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TechnoratiCommitting War Crimes for The "Right Reasons"
The Atlantic's Ross Douthat has a post today -- "Thinking About Torture" -- which, he acknowledges quite remarkably, is the first time he has "written anything substantial, ever, about America's treatment of detainees in the War on Terror." He's abstained until today due to what he calls "a desire to avoid taking on a fraught and desperately importantly (sic) subject without feeling extremely confident about my own views on the subject."
I don't want to purport to summarize what he's written. It's a somewhat meandering and at times even internally inconsistent statement. Douthat himself characterizes it as "rambling" -- befitting someone who appears to think that his own lack of moral certainty and borderline-disorientation on this subject may somehow be a more intellectually respectable posture than those who simplistically express "straightforward outrage." In the midst of what is largely an intellectually honest attempt to describe the causes for his ambiguity, he actually does express some "straightforward outrage" of his own. About the widespread abuse, he writes: "it should be considered impermissible as well as immoral" and "should involve disgrace for those responsible, the Cheneys and Rumsfelds as well as the people who actually implemented the techniques that the Vice President's office promoted and the Secretary of Defense signed off on."
Nonetheless, Douthat repeatedly explains that he is burdened by "uncertainty, mixed together with guilt, about how strongly to condemn those involved," and one of the central reasons for that uncertainty -- one that is commonly expressed -- is contained in this passage:
But with great power comes a lot of pressures as well, starting with great fear: The fear that through inaction you'll be responsible for the deaths of thousands or even millions of the Americans whose lived you were personally charged to protect. This fear ran wild the post-9/11 Bush Administration, with often-appalling consequences, but it wasn't an irrational fear - not then, and now. It doesn't excuse what was done by our government, and in our name, in prisons and detention cells around the world. But anyone who felt the way I felt after 9/11 has to reckon with the fact that what was done in our name was, in some sense, done for us - not with our knowledge, exactly, but arguably with our blessing. I didn't get what I wanted from this administration, but I think you could say with some justification that I got what I asked for. And that awareness undergirds - to return to where I began this rambling post - the mix of anger, uncertainty and guilt that I bring to the current debate over what the Bush Administration has done and failed to do, and how its members should be judged.
This is the Jack Goldsmith argument: while what Bush officials did may have been misguided and wrong, they did it out of a true fear of Islamic enemies, with the intent to protect us, perhaps even consistent with the citizenry's wishes. And while Douthat presents this view as some sort of candid and conflicted complexity, it isn't really anything more than standard American exceptionalism -- more accurately: blinding American narcissism -- masquerading as a difficult moral struggle.
The moral ambiguity Douthat thinks he finds is applicable to virtually every war crime. It's the extremely rare political leader who ends up engaging in tyrannical acts, or commits war crimes or other atrocities, simply for the fun of it, or for purely frivolous reasons. Every tyrant can point to real and legitimate threats that they feared.
Ask supporters of Fidel Castro why he imprisoned dissidents and created a police state and they'll tell you -- accurately -- that he was the head of a small, defenseless island situated 90 miles to the South of a huge, militaristic superpower that repeatedly tried to overthrow his government and replace it with something it preferred. Ask Hugo Chavez why he rails against the U.S. and has shut down opposition media stations and he'll point out -- truthfully -- that the U.S. participated to some extent in a coup attempt to overthrow his democratically elected government and that internal factions inside Venezuela have done the same.
Iranian mullahs really do face internal, foreign-funded revolutionary groups that are violent and which seek to overthrow them. Serbian leaders -- including those ultimately convicted of war crimes -- had legitimate grievances about the treatment of Serbs outside of Serbia proper and threats posed to Serbian sovereignty. The complaints of Islamic terrorists regarding U.S. hegemony and exploitation in the Middle East are grounded in factual truth, as are those of Gazan terrorists who point to the four-decades-old Israeli occupation. Georgia really did and does face external threats from Russia, and Russia really did have an interest in protecting Russians and South Ossetians under assault from civilian-attacking Georgian artillery. The threat of Israeli invasion which Hezbollah cites is real. Some Muslims really have been persecuted by Hindus.
But none of those facts justify tyranny, terrorism or war crimes. There are virtually always "good reasons" that can be and are cited to justify war crimes and acts of aggression. It's often the case that nationalistic impulses -- or genuine fears -- lead the country's citizens to support or at least acquiesce to those crimes. War crimes and other atrocities are typically undertaken in defense against some real (if exaggerated) threat, or to target actual enemies, or to redress real grievances.
But we don't accept that justifying reasoning when offered by others. In fact, those who seek merely to explain -- let alone justify -- the tyranny, extremism and/or violence of Castro, or Chavez, or Hamas, or Slobodan Milosevic or Islamic extremists are immediately condemned for seeking to defend the indefensible, or invoking "root causes" to justify the unjustifiable, or offering mitigating rationale for pure evil.
Yet here we have American leaders who now, more openly than ever, are literally admitting to what has long been known -- that they violated the laws of war and international treaties which, in the past, we've led the way in advocating and enforcing. And what do we hear even from the most well-intentioned commentators such as Douthat? Yes, it was wrong. True, they shouldn't have done it. But they did it for good reasons: they believed they had to do it to protect us, to guard against truly bad people, to discharge their heavy responsibility to protect the country, because we were at war.
All of the same can be said for virtually every tyrant we righteously condemn and every war criminal we've pursued and prosecuted. The laws of war aren't applicable only in times of peace, to be waived away in times of war or crisis. To the contrary, they exist precisely because the factors Douthat cites to explain and mitigate what our leaders did always exist, especially when countries perceive themselves at war. To cite those factors to explain away war crimes -- or to render them morally ambiguous -- is to deny the very validity of the concept itself.
The pressures and allegedly selfless motivations being cited on behalf of Bush officials who ordered torture and other crimes -- even if accurate -- aren't unique to American leaders. They are extremely common. They don't mitigate war crimes. They are what typically motivate war crimes, and they're the reason such crimes are banned by international agreement in the first place -- to deter leaders, through the force of law, from succumbing to those exact temptations. What determines whether a political leader is good or evil isn't their nationality. It's their conduct. And leaders who violate the laws of war and commit war crimes, by definition, aren't good, even if they are American.
35 Comments so far
Show AllBring America Back !!!! I am usually straight-on with Greenwald's thinking but here he is mixed up in his own hodge-podge.
**Firstly, torture is not necessarily a war crime==you do not need a war
to torture anybody! If the VP of the US stands up and advocates for Congress to
pass a law allowing torture--then you better damn well believe they are already doing it==as Cheney did, and as they were at Abu Gharib.
**Glen needs to get back to the archives of Blockbuster for a flick called
"Marathon Man" with Dustin Hoffman for a right reason-wrong man case in point!
**If a Nation passes torture legislation==e.g. Military Commissions Act==
where as we speak, waterboarded detainees are admitting to Masterminding
9/11 so they may obtain Martyrdom and their 40-Virgin rewards in Islam-heaven!,
then woe be to our guys (spys) when they get caught at it, -over there -!
And Gee, Valerie Pflame wasn't even a guy spy, she was a Bond girl !
**Better not to have a law on the books that we advocate it as a Nation There
was and is, and has been the Geneva Convention Rules. Name , rank and serial
number !!!!
****Also, Greenwald knows in his heart, that the War Crimes of Bush/Cheney/Clinton did not begin in the Torture Chamber--they began on
9/11/01. No cave dweller boogieman with 19 airline school flunkouts could
have pulled off the technical genius that was 9/11. He also knows the
smoking gun of 9/11 is and was Building #7==the list of occupants of that
building reads like the whose-who in US Intelligence==and establishes the
method, motive, and opportunity to perp the Neocon 2nd Pearl Harbor.
**Our very own Amy Goodman is on video tape on that day, breaking the news that building #7 World Trade Center had collapsed.--While, yep, just over her shoulder in the distance Bldg 7 is plainly seen still standing erect and tall, and then, at 5:30pm that day, as fate allows, Building 7 falls neatly into it's own construction footprint==just as the RCA Dome did today in Indianapolis.
Now, either Amy Goodman is a member of the Harry Houdini Mental Teleportation
Club, or someone who knew Bldg 7 was rigged for demolition told her it was
going to fall !!!! And, she reported it in advance on national TV. So did BBC,
and CNN !!!!
**Again, now who in Bldg 7, had an interest in the structure coming down ????
(Re:read next to the above paragraph )
**Usually then, it is easy to tell when journalists are caving in to the
Federal storyline fantasy of bin Laden boogieman, like Goodman, and caving in
to the mainstream media cover-ups==FOX< CNN< CBS
I agree with your premise but you paint with too broad a brush.
Hamas is the legally elected government of the Palestinian people and prior to their election have renounced terrorism. The Israelis overthrew Hamas and do use torture, collective punishment etc. to oppress the Palestinians.
Chavez has good reason to criticize the the US. The US has been supporting the militant upper classes for years and have directly involved in efforts to push him aside. Many of these media outlets belonged to them these people. Check out Greg Palast's work on Venezuela.
The fact is that for Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush torture was their first choice and since it is a poor tool for gathering intelligence, we can be certain it had nothing to do with national security.
There are aberrant individuals who enjoy the torture and I think we should at least consider that some of may have had jobs in the White House. The act of torture is considered pathological though the end result may be political.
To Bill from Saginaw---
"Most of us who took part in the peace movement of the 60's and early 70's believed that 'the lessons of Vietnam' had been learned and would never be forgotten. We were wrong."
Very well put. Also, implicit in your assertions is the realization that not all of us are complicit in the acts of your government, contrary to what some above suggest. For example, back in 1964-65 (stet), for a college writing class, I wrote a 73-page annotated paper entitled "Why the United States Should Unilaterally Withdraw from Viet Nam." The Prof was a Korean War (undeclared) vet who totally disagreed with my premises (he believed in the so-called Domino Theory of "communist aggression") but he gave me an A+ anyway, probably for pedagogy.
It is not that Cheney et al "forgot" the lessons of Viet Nam. They never learned them and got rich by disposing of any conscience. Cheney on the Viet Nam DRAFT and how he escaped conscription: "I had other priorities." So did I.
PEACE.
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OleManRiver and the AZCowboy make solid points.
Some regimes torture because torture has utility, instilling fear of contact with the government's agents (for the innocent and guilty alike) throughout the general population, as a means of social control. Whether the torture victims are even questioned, and whether they divulge credible information or nothing but false confessions and false accusations as a result, is of purely secondary importance.
Douthat's essay in the Atlantic mentions that Cheney himself drew upon the CIA's infamous Operation Phoenix program of the Vietnam war as a model for the American government's current torture practices. As the great movie Battle of Algiers illustrates, in the short term as an anti-insurgency tactic, mass detentions and torture do produce the appearance of success. Long term however, it is counter-productive and self-defeating, creating more terrorists than it deters. Keep that in mind in the upcoming months, when events in Iraq will likely cause us to revisit the glorious success of the surge.
Although torture was a staple of US colonial counterinsurgency policy in the Phillippines for years, I agree that Vietnam was really the pivotal watershed moment. Recognize too that Operation Phoenix was a complete and utter failure.
Most of us who took part in the peace movement of the 60's and early 70's believed that "the lessons of Vietnam" had been learned and would never be forgotten. We were wrong. We underestimated the bloodthirsty tenacity of hawks like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ollie North, Poindexter, Abrams, McCain and the intelligence community's black ops boys, when it came to persistently pushing forward a revisionist history to sanitize the grotesque excesses of American militarism in southeast Asia.
All it took was the excuse of 9/11 to re-open that whole putrid can of worms, in order to pretend it was some brand new kind of 21st Century war.
Bill from Saginaw
Virtually every debate that comes around to torturing our 'detainees' seems to raise the justification that al Qaeda is not a true military organization attached to any one nation... it is in fact a criminal enterprise, and therefore "we should not be bound by treaties or international law" in how we treat these 'detainees'... "after all, they saw heads off and perform other disgusting acts of sadistic violence".
On the other hand, no one seems to care that the vast majority of these 'detainees' were found to be innocent of any connection to al Qaeda or other terrorist groups and most were released eventually... some after being held as long as 4 years.
The issue is NOT how the so-called "bad guys" act, nor is it whether or not they represent any one country... the issue is that OUR military, intelligence and contractors DO represent what is supposed to be a civilized nation of laws.
The Administration has talked out of both sides of their mouths regarding the issue of torture and prisoner abuse. They have repeatedly said they didn't torture anyone... then repeatedly said, "Well, only a few..." and now they are saying "...but it proved necessary and worthwhile!"
IF we are ever to win international recognition as "the good guys" in the world, I personally believe that it is necessary that the top people in the Bush regime be tried as war criminals... and never again should we stray from what is moral and just in the performance of any military or intelligence action in the world.
Holding innocent OR guilty prisoners without hearing, trial or without any contact with the outside world should never again be tolerated, torturing the innocent OR the guilty should never again be tolerated, and anyone involved in such behavior should be prosecuted to the letter of the law.
If we do not strictly adhere to those standards, we have NO RIGHT to consider ourselves "the good guys".
The paradox of violence, noted by the Buddha 2500 years ago, is that it is a vicious circle. Our heavy handed, not to say criminal, response to terrorism has fueled the flames of anti-Americanism around the world. In fact, 9/11 was itself a response to American excesses and misguided policies. Not only is torture morally wrong, it's self-defeating. Obama's inclined to ban torture, but not to hold torturers accountable or to change our basic military strategy which holds that small, shadowy, widespread, secretive groups can be defeated on the battlefield and that innocent victims of our aggression will merely shrug it off. The best way not to be a victim of terror is not to inflict terror on others. Seems pretty simple, but both the current and the incoming administrations are headed by people who just don't get it.
Alex
Sioux Rose
LAWYER ALEX: You're basically relating the wisdom drawn by the Ancient Chinese masters who put their understanding into the I ching, also useful as a timeless oracle. In hexagram (a/k/a kua) 43, analogous to Bush's presidential number-status, it explains that no battle fought directly with evil can ever be won, because to engage in such a struggle forces the "good" party to take up the ways and means of evil. It advises to instead work on what does work, what is by nature good... which substantiates what Jesus advised as per "turning the other cheek," or "casting thy net to the other side," and what Emmett Foxx stated as "building new mental equivalents." One would be pro-peace, rather than constantly seeking like aggressive dogs, to find new reasons FOR combat. But then again, the Chinese masters were not up against a pervasive military-industrial-media complex... they actually COULD think for themselves and derive major wisdom from the laws reflected by and through the natural world surrounding them.
Torturing the "terrorist" may "generally [be] acknowledged to be ineffective" in obtaining relevant information from the "terrorist," but some argue that it has a deterrent effect on would-be "terrorists" who would fear being caught and tortured. And there may be some truth to this.
Many authoritarian and unpopular regimes use various forms of torture and punishment to keep their angry citizens at bay, including beheading, cutting off of hands, stoning to death, etc., etc. It can be viewed as a form of social control, and if any one single person on the planet sought so assiduously to remove it from the toolbox of governments, it was Eleanor Roosevelt (for those too young to remember---because it ain't taught in high school these days---wife of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt).
Torture is an exercise of Power (see the book by that name, by Bertrand Russell, who wrote that Power is by its nature irrational, which is what Power is; if you can still find it [the book)...]. Torture and the fear of death also more often than not is tinged with Racism. Cheney, for example, who attended the University of Wisconsin/Madison, in the 1960s, would be less likely to torture his white fellow students of that time who BOMBED the Army Math Research Center on that campus with a fertilizer bomb that presaged the Oklahoma City bombing. Note here the different strategies using the same technology: The Wisconsin bombers of 1970 at the height of the Viet Nam War wanted to blow up a military facility in a symbolic act, but they accidentally killed a researcher, Fassnacht, who had stayed late into the night and did not hear the warnings to empty the building. OTOH, the intent of the Oklahoma City bomber was to kill as many people who worked for the government as possible and innocent civilians be damned, including children. Two very different metaphilosophies used a virtually identical weapon for quite different ends (and both justified/rationalized the means).
Some people learn to intentionally visit inhumanity upon mankind. Dick Cheney has thus been dubbed Darth Vader for good reason. Others seek a better and more noble path. The Founders sought to diffuse Government Power in large part precisely to mitigate the tendencies of people like Cheney, who lately has been taking responsibility for his tactics of Power, while too many people who wish to hold him responsible for what are Crimes Against Humanity seem to think that Bush can somehow duck this because he is a defective Dunce. Dick Cheney is thus seen as Charley McCarthy (the surname being esp. apt), the ventriloquist. This should have been recognized by the Power Elites back in 2000, by the vetting process in Texas when Cheney came out and announced that he and the Governor has spent days vetting the Possible for VP, and had come up with none other than Cheney. This should have set off alarm bells throughout the Power Elites.
If, as Nancy Pelosi said, Impeachment is off the table, then how about a National Commission of Reconciliation along South African (Desmond TuTu) and more recently Rwandan lines, so that I can from the AUDIENCE OF THE DAMNED throw my shoes at the perpetrators, and so can you!? Pardon me. Pardon you. And pardon that shoe-throwing JOURNALIST (with credentials) in Baghdad.
That poor bastard (and I am a retired journalist). (Come to think of it, now not so retired...) You poor bastards. For the widows and orphans...you DOG.
Empathy can sometimes work against the person capable of it. Consider two empaths playing the game of chess. One theory holds that the game would never end.
Thank you CD for making this off-the-top exegesis (after reading all of the above) possible. And thanks to Chris Hedges for his education in Ethics, Morals, and the Nature of the Good. And also of course Glenn Greenwald.
-30-
Given that torture is generally is acknowledged to be ineffective, one has to wonder why the Bushies, particularly Cheney, have been so insistent on it.
There seems to be only one rational explanation: they're sadists. Psychopathological sadists, that is, not the leather-whip hobbyist kind.
Re: Torture, the 'All American Sport.'
It was in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia that the world discoved the 'black side' of America. Up to then all the WW II stories depicted the US as a 'world savior - even a hero' an 'honorable country.'
But, the McNamara's, Westmoreland's, and Nixon's (Gulf of Tonkin? Mai Lai?) and a hundred quadillian BTU's of TNT in 'Daisey Cutter' bombs and napalm cannisters dropped by America's genocidal B-52H's, followed up with 19 million gallon 'twist' of Agent Orange (toxins), violent rapes, massacres and assorted war crimes, so horrific the US media 'passed' on reporting it to the American people. (much as they have done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and 'indirectly' in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria c/o America's hemmoroid, the Zionist killers of the so-called 'Light Unto-The-nations' - Eretz Ysriol.
After reading about Cheney's 'confessions' this week about torture under the Bush crime syndicate and his 'what's it to ya' attitude by this monster we realize that the America of V-E and V-J day in 1945 is DEAD! GONE! KAPUT!
Bring on the worn-out 'War stories' films Col. North, that should keep 'patriotism' and 'self respect' alive for just a little while longer - maybe.
TheAZCowBoy
Tombstone, AZ.
¡NUREMBERG TWO!
Sick bastards, that's wot. Couldn't the school nurse find a new institution to replace the U.S. government in their lives?
"American exceptionalism - more accurately: blinding American narcissism - masquerading as a difficult moral struggle."
Yep. That pretty concisely sums up Ross Douthat's elaborate rationalization effort, as he tries to explain "the mix of anger, uncertainty and guilt" that he (like many others) brings to the "current debate" about US torture policy.
Thank you, Glenn Greenwald.
What I find particularly perplexing and offensive is this introspective passage from Mr. Douthat's narrative: "But anyone who felt the way I felt after 9/11 has to reckon with the fact that what was done in our name was, in some sense, done for us. Not with our knowledge, actually, but arguably with our blessing."
Sorry, mate. I was appalled from jump street by the knee jerk jingoism, the orchestrated campaign of adolescent, bloodthirsty sabre rattling, and the widely broadcast images of all those brown guys in orange jump suits being perp walked in shackles with sacks over their heads.
I don't think what was done in our name at Bagram, Gitmo, and Abu Ghraib was, in any coherent sense, done for us collectively. It was not done to protect the decent, law abiding people of the United States.
It was done for vengeance.
It was done to project military power abroad.
It was done to solidify and enhance political power at home.
And it was done to protect the political asses of the assholes on whose watch 9/11 so ignominiously took place, heaven forbid should the citizenry, once aroused, have begun to ask some awkward, focused questions.
So go easy with the pious bullshit about how this mindless militarism and torture was done "arguably with our blessing."
As the punch line to the old joke about the Lone Ranger and Tonto surrounded by hundreds of hostile Indians goes, "What you mean 'we', white man?"
Bill from Saginaw
Sioux Rose
BILL: Thank you for articulately speaking for me here, too. I don't like that Greenwald puts Chavez into the virtual dictator category, either.
And since we've volleyed around names today with respect to other articles, how about DOUTHAT, as in "Do That!" With a name that sounds like a "Just do it, Nike" ad, I guess ambibuity is not his strong suit. And like so many granted an audience in mainstream media, he takes the party line that all has been done ON BEHALF of the American people, done out of goodness, and a temperate contemplation of the law as opposed to the tortured stance between defending the Amercian people and fighting terrorism (even if it is drummed up like so many phantoms to justify in naive minds the use of brute force).
Isn't the position of Douthat something along the line, " You made me (kill, torture, etc.) you, I didn't want to do it. "
Sioux
Hi, Curtis, just noticed you noticed the name thing, too.. these people in the news are a regular Broadway cast, already designated for their parts by name!
Greenwald's reference to Hugo Chavez was unnecessary and misleading. Chavez allowed the license of one opposition media company to expire because it had encouraged the coup against him. There are plenty more opposition media companies in Venezuela.
Much better and more on point references would have been to the Soviet Union and Mao's China, which both faced powerful external enemies, principally the US, that were determined to undermine their regimes, and which took extreme oppressive measures in response.
Some would say that too often painting with too broad a brush is one of Bush's greatest offenses.
Many of us gringos opposed Bush since he first ran for governor in 1994, opposed Reagan since he first ran for president in 1976, and supported those who would end the empire ever since we could first vote. There are all sorts of people in every country, and, as I believe that national boundaries are mostly arbitrary and are used by the predators for their own purposes, I tend to think that progressives in any region should look for common cause with others from around the world.
kivals:good point. I missed it in text of GG's article.
Mike2: An interesting perspective - thank you. I appreciate your thoughts.
Well said.
In the end the extreme war on terror was an overcompensation for the shame of the past (9/11), for having allowed the attacks of 9/11 to occur.
I think it's that as much as the fear of the future that drove the Bush group over the edge of criminality.
Democrats offered cover, refusing to politicize the intelligence failure, refusing to follow Richard Clarke's lead, but I'm convinced that the mindset of Bush et al was fundamentally about trying to ensure that his years were not remembered by the attack but by the response. It had to be more severe... more terroristic frankly ... than the terrorists themselves. It had to have more cruelty, more explosions, more money.
This is ultimately a very young perspective, a very drunken perspective, embracing the mindset of the "enemy" and doubling down on it.
As much as being about preventing another one, it was all about shame and retribution.
I know we say that the Bushies are "shameless"... but I think in their hearts they did feel shame. The humiliation of 9/11 revealed their neglect of government. It showed how slowly they had taken up the reigns of government. It showed their utter military incompetence. They spent the next seven years overcompensating... which was just as bad... or worse.
There was no incompetence, no intelligence failure on the part of "the Bushies" regarding 911. The Bushies were actually quite successful, and I think still rather proud of what they think they have gotten away with. The whole notion of some deep-seated shame contributing to excesses in the "War on Terror" is totally ludicrous and fantastical. The "War on Terror" as well as the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were planned well before 911. Was the shame of the Bushies so great that it took the tenacity and courage of four widows of 911 ("the Jersey Girls") to garner enough support and pressure them to reluctantly conduct an investigation into 911 over a year and a half after the occurance of the crime of the century?? Who was the first appointed head of the 911 Commission other than the infamous mass-murderer, Henry Kissinger, who had to abruptly decline the chairmanship when the Jersey girls confronted him about his client list(Saudi). Who then took the chairmanship but neocon Philip Zelikow, whose interest and expertise in the subject of myth-making made him a perfect Bushie candidate for the job. And Myth is exactly what the 911 Commission turned out to be. Commission members were not allowed access to some of the testimony. Many witnesses with crucial testimony were not called to testify. Important testimony which otherwise might contradict the official line was simply excised from the report. Needless to say, the Jersey girls got no satisfaction or closure here. A large number of other 911 families who lost loved ones on Sept. 11 were not satisfied either and believe, as I do, that 911 was an inside job. If you have any real interest in what really happened on 9-11-o1, start doing a little research. Find out what and who Al Queda really are. Find out about the military drill that was taking place on 9-ll, a drill mimicking the exact scenario of what actually took place (planes flying into the WTC)--only the drill went LIVE (a "false-flag operation). Find out how Cheney ordered Air Force interceptors to stand down. Read the testimony of Willie Rodriguez experiencing large explosions in the basement of his building before the building was hit by a plane. The list of compelling evidence only grows larger.
The neocon concept of perpetual war already existed before Bush and Co. took office. I find it totally absurd that the heinous, brutal record of this criminal gang for the last eight years can be attributed to some sense of guilt or shame or retribution. Perhaps you could dig a tad deeper into their childhoods and upbringing, but SERIOUSLY!, these people seem to love what they've been doing!!
So make your voice loud and clear. To allow these crimes to go unanswered will invite others in the future to follow and even expound upon these crimes.
A small group of honorable people are organizing this very moment to bring the criminals of the Bush administration to justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity starting with the Commander in Chief; George Walker Bush.
Your silence will be your consent.
Your voice will break the silence of the consent of others.
nurembergrevisited@gmail.com
"But with great power comes a lot of pressures as well, starting with great fear: The fear that through inaction you'll be responsible for the deaths of thousands or even millions of the Americans whose lived you were personally charged to protect. This fear ran wild the post-9/11 Bush Administration..."
This fear rationalization is twisted bullshit, too. The definition of leadership is courage - as in, the courage to do the "right" thing IN SPITE of all fears. Anyone with "great power" who says, "Oops, sorry I killed and maimed tortured those millions of innocents, but, you know, I was afraid," should be stripped of all power, immediately, for being such a pussy.
Plus, this is the "fear" that ran wild in the Bush Administration post 9/11? But not before, even though they were flooded with attack warnings? So Douthat's "great power fear" that "through inaction you'll be responsible for the deaths of thousands or even millions of the Americans whose lives you were personally charged to protect" wasn't present BEFORE 9/11, then, seeing as how Bush/Cheney chose INACTION despite said attack forewarning? Based on Douthat's theory, wouldn't said fear exist the minute one assumed "great power" anyway, since, according to him, it's part of the package?
Does Douthat mean douche-bag in Esperanto?
Nice post.
Something I learned while serving my country...
Courage - the moral strength to do what is right, with confidence and resolution, even in the face of temptation or adversity.
Honor - to hold oneself accountable for one's actions.
See any "leaders" around?
Is it my poor understanding of the English language, or is it really that Glenn Greenwald is straddling the fence, in an attempt to minimize the gravity of George W. Bush, ET-ALL, in this article ?
Mr. Greenwald is commentating at length about the position of other commentators.
His position is succinctly stated as "The laws of war aren't applicable only in times of peace, to be waived away in times of war or crisis."
Those excuses didn't work at Nuremberg and won't "work" now. Time for some honesty. The laws exist, in treaties and US law (and a treat signed/voted is US law, points out Marjorie Cohn) and "no one is above the law" (a phrase I've heard used by Republicans).
Douthat's position speaks from an ahistorical context. This type of abuse is not the product of 9/11. It has been evolving for decades, as cited in Naomi Klein's magnificent read, "The Shock Doctrine." We had 'outsourced' such research to a maniac in a Candadian hospital, then tried to conceal it. It was only brought to light during the Church hearings of the 1970s and was condemned then - although as always - Congress declined to hold anyone criminally liable. The CIA with its darkforce, unlimited and secret budget has consistently implemented programs to overthrow democratically elected governments that will not do our bidding - and torture and assassination is often used by our surrogates in their well planned coups of elected officials. Read John Perkins' works on this subject. Education and accountability are the only two power bases that will end this madness - and unfortunately - the mass of Americans are so politically ignorant that educating them to the truth would be tantamount to rebirthing them. To quote an Iraq vet, young artist and wonderful rapper I recently met at a conference: "No justice - no sleep." Thanks Son
odoco,
Here's another reply to your excellent post, noting "the mass of Americans are so politically ignorant that educating them would be tantamount to rebirthing them."
Forty-one years ago America faced a similar moral quandary that MLK forcefully addressed in his "Beyond Vietnam" statement: "The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of her people."
MLK also addressed our need "to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam" by suggesting certain conciliatory proposals for healing and development with Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries.
Substitute "Iraq" or "Global War on Terror" for Vietnam and his wisdom is applicable today.
Education and accountability, as you also note, are keys to ending this madness.
One of the few people that know of the Senator Church's hearings.
Most of those documents from the 70's are now out in public. I read "CIA: Las Joyas De La Familia" by Eric Frattini. I found it most informative, but I have not seen the book in English. The CIA learned: the best way to deal with Congressional Oversight was to "Privatize and go OFF BOOK".....The Savings and Loan Scandals of the 1980's, "Keating Five", gave cover for many loans issued to CIA Off-Book companies....Those loans never had to be paid off and no one bothered to investigate.
If you have not heard of In-Q-Tel, then you should research it. I would guess that: Blackwater, Dyn Corp, Triple Canopy, Tiatan, and CACI are loaded with ex-CIA on their staffs......A good example: September 2007 a plane went down in Mexico it was loaded with 3.3 tons of cocaine. The plane was being investigated by the European Union because it had made four rendition flights to Guantanamo. When they went to the offices of the company listed as the owner, it was a vacant office and no one could find the owners.....That would be CIA modus operandi. No further investigation in the states, at least I have not heard of any.
No, the torture was a continuation of the McGill studies in "Brainwashing". They needed some stooges to claim they were "Al Qaeda" and responsible for the attacks of 9/11. They needed some stooges to claim they were Al Qaeda not Iraqi or Afghanistan people fighting against an invasion force. Why else would you destroy all the video tapes of the interrogations? Other than you used torture that you were authorized to use.