Stop the Torture

I have never asked readers of this blog to do anything. No "tip jar," no political campaign contributions, and no ads. This is my first request of you. As a resident of Washington, DC, I don't have congressional representation. You, more than likely, do.

Please go to the Amnesty International website here, if needed, and let them help you contact your congressperson about the recent deal between Congress and Bush regarding torture, allowing Bush to interpret the Geneva Conventions as he sees fit, providing for immunity for American human rights abusers, and other travesties.

Call 1-800-AMNESTY and our operators will connect you or call the Congressional switch board directly at 202-224-3121 (or lookup your officials info). Let the person on the phone know that you are a constituent, and tell them that the deal President Bush has struck is a betrayal of the America you believe in. Ask your Senator and representative to stand firm in defense of human rights.

The presidency is engaged in a radical move that has long-term ramifications not only for its enemies, but also for the very identity of the United States. I have no illusions about the realities of American behavior around the globe over the past two hundred years. But officially normalizing torture - and thus the US as a Torturing Nation - is as final as the nail in the coffin gets. Torture requires an institution of torture, which, I've argued below (and many other times...), entails a broader torture program than the administration would have us believe. We are looking at a radical historical change in the very nature of the US led by a president of deepest intellectual incompetence and moral cretinism.

If you want to consider the party-politics dimensions, David Neiwert provides a good place to start.

I've been hearing a lot of talk that the recent capitulation on American torture policy has demoralized many in the Democratic rank and file. And understandably so; the Bush administration is plunging the nation into the moral abyss, and it seems that not only is there nothing we can do to stop them, but the people who are supposed to be fighting for us are self-evidently incompetent.

I think they're mistaken. Republicans, in their hubris, have just handed progressives a valuable gift, an opportunity to win hearts and minds beyond anything they've done in the past decade. Progressives just need to be smart enough to grab it...

...But torture is not "toughness." It is in fact a sign of weakness -- particularly the moral kind.

It is, in the end, a moral issue, and one drawn in stark black and white. As the late Joan Fitzpatrick put it: The torturer is the enemy of mankind.

Does America want to become known around the world as the nation that tortures? Does America, which likes to think of itself as the "beacon of democracy" around the world, want to instead become known as "the enemy of mankind"?

This is a question that can be put to any American, regardless of their faith.

UPDATE on detentions:

Republican lawmakers and the White House agreed over the weekend to alter new legislation on military commissions to allow the United States to detain and try a wider range of foreign nationals than an earlier version of the bill permitted, according to government sources...

...in recent days the Bush administration and its House allies successfully pressed for a less restrictive description of how the government could designate civilians as "unlawful enemy combatants," the sources said yesterday. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of negotiations over the bill...

...human rights experts expressed concern yesterday that the language in the new provision would be a precedent-setting congressional endorsement for the indefinite detention of anyone who, as the bill states, "has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" or its military allies.

The definition applies to foreigners living inside or outside the United States and does not rule out the possibility of designating a U.S. citizen as an unlawful combatant. It is broader than that in last week's version of the bill, which resulted from lengthy, closed-door negotiations between senior administration officials and dissident Republican senators. That version incorporated a definition backed by the Senate dissidents: those "engaged in hostilities against the United States."