The torture bill referred to in yesterday’s post is still going to congress. One of the Presiden’t lawyers, Alberto Gonzalez, wrote to the Washington Post denying that Bush wanted torture legaised:
The president did not propose and does not support this provision. He has made clear that the United States stands against and will not tolerate torture and that the United States remains committed to complying with its obligations under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Consistent with that treaty, the United States does not expel, return or extradite individuals to countries where the United States believes it is likely that they will be tortured.
In case you are tempted to believe a word of this disclaimer, remember at Mr Gonzalez has previous form. On Jan 25, 2002, he advised Bush, contra Colin Powell, that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners were not subject to the procetions of the Geneva Conventions — ie that they might be tortured. “In my judgement”, he then wrote, “the new paradigm” (love that paradigm) “renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on the questioning of enemy prisoners, and renders quaint some of its provisions.”
Perhaps the most sinister aspect of the whole story is the reports that leading Democrats believe these clauses were inserted as something they could not vote against without appearing “soft on terror”. This would mean that the Republicans believe that torture wins votes.
The really nasty thing is that the Republicans are probably right.
Perhaps its the passing of the WWII generations with their appreciation of the devastating nature of high cruelty, but I suspect that many people these days would see torture acceptable — even meritorious — in the right circumstances.
All you have to do then is engineer the right circumstances. Why the Republicans want to torture is the odd thing – I was under the impression that it just doesn’t work except as part of the toolkit of repression. You keep people too frightened to misbehave – but that would mean that the Reps want to create a cowed and repressed population (where? In Iraq?) that is entirely at odds with their stated aims of democracy and freedom. I don’t believe that.
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“that would mean that the Reps want to create a cowed and repressed population (where? In Iraq?) that is entirely at odds with their stated aims of democracy and freedom. I don’t believe that.” Why don’t you believe that? Seriously.
Let me put it another way. What is it about current American society, and Republican social and penal policies, which makes you suppose they don’t want a cowed and repressed population? If you are going to maintain that degree of inequality within a society, you can only do it by force and fraud.
I will enlarge onthis in the next post, which is Emmanuel Todd on the attractios of Likud.