The Torture Apologia Chart

[lame54]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/torture-apologia-chart-by-batocchio-it.html

The Torture Apologia Chart

by batocchio

It can be difficult keeping up with all the torture apologist appearances and their BS du jour. Generally, they rotate through the same old long-debunked arguments, although occasionally they try out new lines of defense and attack. Some, like Clifford May on The Daily Show, try the "shotgun" approach combined with the style of a pushy car salesman – don't stop talking, talk over everybody else, change the subject if challenged, you-don't-buy-that-well-how-about-this, what can I do today to get you in the seat of amnesty for war criminals, friend?

Typical of torture apologists, it's a disingenuous performance that makes much more sense if one realizes he's arguing from a conclusion, not larger principles - don't prosecute or investigate any of the culprits. Because of this, torture apologists frequently offer extremely convoluted and even contradictory arguments. As I've written before, their defenses normally fit into a pattern of descending denials: We did not torture; waterboarding is not torture; even if it is torture, it was legal; even if it was illegal, it was necessary; even if it was unnecessary, it was not our fault. Leading torture apologist David Rivkin has argued both that waterboarding isn't torture and conceded that it is - with different audiences. Scott Horton recently highlighted some of the contradictions in Dick Cheney's big "I saved the country through torture" speech (and several other sites picked up on another key Cheney inconsistency). Meanwhile, Dahlia Lithwick captured this dynamic beautifully with Lindsay Graham at the Senate hearings on prisoner abuses in May:

All morning, Graham clings to the argument that he believes in the rule of law. And as he does so, he explains that the lawbreaking that happened with respect to torture: a) wasn't lawbreaking, b) was justifiable lawbreaking, c) was lawbreaking done with the complicity of congressional Democrats, d) doesn't matter because al-Qaida is terrible, or e) wouldn't be lawbreaking if the Spanish police were doing it.


These contortions would be merely comical if it weren't for the extraordinary damage done, and the Beltway pundit consensus that no one should be held accountable. And the more torture apologists can muddy the waters and confuse the public, the more likely they can prevent a full investigation and possible criminal trials, and the less likely they will be forced to offer the same weak defenses in court.

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[tekisui]

2. knr!~

[gratuitous]

3. Your honor, my goat did not eat my neighbor's flowers

First of all, I don't have a goat.

Okay, if I do have a goat, my neighbor doesn't have flowers.

Okay, if my neighbor does have award-winning roses, my goat didn't eat them.

Okay, if I have a goat, and my neighbor does have flowers, and my goat ate them, it's because the goat was insane.

I am therefore innocent of all accusations!

The last paragraph in the original post is the moneymaker for me: A full investigation with criminal trials of the wrong-doers will go a long way toward establishing legality, necessity, and culpability far more effectively than the current minstrel show where we have perpetrators of crimes against humanity, blood dripping from their hands and mouths, explaining how they haven't done anything wrong.

[Dragonfli]

6. LOL love the parable!

:rofl:

[Occam Bandage]

9. I never borrowed your lawnmower,

it was broken when you gave it to me, and either way I gave it back to you after I finished mowing my lawn with it.

[lame54]

10. can't argue with that

[snot]

4. i'd like to see something similar for our invasion of iraq.

Because the bottom line was, not only did they have WMD, but was their use so likely and so imminent that we could not afford even to wait the few months needed to allow the UN inspectors to complete their task?

[lame54]

8. left out the word not

[Dragonfli]

5. K&R - Because rule of law is supposed to be more than a slogan

If the "good guys" don't get that then they aren't that good to begin with (apologetics anyone?).

[Eyerish]

7. K&R nt

[pleah]

11. K&R

[pleah]

12. dupe/glitch

[myrna minx]

13. K&R n/t

[sam kane]

14. wow. nt.

nt.

[Wednesdays]

15. K&R

:kick:

[ColbertWatcher]

16. Oh, that's beautiful. n/t

[Kaleko]

17. Brilliant. Almost a work of art.

[Senator]

18. K&R

[lame54]

19. .