Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Law and Order

I'm not a lawyer, but:


(1) Waterboarding is torture;
(2) Torture is illegal--both under U.S. and international law;
(3) Dick Cheney admitted to the planning and execution of waterboarding (here, via Andrew Sullivan);
(4) Admission of a crime is good grounds for arrest and prosecution of that crime;
(5) Our government is compelled--by the rule of law and judicial practices--investigate and prosecute criminal acts; therefore
----
(6) Our government is compelled to arrest and prosecute Dick Cheney.

Of course, there's debate about (1), which is strange because the argument seems a little incoherent: (A) Waterboarding isn't torture because it's not that bad, but (B) it's super effective! (even though it's not that bad...). And of course, both (A) and (B) are dubious to say the least, but even putting that aside, there's no getting around the fact that we live in some kind of bizarre conservative pomo wet dream where the act of saying that x isn't y is enough to make the term x indefinable.


(2) isn't debatable, though there are those who claim it shouldn't be illegal. After all, if torture were legal, why did we have the Yoo memos? Why didn't we just go ahead and do it, without even basic rationalization?


Granting (1) and (2), (3) is pretty much obvious. It's hard to read that Cheney's comments any other way. (4) is common sense. After granting (1) - (4), we're left with (5). If that's the one with which our government is finding fault, we're in a whole lot of trouble.


If I were in a long-winded mood, I might write about Digby's and Glennzilla's point that the hullabaloo on the right over the detention of Christian missionaries in Haiti for allegedly kidnapping children is far more strenuous than anything they've been able to muster for the blatant crimes of the Bush Administration (and, I might note, the Obama Administration--for, at the very least, the refusal to prosecute those crimes).


But I'm not, so you should just read them here and here.