Bush's Feeble Torture Dodge
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
President Bush's attempt on Friday to bat down the renewed furor over his secretive and brutal interrogation policies was profoundly empty of meaning -- and utterly ineffective.
Bush once again denied that his administration has engaged in torture, even as more evidence emerged that he continues to sanction behavior that most people would call just that. He wrapped himself in the flag and mobilized the rhetorical straw men, but offered not one new reason why anyone should believe him.
It's worth parsing his words carefully. Here's the transcript of his remarks, inserted into what was originally supposed to be a briefing solely about the economy.
Bush: "There's been a lot of talk in the newspapers and on TV about a program that I put in motion to detain and question terrorists and extremists. I have put this program in place for a reason, and that is to better protect the American people. And when we find somebody who may have information regarding an -- a potential attack on America, you bet we're going to detain them, and you bet we're going to question them -- because the American people expect us to find out information -- actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That's our job."
Nobody, of course, is suggesting that the government shouldn't detain or interrogate legitimate terrorist suspects; the question is whether or not it should torture them -- an issue Bush then dealt with cursorily.
"Secondly, this government does not torture people. You know, we stick to U.S. law and our international obligations."
By now, Bush's insistence that "we don't torture" has become a perverse tautology: It doesn't mean that we don't torture; it just means that if we do it, he doesn't call it torture. (See Jon Stewart and John Oliver, quoted below.) And was Bush asserting some sort of hairsplitting distinction between obligations and laws?
(Continued here.)
Special to washingtonpost.com
President Bush's attempt on Friday to bat down the renewed furor over his secretive and brutal interrogation policies was profoundly empty of meaning -- and utterly ineffective.
Bush once again denied that his administration has engaged in torture, even as more evidence emerged that he continues to sanction behavior that most people would call just that. He wrapped himself in the flag and mobilized the rhetorical straw men, but offered not one new reason why anyone should believe him.
It's worth parsing his words carefully. Here's the transcript of his remarks, inserted into what was originally supposed to be a briefing solely about the economy.
Bush: "There's been a lot of talk in the newspapers and on TV about a program that I put in motion to detain and question terrorists and extremists. I have put this program in place for a reason, and that is to better protect the American people. And when we find somebody who may have information regarding an -- a potential attack on America, you bet we're going to detain them, and you bet we're going to question them -- because the American people expect us to find out information -- actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That's our job."
Nobody, of course, is suggesting that the government shouldn't detain or interrogate legitimate terrorist suspects; the question is whether or not it should torture them -- an issue Bush then dealt with cursorily.
"Secondly, this government does not torture people. You know, we stick to U.S. law and our international obligations."
By now, Bush's insistence that "we don't torture" has become a perverse tautology: It doesn't mean that we don't torture; it just means that if we do it, he doesn't call it torture. (See Jon Stewart and John Oliver, quoted below.) And was Bush asserting some sort of hairsplitting distinction between obligations and laws?
(Continued here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home