Torture in the gulag: Condi-Condi and the Dark Lord harmonize

"I wouldn't join the International Criminal Court. It's a body based in The Hague where unaccountable judges and prosecutors can pull our troops or diplomats up for trial.

"And I wouldn't join it. And I understand that in certain capitals around the world that that wasn't a popular move. But it's the right move not to join a foreign court that could -- where our people could be prosecuted." - George W. Bush 09/30/04

"Men without conscience are capable of any cruelty the human mind can imagine." - Dick Cheney 01/26/05

Our Secretary of State pooh-pooh's the need for any independent investigation of the ever-growing torture scandal:  Independent investigation of detainee abuse unnecessary, Rice says by Warren P. Strobel, Knight-Ridder 05/27/05

"The United States is as open a society as you will find," she said, and the administration is being held accountable "by a free press, by a Congress that is a separate and co-equal branch of government, and by its own expectations of what is right."

I suppose her Party's judge-bashing zealots will be happy to see she apparently didn't include law or the courts among the administation's restraints on the use criminal, sadistic torture on "terrorist" suspects.  But they are restrained by the administration's "own expectations of what is right."

The official Party line on last week's Amnesty International report seems to be to accuse the human rights group of bad manners.  Condi, Condi:

Rice, a Soviet scholar by training, seemed particularly indignant at Amnesty International's calling Guantanamo Bay "the gulag of our times," a reference to the prison camps under Josef Stalin.

While the human-rights group has done important work around the world, "this is unfortunate and sad," she said. At another point in the interview, she said, "I think it's absurd language."

"The United States of America is one of the strongest defenders of human rights around the world. We've fought hard and worked hard even in the circumstances of a new kind of war (on terrorism) to treat people humanely," Rice said.

But just for good measure, she says that if a few people get tortured, well, it's payback for ... something or other:

She also expressed concern that America's forces will be tarred unfairly by the actions of a few.

"A lot of the men and women in uniform, who people sometimes by association look at in the context of (abuses at the Iraqi prison of ) Abu Ghraib, have liberated 50 million people by their own blood and sacrifice over the last three and a half years," she said.

And as long as this is accepted as an excuse for torture, the practice will keep spreading to wider and wider classes of targets.

The Dark Lord himself even got his feelings hurt, being the sensitive guy he is and all:

Larry King Live transcript: 05/30/05 broadcast; interview with Dick and Lynne Cheney

KING: Amnesty International condemns the United States. How do you react?

D. CHENEY: I don't take them seriously?

KING: Not at all?

D. CHENEY: No. I -- frankly, I was offended by it. I think the fact of the matter is, the United States has done more to advance the cause of freedom, has liberated more people from tyranny over the course of the 20th century and up to the present day than any other nation in the history of the world. Think about what we did in World War I, World War II, throughout the Cold War. Just in this administration, we've liberated 50 million people from the Taliban in Afghanistan and from Saddam Hussein in Iraq, two terribly oppressive regimes that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of their own people.  For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously.  (my emphasis)

Trust us: if Dear Leader Bush ordered it, it doesn't count as torture.  Being conquered, bombed and it's-not-really-tortured by the  United States always counts as "liberation."

KING: They specifically said, though, it was Guantanamo. They compared it to a gulag.

D. CHENEY: Not true. Guantanamo's been operated, I think, in a very sane and sound fashion by the U.S. military. Remember who's down there. These are people that were picked up off the battlefield in Afghanistan and other places in the global war on terror. These are individuals who have been actively involved as the enemy, if you will, trying to kill Americans. That we need to have a place where we can keep them. In a sense, when you're at war, you keep prisoners of war until the war is over with.

We've also been able to derive significant amounts of intelligence from them that helped us understand better the organization and the adversary we face and helped us gather the kind of information that makes it possible for us to defend the United States against further attacks. And what we're doing down there has, I think, been done perfectly appropriately. I think these people have been well treated, treated humanely and decently.

Occasionally there are allegations of mistreatment. But if you trace those back, in nearly every case, it turns out to come from somebody who had been inside and been released by to their home country and now are peddling lies about how they were treated. (my emphasis)

Actually, the few who have been released from Guantanamo so far seem to be individuals for whom there is no identifiable reason at all to think they are terrorists, even with "evidence" extracted by prolonged torture.  The pro-torture wingnuts have been saying, well, look, Al Qaeda encourages its members to make up stories of abuse in prison, and Cheney is just using a variation of it.

And it makes a perfect closed circle, at least in the minds of torture advocates.  If they make accusations, you block any independent investigations.  That makes all allegations "unconfirmed."  If they are released due to lack of evidence  against them and they make allegations of torture, they're just following the terrorist playbook.  And, anyway, so what if they're tortured?  We only torture terrorists.  And, besides, if Bush has authorized it, it doesn't count as "torture."

We have only the word of people like Dick Cheney, the man who said in 2003 that Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq had "reconstituted" nuclear weapons, on which to rely for his claim that the people being imprisoned and tortured at Guantanamo and other stations of the gulag were people who were "trying to kill Americans."  Since this administration decided not to treat them as prisoners-of-war, and decided not to even hold the independent judicial reviews of their status as required by the Geneva Conventions, the lack of proof that would hold up in a legitimate judicial proceeding is extremely important.  And by using torture on such a large scale, the administration has made the liklihood of conviction in a legitimate legal process much smaller.

Dark Lord Cheney claims that the torture in Guantanamo has produced significant intelligence.  I'd like to see that claim verified by some genuinely independent investigation, as well.  Given Cheney's history on distorting intelligence, I find it rather hard to accept his word for it.

We do see this administration's famous message control on display in the statements of Cheney and Condi, Condi.  We're offended by the bad manners of Amnesty International.  The US loves human rights.  And besides, anybody the US tortured were terrorists who deserved what they got.  And don't forget, the Bush administration has "liberated 50 million people."  So what if a few nekkid prisoners have dogs turned loose on them to rip out chunks of their flesh?

I once saw an interview with Patrick Stewart, talking about a two-part episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which his character is subjected to prolonged torture.  He did research on how victims of torture react in order to make his portrayal as realistic as possible. Among other things, he studied cases of prisoners tortured by British soldiers in Northern Ireland.  He said that after that, the world looked like a much darker place.

This administration's torture policy, and their cynical public defenses of it, also make the world seem like a darker place.  And that's not an illusion.  That's a "reality-based " perception.

Amnesty International's report on the United States for 2004 is available online.