European Tribune - Community, Politics & Progress.

The US no longer even has a sense of shame

by IdiotSavant
Thu Sep 7th, 2006 at 10:38:49 AM EST

From No Right Turn - New Zealand's liberal blog:

We've known for some time that the US has been running a secret global gulag of "black prisons", where high-level detainees in the "war on terror" were disappeared and tortured. But the US has always had enough of a sense of shame to deny or at least try and obfuscate it. Until yesterday. In an address to the nation, US President George Bush admitted the existence of the secret prisons, even as he said that he would be transferring their victims to Guantanamo so that they could be prosecuted. In true fratboy fashion, he told the world of his crime, and effectively sneered "so what? What are you going to do about it?"

And let's be clear, this is a crime we are talking about - a war crime, to be precise. The US War Crimes Act criminalises grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. If the situation were reversed, and it was American soldiers who had been disappeared, kept incommunicado for five years, without even monitoring of their status by the ICRC, then you can bet that the US would be screaming about it. The same applies here. The US cannot demand one set of rules for its own troops, while classifying its enemies as a lesser class of being to whom those rules do not apply. But more importantly, the War Crimes Act also criminalises any violation of the Geneva Conventions' Common Article 3, which bars all "violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture" as well as "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment". And what has reportedly been done to those detained in the US's secret prisons certainly falls into the latter, and some of it into the former. Bush even gloats about this, talking about the CIA's "alternative set of procedures". According to the CIA, those procedures include beatings, stress positions, freezing, and waterboarding - the latter being a medieval torture technique in which people are repeatedly drowned until they talk. In the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, it also involved threatening his children, aged 7 and 9, to get him to talk.

Bush "justifies" this on the grounds that it is effective. I don't care whether it is effective or not - it is wrong. It is wrong to torture, it is wrong to disappear people, and it is wrong to threaten children and use them as weapons against their parents. That's what Saddam did. It's what the Nazis did. That is the moral company the US government is now keeping.

But what really worries me is the thought that rather than being repulsed by Bush's admission, the American people will welcome it. If that happens, it really will be a death knell for America's claim to be a beacon for freedom and human rights, and a blow against those ideals everywhere in the world.

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The US no longer even has a sense of shame | 32 comments (32 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

m (none / 1)

It's us doing it, so it's ok.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (jeromeguillet@yahoo.fr) on Thu Sep 7th, 2006 at 03:43:09 PM EST

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (4.00 / 2)

In the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, it also involved threatening his children, aged 7 and 9, to get him to talk.

One of the dark moments in the so-called war on terror, as I disclosed in the book, along with all the other stuff, is that we threatened Khalid Sheik Mohammed's children to get him to talk. According to those involved in that incident, he pretty much looked them straight in the eye and said, "Fine, they'll be in a better place with Allah." Once you threaten someone's children there's pretty much nowhere else to go in terms of building the kind of relationship where they at some point tell you things that you really need to hear.
Ron Suskind in "'We tortured an insane man'", Salon

Out of the Dark Age came the most magnificent thing we have in our society: the recognition that people can have a society without having a state.

by marco (cowannar at gmail punkt com) on Thu Sep 7th, 2006 at 03:54:29 PM EST

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (4.00 / 3)

I think many Americans do feel a sense of shame. A terrible how-do-we-get-out-of-this-mess feeling of abject humiliation.

But not this govt. Not these pitiless child monsters, these kids who grew up to take over the world cos their daddy bought it for them who never got to understand that hurting captive creatures for fun is just wrong. It does not make them powerful, it proves they are small.

A people are not a govt and should not be accountable for the actions of the egotistical megalomanics that democracy keeps serving us as some form of "choice".

I am not responsible for Thatcher or even Blair. The US is not responsible for Bush.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Thu Sep 7th, 2006 at 04:14:36 PM EST

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (none / 1)

Who is responsible for Bush?

Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Sep 7th, 2006 at 04:22:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (4.00 / 8)

If I were still a christian, my response would be that he is responsible for himself.

If I were still a hard leftist, I would say the public relations industry that runs our elections is to blame.

If I were an elitist, I'd blame rednecks and fundamentalists.

If I were a misanthrope, I'd blame Americans and note they get what they deserve.

you are the media you consume.

by MillMan (millguy at gmail) on Thu Sep 7th, 2006 at 06:09:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (none / 0)

Well, he's ultimately responsible for his own actions.

But who's responsible for making him the most powerful man on Earth?

Those who voted for him are responsible.

But what made them a majority?

Is it PR? Electoral manipulation? Propaganda?

And who made him a candidate in the first place?

And how about Congress? And the people who elected the Congresspeople who enable Bush?

And so on.

Even I am responsible at some level. Maybe I should have been more vocal when I was in the US about what I thought of Bush, in hopes of getting people to at least not vote for him at the risk of being insulted for poking my non-citizen nose where it doesn't belong. Maybe I should have endorsed Kerry, and been vociferous about it.

But, really, ultimately countries are responsible for who they put at the helm, or for whose policies, done in ther name, they don't resist by any means necessary.

I didn't vote for Aznar, but to some extent I must be responsible for him.

Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Sep 9th, 2006 at 06:09:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (4.00 / 3)

The American people including myself are responsible. Many of us have long fought this administration and are ashamed of its actions in our name. You can help us, and yourselves, by getting your governments to quit providing tacit support to these things that are being done. Many of us here really are trying. I know you of all people would not say that we are "merely" trying.

"I said, 'Wait a minute, Chester, You know I'm a peaceful man...'" Robbie Robertson

by NearlyNormal on Thu Sep 7th, 2006 at 09:02:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (4.00 / 3)

who is responsible for Bush? ummm, Rove?

or maybe the guy down the street from me with the Bush/Cheney bumpersticker on his H2?

or maybe Ran Prieur is right and responsibility is always multiplied, never divided. maybe we all are responsible for Bush.

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

by DeAnander (de_at_daclarke_dot_org) on Fri Sep 8th, 2006 at 01:51:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (4.00 / 3)

I think many Americans do feel a sense of shame. A terrible how-do-we-get-out-of-this-mess feeling of abject humiliation.

Remember, "There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

I was not responsible for Bush after 2000. But I feel responsible for Bush after 2004.

Out of the Dark Age came the most magnificent thing we have in our society: the recognition that people can have a society without having a state.

by marco (cowannar at gmail punkt com) on Thu Sep 7th, 2006 at 06:01:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (4.00 / 8)

The US is not responsible for Bush.

Inevitably we are. About half of us are moreso... Seriously, I can't tolerate blanket statements about the American people, because we are pretty diverse, but there are certainly many Americans responsible for the Bush regime. Someone voted for him. Somone funded him. Someone gave him the keys. Someone looked the other way. Someone pulled the strings.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. -Voltaire

by p------- on Thu Sep 7th, 2006 at 06:24:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (4.00 / 4)

Helen,

No one can get off the hook that easily, U.S., U.K. or whatever. Maybe you're responsible when, in your view, the U.K. government does well and not responsible otherwise. The U.S.-- its entire population (including myself) -- is responsible for Bush and the gangster regime in Washington, the entire U.K. is also responsible for Iraq. It is sad, and it is true. Do you see the people of the U.K. staging mass-protests day and night against the Iraq filth? Well, I don't. In fact, do so many Britons really care? The most extreme example is the feeling of collective responsibility of the German people for what happened in their not-too-distant past. Formally, few of them today bear actual responsibility, although many, many of them still feel it, however much they be may annoyed by the burden of their country's past. And Briton has a past, just as the U.S. does No, no one gets off the hook so easily.

by Quentin on Fri Sep 8th, 2006 at 05:40:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]

No shame (none / 0)

The kindest explanation for American apathy about torture and other all-American war crimes is that no American, except maybe Bush or Cheney, feels s/he has any power at all to affect the way we throw our might around the world. So what's the point of feeling shame?

An unkinder explanation is that we've all been complicit in building a culture in which you only feel shame if you're caught in a crime -- and even then only if you're caught by somebody with enough power to punish you.

Unfortunately, for the world and for Americans, that "somebody" doesn't exist for the U.S. Yet.

by Matt in NYC on Sat Sep 9th, 2006 at 05:43:28 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: No shame (none / 0)

I dread what would have to happen for someone to "punish" the US.

Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Sep 9th, 2006 at 06:02:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

I don't (none / 1)

The real tragedy about the "War" on Terror is that everyone has essentially accepted the Right's version of world "realities": that the only way to fight force is with a hundred times the force.

Here's an example of how Europe could punish the U.S. that would actually be quite benign -- and even good for the environment! Europe could ban all American military flights from its airspace until the U.S. hands over all the Americans who have violated the Geneva Conventions to the International Criminal Court. (For humanitarian reasons, you might make an exception for medical evacuation flights from Iraq to Germany.) And every European country could also insist that every single American non-military flight be subject to routine inspections when they land at Shannon or any of the other links in our Global Torture Conveyor Belt.

Another non-violent, positive approach: Germany, Italy and Sweden could get serious about prosecuting the Americans who kidnapped people from their own soil. This might seem a small step, but if you've been following the recent debate in the U.S. over Bush's proposed ex post facto torture and wiretapping authorization bill, you know that literally hundreds of American officials have been talking to their lawyers out of fear of future investigations. Unfortunately, however, the investigations they fear are at this point only going to be launched in the U.S. Imagine how much "punishment" they'd be suffering right now if Europe promised to do its share of investigating.

by Matt in NYC on Sat Sep 9th, 2006 at 02:34:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: I don't (none / 0)

I think the supine attitude of European governments on the CIA secret prison/rendition flight issue indicates that this is not going to happen. I wonder why. Is it because the military/secret service/government is complicit? What are European governments afraid of? What does the Bush administration have on them?

Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Sep 9th, 2006 at 03:20:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: I don't (none / 1)

until the U.S. hands over all the Americans who have violated the Geneva Conventions to the International Criminal Court.

under what legal basis? The ICC first has to conduct a preliminary investigation to determine whether or not crimes have been committed and whether or not the US is taking legal action against those responsible (obviously yes and mostly no, but procedures have to be followed, and they take time). Then they have to give the US a chance to take legal action on its own. If they flat out refuse then it goes back to the ICC, but if they agree and set up an investigatory process meant to go nowhere, the ICC still has to wait for it to become clear that the US criminal investigation is a sham. Altogether this could take years. And probably you'd get a new administration before it ended which could say it wanted to do the investigation seriously and the ICC would have to wait to see whether the new folks in DC were being sincere or not.

Another non-violent, positive approach: Germany, Italy and Sweden could get serious about prosecuting the Americans who kidnapped people from their own soil.

Of course the problem here was the degree of collaboration by local politicians and intelligence agencies. So that also means prosecuting themselves, which I suspect most of us here are fine with, but I'm not so sure about the European governments.

by MarekNYC on Sat Sep 9th, 2006 at 03:38:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: I don't (none / 0)

I know how the ICC works, and I agree that it would take a painfully long time. On the other hand, the years of anxiety these sadists would undergo would be a good punishment in itself. Plus their example might be a deterrent to others -- just as the fact that Kissinger doesn't dare travel abroad in his old age must cause Bushco some anxiety.

You're right, of course, that European governments have collaborated in all this. But that can change. Look at Argentina and Chile. We can pray that at least a few European countries will one day attain their level of civilization and respect for the rule of law.

by Matt in NYC on Sat Sep 9th, 2006 at 04:43:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (4.00 / 4)

Well...

Nicaraguan Contras. SOA. Vietnam. Subduing the Philippines uprising.

Call me cynical, but it wouldn't the first time that the US claim to be a beacon for freedom and human rights survived openly admitted policies against. (The same happened to European claims regarding being a beacon of "civilisation" in the time of prior empires, I note.)

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Thu Sep 7th, 2006 at 05:17:21 PM EST

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (none / 0)

Being cynical, I'm sure their excuse now would be the same that were made then. to whit some variation of "ya gotta break eggs to make an omelette".

It's interesting that some habits never die. The US govt is threatening Nicaragua over voting sandanista. I hope chavez can show them hope is not lost.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Fri Sep 8th, 2006 at 06:30:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (none / 1)

I wrote about using shame to combat the "authoritarian personality" on dKos the other day. My premise was that weak followers of an authoritarian movement could be pulled away if the movement itself was condemned by those with moral standing. Here's the link:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/9/4/17201/25419

(It must of struck a chord, it got "rescued").

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

by rdf (robert.feinman@gmail.com) on Thu Sep 7th, 2006 at 05:25:34 PM EST

no longer? puhhhleeeeezeeee! (4.00 / 2)

We are the only nation on earth that has used nuclear weapons on the civilian population of an enemy. Weapons of mass destruction. The USA. We. Us.

alohapolitics.com

by Keone Michaels on Thu Sep 7th, 2006 at 09:53:34 PM EST

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (4.00 / 3)

Today in the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson puts the simplest, most direct question anyone can ask about this matter: if the incarceration and interrogation methods employed at the secret U.S. prisons outside the U.S. were so in line with so-called American values and principles, why weren't the prisoners held in prisons in the U.S. itself, sparing the cooperating countries the inconvenience and embarrassment of having them in their territories? After all, as the U.S. was already a terrorist target, their presence there would not have placed the U.S. in any kind of unforeseen danger. And he gives the obvious answer: the practices which subject prisoners to soft/hard torture and which deprive them of legal rights would have been thoroughly trashed by any U.S. federal court.

Now the next question arises: presumably these practices are also illegal in the EU, so who is going claim responsibility for cooperation with the U.S. and who is going to be held to account. The answer: no one.

by Quentin on Fri Sep 8th, 2006 at 05:21:11 AM EST

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (none / 1)

If it turns out that Blair or any other member of the government has had a hand in transporting people to places where they have been tortured,or has provided sites for such. How could anything other than arrest andd trial happen to them

Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.

by ceebs (bunchofwankers (at) gmail (dot) com) on Fri Sep 8th, 2006 at 12:51:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (none / 1)

They could always exile themselves to the US.

Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Sep 8th, 2006 at 12:52:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (none / 0)

ask for political Asylum? on the grounds that we might persecute them?

wouldn't that just be so amusing

Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.

by ceebs (bunchofwankers (at) gmail (dot) com) on Fri Sep 8th, 2006 at 01:51:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (none / 0)

Afte all, the US does not recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC.

Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Sep 8th, 2006 at 04:20:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (none / 1)

and they haven't got quite round to ratifying the extradition treaty yet.

Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.

by ceebs (bunchofwankers (at) gmail (dot) com) on Sat Sep 9th, 2006 at 03:49:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (none / 1)

Yes, I read something about that when the Enron 3 were extradited to the US.

Special relationship...

Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Sep 9th, 2006 at 04:22:17 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (none / 0)

from what i remember, it's being heald up because there are a couple of US politicians who are concerned that Britain might use the treaty to extradite some Irish "freedom fighters"

Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.

by ceebs (bunchofwankers (at) gmail (dot) com) on Sat Sep 9th, 2006 at 06:31:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (none / 0)

That is rich.

Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Sep 9th, 2006 at 06:31:53 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (4.00 / 2)

days like these I seldom need reminding that irony is not a colour description like goldy or silvery

and that satire is not a French existentialist philosopher.

Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.

by ceebs (bunchofwankers (at) gmail (dot) com) on Sat Sep 9th, 2006 at 08:03:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The US no longer even has a sense of shame (none / 0)

You right!
But lets please remember that The Nazis and Saddam, Stalin and Pol-Pot, Ceasescu and Franco etc. never had the guts to qualify themselfs as democratic and defenders of freedom.
The US and the UK did it during the Indian wars, the Spanish war, the India and Burma uprising, the Boers war, the Vietnam war, the and during and after the end of WWII(until about 1950) in Germany.
What they are doing now is just what they all ways did against active enemies and civilian populations alike.
Nothing new!

by stefan on Fri Sep 8th, 2006 at 09:03:14 AM EST

The US no longer even has a sense of shame | 32 comments (32 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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