Tim Rutten Radicalizes Our Enemies With Lies
By any reasonable standard, the Guantanamo tribunals are a farce. By the government’s own admission, Mohammed and other high-level Al Qaeda detainees have been tortured.
If you didn’t know the source, you might think that the government had actually admitted torturing KSM and other detainees. But it’s Tim Rutten, and by now we know how to read Rutten. What he means is, the government has admitted certain practices (like waterboarding), and Rutten considers those practices torture, ergo the government has admitted torture.
That sounds like torture to me — Rutten torturing the English language.
Rutten claims to be concerned about how all this affects the views of “marginalized young men in fanatic-infested backwaters across the Islamic world.” Of course, by lying about what the government has admitted — and by Rutten’s own admission, he has lied about this* — Rutten is himself inflaming the sentiments of those fanatics.
If we are radicalizing Islamists throughout the world, you can place some of the blame squarely at the feet of people like Rutten, who exaggerate our complicity and give the enemy comfort in doing so.
*Well, Rutten hasn’t exactly admitted to lying. But he admits he said what he said, and I believe that what he said is a lie. Thus, according to Tim Rutten Logic, he admitted to lying.
You know this one is just going to confuse the heck out of Levi, don’t you?
SPQR (26be8b) — 6/10/2008 @ 7:08 pmA lot of people like Rutten feel that losing a war would be good for the country. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear it from him. They have no idea what they are facing and their concept of world affairs is limited to what they hear on the white wine circuit. To people like these, the Palestinians are just more welfare clients. The gate at the entrance to their community will always keep the baddies out.
Mike K (2cf494) — 6/10/2008 @ 7:08 pm#1 Oh you know the little fungus is going to infect this one in 3…2…1…
Jack Klompus (b796b4) — 6/10/2008 @ 7:11 pmI wonder how Ernie Pyle would have dealt with guys like Rutten?
vnjagvet (d3d48a) — 6/10/2008 @ 7:34 pmWhat he means is, the government has admitted certain practices (like waterboarding), and Rutten considers those practices torture, ergo the government has admitted torture.
He’s not lying — he’s simply refusing to use the to-my-knowledge-never-tested-in-court definition of “torture” the Bush administration uses. If Person A believes waterboarding is torture, they’re not lying when they claim Administration Y tortures people. He’s not waterboarding the English language, Pat, he’s simply defining the legally ambiguous language in accordance with his own beliefs … as, I should add, are you. You don’t think waterboarding’s torture, so you call shenanigans. Granted, waterboarding hasn’t been declared tortuous in a court of law, but that’s because it hasn’t been allowed to.
In other words, since you’re dealing with an area in the legal gray, I think “lie” might be a wee bit strong.
A lot of people like Rutten feel that losing a war would be good for the country.
And quite a few people with the power to do so think initiating a war is good for the country. In all honesty, I think we can say the latter are correct inasmuch as we shouldn’t be in a war to lose in the first place. There are, I believe, two ways to continue defending the Iraq War:
While the first is better to the second, I prefer a third alternative:
Especially when it costs 100 lives and $10 million a thrust.
SEK (bd295a) — 6/10/2008 @ 7:40 pmGranted, waterboarding hasn’t been declared tortuous in a court of law, but that’s because it hasn’t been allowed to.
Pun not intended. Christ, time to sleep.
SEK (bd295a) — 6/10/2008 @ 7:42 pmYou don’t think waterboarding’s torture, so you call shenanigans. Granted, waterboarding hasn’t been declared tortuous in a court of law, but that’s because it hasn’t been allowed to.
Actually, I do think waterboarding’s torture, and I have said so before.
But that doesn’t mean the Administration has admitted torture — because they disagree with me.
In other words, since you’re dealing with an area in the legal gray, I think “lie” might be a wee bit strong.
I don’t.
Rutten has pulled this before, saying that Cheney told an audience he was glad the government had tortured people, when in fact Cheney said the government had NOT tortured people.
I wrote a post about it. A letter to the editor, by a reader of mine, was published making exactly that point.
Rutten knows what he’s doing, and he knows it’s not honest.
Patterico (cb443b) — 6/10/2008 @ 7:52 pmThis refers more to Afghanistan/Pakistan than Iraq, but be that as it may, here’s a fellow with a difference of opinion.
I guess the raping thing depends on whose daughter we’re talking about.
Pablo (99243e) — 6/10/2008 @ 7:54 pmHas anyone ever asked why abuse of Americans in American prisons and jails do not lead to terrorist attacks against American police?
Michael Ejercito (c5d682) — 6/10/2008 @ 7:55 pmI don’t think defending the Iraq war takes all sorts of tortured silly sex analogies.
It was the right thing to to to enforce Iraq’s obligations under the cease fire agreement ending the first Gulf War and to remove a brutal tyrant who was a threat to the region, a supporter of terrorism, and a ruler who starved, oppressed, tortured his own people. It should have been done earlier if the Clinton Administration or the U.N. had any guts. The actual invasion was a marvel of military planning, but the occupation turned into a comedy of errors, also hampered by influence of forces from outside the borders of Iraq. A desire to leave a stable Iraq in the hands of its people compels us to finish our job in the country and not to desert our allies as we did in Vietnam.
daleyrocks (d9ec17) — 6/10/2008 @ 8:00 pm“I guess the raping thing depends on whose daughter we’re talking about.”
Alas the women who were beheaded under the Saddam Hussein regime will not have the luxury of a grad student’s life of metaphor-crafting. Cleverly using “rape” as a dramatic literary form of “dissent.” How classy.
Jack Klompus (b796b4) — 6/10/2008 @ 8:06 pm“Certain practices” is torturing the language. Waterbaording is torture. Period.
David Ehrenstein (f6984e) — 6/10/2008 @ 8:17 pmJack – Why is it always about sex with the left? With SEK it is usually some semantic recrafting of an argument that is not recognizable as either the original post or author’s intent or what any reasonable person would use as an analogy.
daleyrocks (d9ec17) — 6/10/2008 @ 8:18 pmThere’s a great exchange in Stranger in a Strange Land:
“Duke is the electron pusher. I’m more the intellectual type.”
Jack Klompus (b796b4) — 6/10/2008 @ 8:25 pm“I know son – I’m not bright about practical matters either.”
But that doesn’t mean the Administration has admitted torture — because they disagree with me.
This is why I like and berate you — you know why a reasonable person would claim the administration admitting to torturing people. I just think you need to be a little less legalistic and a little more charitable about why someone would interpret Cheney’s statements against his intentions. You’re technically correct, in that because Cheney believes waterboarding isn’t torture, his statements about what’s necessary to do in defense of hearth and home don’t celebrate torture … but to those who refuse to grant him his premises, his statement does mean what they say it means.
All of which is only to say, when you can slice facts with so fine a knife, you know you’re in territory inhospitable to “common sense” interpretation. Another way to put it:
If you believe waterboarding is torture, and the administration admits to having waterboarded prisoners, how would you interpret Cheney’s statement (from your link):
“The United States is a country that takes human rights seriously. We do not torture — it’s against our laws and against our values.”
Personally, I’d think he’s mincing words to parse other people’s abject fear of drowning, but that’s just me.
I don’t think defending the Iraq war takes all sorts of tortured silly sex analogies.
SEK is a person who takes analogies’ rights seriously. He does not torture — it’s against his principles and against his values.
It was the right thing to to to enforce Iraq’s obligations under the cease fire agreement ending the first Gulf War and to remove a brutal tyrant who was a threat to the region, a supporter of terrorism, and a ruler who starved, oppressed, tortured his own people.
As mentioned earlier, I supported the war before I realized that American lives would be wasted in a for-profit war administered by baboons. If I’d known then what I’ve been so painfully reminded of every single day for the past five years, I would’ve sung a different tune.
Alas the women who were beheaded under the Saddam Hussein regime will not have the luxury of a grad student’s life of metaphor-crafting. Cleverly using “rape” as a dramatic literary form of “dissent.” How classy.
Yes, and the many more men and women who have been mutilated and killed in the years of the occupation are? Granted, I’m no fan Hussein — I supported the war at first, on Bill Hicks’ grounds that we knew they had WMD’s because we kept the receipts — but the proof is in the evitable outcome the administration ignored.
But please, talk more about me being a grad student, because that proves some point.
SEK (bd295a) — 6/10/2008 @ 8:30 pmWith SEK it is usually some semantic recrafting of an argument that is not recognizable as either the original post or author’s intent or what any reasonable person would use as an analogy.
Again, daleyrocks, you’re short on proof. I know how expensive it is to link to definitive examples, but it wouldn’t hurt to shell out the $0.00 required to fortify your case every once in a while.
SEK (bd295a) — 6/10/2008 @ 8:36 pmWell, SEK, this thread here would be proof enough.
SPQR (26be8b) — 6/10/2008 @ 8:43 pm#15 – Fair enough. After repeated readings of the exchange:
Jack Klompus (b796b4) — 6/10/2008 @ 8:45 pma) I apologize for the snarky “grad student” shot as if to demean the pursuit of higher ed. That was cheap.
b) I still don’t think that the rape analogy is too spiffy if for no other reason than matters of taste.
c) You present a fair and honest assessment of your opinion of the war and your change of view of it I believe is completely sincere. I absolutely admire people who have had honest changes of opinion going either way.
“As mentioned earlier, I supported the war before I realized that American lives would be wasted in a for-profit war administered by baboons.”
Long ago, in a comment far, far away, I said these things and dammit I expect you to remember them. DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM!!!!!
SEK – Seriously, its fun to watch you get all pissy when people don’t immediately cower before your mighty sword of rhetoric.
Proof? The thread speaks for itself.
daleyrocks (d9ec17) — 6/10/2008 @ 8:53 pmAre you are short person too, SEK?
daleyrocks (d9ec17) — 6/10/2008 @ 8:54 pmYeah, war should be like a Grand Double Skim Latte at Starbucks. You pay your $4.50, sip it over erudite and amusing conversation, throw the cup in the recycling bin, and go on with your other business. God forbid that it should require any scintilla of will, fortitude and stamina.
nk (4bb2be) — 6/10/2008 @ 8:59 pmI would like to see Ratten promise to leave the US if McCain wins. Please make that promise Tim with your Hollywood buddies and make the election that more intereting.
Alta Bob (0f6f80) — 6/10/2008 @ 10:04 pmdaleyrocks, in Comment #19, writes:
Long ago, in a comment far, far away, I said these things and dammit I expect you to remember them. DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM!!!!!
SEK, in Comment #15, wrote:
I supported the war at first …
Methinks someone’s definitions of long and far are somewhat skewed. Then again, [insert the emasculatingly obvious here].
Jack Klompus, on the other hand, wrote:
I still don’t think that the rape analogy is too spiffy if for no other reason than matters of taste.
Admittedly, I was going for shock value, but that’s only because many of my conservative friends are surprisingly glib about the magnitude of horror we’ve inflicted on the Iraqi people. (Note of the obvious to people who aren’t Jack: I’m not saying it was bunnies and picnics before the invasion, only that it’s demonstrably different — and in the opinion of many Iraqis, more unsettling and therefore worse, what with predictable evil being preferable to ever-present random death.) That said, I’ll try to rein it in from now on.
Yeah, war should be like a Grand Double Skim Latte at Starbucks.
nk, no one’s saying anything about the nature of war. War is war, and you won’t hear my say otherwise. You will, however, hear me contest the necessity of sending my friends into fresh hell on the basis of half-truths mouthed by lackeys (illustrious and otherwise). And I say this — if you dare hark back to the dark days of seven comments ago — as someone who would’ve bought their reasoning if they’d presented it honestly (and were competent, which I really thought they would’ve and still think they should’ve been).
SEK (f5b6c2) — 6/11/2008 @ 1:45 amIf waterboarding is torture, why haven’t the protestors who waterboard each other in the streets been arrested for assault?
Rob Crawford (b5d1c2) — 6/11/2008 @ 3:13 am“and in the opinion of many Iraqis, more unsettling and therefore worse”
And yet many Iraqis (ha) poll that they’re glad the invasion happened. That makes sense to me. With time the American Revolution has been more accepted and few people in the US today are trying to overthrow it.
Sweetie (ca63cb) — 6/11/2008 @ 6:08 am“As mentioned earlier, I supported the war before I realized that American lives would be wasted in a for-profit war administered by baboons. If I’d known then what I’ve been so painfully reminded of every single day for the past five years, I would’ve sung a different tune.”
If only the public was aware of your change of heart, I’m sure things would have turned out differently. Who are you again ? You certainly aren’t anyone who seriously considered the options Bush had after 9/11. I see no evidence of thoughtful consideration of the options. I think the latte’ analogy was pretty close.
It’s sort of Will Rogers’ advice on the stock market applied to war. “If you want to do a war, support it when it’s going well and then if it starts going badly, go back and say you were against it.”
I’m glad you people weren’t around in 1942. Of course the War on Terror is a bumper sticker. John Edwards told me so.
Mike K (2cf494) — 6/11/2008 @ 6:25 amPerhaps this fellow can help increase your optimism. Their ever-present random death problem seems to have been cleared up.
Pablo (99243e) — 6/11/2008 @ 6:50 amLong ago, in a comment far, far away, I said these things and dammit I expect you to remember them. DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM!!!!!
SEK, in Comment #15, wrote:
I supported the war at first …
Methinks someone’s definitions of long and far are somewhat skewed. Then again, [insert the emasculatingly obvious here].
SEK – Damn if that intellectual honesty bugbear isn’t sneaking up to bite you on the butt again. There is the small matter of the phrase “As I mentioned earler” that preceeded your statement that you supported the war at first in comment 15. Where are are astute readers supposed to find that earlier mention? The fact that it is not in this thread was the reason for my comment, master.
daleyrocks (d9ec17) — 6/11/2008 @ 8:26 amSpeaking of media lies, and the radicalisation of the Islamic mob…
Another Drew (8018ee) — 6/11/2008 @ 9:20 amDon’t forget Newsweek’s great lie about a Koran being flushed down a toilet at GTMO! That one story (a lie) probably did more to radicalise the mob than anything that actually happened there.
Thanks, Eleanor!
C. Norris (07f391) — 6/11/2008 @ 9:41 amI agree. Tim Rutten aspires to be another John Reed without exposing himself to danger.
You certainly aren’t anyone who seriously considered the options Bush had after 9/11. I see no evidence of thoughtful consideration of the options.
Mike K., for purposes of this conversation, I’m the guy who wrote the fifteenth comment, which is all you need to know to understand my subsequent ones. This is why God invented scrolling.
As for Bush’s options after 9/11, do you really want to claim that diverting attention away from the known locations of terrorist activities in order to attack a country which, at best, the intelligence community can sorta kinda prove may have links to bin Laden? The case for the war in Afghanistan (and Pakistan, for that matter) could’ve been easily and honestly made — instead, we waged that war for a bit, then moved on to something irrelevant that had been hashed out by bureaucrats four years earlier.
I’m glad you people weren’t around in 1942.
This is a fantastic argument rhetorical feint, esp. on the heels of my saying above that I supported the war when I felt it was justified, i.e. in Afghanistan. By the logic of my statement, I’d have supported intervention in Europe and the Pacific theater because we’d been attacked. That you think differently speaks poorly of your logic, but I’m sure you have some absolutely original retort about lattes burning a hole through your keyboard, so by all means, dish it out. It’s much more convincing caffeinated than an argument, after all.
And yet many Iraqis (ha) poll that they’re glad the invasion happened. That makes sense to me.
I’m glad it makes sense to you, but if you look at the opinion polls coming out of Iraq — or the civilian death toll, for that matter — you’d realize that Iraqis don’t care all that much about your opinion of them. They prefer walking to the store without being blown up to your self-satisfaction in a war well-waged.
SEK (bd295a) — 6/11/2008 @ 8:18 pmI’m curious, why does Dick Cheney get to decide if waterboarding is torture in the teeth of hundreds of years of calling it torture (including war crimes convictions)?
Does Stalin get to pick whether the Ukranian famine was genocide?
Andrew J. Lazarus (aed77a) — 6/12/2008 @ 4:39 pmJust who has been convicted by any tribunal, international or otherwise, as a “war criminal” for the crime of “water boarding”?
Another Drew (8018ee) — 6/12/2008 @ 4:51 pmGlad to oblige, Drew.
According to Wikipedia and the bozoid idea that the perpetrator gets to define the crime, waterboarding will be criminal when John McCain does it (but not Dick Cheney) because
I believe the official Bush Remnant stance is that McCain is too soft on torture because he suffered it.
Andrew J. Lazarus (aed77a) — 6/12/2008 @ 5:09 pmAJL – Was that WWII case you are talking about one of the ones Wallach wrote up where there was a laundry list of charges against the Japanese soldiers? The guilty verdict wasn’t rendered by each charge or act was it Andrew? How do you know they were found guilty of waterboarding based on the verdict and that it was considered torture? It’s a serious question.
daleyrocks (d9ec17) — 6/12/2008 @ 5:18 pmDaleyrocks, I am having a little bit of trouble understanding your argument.
Indeed, I am relying on Wallach’s article, including his claim that the Japanese were convicted on “all the torture specifications”. That would include in particular
Of course, Wallach’s article also has several cases of the US prosecuting it’s own personnel for waterboarding.
Is your defense of the Japanese waterboarding that there were also other acts of torture? That’s a strained, illogical reading of the facts.
Until the Bush/Cheney Administration, I don’t think anyone has ever held waterboarding to be something other than torture.
Are there any cases where an international tribunal has convicted someone of torture using the rack? I couldn’t find one. Are you going to make the argument that use of the rack is not torture?
Andrew J. Lazarus (aed77a) — 6/12/2008 @ 5:42 pmDid he miss the part about Army Air Corps Lt. Chase Nielsen. They are fully covered under
narciso (c36902) — 6/12/2008 @ 5:49 pmGeneva. How would you cover KSM, he’s Kuwaiti
born of Pakistani background, but he was not a
citizen of either. (He was living in Thailand
at the time) Not operating under any recognized military organization, Same for Abu Zubeydah;
Palestinian born in Saudi Arabia, detained in Pakistan. Al Nashiri, detained by the UAE. Now tell me who does Yehuda Pearl appeal to for the
murder of his son, Daniel, by KSM. Or Burlingame,
and 2,900+ others.
AJL, thanks for the info; though I wonder if the specific act committed by the Japanese is the same proceedure as used by the CIA?
Specifically, you quote “…soldiers poured the water…” & “…by forcing water into
their mouths and noses,…”
Is this the same as how WB has been explained – pouring water over a cloth covering the face?
It is my understanding that the Japanese “water cure” would result in drowning, and probably did. However, the proceedure used by the CIA is to simulate drowning, but not to bring it about, which is why the cloth is used instead of just pouring the water directly into the mouth and nostrils.
Can you elucidate?
Another Drew (8018ee) — 6/12/2008 @ 5:57 pmNarciso, are you making an argument that waterboarding is or is not torture does not depend on who the victim is or if he had a uniform? Like, it would not be torture to put Hitler on the rack, because he was really bad, but for KSM, rack is torture but waterboarding is not because he’s pretty bad, and for narciso, no rack, no waterboarding, because he’s just a confused guy making a completely illogical argument. (I’m sorry if you are claiming that waterboarding is torture but in this case torture is acceptable. I don’t think this is your claim, but I may have misinterpreted you.)
Andrew J. Lazarus (aed77a) — 6/12/2008 @ 6:00 pmAnother Drew, as I understand it (I don’t get to see a video), our waterboarding set-up is not exactly the same as the Japanese, but its results are. Both give the body the feeling that drowning is taking place, while if administered correctly, the victim survives. Our system is, I believe, more similar to that of the Khmer Rouge.
Andrew J. Lazarus (aed77a) — 6/12/2008 @ 6:08 pmWell, with this series of decisions, I feel confident in believing that no-one captured in the field will have to fear undergoing water-boarding. Their field interrogations will probably be conducted under guidelines from the Jack Bauer Interrogation Manual, with their detainment being concluded under Rule 7.62 (5.56 for weenies).
Another Drew (8018ee) — 6/12/2008 @ 6:15 pmBoo friggin’ hoo- so some truly evil dudes (three?) were waterboarded and otherwise are perfectly fine. I love the moral equivalency between that and sawing off heads of innocents. The Islamomutants must be rejoicing to see that the bleeding heart moonbats give them habeus corpus rights. Seems to me that they are coddled at Guantanamo since they can do their daily prayers to Allah (camel dung upon him and them), gain weight on a diet that conforms to their own rules and culture and generally have not been able to strive for those 72 virgins. let’s set them all free so they can decide whether they want to return and kill more innocents or perhaps we can just kill all terrorists and let god sort them out. Just lovely how Israelis will, on occasion, make a deal to free hundreds of poor misunderstood Pali terrorists in exchange for an Israeli.
madmax333 (d0cae7) — 6/12/2008 @ 6:47 pmStill cannot fathom why liberals have far more sympathy for terrorists than their own dead countrymen. Bad to show scenes from 9/11- good to beat that abu ghraib story to death- oh lord, panties on the head, fake menstrual blood, threats of dog bites, etc. And don’t dare intercept their phone conversations or the ACLU will get upset. Bush lied, people died. Like everyone in Clinton administration didn’t call for the same sanctions and warn of wmds. Justice Kennedy should serve on the bench at the Hague and take people like Spector and McCain with him.
Ok to waterboard US servicemen in training/ horribly evil to use it on scum terrorists who say they long for martyrdom.
If you can’t tell the difference between the Khmer Rouge and Americans, you’re beyond hope.
narciso (c36902) — 6/12/2008 @ 6:48 pmYou may be clueless as Dick Durbin, when meditating on the fate of Mohammed Al Quahtani; the man who missed his chance of Flight 93. Of course if you followed one of those links on Obama’s blog, you may not actually be aware of that fact. In this particular case, we’re considering who deserves the full rights accorded by the Geneva Convention. But yes there is a bright line distinction between uniformed military personnel and unlawful enemy combatants. Since you cited no actual law that was pertinent on the subject; i’ll take you to be ignorant. Rutten, to come back to the main point, is another animal altogether. He’s taken credit for others achievements; John Miller’s interview with Bin Laden, and Walter Mitty like taken them as his
own. He’s made a mountain of the dismissal of the obviously imcompetent US Attorneys in the S. California area, among other boomlets of manufactured scandal.
“Indeed, I am relying on Wallach’s article, including his claim that the Japanese were convicted on “all the torture specifications”. That would include in particular
Specification 9. That in or about 15 May, 1944, the accused, Genji Mineno, did, willfully and
unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture Thomas B. Armitage, William O. Cash, and Munroe
Dave Woodall, American Prisoners of War, by beating and kicking them, by forcing water into
their mouths and noses, and by pressing lighted cigarettes against their bodies. [my emphasis]”
AJL – As I recall from six or eight months ago on this board, that Wallach article was in draft form. I don’t know whether he ever finalized it. The source documents did not have the guilty verdict available by my recollection. I would like to see if it is available now.
“Of course, Wallach’s article also has several cases of the US prosecuting it’s own personnel for waterboarding.”
That prosecution would depend on what acceptable practices were athte time wouldn’t AJL? The U.S. Sheriff is not in a war zone is he?
“Are there any cases where an international tribunal has convicted someone of torture using the rack? I couldn’t find one. Are you going to make the argument that use of the rack is not torture?”
I wasn’t planning on it at the moment. We are talking about waterboarding. Did you have a point you were trying to make?
daleyrocks (d9ec17) — 6/12/2008 @ 8:50 pmNarciso, you are willfully misinterpreting my remarks to suggest that I see no difference between the USA and the Khmer Rouge. What I wrote (and you have no evidence otherwise) is that the apparatus used by the CIA and the Khmer Rouge for waterboarding are essentially identical. Given the odious reputation of the Khmer Rouge, I would think any similarity between our interrogation techniques and theirs is cause for alarm.
The particular criminal cases I supplied where waterboarding was described as torture arose when most of the victims were POWs, although I believe at least one case involved an interned civilian. I produced that evidence towards the claim that waterboarding is torture, not that torture is forbidden. The Geneva Conventions outlaw torture, but even if the GC do not apply—an argument I will skip for the moment—the International Convention Against Torture outlaws torture in all cases “whatsoever“. The issue of whether KSM is in uniform is completely irrelevant. In other words, it seems to me that you are arguing that waterboarding is torture when applied to GC-protected persons, but is not torture when applied to terrorists. You can try to mask the obvious stupidity of this argument by distortion, but it’s pretty transparent.
Andrew J. Lazarus (aed77a) — 6/12/2008 @ 11:06 pmDaleyrocks: it really doesn’t matter if Wallach’s article is in draft form, unless he totally botched his research, because the paragraph I quoted is an internal quotation from the primary source, the charging document itself. (The citation to microfiche is at the link; the original source is not online that I can find.) As with Narciso, you’re raising a rather odd situational defense to the idea that waterboarding is torture; that is, you are forced to acknowledge it has been judicially condemned as torture when practiced on American domestic criminals, but somehow it is not torture when practiced on terrorists. Although I do not agree with the argument that it is OK to torture terrorists, at least it has a certain surface appeal. The claim that the definition of something being torture is dependent on the moral situation of the victim makes no sense to me. Nor, I suppose, would it make sense to you when adopted by our enemies, as I would think would be their right under the Goose-Gander Principle.
Andrew J. Lazarus (aed77a) — 6/12/2008 @ 11:15 pm