[dovate.com]

[dovate.com] » bleh

bleh

I don’t write about politics much. It’s mostly because as someone who chose history as a college major, I’ve got this arrogant, jaded perspective on things. This is what I’m talking about:

On April 17, Michael Scheur, the designer and manager of the United States’ rendition program and the chief of the CIA’s “bin Laden” unit in the Clinton Administration testified before the House of Representatives. Scheur, who is no friend to any political party noted:

“I know there was much more consideration under Bush about how to handle these people (them) than under Clinton, sir, when we joked about what would happen to them in Egyptian prisons.”

So what does this mean? It means that in the big picture, the Bush administrations most disgraceful act isn’t rendition and torture, it’s the legitimization of it… publicly. Not to discount the power of legitimization, it has a tremendous existential affect on our national identity. I’m sure historians will study its consequences for generations.

Thursday, November 1st, 2007 political Trackback URL for this entry

3 Comments

1. albert replies at 2nd November 2007, 12:14 am :

i don’t think people should be surprised torturing goes on behind closed doors to keep our county [and for non-americans, their own country/group doing the same] “safe” from them. shit happens. but what this administration is doing? fucking bonkers.
2. Phillybits replies at 4th November 2007, 7:45 pm :

You should read this then.

And then weep that even with such refutations, it still doesn’t matter to this administration.
3. steve weinik replies at 4th November 2007, 7:50 pm :

I’m playing Devil’s advocate here. This administration has done incredible damage to the country across a staggering cross section of subjects and issues. A convincing case could be made though that on things like torture you can water things down to something like this:

Clinton and those before him: We’ll quietly fly people off to 3rd countries with full knowledge of what will happen to them.

Bush: We’ll do that too, but no one does America’s business better than red-blooded Americans. If there’s torturing to be done, we’ll do it our damn selves. Of course in order to do that, you’ve also got to set up military tribunals, suspend habeas corpus and redefine the word ‘torture.’