Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Andrew Sullivan Completes His Turn
Here's a current posting on a site I used to visit every day. For defeatist Sullivan, who used to see things pretty clearly but has lost it with his misperception of what is and isn't torture, the enemy is no longer the Jihadists, but the Republicans trying to fight this difficult war. See if I'm not right.
I'll be on AC360 tonight, discussing the torture and detention-without-charge bill. [Is that its real title?]
Talking and thinking this over, I'm trying to look on the bright side. The bill allows this president to continue torturing detainees (and possibly innocent ones). But it doesn't actually authorize the torture methods. And it doesn't formally breach Geneva. So "the program" continues in the shadows of Bush's shadow government. The truly disturbing part is that the only criterion for detaining anyone without charges - citizen or non-citizen, at home or anywhere in the world - is the president's discretion. If Rumsfeld decides you're an enemy combatant, you can be whisked away into a black hole, tortured, or have to prove your innocence in a military commission while he insists on your guilt. The "battlefield" is everywhere; and the war is endless. This is not, to put it mildly, what the founding fathers had in mind. It is one of the darkest hours for Western liberty in a very long time. And most conservatives are cheering. Watching habeas corpus go down the plughole is not something I ever thought I would have to contemplate. Well done, Osama. You won this one big time.
Who did Sullivan think fought our wars in the past, the judiciary? I know one founding father, who as President, our third, confronted and fought against an overseas Muslim threat. Lincoln by proclamation actually suspended habeas corpus for two and a half years in order to fight the civil war without judicial intervention. We seem to have weathered that un-comtemplatable event with the Constitution intact. Oh wait, suspension of habeas corpus under certain circumstances is right there in the Constitution, Article 1, Section 9. Lincoln probably should have had Congress do it then.
I feel like Ripley in Aliens--did IQs drop precipitously while I slept last night?
I'll be on AC360 tonight, discussing the torture and detention-without-charge bill. [Is that its real title?]
Talking and thinking this over, I'm trying to look on the bright side. The bill allows this president to continue torturing detainees (and possibly innocent ones). But it doesn't actually authorize the torture methods. And it doesn't formally breach Geneva. So "the program" continues in the shadows of Bush's shadow government. The truly disturbing part is that the only criterion for detaining anyone without charges - citizen or non-citizen, at home or anywhere in the world - is the president's discretion. If Rumsfeld decides you're an enemy combatant, you can be whisked away into a black hole, tortured, or have to prove your innocence in a military commission while he insists on your guilt. The "battlefield" is everywhere; and the war is endless. This is not, to put it mildly, what the founding fathers had in mind. It is one of the darkest hours for Western liberty in a very long time. And most conservatives are cheering. Watching habeas corpus go down the plughole is not something I ever thought I would have to contemplate. Well done, Osama. You won this one big time.
Who did Sullivan think fought our wars in the past, the judiciary? I know one founding father, who as President, our third, confronted and fought against an overseas Muslim threat. Lincoln by proclamation actually suspended habeas corpus for two and a half years in order to fight the civil war without judicial intervention. We seem to have weathered that un-comtemplatable event with the Constitution intact. Oh wait, suspension of habeas corpus under certain circumstances is right there in the Constitution, Article 1, Section 9. Lincoln probably should have had Congress do it then.
I feel like Ripley in Aliens--did IQs drop precipitously while I slept last night?
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 11:27 PM 
Comments:
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So this guy is just whining right? Or do the definitions of torture change depending on who is dishing it out?
Yes, I'm afraid that guy is whining but I am agnostic whether he was tortured on not. The definition of torture does not change with who is doing the action. Are you under the impression that we Americans have some sort of secret prison network in Iran? I'm certainly perfectly willing to believe most Muslim nations routinely torture people, perhaps most of the nations in the world still do. We don't.
I really don't know about Iran. I think it is pretty clear that they exists in Jordan and Syria but to what extent I don't.
No, we don't torture, we outsource it.
No, we don't torture, we outsource it.
Oh, almost forgot. Political prisoners are whiners?
Wow, I sure am glad I defected. Hard times ahead for the states.
When do you think they should start rounding up the liberal bloggers?
Wow, I sure am glad I defected. Hard times ahead for the states.
When do you think they should start rounding up the liberal bloggers?
If there's going to be any violation of 1st Amendment rights, it will be from the left, against the right. To my knowledge, no one on the left here in America has yet been hauled off as a political prisoner--do you know of any?
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