The Torture Bill
Sunday October 1, 2006
Category: War on Terror
It's a bad time to be genuinely concerned about civil liberties. On the very last day of voting before the November elections, Republicans railroaded a disturbing bill through both houses of Congress that authorizes many of the Bush administration's most serious human rights abuses. Over the coming days, I'll have more--much more--to say about this bill and the issues surrounding it.
But what the world needs now (other than love, sweet love) is a little more clarity. What I have heard from pundits on the right is that the Bush administration was on the verge of having its ability to fight terrorism wiped out. Well, if that's the case, then why did they wait three months after Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court ruling regulating the Bush administration's conduct, to make the pertinent legislative changes?
Meanwhile, progressives say that the bill changes the Constitution forever and wipes out all trace of habeas corpus. But if Supreme Court precedents are really so meaningless, then why did we waste so much time analyzing Justice Alito's record earlier this year? Practice?
Everyone wants to win elections, but we need to look at this legislation with two home truths in mind:
Over the next few weeks, you will hear many, many politicians and political spokespersons talk about this bill. Most of them will be lying. It's an election year, and the spin doctors have come out in force. This is terrible legislation, but it is terrible legislation because it endorses and breathes life into many of the Bush administration's prior civil liberties abuses, not because it "changes the Constitution" or "transforms our country into a police state." Don't believe the hype. As politicians on both sides urge us to trust them and to make ourselves dependent on their judgment, now is the time to empower ourselves--to be informed and to keep our eyes open. I think this bill is clear evidence that it's time to vote the bums out, but let's do it with the understanding that the current crop of totalitarians got into Congress back in '94 on a small-government platform, too, so we'll also have to keep a pretty close eye on their replacements. As an imperial president once said:
In September 2001, only one member of the U.S. Senate--Russ Feingold--voted against the PATRIOT Act. Most Democrats in the U.S. Senate supported the Iraq War. Now that the polls have shifted one way, everybody has suddenly discovered civil liberties and decided to give peace a chance. We shouldn't bet our democracy on the remote possibility that these politicians--because that's what they all are--won't be just as quick to give up on those principles if the polls shift back in the other direction.
Bottom line: This is a genuinely bad piece of legislation, not some kind of political talking point. So as hard as it is to do right now, let's focus on the legislation itself--the real problems it presents, not the contrived ones--and let's not fall into the trap of believing that voting Democratic will be enough to solve this problem. It is clear that politicians of both parties feel that they can take civil libertarians for granted in times of national crisis. We need to become powerful enough, as a political force, that they never make that mistake again.
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But what the world needs now (other than love, sweet love) is a little more clarity. What I have heard from pundits on the right is that the Bush administration was on the verge of having its ability to fight terrorism wiped out. Well, if that's the case, then why did they wait three months after Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court ruling regulating the Bush administration's conduct, to make the pertinent legislative changes?
Meanwhile, progressives say that the bill changes the Constitution forever and wipes out all trace of habeas corpus. But if Supreme Court precedents are really so meaningless, then why did we waste so much time analyzing Justice Alito's record earlier this year? Practice?
Everyone wants to win elections, but we need to look at this legislation with two home truths in mind:
- It deals with practices that have already been in place in the four years and nine months leading up to the Hamdan ruling, not with entirely new procedures. The civil liberties of detainees are actually far better protected than they were on the morning of June 28th, five minutes before Hamdan was handed down.
- Congress can't overrule the Supreme Court without passing a constitutional amendment, so anything that has passed needs to be read in light of the Hamdi and Hamdan precedents.
Over the next few weeks, you will hear many, many politicians and political spokespersons talk about this bill. Most of them will be lying. It's an election year, and the spin doctors have come out in force. This is terrible legislation, but it is terrible legislation because it endorses and breathes life into many of the Bush administration's prior civil liberties abuses, not because it "changes the Constitution" or "transforms our country into a police state." Don't believe the hype. As politicians on both sides urge us to trust them and to make ourselves dependent on their judgment, now is the time to empower ourselves--to be informed and to keep our eyes open. I think this bill is clear evidence that it's time to vote the bums out, but let's do it with the understanding that the current crop of totalitarians got into Congress back in '94 on a small-government platform, too, so we'll also have to keep a pretty close eye on their replacements. As an imperial president once said:
There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.The message of the Republican spin machine is: "Be scared of the terrorists; all is lost, and only we can save you." The message of the Democratic spin machine is: "Be scared of the Republicans; all is lost, and only we can save you." The message I'm personally more inclined to listen to comes from Network's Howard Beale:
We know things are bad. Worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy so we don't go out anymore. We sit in a house as slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller and all we say is, "Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster, and TV, and my steel belted radials and I won't say anything." Well I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad ... You've got to say, "I'm a human being. Goddammit, my life has value." So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out, and yell, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"Sure, it's important to go vote. But it's even more important to make sure that the people you're voting for know that these issues matter more to you than party loyalty--and that you will be watching them just as hard in 2008 as you're watching the Republicans right now, just as hard as we should have been watching them in the days and weeks after the 9/11 attacks, when they could have done so much more.
In September 2001, only one member of the U.S. Senate--Russ Feingold--voted against the PATRIOT Act. Most Democrats in the U.S. Senate supported the Iraq War. Now that the polls have shifted one way, everybody has suddenly discovered civil liberties and decided to give peace a chance. We shouldn't bet our democracy on the remote possibility that these politicians--because that's what they all are--won't be just as quick to give up on those principles if the polls shift back in the other direction.
Bottom line: This is a genuinely bad piece of legislation, not some kind of political talking point. So as hard as it is to do right now, let's focus on the legislation itself--the real problems it presents, not the contrived ones--and let's not fall into the trap of believing that voting Democratic will be enough to solve this problem. It is clear that politicians of both parties feel that they can take civil libertarians for granted in times of national crisis. We need to become powerful enough, as a political force, that they never make that mistake again.
Zoom to:
Comments
This author does not know the law, and does not speak the truth. Reading the new legislation in terms of Hamdan, Hamdi (and Rasul, forgotten or missed by the author) is very easy - the Court disallowed military commissions because Congress hadn’t abrogated our obligations under the Geneva Conventions. Congress has now done just that. Also, there is no precedent for what constitutes a suspension of the writ under Art. I, S. 9, so the reference to the Alito hearings is just bizarre.
There is no hype, or at least not enough of it. The President now has power to choose who did what, how they’ll be tortured (I mean interrogated), and for how long, and what kind of trial they will have (and if they’ll have any at all).
Bottom line: two Republican presidents have now suspended habeas corpus, one with the assent of a Republican Congress. So…
VOTE DEMOCRAT
They don’t torture.
No, they export detainees to other countries to be tortured. Extraordinary rendition began with the Clinton administration, Bush inherited it, and all the Democratic voting in the world won’t change the brute fact that we can’t afford the luxury of trusting either party to do the right thing.
With regard to Rasul, I would be very interested in hearing you articulate what the Rasul ruling said vis-a-vis enemy combatants that Hamdi didn’t that was relevant to the torture bill. I’ll save you the trouble: Nothing at all.
Congressional legislation passed by a simple majority and ratified by zero states cannot suspend Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution. That’s why we have Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution.
The congressional oversight issue has to do primarily with the question of establishing new tribunals without congressional authority.
The Military Commissions Act does not by any means withdraw the United States from the Geneva Conventions; what it does do is protect military officials from prosecution for violating the Conventions in a manner that does not violate the War Crimes Act. This applies to “moderate physical pressure” forms of torture, which may or may not include waterboarding and sweatboxes. This is what makes it bad legislation, but what it doesn’t do is revoke the Geneva Conventions or reduce our government’s obligation to ensure that our military follows them.
You obviously mean well on these issues, and the fact that people who obviously mean well on these issues end up spreading false and defeatist rumors justifies my decision to write these very unpopular–but accurate–rebuttals of election-year spin.
Cheers,
TH