Tuesday, February 12, 2008

waterboarding and torture

I just read a story on Slate about the ongoing debate about waterboarding, and whether it qualifies as torture under the law. It makes me hate the Bush administration even more than before, which is rather saying a lot.

What I cannot believe is the number of people who think this is okay and necessary in the war on terror. The logic appears to be "the president is good; terrorists are bad; therefore, anything the president does to the terrorist is okay." I continue to think that the only people left supporting the president do so out of a quasi-religious conviction that simply isn't vulnerable to external criticism.

But the reason I started writing about this is somewhat different. What I fear is that at some point, the Congress or the ongoing campaign will raise our consciousness about waterboarding so high that even this president will make an admission that it is torture and will no longer be done by Americans. And then victory will be declared, except that there are dozens of other torture techniques that might well still be on the table.

I understand, somewhat, that all the legislation in the world is going to be fuzzy. I must admit to be shocked that there is an actual debate in this country about whether the Geneva conventions apply. The name George W. Bush, forever to be linked with Jefferson, Lincoln, and Kennedy, now will also forever be linked with names like Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot. Now we can get from the Declaration of Independence to the gulag with less than six degrees of separation.

Torture is also, in my opinion, why patriotic Americans must support Obama for the Democratic nomination for president. Hillary Clinton's worldview is that the president, almost by definition, is the most important person in the country. I think that is the take away from her discussion of Lyndon Johnson and the civil rights legislation of the 1960's. The Clinton administration was notorious for asserting executive privilege in new ways. The simple fact of the matter is that I do not trust her to reject the unprecedented power grab attempted by the Bush administration. Sure, that power grab will be used for better ends, in the mind of this progressive. But the Clintons inheriting the castrated justice department is something I don't want to happen. Happily for the nation, the Republicans are on the verge of nominating the only candidate in their field willing to hold Bush accountable. I disagree strongly with McCain on most of the main issues in this campaign - certainly, the war, Bush tax cuts, and abortion are issues that jump out immediately where I disagree almost entirely with him - but I admit that I would be tempted to vote for McCain over Clinton for the simple fact that I think the torture regime would be ended once if not for all.

Because if democracy has taught us anything these last few centuries, there is no battle we don't have to win anew with each generation.

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