability to see themselves as the good guys no matter what crimes they are actually committing (the Germans were the same, and the Serbs; maybe all peoples are, it’s part of the DNA of nationalism). But even self-deception has its limits.
The other reason is that these guys all have passports and they like to travel (Shrub excepted). It’s hard to run an empire if you can’t set foot outside the U.S. without fear of being arrested. That’s why they refuse to recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court, instead of recognizing it and flouting it.
Instilling that fear in them is some progress, I guess.

Posted by: billmon | Sep 16 2006 18:10 utc | 5

Don’t forget that it was Powell as Sec. of State when the US was twisting all those arms for bilateral treaties exempting US troops and agents from ICC coverage. This may be an exellent opportunity for a number of countries to declare that those deals would be forfeited if the US institutes its redefinition of Article III.

Posted by: biklett | Sep 16 2006 18:46 utc | 6

The new improved torture statute would be made retroactivelly applicable to September 11, 2001. Why is that, I wonder, if all it is intended to do is clarify and provide clear guidance to our poor “young intelligence officers” (as the Torturer-in-chief put it in his news conference yesterday)? If that is all it is truly intended to do, it would not need to be retroactive.

Posted by: Maxcrat | Sep 16 2006 20:37 utc | 7

For what it’s worth, I think the intrigue preceding and surrounding this moment of crisis (or collision) within “Republican” ranks (in quotes because this thing is not, to my thinking, described very well as a party affair) resembles, and equals, the events surrounding the Valerie Plame affair.
Major, or minor? Who can tell?
In both undertakings, lots of players, largely strangers to one another, started collaborating, timidly at first, then got their act together and started to push. Both undertakings are concerted, and are meant to make something happen. Both have taken the White House by surprise. In both instances, the silent and largely invisible role of the Judiciary (if any such role there be) remains unexplored, unexplained, and unevaluated.
This thing won’t go away, whatever comes down in November. It’s starting to hobble Bush, and will hobble him down to his last days in office. It’s a lever, a fulcrum, or a kind of brake in the hands of folks who can’t stand this walking, talking abortion any more–especially after being at least somewhat responsible for his remaining, as the sheriffs like to put it, “at large”.

Posted by: alabama | Sep 16 2006 21:25 utc | 8

The debate over the Geneva conventions is to me a little weird. I can see your point about the value of legally committing to the Geneva convention to America’s moral legitimacy. But in truth I think it will only be of effect indirectly.
Americans get up tied up in knots about the UN because they have a culture of rules. When they see a rule its a rule, you can’t break it. So when they commit to things at the international legal level its almost the same as committing to them legally domestically.
I think this is almost a uniquely American way of looking at international law. To the rest of the world international laws are fine, but its like that quote about treaties and roses. They last while they last. To people in almost every other nation on earth I think the political commitment behind an international law is more important than the law itself.
As such, whether the US is formally committed to the Geneva conventions barely matters. It will be a great point for a lefty blog reader in a debate on a comments thread. But I would be surprised if even a noticable minority in any country will be aware of it.
So in practice the pictures from Abu Gharib matter more than a Senate debate even most Americans are unaware of. I think when it comes to the international view of America as the light on the hill, well that ship finally left port in the last year or two, and I doubt it is ever coming back. American is no longer viewed as a nation to emulate, economically, culturally or politically by a plurality in any country, anywhere. The final nail in the coffin was the East Asian economic success. America is going to have to achieve its international political objectives without the moral high ground ever again, except perhaps as a genuine part of of a broader coalition.
The real effect of the law Shrub is a military led by graduates of West Point who never did a course on the Geneva conventions. That makes me shudder. But the results of that are a fair way down the track.

Posted by: still working it out | Sep 17 2006 1:56 utc | 9

Larry Johnson does Superb piece comparing Bu$h to Capt. Queeg Mutiny in America?

Posted by: jj | Sep 17 2006 2:03 utc | 10

Can a vote be a war crime?
Members of Congress are thus on notice that minimum due process guarantees under customary international law must not be denied when Congress attempts to articulate what forms of procedure a military commission should adopt…. Such denials are war crimes.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 17 2006 8:07 utc | 11

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