Editorial 7.12, December 2005, by Deirdre Helfferich Pro-Torture Ted As I write this editorial, the reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act is being discussed in Congress. I recall how, a few years ago when the act was first passed into law and I expressed my serious misgivings about it to a certain local Republican, he attempted to reassure me by pointing out that the clauses I was concerned about were sunsetted. Well, sunset is here, but it sure looks like sunrise on a brand new totalitarian world to me. One of our senators, Lisa Murkowski, voted against the reauthorization as it currently stands and in favor of continued discussion. Despite this encouraging news, the sixteen clauses to be sunsetted might still be extended, depending on the debate: it is important to note also that our other senator, Ted Stevens, voted in favor of reauthorizing this abominable act in full, along with other, darker pieces of legislation. Congress has been selling us down the river. You’ve heard of the slippery slope? We’re on it, and astonishingly, “conservatives” are helping our representatives grease the political slide into gigantic, invasive, Stalinesque government, complete with mini-gulags and torturers, the disappeared, and a chief executive demanding such kingly powers as the ability to declare people enemy combatants—and therefore beyond the pale of justice.
This is exactly the sort of behavior for which a bunch of colonists on the East Coast kicked out King George III back in the late 1700s. That’s why we set up a representative government, that has, by and large, gotten more representative over time. The so-called conservatives among us are not taking the traditional conservative’s suspicious view of expanded government power; in fact, they are taking a stance which matches that of fascism. Too many people will see that word and stop reading, without reflecting on what the term actually means:
Torture, broadly defined, is a forcible means of supression, and is associated in the popular mind with the Dark Ages and the Spanish Inquisition. Yet, as we have seen, it has risen again (or really, never quite went away), in Abu Ghraib, in Afghanistan, and in Guantanamo. Torture was the hallmark of the Nazis, for what else could the conditions at the death camps be called but torturous? Bullies torture; sadists torture; it is the tool of the wicked for breaking the spirit of the imprisoned—and notoriously unreliable for obtaining information. What makes it especially horrific is that it is here, in the United States, and our president and vice-president who are advocating for its use (give it a different name, and poof! the problem goes away)—but at least the actual acts ARE illegal as well as immoral, no matter in what convolutions our executive branch knots itself attempting to make it legal. Let’s look at the record of our senators and see if they are defending us from this recurrence of barbaric political thought. Senator Stevens earned Alaska lasting shame when he voted, along with eight other senators, against the McCain Amendment to the Military Reauthorization Bill, and in fact actually argued on NPR for a lesser standard of treatment for certain prisoners. McCain’s rider “would categorically prohibit U.S. personnel anywhere in the world from engaging in ‘cruel, inhuman and degrading’ treatment, which in effect means a prohibition on conduct that would ‘shock the conscience’ in violation of the Due Process Clause if it occurred here in the U.S.,” according to Marty Lederman of Balkinization.com. At least Lisa Murkowski voted for the McCain amendment. She did not, however, vote to protect habeas corpus. Both she and Stevens voted for South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham’s amendment, which strips the “federal courts of jurisdiction to hear applications for habeas corpus brought by those unilaterally declared enemy combatants without any process and held by the U.S. indefinitely throughout the world and even in the United States.” (Center for Constitutional Rights, www.ccr-ny.org) 2 In other words, the president can declare a person an enemy combatant, and thus remove that person’s legal recourse to the courts. He can lock a person up and throw away the key, very much like kings of old used to do. This empowers the president to act as judge, jury, and executioner—a decided mingling of powers. Our country remains free only so long as the great powers of the Executive, the Judicial, and the Legislative are kept firmly separate and balanced against each other. When they merge, as is now happening, we are all in peril. Both our senators blew it again in voting against Michigan Senator Carl Levin’s amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. Levin’s amendement would have established a national commission on the policies and practices on the treatment of detainees since September 11, 2001. It failed on party lines, but looking at the actual text of the amendment, it’s pretty clear that it failed because it had teeth: the commission would have examined any policy or person responsible for the treatment (or mistreatment) of detainees, whether in Congress, a private company or contractor, or even (gasp!) the White House. It would have dealt with extraordinary rendition (the abominable practice of farming out our torture to other countries so we don’t have to soil our hands), the role of intelligence personnel in the detention and interrogation of detainees, the role of contract employees in same, laws and practices of the United States relating to the detention or interrogation of detainees, and more. Our senators have clearly come down on the side of evading responsibility. As the Irregular Times put it, they just don’t want to know about it. Alaska’s senators have much to be ashamed of, and we for putting them in office. While Senator Murkowski has shown herself to have marginally more integrity than her fellow senator, it is not enough. The “disappearance” and torture of detainees should be enough to have our senators in apopleptic fits of rage on the Senate floor against these policies. These are horrific crimes, and yet our senators are actually abetting them. When a country uses the worst methods of its enemy, that country becomes its own foe, worthy of no respect or aid. We must combat this vileness at our heart, and our senators should be leading the charge. Instead, they are helping us into the pit. Remember that come the next election. 1. http://www.adequacy.org/public/stories/2002.8.18.10554.1907.html 2. “GRAHAM AMENDMENT PASSES: HABEAS CORPUS GUTTED Bush’s New Assault on Democracy: Habeas Corpus Stabbed in the Back.” Center for Constitutional Rights. http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/report.asp?ObjID=B9iXnQkBmm&Content=664 | ||
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