in the eyes of the beholder

Anson Burlingame’s use of Justice Scalia to finger paint ethical and legal ambiguities regarding what defines torture is a major league cop out. Scalia has often referenced fictional television character Jack Bauer when pressed to provide cover for the Bush-Cheney Administration’s lawless disregard for long standing protocol concerning the treatment of incarcerated individuals, whether detained by domestic law enforcement personnel or captured on the battlefield. Pretending there are no guidelines that clearly define what is and what is not torture plops into the bezonian horse shit corral. If Scalia cited Dr House’s addiction to pain killers as the casus belli for insisting that all sarcastic physicians undergo mandatory drug testing before treating patients, I assume Anson would find the Justice’s unnerving disconnect applicable when opining about his jarring experience with a caustic urologist. Personally, I’m fond of appropriating the ‘Jethro Bodine’ scenario, especially if engaged in serious conversation about the security threats inherent when cross-dressing hillbillies are allowed to impersonate Army officers and/or drive tanks down public streets.

It’s not like there are no precedents that clearly spell out codes of conduct:

United States Bill of Rights (1789) Article Eight
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) Article Five
Geneva Conventions (1949) Article 99. Third Convention
American Convention on Human Rights (1969)
UN Minimum Standards for the Treatment of Prisoners (1957) Rule 31
UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Torture and other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1975)*
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*”No state may permit or tolerate torture…Exceptional circumstances such as a state of war…
Or any other public emergency may not be invoked as a justification of torture or other cruel inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment”.
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Going after the grunts who followed orders and tortured captured “enemy non-combatants” has all the elements of a show trial: God forbid the suits that created the insidious framework should be held accountable. How could Chris Wallace do his job as a journalist if Dick Cheney wasn’t around to remind all the Little Bo Peeps that committing war crimes kept their sheep safe? Of course, there is no proof that torture and murder deterred another 9-11 from occurring -- not that it matters to rock-ribbed conservatives.

I guess some think its okay to torture… just to be on the safe side. And it’s not like we torture native Christians who murder abortion doctors in cold blood. That would be wrong.

Juan Don