What's Different: The New Norm, Your "Right" to remain silent while being Waterboarded 

 
It is absolutely the case that Mukasey is a True Believer in all of the most extreme positions of the Bush administration regarding presidential power. That has been clear from the beginning. It is why he was chosen. After all, as a federal judge, he ruled that the President has the power to detain American citizens on U.S. soil indefinitely without ever having to charge them with a crime -- a position he more or less repeated on the first day of his confirmation hearing. ... This notion that Mukasey's unwillingness to declare waterboarding categorically illegal crosses some sort of bright Beltway line seems equally unconvincing, even somewhat manipulative. It has long been known that the Bush administration directed the CIA (at least) to waterboard detainees who were convicted of nothing. There was very little real protest about any of that from any genuine Beltway power circles, including Senate Democrats.

In fact, even knowing that, the Military Commissions Act was enacted merely a year ago, deliberately leaving an unclear legal landscape (at best) as to whether waterboarding was outlawed. And Democrats did not even engage in the debate, and did not even try to mount any serious opposition to it. Quite the contrary. ... What Judge Mukasey believes is, without question, radical and disturbing. His beliefs -- from the power of the President to violate Congressional statutes to limitless war powers to the authority to order barbaric interrogation methods -- would have been unthinkable six years ago in an Attorney General. But now, it and he are well within mainstream Beltway ideology, thanks to some combination of acquiescence and active support from the core of both political parties. And there is something deeply artificial and manipulative about a Congress that has decided to permit all of these things to take root to pretend suddenly that they are so offended by them, that what Mukasey believes crosses their bright lines so clearly that he cannot be confirmed. ... In the America that exists today thanks in no small part to our Beltway establishment, there is really nothing unusual or out-of-the-mainstream about Mukasey, and there is something bothersome about this play-acting in pretending otherwise. ... When Bush says: "9/11-AlQaeda-Terrorism-GiveMeX," Democrats always ensure that he gets "X." The only variable is how they will do it, which specific members will ensure that it happens. "X" here was Mukasey's confirmation, and Democrats are thus complying as always. At least the embarrassing efforts to pretend they were ever really going to block this nomination have come to an end.

 
So what if America’s chief law enforcement official won’t say that waterboarding is illegal? A state of emergency is a state of emergency. You’re either willing to sacrifice principles to head off the next ticking bomb, or you’re with the terrorists. Constitutional corners were cut in Washington in impressive synchronicity with General Musharraf’s crackdown in Islamabad. ... In the six years of compromising our principles since 9/11, our democracy has so steadily been defined down that it now can resemble the supposedly aspiring democracies we’ve propped up in places like Islamabad. Time has taken its toll. We’ve become inured to democracy-lite. That’s why a Mukasey can be elevated to power with bipartisan support and we barely shrug. ... The Bush years have brought an even more effective assault on those institutions from within. While the public has not erupted in riots, the executive branch has subverted the rule of law in often secretive increments. The results amount to a quiet coup, ultimately more insidious than a blatant putsch like General Musharraf’s.
More Machiavellian still, Mr. Bush has constantly told the world he’s championing democracy even as he strangles it. Mr. Bush repeated the word "freedom" 27 times in roughly 20 minutes at his 2005 inauguration, and even presided over a "Celebration of Freedom" concert on the Ellipse hosted by Ryan Seacrest. It was an Orwellian exercise in branding, nothing more. The sole point was to give cover to our habitual practice of cozying up to despots (especially those who control the oil spigots) and to our own government’s embrace of warrantless wiretapping and torture, among other policies that invert our values. ... The Pakistani leader further echoed Mr. Bush by expressing a kinship with Abraham Lincoln, citing Lincoln’s Civil War suspension of a prisoner’s fundamental legal right to a hearing in court, habeas corpus, as a precedent for his own excesses. (That’s like praising F.D.R. for setting up internment camps.) Actually, the Bush administration has outdone both Lincoln and Musharraf on this score: Last January, Mr. Gonzales testified before Congress that "there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution."
To believe that this corruption will simply evaporate when the Bush presidency is done is to underestimate the permanent erosion inflicted over the past six years. What was once shocking and unacceptable in America has now been internalized as the new normal.

 
With regard to our national myth, note this from the conclusion of (Frank) Rich's latest piece:
"We are a people in clinical depression. Americans know that the ideals that once set our nation apart from the world have been vandalized, and no matter which party they belong to, they do not see a restoration anytime soon."
There it is: we are unique. There is not and never has been anyone or any nation that is our equal. We are the best there ever was! I implore you to reflect upon one critical element of this perspective: it is a very short step from believing that you are "set...apart from the world" to believing that you have an inherent right to rule it. If you are the best that ever was or ever could be, why shouldn't you rule it? ... It is true that the style of the Bush administration is notably crude and aggressive. But if genuine, widespread opposition to the administration's policies had existed, Bush would never have been able to enact his program in the first place -- and the Democratic Congress would not ratify and sanctify his crimes, as they have done and continue to do. ... And we've used torture as a standard means of warfare for decades. We just used to hide it better, and we had better PR about how we weren't "really like that." Some of you even said you wanted torture to be brought out "into the open." So we did that.

 
Sounding like one of those "blame-America-first, wacko Leftists," (Ron) Paul said U.S. foreign policy was a "major contributing factor" to 9/11. "Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us? They attacked us because we’ve been over there; we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years. ... We’re building an embassy in Iraq that’s bigger than the Vatican," plus 14 other permanent bases in the Middle East. "What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us."

 
"The American Republic is in remnant status. The stage is set for our country to devolve into a military dictatorship, and few seem to care." -Rep. Ron Paul

"I think it’s very difficult to explain their position, because I don’t think their position is defensible. I think when you consider that our whole nation is at risk, our constitutional form of government has been undermined by lies, by illegal war, by massive debt, how can you explain the position of Democratic leaders? ... They’re planning to attack Iran. When you think about the defense authorization budget including a provision that would retrofit Stealth B-2 bombers so they can carry 30,000-pound bombs, which would then be dropped on nuclear research labs, creating an humanitarian and ecological disaster, "What are we waiting for?" is the question, not "Why don’t we wait for the election?" ... Since when does it become unfashionable to stand up for the Constitution, to stand up for our nation's laws, to stand up for international law, to stand up for moral law? Since when does it become inconvenient to take a stand that would help secure our democracy once again? I mean, we’re really -- it’s all at risk right now..."

 
Tell myself - on the ride home
Getting tired - hating all I've known
Holding on - like it's all I have
Count me out - when it's clear
that I - find it hard to say
And you - find it hard to care

I - wanted to see - something that's different
something you said would change in me
Wanted to be - anything different
everything you would change in me

           While working on schedules for employees, I would create a template for an "Everyman," (or "Everyperson," for those requiring political correctness). This gets into some very technical and complex computer skills and terminology, using things called "Copy" and "Paste" which meant rather than typing in numbers for every single day, I would fill out a schedule once, typing in lots of 8’s, then do a magical "Copy" maneuver. After that I would then cast a spell called "Paste" on another page. (Sorry for the complex computer technospeak. I am a computer programmer, and I get carried away sometimes.) Later, I would only have to fill in the differences in each person’s attendance rather than constantly retyping things that were similar. It was faster to concentrate on what was different about each persons circumstances.

          Similarly, the people of the United States like to see themselves, not in how they are similar to those other countries in the "West," basically meaning "Old Europe" by the Newspeak terminology, combined with Canada and Australia, but in how they are different. The list of similarities is long, varied, and not usually understood as they are more cultural. And Americans, while understanding that other cultures do in fact exist, are not, how shall I say, particularly, or at all, well-versed about them. Yet without knowing about them, we celebrate what makes us different, better, whatever it is or may be.

          There are actual differences, though those are not the kind of things most Americans think about. Among the other countries we perceive to be "like us" we alone go around invading and bombing other countries, lately without the fig-leaf of UN approval or any legality, to "help them." We install or support leaders who bring Martial Law and suspend Constitutions, Parliaments, or play around with their election laws to "promote democracy" abroad.

          Among other countries "like us", western countries, we alone kill people, lots of people, not the least of which our own. While Europe has moved away from executing people, the US has moved towards "streamlining" and speeding up the process getting rid of those pesky time consuming things called "appeals" (sometimes even trials) which occasionally cause us consternation or embarrassment when people are found out at the last minute (or oops, later), to have been completely innocent the whole time.

          We alone among the group of nations we at least consider our peers (though they are wise in subtly trying to slowly distance themselves from us lately) to consider health care something that should be rationed out to the wealthiest first, and in the sake of economics, left up to the poorer ones to fend for themselves with "the marketplace". We maintain that access to affordable health care is a perk if you have a good job, not a "right" as in those countries (what we consider, in our best possible but highly inaccurate mirror), how those of our "friends" think of their own citizens. They consider health care, humorously, to be a "right" of all of their citizens, and, get this, "regardless of their ability to pay for it." Makes them all look like Commies in comparison to us brave, go it alone, stick it out (or "to them") to the end free-marketeers (or profiteers).

          But our perceived differences are in a different field, also bizarrely termed "rights." We tell ourselves and the world, except for an equal right to health care and the rights not to be tortured, executed, or held without trial, (those rights are for sissy countries), that we have more of them. In fact, our more numerous rights are so wonderful, we have the right to enforce other countries to adhere to them, even if they don’t like them and a majority of their publics do not want them, and do not want us there. It is our right to "educate" them, up to several generations if it takes that long, until they see the light of the rightness of our versions of "rights".

          Yet it is an irony, (not that we do not have rights to other things like say completely honest non-papertrailess elections, or against papertrailess search warrants or off-the-books investigations of anyone,) that we expouse the concept of rights in the first place. We clearly have no idea of the definition of the word, which makes it easier for us to completely misuse and misunderstand it completely. To most Americans, as taught by our media and fictional TV shows, our rights are not really rights at all.

          Oh, we will say if we have them, they are "right" and if we do not have them, they are not "rights" but beyond that myopia, we think that rights are rescindable, and therefore, are some new form of animal not yet living in a dictionary. Rights are not for everyone. "Rights" are things that do not belong to terrorists, terrorist suspects, or other people deemed by us to be "bad guys." Countless numbers of our television shows, fiction and news, pose the question, "what about the rights of the victims?" This escapes the logic, as we usually do, that those who took them away from others, victims, were CRIMINALS, and doing so, taking them away is or should be, by definition, A CRIME.

          So our rights, which we clearly have the most of, which all the world should aspire to if they knew what was best for them, (without resistance of course, and if they don’t we are free to force them to adopt them by whatever means it takes,) are not really rights in the classical sense at all. They are more like guidelines, which may or may not apply depending upon our, or our President’s, right to say if you have them or not. Hint: Most non-citizens, and definitely most other countries, don’t (unless we or he says they do).

          Europeans, Canadians, and Australians, the ones fortunate and unfortunate to be considered "like us" by us, are generally exercising their right to keep quiet and support us blindly in whatever we may to do, or not make much a fuss about it outside of their own borders, so as to keep the rights we give them. That being, generally to rule themselves, quietly, so long as they do not pass laws we don’t like (makes us look bad), and not call us too loudly on our many hypocrisies.

          Europe for instance, can berate Iran for "interfering" in the government of Iraq, by supposedly sending in weapons and occasional troops, while in the same breath completely ignoring our illegal invasion, hundreds of thousands of troops and "support" (mercenaries, cooks, drivers, and on rare occasions, even interpreters), gigantic semi-(must stick with Newspeak)-permanent bases, an indefinitely long planned occupation regardless of local opinion about it, and oh, arming both sides of a civil war there without limits or outside checks and balances on who we give or sell arms to. No irony there in the least.

          Europe’s hypocrisies pile up as quickly as our own, but they do it to support Europe’s being allowed keeping the "classical" definition of rights, those that apply to everyone. Well not everyone. They can protest potentially blatently rigged elections in Russia, but not Florida or Ohio. They can condemn attempted outside influence over Ukraine but not Mexico. They know the rules, and generally keep their strict adherence to the antiquated "quaint" notion that "rights" apply to everyone, get this, "all the time", basically to their own citizens without demurring to our looser, more fun definition of being for only those who we say have them. Unless of course, we select some of THEIR citizens to not have them. Then they can, must, and have done, quickly forked them over to us to ship them off to some third world hell hole to be tortured indefinitely and without charges. Their "rights" definition does not come on the cheap you know.

          To say that rights are not absolute, that they are not "all the time" and certainly not for all people, means basically, they are not "rights" at all. As any American, European, Canadian, Australian, British subject, (or worse, someone without any of the "like us" cover) who has been rendered by us to another country to be tortured can tell you, what they were told THERE is the truth. "You have no rights."

          Yet whatever we think "rights" are, we still as Americans, think we have more of them and we are prouder of them while most of our citizens, far more than in other countries, openly say and think that these "rights things" are not for everyone. They are just for those who obey the law, or are not suspected of anything. THEY have the rights, and rights for others besides them "gets in the way" of keeping us "free" from those who would "take away our rights." Those trying to extend those "rights" to foreigners, suspects, or generally any potential "bad guys," they are traitors, underminers of our "rights" which we have defined out of existence by not giving them any meaning anyway.

          Our concepts of "rights," as more like privileges; the privilege to be not tortured, not to be kidnapped, not held without charges in secret, these now will spread more and more because basically we, at the point of gun if need be, have redefined them as being subjective and optional for the entire world. General Musharraf in Pakistan can say he will keep Martial Law (declared last week) going while he puts together hasty elections in less than 2 months time. President Saakashvili, President of Georgia can and has said the same. The unprecedented Soviet like "State of Emergency" (declared also last week) will stay in effect until he sees "a requirement to lift it," possibly not before new hasty elections also in less than two months time. And that is just in American defined or supported "Democracies" in the last week!!!

          Add to those a collapse of the "Cedar Revolution" we supported in Lebanon, our supporting of the President of the Palestinian territories in completely suspending its Parliament and declaring Martial Law after the elections which we had triumphed as proof of our democratizing, but did not go as planned so this was justified, and you get the gist of how our "democratization" of the world is going. (And those are just in the areas we claimed to have been our "successes". You literally don’t want to know about Somalia and a few other places things went far worse than we saw fit to talk much about, never mind brag about.) And Europeans will cheer the presence of these new, if under martial law elections, if we say so, as being progress and how praise much democracy is blooming around the world, on cue.

And not the least of which, how swimmingly our democratizing of Iraq, the crown jewel in our efforts to give the world our wonderful new and improved definition of "Rights" has gone. No where else on Earth, literally, has seen our new definitions of "rights" and "democracy" played out so fully to the shocked silence of Europe and anyone else trying to keep off of our "shut up or we will democratize you" radar or list. Not only our President, but even those who just want to be President and have a chance, can and do openly talk now about how the leadership of that "sovereign country" whose "legitimate government" wants us there, had better shape up, privatize its oil resources to our oil companies, or see that "ought to be replaced." Not to mention that that government must continue to ignore the 66%-75% of its own public that wants our troops out of their country immediately or as quickly as possible.

         But I know our new, improved, more opaque definition of the word "rights" is not the worst definition. It is among the worst, to be sure, since it is only for those who we, or our President, or even to spread the "power" around a bit, who our Press, can decide who deserves it. I have wasted more words on this subject than anything else lately that I can think of, the need not to attack Iran, a country with a far far worse definition of rights than even we have.

          When learning in Europe that asylum seekers had been "rendered" to the US for "questioning" which probably skirted our new improved definitions of torture, I also was clued in on the government of Iran, not that I needed a refresher on the subject. In being advised of the difficulty gaining admission to the protection of European wider more dictionary founded definitions of "rights", I was told about a case of an Iranian who everyone knew or said would be tortured and killed upon being returned to Iran, yet was returned anyway to the hardly unpredictable result. And no doubt, he was one of many. I have no illusions about the brutality of Iran’s current definition of "rights" or its regime, nor what they do to people there who do not agree with them.

          What is at issue is our definition of "Democracy," the real dictionary definition, that nations are free to determine their own system of governments, say things we don’t like, even do things we don’t like, even if it seems to us as evil. To claim that Iran is "interfering" in Iraq is a sick joke compared to what we have done there and are continuing to do there daily. To say Iran is a threat to us or to a nation, Israel, which has already stealthily developed hundreds nuclear weapons of its own, is also untrue. Iran is no threat to us, nor to Israel, nor will it be anytime soon. We want to take out, as we have said repeatedly in other venues, any nation which might soon reach a position to challenge our increasing control over our "new backyard", the Middle East. End of story. The true one anyway.

          Attempting to redefining languages to permit us to do everything we say or believe to be wrong is inexcusable because it is not our RIGHT to do so. Meanings of WORDS, HUMAN RIGHTS, they are universal concepts, defined among and agreed to by a MAJORITY of ALL PEOPLE or they are LIES. No one nation is their guardian, much less one that evades such definitions or tries to redefine them according to its own liking or its present circumstances.

          Torturing meaning, torturing truth, is as bad or worse, than torturing people, and that too is inexcusable under EVERY regime. And the greater one nation’s supposed "power," one would think goes with it their greater ability be able to adhere to the laws, international laws written by and large BY THEMSELVES, literally, and in their own favor.

          The greater too, with greater power, would be their increased responsibility to set an example that international laws and human rights are inviolable under ANY and ALL and EVERY POSSIBLE circumstances, or they are LIES. And if you don’t know the meaning of inviolable, look it up, because neither apparently do the present US Executive Branch, its Congress, and often its Courts.
 

Last time by me to the Waterboard: What is Different, What Song Remains the Same.

          105 years ago a very different Senate cared very much if waterboarding was torture or not. They held hearings on it, listen to graphic testimony about how it was done by Americans accused of doing it. "Executive privilege" to disallow Congress from investigating it had not been invented yet. "National Security" was not an excuse then to bury the significance that the US at the time was in the eyes of all the world then, a country that condoned and practiced torture.

          105 years ago, those who were found guilty of practicing waterboarding at the behest of the US government not only feared jail, they went to jail despite that it was approved of by the President. Congress was not willing to simply sweep it all under the rug and give everyone immunity before the truth could come out, and thankfully for awhile, then at least, a little sunlight was shown, and for awhile at least, publicly at least, it was a crime. And all that even though then, there was no Geneva Conventions then for America to have been violating by such torturing of its prisoners, whereas now they are indeed international war crimes and not just bad manners. Just back then, a sense of decency, morality, and possibly military codes of action that were deemed by some to be "quaint" until there were, somewhat reluctantly reestablished.

          105 years ago, as now, some made light publicly of the torture which we were exposed of doing. One (then) unapologetic torturer claimed jokingly in testimony before Congress, the one that cared, that waterboarding someone was no worse than giving him or her a little too much wine. One (now) Presidential candidate (Guiliani) said, if the classified things we are doing is torture, such as sleep deprivation in addition to waterboarding, stripping people naked and putting them in freezers, and so on, then he too is being tortured by running for President because he is not getting enough sleep. In both cases, many in the public were highly amused and applauded.

          105 years ago America was not less hypocritical than today. We were quietly wrapping up two different genocides on two different continents. We were just getting used to a recent prohibition put on our citizens restricting them of buying and selling of human beings, allowing their ownership, their torture (except when extremely unusual, much like today with pets), and the selling off of their children since they belonged to their owners and not to their parents.

          105 years ago we had our share of war reporters who excused or at least mentioned in print our "going to the dark side" of torture and other more extreme acts because it was a "different kind of war" against a "different kind of enemy" which we "could not afford to lose.

Mr. Henry Loomis Nelson is a very well-informed (war) correspondent of large experience, and not likely to exaggerate. On April 29 (1902) he stated... "Moreover, the soldiers reasoned that, as the United States have imposed upon them the duty of putting down the insurrection, these brown men must be overcome at all hazards: while the war against them must be conducted upon the principles of savage warfare since most of those who are fighting are classed as barbarians." He quotes from the letter of an officer who had served in the islands the following: "There is no use mincing words. There are but two possible conclusions to the matter. We must conquer the islands or get out. The question is, Which shall it be? If we decide to stay, we must bury all qualms and scruples about Weylerian cruelty, the consent of the governed, etc., and stay. We exterminated the American Indians, and I guess most of us (unlike present day where we can simply, like some Germans, Turks, Russians, Georgians, etc. simply deny America was trying to exterminate races, the "us" he was referring to was soldiers such as himself who actually carried it out, live and in person, less capable of the "distancing" we modern "more civilized" people are allowed do, and just deny these genocides ever happened, as denying them as loudly and intimidatingly as possible -Me.) are proud of it, or, at least, believe the end justified the means; and we must have no scruples about exterminating this other race standing in the way of progress and enlightenment, if it is necessary."

(http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Secretary_Root's_Record)

          105 years ago, those who approved such policies, despite its current then backlash, would go on to dizzying heights of American Glory. The President who not so secretly condoned it and approved it, would go on to be considered one of American History’s five greatest Presidents, so George Bush is not that delusional that history may vindicate him. He too, could like that other president who condoned torture, wind up on Mt. Rushmore as well. It is unfortunately not as far fetched as it sounds.

          Of those responsible for carrying out waterboarding, against the law only for the low level torturers who went to jail for actually carrying out his orders, one man went on not only to become President of the United States, but also then later became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. One could well argue because of that unique achievement, he, Taft, was our Greatest Leader ever. Just say if you will, the words Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Chenney, or Chief Justice Donald Rumsfeld. Supreme Court ‘Justice’ Aberto Gonzales or the honorable Supreme Court Justice John Yoo. Stranger things, actually those exactly, did indeed happen despite an American public who was once upon a time way back then, abhorred about its private torturing, and wanted it exposed. It all, like the water torture itself, did not go down well or easily with the general pubic, at least at first.

          105 years ago, though we committed to, and were beginning winding down, unconscionable crimes of massive scales, we were by and large then a religious people too. But not religious in the sense of accepting, let alone entertaining the idea, that killing millions or billions of people by America with as-yet uninvented weapons we would threaten the world with (while justifying using them on others by accusing others of wanting that knowledge of how to make weapons like ours to one day threat us with in kind, or least since that will always be numerically and financially impossible for them to do, to be able to defend themselves), and which if used might bring about for us an age of Jesus-approved, genocide paid for, heaven on Earth, the Rapture.

          105 years ago we had Congressional hearings for show, and a President who publicly at least, "was willing to get to the bottom of things" and, that if there were "a few bad apples," he wanted them rooted out. It was all a show of course, but it would have made for great TV, or at least some memorable sound bites.

Cruelty is no longer denied. It is now avowed and justified.
Thus Colonel Groesbeck, at one time the judge advocate general (JAG) of the Phillipines, says:
"I believe the water cure, as practiced by the American Army in the Philippines, to be the most humane method of obtaining information from prisoners of war that is known to modern warfare."

Of this, the Boston Transcript well says:
"Apart from the brutality of this utterance, it is singular as coming from an officer who has held the position of judge advocate general (JAG) of a department, and therefore should have at his fingers' ends the rights of prisoners of war and all persons of all ranks in military service, whether captive or free.
"When judge advocates, like Groesbeck and Glenn, defend and practice the crimes which they are bound to punish, when military courts sentence General Smith to admonition and men convicted of torture to a trifling fine, and when over them all is a Secretary responsible for the very crimes which we are trying to discover, how can we expect to detect and punish "every instance of barbarity on the part of our troops," as the President promises?"

(http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Secretary_Root's_Record)

          Since Congress is willing to give it all that a pass, there is no surprise that a new Attorney General will be approved who likewise sees all that as irrelevant. We can forget, as he tells a newer, fitter, more informed Congress that he doesn’t know if waterboarding is torture or not, that a previous Congress held hearings declaring waterboarding to be torture, that LIFE Magazine showed a graphic representation the torture method it on its front cover. As bad as the press was then, unlike now, they did not simply move on to celebrity gossip and let us remain a nation of torturers. We can forget because we choose to, because we have no collective memory as a nation, and at times seemingly, just as little a collective conscience.