Torture - It's Different This Time - Naomi Klein

'Never Before!' Our Amnesiac Torture Debate
December 8, 2005

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051226/klein

snip>>

"...And the Bush Administration's open embrace of torture is indeed unprecedented--but let's be clear about what is unprecedented about it: not the torture but the openness. Past administrations tactfully kept their "black ops" secret; the crimes were sanctioned but they were practiced in the shadows, officially denied and condemned. The Bush Administration has broken this deal: Post-9/11, it demanded the right to torture without shame, legitimized by new definitions and new laws.

Despite all the talk of outsourced torture, the Bush Administration's real innovation has been its in-sourcing, with prisoners being abused by US citizens in US-run prisons and transported to third countries in US planes. It is this departure from clandestine etiquette, more than the actual crimes, that has so much of the military and intelligence community up in arms: By daring to torture unapologetically and out in the open, Bush has robbed everyone of plausible deniability..."



Countdown: Rachel Maddow and Jon Turley discuss Bushco war crimes, possible prosecution

Thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=156943&mesg_id=156943

Direct youtube link, 6 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3PvIFx-WDE

Naomi Klein tells it like it is - again.

proud to be the fourth rec.

-90%

especially the sentencing

for all to see, then maybe we can do something about it.

and I do not see too many elected officials calling for anyone high officials to be held responsible.

And it may have had the opposite effect to some extent, with a portion of citizens now believing we must torture in order to stop the next event.

So I agree that it could, but so far it has not.

:shrug:


Also last paragraph from the article...

"...And that's the problem with pretending that the Bush Administration invented torture. "If you don't understand the history and the depths of the institutional and public complicity," says McCoy, "then you can't begin to undertake meaningful reforms." Lawmakers will respond to pressure by eliminating one small piece of the torture apparatus--closing a prison, shutting down a program, even demanding the resignation of a really bad apple like Rumsfeld. But, McCoy says, "they will preserve the prerogative to torture."

I've been very worried ever since the Abu Ghraib photos were revealed and it was clear that Congress was going to ignore, which they have.

love that line. k&r

"...Bush has robbed everyone of plausible deniability. This shift is of huge significance. When torture is covertly practised but officially and legally repudiated, there is still hope that if atrocities are exposed, justice could prevail. When torture is pseudo-legal and those responsible deny that it is torture, what dies is what Hannah Arendt called "the juridical person in man". Soon victims no longer bother to search for justice, so sure are they of the futility, and danger, of that quest. This is a larger mirror of what happens inside the torture chamber, when prisoners are told they can scream all they want because no one can hear them and no one is going to save them.

The terrible irony of the anti-historicism of the torture debate is that in the name of eradicating future abuses, past crimes are being erased from the record. Since the US has never had truth commissions, the memory of its complicity in far-away crimes has always been fragile. Now these memories are fading further, and the disappeared are disappearing again..."

to "defend" the company against allegations of torture at Abu Graib.

He's on BookTV right now. Apparently, he's still trying for plausible deniability.

is to be believed. It sounds like DoD leadership bungled this so badly, the company decided to stop offering those "services" to them.

those services is disappointing.

for DoD.

CACI is being sued by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of some former Abu Graib detainees, and it seems that the way these contractors were identified in the first place was via Sy Hersh. I hope the number of these lawsuits skyrocket as more people are released and cycle out into the public again. Rice has been dragging her feet about repatriating people and last week, the State Department was rebuked for this by one of the courts -- finally.

Have you seen this site? It's Clifford Stafford's Smith's group: http://www.reprieve.org.uk/staff_clivestaffordsmith.htm

Stafford Smith is defending a number of Gitmo detainees. :hi:

many are dragging their feet hoping to get to the election, where we can put all this behind us and look forward.

:(


:hi:

it is the bully of dc skyline, squatting there as you drive into the city. :puke:
kick for the truth, however sickening it may be.

"Torture without shame". What have we come to? No wonder the world is so angry at us- we should be tried for war crimes and those responsible should be treated accordingly.

and if they do, they try and brush them aside.

:(

Kucinich -- "Who Are We, As A Nation, If Our Leaders Can Lie To Us To Take Us Into War...What Kind of an Offense does it Take..."


Kucinich: Nancy Pelosi was wrong to block impeachment
2 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j0NIZCC6cA

Pelosi is sofa king we todd it or complacently involved with the takedown of America. Posted comment over there.

The former USC song girl should think before she speaks!

for a day, a week, a year.

it all. It is interesting that plausible deniability is having a tough time of it. It is a key component of the CIA black ops.

If torture is going to be sanctioned by the U.S. government -- which it should NOT be -- is it not better that it be done openly, than that it be done "in the shadows"?

If it's done openly instead of in the shadows, then at least there is the possibility that it will generate the outrage necessary to do something about it.

Not that I'm giving any credit for Bush for this. The reason he's been more open about it than past administrations is that he's actually proud of it, not because of any desire for openess per se.

Also, I have a hard time believing that there isn't a lot more of it done now than with past administrations. In other words, I do believe that the extent of torture performed by the U.S. government today is indeed unprecedented. Everything I've read points in that direction, though of course it's possible that I'm missing some important things.