Moral Equivalence Monday

By Steve Hynd

It's a day when conservatives and American exceptionalists are having to work especially hard to look way, way up to see the moral high ground.

American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee have been convicted of illegal entry into North Korea and a further unspecified "grave crime", probably spying. The judicial process was, of course, a joke - with conviction a foregone conclusion - and the pair received 12 years hard labor in a forced-labor camp. Spencer Ackerman notes conditions in these camps and worries that the line differentiating them from even harsher camps for political prisoners may blur. The latter routinely include humiliation, stress positions and other abuses along with the back-breaking work and brainwashing attempts of common camps.

Kangaroo courts, abuses and tortures for trumped up crimes. Where have we heard that before? Oh yeah. Glenn Greenwald begins a must-read post on the moral depravity of the U.S. government across two administrations (remember...Bagram) with this:

Lakhdar Boumediene is an Algerian (and Bosnian citizen) who, while living in Bosnia and working for the International Red Crescent, was arrested by the Bosnian government (at the behest of the Bush administration) shortly after 9/11 on charges of plotting to blow up a U.S. and British embassy, but was then quickly cleared by Bosnian courts of any wrongdoing and ordered released.  But as he was about to be released -- in January, 2002 -- he was abducted by the U.S. military inside Bosnia and shipped to Guantanamo, where he remained without charges for the next almost 8 years, and was clearly tortured.  

And finally, as the man accused of assassinating Dr. George Tiller tells the A.P. that �I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal,� John Cole wonders when those same supporters of the American Exceptionalist standard of moral depravity will call for Scott Roeder to be waterboarded.

Since there is no doubt that we have a history of anti-abortion domestic terrorism, and since we know that evangelicals already support torture for everyone, when do we get to start waterboarding this guy? Does he have any children whose testicles can be crushed? Will we keep him up for weeks on end in stress positions in extremely cold rooms to get him to break? Beat him? All the right made a very good show of how shocked and appalled they were when this man killed Dr. Tiller, so surely they will not object. So when do we get to start torturing this guy?

And of course, the answer should be �NEVER.� Torture is wrong. Torture is immoral. Torture is evil. Torture is illegal. Torture does more violence to our values than it does to the individual being tortured. Torture is unreliable. Torture is counter-productive- everything someone says after being tortured should be treated as suspect.

America has surrendered the moral high ground on stuff like the conviction and sentencing of Ling and Lee. That doesn't make what has happened to them any less horrific or shameful, but it does mean America should shun those who led it there and their supporters.