Cheney Proves He Can Be Even More Shortsighted And Evil
Crooks and Liars » Cheney Criticizes Geneva Convention in Commencement Address
I’d say that’s perfectly emblematic of this administration: In the context of moral and ethical circumstances, dismiss as irrelevant the standards held by the entire rest of the world.
I think that C & L misses the most disturbing aspects of Cheney’s remarks:
It’s not that the sentiments go against what the rest of the world believes; they go against what _our founding fathers_ believed. The rule of law; presumption of innocence. But, the administration sees nothing wrong with presuming that just because we captured “them”, “they” are “killers”. What about all of those FBI and CIA stings that netted…nothing…but violated civil liberties. What about those imprisioned and released months or years later without any charges? Were they “killers”? If not, why deny them legal protections?
And the most disturbing thing (and what truly shows how evil Cheney and his ilk are) is that they see nothing wrong with depriving violaters of the law of any due process or human rights. And they justify it with a childish “well, they did it first!” or “they wouldn’t do that for you”. That’s the point! If we are going to profess to have the moral high ground, then we can’t debase ourselves to their supposed level on a whim. That’s relativistic morality. And is what is going to be putting our troops and captives in danger even more so in the future.
I would love to see a realistic episode of 24 where Jack Bauer tortures a “terrorist” suspect only to find that the person was innocent. There was a situation this season where a CTU worker was somewhat tortured and turned out to be innocent but they did not dwell on it enough to make the point about the dangers.