 |
||
 |
||
 |
|
|
Charles Finch
Friday, November 9, 2007
Mukasey and Torture
"It's shocking to me that I live in a country with a protocol and infrastructure for torture; but even more shocking is that I live in a country in which torture has become a subject for debate, with a right side and wrong side to it. If you had told me that this would be the state of affairs a decade ago, I wouldn't have believed you. It shows how quickly any of us can become intellectually accustomed to the bullying and ugliness of a government."
That's what I jotted down as I read about the Senate confirmation of Michael Mukasey, thinking I would post on it later. Then I read Glenn Greenwald's blog (one of the two I check every day, along with Hendrik Hertzberg's.) In it, he made the same case as well as I ever could. To quote him at length:
'The most amazing quote was from chief Mukasey supporter Chuck Schumer, who, before voting for him, said that Mukasey is "wrong on torture -- dead wrong." Marvel at that phrase: "wrong on torture." Six years ago, there wasn't even any such thing as being "wrong on torture," because "torture" wasn't something we debated. It would have been incoherent to have heard: "Well, he's dead wrong on torture, but . . . "
Now, "torture" is not only something we openly debate, but it's something we do. And the fact that someone is on the wrong side of the "torture debate" doesn't prevent them from becoming the Attorney General of the United States. It's just one issue, like any other issue -- the capital gains tax, employer mandates for health care, the water bill -- and just because someone is "dead wrong" on one little issue (torture) hardly disqualifies them from High Beltway Office.'
Well: exactly. There's one additional point to be made here; namely, that the worst transgressions of Abu Ghraib have now been proximately sanctioned not only by this administration, but by the weak will of the Democratic party. The presiding irony of the entire issue being, of course, that waterboarding and extreme temperatures are apparently means to the end of democracy and human rights: those purple thumbs.
That's what I jotted down as I read about the Senate confirmation of Michael Mukasey, thinking I would post on it later. Then I read Glenn Greenwald's blog (one of the two I check every day, along with Hendrik Hertzberg's.) In it, he made the same case as well as I ever could. To quote him at length:
'The most amazing quote was from chief Mukasey supporter Chuck Schumer, who, before voting for him, said that Mukasey is "wrong on torture -- dead wrong." Marvel at that phrase: "wrong on torture." Six years ago, there wasn't even any such thing as being "wrong on torture," because "torture" wasn't something we debated. It would have been incoherent to have heard: "Well, he's dead wrong on torture, but . . . "
Now, "torture" is not only something we openly debate, but it's something we do. And the fact that someone is on the wrong side of the "torture debate" doesn't prevent them from becoming the Attorney General of the United States. It's just one issue, like any other issue -- the capital gains tax, employer mandates for health care, the water bill -- and just because someone is "dead wrong" on one little issue (torture) hardly disqualifies them from High Beltway Office.'
Well: exactly. There's one additional point to be made here; namely, that the worst transgressions of Abu Ghraib have now been proximately sanctioned not only by this administration, but by the weak will of the Democratic party. The presiding irony of the entire issue being, of course, that waterboarding and extreme temperatures are apparently means to the end of democracy and human rights: those purple thumbs.
Archives
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]