Thursday, September 3, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Popular Representation
If our government did not have any fools, liars, or lunatics, it would not be truly representational.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
"Worse"
When people said “Bush was the worst president ever, ever,” I often responded by saying “Andrew ‘Trail of Tears’ Jackson.” Let’s have a list, shall we?
Genocide.
Slavery.
Colonization.
Widespread torture of prisoners in the Philippines, in Vietnam, and (through the School of the Americas) in Latin America.
Not to mention a long list of unjustifiable military invasions, the internment of Japanese-American citizens, the Alien and Sedition Act, McCarthyism and the Red Scare, and pretty much everything the CIA has ever touched. Ah, history! A litany of blood and bullshit. A shining city on a hill, indeed.
So why do the Bush Administration’s crimes against humanity seem . . . different, somehow? “Worse”? Is it just because it’s in my generation (tho’ the SoA operated during my time as well)? Is it because the torture program was so damned clinical? (Much like the Holocaust seems “worse” than, say, the Armenian or Rwandan genocides; there’s something deeply inhuman about the cold reasoning and detached scientific coordination the Nazis used.) Or is it the paper trail that we now have? I think it’s more than this:
1.) “Crimes Against Humanity” was not even a concept before WWII. The creation of the U.N., the Geneva Conventions, and the relevant human rights treaties changed the ground game: it is obvious that slavery and the original founding genocide in the New World were “crimes against humanity,” but ex-post facto and all that. We supposedly “know better” now: actual merits of this argument aside, I believe it is a serious factor.
2.) Approval and even initiation at the highest level. Teddy Roosevelt, for all his egregious faults, went out of his way to try and stop the alleged torture in the Phillipines: how genuine this concern was is up for debate, but nobody (I think) seriously suggests that he ordered the troops to torture anyone. Even Nixon was troubled by reports of abuse in Vietnam: Nixon and Kissinger initiated programs that a reasonable person could believe might lead to torture, but we have no evidence that it was a top-down decision to actually torture anyone (and on the tapes Nixon was recorded being surprised and worried about “that whole atrocity thing.”) The School of the Americas is a trickier question, but again there was a line that even the CIA wouldn’t cross: they didn’t actively advocate torture (and provided fig leaf disapproval of same), but provided information and techniques to Latin American governments as to how to torture. This was, of course, horrendous (and I protested the SoA too, back in the day), but there is, I believe, a difference of intent and culpability between these historical examples and the Bush administration giving tacit approval for American forces to conduct an actual torture program. There is a difference between “don’t torture anyone, wink wink” and “here’s the manual on torturing people: go do it, a lot, with our full blessing; in fact, do it more and more and more.” A fine line, perhaps (and it is horrifying to me that that line was even approached by the USA during the second half of the 20th Century), but there is something truly evil about whole-heartedly jumping over that line without even acknowledging it.
3.) We caught them in the act. There is clear culpability. There are no deniable cut-out points. The question of “what did they know and when did they know it” is not at issue. I no longer have a reasonable doubt. [1]
4.) Finally, it wasn’t even reasonably justifiable. FDR had reason to believe that the Imperial Japanese Army might actually invade California with a million troops when he ordered the internment camps (recent scholarship reveals that Nippon had literally drafted these invasion plans). Lincoln had reason to believe that the Confederate army was only a week or so away from marching on Washington, burning it to the ground, and hanging him by the neck until he be dead, dead, dead when he suspended habeas corpus. The Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons and really did try to take over half the world and crush it under a brutal authoritarian regime. It is hard for me to utterly dismiss the fearful responsibility past Presidents operated under. Therefore, I almost (almost) understand the initial panic and fear from the Executive branch immediately after 9-11 (especially at the Pentagon – I mean, they too lost friends and colleagues on that day, and I share their pain). But years later? When the threat is only a vague, unsubstantiated criminal enterprise? I do not believe that Cheney actually personally believed the U.S.A. as a nation was under a serious existential threat from cave-dwelling members of a doomsday cult. But we kept on torturing, for nothing. For garbage. As a justification in and of itself. We sold our soul for dross, and it hurts. It hurts.
[1] Though we must give them full recourse to the courts, of course, and ensure that the judicial system presumes them to be innocent until proven guilty. In other words: don’t put me on the jury, because I already know too much about the case.
Genocide.
Slavery.
Colonization.
Widespread torture of prisoners in the Philippines, in Vietnam, and (through the School of the Americas) in Latin America.
Not to mention a long list of unjustifiable military invasions, the internment of Japanese-American citizens, the Alien and Sedition Act, McCarthyism and the Red Scare, and pretty much everything the CIA has ever touched. Ah, history! A litany of blood and bullshit. A shining city on a hill, indeed.
So why do the Bush Administration’s crimes against humanity seem . . . different, somehow? “Worse”? Is it just because it’s in my generation (tho’ the SoA operated during my time as well)? Is it because the torture program was so damned clinical? (Much like the Holocaust seems “worse” than, say, the Armenian or Rwandan genocides; there’s something deeply inhuman about the cold reasoning and detached scientific coordination the Nazis used.) Or is it the paper trail that we now have? I think it’s more than this:
1.) “Crimes Against Humanity” was not even a concept before WWII. The creation of the U.N., the Geneva Conventions, and the relevant human rights treaties changed the ground game: it is obvious that slavery and the original founding genocide in the New World were “crimes against humanity,” but ex-post facto and all that. We supposedly “know better” now: actual merits of this argument aside, I believe it is a serious factor.
2.) Approval and even initiation at the highest level. Teddy Roosevelt, for all his egregious faults, went out of his way to try and stop the alleged torture in the Phillipines: how genuine this concern was is up for debate, but nobody (I think) seriously suggests that he ordered the troops to torture anyone. Even Nixon was troubled by reports of abuse in Vietnam: Nixon and Kissinger initiated programs that a reasonable person could believe might lead to torture, but we have no evidence that it was a top-down decision to actually torture anyone (and on the tapes Nixon was recorded being surprised and worried about “that whole atrocity thing.”) The School of the Americas is a trickier question, but again there was a line that even the CIA wouldn’t cross: they didn’t actively advocate torture (and provided fig leaf disapproval of same), but provided information and techniques to Latin American governments as to how to torture. This was, of course, horrendous (and I protested the SoA too, back in the day), but there is, I believe, a difference of intent and culpability between these historical examples and the Bush administration giving tacit approval for American forces to conduct an actual torture program. There is a difference between “don’t torture anyone, wink wink” and “here’s the manual on torturing people: go do it, a lot, with our full blessing; in fact, do it more and more and more.” A fine line, perhaps (and it is horrifying to me that that line was even approached by the USA during the second half of the 20th Century), but there is something truly evil about whole-heartedly jumping over that line without even acknowledging it.
3.) We caught them in the act. There is clear culpability. There are no deniable cut-out points. The question of “what did they know and when did they know it” is not at issue. I no longer have a reasonable doubt. [1]
4.) Finally, it wasn’t even reasonably justifiable. FDR had reason to believe that the Imperial Japanese Army might actually invade California with a million troops when he ordered the internment camps (recent scholarship reveals that Nippon had literally drafted these invasion plans). Lincoln had reason to believe that the Confederate army was only a week or so away from marching on Washington, burning it to the ground, and hanging him by the neck until he be dead, dead, dead when he suspended habeas corpus. The Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons and really did try to take over half the world and crush it under a brutal authoritarian regime. It is hard for me to utterly dismiss the fearful responsibility past Presidents operated under. Therefore, I almost (almost) understand the initial panic and fear from the Executive branch immediately after 9-11 (especially at the Pentagon – I mean, they too lost friends and colleagues on that day, and I share their pain). But years later? When the threat is only a vague, unsubstantiated criminal enterprise? I do not believe that Cheney actually personally believed the U.S.A. as a nation was under a serious existential threat from cave-dwelling members of a doomsday cult. But we kept on torturing, for nothing. For garbage. As a justification in and of itself. We sold our soul for dross, and it hurts. It hurts.
[1] Though we must give them full recourse to the courts, of course, and ensure that the judicial system presumes them to be innocent until proven guilty. In other words: don’t put me on the jury, because I already know too much about the case.
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