Greenwald: Ronald Reagan: vengeful, score-settling, Hard Left ideologue

[Fumesucker]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/01/shifts/

This is a perfect illustration of how severely our political spectrum has shifted in the last two decades and how depraved and extremist our political and media classes have become:

Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, today: "When to Torture":

Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb. . . . The second exception to the no-torture rule is the extraction of information from a high-value enemy in possession of high-value information likely to save lives. . . .

Some people, however, believe you never torture. Ever. They are akin to conscientious objectors who will never fight in any war under any circumstances, and for whom we correctly show respect by exempting them from war duty. But we would never make one of them Centcom commander. Private principles are fine, but you don't entrust such a person with the military decisions upon which hinges the safety of the nation. It is similarly imprudent to have a person who would abjure torture in all circumstances making national security decisions upon which depends the protection of 300 million countrymen.

Ronald Reagan, May 20, 1988, transmitting the Convention Against Torture to the Senate for ratification:

The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.

Convention Against Torture, signed and championed by Ronald Reagan, Article II/IV:

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture. . . Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law.

Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, April 29, 2009:

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified.

More at the link..

Note to mods, these are mostly quotes of quotes, if I need to cut it I will..

[Fumesucker]

1. A little more..

The views that Ronald Reagan not only advocated, but signed a treaty compelling the U.S. to adhere to, are ones that are now -- in the view of our dominant media narrative -- the hallmarks of The Hard Left: torture is never justified; there are "no exceptional circumstances" justifying it; it must be declared to be a serious criminal offense ; and -- most of all -- the U.S., as Ronald Regan put it, "is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution." Reagan's explicit view that the concept of "universal jurisdiction" permits signatory nations (such as Spain) to prosecute torturers from other countries (such as the U.S.) is now considered so fringe that it's almost impossible to find someone in mainstream American debates willing to advocate it.

If you now believe about torture and prosecutions exactly what Ronald Reagan advocated in 1988 -- or what Israel today advocates -- then, according to our establishment narrative, you are, by definition, a member of the Hard Left. And nobody who believes what Reagan advocated could possibly, in Krauthammer's words today, be entrusted with national security decisions. We've gone from Reagan's "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever . . . may be invoked as a justification of torture" and "Each State Party is required [] to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory" to the moral depravity of the Charles Krauthammers' explicit endorsement of torture and the virtually unanimous view of political and media elites that advocating criminal prosecutions for those who torture is confined to the vengeful, leftist masses.

[EFerrari]

2. Reagan signed the convention and continued to torture with impunity.n/t

[Fumesucker]

3. Greenwald covers that a little later..

It's certainly true that Reagan, like most leaders, regularly violated the principles he espoused and sought to impose on others, but still, there is an important difference between (a) affirming core principles of the civilized world but then violating them and (b) explicitly rejecting those principles. Doing (a) makes you a hypocrite; doing (b) makes you a morally depraved barbarian. We're now a country where the leading "intellectuals" of the conservative movement expressly advocate torture on the pages of The Washington Post, and where most of the political and media class mocks as Far Leftism what Ronald Reagan explicitly advocated and bound the U.S. by treaty to do: namely, "prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution."

[The Magistrate]

4. Krauthammer, Sir, Truly Is a Toad

Torture of prisoners is a crime, under U.S. and international law, and the wretch knows it. Crime is never permissible. His opening here has about as much validity as the following adjustment to it:

Pushing a man in a wheel-chair down a flight of steps is an impermissible evil. Except in two circumstances. The first is when he is being a total, absolute tool, and making you very, very angry. The other is when you know he is about to be a total, absolute tool, and you just cannot stand the prospect of it one more time."

[Fumesucker]

7. You malign toads, Sir..

Toads are useful creatures that help keep the ecological balance by eating insects.

Krauthammer would have to evolve for a few hundred million years to rise to the august level of toaddom.

[The Magistrate]

10. You Are Correct, Sir: My Apologies To A Decent Lot Of Fascinating Critters

[Spinzonner]

5. Torture can and should, if at all

only be justified in retrospect, in the full light of what the circumstances and risks of not torturing were and the alternatives were.

Granting the permission prospectively is a license for evil and abuse.

Any true patriot, faced with such dire circumstances that demand it's use, should willingly give him/her-self up to the judgment of history and society as to the necessity.

[Fumesucker]

8. Precisely..

If you feel that it is really necessary then do the deed and face the music after.

[Spinzonner]

6. Torture can and should, if at all

only be justified in retrospect, in the full light of what the circumstances and risks of not torturing were and the alternatives were.

Granting the permission prospectively is a license for evil and abuse.

Any true patriot, faced with such dire circumstances that demand it's use, should willingly give him/her-self up to the judgment of history and society as to the necessity.

[gratuitous]

9. So very strange

Now, why would Fred Hiatt run Charles Krauthammer's column when the column is so patently wrong? And wrong not just in terms of being in disagreement with mine own unassailable (naturally) opinion, but wrong in its fundamental understanding of . . . well, everything. It's like the column argues that water isn't really wet or that gravity is not the force that holds us on the earth's surface. The column couldn't be less coherent if it was scribbled in red crayon by a drooling moron in a straitjacket.

Why would Fred Hiatt publish such nonsense?