When Life Duplicates Art...
...or, WTF?
What stuns me is that the current regime is now so arrogant that they don't even pretend to be part of a truly representative form of government. What depresses me is that the US press is too scared or too stupid to point this out. What brought this home to me (yet again) was my usual weekend foray to Watching America. Today, it's an article from the German Die Zeit. The article was published March 15, 2006 and describes a press event in which a State Department official spoke via a big screen television to journalists gathered for the event.
This past Monday [13 March], the U.S. government invited journalists to a special event at the Consulate. John B. Bellinger, Legal Advisor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, would explain the framework of U.S. prisoner policy and give his views on accusations of torture at Guantanamo, specifically those recently raised by Vienna human rights lawyer Manfred Nowak while on assignment for the U.N. His report discussed degrading treatment and the reluctance of U.S. authorities to submit to international oversight....
PRISONERS OF WAR?
Bellinger had up to now avoided this expression. He speaks of "unlawful combatants who don't reveal themselves as soldiers, and, ignoring the laws of war, turn their weapons against us." Thus international law doesn't apply to these "individuals," and they can't simply be brought up before courts as "these human rights attorneys" demand. They need to be kept in custody until the "War on Terror" is over. "I and we, the nation" says Bellinger "must redefine the law in relation to these 'individuals' to protect America and the world."
And torture? Two U.S. Defense Department memorandums from 2002 and 2003 list the interrogation methods that are explicitly permitted: "Withdrawal of light and acoustic stimulation;" "removal of all eating utensils" "shaving of the beard;" "the withdrawal of clothing;" "interrogations lasting more than 20 hours;" "the use of phobias, for example of dogs;" "the use of extreme temperatures;" "changing the environment to create mild anxiety;" "modifying sleep schedules;" "isolation;" "interrogations with a hood on the head." Isn't that torture, Mr. Bellinger?
No, he says, straightening the part in his hair, the law should be read more precisely. Torture lies primarily in the infliction of "irreparable physical injury" as a result of interrogation. In addition, these memoranda are quite old.
...No, the "open discussion" that Bellinger had promised is not happening here in this Orwellian scene. One of the highest-ranking lawyers in the administration flickers across the TV screen and describes the legal criticism raised by Europe, the U.N. and other well-known human rights organizations as simply "incorrect," "completely false," or "manipulative."
This is not a misunderstanding, but a conflict of legal cultures. There is clear disagreement on whether people can be held in jail without due process, without charge, treated in a degrading way and interrogated.
After an hour, Bellinger took his leave of the journalists who had tuned in from Cologne, Berlin and Hamburg. He would be pleased, he said, to one day get to know all of the journalists. Then the screen went black. While taking his leave, a consular official comments on his impression of the discussion: "The Europeans still think they're living before 9/11." [Emphasis added]
The scene described in the article so closely paralleled Orwell's dystopian novel that it simply could not have been a coincidence.
Chilling. Chilling and frightening.
What stuns me is that the current regime is now so arrogant that they don't even pretend to be part of a truly representative form of government. What depresses me is that the US press is too scared or too stupid to point this out. What brought this home to me (yet again) was my usual weekend foray to Watching America. Today, it's an article from the German Die Zeit. The article was published March 15, 2006 and describes a press event in which a State Department official spoke via a big screen television to journalists gathered for the event.
This past Monday [13 March], the U.S. government invited journalists to a special event at the Consulate. John B. Bellinger, Legal Advisor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, would explain the framework of U.S. prisoner policy and give his views on accusations of torture at Guantanamo, specifically those recently raised by Vienna human rights lawyer Manfred Nowak while on assignment for the U.N. His report discussed degrading treatment and the reluctance of U.S. authorities to submit to international oversight....
PRISONERS OF WAR?
Bellinger had up to now avoided this expression. He speaks of "unlawful combatants who don't reveal themselves as soldiers, and, ignoring the laws of war, turn their weapons against us." Thus international law doesn't apply to these "individuals," and they can't simply be brought up before courts as "these human rights attorneys" demand. They need to be kept in custody until the "War on Terror" is over. "I and we, the nation" says Bellinger "must redefine the law in relation to these 'individuals' to protect America and the world."
And torture? Two U.S. Defense Department memorandums from 2002 and 2003 list the interrogation methods that are explicitly permitted: "Withdrawal of light and acoustic stimulation;" "removal of all eating utensils" "shaving of the beard;" "the withdrawal of clothing;" "interrogations lasting more than 20 hours;" "the use of phobias, for example of dogs;" "the use of extreme temperatures;" "changing the environment to create mild anxiety;" "modifying sleep schedules;" "isolation;" "interrogations with a hood on the head." Isn't that torture, Mr. Bellinger?
No, he says, straightening the part in his hair, the law should be read more precisely. Torture lies primarily in the infliction of "irreparable physical injury" as a result of interrogation. In addition, these memoranda are quite old.
...No, the "open discussion" that Bellinger had promised is not happening here in this Orwellian scene. One of the highest-ranking lawyers in the administration flickers across the TV screen and describes the legal criticism raised by Europe, the U.N. and other well-known human rights organizations as simply "incorrect," "completely false," or "manipulative."
This is not a misunderstanding, but a conflict of legal cultures. There is clear disagreement on whether people can be held in jail without due process, without charge, treated in a degrading way and interrogated.
After an hour, Bellinger took his leave of the journalists who had tuned in from Cologne, Berlin and Hamburg. He would be pleased, he said, to one day get to know all of the journalists. Then the screen went black. While taking his leave, a consular official comments on his impression of the discussion: "The Europeans still think they're living before 9/11." [Emphasis added]
The scene described in the article so closely paralleled Orwell's dystopian novel that it simply could not have been a coincidence.
Chilling. Chilling and frightening.
posted by Diane at 9:40 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home