Torturous logic

I think Karl Rove might finally be getting it.

He is quoted as saying:

If the Obama administration insists on criminalizing policy disagreements, how can they place any limits on who they prosecute?

They can't, Karl. It's called "equality before the law". The idea is that there are no limits on who can be prosecuted.

Everyone in the interrogation process would have to be treated the same

Yes! Now you're getting it.

Let me explain something to poor Karl. When you are a republic of laws, not a monarchy, that means everyone has to obey the law. Now, of course, the laws are rarely fair, and the rich get to make them and the poor suffer under them, so I'm not suggesting this is ideal, but it is the point.

including the CIA agents, the physicians who monitored interrogation sessions and the lawyers who researched and wrote the memos.

... and the concentration camp guards, and and and...

to the leadership of the intelligence community to the legislators in both parties and the Bush administration officials who were briefed on these memos and agreed to them

At no point does Karly boy suggest any reason that these people should be beyond the law.

It is now clear that the Obama White House didn't think before it tried to appease the hard left of the Democratic Party.

Okay, so he isn't really getting it. Suggesting that the Democratic Party even has a left, let alone a "hard" one, is ridiculous. And since when was believing you have laws for a reason a "hard left" stance? I think you'll find, Karl, that most of us who actually are on the hard left think that the laws mostly exist to fuck the poor and keep the middle class in line.

It's been said enough times but it bears repeating: how well would it go down with the beak if I suggest that I didn't shoplift from Woolworths but merely had a "policy disagreement" with them: they believing that I should pay for goods, I believing that I should just take them. Surely I should not be punished for a mere disagreement over the economy?

The Times continues:

Three key U.S. senators, Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham and Democrat-turned-independent Joe Lieberman, issued a joint letter to Obama strongly urging him not to prosecute government officials who provided legal advice related to detainee interrogations.

"Pursuing such prosecutions would, we believe, have serious negative effects on the candor with which officials in any administration provide their best advice," wrote the senators, all of whom had opposed the harsh interrogation tactics.

You know, Johnny boy, if that advice is that it's okay to torture, they probably need to be a bit less "candid".

Are these people fucking dim? I mean, really? It's almost impossible to believe that they could be this cynical, this partisan. That "servants" of their country like McCain, who as we endlessly heard in his campaign was tortured himself, can argue for immunity for America's Eichmanns is beyond fucking belief. What a sad state America is now in. Not that it was ever any different. But now the veil is off. It is revealed as the rogue state it is.

Even stupider and more cynical though is Pat Leahy, who wants to immunise everyone who wants to tell the truth:

I want someone to tell us exactly what happened so that it won't happen again

Pat, wake the fuck up! We know what happened. We have three-quarters of it out in the open, and the rest is not very hidden. If Obama wants to, he can reveal most of the rest.

The way we ensure it doesn't happen again is to punish the people who did it the first time. That principle works for thieves and murderers, Pat, so why you think we couldn't just apply it to torturers is beyond me.

The Times at least leaves us with comedy:

A former Bush White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer, said if a probe is started, "Barack Obama will regret this as one of the worst moments of his presidency, because it will set off a multi-year, extraordinarily divisive, all-consuming Washington scandal/controversy and everyone will end up looking bad."

Ari, we call that scandal/controversy "the Bush war on terror" and you are absolutely right.

posted by Dr Zen @ 3:19 pm