TPM Reader ZH on the torture bill compromise …
This compromise basically returns us to the status quo as far as torture goes. We likely tortured captured spies throughout the cold war to extract information (or at least went beyond Common Artice 3 standards in any case) and probably did so in secret to try and prevent various ticking-time-bomb scenarios like those that have been described in gruesome detail by various pro-torture voices in the past weeks. Bush tried to take these actions out of the darker corners of the government and grant interrogators official cover for their actions. Beyond that, he coupled this with a law to rig courts where information gathered from torturing both the defendent and quasi-anonymous witnesses can be used to hang someone. That’s one motive for legalizing torture. Another is that this president is, for one reason or another, more vulnerable than most to whistle-blowing despite his gather-the-wagons attitude. Lastly, there’s the obvious tactic that including certain odious factors in the bill (specifics about no trial rights, torture, etc) will make it impossible for most Dems to vote for this wedge.
The compromise does little to help Dems on the last prong of Bush’s strategy, but provides cover for the anti-torture GOP members by sending torture back to the shadows. Evidence obtained with torture probably won’t be used in courts, and torture probably won’t be made public again so long as the CIA does a better job than the military at keeping digital cameras out of its agents’ hands. The compromise does to quite a bit in terms of saving our collective face and ensuring that the right to torture without penalty isn’t enshrined in our laws, but anyone who actually opposes torture (as opposed to just opposing decriminalyzing it) should stand up, and probably should’ve asked a few more questions about our tactics several years ago before the first pictures came out as well.
Thoughts?
Nearly 7,000 Iraqis killed in sectarian violence over the last two months.
TPM Reader JO responds …
ZH’s analysis is way off base, Josh.
True, torture has always gone on “in the shadows,” but understanding the old status quo is as simple as watching Mission Impossible. What is the secret agent always told? If you are captured or killed, the government will deny all knowledge of your existance. Why? Because everyone knows that torture is illegal. So if our spooks tortured, we’d deny all knowledge. That was the pre-Bush status quo.
The McCain bill legalizes the stuff the government used to “deny all knowledge” of. It makes legal interrogation techniques that rest of the world calls torture. ZH misses this glaring distinction: t hese techniques may still be “in the shadows” insofar that they are “classfied,” but they are no longer “in the shadows” in terms of legality. When the bill becomes law, it will be America’s official policy for professional CIA interrogators to use torture. And it will be perfectly legal. Period.
We are not even remotely returning to the status quo.
Makes sense to me.
At some level I almost have to admire the in-your-face, out in public and entirely brazen sort of payback the Bush White House metes out to those who are so villainous as to break the Bush code of silence. You can see it now in an almost comical mendacity about whether Dick Armitage was somehow off the reservation when he threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the stone age if the country didn’t get religion, shall we say, on rooting out the Taliban in the days after 9/11.
Here’s an out-take on Bush’s reaction today from the Post …
Asked at the news briefing in the East Room whether the United States would have actually attacked Pakistan if Musharraf had not agreed to cooperate in the war on terrorism, Bush said, “The first I’ve heard of this is when I read it in the newspaper today. You know, I was — I guess I was taken aback by the harshness of the words.” He said then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell informed him shortly after Sept. 11 that Musharraf “understands the stakes, and he wants to join and help root out an enemy that has come and killed 3,000 of our citizens.”
Leave it to that friggin’ Dick Armitage to get us cross-wise with allies.
(I guess the president missed all those news reports at the time that bragged on our ‘with us or against us’ speech to Pakistan.)
And wasn’t it Powell who made the UN speech on WMD? I’m seeing a pattern here.
Dem Diane Farrell hits Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) for his support of the war in Iraq.
JC adds his two cents …
One other aspect of this:
Right now, CIA are the bad guys. As far as I know, military interrogators were not using “coercive techniques.”
However, if this bill passes, military interrogators will not only be ALLOWED to use them, they will be EXPECTED to use them.
Which is one reason so many military people have come out against it. Before Hamdan, they were expected to leave the room before the CIA guy got started. Now, they’ll be expected to stay – and help.
But that CIA guy is never going to be out on the street patrolling, subject to capture. The military guy is.
Think about it.
I’m thinking.
TPM Reader DOK …
Reading this debate gives me the same sick feeling in my stomach that I got when I read the Atlantic Monthly article that came to the same conclusion as your previous commenter: torture doesnât work, but we should do it any way and pretend we donât. Like most Americans, I used to buy into this kind of cynicism. Government secrecy is the fuel that feeds all conspiracy theories. What changed my mind was watching the people who have stood up against torture. It has not been humanitarian organizations, movie stars or bleeding heart liberals, but the military and CIA.
Like all macho Hollywood clichés that this administration has put into practice, reality has a way of not following the script. The Democrats were no where to be seen. There was no public outcry on which to ride, no Democrats making a fuss, and no media wanting to give their opposition much play, but they did it anyway. Why is it the very people our President demands have the authority to engage in torture are the only ones willing to stand up and resist these policies, even when they know their protests will fall on deaf ears?
Because there views on torture were not formed in multiplexes, but on the ground, pursuing real bad guys. Because it doesnât work. Because they know better than anybody this policy will not help us, but hurt us. It tells me that even in the back rooms, in secret, under the radar with no oversight or accountability, our government would not do what our country is now willing to embrace out in the open under President Bush.
Let us know what you think?
Terrorism expert and former DOJ official Juliette Kayyem gives us her take on the torture bill deal.
Paul Kiel has been at work trying to trace back the call numbers of the push-polls being funded by Swift Boat kingpin Bob Perry. Oddly enough, the trail led him back to an escort service. But they weren’t available to speak with him. Find out the latest on our continuing hunt for the truth here.
TPM Reader ZN with a follow up …
I think DOK is taking some liberties in summarizing the torture article in the Atlantic. It actually came to the conclusion that systemic and routine torture don’t work. If there is a definite time constraint, and the admissibility isn’t an issue, i.e. stopping a ticking bomb, then torture may help get the information. The author thinks torture should remain illegal because if it is legalized even in this specific situation the possibility of abuse is to great. If it is illegal and the men and women who would commit it know that then they have to decide that the benefit is worth the possible penalty before they do it. If it is ever legal then stretching and interpretation of the situation come into play. If it is never legal then jury nullification or prosecutorial discretion is the only defense.
I think ZN’s take on the relationship between the rule of law, the wrongness of torture and the role of the far-fetched hypothetical that is often introduced into the debate is the closest to my own.
It’s a point I discussed at some length in this post in June 2004.
TPM Reader BC has this follow up …
Besides prosecutorial discretion and jury nullification, there is always the presidential pardon option. To me, this demonstrates that Bush doesnât have in mind rare cases of torture- which, if proved vital, or event useful, could be pardoned. He wants it to be a regular procedure, for which pardons would be unwieldy given the number of people needing them.
I think that’s it exactly.