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Among the news media's many failings, none may be more pernicious than the persistent confusion between fairness and moral indifference.
Regular readers of Regarding Media may recall that the late Edward R. Murrow delivered about the best possible judgment on this confusion's impact, when he decried a faux notion of journalistic fairness that is willing to concede "the word of Judas equal weight with that of Jesus."
It's the kind of he-said-she-said news coverage that would have reported the Sermon on the Mount this way: "On a mountainside in Galilee today, a popular young rabbi argued that 'the meek shall inherit the earth.' Other religious authorities, however, pointed out that if God did not want the rich to fleece the poor, he would not have allowed them to behave like sheep."
This week, Americans were treated to their latest rehearsal of this phony fairness in the coverage of U.S. Atty. Gen.-designate Michael B. Mukasey's attempts to win Senate confirmation. President George W. Bush hopes to replace the haplessly sycophantic Alberto Gonzales with the former federal judge from New York, but the nomination is in trouble because Mukasey refuses to tell members of the Senate's Judiciary Committee whether he believes waterboarding is torture and, therefore, illegal.
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are insistent that any discussion of the issue is precluded by the exigencies of national security and the war on terror. Cut to the core of their real argument, however, and it boils down to the naked assertion that whatever the president says is legal is legal -- including torture, which isn't torture, if the president says it isn't.
As the Washington Post, which has done more than any other news outlet to bring to light this administration's construction of a secret gulag where torture is routine, reported this week: "Waterboarding generally involves strapping a prisoner to a board, covering his face or mouth with a cloth, and pouring water over his face to create the sensation of drowning, human rights groups say. The practice dates at least to the Spanish Inquisition and has been prosecuted as torture in U.S. military courts since the Spanish-American War. The State Department has condemned its use in other countries.
"Officials have said the Bush administration authorized the use of waterboarding on at least three prisoners kept in secret detention by the CIA after the Justice Department said it was legal, including alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed."
The Post might have added that after World War II, the United States prosecuted Japanese officers who had presided over waterboarding as war criminals.
So what we have here is a president and vice president who want to install as the country's chief law enforcement official a man who refuses to flatly say that the United States of America should not torture people. Putting aside the surreal question of how our elected officials ever equivocated themselves into a debate over whether to torture, the descent of most of the press into comfortable euphemism this week has been a stomach-turning experience.
The New York Times, for example, reported that Mukasey's confirmation is "in doubt over his refusal to state a clear legal position on a classified Central Intelligence Agency program to interrogate terrorism suspects . . ." Yet nothing about this impasse has anything real to do with classification or intelligence work; it has everything to do with whether we now wish to place our nation among those that ignore basic human rights and elemental moral decency as a matter of state policy. Meanwhile, this newspaper and others repeatedly described waterboarding as a "harsh technique" or as a "coercive measure." It is neither of those things. It is torture, and the refusal to make that point each and every time this repugnant practice comes up is a form of rhetorical squeamishness indistinguishable from moral cowardice.
Strangely enough, this week's clearest statement of what the fight in Washington is really all about didn't appear in any newspaper or broadcast news outlet, but on an Internet site ( www.smallwarsjournal.com) popular with unconventional warfare and intelligence professionals. The author is Malcolm W. Nance, a veteran special operations consultant to various U.S. intelligence agencies and a master instructor in the U.S. Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) program in San Diego. Nance also is an experienced Arabic-speaking interrogator. He wrote that one of the things he did when helping to develop the program that trains navy fliers and others on how to stand up to torture was to visit Cambodia:
"Before arriving for my assignment at SERE, I traveled . . . to visit the torture camps of the Khmer Rouge. . . . I wanted to know how real torturers and terror camp guards would behave and learn how to resist them from survivors of such horrors. . . . It was in the S-21 death camp known as Tuol Sleng in downtown Phnom Penh, where I found a perfectly intact inclined water board. Next to it was the painting on how it was used. . . .
"On a Mekong River trip, I met a 60-year-old man, happy to be alive and a cheerful travel companion, who survived the genocide and torture. He spoke openly about it and gave me a valuable lesson. . . . In torture, he confessed to being a hermaphrodite, a CIA spy, a Buddhist Monk, a Catholic Bishop and the son of the king of Cambodia. He was actually just a schoolteacher whose crime was that he once spoke French. He remembered 'the Barrel' version of waterboarding quite well. Head first until the water filled the lungs, then you talk."
Nance has no time for euphemisms and no doubt that waterboarding is anything other than torture: "Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word. Waterboarding is a controlled drowning that, in the American model, occurs under the watch of a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a trained strap-in/strap-out team. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim's face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.
"Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of black out and expiration -- usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch and if it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia. When done right, it is controlled death. Its lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threatened with its use again and again."
That's what really is at issue in the Mukasey confirmation hearing. When the media characterize it as a political struggle between the White House and congressional Democrats or as a complex debate over national security in a post Sept. 11 world -- two convenient dodges -- they aren't being realistic or fair. What the media really are doing is engaging in a sophisticated fan dance -- a convenient act of concealment.
What's really at stake is whether this country will continue to stand with the framers of our Constitution and our authentic moral traditions or whether we now will allow Bush and Cheney to put us shoulder to shoulder with Pol Pot.
tim.rutten@latimes.com
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
19 Comments so far
Show AllTorture is banned. But when the cat is away the mice will play.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't there already any number of laws including the Geneva Conventions, that make any sort of torture ileegal? SO now we are to believe that that this Congress who can't pass ANY decent legislation, who simply continues to enable our country's slide into fascism, is going to suddenly PASS LEGISLATION TO BAN TORTURE. Sorry but this sounds totally absurd to me. How many of the American people would even bother to find out how their Senator voted on this. I am so sick of their cynical manuevering as "Rome burns." Throw the bums out!!!!
Senator Patrick Leahy doesn't think approving Judge Michael Mukasey is a good idea; Senator Charles Schumer thinks it's a good idea only under the current circumstances and only with the Judge's assurance that if a law is passed by Congress that makes waterboarding illegal Judge Mukasey will enforce that law.
Delaying Judge Mukasey's vote in the Judiciary Committee until a law banning waterboarding is approved (over the President's veto, if necessary) and then asking the Judge if he will enforce the law, would eliminate the guesswork.
Instead of hoping things will change or wanting things to change or promising things will change, things would actually be changed.
I am sure our powerful politicians could expedite these actions; from what they have said they are all eager to approve a reliable nominee as soon as possible.
If Congress chooses not to make waterboarding illegal, Senator Schumer's logic can still be followed by those who think it's a good idea only under the current circumstances and only with the Judge's assurance that if a law is passed by Congress that makes waterboarding illegal Judge Mukasey will enforce that law.
But regardless of how the vote goes the American people and the world will know who in Congress favors waterboarding and who doesn't. Any judicial body that may review current events will have a record to go by as well.
In fact, this approach is so simple and obvious I'm sure everyone in Congress and in the White House has already thought of it.
After what America and the world has been through, this is the least Congress can do. It could begin the process of restoring the Justice Department while beginning the process of restoring the faith of America and the world in America's leaders.
From "Senator Schumer's Statement" ..
Published: November 2, 2007
"The judge made clear to me that were Congress to pass a law banning certain interrogation techniques, we would clearly be acting within our constitutional authority. And he flatly told me that the president would have absolutely no legal authority to ignore such a law, not even under some theory of inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution. He also pledged to enforce such a law and repeated his willingness to leave office rather than participate in a violation of law."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/washington/02txt-schumer.html
I may be typing prissily, but I prefer Corporate Media as a designation to MSM. The latter doesnt really contain the explantion of WHY its mainstream-- they own the smorgassboard of mental jello.
Sorry I gave a botched thread for my Off-Topic-Youtube-Interjection. My social skills (with my computer) will improve thursday aound teatime!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSOOK3tocTk
Please watch this as it features our hero American University communications expert Christopher Simpson author of the absolutely essential book The Science of Coercion
Daniel David - I've been reading your posts on some of these threads, and while I sympathize with your belief that electing a Democrat has to be far superior to the election of any Republican, the sad fact is that the evidence of the past two years doesn't support you. What it shows, instead, is that people (especially people in the public eye like politicians) who justify any means to achieve a good end lose touch with their convictions and become useless to achieve anything good, even in desperate situations. It's perfectly clear to anyone who's paid attention that giving Bush power to create evil (as with the confirmation of Mukasey) will mean more evil will be created than anyone ever imagined. If the Democratic candidates and those in Congress are able to keep justifying not stopping evil that can clearly be foreseen, there is absolutely no reason to believe they will have any convictions left once elected. So it's impossible to say that they would even govern any differently than BushCo. Events may very well occur that will make them feel they have to do things similar to what Bush is doing, and more, for "a good end" (like staying in the White House). And they'll be ready to justify their choice, because they've had so much practice, and it "got them into the White House."
Mr. Mukasey is a dual Israeli-American citizen. Is it fair to ask if the three so-called liberal senators who belatedly endorsed and therefore insured his appointment, Feingold, Schumer and Feinstein, also hold Iraeli citizenship? Given that many major power players within our government, like Michael Chertoff, are Isreali citizens, isn't it time to discuss what might seem to many an obvious major conflict of interest?
Most of the MSM has no principle of truth on which it bases its reporting OR advertising. If there are opposing sides of a "story", most news agencies go no further than reporting both of them without comment, what the author calls "he says-she says". Very few dig to discover the truth and then present both with an indication of which one is true. The same is true for political advertisements -- no political messages that contain lies should be run, such as the Swiftboat crap, though that's another issue. Therefore, the two conclusions that are critical to making rational decisions are precluded: first, the actual truth, and, second, what the untrue story is, which in turn leads to questions about why lies are being told.
This utter laziness and cowardice on the part of the MSM, and is to blame for a lot of Americans' utterly delusional beliefs. That's why about half of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 911. That's why more than half of Americans believe Iran intends to harm the US and should be unilaterally and illegally attacked. Very few news agencies offer the truth.
If the MSM were focused on the truth, every single news report of Bush saying that waterboarding isn't torture would also add the information that under international and US law, it is torture, no matter what he says. Instead we have the news media enabling Bush to become Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, and every other murderous dictator the world has known.
The treachery of the MSM in collusion with antidemocratic and unconstitutional forces in the government and the radical right wing is the primary force that has brought us to this point in American history.
Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and others complicit in this torture fiasco are all GOING TO HELL!!!
Torture isn't directed at Al Qaeda; it's directed at you. It isn't intended to make people speak, it's intended to make them afraid to speak. And it's intended to make them feel like cowards for not speaking. It's a device for generating shame; it only works if you don't see through it. See through it; see what motivates it; see that what motivates you is different.
Daniel David,
What makes you think a Democratic President will discontinue waterboarding or any other form of torture for that matter, especially if his/her strings are begin pulled by neo-cons and corporations?
The MSM keeps pushing for confirmation, because they support the status quo. It's like mom and dad staying together for the sake of the kids. Just vote for Mukasey, you said you would, don't screw up the system, the system still works if you just believe.
But the system isn't working. It depends on both sides compromising to work. If one side compromises and the other one doesn't, that's capitulation. Enough of that, and soon it's game over. The system is broken, and that's the elephant in the room.
Many citizens have missed this.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer...rfk&search=
The media is a tool, as are those who admonish us not to follow our intuition.
A poem I found years ago instructs me to listen to my intuition, my heart:
Listen to what they did.
Don't listen to what they said.
What was written in blood
Has been set up in lead.
Lead tears the heart.
Lead tears the brain.
What was written in blood
Has been set up again.
The heart is a drum.
The drum has a snare.
The snare is in the blood.
The blood is in the air.
Listen to what they did.
Listen to what's to come.
Listen to the blood.
Listen to the drum.
James Fenton
Mr. Duncan,
I've always been pro-Kucinich. And if he doesn't make it through the convention, we had better elect one of the other Democrats. By the time we un-elect Bush, I think there are any number of Democrats who might be eager to discontinue waterboarding. But don't press them to be such publicly declared doves in advance that goosey voters elect Giuliani by default.
So, you're pro-Kucinich now, Daniel David? What happens if he doesn't make it through the convention?
The 13-month answer to waterboarding is we elect a Democratic president who issues on his/her first day in office an executive order stating that waterboarding shall not be used ever, on anyone, in any circumstance.
As for Mukasey, the Congress can confirm him or not. It doesn't make much difference. A Republican administration is going to do what it does, with or without an AG, until you get rid of the Republican administration.
In the meantime, don't damage your Democratic candidates by demanding they denounce this or that in advance, giving the Republican opponents ammunition to use in seeing to it the Democrats don't get elected at all.
Your analysis of the media correct though it may be does not change the fact that the democratic wing of the Republican party led by Feinstein and Schumer approve of the nomination.
The last sentence is "What's really at stake is whether this country will continue to stand with the framers of our Constitution and our authentic moral traditions or whether we now will allow Bush and Cheney to put us shoulder to shoulder with Pol Pot."
Now that's fairly strong stuff, for the LA Times. However, even this is a "modified limited hangout," because this country doesn't really have "authentic moral traditions," and never did. You're just supposed to assume that, because it's been spoonfed to us all our lives.
Oh, and by the way, since this article was published yesterday, the Dems have guaranteed that Mukasey will indeed be confirmed. Feinstein & Schumer have announced they'll support his nomination, and 20 or so Dems will vote "Aye" for him when the nom now goes to the full Senate.
So there's your answer to the article's last question -- brought to you by your good & reliable friends, the Democratic Party, working (as usual) hand-in-glove with Bush & Cheney.
The whole capitalist establishment is in serious jeopardy which is why the hapless Demoks frantically cling to their abusive Repuk partners. Their greatest fear is of the growing public awareness that the public does not need fossil fuel, does not need capital, and does not need Demoks/Repuks.