May 1 Moyers Journal: Fein, Danner; Torture and its Consequences
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05012009/watch.htmlMay 1 Moyers Journal: Fein, Danner; Torture and its Consequences - Web Exclusive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4wzuSJiqsghttp://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05012009/watch3.htmlBRUCE FEIN: Yes, in that note. But that's the difference between a system that's working correctly, Bill. You don't hide things. The people can decide. And if they ratify it, and Congress authorizes it, say, "We don't want the law to be enforced." That's one thing. We don't-- this is the earmark of a tyranny. It's: "Hell with the law. We just do it on our own and in secret." That isn't the United States.
MARK DANNER: On that we can agree entirely. I agree with you completely. That it's the mark of a tyranny--
BILL MOYERS: Proscribed by elections.
MARK DANNER: --enormously threatened”
BRUCE FEIN: They are a tyranny by election. Elected tyranny.
MARK DANNER: Tyrannies can have elections.
BRUCE FEIN: Yeah. The emperors in Rome got elected, too.
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.
MARK DANNER: But I-- you know, but I think it is important to point out here that his first full day in office, he sat down. He renounced these techniques. He closed the black sites. He closed, or declared he was going to close within a year,
Guantanamo. These are real things. He did those things. And he should be given credit for those. I think I happen to be rather optimistic, despite the foot dragging on this stuff. That eventually, the commission that we both agree on, by the way. We agree, as you point out, we're arguing about tiny things.
I think that a commission will eventually be established. Because I think there's a political impulsion behind it. Maybe I will be wrong about that. I think it will lead that way. And I understand his reluctance to do this. I understand Congress's reluctance to do it. But I think at the end of the day they're going to be forced into it.
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. I've been involved in the Wiegard cases. If you know, they're the seventeen--
MARK DANNER: Yeah, they're horrible.
BRUCE FEIN: --Muslims, okay? He hasn't-- even though he continues to concede, they never were illegal combatants, he still has them detained. But he's just said, "Now, I won't call you an enemy combatant. We'll call you something else."
BILL MOYERS: So, he's obviously giving the law the legal advice from his Justice Department, right?
BRUCE FEIN: Yeah, good. The same echo chamber of what Bush and Cheney got. Because this is the psychology of Empire. This book that I'm about ready to complete. It's the psychology of empire, Bill. Hey--
BILL MOYERS: How do you mean?
BRUCE FEIN: --"We're the United States."
BILL MOYERS: What do you mean the psychology of Empire?
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."
BILL MOYERS: As a reporter of 25 years, did you think you were covering an empire?
MARK DANNER: Yes, I did. And there's no question, the United States-- what I've written about is the Athenian problem. It has the Athenian problem. That is, can you remain a democracy at home, while maintaining an empire abroad. And for many years, the point of that contradiction was in the C.I.A. statute. It will do this. It will do that. And it will do what other things-- other things the President from time to time might direct.
BRUCE FEIN: Yeah.
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.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
