William Pfaff: When laws get in the way of torture

[TacticalPeek]

International Herald Tribune

When laws get in the way of torture

William Pfaff IHT/TMSI

Friday, June 11, 2004


The paper trail

PARIS People like to quote Karl Marx's comment on the two successive Napoleonic empires, that of Bonaparte himself, and, after 1848, the second empire of his nephew, Napoleon III. Marx said that it was a tragedy repeated as a farce.

The United States has reversed the sequence, so that a few years ago the nation, or at least Congress and the media, was obsessed by President Bill Clinton's disputed definition of what does or does not amount to sexual congress with a White House intern.

The tragedy that has followed the farce is torture as an instrument of American national policy in the cause of spreading democracy.

snip

All of this is a ghastly scandal, one of the worst in American history. It is evident cause for impeachment of this president, if Congress has the courage to do it, and for prosecution of cabinet figures and certain commanders. However in view of the partisan alignment in Congress, quite possibly nothing will happen before the November election.

What then? It also is quite possible that George W. Bush will be elected to a second term. In that case, the American electorate will have made these practices its own. Now that is something for our children to think about.

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. . . the American electorate will have made these practices its own.

[Eric J in MN]

1. I like how William Pfaff concludes

I like how William Pfaff concludes:

The vast majority of those in Iraqi prisons have turned out to be people who were at the wrong place at the wrong time, or had a name resembling someone else's name, or were related to someone whose name was on a U.S. list. They were tortured because that had become the practice. They might know something. When higher commanders complained that they weren't getting enough intelligence, the same prisoners were tortured again.

All of this is a ghastly scandal, one of the worst in American history. It is evident cause for impeachment of this president, if Congress has the courage to do it, and for prosecution of cabinet figures and certain commanders. However in view of the partisan alignment in Congress, quite possibly nothing will happen before the November election.

What then? It also is quite possible that George W. Bush will be elected to a second term. In that case, the American electorate will have made these practices its own. Now that is something for our children to think about.

[Dover]

2. What Bushco has done to these prisoners they have done to America

and our Constitution. Raped, stripped of dignity, humanity and humiliated before the world.