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TechnoratiThe Torture Memos, Obama and the Banality of Evil
Even as President Obama acted in the name of transparency and accountabilty in releasing the Bush administration's OLC's torture memos, he made assurances that the CIA agents who used the "enhanced interrogation techniques" meticulously detailed within would not be subject to criminal prosecution. Glenn Greenwald at Salon, Jeremy Scahill on his blog, David Bromwich at Huffington Post and Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic all have good takes on why Obama's decision is wrong. I concur. However politically expedient, Obama's nearly carte blanche absolution of torture was morally wrong, and his justification of it, from a professor of constitutional law, is intellectually dishonest.
Obama's rationalizations were artfully made to the point of being obfuscatory, but they can be boiled down to three points:
1) The strategic issue of national security. "The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world...We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs."
2) The legal-ethical issue of obedience. The CIA agents were only carrying out "their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice."
3) The political issue of national unity and progress. "This is a time for reflection, not retribution...at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."
The easiest to dismiss of these is the issue of national security. As Bromwich points out, the matter of protecting individual CIA agent's identities is "a calculated distortion." Any agent publicly named and prosecuted for torture would, of course, be removed from duty. Their identities no longer need to be protected as a matter of national security because they would no longer be in the business of national security.
As for the question of whether or not prosecutions would undermine intelligence agents' "confidence that they can do their jobs," I agree with Obama here. Prosecutions absolutely would undermine the CIA's confidence, and that is a good thing. No public official, least of all intelligence agents who already operate under cover of secrecy, should be wholly confident of the legality and morality of their actions. To guarantee such confidence would be to guarantee absolute impunity. Indeed, this necessary lack of confidence is precisely why the OLC memos exist in the first place, because interrogators were seeking advice about the legality of certain interrogation techniques. So the question is not whether or not prosecution would undermine the CIA's confidence, but rather a) how much so? and b) from what source is their confidence derived?
This brings us to the question of obedience. Obama's argument here is gravely disturbing. He asserts, in essence, that because the OLC says it is right, it is--that CIA agents should have absolute confidence in anything and everything approved by the OLC and/or ordered by the executive branch. Besides the shades of Nixon and Bush II, there are two things wrong with this assertion. First is the sweeping authority given to the OLC to determine wholly, by interpretation and in secrecy, the legality of actions that were known then to have been violations of multiple international and national laws. If the OLC determined tomorrow that rape was an appropriate interrogation technique, should CIA agents behave with confidence that they are acting within legal and moral bounds? I have a hard time believing that Obama, or anyone in his administration, thinks so.
Then there is the matter of culpability and deference to authority. Even if every single national and international law approved of the interrogation techniques used by the CIA, would they be just? Hannah Arendt wrestles famously with a similar question in Eichmann in Jerusalem. Eichmann claimed, as a CIA agent on trial might, that he was merely doing his duty, that he "not only obeyed orders, he also obeyed the law." Arendt, of course, found Eichmann both banal in his evil and culpable. Perhaps more to the point, she argued that the culpability of countless others (what others did or might have done) did not in any way mitigate Eichmann's guilt.
The same is true in the case of torture (although needless to say on a vastly different scale and context). Of course, higher-ups who ordered and sanctioned torture should be prosecuted as well, including the authors of the OLC memos. But that does not mean that the actual interrogators should be let off the hook en masse. Whether or not CIA interrogators should have refused orders or should have known that such orders were legally or morally wrong is a matter to be determined in trial, a matter of justice. It is not a question that can be swept away by the claim that they were just doing their jobs, that they were just being obedient subjects.
Because in the final analysis, it is highly likely that the CIA agents were just doing their jobs. And that those jobs were, in fact, criminal in nature. This brings me to Obama's last argument, that in essence we need to forget the past and move forward for the good of the country. The substitution here of the political necessity of unity for the constitutional and moral imperative of justice is Bushian to say the least. But perhaps what is most troubling is that our new President would calculatedly deploy his public goodwill to effect a kind of national amnesia in which actions he himself and his attorney general have called illegal and wrong are forgotten in the name of progress. Of course, I can see why he would do so, as a matter of political expediency. But political expediency is not justice.
Of Eichmann's crimes, Arendt wrote, "they were and could only be committed under a criminal law by a criminal state." That may also be the case with torture under the Bush administration. We owe it to ourselves to find out and that can not happen if we meekly follow Obama's request to forgive and forget.
49 Comments so far
Show AllWhat you overlook, Mr. Kim, is that Obama came from nowhere to become president of the most powerful nation on the planet. His political skills are incomparable and he knows that if he is to do the morally right thing in this role, he must retain that power. The world is looking to him to, among other things, solve a massive economic crisis that could wipe out democracy everywhere and an impending climate crisis that could doom the human race. Given these stakes, he is moving ahead in a very rational and measured way on all fronts. Releasing the torture memos, while holding off on any calls for prosecution, is the wisest course of action. If public opinion demands prosecutions, they will inevitably occur. But he cannot afford to throw the political system into a time-consuming uproar at this point, simply to satisfy one of a thousand moral demands made upon him. As Saint-Just said over two hundred years ago, "no can rule without guilt." And if Obama is guilty of not being as moralistic on this subject as you and many of the commenters are, so be it.
We are no longer a nation of laws, maybe we never were. All this tells the world is were hypocrites and Int'l agreements are meaningless when it comes down to obeying them.
Wow! I really enjoyed reading that. Beautifully argued. Obama is a very skilled wordsmith but what exactly would he not sacrifice in service to Hamiltonian ends?
Obama's decision to provide de facto immunity for people who committed torture for the US government means that Obama is joining Bush in committing war crimes. He who drives the get-away car is equally guilty to he who goes into the bank with a gun. Not only is this not change in which I can believe, it isn't change at all. It's a continuation of criminality in the US government.
A significant number of commenters at CommonDreams refer to a ruling elite, but Republican election fraud suggests there is no such elite.
The scenario just doesn't work. A secret ruling elite would not allow their puppet parties to engage in election theft and vote-flipping. Since the elite control both parties, there would be no point--and such shenanigans would call unwanted attention to the electoral process. A quick glance at reality disproves the "secret elite" paradigm.
(There's also the fact that no historians, political scientists, sociologists, or journalists believe there is a secret elite. But never mind.)
P E R R Y _ L O G A N, you presume too much and have met no burden of proof.
I submit that spending even billions of dollars to polish the game of politics to meet a manifold of expectations and purposes is money well spent by the power conscious and controlling = elites.
THe shell game comes to mind, and manufactured consensus -- as mechanism of bait and switch, shifting a constant sea of so many different expectations that people hold. The battle is never black and white ( binary or polar ), but in hundreds of shades of grey, with splotches of color to inflame and accent the "newest" popular mandate.
Perhaps you don't realize the massively powerful and manipulative techniques of PSYOPS and propaganda, or perhaps you do, and use them well yourself.
Your accentuated denial, arrogance and baseless _ L I E S _ about "the fact that no historians, political scientists, sociologists, or journalists believe there is a secret elite, " is enough for even a dull person to realize and understand.
Anyone having read Horward Zinn, Glenn Greenwald -- or thousands of other well researched historians, political scientists, sociologists, or journalists -- is laughing at your outlandish denial of a reality shared by millions in the progressive community ( like here in CD ).
Perhaps you accidently sent your browser on a wild goose chase, and didn't realize that most here do not follow the TV multi-meaningless news from the Jacka$$ $ewer Main $tream Media ? ? ?
SIOUXROSE is too kind, and avoids confrontation with the manipulative nexus of evil that the elites front for and use to control public opinion and perceived reality.
-----------------------------------
You are transparent to me,
-----------------------------------
and are either arrogantly misinformed and clueless, or actual proof to the exact opposite of what you hold up as a ( false ) apparent truth.
Either way you're busted dude
Namaste
Sioux Rose
PERRY: You under-estimate the elite's knowledge that American's love contests, theater and races! Without those devices, they might realize both parties inevitably serve the same monied interests, and then, who knows? Show's over?
Why do I keep hearing "Ve vere yust following orders?"
My own sister says Obama has too much on his table to take on the torture issue. But now, by absolving the CIA of using "extreme interrogation" methods, it appears he may never face the issue against the original culprits. This, from a former Constitutional law professor who CAN do something about it.
Even if certain CIA interrogators felt they had White House approval, their own moral compasses as Americans--as thinking humans--should have guided them away for torturing. Let's remember the Allies prosecuted and convicted certain Japanese and Germans after WW II for "just following orders." It was deemed not a valid defense then nor should it be now.
San Diego Dave, Good Morning.
Sand Diego is a big military town. Aerospace, Defense, El Toro up the road, the Naval Base, Camp Pendleton......Look south to our barricaded border manned by soldiers and cops with guns.
It is difficult to live in that landscape w/o being part of it, no?
Particularly if one works and pays taxes and thus helps drive the military machine forward, helping kill, helping TORTURE.
Obama also lives in a landscape that involves compromise.
Just like people who live in San Diego and pay taxes. Compromises of our values forced on us by the society we live in.
Could BO do better?
Could you?
Could I?
I used to work at NASSCO. Helping build oil tankers. Shoot me. I quit and sought my soul in the desert instead of paychecks from ship-yards.
Peace to You my friend.
Aussi, The intel estab in DC is more powerful, has more weight than one might think-compare it to the DoD for weight and one begins to understand why BO cannot attack it.
Dave-Do you support prosecuting USAF pilots for murder who bombed Iraqi's? Or were they just following orders? If you think they should be tried and hung, then your logic is consistent and I laud you.
USBLUES
Your argument seems to be that since citizens pay taxes, some of which support the military, Obama should be free to "compromise" by protecting torturers. That argument doesn't hold much water. Can you name a presidential action (or inaction) that you believe would NOT be justifed by your argument? Or do you believe that because we pay taxes, Obama is free to do anything he wishes, no mater how illegal or morally repugnant?
John, if we pay a lot of Federal Taxes we are to a degree part of the problem. However if one is truly physically active resisting the machine as well, in my book they are off the hook morally.
JM I know that BO cannot go after the torturers and their managers and theirs and theirs and Cheney and Bush. Would that he could. But the CIA is more DC connected than you seem to think-the process would fail, it would be hamstrung & delayed at every turn, but worse than the failure itself, BO, warring w/ the GOP scum would be diverted from more Chavez's, Cubas & Nuclear Arms Reductions Successes, what good he will do would be compromised because he would be in a 7/24 streetfight with the CIA and the power-structure overall. The MSM most significantly.
JM, do you think the USAF pilots who bombed civilians in the Iraq war should be tried for murder? Or were they "Just Following Orders?" Or, is torture not okay but murder is?
Thanks John Mitchell for answering my USAF pilot question if you choose to. Or Anyone, but it is tough when insisting the torturers be prosecuted, in fact, it is impossible for most people.
Joseph.
Although your collective manifest hatred angered me,
The virulence seemed for vile's sake, to desecrate
For the fun of it...well, now children, none of that-
Know you are loved, all,
your passion respected
and I wish Sweet Dreams
to your souls.
There is a River of Purpose for Us
But a False Canyon an Illusion
We dwell In, from Them.
I will see you by the River Sisters and Brothers.
Sweet Dreams
Come now my friends,
Your blade is so sharp. Obama was elected president of an Imperialist capitalist plutocracy charactarized by the material rape of weak nations and a political machine controlled by the Multi-national corporations, Israel and the MIC.
This monolithic machine centuries decades growing is what it is.
To endlessly find creative ways to call Obama a murderer is great, but in my humble opinion he is much much less powerful than the monolithic machine called America the Rapacious with our Thousand military bases.
It is damn convenient you don't nail The System, because the bombs dropping are paid for by Taxes. Get the glass out of your eyes stone throwers. Obama heads a blood drenched Empire. GET IN THE STREETS STONE THROWERS, TAX PAYERS.
If you pay taxes stone throwers, you help pay for bombs-YOU ARE BABY KILLERS, go to Heaven.
Signed, one who said eff the system and pays no txes-but I work, I create, I garden , I produce, I give, but the system gets nothing from me. PG&E? I'll go to hell for tha. Bye Righteous Ones.
Jeevee
WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OBAMA'S STANCE AND LEGALIZING MURDER? Might this be a result of a promise to Bush?
… some _ p i g s _ are just
___ m o r e _ e q u a l _ than others.
It's all of a piece in what true predatory capitalism is all about. It's about carrying on a rein of terror for the under classes while having the same under classes serve with a smile (or else) the upper class. The CIA doesn't give a shit about national security. The focus is guaranteeing profit centers for predatory corporations. An excellent in-your-face example of the "free market" ideal that repubs and most demos want for the whole world is Dubai:
http://www.alternet.org/audits/136877/dubai%27s_lesson_to_america%3A_how_the_middle_east%27s_shangrai_...
What is quite illuminating about the CIA, is the background of its leaders ( Director, … ) over the arc of 60 some years.
While some might erroneously expect promotion from within, or of attracking people with a background in intelligence and security matters -- that is in fact not the case at all.
Everyone of the CIA's leaders has been either a Wall-eyed street investor / speculator or unprincipled banskster.
It is a guaranteed fact that the CIA leadership's highest and most pressing responsibility and priority, is the security of the elites financial a$$ets.
Namaste
Y'know, with all of this "looking forward" hype, and given Obama's "messianic" persona, it suddenly occurred to me that Obama's position vis-à-vis the past and present state-sponsored criminality and state security agencies and We the People is very much like Yahweh commanding Lot and his family to leave the greater metropolitan Sodom and Gommorah area at once.
And DON'T LOOK BACK!
· Yr Obd't Servant
… or shall we take that risk of
being ( turned into ) STONED ?
.
Thank you. I think you've captured the biblical nature of our pathocracy, that evil can hardly risk ever looking into the mirror !
Especially so, as their open hearts have already been turned to stone -- and we just need to keep looking good, even if dead inside. The end result of materialistic ego drenched MARS_RULES avariciousness is eventual death, one atom at a time, turning into stone.
Namaste
Sioux Rose
Alas, it feels good when a concept taken from the cosmos finds its way into the parlance of the spiritual illuminati here on the mundane plane! Gracias!
"The UN's senior torture investigator, Manfred Nowak, criticized the Obama administration, saying Washington had committed itself under the UN Convention Against Torture to make torture a crime and to prosecute those suspected of engaging in it.
The Obama administration violated international law when it decided not to prosecute CIA officials."
Well that didn't take long for our new scofflaw-in-chief to become an international criminal.
The "Heck" With This Author.
Kim cites Glen Greenwald as having "a good take on why Obama's decision is wrong" GG's take was that it WAS NOT WRONG OVERALL.
GG's Article, now, on Common Dreams is called "The Signifance of Obama's Decision to Release The Memos" or some such, and lauds it, not unqualifiedly, but applauds it.
To cite-refer to GG as part of her Obama-Evil-Banality 'article' is deceptive. Kind of a lie. She knows this or is Stupid. This is a weak weak hatchet job.
Obama is doing much wrong, some right too. This author's hystrionics and awful writing make clear he sees only wrong.....evidently he did not read GG's article here on CD.
Aahh, the Banality of Blind Obama Hate. As Banal as an Obamabot. Two ends of the same spectrum.
That's not quite accurate. Greenwald called it a "split decision"; his argument (which is debatable, and has been debated) is that one must consider the publishing of the memos and the declaration of amnesty to CIA wrongdoers as separate and distinct.
So he gives Obama a "thumbs-up" for releasing the memos.
But Greenwald didn't in the least concur with Obama's effectively asserting unitary executive privilege by pronouncing CIA members exempt from due process of law. And he's acknowledged that a number of readers complained that he was giving Obama too much credit, and/or cutting him too much slack.
So, do you also consider the linked authors, and the appropriately unsparing Bruce Fein article listed here [ http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/17-4 ] to be mindless Obama robocritics steeped in "hate"?
· Yr Obd't Servant
O Servant, quite the contrary, endless articles and authors duly and accurately critique BO. But this particular article by GG was pretty positive in tone re Obama and to cite it as Kim did I feel was misleading.
But again OS, valid criticisms of BO abound you are correct. But occasionally BO gets some things right as Glenn Greenwald noted in the article Kim 'cited'.
Re-spectfully, which is when ya bein 'spectful again,
Joseph.
Obama's rationalizations were artfully made to the point of being obfuscatory, but they can be boiled down to four points:
1) The strategic issue of national security. "The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world...We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs."
2) The legal-ethical issue of obedience. The CIA agents were only carrying out "their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice."
3) The political issue of national unity and progress. "This is a time for reflection, not retribution...at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."
4) Gotta get reelected.
and then further boiled down
4)
4)
4)
4)
"Of Eichmann's crimes, Arendt wrote, "they were and could only be committed under a criminal law by a criminal state." That may also be the case with torture under the Bush administration. We owe it to ourselves to find out and that can not happen if we meekly follow Obama's request to forgive and forget."
Obama's two decisions - to reveal the details of the tortures and to issue blanket immunity from prosecution for committing them - are a warning to those who would challenge the power he represents. Let's examine what the probable effect of these two decisions on public attitudes toward torture might be. Withholding the details of the tortures would have mitigated public outrage among some, but would have disappointed those who demand assurance that those who threaten us are treated with sufficient cruelty. Promising not to prosecute such crimes against the human person essentially declares that this government can and will use any means at its disposal to deter those who threaten its interests. If even a politician like Obama will not prosecute those who torture, then the message is clear that anything can be can be declared "lawful", as Eichman understood so well.
Naomi Klein wrote concerning torture, "But this fear [of torture] has to be finely calibrated. The people being intimidated need to know enough to be afraid but not so much that they demand justice. This helps explain why the Defense Department will release certain kinds of seemingly incriminating information about Guantanamo--pictures of men in cages, for instance--at the same time that it acts to suppress photographs on a par with what escaped from Abu Ghraib. ...This strategic leaking of information, combined with official denials, induces a state of mind that Argentines describe as 'knowing/not knowing,' a vestige of their 'dirty war.'" - Naomi Klein, "Torture's Dirty Secret: It Works"
The purpose of letting people know some gruesome details of torture while holding back others is clear: "...when they use rendition and torture as a threat, it's undeniable that they benefit, in some sense, from the fact that people know that intelligence agents are willing to act unlawfully. They benefit from the fact that people understand the threat and believe it to be credible." - Naomi Klein, "Torture's Dirty Secret: It Works"
In other words, both of Obama's decisions inform potential dissidents that U.S. intelligence practices torture and that the practitioners will not be prosecuted even if they act in full knowledge of its unlawful nature.
At last, the pattern emerges: "This is torture's true purpose: to terrorize--not only the people in Guantánamo's cages and Syria's isolation cells but also, and more important, the broader community that hears about these abuses. Torture is a machine designed to break the will to resist--the individual prisoner's will and the collective will." - Naomi Klein, "Torture's Dirty Secret: It Works"
The Naomi Klein quote on "knowing/not knowing" (about torture) is quite appropriate in this context.
Obama's "disclosure" seems to be more of a pep-talk to the shock troops - in this case, the CIA torturers. His message: You won't be prosecuted for torturing people, especially when the U.S. government gives the green light, he seems to say.
If Obama really wanted to end U.S. torture practices (which are long-standing, with examples in Latin America during the Carter-Reagan-Bush years), then he would prosecute the people who broke the U.S. and international laws to do it.
-TIA
I'm trying to put the decision into a broader context of U.S. imperialist policy. Obama has no intention of ending torture. In fact, this decision promotes torture and especially the threat of torture by giving immunity to those who practice it while revealing the details of what will happen to those who dissent from imperial control. If you carefully read Klein's article, you can see that that is the intention of making these partial revelations.
The future consequences of his support of torture could be the torture and murder of his own wife and children ten plus years after he leaves office.
Al-Quida or some other adversary group could wait until his secret service protection lapses then attack.
The GWOT (Global War on Terror) will continue long into the future. But, Mr. Obama's protection will not.
Of course, the ruling elite may have much stronger control of the country by then, effectively making us all slaves.
Has he thought of this?
Mr. Kim states that President Obama "acted in the name of transparency and accountability" in releasing the torture memos. President Obama did not release them for any such reasons. He released them because he was forced to by an ACLU Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Credit goes to the ACLU, not Obama, who gets no credit at all in this whole sorry escapade.
so right. so very right. obama deserves zero credit for this. and it's clear that, left to its own devices, this admin would not have released anything.
Arendt's trenchant and enduring notion of "the banality of evil" came to me at Glenn Greenwald's Salon comments site after reading a few comments more or less castigating the habit of morally "judging" politicians (specifically, Obama) personally, and seeing them as "all good" or "all bad". In this framework of putative "objectivity", Obama and other holders of high political office can't, or oughtn't, be reduced to "good" or "evil"; rather, their actions must be judged on a case-by-case basis.
Although I have enormous respect and appreciation for Glenn-- I think he's a good man-- I find it disingenuous to assert that in ordinary life, one can, or ought to, mute or suspend deeply felt intuitions about our political (mis)leaders.
It ought to go without saying that reasonable, thoughtful, educated adults know better than to crudely demonize, glorify or caricature others-- even dull and stupid persons have their complexities, and character is not static, but is perceived and transformed dynamically in the flux of events. And assuredly one must strive to be thoughtful and careful in one's assessments of others, from sibling to stranger to president.
Still, the problem I have with the commenters' position is that it's a trifle too glib and pat. Broadly and colloquially stated, their argument is that it's foolish to examine and analyze Obama, Holder, etc. in order to pigeonhole them as "bad" (or "good") men. Rather, citizens ought to dispassionately scrutinize their ACTIONS, giving credit or criticism to their behavior without indulging a misguided and irrational impulse to make a blanket personal judgement.
Again, all of this SOUNDS lofty and high-minded. But in the course of suspending or suppressing passion, intuition, and emotional perception, the advocates of this view fall into the error of what I describe as a subliminal presumption of virtue.
That is, in urging dispassion and abstaining from "over-judging", the advocate establishes a presumption of good faith. Even when it's not explicitly stated, the would-be "objective" inside-politics observer projects a baseline that the politician generally means well and is trying to do his or her best. A simpler way to say it, I guess, is that this alleged judgement-free, neutralized scrutiny requires us to generally give the politician the benefit of the doubt even as we fairly criticize or applaud specific actions.
I can't buy into this approach because frankly, I DON'T believe that Obama or any other politician deserves the benefit of the doubt. The Amerikan politician, especially on the federal level, is by definition a professional para-corporate technocrat-- each senator, congressperson, and executive branch official is a one-person business enterprise, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Duopoly, Inc.
"Pragmatists" cheerfully accept the "realist" view that politicians cannot be constrained by inconvenient virtues like honesty, integrity, and altruism. Thus, pragmatists effectively give politicians carte blanche to be liars, cheats, hypocrites, and double-dealers.
And so I bethought myself of Arendt's "banality of evil"-- because I DO regard Obama and his cronies as Evil. Maybe not Snidely Whiplash mustache-twirling villain evil, but evil nevertheless.
I'm not religious, but there's wisdom in "by their fruits shall ye know them". Not to mention "handsome is as handsome does".
· Yr Obd't Servant
Sioux Rose
O.S. You sure have a way with words! And much wisdom therein expressed. I certainly dig the part about "intuition." As for this benefit of the doubt, years ago I sat in the audience (NY) of a filming of one of Geraldo Rivera's shows. The topic was "The Serial Killer" next door. Some persons interviewed knew things were definitely OFF. One called the cops on Jeffrey Dahmer, but there is also this psychic cast of incredulity (the same sense of suspended disbelief used to watch a movie, sometimes even when you know the ending in advance) and so the cop did NOT investigate further than having Jeffrey explain that he had BURNED a POT ROAST. The smell reaching into the neighbors' apartments was so bad some had teary eyes from it. But hey, if you can't believe the darkness some are capable of, let it be a burned pot roast. The human mind is not unlike its own sci-fi author, and quite ingenious at divining its own imagined endings (or plot-lines).
It's helpful of you to focus on the word "intuition" because what this type of mystification is aimed at is to call our usually accurate intuitions into question - in this case intuitions about who Obama actually serves.
You have stated eloquently some of what I was trying to say in my following comment on the following passage from Greenwald's article, "Generally bad people can do good things (even if for ignoble reasons) and generally good people can do bad things. That's why I care little about motives, which I think, in any event, are impossible to know. Regardless of motives, good acts (releasing the torture memos) should be praised, and bad acts (arguing against prosecutions) should be condemned."
I agree completely with Greenwald that we should not inappropriately personalize these decisions. Such personalization smudges our perception of the real issues. But these obvious statements are a little too true to be entirely innocent. As we all know, there is a pattern in people's decisions that reveals what they represent as power to themselves. To pretend otherwise, even to support objective analysis, is mystification - pretending that the obvious tendency is the result of mysterious and unknowable motivations.
From there, I go on to analyze the political effect of Obama's twin decisions - to reveal the details of the tortures and to assure those who torture that they will never be prosecuted. The message that this sends is that the government can and will use any means at its disposal to terrorize those who threaten its interests and that the practitioners of torture, high or low, will enjoy blanket immunity for their crimes against the human person.
I appreciate your response, said the choir to the preacher.
The term "mystification" had occurred to me when I was putting together my comment, but it slipped away in my usual welter of wordiness.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Your phrase, "a subliminal presumption of virtue" goes right to what the mystification obscures. It is the presumption of innocence, in legal terms. Obama's decisions are removed from the specific context of power relationships, particularly those between the U.S. executive and potential challengers of American hegemony who may be concerned about the consequences of defiance. Instead, Greenwald's phrases put us in an realm of "good" and "bad" decisions where good and bad are abstracted from those power relations.
From the other article today...just as appropriate.......
If the Justice Department deemed killing infants was legal, would those carrying out that policy also be beyond prosecution? One MUST look beyond the laws of the state to ones own personal morality. I'm sorry, but I find them as guilty as the guard who marched victims into the ovens in Nazi Germany. NONE of this would have happened without peons who were willing to compromise their own values in favor of the states "laws".
No one involved in any of this should be beyond prosecution and that includes Mr. Obama for condoning this atrocious behavior.
As long as there are soldiers willing to follow orders, there will be war.
Obama is slyly doing the same thing the zionist general crudely admitted to doing.
Commiting war crimes without suffering any legal penalties or reprocussions so as to create a precedent for pleading the legality of future war crimes.
odoco
I believe this moral and legal inaction by Obama portends the actual end of our quasi-legal and judicial system. There is now, effectively, no law. Men in power can do what they wish. Torture, maim, kill with impunity. Where impunity exists, civilization dies.
Odoco. I said many years ago that since America was a fascist empire in foreign policy, it would be just a matter of time, as soon as the powerful, corrupt,elite could get away with it, that America's domestic policy would follow suit and many people said I was crazy,well they play a different tune now, because the torture memos are just another indication that I was right as now they are getting away with it!
Sioux Rose
ODOCO: I agree with your grim analysis. So sorry it (your thesis) bears being stated.
How can one disagree?...even from Wiki...
Historically, selective enforcement is recognized as a sign of tyranny, and an abuse of power, because it violates Rule of Law, allowing men to apply justice only when they choose. Aside from this being inherently unjust, it almost inevitably must lead to favoritism and extortion, with those empowered to choose being able to help their friends, take bribes, and threaten those they desire favors from.
Think of it: the US is debating whether or not to deport John Demnajuk (sp?), approximately 90 years old, in horrible health, already been through the legal system at least once and found, I believe, not guilty of (allegedly being) an ex-Nazi prison guard, who has resided in the US for 50 years, or thereabouts.
Now, we refuse to even begin investigative proceedings against US war criminals when all the evidence exists to, at the very least, warrant a trail. In fact, most don't even bother to profess innocence, only immunity, including the former Vice President of the United States.
Ah, AMERICAN JUSTICE!
Ah, OBAMA'S promises of accountability??????
Ah, the stench . . . . . . .
'That smell, can you smell that smell?'
The B.O. of it all is beginning to get to me.
And there is NO deodorant in existence that will cover THE SMELL of that BHO.
Yeah, and your probably one of the hatemongers who wants to see Obama's birth certificate. Your very words have a stench to them.
My wife just spoke at length to the general counsel of a large bank who defended not only the bailouts but this travesty as well as the good war, the one that the President is doubling. She claimed that Barack must know that Robert Gates has changed otherwise he would not have kept him on; and she was vociferous about Bush in years past. As my wife said, the country has been taken over by the Moonies. They're not just greeting you at the airport anymore. They're your next door neighbor. Pretty soon the non-Moonies are going to be marched off a cliff. I'm going undercover. I'm going to put that picture of Michelle and Barack on our fridge. I'll even put up a picture of a drone in action to confirm my loving support.