Past Is Now Prologue

Please allow me to contribute to the left-wing echo chamber as our government now descends into “Amerifascism” with the passage in the House of Bush’s “terrorist detainee bill.”

(Frank Luntz had to come up with that expression, by the way. “Detainee” sounds a bit like someone asked to remove too many articles of clothing before passing through security and boarding a plane. It doesn’t really describe someone subject to methods such as a “belly slap” that doesn’t show physical damage, sleep deprivation, light and dark manipulation, and “water boarding” that simulates drowning.)

Even if this madness had resulted in convictions or acquisition of knowledge to prevent further terrorist attacks (and it hasn’t – if anything, this has had the opposite result), it is still reprehensible on its face because, by denying habeas corpus rights, it violates the legal protection that should be ensured to any alleged terrorist or “enemy combatant” in accordance with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions (which Bushco can’t arbitrarily ignore when it feels like it).

And by the way, as he does on so many other issues, Patrick Murphy gets it (hat tip to Atrios).

I happened to come across this Wikipedia link about Pierre Vidal-Naquet (pictured), a French historian whose Jewish father was tortured by the Nazis in World War II, though he spoke out against the use of torture by the French army in the Algerian War (1954-1952). I’m mentioning this partly because Trudy Rubin of the Inquirer has compared our invasion of Iraq with this conflict (a colonial power inflicting its will on a Muslim population and dealing with the horrific consequences, though I don’t mean to imply that either side was blameless…the final casualty count when the war was over was approximately 300,000). Vidal-Naquet died in July of this year.

I think one of the reasons why his story is important is that it is a cautionary lesson for us now and especially for those who will inherit the consequences of this present mess and those yet unseen who will come after us. Just because this man had a French name and much of his life had to do with a period that is often relegated to the dustbin of history does not mean that his story is no longer relevant.

For with this precedent, our nation will now feel emboldened to violate the sovereignty of other countries yet again, perhaps to the point where émigrés will arrive on our shores one day whose family members may be victims of our actions, though these émigrés may yet grow up and educate others, perhaps in a college like Vidal-Naquet, as to the violent oppression of their own government (and I’m sure the great grandson or granddaughter of David Horowitz will be around to scream about “liberal bias”).

The pillars of our democracy are being destroyed before our very eyes (and as Atrios pointed out, the three senators who “opposed” this – McCain, Graham, and Warner – ended up marching in lockstep with this in the end).

I will never advocate violence against our government, even in opposition to this, nor do I believe anyone else should who loves this country.

There’s only one way we can do anything about this, and we can sum that up in nine words (and though they are imperfect, they aren’t behind any of this):

For God Sake, Support And Vote For The Democrats!

Update: At least Amnesty International is standing up on this (I'm going to try and find out who the 34 Democratic House Reps are who said torture is OK).