TPM member Steve Katz wants the US to opt out of the Convention Against Torture, which calls for investigating (AND prosecuting if necessary) torture suspects.
Katz wrote an
awful diary yesterday calling for the following punishment for Bush-era torturers: Humiliate them by reminding them what they did, without prosecuting them of course, since retribution is bad.
Oh my. Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez must be shaking in their boots at the thought of an investigation putting their actions in writing.
"Stick that up your Presidential library, George," The soft Katz screamed. "Put that in your Hall of Shame."
Katz does not mention the Convention Against Torture once in his entry, nor does he mention that this administration would earn a top spot, too, in his imaginary "Hall of Shame" if it does not prosecute by whatever means necessary those who tortured terrorist suspects in black sites and elsewhere.
It is impossible for Katz to believe in the validity of the Convention Against Torture to which we are signatories, AND call for a truth-finding commission and only a truth-finding commission.
Nowhere in this entry do we see Katz' express his desire that other nations do what we won't.
Let's just "find the truth" and call it a day.
Nowhere in this entry does Katz tell us that prosecutions should come AFTER this truth-finding commission which he advocates. Contrast Katz' entry to a
recent op-ed by Mark Danner, who broke the news about the now-famous Red Cross report on torture techniques:
Even after all we know, the political task at hand -- the first task, without which none of the others, including prosecutions, can follow -- remains one of full and patient and relentless revelation of what was done and what it cost the country, authoritative revelation undertaken by respected people of both parties whose words will be heard and believed.
That's right. Danner wants what Katz wants, but, unlike the latter, the former's ultimate goal is justice, not some wimpy thoughts of impunity in the form of "humiliation" alone.
Steve Katz does not want justice. He wants a whitewash, and he wants Nicaraguan officials (to cite a hypothetical torturing nation) to walk free if they torture Americans in the future, in the event that they found it difficult to prosecute Nicaraguan lawyers who toyed with the definition of torture.
And all because some David Corn said so.
Think before you type next time. And if you meant to say, but forgot, that prosecutions must follow an investigation, you are welcome to append an update to your post saying so.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/steve_katz/2009/04/torturegate-is-a-special-prose.php
