A Useless Appendage?

What does the human appendix have to do with Iraq, interrogations, and the U.S. Constitution? Quite a lot, it turns out.

Submitted for your fascination: Doctors just now think they have come up with the function of the appendix.

In a similarly fascinating story, the American executive branch just now claims it knows the function of the Geneva Conventions.

Which explanation do you want first?

Read the rest.

Two Georges on Torture

"Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner] ... I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause... for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country," - George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775.


“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 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.” - George W. Bush, Oct 5, 2007



[Hat tip: Darth Beckman]

State Secrets

The Supreme Court has terminated a lawsuit that alleges the CIA kidnapped and tortured a German man in a case of mistaken identity. The facts of the case are actually not as interesting as the grounds for its dismissal. The Bush Administration argues that allowed the suit to proceed would risk the exposure of important national secrets. There is legal precedent for this argument:

The state secrets privilege arose from a 1953 Supreme Court ruling that allowed the executive branch to keep secret, even from the court, details about a military plane's fatal crash.

Three widows sued to get the accident report after their husbands died aboard a B-29 bomber, but the Air Force refused to release it claiming that the plane was on a secret mission to test new equipment. The high court accepted the argument, but when the report was released decades later there was nothing in it about a secret mission or equipment.

This appears to be a legal principle that is, quite literally, built on lies. There was nothing to protect in the 1953 case. The government simply made up a story that was not true.

Whether the case at hand has any merit, I don't know. That's why we have courts - courts that are quite capable of protecting sensitive information from public view when necessary. It would be nice if we could simply trust the Bush Administration not to use this privilege to hide its crimes and mistakes. Any takers?

Saudis Release Terror Suspects

Here is a disturbing story. The U.S. recently transferred 55 suspected terrorists, all of them Saudi Arabian citizens, from the Guantanamo Bay facility and gave them back to Saudi authorities to be kept in prison there. Presumably the U.S. government received assurances that the prisoners would be kept securely locked up.

It seems that the Saudis have “temporarily” released all 55 to spend a Muslim holiday with their families. Furthermore, each prisoner was given $2,600 with which to celebrate. They are supposed to return to custody and eventually stand trial. We’ll see. I think there is reason to be dubious.

Now there are two possibilities here. Either:

• Our so-called allies, the Saudis, think it is well and good to let dangerous terrorists out to roam the streets, creating who knows what kind of problems, and the Bush Administration let itself be duped once again; or
• These 55 prisoners are actually not dangerous terrorists - as we are often told the residents of Guantanamo must be - and were being held by the U.S. under false or incorrect charges.

Neither scenario is particularly comforting.

Hat tip: Born at the Crest of the Empire

American Torture

Mark Shea unloads on the Rubber House Right, its supporters and defenders, in a long and colorfully illustrated post today.

It is a painful thing to face and I don't enjoy it any more than you do. But the facts are really quite plain. The reality is Abu Ghraib was not an isolated event. We have been torturing people in other facilities. What happened at Abu Ghraib was that some morons who loved their work thought it would be fun to take pictures and those pictures shocked the world. Naturally, the Bush Administration could not say, "Yeah! We support that!" Of *course* they repudiated it and made sure the lackeys got punished in order to distance the Administration from the awful press.

But the reality is that after Abu Ghraib, the Administration labored--intensely--to make sure that the abusive techniques used at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere would remain part of what the President calls his "tools" for fighting the War on Terror. You can read all about it here.

The White House response has been, I must be blunt, to lie through its teeth in the knowledge that it has broad support from a people that don't want to look too closely at what we are doing. Indeed, past polls have shown that Catholics have a higher rate of support for torture than the general population.

The lie is simple and plain: President Bush continue to look us in the eye and say “This government does not torture people.”

But the reality is, it does. Bush made certain of this by loading the Justice Department with toadies who gave him what he wanted:

In two separate legal opinions written in 2005, the Justice Department authorized the C.I.A. to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Note that word "including". This is not an exhaustive list. Much of the degrading stuff you saw at Abu Ghraib isn't even life-threatening, so it falls well below the threshhold of "torture" for this Administration's Justice Department, as far as we can tell. And when we speak of "simulated drowning" or what our Vice President lightly laughs off as "dunking" we are looking at prima facie evidence of the Administration's careful mendacity. [Source]

You must read the whole thing. The doubletalk we get from Bush defenders about this is astonishing. It boils down to "Torture is fine. We don't torture." Which is it? If there's nothing wrong with torture, why all the gymnastics denying that the U.S. does it? This bunch can't even keep its lies straight.

In the combox at Mark's post, someone asked a chilling question: is there any example any time in history of a government that tortured its enemies but not, eventually, its own citizens as well?