Legalizing Torture

by

(1st post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.)

Katherine the Sorely Missed asked me to post this. The rest is hers, though I second it.

This is probably the most important post I’ve ever written. Certainly it is the most urgent.

The Republican leadership of Congress is attempting to legalize extraordinary rendition. “Extraordinary rendition” is the euphemism we use for sending terrorism suspects to countries that practice torture for interrogation. As one intelligence official described it in the Washington Post, “We don’t kick the sh*t out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the sh*t out of them.”

The best known example of this is the case of Maher Arar. Arar, a Canadian citizen, was deported to Syria from JFK airport. In Syria he was beaten with electrical cables for two weeks, and then imprisoned in an underground cell for the better part of a year. Arar is probably innocent of any connection to terrorism.

As it stands now, “extraordinary rendition” is a clear violation of international law–specifically, the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Degrading and Inhuman Treatment. U.S. law is less clear. We signed and ratified the Convention Against Torture, but we ratified it with some reservations. They might create a loophole that allows us to send a prisoner to Egypt or Syria or Jordan if we get “assurances” that they will not torture a prisoner–even if these assurances are false and we know they are false.

Last month Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Congressman, introduced a bill that would clearly outlaw extraordinary rendition. But Markey only has 22 cosponsors, and now the House leadership is trying to legalize torture outsourcing–and hide it in the bill implementing the 9/11 Commission Report.

These are excerpts from a press release one of Markey’s staffers just emailed me:

The provision Rep. Markey referred to is contained in Section 3032 and 3033 of H.R. 10, the “9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004,” introduced by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL). The provision would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to issue new regulations to exclude from the protection of the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, any suspected terrorist – thereby allowing them to be deported or transferred to a country that may engage in torture. The provision would put the burden of proof on the person being deported or rendered to establish “by clear and convincing evidence that he or she would be tortured,” would bar the courts from having jurisdiction to review the Secretary’s regulations, and would free the Secretary to deport or remove terrorist suspects to any country in the world at will – even countries other than the person’s home country or the country in which they were born. The provision would also apply retroactively.

This provision was not part of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations, and the Commission actually called upon the U.S. to “offer an example of moral leadership in the world, committed to treat people humanely, abide by the rule of law, and be generous and caring to our neighbors.” The Commission noted that “The United States should engage its friends to develop a common coalition approach to the detention and humane treatment of captured terrorists. New principles might draw upon Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions on the law of armed conflict. That article was specifically designed for those cases in which the usual laws of war did not apply. Its minimum standards are generally accepted throughout the world as customary international law.” These standards prohibit the use of torture or other cruel or degrading treatment….

Rep. Markey said, “When the Republicans 9/11 bill is considered in the House, I intend to offer an amendment to strike the torture outsourcing provisions from the Republican bill and replace it with restrictions restoring international law as provided in my bill. It is absolutely disgraceful that the Republican Leadership has decided to load up the 9/11 Commission bill with legislative provisions that would legitimize torture, particularly when the Commission itself called for the U.S to move in exactly the opposite direction.”

There is no possible way for a suspect being detained in secret to prove by “clear and convincing evidence” that he will be tortured if he is deported–especially when he may be deported to a country where has never been, and when the officials who want to deport him serve as judge, jury and executioner, and when there is never any judicial review. This bill will make what happened to Maher Arar perfectly legal, and guarantee that it will happen again.

Markey’s staffer wrote to me that “this bill could be on the House floor as early as next week.”

To everyone: Please, please, please write to your Representative and tell him (or her) to vote against the bill and/or for Markey’s amendment.

To other bloggers: Please consider linking to this post. This bill will pass unless people know about it, and no newspaper has reported on it. The press coverage of the CBS memos showed that blogs can break a story and have an effect–and this story is about 100 times more important than Bill Burkett’s shenanigans and CBS news’ negligence.

I’m talking to Republicans, conservatives and libertarians as well as to Democrats and liberals. I know that you are more decent than this, and that you do not approve of torture. Please prove me right, and do something about it. Republicans are the majority in Congress, and they are much more likely to listen to you than to any Democrat. The press is much more likely to report on the story if liberal and conservative blogs both cover it.

UPDATED: See this post for more details.

UPDATE 2 (Jan. 25 2005): UPDATE, January 2005 I noticed that this post is still bouncing around the web & some people seem to think the bill is still pending.

Long story short: The final version 9/11 Intelligence Reform Bill that was passed by Congress and signed into law did not legalize “extraordinary rendition” (a.k.a. “torture outsourcing.) The provisions on extraordinary rendition were, thankfully, deleted.

Unfortunately, the practice of extraordinary rendition continues. For a short introduction to the topic, you can read this article. (Note that it was written before the torture outsourcing language was completely deleted from the Intelligence bill.) For recent news stories on the subject do a google news search for:
–Khaled el Masri
–N379P
–Mamdouh Habib
–rendition CIA
–rendition torture

Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales defended the legality of extraordinary rendition in his written testimony to the United States Senate (see Senator Durbin’s question 12 & Gonzales’ response, pp. 9-10.) Gonzales told Durbin that renditions were legal if we got “assurances” from the governments of Syria, Egypt, etc. that the prisoner we send to them would not be tortured.

In practice, these promises are worthless, and the U.S. government almost certainly knows they are worthless.

Maher Arar’s lawsuit against the Justice Department is still pending in a Brooklyn federal court. The Bush administration recently petitioned to have the case dismissed because it would require the revelation of information that would threaten national security. I don’t know whether they are likely to succeed.

If you are still willing to email or call your Congressmen and Senators, you could talk to your Senators about the Gonzales nomination, and ask both your Senators and House Reps to support Congressman Edward Markey’s bill to clearly outlaw “extraordinary rendition”. (Note: that’s last year’s version, I believe he has to introduce it again this year under a different bill number.) So far Markey’s bill has the support of 24 House Democrats and 0 House Republicans, and there is no Senate version.

179 thoughts on “Legalizing Torture”

  1. Thank you.
    I read the actual text of the bill(link here. Warning: Giant, 500+ page PDF. The relevant sections are 3032 and 3033, on pages 213-17.) It’s worse than I thought. Terrorism suspects seem to be excluded from the deportation provisions of the Convention Against Torture entirely, even if they could do the impossible and prove by clear and convincing evidence that they would face torture.
    Everyone else who is challenging their deportation (the legal term is “removal”) to a country where they’re in danger of torture under the Convention Against Torture must prove that by “clear and convincing evidence.”
    If it’s an ordinary deportation there is some judicial review, but judges are not supposed to review the constitutionality of the regulations. (I don’t know if they can strip jurisdiction like this. But they have more freedom to do that in immigration laws than in other laws.)
    This is very, very bad. The Convention Against Torture is the strongest legal protection that immigrants in danger of persecution have, the only one that courts can really enforce against the executive branch. This weakens it for every immigrant–asylum seekers, legal permanent residents who moved to the U.S. at age 5 convicted of drug possession, everyone.

  2. Excellent post.
    This and the two previous posts make me wish Moe’s asteroid would conk me right in the forehead.

  5. Quick Hits

    Shaula Evans on the Democratic party machine, and a post about the What She Said! project. Obsidian Wings on a provision that could pass Congress and legalize the subcontracting of torture to other countries without pesky human rights laws, on…

  6. Sebastian–I really, really appreciate that.
    Let me know if you have any factual or legal questions. That goes for anyone, and especially anyone right-of-center, who’s considering posting on this issue but has some doubts–please feel free to email me. (katherinesblog@hotmail.com)

  7. “Katherine the Sorely Missed asked me to post this. The rest is hers, though I second it.
    This is probably the most important post I’ve ever written. Certainly it is the most urgent.”
    Peculiar syntax. Apparently the second paragraph is from Katherine, though there is no note by grammar, indication, spacing, or otherwise than abstraction from the prior paragraph.
    My own post is to say that if Katherine wants to post “the most important post I’ve ever written…” she really should bother to do so. I can’t imagine why she shouldn’t. I don’t understand why she declared she was going to stop blogging, when it was obvious she was going to keep blogging, and indeed, she kept blogging. So now she’s still blogging, so, y’know, maybe she should keep blogging.
    It’s just a thought. Maybe this pretense helps her psychologically somehow, which is possible, and I’m not privy to that sort of thing.
    I just wish she’d take up blogging again, since she’s blogging again.
    Because she’s a great blogger.
    So do something you’re great at, Katherine. Limit it as you wish. Whatever it takes. Just blog.
    Learn to integrate blogging into life, in however limited fashion. It’s useful. It’s good. Just do it.

  8. The pretense limits the quantity to the point where I can manage a job search, a thesis, graduating law school, etc. I’m a horrendous procrastinator and I’m particularly swamped right now.*
    That’s the purpose, and it seems to work: this way I only post the one thing a month that’s urgent instead of my daily ramblings. That said, it is very silly, and if I end up posting follow ups it will probably become too silly even for me. In that case I’ll get a password again instead of harassing the rest of OW to post for me.
    *the clerkship application process goes poorly, so I have to find a plan B, which involves many many involved fellowship applications. Also the House Republicans, on top of everything else, are really making it difficult to write a paper proposal on this subject.

  9. Outsourcing Torture

    Erstwhile (and deeply missed) blogger Katherine has returned to Obsidian Wings with a very important post. Under cover of the “9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004”, House Republicans are attempting to pass a law which would lega…

  11. Outsourcing Services

    There is a clear and present danger of more government jobs to be outsourced to foreign nations. A new bill, H.R. 10, which can be researched here, is coming to the floor of the House of Representatives. Section 3032 and

  12. Voting Republican This Year = Voting for Torture

    It’s not enough that Rumsfeld and probably Bush not just tacitly condoned but actively encouraged studies of optimal torture regimes, creating a climate in which undeniable and disgusting torture was used against Iraqi civilians, including childr…

  13. Rule of Law, Rights of People

    I’ve been horrified by the ways that the current US government has been violating the civil rights of both citizens and noncitizens. Habeas corpus has been suspended de facto, with people who have not been charged with any crimes being held in prison…

  14. Legalizing torture

    You probably remember Katherine’s posts early this year at Obsidian Wings on the Maher Arar case. If you don’t, read them now. Arar is the Canadian citizen who United States immigration officials detained while he was changing planes at JFK

  15. Exporting Torture

    Damn it! The Republican leadership is providing righteous fodder to the DemocRats by attempting to piggyback a rider onto the 9/11 recommendations implementation bill that would allow for ” extraordinary rendition” according to Katherine at Obsidian Wi…

  16. Eroding What We Are

    Go, right now, and read this post at ObWi. Done? Good. Now head over to the House of Representatives page, find your congresscritter, and write to them. Implore them, beg them, plead with them to vote for Representative Edward Markey’s amendment …

  18. Thank you, Katherine, for bringing this issue to our attention.
    I’ve blogged on it, and asked a whole bunch of folks to take action. Some of them already have, myself included.
    The media angle is an important one here. If I had any contacts in the media, I’d push this to them as hard as I could.
    crutan

  21. Blackening the Soul of the Country

    This is bloody disgusting: The Republican leadership of Congress is attempting to legalize extraordinary rendition. “Extraordinary rendition” is the euphemism…

  22. Ma’am,
    I served in the Army Security Agency, did years monitoring Korean Communists from my mountaintop just south of the DMZ.
    I agree, right out that torture is a sad and shameful situation, force, choice.
    You and I come from, are products of, a law-abiding citizenry in a nation based on obedience to just laws, for all citizens. The points you raise are particularly valuable to humans with the moral and spiritual maturity to appreciate the value of submitting to a higher reality than MY conscience.
    So you and I can perceive a dilemma: IF America’s enemies have publicly and privately espoused a stand against American law; IF they have, by word and deed, over a period of years, demonstrated that they are not at all inclined to obey American law, respect American values (of self-determination, individual responsibility, the equality of men and women, human rights, etc); and have, in truth, publicly proclaimed their burning desire to 1)subjugate ALL Western nations under Shari’a Law and/or 2)kill the Satan-loving, licentious non-believers BECAUSE the non-believers have no rights to life, liberty OR the pursuit of happiness…
    THEN it follows that these few, these extreme-true-believers, ready to die in order to KILL YOU and YOUR LOVED ONES, perceive America’s laws and procedures as WAYS TO EXPLOIT American WEAKNESS, and return to killing Americans.
    Torture: IF I thought this is a thin-entering wedge, to be turned against Americans BY Americans later, I would be absolutely against EVER approving ANY use of it.
    Americans, however, have voluntarily dis-banded after EVERY modern military effort, and returned home to become once again citizens, no longer soldiers, no longer killers.
    Americans have, further, shown a remarkable resilience to the call of torture, and it is outside the pale for the huge, overwhelming majority of Americans, maybe 99%?
    And Americans in the field have a very good record of capturing people ACTIVELY INVOLVED in terrorist activities (see Saddam Hussein’s capture, due to American analysts like -blush- ME. But I did it in Korea).
    So what I’m asking is this: IF you knew that a few hours of excruciating nail-pulling or verbal abuse would result in a known terrorist revealing information which immediately is applicable to protecting the lives of Americans, would YOU allow it under those strict conditions?
    I’ve set up a difficult moral decision, but I do believe this acceptance of extant realities is the motive for Americans trying to protect Americans at the expense of Iraqi and other captured-in-the-field terrorists (alleged humans).
    I’m interested in your response, Ma’am.
    Dr Kerry Dean

  23. This Is Not Who We Are

    At one time I would have been spitting outrage and venom. Right now I’m mostly numb, but know I have to move, to say something, to get the word out there. This is too important. The…

  24. Allow me:
    “Americans, however, have voluntarily dis-banded after EVERY modern military effort, and returned home to become once again citizens, no longer soldiers, no longer killers.”
    Past results are no guarantee of future performance.
    “So what I’m asking is this: IF you knew that a few hours of excruciating nail-pulling or verbal abuse would result in a known terrorist revealing information which immediately is applicable to protecting the lives of Americans, would YOU allow it under those strict conditions?”
    Define “known terrorist.” Does that descriptor apply to convicted terrorists only? What about “enemy combatants?” Most importantly, who decides who these “known terrorists” are? The Administration whose Secretary of Education called the NEA “a bunch of terrorists”?

  25. Dr. Dean
    I won’t speak for Katherine, who’s infinitely better informed on such matters than I am, but this is not an accurate assessment of the issue:
    So what I’m asking is this: IF you knew that a few hours of excruciating nail-pulling or verbal abuse would result in a known terrorist revealing information which immediately is applicable to protecting the lives of Americans, would YOU allow it under those strict conditions?
    I doubt you’d find many Americans or others crying over verbal abuse directed at bin Laden, but this proposal is seeking legalization for practices which have been used against arguably innocent people. To put it another way
    So what I’m asking is this: IF you knew that a few hours of excruciating nail-pulling or verbal abuse would result in an innocent person confessing to anything at all to make it stop, would YOU allow it under any conditions?
    Until you can say yes to the this, or have some magic way of knowing who is or is not a terrorists, your first question remains irrelevant.

  26. Blackening the Soul of the Country

    This is bloody disgusting: The Republican leadership of Congress is attempting to legalize extraordinary rendition. “Extraordinary rendition” is the euphemism…

  27. On the efficacy of torture
    Yesterday morning there was an interview with a Canadian journalist. It is a fascinating interview, and a dismaying one. You can listen to it all here, but in sum: the journalist, in a story that in most respects could have come out of WWII or WWI or Kipling, together with his interpreter, ended up in the hands of the partisans, not the troops they were expecting to meet. They managed to convince the rebel leader they were legit – but before they were released, the Emir was killed in a shelling and all their documents were lost. They spent the next days being a problem to their captors, who passed them from one group to another, not knowing what to do wiht them, and torturing them to find out who they were. But they were unable to prove or disprove that the two were either enemy spies or in fact journalists.
    Then someone had the bright idea of googling, and found that yes, the gentleman in question was on the internet, and was indeed who he claimed to be, and they were released. (This is where it differs from Kipling, though it was foreshadowed by Hergé decades ago.)
    Our intelligence efforts, if they can be called that, at Gitmo and in Iraq are a joke from Dis.
    Torture yields useless information. Aristotle pointed this out in his advice for DIY court cases, in a time when it was routine and legal to do so, when torture was SOP in the court systems of the ancient world. Torture yields no context, no meaning, and no way of verifying itself.
    What it *is* good for discouraging the very idea of resistance, lest you be taken away in the Black Ravens, to reappear never, or lacking imporant body parts, pour encourager les autres. The principle use of torture is terrorizing others into submission,
    Up to a point.
    Then it becomes good for inspiring further resistance.
    Where and when that tipping point comes, and when it is possible to pull back from that brink – is something you only find out when it’s too late. But it was probably too late in April, and is certainly too late now.

  28. Carradine raises the ‘ticking bomb’ scenario in an attempt to justify torture. But I’d challenge anyone to produce a single instance where the use of torture has produced the dramatic result of preventing an attack or some other incident.
    Moreover, Carradine seems not to have heard of PTSD or other psychological health issues associated with the stresses and horrors of combats. Imagine what damage could be created by allowing our military to become involved with torture–a practice that requires the systemic dehumanization of others.
    BTW, I’m somewhat surprised a vet would seemingly advocate torture.

  29. Extraordinary Rendition

    EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION….Over at Obsidian Wings, Katherine has a guest post about a proposal from Dennis Hastert to ease up on those annoying UN conventions against torture. In particular, he wants to allow the federal government to suspend UN tortur…

  30. Dr. Dean wrote:
    “I’ve set up a difficult moral decision, but I do believe this acceptance of extant realities is the motive for Americans trying to protect Americans at the expense of Iraqi and other captured in-the-field terrorists (alleged humans).
    If their humanity is merely alleged, then you haven’t set up a “difficult moral decision”. It’s a slam-dunk. Let the torture commence.
    He also wrote:
    “Torture: If I thought this a thin-entering wedge, to be turned against Americans BY Americans later, I would be absolutely against EVER approving ANY use of it.”
    I have no reason to doubt your word. However, if I believe (however irrationally) the words of certain members of a certain Party and certain enablers on the radio and on the Internet to be a rhetorical foreshadowing of the thin-entering wedge you refer to, then I am faced with a moral dilemma as well.
    I don’t want to go there. Neither do you.
    Thank you.

  31. More Torture

    Please read this post about Republican efforts to legalize “extraordinary rendition”–sending suspected terrorists to countries that will torture them–and what you can do about it. Leave a comment if you get an interesting response from your represent…

  32. Can we get a list of the co-sponsors? If my representative is one of them, I’ll want to tailor my missive accordingly.

  33. Holy Crap!

    Obsidian Wings: Legalizing Torture The provision Rep. Markey referred to is contained in Section 3032 and 3033 of H.R. 10, the “9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004,” introduced by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL). The provision would req…

  35. Legalizing Torture: Republican Bill Before Congress

    As if there weren’t enough problems with the new anti-terror bill Congress is considering under the guise of implementing the 9/11 Commission Report, Obsidian Wings finds another one–and it’s chilling. In plain English, Kathryn says, it would legalize…

  36. Dr. Dean asks:
    “So what I’m asking is this: IF you knew that a few hours of excruciating nail-pulling or verbal abuse would result in a known terrorist revealing information which immediately is applicable to protecting the lives of Americans, would YOU allow it under those strict conditions?”
    According to Amnesty International, they have no evidence that torture has ever produced information that has saved lives. Dr. Dean, please give us one such example. Torture has been used for millenia. If it has any value, surely you can come up with one example?

  37. To Dr. Dean:
    Re: Lessons from the use of tortue in Algeria.
    I think that the viewing of American laws as a weakness that allows terrorists to thrive is one of the most dangerous ideas this country has faced. Remember the entire foundation of democratic rule is summed up in the phrase “We are a nation of laws, not of men”. It is the sanctity of the individual against the government, the presumption of innocence, that gives power to the people. If these ideas are our downfall, then democratic experiment that is the USA will fail and it will be proven that it is folly to try democracy in the world. I will not jump at the chance to pull the nature of the country down – killing it for certain – I like our chances better the way we work now.
    From all that I’ve been able to read about torture, I can not view it as some importantly powerful tool. It seems to be the most self-defeating way to go about a strategy of security a victory. For torture to be applied in a way that is compatible with our own foundation would require evidence, trials, review. Torture destroys the presumption of innocence – and this bill seems to target that directly – all done in the dark. That is my major problem with it. It is corrosive, and a government that uses the PATRIOT act to prosecute software piracy exhibits the facts about govenment that everyone has observed, power, once granted, does what it will.
    The use of torture by the French in Algeria is often cited as an example of productive torture. However, that is a very shallow reading of what happened. i.e. France came out OK so torture was OK. This is from memory of a few months ago – but I’ll give it my best shot.
    The French set up “terror warrants” in Algeria in order to gather intellegence. Thus any use of torture had to be OK’d by a judge. In review, torture warrants grew from a few hunderd to a few thousand in the span of only two years. Thus, even in a system of judical restraint that was supposed to limit the application of torture to only the most serious cases, the limitation was unsuccessful. Torture became the prime intellegence tool and several important figures in the anti-French forces were able to use this fixation to rid the movement of more moderate influences and keep investigators tied up torturing non-players. It has been acknowledged by those involved that routine investigative work went undone because it became the commonly held belief that torture was the fastest and best option.
    Addtionally, upon return to France, a good number of the torturers were unable to successfully integrate back into soceity because of the pschological damage torture also inflicts on the torturer.
    This is why the question you posed must continue to be answered in the negative. People have neither the infallibility this torture law implies, nor is the utility of torture what people belive it must be.

  38. And you were worried about tech support

    Republicans in Congress are apparently trying to outsource torture, by legalizing “extraordinary rendition.” “Extraordinary rendition,” means extraditing prisoners to other countries that have legalized torture for interrogating prisoners. That way, th…

  39. Hey CNN! New “Exporting of America” Opportunities

    CNN’s Lou Dobbs has a new industry that he can report is being exported overseas – that professional torturers. In sections 3032 and 3033 of H.R. 10, the “9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004, Congress is permitting the US to…

  40. Can Dr. Kerry Dean cite ANY evidence that torture actually works (except, of course, in old movies)?
    Recent reporting is that MORE useful intelligence is now being obtained from Iraqi captives, since the prison scandal put a stop to the shenanigans. The carrot is working.

  41. The question is utterly irrelevant. This issue is not being discussed in a freshman philosophy class. It’s the Congress of the US. The hypothetical conditions – omniscience and lack of alternatives – can never arise, so whatever one’s answer, it is no argument in favor of this monstrous legislation.

  42. Yes, torture is a partisan issue

    The Republican Administration doesn’t mind it as long as it’s deniable. Rush Limbaugh likens it to fraternity hazing. The Republican leadership in Congress wants to legalize it. The Speaker of the House has introduced a bill that would, among other…

  43. Speaker Denny Hastert, Pro-torture

    Sometimes I really think I shouldn’t get out of bed. This is so appalling. He’s approving of torture of SUSPECTED terrorists (and lately the government’s ability to tell suspected from actual isn’t great), wants to do it in my name…

  45. I think this is a great bill! I suspect Ann Coulter of being a terrorist, and if this bill passes we can ship her off to Uzbekistan for a few rounds of rape and torture! I am certain that it was with this very thought in mind that the bill was proposed in the first place.

  46. Write Your Representative

    There’s an Act before the house next week called the “9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004.” Republican Brownshirts are trying to use this Act to sneak in some language which basically will legalize the use of torture on “suspected” terror…

  49. Legal Torture

    Obsidian Wings has a very important post about a bill in Congress which will allow the US to legally send suspected terrorists to any country for torture. The Republican leadership of Congress is attempting to legalize extraordinary rendition. “E…

  50. Some clarifications:
    1) The provision is not a rider to the 9/11 Bill. It is in the text of the bill.
    2) It would help to refer to the title and number of the bill at the beginnging of your letter, e.g.:
    “I am writing in opposition to Sections 3032 and 3033 of H.R. 10, the “9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004,” on pages 213-217 of the bill.”
    3) Here is a direct link to the relevant text. It might be helpful to include that if you email your Congressman.
    4) It would also help to explicitly mention that Congressman Edward Markey of Massachusetts is planning to introduce an amendment, and that you support Markey’s amendment.
    5) here is the list of cosponsors:
    “Mr. HASTERT (for himself, Mr. DELAY, Mr. BLUNT, Ms. PRYCE of Ohio, Mr. HOEKSTRA, Mr. HUNTER, Mr. YOUNG of Florida, Mr. SENSENBRENNER, Mr. HYDE, Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia, Mr. OXLEY, Mr. DREIER, Mr. COX, Mr. THOMAS, Mr. NUSSLE, Mr. BOEHNER, and Mr. SMITH of New Jersey”

  52. The Law of Unintended Consequences

    Okay, now Katherine over at Obsidian Wings has a post up decrying the possible Congressional endorsement of “extraordinary renditions”–the practice of outsourcing…

  53. Sorry, that link just died too. Here is how to look up the relevant text of the bill:
    1. Go to this page.
    2. type in “hr 10” in the Bill Number search box. This will give you the linked table of contents.
    3. scroll down to Section 3032, and click on the link.

  54. Criminy, sorry about that.
    Let me try again:
    1. Follow this link.
    2. Type in “HR 10” in the bill number search box. This will give you a linked table of contents.
    3. Scroll down to Section 3032, and click on the link.

  55. I confess, torture is bugbear of mine, and I didn’t link to this, I went to the effort to write my own rant.
    If anyone cares to read it, I’ve posted it at Cold Fury and Rage
    We need to see that the truth gets out there.
    I’ll go and link to the conversation here in my comments, and in some other places.
    TK

  57. So what I’m asking is this: IF you knew that a few hours of excruciating nail-pulling or verbal abuse would result in a known terrorist revealing information which immediately is applicable to protecting the lives of Americans, would YOU allow it under those strict conditions?
    Ah, the old ticking timebomb dilemma. An interesting exercise for a college freshman philosophy class along with the bomb shelter dilemma but meaningless in real life. If there is one proven case in the history of mankind where torture has stopped a “ticking timebomb”, I would like to see it.
    Torture may produce useful intelligence from time to time but it is less productive than non-coercive methods of interrogation because with torture the victim will eventually tell the torturer what he wants to hear, whether it is true or not. So it is most effective for propaganda purposes; to break down the victim and have him confess to a laundry list of crimes to prove the nobility of the torturer’s cause. It has no other use. Someone once said that “the purpose of torture is torture”.
    Also, there is the issue of reciprocity. One reason the military is so fond of the Geneva Conventions is that it provides a safety net to our soldiers. If we abandon it, our soldiers are less likely to be treated well if captured. One only needs to look at the vast differences in treatment of Western European and Russian POWs by the Germans in World War II to see the practical effect of this. I realize there other factors at play and it was much more complicated, but the breakdown of the Geneva rules was part of the cause of the absolute viciousness of the war on the eastern front in World War II.

  63. Dr Kerry Dean:
    Allow me, as an interrogator, not so long returned from Iraq, with friends who were/are still there and in/were in Afghanistan (among them the author of, “The Interrogators, which book I now commend to you, in light of the questions you are asking) to answer the quesetion:
    IF you knew that a few hours of excruciating nail-pulling…
    Not only no, but hell no. First, it doesn’t work (and I’ve gone on, at length on the subject at Washington Monthly, Electrolite, in my blog Pecunium and anywhere else I encounter the pernicious doctrine that torture is a useful tool.
    Even, in the rare case, a victim gives up truthful information, the validity is suspect, and as much time as it would have taken to get it from him otherwise is need to verify it. If torture is used as a standard tool then we get a cycle of positive feedback where the torturer leads the victim to the answers he’s trying to confirm.
    or verbal abuse would result in a known terrorist revealing information which immediately is applicable to protecting the lives of Americans, would YOU allow it under those strict conditions?
    Depends on how you define verbal abuse. FM 34-52 (Field Interrogation) has a lot of ways to convince a source to talk… yelling, and belittling, and mocking, and all sort of, “abuse,” are legal. The question become not so much what, as how. I can’t legally (or morally, or doctrinally, or even effectively) threaten to kill someone. I can, however, make him think telling me the truth is the best way to see to it that no one else does.
    As for this, Americans, however, have voluntarily dis-banded after EVERY modern military effort, and returned home to become once again citizens, no longer soldiers, no longer killers. balderdash.
    Those of us who have killed, are killers. We may not feel any great guilt, but we are changed (we have, as those in th Civil War put it, seen the elephant, and will never be the same again: pulling the trigger ourselves isn’t the only way to join that club)
    It may not scar us, may not make us less worthwhile as human beings, but killing in the heat of the fight, even in a coldly calculating way, is different from taking a helpless prisoner and beating him, burning him, doing damage which stops short of, “organ failure or death,” to quote the Administration.
    That sort of thing, where the other guy is not only not an immediate threat, but completely helpless debases those who practise it.
    Torture has always been a strange thing… the inquisition had a host of safeguards, to see to it that it was the very last of resorts, and required that those who had been tortured allocute to their offenses, when the fear of the rack was reduced (problematically it was always in the background, waiting to be reapplied). It is amazing how many confessed heretics recanted.
    And the Church had the comfort of being certain they were saving an immortal soul. If they were wrong, God would accept the blameless who died from branding, or dunking, or ropes, or the cuts and lashes, and forgive those who were so zealous in His defense.
    I, devout as I am, can’t take that comfort. I certainly can’t (and won’t) demand that so facile a view be imposed on others.
    Those who torture come to see other people as less than human, which is the opposite of the scars we see in those conflicted about killing… the are bothered by the humanity they sense in those they’ve slain. They also know that had the moment been a trifle different, they would be the corpse. It makes a difference. No one can, honestly, believe they might be in the victims chair… that isn’t random, it isn’t a dichotomy of power which arises from fate… no it is the other guy who gets tortured, because “I” the torturer will it to be so.
    I’ll stop ranting now… suffice it to say, that from years of experience, we differ.
    TK

  65. Outsourcing torture

    In my last post, I was tempted to argue that allowing the military to ignore the Geneva Convention in places like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib would have a corrosive effect back home. You know, if we decide that it’s acceptable…

  67. Do What?!?

    Just when you thought House Republicans couldn’t get any more loony, they’ve now decided that deporting people to places where they may very well be tortured as an interrogation technique is a good thing. You think I’m kidding? Go read…

  72. Yes.
    First of all, it is conceivable that she is not aware of every detail of the bill or their implications, and is just trying to get her name on the 9/11 Commission Bill.
    Second of all, it’s good for representatives to know that their constituents are watching these things, and care about the outcome. It’s not impossible to cosponsor a bill and vote for an amendment to a bill. It’s unlikely, but I think it’s worth the effort.

  73. The ticking time-bomb hypothetical, which is (a) still a hypothetical, and (b) was covered ad infinitum when the original memos came out, doesn’t have anything to do with this bill. Don’t fall for the false conditions the pro-torture crowd keeps imposing.
    The time required to get the suspected terrorist to the subcontracted torturing country even with the minimum process suggested (i.e., can the nominal bad guy prove he would be tortured) will be longer than any theoretical ticking time bomb would last. If you’ve got the time to really convene even a kangaraoo court, you’ve got the time to interrogate the guy without pulling his fingernails out.

  74. In my letter to Mike Doyle I told him to urge other Congressmen on both sides of the aisle to support the measure.

  75. Republicans in Congress attempting to legalize “extraordinary rendition”

    In other words, “torture-by-proxy”: sending suspects to countries that practice torture during interrogation. This is, for example, what happened to Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was grabbed by U.S. immigration in NYC and sent to Syria, where he was

  76. Laura,
    I think it is crucially important that you contact her. She should know what she is endorsing, and what her constituents think of it.

  77. Legal torture.

    Obsidian Wings has some terrible news: The Republican leadership of Congress is attempting to legalize extraordinary rendition. “Extraordinary rendition” is the euphemism we use for sending terrorism suspects to countries that practice torture for inte…

  79. The Business of America Is Business, and Business Is Good

    Giblets want you to look for “Made in the USA” on the tag: Giblets is outraged! Congressional Republicans are trying to sneak provisions into the 9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004 that would legalize the foul practice of “extraordinary re…

  80. Extraordinary Rendition (aka outsourcing torture)

    Apparently our esteemed representatives in congress want to make it legal to extradite terrorist suspects to countries like Syra to do our torturing for us. A great post at Obsidian…

  82. And here’s an idea for you folks that have close congressional races in your district. Make sure to include in your letter that this issue will be the deciding factor on who you’ll be voting for. If the polling is even close where you live, plug that idea as hard as you can. That will get people’s attention.
    Also, if you’re going to stand against 3032 and 3033, you might as well toss in 3031, as it lays the foundation to impliment 3032 and 3033. Get the entire chapter tossed out on it’s ear.

  83. Others have covered Dr Dean’s reiteration of the “Ticking Time Bomb” scenario with a welcoming abundance of enthusiasm for debunking the tired rhetoric. There is no need, therefore, for me to go over old ground.
    I would, however, like to pick up on a point which I think has been overlooked.
    “THEN it follows that these few, these extreme-true-believers, ready to die in order to KILL YOU and YOUR LOVED ONES, perceive America’s laws and procedures as WAYS TO EXPLOIT American WEAKNESS, and return to killing Americans.
    …
    And Americans in the field have a very good record of capturing people ACTIVELY INVOLVED in terrorist activities (see Saddam Hussein’s capture, due to American analysts like -blush- ME. But I did it in Korea).“
    To my observation, the moral certainty of the assertion here rests on an unfounded and unacceptable assumption: that whoever we capture and torture is guilty of the crimes they have been accused of. The US may well have a habit of picking up the right people, but we also know for a fact you got the wrong ones in Iraq as well. And you tortured them. In fact, you were wrong more than you were right.
    The case mentioned in Katherine’s OP, that of Maher Arar, was, as has already been stated, fundamentally misguided. After all that noncing about on the edge of international law, you sent the wrong man to Syria to be tortured. He was not one of “these extreme true believers”. You gained no benefit from your actions, and in fact your moral standing in the world has sunk as a result of your actions. Far from being the beacon of democracy and freedom that your country should be to the citizens of the various dictatorships around the world, they see your government indulging in the same behaviour as their regimes. If we want to be the shining city on a hill — and I include in this not just America, but Britain and all the other liberal democracies in the world — then we must accept that our iniquities are also exposed to scrutiny. We must not, therefore, in any sense classify our failures as “necessary” and seek to justify them to others. Every dictator from Castro to Stalin has done that. WE ARE BETTER THAN THAT. And if we aren’t, we damn well need to take this system out root and branch and put in a better one, because we should be.
    So the moral dilemma presented by Dr Dean falls at another set of hurdles. Given that we are not dealing with omniscience and pre-knowledge of guilt, and that we are, in fact, dealing with what is close to the polar opposite of infallibility — a human political system with a verifiable track record of being wrong more than it is right — one must not see the situation in terms of one or two hours of torture to a human who would knowingly kill Americans just for being Americans, but rather in terms of hundreds of hours of torturing many innocent humans, with one terrorist buried in there somewhere, possibly, or possibly not. We can “justify” the torture of the guilty, but in doing so in real life we implicitly justify also the torture of innocents. This I will not do.
    Hypothetical “what if” scenarios can be useful thought experiments, but their limitations must be recognised. If you introduce so many assumptions that the hypothetical has no similarity to any real life practical situation, any conclusions drawn from debating it become worthless in informing moral decisions in the real world. If you must add “IF this and IF that and IF the other” to a proposal before right minded people will accept it, the proposal in its raw state is rejected. IF cake were made of poisoned puppies I would probably not eat cake. As it is, cake is not made of poisoned puppies, and my grandmother does not have wheels and is not a taxicab, licensed or otherwise.
    If we in the democratic west allow torture, even, in fact in my view especially if we hide it from sight in this way and pretend that we are not really guilty of it, then we have lost a fight more ancient and bitterly fought than the war against terrorism or communism or anarchism; the fight against the evil in our own societies. That fight is more important than any war fought on foreign soil, because if we lose it, all the soldiers who fought in Germany and France and Korea and Iraq really have died for nothing.

  86. Torture by Proxy – Again

    They’re at it again. Katherine, formerly of Obsidian Wings who did terrific work on the Maher Arar case is back with an important post about legislation that House Speaker Dennis Hastert is attempting to implement: The provision would require the

  89. If our Congresspeople are not cosponsors of the bill (and, as near as I can tell, voted against it), is it worth drawing this to their attention? If so, what would be the appropriate way?

  90. I’m crying as I type this. After 4 years of the worst administration in US history, I thought I was numb to the hourly outrages that the Republicans launch. This is so beyond the pale, however, that this is the first time I’ve ever written my congresscritter. I told him (Mr. Becerra, of the MacArthur Park area of Los Angeles) that he had to vote against this.
    And how totally not surprising to see that utter piece of human filth David Dreirer listed as a co-sponsor. I live pretty much adjacent to his district and I’m going to do everything I can to help him get kicked to the curb in November.

  92. Page A-1 of the Washington Post by the best daily news reporter we have, Dana Priest:

    The provision, human rights advocates said, contradicts pledges President Bush made after the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal erupted this spring that the United States would stand behind the U.N. Convention Against Torture. Hastert spokesman John Feehery said the Justice Department “really wants and supports” the provision.
    Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said, “We can’t comment on any specific provision, but we support those provisions that will better secure our borders and protect the American people from terrorists.”

    If the D.O.J. supports this, this will really be an uphill battle. Please write your representative if you haven’t already.

  93. I did email Dana Priest but I’m 99.9% sure she already knew about this and had done most of her reporting on this subject by the time she read my email.

  94. This is beyond the pale

    Please write to your representatives about this. It does not matter if you’re a Democrat, a Republican, a Libertaria, a Green, etc. — this is a vitally important issue for our national security.

  95. Fluffy Bunny Act

    Ladies and Gentlemen of the House,
    Allow me to introduce HR10, the Protection of Fluffy Bunnies Act of 2004.
    This Bill will ensure the protection of fluffy bunnies in this Great Nation Of Ours. No longer will their fur get all matted and yucky. A…

  96. US Republicans Try To Legalise Torture

    Obsidian Wings reports on a bill in the US House of Representatives that attempts to legalise the transfer of prisoners to foreign countries to conduct torture by proxy. (link via Atrios). The Washington Post now has a story on Baghdad Bush’s support f…

  98. Legalizing Torture

    I can’t believe these clowns are actually in a race for reelection after throwing away our moral authority. he Republican leadership of Congress is attempting to legalize extraordinary rendition. “Extraordinary rendition” is the euphemism we use for se…

  99. Republicans Ought Not Support Torture

    I generally support the 9/11 Commission Bill (which is more formally known as H.R. 10). However, Sections 3032 and 3033 are very disturbing. They make it very easy for the US to move terrorist suspects into the custody of other…

  100. Quick question. In Dana Priest’s last graf, she mentions two Reps that voted against H.R. 10 being moved to the floor. “Only two members of the intelligence committee — LaHood and Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.) — voted against the measure.” Anyone have any idea on what, if anything, they said before or after the final committee vote? Maybe we could use that as souce material for some talking points about this. Handy for calling into radio shows and writing letters to the editor.
    I have a rough draft for one to both the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News sketched out in Word, but I’d like something from the ones who stood up and said “No” on the committee floor if I can get it.

  101. Say no to torture

    Both Katherine R and Sebastian Holdsclaw of Obsidian Wings are rightly horrified that the so-called “9/11 commission bill” includes provisions that may lead to the institutionalization of the abuses that Maher Arar was subjected to by Syria…

  102. a medieval future

    Very occasionally I find some internet piece about government policy which makes me want to lean over and just puke into the wastepaper basket. This is one of them. The US government (our allies, remember?) has been indulging in “extraordinary…

  103. Waxing Nostalgic

    You know, I miss the days when we all made fun of the US Congress for wasting time declaring January “National Soup Month” I do wish they’d go back to that and not to debates over whether to send people…

  106. If I may make just one comment supporting that of Terry Karney…
    I work with “Chief Wiggles” an Army Interrogator who worked with a group of Iraqi Generals during his time in Iraq. He would agree wholeheartedly with Terry Karney about the uselessness of torture. He finds even the thought of torture abhorrent.
    Regards.

  107. Old and Busted: Eschewing tortureNew Hotness: Outsourcing our Wetwork

    Know what would be funny? If, in the whole debate over whether Indian programmers are as good as American programmers, and whether Chinese steelworkers are stealing good American jobs, we ended up outsourcing our torturers!
    Long-departed and much-m…

  108. I hope it’s okay–and if not, let me know and I’ll remove the post–but I felt this was so crucially important that I posted it exactly, word for word, as you posted it here, with a link and full credit of course. It’s about darn time that we progressive bloggers get something this important, and I want to do everything I can to spread the info. Keep up the good work!

  110. Scandal: Torturing Outsourced Without Competitive Bidding

    Obsidian Wings draws our attention to a very important bill in Congress attempting to override, oh, The UN Convention on Torture, lots of U.S. Federal Laws and general standards of decency in order to legalize outsourcing of torture: The Republican…

  111. Scandal: Torturing Outsourced Without Competitive Bidding

    Obsidian Wings draws our attention to a very important bill in Congress attempting to override, oh, The UN Convention on Torture, lots of U.S. Federal Laws and general standards of decency in order to legalize outsourcing of torture: The Republican…

  112. What now? Well let me tell you what now.

    Time to write your congresscritter. The “9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004” currently before Congress [HR 10] would legalize deporting suspected terrorists to countries that might get medieval on their ass, because after all, it’s too…

  113. Legalizing Torture

    Legalizing Torture and Extraordinary Rendition tell of Republican attempts (in HR 10, introduced by Dennis Hastert, the bill implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission) to legalize the practice (known as “extraordinary rendition”) of sen…

  114. House Leadership Attempts to Legalize Torture

    Write your Representative about this, if it’s the only thing you do today! It’s important. Katherine (via hilzoy) of Obsidian Wings writes that the House of Representatives is planning to pass a bill to put a legal imprimatur on the…

  115. Torture is odious

    And “ticking time bombs” be damned, there is no reason to send terror suspects to countries with a wink and nod, when we are fairly certain torture and other illegal and barbaric techniques are going to be employed. I’m going…

  116. I’ve never posted anything before… but in response to this all I can say is…No. No. No. Not to save my life. Not in my name and not in the name of my country. If we as individuals, or as a country, exist for any purpose it is to stand in opposition to this… I wax incoherent…weep in sorrow…and mutter in shrill rage…alas, America.

  117. Extraordinary rendition

    Extraordinary rendition — kinda has a nice ring to it. It sounds important yet is vague enough that most people will pass over it without a second glance. What it actually means is the outsourcing of torture. The plan is…

  118. Excellent post. Your work on Maher Arar was very moving–and this is totally infuriating. I wrote a flash fiction piece after reading this post (linked to you but I didn’t see it in the trackbacks). Here’s the opening grafs:
    You’re walking to your car as you get off work—late, but finally caught up at last. The parking lot is dark, empty. As you fiddle for the right key, a charcoal grey cargo van pulls up alongside you. The windowless door slides open; two men in fatigues get out. One calls your name. You answer, confused, and the second man grabs your right wrist, twists it around your back, and slams you against your car. Your left arm grabbed and pinned, the tell-tale pinch of a plastic twist-tie against your wrists, and you are jerked backwards and pulled into the van. The door closes, and you are gone.
    Your family calls your cell phone, but you never answer. In the morning, the police inspect your abandoned car: keys on the ground where you dropped them, no sign of a robbery, no signs at all. As they worry and wait for a ransom demand that will never come, you are taught the meaning of extraordinary rendition.
    (more at the homepage link)
    Keep it up, Katherine. We need people like at a time like this.

  120. Jim,
    You’ll be pleased to know that I am in Drier’s district, and told him I (who, despite a mixed voting record, have been a registered republican for the past 18 years) can’t, and won’t vote for him, if he doesn’t vote to remove these passages, and if, despite his efforts, they remain; if he votes for the bill.
    Since he actually has a slight fight on his hands this might have some affect.
    Plunge: I might know that Chief.
    TK

  123. I wish all the bleeding hearts could live in some other nation other than the United States for a short time and then see what they have to say about the way things are handled in this great country we live in, it is just like Judge Roy Bean used to say, they are guilty of something and by the way if you did not know he was known as the hanging judge.

  124. I wish all the bleeding hearts could live in some other nation other than the United States for a short time…
    London for three months, Philippines for six months, Australia for four years and Hong Kong for 7-19 years depending on exactly how one counts it. What’s your point?

  125. To echo anarch: France for six months, Sweden for six months, Israel for a year, Turkey for a few months, Germany ditto, decent chunks of time in Mexico, Greece, Egypt, and a bunch of other countries. Oddly enough, none of this has altered my opposition to torture in the slightest. Actually, it was only strengthened by meeting people who had been tortured for no good reason (by which I don’t mean to suggest that there ever is a reason that would justify torture, but that some of the people I have met were first tortured at ages like eleven and twelve, when it’s hard to see how there could be a reason that anyone could possibly think justified torture.)
    So what is it that I should have learned from my travels, but didn’t?

  126. This proposed use of torture against suspected terrorists is especially frightening considering we have an administration that feels it’s okay to declare American citizens, arrested in the USA, to be “enemy combatants” and hold them without charges being laid against them or access to a lawyer, for years.
    ============
    One day a rabbit was walking near the forest when he saw all the animals rushing out of it.
    “What’s the matter,” the rabbit asked a passing bear.
    “Haven’t you heard?” the bear replied. “The KGB is catching and castrating all the camels.”
    “I have nothing to fear then,” the rabbit said. “I’m not a camel.”
    “Yes?” the bear answered. “Try to prove it after they’ve caught and castrated you.”

  127. A bill to legalize torture

    It has been widely reported through the blogosphere (by Obsidian Wings, Daily Kos, et cetera), and totally ignored by mainstream media sources, that there is an insidious law to legalize torture buried within the House bill to implement the 9/11…

  128. This blog could be interesting. I don’t know because I can only see a 1 inch strip at the side of the screen ‘arreste in the USA’ ‘KGB is catching and castrating’ – mmm , on the other hand I wonder why people are linking here.
    Let’s hope other blogs make their blog viewable in all browsers? not just the insecure, not standards-based IE6.

  129. torture

    nobody reads this blog but still here’s a small contribution to responsible politics in these benighted states. plus i really dislike the fascist-in-chief of your house of unrepresentatives……

  130. Let’s hope other blogs make their blog viewable in all browsers? not just the insecure, not standards-based IE6.
    Just for the record: No problem at all with Opera (7.54)

  132. John, I use IE6, and I occasionally have that problem when I’m trying to access a debate from the “recent comments” links on the right-hand side. I find the solution is to click on the link to the post/thread from the main page.

  133. Republicans Seeking to Outsource Torture

    The 9/11 Commission called upon the U.S. to “offer an example of moral leadership in the world, committed to treat people humanely, abide by the rule of law, and be generous and caring to our neighbors.” The Republican congressional response:…

  134. AGENT ORANGE

    Kevin Drum linked to an insipid Weekly Standard column by Hugh Hewitt calling attention to the presidential debate-defining story that the liberal media doesn’t want you to hear: John Kerry has a tan. Only then did I realize why wingnut…

  135. Random Roundup

    Johann Hari reminds us that Corporate Social Responsibility is a dud:We find it quite easy to recognise state tyrannies like Mugabe’s or North Korea’s. It is much harder for us to recognise the capacity of corporations to act as -…

  136. Been a while since I was called a bleeding heart (been a longer while since I was called a reactionary pig though… which was amusing when I had long hair, and the conservatives ruled me out on looks, and the liberals for content… I steering more to the middle, but the country has drifted, and I stayed much the same. I digress).
    I’ve lived in Korea. Been in Ukriane, Iraq, Kuwait.
    I have friends who’ve lived in Germany (back when there were two) Saudi, Jordan, China (and her comments, from a trip ending in June were enlightening. She had more obvious intrusions (she had her internet cut off, one branch of a shared line; but only her branch, because [she is certain] of what she was googling… so she tested it, and it happened again, but she said the level of freedom in conversation, in attitue was better than it was here. There were things one couldn’t read, or write, but nothing one couldn’t talk about, and here she sees a lot of self-censorship), Israel S. Africa (before and after the end of Apartheid) Czechoslovakia, Russsia, and I forget the rest.
    None of that makes an iota of difference.
    1: If we are going to hold ouselves out, as a city on a hill, we damned well better be that shining city.
    2: Like it or not, we have staked that claim, and if we show ourselves to be no better than Lybia, or Syria, or the former USSR, everyone who has drawn hope that a stable country, of, for and by, the people; loses that. Because we, who have the greatest esperience at it, who draw from the longest tradition of it, are pissing it away… throwing out our essential liberties for a passing sense of security. We are failing ourselves, and that is failing them.
    3: To quote from the Bible, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the world, and lose his soul.”
    TK

  137. I phrased a piece of that poorly…. If one can call a tour of duty in a combat zone (entering Iraq on 02 April, 2004, and working in HumInt near An Najaf, Baghdad, Tikrit, and 2/3rd of the way from Trikrit to Mosul, living, then I haven’t been to Iraq, I’ve lived there.
    It’s worse now, in so many ways, than it was before we arrived.
    Just my two-cents on that.
    TK

  138. Outsourcing Torture

    Both the House and the Senate are considering bills that address the suggestions of the 9/11 Commission to centralize intelligence functions under a national intelligence director. Both branches of Congress are considering bills proposing this change, …

  139. U.S. Moves to Legalize Torture by Proxy

    While we were otherwise distracted by the dancing puppet show known as the Presidential Debates, a story of chilling significance broke in the blogosphere, one which the mainstream media have failed to pick up and which has stunning implications for…

  140. Outsourcing Torture

    Republicans want to torture people, but apparently want to “wash their hands” of any blame. Fortunately, our CEO President has the solution. One word: OUTSOURCING
    As blogger Obsidian Wings notes:
    The Republican leadership of Congress is attemp…

  141. On a very serious note…

    There is a bill trying to make its way into law right now. This bill gives the United States government the right to send detainees to other countries.
    Doesn’t sound serious?
    It is.
    Have you heard the name Maher Arar?
    He was an Canadian citizen….

  142. Legalizing outsourced torture

    The “compassionate conservatives” in the Republican-controlled Congress want to be able to deport people, on suspicion alone (in other words, at Ashcroft’s whim) to countries that will torture them, unless of course the prospective deportee can manage …

  144. Outsourcing Torture

    Not content to outsource torture to private contractors, Republicans are apparently pushing a bill to make it legal to outsource torture to other countries. This is called “extraordinary rendition.” Obsidian Wings has the story. It’s not as if to some…

  146. Outsourcing Torture – Update

    When I first learned that Congress was working to legalize the now mostly illegal act of deporting individuals to countries (not their country of origin) that engaged in torture, I was dismayed and published this post. I planned on following

  147. Outsourcing torture

    The blog Obsidian Wings has a series of posts on proposed legislation in the States that would allow Extraordinary rendition” – the euphemism we use…

  148. Your Rights: Outsourced

    This has got to be the scariest thing ever.
    INS, or Immagration and Naturalization Services, have reportedly sent people overseas to be tortured!
    Dennis Hastert (R) has proposed a bill titled “9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004…

  150. Blackening the Soul of the Country

    This is bloody disgusting: The Republican leadership of Congress is attempting to legalize extraordinary rendition. “Extraordinary rendition” is the euphemism…

  151. Coalition opposes restrictions on travel freedom and privacy

    Congressional debate on bills purporting to “implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission” has bogged down in disputes between the different bills passed by the House and the Senate, and over their provisions to legalize in the USA what is bein…

  152. Effort to legalize torture by proxy

    Please go and read this post on Obsidian Wings right now – you need to know what’s being considered for inclusion in the proposed bill implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 commission: The provision Rep. Markey referred to is contained

  155. The Koufax Awards: Best Series

    This category includes both regular features as well as the best coverage of a single issue. It’s also one of the toughest to parse together, as some of the nominating comments were pretty obscure (Can we include a “Nomination with…

  156. The Koufax Awards: Best Series

    This category includes both regular features as well as the best coverage of a single issue. It’s also one of the toughest to parse together, as some of the nominating comments were pretty obscure (Can we include a “Nomination with…

  157. The Koufax Awards: Best Series

    This category includes both regular features as well as the best coverage of a single issue. It’s also one of the toughest to parse together, as some of the nominating comments were pretty obscure (Can we include a “Nomination with…

  158. The Koufax Awards: Best Series

    This category includes both regular features as well as the best coverage of a single issue. It’s also one of the toughest to parse together, as some of the nominating comments were pretty obscure (Can we include a “Nomination with…

  159. The Koufax Awards: Best Series

    This category includes both regular features as well as the best coverage of a single issue. It’s also one of the toughest to parse together, as some of the nominating comments were pretty obscure (Can we include a “Nomination with…

  160. The Koufax Awards: Best Series

    This category includes both regular features as well as the best coverage of a single issue. It’s also one of the toughest to parse together, as some of the nominating comments were pretty obscure (Can we include a “Nomination with…

  164. Extrordinary rendition is a major problem I’ll admit but think about this. If you where the leader of a free country that is guilty of torturing free people what would you do? Would you let the people you tortured go to tell the world your deed?
    After 9/11 most people will blame the goverment for anything! My point being is: is U.S. gov realy the ones to blame?

  167. I’m sure there’s a gesture for sticking my tongue out.
    I’m also sure that Slart, Von, Charles, and Sebastian, don’t read this stuff.
    Which is the problem I complain about. This is a largely abandoned site.

  168. If a spammer can do this, and no one is on guard, the site is abandoned.
    Slart, Sebastian, Von, Charles, Hilzoy, and Edward, can demonstrate otherwise.
    I’ll wait.

  170. The thing about free ice cream is it’s free. Expecting it free and delivered in a timely fashion is a bit unreasonable.

  173. Mine’s a Dublin Mudslide, thanks. I expect it delivered in a timely fashion, but I’ll make whoever delivers it a nice cup of tea.

  176. What is it about legalizing torture that appeals to spammers?
    Don’t they realize what we’d like to do to them if it was legal?
    And I never got my Dublin Mudslide.

  178. And I never got my Dublin Mudslide.

    I mailed you one, but it got stuck in the dead-letter office and, apparently, began to emit a rather offensive smell, at which time it was classified as a biohazard and disposed of by a crack team of Homeland Security bioweapons experts.
    Hopefully things will turn out a bit different next time, and maybe we’ll chip in for a cooler and some dry ice. But that costs money, and rather takes away from the freeness of it all.

Comments are closed.