Bill Moyer's 'Extra' biased take on the Torture 'debate'

I lost count how many times everyone in the 'debate' agreed with each other. "Yes. Absolutely. Right. I agree." Is it possible that there are no Americans left who don't believe in torturing people anymore? Who think that we should forget about the past, and look to the future instead of carping on about "crimes" such as torture "might be"? Couldn't Moyers find anyone like John Yoo, Alberto Gonzales, or Barack Obama to add a taped comment or two about how such things hardly warrant being called crimes or even illegal? As much as I have criticized the Fox News Channel for such one sided debates, it would be heartening (but wrong) to think everyone agrees torture is wrong in America anymore. My recent guestimation of fourty million maximum who were "pro-torture" it seems was far below the numbers in recently polls, instead 40% to 60% of the population (up to 180 million). These numbers are far far above the 23% who identify with the Republican Party. Anyone else have a clue where this might be heading, especially since the spineless democrats will concede on this as with any other moral backbone issue?

Here are some good lines from the recent Bill Moyer's Journal's shamelessly biased "torture is bad" "debate". Boring and insightful as always. He did not even ask Mike Huckabee to contribute his favorite torture joke. So much for "fairness in broadcasting."



Emphasis my own in the following...

You have a political predicate being laid down by the former administration and by some Republicans now in office that essentially says, because these techniques have been stopped, if and when there's a second attack, it will be the fault of the new administration. That President Obama, in deciding not to torture, has left the country vulnerable to another attack. That is present politics. That's not about the past. That's about now. And that's why this has to be confronted, not only legally, because I agree with that. But politically, as well.

BRUCE FEIN: Mark, torture isn't a Republican or Democratic prohibition. We ratified the Convention against Torture in the Senate. We passed it and made it a crime. It's not a Republican or Democratic issue. Moreover, with regard to this idea of well, as long as we got good information, then we can flout the law. That's not how you do it in the United States. I've been around for 41 years. If you think the law is deficient, then we should have repealed the torture statute.

In fact, if it was so important to undertake waterboarding and torture, Cheney should be out there demanding that it be reinstituted. Because he still agrees that we've got Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda out there, wanting to plot and kill us.

MARK DANNER: But he is out there demanding it be reinstituted.

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MARK DANNER: We're talking about Watergate again, of course, because this was in the aftermath of Watergate. They uncovered all kinds of assassination attempts, C.I.A. wrongdoing. And, in fact, from that point on the President, who before would have basically said, "I didn't know about that." Henceforth, as a result of those hearings, the President had to sign a finding and say, "You know what? Do this. I order you to do this. I'm the President. This is legal."

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MARK DANNER: There's no question that there have been many times in American history when the United States is attacked, when it responds by breaking its own laws. You could cite the Palmer Raids, Korematsu, as you just did, the McCarthy period. You can cite a number of examples. But you asked why this is different. And I'll tell you what it seems to me is dramatically different. This was made legal, within the American Government. I say "made legal" with quotes. This was officially done. This was ordered by the President. The Department of Justice made memos saying you can do this. The principals, Attorney General, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, sat in meetings and talked about interrogations that were plainly illegal, according to our laws, and according to treaties we have signed.

All of it is now laid out before the public, and finally, if you look at Fox News, if you look at discussion of this — usually on the conservative side, not always, but usually on the conservative side — you find a strong attempt, basically, to say, "Not only should this stuff have been done, but we should not handcuff ourselves. We should keep doing it." So, we're talking about not simply what happened before. We're talking about the politics of now. And that's why it's important.

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MARK DANNER: And one should add, by the way, that this is vitally important not only because of what happened before, but because of what's going to happen after another attack. And we have to assume there will be another attack. And if the argument that torture is absolutely crucial to protect the country is accepted by the population, then in the wake of another attack, the politics, I think, are very likely to be extremely poisonous.

Blaming the current administration, because it didn't torture, and thus left the country vulnerable. So, we're talking about not simply the Bush Administration. We're talking about who we are, what we do in the world, how we fight this war, and what will happen in the wake of another attack that's very likely to come.

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MARK DANNER: You had-- tyrannies have a lot of experience with that. I'm not calling the U.S. a tyranny. But I'm saying, I agree, when you say that's the mark of a tyranny, you're completely correct. They did it secretly. But I think there are reasons, you know, there are reasons having to do with their attitude toward presidential power, which is why they didn't do what you're suggesting. Coming out and denouncing it. And I think that they should have done that.

BILL MOYERS: Anybody who expected there would be a diminution in the use and appropriation of executive power if Obama became President has to be disillusioned now.

BRUCE FEIN: Oh, yeah, absolutely-

BILL MOYERS: Because-- because he has expanded the powers of the Presidency in almost every direction, right?

BRUCE FEIN: Exactly.

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BRUCE FEIN: But Mark, let me just identify. These are the ways in which Obama has gone beyond Bush Cheney. Out in the FISA cases, he's argued not only state secrets, he says the Federal Government is absolutely immune. You can't even sue the federal government for violating the FISA. An argument that Cheney and Bush didn't even make.

The other thing with regards to the detainees. Two things. He said that we can avoid the Habeas Corpus, sending the prisoners to Bagram. There's no coverage, no -- law doesn't apply there. Secondly, he's just said, "I won't call them enemy combatants." But he's made the same arguments.

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BRUCE FEIN: The psychology of Empire's one that magnifies threats a million fold. Beyond what the real danger is to the United States. Because there's a compulsion, a psychic thrill, that comes from just being dominant, and not being controlled by anything. Once a country thinks it can live risk free, then it finds the tiniest kind of threat intolerable. And they will flout any law, send the military anywhere, to try to crush it.

They're like-- we're treating Pakistan like they're the next Soviet Red Army with three million people and ICBMs to come across the globe. And one of the things that I think needs to be fleshed out, if you can do it. Is the use of the-- now we're doing the drones. How does the C.I.A. target these people and kill them? How do they know they're getting the right people? And they're-- this antiseptic.

BILL MOYERS: They don't. They don't.

BRUCE FEIN: These are assassination squad. This is the equivalent of assassination squads by technology. They don't have any idea whether they're killing civilians or not. And we just say, "Okay, so what? We're the United States. It doesn't matter whether you're a little speck out there. If you-- if we think you might endanger us from 5,000 miles away, we can kill you.

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MARK DANNER: This is the great loophole--

BRUCE FEIN: The covert act.

MARK DANNER: -- the C.I.A. used to--

BRUCE FEIN: Called the Mosaddeq loophole.

MARK DANNER: The President-- exactly, Mosaddeq. It's how you did assassinations. Now, the Church Committee basically closed that loophole. And put us where we are now. Which is, we have documents that say, "Okay, you want to make things legal? We're gonna show that torture is legal." This is-- comes originally from that loophole. And that C.I.A. loophole is really the heart of the empire. It says that Presidential power, which should be circumscribed in our system, as Bruce says, and as I completely agree. In fact, can be expanded infinitely.

Why? Because in the Cold War. In the nation that the United States has become. This world-straddling empire. The President has to be able to order these things. Has to be able to circumvent the law. And in a sense, we are right where that loophole, in 1947, was going to leave us.

BILL MOYERS: But gentlemen, small nations torture. North Korea. Eastern Europe. Small nations. Which have no presumptions of empire. You know, it reminds me of the photographer in Tom Stoppard. Who says, "People do awful things to other people. But it's worse when it's done in the dark." Isn't-- aren't you talking about the darkness here?

BRUCE FEIN: But it's not only that Bill. I say, if we purport to continue to have a rule of law and a republic, we have to confront these things openly. Repeal the torture statute. And see whether-- will you-- will that withstand scrutiny? Are we gonna openly say, "Yes, we're torture. We're like the North Koreans. That's, it's-- it's different. It does make an enormous amount of difference whether you just try to-- close your eyes to what you have to confront or morally say, "I want to cross that Rubicon, I'm gonna do that."

I don't think the American people would say, "We don't want the torture statute. We want to revoke the-- the convention against torture. But if it happens, it happens. But at least it's done in the proper way. We the people remain sovereign. We know what we're doing. The secrecy is the most horrible thing there is. It means: "hey, we don't control our own destiny. We should have known-- Bill, you and me, should have been able to know what was happening, so we could register our political loyalties. "No, Mr. President, I'm gonna march-- I'm gonna vote against you, if I see that's going on." We didn't know what's going on.

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BRUCE FEIN: And the leaders have to say, "Hey, we gotta accept risk. It-- even if happens on my watch, I will accept the political penalty. If we're gonna remain free, we have to accept some risk. We're not gonna stoop to torture. We're not gonna rape women in order to get their husbands to confess. Because we would destroy the whole purpose of our country if we did that." Leaders have to change the psychology that you identified that's supporting the torture. And they aren't doing it. They are serving as human weather vanes, not-- not-