Taking a break from the torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment debate (see the discussion in the comments on this point), check out two quite different views of what has been going on in Europe in light of the riots. Fareed Zakaria sees it as a crisis of national identity; Andrew Moravcsik (full disclosure -- he's my husband) sees it as much more about economics, specifically unemployment. Good end of the year reading.
The debate over McCain-Graham has morphed into multiple sub-debates. These include:
-- what the law is and should be (see Juliette's recent post)
-- the morality of torture,
-- the constitutional reach of the President's power (an issue equally critical to this week's disclosures about wiretapping of Americans),
-- judicial oversight of detainees, and
-- whether even if we ban torture, are we willing to use its fruits as evidence.
The best source for lawyers and readers wanting to know about the legal details of these debates remains Marty Lederer's and Scott Horton's posts on Balkinization (see particularly Lederer's recent posts on The McCain Amendment: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly). But for a more general audience, I will try to summarize the state of the debate with links to some of the key sources (plus my own views) in a series of posts over the next week or so. Not exactly fun holiday fare, but critically important.
To begin with, let's start at the most abstract level, with the question that Andrew Sullivan poses in the first sentence of his piece in this week's New Republic : "Why is torture wrong?" To many if not most of the readers of this blog, I suspect that is a question that you think does not need asking, but as Sullivan goes on to note: "perhaps the greatest failing of those of us who have been arguing against all torture and `cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment' of detainees is that we have assumed the reasons why torture is always a moral evil, rather than explicating them." He is responding directly to Charles Krauthammer, whose recent piece in The Weekly Standard is titled: "The Truth about Torture: It's time to be honest about doing terrible things." Also weighing in is Michael Kinsley, who responded directly to Krauthammer last week in Slate, in a piece well worth reading but infelicitously titled "Torture for Dummies."
Here are the key points of this debate:
