Stupid and Dangerous

Human rights versus national security

At the Democrats' debate in Las Vegas tonight, Senator Dodd said that "of course" national security is more important than human rights.

"Of course?"  The only "of course" answer to that question is that human rights are more important than national security. 

If there were a country that called itself "the United States" and that occupied the same territory as the United States now occupies, and that had as it population the same people as the United States now has, but that had a government like that of Stalin or Saddam Hussein, would the national security of that "United States" be paramount.  No.  One hopes that every citizen of that United States would seek to overthrow that government. 

The national security of the United States is important only insofar as it protects the rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Constitution of the United States.  Those rights come first.  The purpose of national security is to serve those rights, not to subjugate them. 

Anyone who thinks otherwise (and there are many who say they do, including many presidential candidates) should not be president of the United States.

Waterboarding--legal torture?

Can we be clear about a couple of things amid the hand-wringing over whether Judge Mukasey, the nominee for attorney general, should opine regarding whether or not waterboarding is torture?  First, if he did opine that waterboarding is torture, he would be opining that waterboarding is illegal.  The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 states, in part, "No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment."  If something is torture, it is by definition, cruel, inhuman, or degrading.  Second, his giving an opinion that waterboarding was illegal would not subject anyone to prosecution for any past activities.   Having outlawed cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, the Detainee Treatment Act then states that it is a defense to any civil or criminal prosecution of an American for an interrogation practice that the practice was officially authorized and determined to be legal and that the defendant did not know that the practice was illegal and that a person of ordinary sense and understanding would not have known that the practice was illegal.  The Detainee Treatment Act continues, "Good faith reliance on advice of counsel should be an important factor, among others, to consider in assessing whether a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the practices to be unlawful."  If someone in the military or the CIA has been waterboarding in reliance on an opinion that it was legal, then he will not be prosecuted for anything he did, at least up to the time Mukasey opines that it was illegal.  If someone in the miltiary or the CIA has been waterboarding without an opinion that it was illegal, then he's already subject to prosecution, and nothing Mukasey says or does not say  will change that.   Mukasey, like any other nominee, does not want to commit himself to anything before he is confirmed.  His problem is that the more he sound like any other nominee, the less anyone wants to confirm him.