Susanhu, in a comment on Larry C. Johnson’s diary about torture (… And why it should never be one) included a link to an article on Democracy Now called A Deadly Interrogation: Can The CIA Legally Kill a Prisoner?
Meanwhile, we here on Booman (and others on the left blogosphere as well) are busily decrying the Senate vote to approve the suspension of habeus corpus regarding our so-called “national emergency”. (Otherwise know as “This illegal war that was forced upon a sleeping people by a cynical manipulation of the corporate-owned mass media.”)
Well…let me ask you a question.
If a tree falls on someone in the woods and no one hears his screams, does he die?
Is there a specific law ALLOWING that tree to fall in that place at that time?
Does it care?
Read on.
The question is not whether the CIA…or any other intelligence group, or the Marines or the Air Force or indeed your friendly smiling local cop on the corner… can “legally kill” a prisoner. OR an “enemy”. Or worst of all, a civilian. The so-called innocent bystanders.
YOU know.
Like…2 year olds?
They are going to do those things because THAT IS THEIR PRESENT JOB AS CONSTITUTED BY THE POSITION OF AMERICAN SOCIETY IN THE WORLD.
The question is…are the killings that we are committing in Afghanistan, Iraq, around the world and within our own borders in support of economic imperialism…”legal”?
Is economic imperialism itself “legal”?
And if so, under what set of laws?
If they are our own…then it is the LAWS that must be changed.
Because the killings (and the ongoing policy of economic imperialism) are:
A-Immoral
and
B-Stupid.
Which two terms can be, if looked at correctly, considered to mean the same thing. “Morality” is simply the collected teaching of the wisest among us over thousands of years about what kinds of behavior truly work best for the survival of large groups of human beings and what kinds do not.
And here WE are, arguing over whether CIA guys can “legally” kill prisoners.
Whether we can “legally” suspend habeus corpus.
Legally torture prisoners.
Listen…as long as we try to keep slurping up the majority of the vittles at the food trough of the world to the exclusion of 4/5ths of the REST of the population of said world…these guys are going to keep right on doing what is necessary to allow that to continue to happen.
And WE…you and me and the rest of us…have already given our tacit consent to the procedure.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” is not just an armed forces/gay thing, babies.
We have been LIVING it since the day JFK went down in Dallas.
BET on it.
I feel like Gulliver among the Yahoos.
Back up. Take a look at what we have run over to get here.
It’s an illegal war.
We have an illegally elected government.
Our entire system, our very way of life, the way we gain our economic prosperity by stealing from others at gunpoint, is “illegal”.
Or it certainly should be.
And I say again…if it is not illegal, then it is the laws that PERMIT IT TO HAPPEN that must be changed.
The CIA is OUR CREATURE.
It acts in OUR INTERESTS, insofar as it can.
We have given it TACIT APPROVAL to do whatever is necessary to keep US in the catbird seat since the end of W.W.II. And it has done so.
There is no lack of evidence of this. It has been discussed on the airwaves and written about in print for 60 YEARS. It is all over the net.
But suddenly…since it appears to not be working very well…WE…the left… start talking about whether torture and murder and suspension of habeus corpus are LEGAL!!!???
C’MON!!!
“Habeus corpus” has been selectively (and often) suspended for select members of AMERICAN society (people of color w/no money) for 300 YEARS!!!
Longer.
Habeus corpus.
Deliver the body.
Have we not “delivered the bodies” literally millions of times too often over the last 50 years?
Did we not turn S. E. Asia and large parts of South and Central America into charnel houses before we turned our kind attentions to the Middle East?
In our own “self interest”?
Did we not permit the destruction of almost the entire urban non-white social structure of our country during the `70s and `80s in our own (read our own “white”) self-interest?
Yes.
We did.
Check out my regular sig quote here.
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers. – Thomas Pynchon
Yup.
The question…the PROPER question…is not about torture. OR habeus corpus. OR the supposed legality of CIA murders.
Those are givens as long as we continue on our present strategic path, which is economic imperialism supported by overt and covert force of arms.
Bogarting the joint of the world because we have the biggest gun.
Well…we have taught the third world well. Size DOES matter. So now they are busily building up their OWN johnsons.
4 to 1. That’s the numerical odds, underdeveloped world to developed world.
Size DOES matter.
And when EVERBODY has the equalizer…then the ONE fifth can no longer enslave the FOUR fifths.
It’s that simple.
But we are still acting as if we are the big gun in town.
DESPITE progressive defeats that attest to the falsehood of that idea.
First in Korea…a stalemate at the very least.
Then in Vietnam. And no matter what ANYONE says…we lost THAT one.
And now…Iraq.
Even worse, what is happening there.
So…why am I writing this?
I say again: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, then they don’t have to worry about giving the right answers.
We are asking the wrong questions.
And supporting the wrong politicians as well.
If a politician does not essentially say exactly what I am saying here…at least as far as that politician CAN say it and still stand a ghost of a chance of getting elected…then that politician is endorsing the wrong strategy.
Economic imperialism.
From wrong strategy inevitably grows wrong tactics.
Like continuing the Blood For Oil War in the Middle East.
Like continuing to depend on oil as our primary fuel.
Like dismantling Amtrak.
Etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. on into infinity.
On into the Big Bang.
The Big Boom.
Armageddon.
BET on it.
“Ask the RIGHT questions and ye shall receive the right answers.” (A little known, often excised phrase from the Old Testament according to Arthur. Also known as the New Yestament. “Just say yes.”-From the writings of our Revered and Most Holy Mother, Saint Anti-Nancy.)
Start asking now.
Before it is too late to say ANYTHING.
Start asking the RIGHT questions.
If for no other reason, in the name of all of the well-meaning and brave American men and women who have gone down in these wars.
For the WRONG reasons.
THIS Veterans’ Day.
Let us start asking the right questions.
Or go down trying.
Peace.
AG
