Eugene Robinson, Come On Down...You are the next drum I am going to beat on...
Eugene Robinson is a columnist for the Washington Post. On May 3rd, Powerline hammered the snot out of Robinson over his latest column entitled "Torture Whitewash". The column addresses how the history will judge the actions of today.(Hat-tip to Autin Bay and Powerline)
http://austinbay.net/blog/index.php
http://www.powerlineblog.com/
Torture Whitewash
By Eugene RobinsonTuesday, May 3, 2005; Page A21
Twenty years from now, how will we remember this "global war on terrorism''? Assuming it's over by then -- assuming we haven't escalated a fight against al Qaeda into an all-out clash of civilizations -- will we look back on the GWOT, as Washington bureaucrats call it, and feel pride in the nation's resolve and sacrifice? Or will history's verdict be tempered by shame?
The answer will depend on how this Congress comes to terms with the documented mistreatment of prisoners in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Iraq and who knows where else in the secret archipelago of U.S. detention.
What Robinson calls mistreatment is preposterous. What is done to our troops, what has been done to civilians in Iraq captured by the terrorists goes beyond the definition of "mistreatment" or "torture".
The Bush administration and the Pentagon are whitewashing the whole thing. Congress still has the chance to uphold this nation's ideals and values, and some Senate Republicans (Lindsey Graham, John McCain, John Warner) vow to seek accountability. Given the inaction so far, though, I'm not holding my breath -- unlike the prisoners who were apparently tortured by "waterboarding," an interrogation technique in which the subject is strapped down and
held underwater until he feels himself at the point of drowning.
The administration is not "whitewashing" anything. It was the administration that began an official investigation, and notified Congress of it, months before CBS ran with this jizzed up story. And since then it has been the MSM perpetuating the myths of Abu Ghraib and Gitmo.
It was a year ago when the first snapshots emerged from Abu Ghraib -- the pyramids of naked men; the vicious dogs lunging at naked men; and Lynndie England with her leash, leading a naked man like an animal. The one I can't get out of my mind is the hooded prisoner with wires attached to his genitals, fearing electrocution but seeming almost resigned to it, arms outstretched and head slightly inclined in a pose suggesting the Passion. It's something out of Hieronymus Bosch, a fantasy of Hell from the late Middle Ages.
Those wires were not hooked up to anything. And as for the naked men in pyramids, in the recent documentary called "Voices Of Iraq" former prisoners from Saddam’s Abu Ghraib laughed an joked about being "tortured" that way. They stated time and again that they wished that was what they had endured instead of the literal torture at the hands of Saddam’s thugs, his psychotic sons, and at times, the former dictator himself.
A year later, only the low-ranking grunts who grinned and gave thumbs-ups while committing these sadistic acts have been made to answer. Only one ranking officer -- a reservist, a woman, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski -- has been sanctioned. The White House and Pentagon officials who opened the door to these abuses, and the careerist Army brass who oversaw the brutality, sit comfortably in their offices, talking disingenuously of "rogue" privates and sergeants.
The investigation launched into Abu Ghraib showed that no one in the administration—not Bush, or Rummy, or Condi, or Cheney, or Ashcroft—had any connection to the abuses. The MSM can only hold up Alberto Gonzales as a possible scapegoat, and he is not even close. His briefs did not outline torture methods. They outlined what would be construed as torture, and what would not be labeled such.
Physicians for Human Rights has just issued a report finding that U.S. authorities carried out "an ongoing regime of psychological torture of detainees" in Afghanistan, Guantanamo and Iraq.
It is not torture to deprive people of light, or of sleep. These are prisoners that have no protections under the Geneva Convention. They were not captured in a recognized national uniform, nor were they under the command of a recognized senior officer of said nation, nor are they recognized by the government of said nation. These are three key elements in the Geneva Convention that define a legal prisoner of war.
The U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the United States has signed, bans the inflicting of severe "physical or mental" pain to obtain information or a confession. There's no way that the infliction of physical agony, prolonged sleep and sensory deprivation, confinement in painful positions for hours on end, sexual humiliation, threats with snarling dogs and other documented U.S. abuses fall short of the definition.
In a war, we do not answer to the UN. Our ultimate authority lies within the Geneva Convention, and in the Uniform Code Of Military Justice. Those from Abu Ghraib did violate the UCMJ, and many have already faced their punishment. And if this is what the UN deems as torture or cruel treatment, then why are they not taking North Korea, and the consistent abuse of the populace, to task? What Kim Jong-Il does to his people goes far beyond what occurred at Abu Ghraib.
Some prisoners were "rendered" to cooperating countries where old-fashioned fingernail-pulling is a routine investigative technique. Others have simply "disappeared," as if the U.S. government were some Latin American junta whose generals wear gold-braided epaulets as big as vultures. Most prisoners have been given neither adequate military nor civilian rights. Many don't know why they were arrested or what charges they face.
This paragraph is just plain inflammatory and wrong. We do not engage in such practices. We cannot control when a country refuses to hand over terrorists, such as what is happening in Pakistan over the number three al-Qaeda man, al-Libbi. You have a problem with what they do, then take it up with them. As for representation, these prisoners deserve no representation, aside from whatever the military assigns them. The line in the paragraph regarding military or civilian rights is just plain ignorant. To hell with what the courts have said. These people do not fall in their jurisdiction. They fall under the jurisdiction of a military tribunal.
It may be that these are all terrible people who wish to harm the United States -- we have no way of knowing, because the supposed evidence is secret. But even if they are, this mistreatment is wrong. If the price we pay for complete safety is complete abandonment of our ideals, the price is too high.
We are not abandoning any ideals. Our troops stand ready to do violence on behalf of the weak or unwilling. And I do not mean that as an insult, but I will be the first to admit that I fall into the "weak" category. I have the heart to defend this nation, but heart is not enough. And of course the evidence is secret. It should be. It is a military matter, and the last thing the military wants to see is their evidence twisted by the MSM.
How can President Bush preach to the world about democracy, about transparency, about the rule of law, and at the same time disregard national and international law at will? What message can Vladimir Putin be hearing? Or the dictators in Beijing? Or the mullahs in Tehran?
We have not broken a single US law in this war. We have not broken a single rule in the Geneva Convention. That is all we pay attention to. We do not belong to the ICC, and as I stated above, what the UN has to offer will be taken under consideration—minor consideration.
The thing is, history tends to be relentless in pursuit of the truth -- and its judgments tend to be harsh. World War II may have forged the Greatest Generation, but the internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps will never be excused.
The internment of Japanese-Americans (I despise being PC, but for the necessity of refuting this, I will use it) was an atrocious act, and blatantly violated the rights of those citizens. But Robinson brings this up, and totally neglects the horrendous acts of torture that the Japanese inflicted on our troops in the Pacific Campaigns of World War II. I wonder if Robinson remembers the Bataan Death March. I wonder is he excuses Adolf Hitler’s "internment" of Jews as much as he loathes the US for their internment policy?
History, I predict, will not be kind to government lawyers who invented ways to interpret statutes against torture so that they supposedly permitted the abuses they were designed to prohibit. It will not be kind to medical doctors who attended interrogation sessions that clearly crossed the line -- doctors who helped inflict pain rather than alleviate it. Ultimately, there will be no free pass for the Bush administration officials who permitted torture, or for a Congress that let them get away with it.
The lawyers did not invent anything. They looked at the law and told the government where the lines were. Robinson brings up the idea of doctors inflicting pain, yet I am sure he excuses abortion doctors for the physical and mental pain they inflict. And as for a free pass, there will not be a need for one because the administration has done it’s job. At least to the point where the nutty, overly-dramatic, PC Left will allow them to. Were this the time frame of World War II, and we were fighting this war, we would be much "crueler" by far, by their standards, I am sure.
The Bunny ;)
Eugene Robinson is a columnist for the Washington Post. On May 3rd, Powerline hammered the snot out of Robinson over his latest column entitled "Torture Whitewash". The column addresses how the history will judge the actions of today.(Hat-tip to Autin Bay and Powerline)
http://austinbay.net/blog/index.php
http://www.powerlineblog.com/
Torture Whitewash
By Eugene RobinsonTuesday, May 3, 2005; Page A21
Twenty years from now, how will we remember this "global war on terrorism''? Assuming it's over by then -- assuming we haven't escalated a fight against al Qaeda into an all-out clash of civilizations -- will we look back on the GWOT, as Washington bureaucrats call it, and feel pride in the nation's resolve and sacrifice? Or will history's verdict be tempered by shame?
The answer will depend on how this Congress comes to terms with the documented mistreatment of prisoners in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Iraq and who knows where else in the secret archipelago of U.S. detention.
What Robinson calls mistreatment is preposterous. What is done to our troops, what has been done to civilians in Iraq captured by the terrorists goes beyond the definition of "mistreatment" or "torture".
The Bush administration and the Pentagon are whitewashing the whole thing. Congress still has the chance to uphold this nation's ideals and values, and some Senate Republicans (Lindsey Graham, John McCain, John Warner) vow to seek accountability. Given the inaction so far, though, I'm not holding my breath -- unlike the prisoners who were apparently tortured by "waterboarding," an interrogation technique in which the subject is strapped down and
held underwater until he feels himself at the point of drowning.
The administration is not "whitewashing" anything. It was the administration that began an official investigation, and notified Congress of it, months before CBS ran with this jizzed up story. And since then it has been the MSM perpetuating the myths of Abu Ghraib and Gitmo.
It was a year ago when the first snapshots emerged from Abu Ghraib -- the pyramids of naked men; the vicious dogs lunging at naked men; and Lynndie England with her leash, leading a naked man like an animal. The one I can't get out of my mind is the hooded prisoner with wires attached to his genitals, fearing electrocution but seeming almost resigned to it, arms outstretched and head slightly inclined in a pose suggesting the Passion. It's something out of Hieronymus Bosch, a fantasy of Hell from the late Middle Ages.
Those wires were not hooked up to anything. And as for the naked men in pyramids, in the recent documentary called "Voices Of Iraq" former prisoners from Saddam’s Abu Ghraib laughed an joked about being "tortured" that way. They stated time and again that they wished that was what they had endured instead of the literal torture at the hands of Saddam’s thugs, his psychotic sons, and at times, the former dictator himself.
A year later, only the low-ranking grunts who grinned and gave thumbs-ups while committing these sadistic acts have been made to answer. Only one ranking officer -- a reservist, a woman, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski -- has been sanctioned. The White House and Pentagon officials who opened the door to these abuses, and the careerist Army brass who oversaw the brutality, sit comfortably in their offices, talking disingenuously of "rogue" privates and sergeants.
The investigation launched into Abu Ghraib showed that no one in the administration—not Bush, or Rummy, or Condi, or Cheney, or Ashcroft—had any connection to the abuses. The MSM can only hold up Alberto Gonzales as a possible scapegoat, and he is not even close. His briefs did not outline torture methods. They outlined what would be construed as torture, and what would not be labeled such.
Physicians for Human Rights has just issued a report finding that U.S. authorities carried out "an ongoing regime of psychological torture of detainees" in Afghanistan, Guantanamo and Iraq.
It is not torture to deprive people of light, or of sleep. These are prisoners that have no protections under the Geneva Convention. They were not captured in a recognized national uniform, nor were they under the command of a recognized senior officer of said nation, nor are they recognized by the government of said nation. These are three key elements in the Geneva Convention that define a legal prisoner of war.
The U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the United States has signed, bans the inflicting of severe "physical or mental" pain to obtain information or a confession. There's no way that the infliction of physical agony, prolonged sleep and sensory deprivation, confinement in painful positions for hours on end, sexual humiliation, threats with snarling dogs and other documented U.S. abuses fall short of the definition.
In a war, we do not answer to the UN. Our ultimate authority lies within the Geneva Convention, and in the Uniform Code Of Military Justice. Those from Abu Ghraib did violate the UCMJ, and many have already faced their punishment. And if this is what the UN deems as torture or cruel treatment, then why are they not taking North Korea, and the consistent abuse of the populace, to task? What Kim Jong-Il does to his people goes far beyond what occurred at Abu Ghraib.
Some prisoners were "rendered" to cooperating countries where old-fashioned fingernail-pulling is a routine investigative technique. Others have simply "disappeared," as if the U.S. government were some Latin American junta whose generals wear gold-braided epaulets as big as vultures. Most prisoners have been given neither adequate military nor civilian rights. Many don't know why they were arrested or what charges they face.
This paragraph is just plain inflammatory and wrong. We do not engage in such practices. We cannot control when a country refuses to hand over terrorists, such as what is happening in Pakistan over the number three al-Qaeda man, al-Libbi. You have a problem with what they do, then take it up with them. As for representation, these prisoners deserve no representation, aside from whatever the military assigns them. The line in the paragraph regarding military or civilian rights is just plain ignorant. To hell with what the courts have said. These people do not fall in their jurisdiction. They fall under the jurisdiction of a military tribunal.
It may be that these are all terrible people who wish to harm the United States -- we have no way of knowing, because the supposed evidence is secret. But even if they are, this mistreatment is wrong. If the price we pay for complete safety is complete abandonment of our ideals, the price is too high.
We are not abandoning any ideals. Our troops stand ready to do violence on behalf of the weak or unwilling. And I do not mean that as an insult, but I will be the first to admit that I fall into the "weak" category. I have the heart to defend this nation, but heart is not enough. And of course the evidence is secret. It should be. It is a military matter, and the last thing the military wants to see is their evidence twisted by the MSM.
How can President Bush preach to the world about democracy, about transparency, about the rule of law, and at the same time disregard national and international law at will? What message can Vladimir Putin be hearing? Or the dictators in Beijing? Or the mullahs in Tehran?
We have not broken a single US law in this war. We have not broken a single rule in the Geneva Convention. That is all we pay attention to. We do not belong to the ICC, and as I stated above, what the UN has to offer will be taken under consideration—minor consideration.
The thing is, history tends to be relentless in pursuit of the truth -- and its judgments tend to be harsh. World War II may have forged the Greatest Generation, but the internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps will never be excused.
The internment of Japanese-Americans (I despise being PC, but for the necessity of refuting this, I will use it) was an atrocious act, and blatantly violated the rights of those citizens. But Robinson brings this up, and totally neglects the horrendous acts of torture that the Japanese inflicted on our troops in the Pacific Campaigns of World War II. I wonder if Robinson remembers the Bataan Death March. I wonder is he excuses Adolf Hitler’s "internment" of Jews as much as he loathes the US for their internment policy?
History, I predict, will not be kind to government lawyers who invented ways to interpret statutes against torture so that they supposedly permitted the abuses they were designed to prohibit. It will not be kind to medical doctors who attended interrogation sessions that clearly crossed the line -- doctors who helped inflict pain rather than alleviate it. Ultimately, there will be no free pass for the Bush administration officials who permitted torture, or for a Congress that let them get away with it.
The lawyers did not invent anything. They looked at the law and told the government where the lines were. Robinson brings up the idea of doctors inflicting pain, yet I am sure he excuses abortion doctors for the physical and mental pain they inflict. And as for a free pass, there will not be a need for one because the administration has done it’s job. At least to the point where the nutty, overly-dramatic, PC Left will allow them to. Were this the time frame of World War II, and we were fighting this war, we would be much "crueler" by far, by their standards, I am sure.
The Bunny ;)
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 10:36 AM
6 Comments:
Robinson uses so many words to say so very little.
I posted on this subject a couple of days ago, when it became apparent that the behavior at Guantanamo was, as one person put it, "about a six pack short of a frat party."
Sexaully suggestive behavior by female innterogators, the occasional nut squeeze, the occasional shackles, and prison officials who "demanded obedience."
...gasp...
The idiots on the left are just trying to make what is perfectly legal by US and even Geneva Convention rules look far worse than it is, in order to further undermine the war.
But it's kind of hard to generate sympathy for these guys when the report paints an image of Jenna Jameson in a thong, trying to tease information out of terrorists with their breasts.
Those poor killers.
Tea,
And to think, we have Democrats in Congress that would pay DAMN good money for a turn in Abu Ghraib.
Marcie
Yes, but which ones wants to wear the leash, and which ones want to hold it?
Tea,
Ask Uncle Teddy and Aunt Babs. They might do role reversal, but I think Uncle Teddy prefers the leash. LOL.
You have forced upon my fragile mind a visual that I would have been far better without.
Teddy on a leash. Eee-gads...
Tea,
If you think Teddy, nearly naked on a leash is a stunning visual, I have a better one for you.
Both are rare to find, but I have found one, and know where it is. The other is a bit tougher, and it wqould take some looking.
I have seen a photo of Hillary in a swimsuit.....and in leather. Yes, the one in leather is a photo-manip, but it is hilarious nonetheless. So, I am sure the Dems are into such things, being as open as they are, and all.....
Thomas
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