Normalizing thuggery

Wednesday Bush admitted that the United States has secret CIA facilities around the world used to keep “terrorists” prisoner. He also reiterated that the US does not torture people. If that is the case, one has to wonder why back in January when the congress passed a law banning torture; Bush signed it and then issued a caveat saying that he would not have to abide by the law he just signed. The Washington Post wrote,

“On Friday, in signing the ban on torture, Bush issued a ''signing statement," saying he would interpret the restrictions in the context of his broader constitutional powers as commander in chief. A ''signing statement" is an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.

A senior administration official later confirmed that the president believes the Constitution gives him the power to authorize interrogation techniques that go beyond the law to protect national security. But in enacting the law, Congress intended to close every loophole and impose an absolute ban on all forms of torture, no matter the circumstances, Graham said.”

How can anybody who signs something into law and then declares that the law only applies when its convenient, have any credibility with the people?

Now he has admitted what the world has known for a couple of years that the CIA operates “black” spots across the globe. Human rights watchers have suspected for quite a while that the United States has been keeping detainees in former Soviet, Eastern European nations like Romania.

Why would the United States need to use former eastern bloc nations like Romania to house detainees when there are traditional allies all over Europe?

It seems fairly simple to me that places like Romania, where communism only recently fell, would be a lot more accommodating when it comes to things like disregarding Geneva conventions and allowing torture. Ceausescu may be deposed, but his minions and the whole police state apparatus are probably not too far removed, after all, old habits die hard and it hasn’t even been a generation since the revolution. Not to mention the fact that the fledgling government would like to do anything possible to curry favor with the U.S.

The inevitable consequences of such a policy make me shudder. This is our new best friend, Romania?! The whole ex-eastern bloc part of the world, rampant with organized crime and a thousand year history of tribal feuds, not to mention Soviet gerrymandering, just makes the whole region a basket case. Criminals and thugs run the show, maybe that’s the kind of people the Bush administrations likes to cozy up to. It seems so.

If that is the case, then so be it, but if the war on terrorism is so critical that the United States needs to consort with criminal gangs, corrupt governments, and resort to torture and kidnapping then, haven’t we become the very thing we purport to be combating?

Rene van der Linden, president of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly said on Wednesday,

“Kidnapping people and torturing them in secret, however tempting the short-term gain may appear to be, is what criminals do, not democratic governments,

"In the long term, such practices create more terrorists and undermine the values we are fighting for," he said. - AP

I think he hit the nail on the head. Although the American ideal is basically just an abstraction not really based in reality, it is an ideal none the less. Our ideals and image of ourselves, no matter how far fetched, go to the core of our civilization. When we think, act, behave and associate with thugs, we become thugs in reality. Any notion of high minded ideals and morality cannot coincide with a gangster mentality.

So when our leaders rationalize repugnant activity and claim it is for the benefit of our safety, we are intellectually and culturally diluted. Bad behavior becomes the norm because it is tolerated at the highest level.

We were constantly reminded by Republicans that Clinton’s peccadilloes while in office were setting a low moral standard for impressionable American kids. This has borne out, mostly, to be true. Why should it be any different now?