Just that simple
Ariel Dorfman in the WaPo via Marty Lederman:
I will leave others to claim that torture, in fact, does not work, that confessions obtained under duress . . . are useless. Or to contend that the United States had better not do that to anyone in our custody lest someday another nation or entity or group decides to treat our prisoners the same way.
I find these arguments -- and there are many more -- to be irrefutable. But I cannot bring myself to use them, for fear of honoring the debate by participating in it.
Can't the United States see that when we allow someone to be tortured by our agents, it is not only the victim and the perpetrator who are corrupted, not only the "intelligence" that is contaminated, but also everyone who looked away and said they did not know, everyone who consented tacitly to that outrage so they could sleep a little safer at night, all the citizens who did not march in the streets by the millions to demand the resignation of whoever suggested, even whispered, that torture is inevitable in our day and age, that we must embrace its darkness?
Are we so morally sick, so deaf and dumb and blind, that we do not understand this? Are we so fearful, so in love with our own security and steeped in our own pain, that we are really willing to let people be tortured in the name of America?
posted by bluememe at 9/24/2006
1 Comments:
Now that the eternally obvious has been stated (yet again), does anyone want to propose a workable solution for dealing with the truly crazy people in power, who are left in place by a totaly scared-shitless population that is the excuse for their continued claim to power? You can't actually propose a believable solution for only half the equation. Doesn't matter which half you try to cure, there is still the other half to deal with. And a workable solution has to be applied to all at the same time.
Of course, the proposer should really have swept the cobwebs out of his/her eyes more than five minutes ago.
All of this sounds terribly difficult. As it should. But if you don't start at the beginning, you'll never make it to the end.
If, as I suspect, there are no proposeurs (yes I meant to spell it that way), does anyone want to propose an interim solution to limit the damage being caused by this death whirl of spineless leaders and led? Or, will you all simply give up? And if you give up, will you please get the fuck out of the way and stop saying there must be some way to use rubber cement and pictures cut out of glossy magazines to fix this mess.
That's MY fear; that there are none who will see/act. And everyone will mill about being nothing more than an obstacle to anyone with the balls to try.
TA
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