Christopher Hitchens, who doesn't believe in God or waterboarding as torture, has just cut his list in half after undergoing an aquatic experience (it wasn't baptism) on assignment from Vanity Fair.
After airily dismissing the difference between "extreme interrogation" and "outright torture," Hitchens was challenged to see for himself and, writers being as they are, agreed to do so if the experience yielded a magazine article. He did, and it did, in the current issue under the title, "Believe Me, It's Torture."
For those who want to read about and see a video of how far a portly 59-year-old man with phobias about drowning will go for money and attention, it's all there on the magazine's web site.
Meanwhile, any editor with an idea of how to test the existence of the Deity can be in touch with Hitchens as soon as he catches his breath.
Showing posts with label waterboarding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label waterboarding. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Democracy at Work
Our taxpayer dollars were spent yesterday embarrassing Larry Craig and humiliating Roger Clemens by people who are siphoning off millions of it to reelect new members of their own party.
That snapshot of Congress comes from the lead items on the website of The Hill, which chronicles the workings of our government:
"The Senate Ethics Committee publicly admonished Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) late Wednesday for attempting to use his public office to get out of his arrest last summer in a Minneapolis airport restroom sting..."
"Roger Clemens, the New York Yankees’ star pitcher, had barely taken his seat Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee when Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) stunned an already tense hearing into near silence...'Someone isn’t telling the truth,' said Waxman in his opening statement in a hearing that lasted most of the day..."
"Democratic leaders have sent tens of millions of dollars to freshman lawmakers’ districts in hope of protecting the party’s newfound majority..."
There was other news, too:
"President Bush on Wednesday signed the $152 billion stimulus package that he hopes will jump-start the economy in the coming months..."
"Congressional Democrats headed into another clash with President Bush over torture as the Senate cleared a bill Wednesday to force spy agencies to comply with the military’s ban on waterboarding and other harsh techniques..."
"A House committee is expected to vote soon on a program that would allow Hill staff working late to take taxis home and have the cab fares paid out of office expenses..."
It's good to know that our elected representatives are hard at work.
That snapshot of Congress comes from the lead items on the website of The Hill, which chronicles the workings of our government:
"The Senate Ethics Committee publicly admonished Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) late Wednesday for attempting to use his public office to get out of his arrest last summer in a Minneapolis airport restroom sting..."
"Roger Clemens, the New York Yankees’ star pitcher, had barely taken his seat Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee when Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) stunned an already tense hearing into near silence...'Someone isn’t telling the truth,' said Waxman in his opening statement in a hearing that lasted most of the day..."
"Democratic leaders have sent tens of millions of dollars to freshman lawmakers’ districts in hope of protecting the party’s newfound majority..."
There was other news, too:
"President Bush on Wednesday signed the $152 billion stimulus package that he hopes will jump-start the economy in the coming months..."
"Congressional Democrats headed into another clash with President Bush over torture as the Senate cleared a bill Wednesday to force spy agencies to comply with the military’s ban on waterboarding and other harsh techniques..."
"A House committee is expected to vote soon on a program that would allow Hill staff working late to take taxis home and have the cab fares paid out of office expenses..."
It's good to know that our elected representatives are hard at work.
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Torturing Questions
News today that members of Congress, including Nancy Pelosi, failed to protest when they were briefed about waterboarding and other harsh techniques of interrogation five years ago recalls the disturbing Milgram experiments of the 1960s.
A Yale professor wanted to find out how much pain people would inflict on others for what they believed to be a good cause.
"Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' strongest moral imperatives against hurting others," Prof. Stanley Milgram reported, "and, with the subjects' ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation."
We still don't know the answer to that question, which was originally raised in an effort to see behind the Eichmann defense for Nazi atrocities during World War War II, "I was only following orders." But we should keep trying to find out.
Today's revelation about waterboarding further underscores how dicey individual morality can become under social pressure. According to the Washington Post, "officials present during the meetings described the reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support.
"'Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing,' said [Porter] Goss, who chaired the House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA director from 2004 to 2006. 'And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement.'"
All this is clearly intended to relieve pressure on the Administration for its secrecy, including the destruction of torture tapes, but if involving lawmakers clears the air of some holier-than-thou posturing, it doesn't absolve anyone or lessen the need to move forward in the public debate on what kind of people we are and want to be.
What Stanley Milgram wrote in 1974, looking back on his experiments, might be as good a place as any to start:
"There was a time, perhaps, when people were able to give a fully human response to any situation because they were fully absorbed in it as human beings. But as soon as there was a division of labor things changed. Beyond a certain point, the breaking up of society into people carrying out narrow and very special jobs takes away from the human quality of work and life. A person does not get to see the whole situation but only a small part of it, and is thus unable to act without some kind of overall direction. He yields to authority but in doing so is alienated from his own actions.
"Even Eichmann was sickened when he toured the concentration camps, but he had only to sit at a desk and shuffle papers. At the same time the man in the camp who actually dropped Cyclon-b into the gas chambers was able to justify his behavior on the ground that he was only following orders from above. Thus there is a fragmentation of the total human act; no one is confronted with the consequences of his decision to carry out the evil act. The person who assumes responsibility has evaporated. Perhaps this is the most common characteristic of socially organized evil in modern society."
As today's furor over torture goes on, it might help to think about that.
A Yale professor wanted to find out how much pain people would inflict on others for what they believed to be a good cause.
"Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' strongest moral imperatives against hurting others," Prof. Stanley Milgram reported, "and, with the subjects' ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation."
We still don't know the answer to that question, which was originally raised in an effort to see behind the Eichmann defense for Nazi atrocities during World War War II, "I was only following orders." But we should keep trying to find out.
Today's revelation about waterboarding further underscores how dicey individual morality can become under social pressure. According to the Washington Post, "officials present during the meetings described the reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support.
"'Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing,' said [Porter] Goss, who chaired the House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA director from 2004 to 2006. 'And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement.'"
All this is clearly intended to relieve pressure on the Administration for its secrecy, including the destruction of torture tapes, but if involving lawmakers clears the air of some holier-than-thou posturing, it doesn't absolve anyone or lessen the need to move forward in the public debate on what kind of people we are and want to be.
What Stanley Milgram wrote in 1974, looking back on his experiments, might be as good a place as any to start:
"There was a time, perhaps, when people were able to give a fully human response to any situation because they were fully absorbed in it as human beings. But as soon as there was a division of labor things changed. Beyond a certain point, the breaking up of society into people carrying out narrow and very special jobs takes away from the human quality of work and life. A person does not get to see the whole situation but only a small part of it, and is thus unable to act without some kind of overall direction. He yields to authority but in doing so is alienated from his own actions.
"Even Eichmann was sickened when he toured the concentration camps, but he had only to sit at a desk and shuffle papers. At the same time the man in the camp who actually dropped Cyclon-b into the gas chambers was able to justify his behavior on the ground that he was only following orders from above. Thus there is a fragmentation of the total human act; no one is confronted with the consequences of his decision to carry out the evil act. The person who assumes responsibility has evaporated. Perhaps this is the most common characteristic of socially organized evil in modern society."
As today's furor over torture goes on, it might help to think about that.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Party of Punishers
The Republicans talked a lot tonight about penalizing people--illegal immigrants, women and doctors who abort babies, gays in the military, Islamic extremists--anybody who makes them feel unsafe or uncomfortable or challenges their vision of a homogenous, God-fearing, heavily armed America.
Mitt Romney wouldn't say no to waterboarding but said yes to Guantanamo. Only John McCain and Mike Huckabee on the death penalty made passing references to human decency in any form, although Huckabee was ready to put Hillary Clinton on the first rocket to Mars.
There was no discussion of health insurance, education, the environment or any other issues that involve American society caring for the young, the weak and the helpless. The main Republican concern for members of future generations was about preserving them in utero and avoiding government spending that would create debt for them as taxpayers.
The '08 battle lines between the parties have been drawn. Republicans will play on voters' fears as opposed to their hopes, on shutting out Others rather than caring for them. Judging from tonight's performance, they have the right candidates to push their agenda.
Mitt Romney wouldn't say no to waterboarding but said yes to Guantanamo. Only John McCain and Mike Huckabee on the death penalty made passing references to human decency in any form, although Huckabee was ready to put Hillary Clinton on the first rocket to Mars.
There was no discussion of health insurance, education, the environment or any other issues that involve American society caring for the young, the weak and the helpless. The main Republican concern for members of future generations was about preserving them in utero and avoiding government spending that would create debt for them as taxpayers.
The '08 battle lines between the parties have been drawn. Republicans will play on voters' fears as opposed to their hopes, on shutting out Others rather than caring for them. Judging from tonight's performance, they have the right candidates to push their agenda.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Making Do With Mukasey
An old saying, "The perfect is the worst enemy of the good enough," comes to mind in the Senate struggle over the nomination of Michael Mukasey to replace Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General.
As the best choice we are likely to get from the Bush thugs who trashed the Justice Department, his confirmation would make more sense than holding it up with a prolonged debate over the legality of torture. That question can be settled by a Congressional vote to ban it.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, in a New York Times Op Ed today, points out, "There is virtually universal agreement, even from those who oppose Judge Mukasey, that he would do a good job in turning the department around."
Schumer adds: "Judge Mukasey’s refusal to state that waterboarding is illegal was unsatisfactory to me and many other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Congress is now considering--and I hope we will soon pass-- a law that would explicitly ban the use of waterboarding and other abusive interrogation techniques. And I am confident that Judge Mukasey would enforce that law."
As compromises go, this is far from the worst in recent memory. At the risk of re-opening old wounds, we might recall the purists who voted for Ralph Nader over Al Gore in 2000 and gave us George Bush and this mess, among so many others.
As the best choice we are likely to get from the Bush thugs who trashed the Justice Department, his confirmation would make more sense than holding it up with a prolonged debate over the legality of torture. That question can be settled by a Congressional vote to ban it.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, in a New York Times Op Ed today, points out, "There is virtually universal agreement, even from those who oppose Judge Mukasey, that he would do a good job in turning the department around."
Schumer adds: "Judge Mukasey’s refusal to state that waterboarding is illegal was unsatisfactory to me and many other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Congress is now considering--and I hope we will soon pass-- a law that would explicitly ban the use of waterboarding and other abusive interrogation techniques. And I am confident that Judge Mukasey would enforce that law."
As compromises go, this is far from the worst in recent memory. At the risk of re-opening old wounds, we might recall the purists who voted for Ralph Nader over Al Gore in 2000 and gave us George Bush and this mess, among so many others.
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