Lasting Legislation
I don't think we'll know whether the dog has yet to bark for a while yet. Let's give the new president time to take office and muster up the mettle, to use Hitch's word, to excavate the Bush skeletons. If they've all been ground to bits already, a la the interrogation tapes we already know were destroyed, then prosecutors, have at the perpetrators.
And if incriminating, horrifying photos and videos do come to light sometime during a future administration? Then the biggest question won't be whether Bush has shielded his wrongdoers by granting them pardons--though that will sting. It will be whether Congress and all of us summon the will to make sure that routinized torture never happens on our government's watch again. Jane, it's true that the Abu Ghraib photographs were a game changer. But did we get definitive, binding-for-the-future legislation out of them?
Israel offers a somewhat more hopeful paradigm. In 1999, the Israeli Supreme Court banned torture, save for ticking time bomb scenarios potentially allowed for, after the fact, via a necessity defense. Torture didn't end after the court's ruling. But if all is not exactly well, physical torture has become the exception rather than the rule. We've moved in the opposite direction in the United States, as Jane has documented so thoroughly. We've gained so little as a result when measured against the enormous loss in our moral authority, and cost in human suffering.
But you know all of this. It's been more than a pleasure discussing these ever-pressing issues with you. I am bowing out because I have to travel on Friday. Looking forward to reading more of all of you, here and elsewhere.
Emily
. . . whether Congress and all of us summon the will to make sure that routinized torture never happens on our government's watch again. Emily Bazelon
I'm certainly no expert but I do have a couple of ideas to accomplish Ms. Bazelon's goal which I haven't seen mentioned:
We could join the United Nations.
We could make our own man Vice-Chairman of the U.N. Committee Against Torture.
We could ratify the Geneva Conventions of 1949.
We could make our servicemen and women subject to the Uniform Code of Military Conduct.
We could pass a federal anti-torture statute maybe as early as September 13, 1994.
Just a few ideas we might adopt after "all of us summon up the will" required.
October 2, 2008 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen, those are some brilliant ideas. I hope you can persuade President Obama to look at them and give them some serious thought. With those few simple changes, torture will be a thing of the past. Why do I have this nagging feeling that I'm missing something?
October 3, 2008 12:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why did you chose to throw in a little gratuitous piece of hasbara touting Israel's supposed restraint of using torture on your way out the door?
A lingering effect of your AIPAC-sponsored January 2007 junket?
Perhaps the folks from The Public Committee Against Torture In Israel could share their findings with you, Emily. After all, it's their hard fought battles which your disenguous bit of fluffy feelgoodness undermines:
"30.05.2007
The detailed testimonies of these torture victims reveals the extent to which the practice of torture is widespread and not limited to General Security Service (GSS) interrogators. Practitioners and facilitators of torture include soldiers and their commanders, prison wardens and police officers, physicians and medical staff in hospitals, military attorneys and judges, the heads of the Ministry of Justice – the Attorney General, the State Attorney and the attorney responsible for the GSS Official in Charge of investigation Interrogees’ complaints in the (the MAVTAN) and members of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, all of whom, in practice or through lack of action, through knowledge or through their silence, are accomplices to the torture described in the report. The report, in addition, reveals the bureaucratic, almost banal, environment in which torture is carried out in Israel."
http://www.stoptorture.org.il/en/node/747
Naw, I don't think Americans should be adopt Israel's "helpful paradigm", thanks.
We have enough problems with our own lying war criminals getting away with their games without importing the Israeli brand of judicial "oversight".
Oh yeah, I almost forget to mention that our guys have received instruction from experienced Israelis in situ, Iraq. According to one Israeli source though, the use of dogs is an all-American fillip.
October 2, 2008 11:25 PM | Reply | Permalink