(no subject)

[winterbadger]

a critique of CIA Director Hayden's defense of torture as legal

Comments

[cmlc.livejournal.com]

I just can't get over how stupid these people are. They're like the US airport security guys - they seem to view the entire world population as enemies, and they just haven't a clue about the importance of being seen to be the good guys. Without that they have nothing, nothing whatever. Desert the moral high ground and you're totally lost. And boy are they lost.

[winterbadger]

In Vietnam, we ended up destroying villages to 'save' them; this time we are doing it to our constitution. (And that's just the GWOT, let alone Iraq...)

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Would Robert Jackson have prosecuted someone for using these techniques on one of our intelligence operatives in World War II?

That really is the gist of the whole debate, as far as I'm concerned. I think the answer is self-evident, given Justice Jackson's record. Pity General Hayden doesn't seem to even know who Robert Jackson was, much less what he stood for.

[winterbadger]

I'm less comfortable with the example of Robert Jackson than the author of that piece is. Jackson's words in Barnette and in Zorach v. Clauson sounds very nice, but his willingness in Dennis v. United States to sweep aside the First Amendment is worrying. The quote ascribed to him there, that "[the 'clear and present danger test' from Schenck v. United States was written] before the era of World War II revealed the subtlety and efficacy of modernized revolutionary technique used by totalitarian parties" sounds like something that could have come out of today's White House. "Yes, normally we would abide by the Constitution, but our enemies are so darned subtle that we can't afford to actually allow people right s if we are going to protect those rights."