[lit-ideas] Re: Relapsed Already

  • From: John Wager <john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 18:08:53 -0500

Robert Paul wrote:

Lawrence Helm wrote:


So Bush is doing two things.
He is appealing the Judges decision and he is attempting to get legislation
through congress defining the latitude the CIA has in interrogating
terrorist suspects.


Previously, the US was bound by the treaties it was party to and by its own
laws. What a concept.


Bush isn't trying to change the latitude the CIA "HAS" in interrogation; he's trying to change the latitude that the CIA "ALREADY DID" in interrogating prisoners. This seems to be quite a mess, especially after Bush made the whole thing explicit by asking for legislation.

EITHER the whole mess is much ado about nothing, because we've been following the Geneva conventions all along,
OR we cannot possibly bring the really bad people to trial because we've tortured them in ways that not only would bring the scorn of previously neutral parties, including Muslims, Europeans, Asians of good will, but would also make their conviction impossible.

Fast forward five years: The really bad people in Guantanamo, the people that ALL of us would like to see locked up, are free to go because Bush's directives violated international treaties and U.S. constitutional provisions.

And I still hear some people saying, in a tiny voice, that torture is "necessary" for U.S. security. "Previously" we were not only bound by treaties and laws, we actually did things that increased U.S. security at the same time. Ah, the "good old days."

--
-------------------------------------------------
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence and ignorance." -------------------------------------------------
John Wager john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx
Lisle, IL, USA


Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. lit-ideas
  3. Archive
  4. 09-2006