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Last night I watched parts of the Condoleezza Rice confirmation hearings on C-SPAN. The talk about Iraq got all the press, and there was a great exchange with Kerry about Iran, but what really struck me (other than that Rice apparently doesn't read any more than her boss does) was what she said -- and didn't say -- about torture.
In response to questioning from both Sen. Barbara Boxer and Sen. Christopher Dodd, Rice insisted that the Geneva Conventions "don't apply to terrorists," and that "we're in a war like no other before," so apparently the old rules shouldn't apply. She refused, however, to say whether she'd consider some specific acts (waterboarding?) to be torture or not. She also passed up numerous opportunities to simply state that torture is wrong -- which she obvious doesn't believe, given her other statements.
Let me get this straight. Anyone our government captures, that it thinks may have terrorist ties or just knowledge of terrorists, may be tortured. No matter whether we later discover that they had no involvement with terrorism and no idea what the terrorists are up to. And our next head diplomat (presumably also speaking for the president) sees nothing wrong with that.
This scares me.
The assumption that a person under torture will say anything more truthful than whatever the torturer wants to hear is of course foolish. The hubris of thinking that today's situations are like no other before amazes me, but every generation does it. The ignorance of what others think of you when you condone torture is absurd, especially when we justify our military follies based on the torture policies of other regimes. But most of all, the moral emptiness of condoning the torture of another human being is simply repulsive.
This from an administration that claims to be explicitly Christian, and was re-elected in large part due to support from people claiming to want a government with good Christian moral values. It's been a while since I went to church, so I must have missed the part about Jesus teaching, "Do good to them that hate you, unless you decide its legal for you to cause them pain until they answer your questions."
I also wonder whether the depiction of torture on shows such as Alias and 24 makes people accept it more. If people see Jack Bristow or Jack Bauer torturing someone to get information that helps save others, they might not think torture is such a universally bad thing. What they don't see is when the person under torture gives bad information because they don't have the real information, possibly because they were simply misindentifed and caught in the dragnet.
If only more people were exposed to shows such as the Bablyon 5 episode "Intersections In Real Time" instead. Or even just read George Orwell's 1984. All the way to the end. (Though this administration probably considers it to have a happy ending.)
Oh yeah, read more about Rice and torture in this Daily Kos diary.
In response to questioning from both Sen. Barbara Boxer and Sen. Christopher Dodd, Rice insisted that the Geneva Conventions "don't apply to terrorists," and that "we're in a war like no other before," so apparently the old rules shouldn't apply. She refused, however, to say whether she'd consider some specific acts (waterboarding?) to be torture or not. She also passed up numerous opportunities to simply state that torture is wrong -- which she obvious doesn't believe, given her other statements.
Let me get this straight. Anyone our government captures, that it thinks may have terrorist ties or just knowledge of terrorists, may be tortured. No matter whether we later discover that they had no involvement with terrorism and no idea what the terrorists are up to. And our next head diplomat (presumably also speaking for the president) sees nothing wrong with that.
This scares me.
The assumption that a person under torture will say anything more truthful than whatever the torturer wants to hear is of course foolish. The hubris of thinking that today's situations are like no other before amazes me, but every generation does it. The ignorance of what others think of you when you condone torture is absurd, especially when we justify our military follies based on the torture policies of other regimes. But most of all, the moral emptiness of condoning the torture of another human being is simply repulsive.
This from an administration that claims to be explicitly Christian, and was re-elected in large part due to support from people claiming to want a government with good Christian moral values. It's been a while since I went to church, so I must have missed the part about Jesus teaching, "Do good to them that hate you, unless you decide its legal for you to cause them pain until they answer your questions."
I also wonder whether the depiction of torture on shows such as Alias and 24 makes people accept it more. If people see Jack Bristow or Jack Bauer torturing someone to get information that helps save others, they might not think torture is such a universally bad thing. What they don't see is when the person under torture gives bad information because they don't have the real information, possibly because they were simply misindentifed and caught in the dragnet.
If only more people were exposed to shows such as the Bablyon 5 episode "Intersections In Real Time" instead. Or even just read George Orwell's 1984. All the way to the end. (Though this administration probably considers it to have a happy ending.)
Oh yeah, read more about Rice and torture in this Daily Kos diary.
nauseated
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