This Makes Me Ill

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664.html

Every D congressional leader who enabled these horrors -- which is almost all of them -- should lose their posts today.
I'm going to be showing up at 3Bags' door with a peace offering very soon if this shit continues.
Jesus wept.

 

We are the rogue nation, and a working majority likes it that way. We'll get ours in due course.

 

Now I feel better.

 

Gang of Four, indeed. At least Ms. Harman had the moral backbone to lodge a protest.

There's at least one error in the piece, though. The US has been waterboarding folks going back to the Spanish-American war. We used to call it the "Water Cure." As is illustrated here:



Cartoon on the May 22, 1902 cover of Life magazine depicting American application of the water cure while Europeans watch. The caption reads: "Chorus in background: 'Those pious Yankees can't throw stones at us anymore.'"

From the Wikipedia entry on "Water Cure":

Lieutenant Grover Flint during the Philippine-American War:

"A man is thrown down on his back and three or four men sit or stand on his arms and legs and hold him down; and either a gun barrel or a rifle barrel or a carbine barrel or a stick as big as a belaying pin, -- that is, with an inch circumference, -- is simply thrust into his jaws and his jaws are thrust back, and, if possible, a wooden log or stone is put under his head or neck, so he can be held more firmly. In the case of very old men I have seen their teeth fall out, -- I mean when it was done a little roughly. He is simply held down and then water is poured onto his face down his throat and nose from a jar; and that is kept up until the man gives some sign or becomes unconscious. And, when he becomes unconscious, he is simply rolled aside and he is allowed to come to. In almost every case the men have been a little roughly handled. They were rolled aside rudely, so that water was expelled. A man suffers tremendously, there is no doubt about it. His sufferings must be that of a man who is drowning, but cannot drown. ..."

 

Fuckabuncha Harman, too. A "memorandum for the files"?
Brave, brave Sir Robin....

 

Agreed. Feeble. Should have said 'moral cartilage,' or 'vestigial moral calcium deposit.'

 

We already "got ours" on 9/11. Three thousand or so died.

Does not excuse our behavior in interrogations, but to say we haven't "got ours" in the past is, IMO, foolish.

 

That tragedy was more or less unprovoked, due to sublime ignorance on our part. We let people take knives on airplanes. Who knew?
The next one, it's just retaliation for well-documented crimes by the United States. Too bad for the innocents who'll die, but we can forget the "they hate us for our freedoms" dodge. George W. Bush hates our freedoms. They (whoever they are) hate us because our country has behaved hatefully.

 

Though I largely agree with MG, may I just say...
And, we're off!

 

The congresspersons reacted that way in 2002 because the opinion polls hadn't yet told them what to think on the subject.

 

I hope DFW doesn't mind if I post this in its entirety. From a recent issue of The Atlantic. And germane to any discussion about how low we're willing to sink to defend ourselves.


by David Foster Wallace
Just Asking

Are some things still worth dying for? Is the American idea1 one such thing? Are you up for a thought experiment? What if we chose to regard the 2,973 innocents killed in the atrocities of 9/11 not as victims but as democratic martyrs, “sacrifices on the altar of freedom”?2 In other words, what if we decided that a certain baseline vulnerability to terrorism is part of the price of the American idea? And, thus, that ours is a generation of Americans called to make great sacrifices in order to preserve our democratic way of life—sacrifices not just of our soldiers and money but of our personal safety and comfort?

In still other words, what if we chose to accept the fact that every few years, despite all reasonable precautions, some hundreds or thousands of us may die in the sort of ghastly terrorist attack that a democratic republic cannot 100-percent protect itself from without subverting the very principles that make it worth protecting?

Is this thought experiment monstrous? Would it be monstrous to refer to the 40,000-plus domestic highway deaths we accept each year because the mobility and autonomy of the car are evidently worth that high price? Is monstrousness why no serious public figure now will speak of the delusory trade-off of liberty for safety that Ben Franklin warned about more than 200 years ago? What exactly has changed between Franklin’s time and ours? Why now can we not have a serious national conversation about sacrifice, the inevitability of sacrifice—either of (a) some portion of safety or (b) some portion of the rights and protections that make the American idea so incalculably precious?

In the absence of such a conversation, can we trust our elected leaders to value and protect the American idea as they act to secure the homeland? What are the effects on the American idea of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Patriot Acts I and II, warrantless surveillance, Executive Order 13233, corporate contractors performing military functions, the Military Commissions Act, NSPD 51, etc., etc.? Assume for a moment that some of these measures really have helped make our persons and property safer—are they worth it? Where and when was the public debate on whether they’re worth it? Was there no such debate because we’re not capable of having or demanding one? Why not? Have we actually become so selfish and scared that we don’t even want to consider whether some things trump safety? What kind of future does that augur?


1) Given the strict Gramm-Rudmanesque space limit here, let's just please all agree that we generally know what this term connotes—an open society, consent of the governed, enumerated powers, Federalist 10, pluralism, due process, transparency ... the whole democratic roil.

2) (This phrase is Lincoln's, more or less)

 

Oh, I'm not sure, in 2002, that the polls didn't tell them to do exactly what they did. We're all complicit in this.