The Setup

No one really wants to go into Darfur. But the left likes to use it as an example of our immorality.

Obama’s been in office now 100 days, surely as a good lefty he should be making movement towards going in and fixing Darfur.

No. The left just likes to use Darfur as an example against the neocons. “They don’t care, or they’d be in Darfur stopping genocide instead of in Iraq where things were fine.”
Now that the left can decide who and who not to invade there is no way they are going in there.

Today we get the first step in the decision to NOT go to Darfur. The LATimes explains how many experts don’t think that what’s going on in Darfur is genocide. Even though both Bush and Clinton’s administrations said it was.

A misconception that hundreds of people are dying each day in Darfur has led many in the West to push for emergency security measures such as military intervention, U.N. peacekeepers and no-fly zones, and to overlook larger issues such as stalled peace talks and millions of people dependent on foreign aid, said Thierry Durand, director of operations for Doctors Without Borders.

“The magnitude of violence in Darfur has been huge, but it’s not genocide,” Durand said. “The situation on the ground has not been an emergency since 2004. The real problem is the dependency in the camps. But the whole thing has become over-politicized.”

We won’t be going into Darfur. I’m glad of that, but just wanted to share how this is going to work out in the mind of the left.

Obama and Sullivan

I noted the Churchill gaffe that President Obama made in his discussion about torture in the previous post.
Powerline notes that the President came up with the ‘fact’ that Churchill didn’t torture from none other than the famously fallen blogger Andrew Sullivan.

So imagine…..you are Andrew Sullivan and you KNOW that the new President is reading your stuff. Cool huh?

I’d be a nervous wreck checking and cross checking all facts and spelling. Making certain all the links work etc. Andrew? He goes ahead and posts (again) about his doubts on who’s baby Trig Palin really is! I wonder who he thinks the new baby Tripp belongs to? (no, I don’t really)

Torture

Torture

This subject keeps coming around with folks getting even holier than thou about it.

Der Spiegel claims in it’s little holier than thou message that in Germany it is against the law to even threaten to hurt anyone

A legal concept like “human dignity,” which makes it illegal in Germany to even threaten to use torture, is unknown in the United States.

Riiiight.

I suppose they also don’t bust down doors either.

Here’s another quote from Der Spiegel:

The issue seems straightforward enough. What the CIA did to prisoners on behalf of the administration of former US President George W. Bush and its appalling legal advisers during the so-called “war on terror” was torture. And torture is a serious crime, not just in the United States, but almost everywhere else in the world. The next steps seem obvious enough: indict the guilty and send them to prison, end of story. Why, as one European legal expert put it, would anyone need to think about it for four weeks? [as Obama has been doing]

The issue is straightforward enough ONLY because someone (Bush) decided to talk about it. What was done was discussed beforehand instead of quietly doing whatever behind closed doors. The Bush administration decided to put their heads together and unblur that incredibly blurry line about what exactly is torture.

None of it is pleasant to talk about, but if forcing someone to stand for 4 hours is torture, then what is pulling out teeth or cutting off limbs or electrocution?

What exactly is the definition? “Something that causes agony or pain”.
And what exactly is agony?? Vs discomfort or fear??

These terms are subjective. The UN Convention Against Torture:

torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted.

“Severe” What is that??

George W. Bush and his administration decided to delineate and talk about these terms. They determined that what they did was “enhanced” interrogation, and not torture.

Congress agreed. Pelosi agreed. It didn’t make it to the supreme court, but people who make the “law of the land” agreed.

What the last administration did was officially not torture.
Now that officialness has changed. There is a new law of the land. What was on the old list of enhanced interrogation is officially torture and we don’t torture. Ok.

I assume that now means officially there is no strong interrogation by secret people doing the work we’ve never really wanted to know about. Ok.

Will it work? We’ll see. I doubt that the world will love us more, but we’ll see.

Let’s play a game here. Let’s say that tomorrow scientists find out that embryos start to be cognizant and able to feel pain at the age of 3 months. And we now know that we don’t torture cognizant beings. Which means abortion after 3months along will be illegal. Does that also mean that anyone who had an abortion after 3months in the 2007 belongs in jail?

Of course not. That’s ridiculous. As is thinking that the Bush administration and especially Bush lawyers who work as advisors should be prosecuted.
And what’s even more ridiculous is that Europeans think they can do the prosecuting!!
Der Spiegel again:

The broadest level of involvement was among second-tier officials: government lawyers who broke the law by issuing opinions on the permissibility of “alternative” interrogation methods.

…..

torture is considered an international crime which can be prosecuted even if it is committed in another country. Citing this so-called principle of “universal jurisdiction,” Spanish prosecutor Baltasar Garzón has now sought the prosecution on criminal charges of six former US officials who are allegedly behind the torture scandal.

2 things….so now it’s illegal to “issue opinions” and what’s more, it’s so illegal that other countries claim “universal jurisdiction”.

The only reason this is discussed is BECAUSE Bush chose to talk about it and not hide behind the secrecy of secret agencies and BECAUSE we are clearly good guys. Sadaam was certainly never prosecuted by Garzón! Why??

Did Sadaam torture? Yep. Funny how there was no discussion about the rule of law when it dealt with him.

But because George Bush decided to be upfront and honest about the discussion of torture, the US is to give up it’s sovereignty and it’s abilities to create it’s own laws??

A ThinkingReed who is on the side of “torture is always wrong”
(And to him, and many others, enhanced interrogations are torture. which is a perfectly fine side to be on)
notes that this (torture) wasn’t discussed during the cold war like it is now. Even Reagan signed the convention against torture during that time. Then Lee notes that

Which is not to say torture never occurred, whether committed by us or our proxies. But was anyone publicly arguing that torture was the right thing to do?

Exactly. People didn’t talk about it. Bush worked to be honest about it.

Jonah Goldberg notes the Obama misinformation about Churchill and torture or lack thereof:

During the war, the Brits ran an interrogation center, “the Cage,” in one of London’s fanciest neighborhoods, where they worked over 3,573 captured Germans, sometimes brutally

How could a professor like Obama be so wrong? Because torture isn’t discussed in civilized society.

While Bush is getting jumped on for taking on this subject, people like Jon Stewart ever so flippantly just spout their idiocies without thought. It is worth the 17 minutes to listen to Bill Whittle give Mr. Stewart hell for Harry.

Please give it a watch because he’s a whole lot more coherent than I!

UPDATE: The links are fixed.