For those who think the country should actually have principles and stick to them consistently, here’s a perfect example of how we rarely do so. A federal court is about to rule on a torture lawsuit against Iran:
A federal judge in Washington has entered a default judgment against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a lawsuit brought on behalf of victims of his radical Islamic regime.
The case will now proceed to a hearing to determine damages, according to a lawyer who brought the case and predicts the world will be horrified by the coming testimony.
The complaint asks for damages of $10 billion.
The plaintiffs in this case were the victims of torture and false imprisonment at the hands of the Iranian regime; the country of Iran simply ignored the case, since the court has no jurisdiction over them anyway. I am all for holding the Iranian government liable for their crimes, of course. But Iran clearly handled the case badly. They should have shown up and invoked the State Secrets Privilege. After all, it works for our government as a get out of jail free card when it comes to torture.
This is why the rest of the world laughs when we talk in such grandiose terms about freedom, democracy and the rule of law. And why they should.
23 comments
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Larry
December 15, 2011 at 9:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This should cause a wingnut head explosion. On one hand, we know how much they love a good torture session and Iran is, after all, only torturing brown people. On the other, they believe we should Bomb, Bomb, Bomb. Bomb, Bomb Iran.
What’s a poor wingnutter to do?
lancifer
December 15, 2011 at 10:13 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ed,
I see your point but Guantanimo is to an Iranian Prison as a neighborhood bully is to Joseph Mengele.
Ed Brayton
December 15, 2011 at 10:19 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
lancifer —
I have no doubt that Iranian prisons are terrible places. But we know that men have been tortured to death in Gitmo, for crying out loud — and the same thing has happened dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times at Bagram and at CIA black sites. How much worse can it get than that? And should we really be measuring ourselves by the standard set by Iran or by our own stated principles?
reverendrodney
December 15, 2011 at 10:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That the WND would report on this is no surprise. But I wonder how such a lawsuit got heard in a US court in the first place! It concerns how another country treated its citizens within its borders.
A court in Iran may as well sue the US for holding Bradley Manning, one of our citizens, in solitary confinement for months without so much as charging him with a crime, furthermore for our president to pronounce him “Guilty!” before his trial begins.
Marcus Ranum
December 15, 2011 at 10:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
lancifer writes:
Both are evil. What’s your point?
fifthdentist
December 15, 2011 at 10:29 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
IOKIYAM
It’s OK if you’re a ‘Murkan.
harold
December 15, 2011 at 10:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Lancifer –
You certainly got a nice, polite reply from Ed.
I would have made the same point, but perhaps been unable to refrain from commenting on my opinion or your ethical character.
D. C. Sessions
December 15, 2011 at 10:32 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It was a default judgment — Iran didn’t even defend. Of course, they may not have been served either so there’s likely to be grounds for appeal should they ever care to.
As for jurisdiction, that might have been asserted under the Convention Against Torture — except that I doubt Iran is a signatory. Oddly enough, though, the USA is.
dingojack
December 15, 2011 at 10:32 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
‘Any two-bit bully is a sonnavabitch, but he’s our sonnavabitch’.
Clearly morality is all about who you know and what you can get away with. Nope, no moral relativism here, move along!
Dingo
lancifer
December 15, 2011 at 11:43 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ed (and other more reactionary morons),
I said I agree with your over all point and yes the courts should hold American torturers to the same standards as foreign torturers up to and including elected officials that authorized torture or looked the other way.
But to suggest that there is no quantitative or qualitative difference between the actions of the US and Iran is to trivialize the egregious suffering and deaths of tens of thousands of Iranians under a brutal and oppressive regime that routinely imprisons, horrifically tortures and kills it own citizens and any one else that it sees as a threat with impunity.
From Wikipedia,
And that’s just the number of people “executed”!
So again, for the reading impaired, there is a huge difference in the magnitude of the offenses of the two governments.
America bad, Iran much worse.
harold
December 15, 2011 at 12:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There is no relevant qualitative difference. It is not the case that the US “tortures more gently” than Iran, and if it were, they would still both be guilty of using torture.
You are arguing that a quantitative difference exists. That is highly debatable. Iran is a brutal semi-theocracy, albeit with democratic institutions. However, they have a smaller population than the US, a lower incarceration rate than the US, and have not occupied any other nations. Therefore a reasonable argument could be made that the US is worse quantitatively.
However, this argument is irrelevant. Charles Manson killed fewer people than John Wayne Gacy, but a spectacle of Charles Manson presuming to declare himself morally pure and condemning Gacy would nevertheless be a spectacle of grotesque hypocrisy.
On the contrary, it is YOU who trivializes the suffering and death of these people, and indeed, of all people suffering from torture.
As a patriotic American who wants to use my freedom to struggle to make this country even better, let me say that 1) the use of torture by the United States has been a disgraceful, cowardly, decadent mistake, which I strongly condemn and 2) those who use any technique to deny or downplay it, including, as here, trying to shift attention to the bad actions of a reprehensible but weaker player, are enabling it.
lancifer
December 15, 2011 at 12:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
harold,
It amazes me that you can say things as stupid as,
“You are arguing that a quantitative difference exists. That is highly debatable. Iran is a brutal semi-theocracy, albeit with democratic institutions. However, they have a smaller population than the US, a lower incarceration rate than the US, and have not occupied any other nations. Therefore a reasonable argument could be made that the US is worse quantitatively.”
Yeah, equating criminal incarceration of people that were given due process with mass executions of political prisoners makes total sense.
And what the fuck does whether Iran has “occupied other nations” have to do with the issue at hand?
I suggest you wipe the spittle from your keyboard and take about five thorazine tablets or whatever anti-psychotic drug you require to stop the voices in your head from leaking out onto your blog posts.
lancifer
December 15, 2011 at 12:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Geeze and then there’s this drivel from Harold,
“As a patriotic American who wants to use my freedom to struggle to make this country even better, let me say that 1) the use of torture by the United States has been a disgraceful, cowardly, decadent mistake, which I strongly condemn”
As did I dumbass. Can you fucking read?
“…and 2) those who use any technique to deny or downplay it, including, as here, trying to shift attention to the bad actions of a reprehensible but weaker player, are enabling it.”
Pointing out that Iran’s behavior (you know the subject of the litigation and this thread) is on another order of magnitude does not “downplay or shift attention” from the bad actions of the US government or the culpability of the individuals responsible for that behavior. It is merely keeping a perspective on the relative offense of the two governments in question when it comes to torture.
However, equivocating, or in your idiotic example insisting that the US actions are worse than Iran’s, makes Iran morally equivalent or superior to the US and thereby gives it cover to evade legal and moral responsibility for its actions, for how can a US court condemn the actions of Iran since it ignores it’s own “much worse” behavior.
Which of course is fine by you, since you are more concerned with tarring the US than seeking justice for victims of repression and torture, while immodestly trumpeting your heart felt concern for these victims.
Michael Heath
December 15, 2011 at 1:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
lancifer writes:
Please quote where Ed or anyone posting previous to your post @ 11:43 a.m. made such a claim.
I’d instead argue you’re the one presenting a defective argument given your analogy we’re a ‘neighborhood bully’ when in fact as Ed rightly noted, we’ve tortured and killed people at Gitmo.
Iran is a far more tyrannical place than the U.S. – in fact it’s self-evident to any reasonable person, which dominate this venue. We don’t need our hand held here in terms of being well-informed. But the fact they’re so evil does not in turn allow a valid assertion we’re a mere ‘bully’. That’s a gross misuse of the word bully.
And as Ed wisely pointed out; why would the U.S. want to score how well they protect human rights relative to Iran? His argument is based on principle where we fail.
If you have a problem with those principles let’s hear your counter, but your false equivalency appears to be an attempt at serving as a red herring where no rational person would refer to those who torture and torture to point people die as mere bullies.
lancifer
December 15, 2011 at 1:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michael Heath,
Here is what Ed said,
“But we know that men have been tortured to death in Gitmo, for crying out loud — and the same thing has happened dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times at Bagram and at CIA black sites. How much worse can it get than that?”
Well, dozens and hundreds is several orders of magnitude less than tens of thousands. That’s “how much worse it can get”.
Now if you want to play games of moral equivocation have at it but my point is one of simple arithmetic.
There are moral arguments that apply as well but I didn’t attempt to make that particular argument except in response to a luridly irrational straw man argument made by Harold.
Michael Heath
December 15, 2011 at 5:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
lancifer:
Sure, I’ll play. Make your argument the Bush Administration were just bullying detainees at Gitmo and elsewhere. I’ll take the firm position what they did makes that descriptor, that torturing people and some until they die is not mere bullying as you claim and amazingly – now defend, it is far worse. It’s an incredible violation of human rights in a way which significantly reduces our soft power in the world and degrades our entire culture. Degrades it to the point we now have an entire* political party advocating we torture more people and in fact make it our standard approach for interrogating detainees taken in the so-called War on Terror. In spite of the fact we can be certain such treatment would cause significant loss of both blood and treasure in the future if were follow through with their proposed policies.
In fact the number one motivator to join al Qaeda we heard amongst detainees captured in Iraq was our treatment of previous detainees, especially those in abu Ghraib. Our own government’s actions led to a significant loss of blood and treasure in Iraq, precisely because we “bullied” some detainees.
Your turn.
*Of course there are some outliers, but the party is firmly in support of torture.
Craig Pennington
December 15, 2011 at 8:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
lancifer:
and lancifer later:
So I’ll grant you quantitative, and it is a valid point. But as for qualitative — it is obvious that, to borrow from Churchill, now we are haggling about the price. And quite frankly that is exactly where we lose any moral authority. And that is Mr. Brayton’s original point, and it is a point far superior to yours.
dingojack
December 15, 2011 at 11:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Didn’t the US sign a UN treaty against the use of torture?*
So the US knows it’s illeagal (and immoral), but is doing it anyway.
And then the US has the temerity to lecture others on morality and the law, whilst doing illegal and immoral acts themselves?
Even Iran isn’t doing that.
Dingo
—–
* Did Iran sign such a document?
lancifer
December 16, 2011 at 3:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Craig Pennington,
I think we agree.
Michael Heath,
You’re being a bit pedantic.
My analogy was just that, an analogy. I never said that the incidents of torture attributed to the US at Guantanamo, and else where, were “mere bullying”.
I used the word bully, not bullying, in a comparison to show relative magnitude, so you can skip the moralizing missive.
You seem to be ignoring the statement I made that,
So save the faux outrage for someone that actually presents the straw man you have pummeled.
I stand by the argument that Iran and the US are very different on both quantitative and qualitative grounds. For starters why don’t you move to Tehran and make your little blog post and see how long it takes for you to be on the receiving end of the torture that is the subject of this thread.
Michael Heath
December 16, 2011 at 7:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
lancifer:
Who was the fantasy protagonist you were bullying in your mind with that strawman?
I highly recommend boning up on your argumentation skills, particularly starting with understanding the most popular rhetorical and logical fallacies.
lancifer
December 17, 2011 at 2:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michael Heath,
Golly, since your recommendation is so genuine and sincere I’ll be sure to do that Mr. Heath!
You may want to look up condescension and douchebaggery when you get a chance.
Michael Heath
December 17, 2011 at 9:21 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
lancifer:
It was genuinely offered. For those of us who’ve done the work of developing our critical thinking skills it’s a damn ugly sight encountering such absurd arguments as you’ve presented here. Especially when the protagonist seems oblivious to how their arguments fail even the mildest form of scrutiny.
I suggest Moore and Parker’s Critical Thinking [linked to my review] to identify fallacious arguments and How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass: A Critical Thinker’s Guide to Asking the Right Questions to learn how to build credible arguments of your own. Both are easy, fast, entertaining reads and provide an excellent introduction into both fisking the bad arguments of others and building arguments of your own worthy of consideration by others.
lancifer
December 17, 2011 at 12:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You are unbelievable.
Look up narcissism while you’re at it.