Noonan's Grace of Torture Murder - 2

This is history?

Upon occasion we review history to see if we are repeating mistakes recorded in history, or whether we have learned from bad mistakes by refusing to repeat them.

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog recently covered one bad mistake: torture by the U.S. government.

That history is documented in The Constitution Project's Detainee Report ("CPDR").

The CPDR is a comprehensife report which was recently released to the public (see On The Recent Condemnation of Torture and On The Recent Condemnation of Torture - 2).

That mistake of history seems like a no-brainer, but it is more complicated than that -- as shown by the post on today's date in 2009 concerning what journalists were saying about torture back then:

---

This morning on Morning Joe on MSNBC, Peggy Noonan came to work in the fashion of "the 1935 nice people of Germany".

Those masters of nattering pabulum that paved the path of Adolf Hitler with nice nattering nothingness until he was killing millions before they knew it.

I now call that nattering pabulum "the grace of torture murder".

Her type of nattering pabulum can softly purr out how wrong it would be to prosecute those who torture prisoners to death because of the grace of being nice to everyone.

Brain dead!

Professor Jonathan Turley has a handle on this madness:

For many people around the world, it is a sign of the decline of American moral leadership that we continue to debate whether the government should prosecute those involved the Bush torture program. Their confusion is understandable. Under our existing treaty obligations, we agreed to prosecute such crimes and we have prosecuted others for precisely the same acts for decades. The real question should be: Should the United States violate international law to shield individuals accused of war crimes? Our answer to that question will define or redefine this country for generations.

(Three Legal Truths, emphasis added). Noonan got tough and said that it could involve democrats so we can't do it. She says Cheney is out talking about it because he is afraid. Yes he is afraid. But then she says Cheney is afraid that the terrorists will attack us if we stop water boarding.

Brain dead!

Cheney is afraid he is going to be prosecuted for conspiracy to commit torture murder. Professor Jonathan Turley has another handle on this madness:

Notably, in the last few months, the many law professors who once defended the torture program have largely disappeared. The shrinking number of apologists for the Bush administration are left with largely political arguments in the face of three unassailable legal truths. First, waterboarding is torture. Second, torture is a war crime. Third, the United States is obligated to prosecute war crimes.

(Three Legal Truths, emphasis added). And so there it is.

The entire dialogue and reality is quite simple: the real United States of America will stand up and the world will deal with it accordingly.

---

The previous post in this series is here.