Silly Me

I used to hate George W. Bush but then I read this Peter Berkowitz column and calmed down: "And lord knows the Bush administration has blundered in its handling of legal issues that have arisen in the war on terror. But from the common progressive denunciations you would never know that the Bush administration has rejected torture as illegal." See, the Bush administration has rejected torture as illegal so here I've been wasting my time being upset that the administration has redefined various forms of torture as "not torture" and therefore legal. Oy.

This is via Brendan Nyhan. I used to have Berkowitz in my "often thought-provoking, though rarely convincing" file but this is really laughable stuff.

Comments

Off topic, but ever since the new Atlantic logo went up I've been cursing the lack of links to the other Atlantic bloggers. Tonight I just discovered that if I move the pointer over the Voices the links appear. Doh!

Posted by John DE | November 14, 2007 10:58 PM

Don't you just love the ethics of the WSJ? They can't even mention that Berkowitz is one of Rudy's advisors.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | November 14, 2007 11:23 PM

is he related to "son of Sam"?

Posted by della Rovere | November 14, 2007 11:24 PM

Is it irresponsible to hate Bush Jr? It's irresponsible not to.

Posted by El Cid | November 14, 2007 11:46 PM

Hmm, interesting.

Lord knows President Clinton has blundered in the handling of his sexual scandals. But from the conservative denunciations you would never know that President Clinton said he never had sex with that woman Monica Lewinsky.

Posted by Jayhawk Max | November 15, 2007 12:12 AM

Well, of course the Bush administration has rejected torture as illegal. It's easy to do when you redefine torture out of existence. Under the Military Commissions Act, torture is defined in such a way that it has almost never happened in history. Mengele tortured, but only because he recorded data. The Catholic Church tortured, but only because they burned people at the stake (murder is considered torture in the MCA). The South Vietnamese tortured, but only because they progressively amputated people (with our supervision). The Khmer Rouge? They didn't torture anyone. And neither did Stalin. And John McCain never got tortured. What a great law.

Posted by fostert | November 15, 2007 12:32 AM

I'd love to know who's in your "often thought-provoking, and often convincing" file.

Posted by Bobcat | November 15, 2007 12:35 AM

Congress could end the waterboarding controversy tommorrow by passing a law specifying all the nice things we are obligated to do for terrorists and other unlawful combatants outside the Geneva POW Conventions. And what "bad" things terrorists and other breakers of laws of war should be exempt from.

But they won't. Because they know accountability would shift from the Executive to Congress and the future brought mass American casualties that could have been prevented - and accountability is to be avoided at all costs.

Maybe they would if they actually believed the formulaic Lefty cant about:

1. Unlawful combatants and terrorists are best won over by kindness and fulfilling their demands if captured. Then they will readily abandon and then betray their religion, family and tribe and spill the beans...

2. That interrogation - "never works".

3. That interrogating terrorists makes us - "as bad as the terrorists".

4. That interrogation never gets the truth because the terrorist or other unlawful combatant is always smarter than the American interrogators and always lies successfully.

Some dupes in Congress actually believe that - but others are yanked away by Dem Party experts and told - don't pass a law! It does work! It saved thousands of lived with tough interrogation of key AQ personnel! So they counsel to just CYA.

All too many Lefties think of such combatants that target civilians and violate most other rules and conventions on war as "common criminals, with sacred Constitutional Rights to due process and under treaties meant to protect civilians. That the radical Muslim enemy deserves to be treated with full POW rights and - a huge step past what POWs get - let go unless we can try them in civilian court for "provable crimes".

That would be nice for our guys if they too could discard all the rules of Hague and Geneva and still get all the benefits.

Of course, commonly forgotten is this is war, not crime. We and they kill without trial and count maimimgs that lead to lifelong pain and disability of the enemy as a good thing to accomplish - better than not maiming...Even Lefties have mostly abandoned their 2001 pleas for the capture and trial of Binnie and Co with full ACLU lawyer help as their goal. They know how preposterous a civilian trial and the years of it would be to the reputation of the lousy US legal system...

Now all the good little liberal Democrats have dropped "trial, due process, let the lawyers achieve justice" for BInnie and other big shots. Their rhetoric, from young Obambi, the fawn of the Dems to screwballs like Kuchinich and Pelosi - is now officially in favor of "find the surviving few AQ leaders from 9/11, and kill them without trial".

Posted by Chris Ford | November 15, 2007 1:40 AM

Great points. Indeed, where would the South have been today if the Confederacy hadn't been brave enough to torture the Northern Aggressors?

Posted by El Cid | November 15, 2007 3:51 AM

I agree with Chris Ford. If the US doesn't continue to torture that Afghani goat herder who was turned over to the US in November 2001 by a friendly war lord, the Bush administration might not be able to prevent 9/11.

Posted by stupid to the 9th power | November 15, 2007 5:40 AM

Yeah Chris, I'm personally glad that we have this tradition going back centuries called habeas corpus and due process because it provides excellent cover for my desire to assist the terrorists in their project to subjugate all women, destroy all non-muslim cultural icons, and murder thousand upon thousands of innocent people just to make their point. Y'see, I'm just a typical liberal that way.

ps--go to hell, dude.

Posted by DMonteith | November 15, 2007 8:51 AM

I thought "cruel and unusual punishment" was illegal prior to Bush declaring it so.

You know, if I had a horse I'd horsewhip these people on the steps of their club. If they had a club.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | November 15, 2007 9:01 AM

If I had a club, I'd club them under the feet of their horses.

If I had a hammer...I don't even want to think about what I'd do if I had a hammer.

Posted by brooksfoe | November 15, 2007 9:44 AM

Yeah Chris, I'm personally glad that we have this tradition going back centuries called habeas corpus and due process because it provides excellent cover for my desire to assist the terrorists in their project to subjugate all women, destroy all non-muslim cultural icons, and murder thousand upon thousands of innocent people just to make their point. Y'see, I'm just a typical liberal that way.
ps--go to hell, dude.
Posted by DMonteith

Go to hell? You 1st, you enemy-loving POS!

Fortunately, the odds of you going to hell are higher at the hands of Islamoids because they wish to hit "blue cities" and places where lots of liberals and Jews live.

Habeas corpus is a civilian right that exists in peacetime. In English Common Law and in our own system. It can be suspended in cases of war and insurrection, and never applies to enemy combatants except in the deranged mind of Justice Stevens, who believes radical Islam is a local insurrection not international in scope. The reason it can be suspended is that English Common Law and our Preamble specify that we have other central rights outside the Court System -that trump habeas corpus in emergencies and in wars. Domestic tranquility. Common defense against a foe of our good-given natural rights, the highest being our right to security and our lives.

Posted by Chris Ford | November 15, 2007 11:38 AM

Chris Ford,

The U.S. Constitution expressly provides that habeas corpus may be suspended only if necessary for public safety in the event of "rebellion or invasion." Not "war." There is no rebellion, and the U.S. has not been invaded for some time, so any suspension is unlawful. Period.

Posted by Gator90 | November 15, 2007 12:34 PM

Whatever, Gator90. The Constitution was written with a pre-9/11 mindset.

Posted by Tiny Archibald | November 15, 2007 12:55 PM

Folks like Berkowitz have no concept of Bush as a false, or Potemkin president who cheated to win.

Posted by Hedley Lamarr | November 15, 2007 6:11 PM