To Spite Their Face

Our own beloved country . . . is now afflicted
with faction and civil war 
--Abraham Lincoln
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Your Agony Aunt has been away, and we trust you've had good counsel in the interim.  But no matter how good yer counselor is, surely there is more ... so, what's on your mind this weekend?

We will start you off with an impersonal topic, but you are encouraged to take it anywhere you will: 

How and why have we arrived at such political gridlock, such rough partisanship and factionalism that the disagreement and inability to mediate is seen as a good?  Perhaps it began with Republican Karl Rove: Spin and win at any cost, call deception a good, call compromise for the sake of the nation, a compromise of morals.  The nation must lose for the sake of remaining in one's sacrosanct ideological enclave.

It is the child's game: If I can't have it no one can.  And yet, the nation must have been receptive to this sort of message in order for those who played that game to get into position.

Why are people so recalcitrant and fractious?

Rovian Revisionism

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file
has already earned my contempt.
He has been given a large brain by mistake,
since for him the spinal cord would suffice
--Albert Einstein

That's food for thought!
--The Brain (1988)
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Senior Bush advisor Karl Rove recently said he was proud of waterboarding suspected terrorists:

In a BBC interview, Karl Rove, who was known as "Bush's brain", said he "was proud we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists". He said waterboarding, which simulates drowning, should not be considered torture.

* * *

"Yes, I'm proud that we kept the world safer than it was, by the use of these techniques. They're appropriate, they're in conformity with our international requirements and with US law (Rove "Proud" of Waterboarding US Terror Suspects)."

Ranger wishes to clarify terms. Waterboarding is not simulated drowning -- it IS drowning, which is regulated by the interrogators who stop the drowning before asphyxiation, allowing the victim to recover. The fact that the interrogated person is drowning is what makes the technique effective. Drowning someone is torture.

Aside from being torture, it is an ineffective method of extracting data. there is no evidence that waterboarding broke the will of any terrorist. The fact that they spoke does not equate to breaking their will. Even if it did break their will this is irrelevant, as waterboarding cannot be proven to be an effective deterrent for future terrorist activity.

The utmost case of the U.S. use of waterboarding would be Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded beyond any intelligent purpose (183 times), clearly as sport for the interrogators at the behest of a misled president. Surely a dangerous man, KSM never broke, and his case ironically brought sympathy for the criminal due to the outlandish nature of his treatment.

How does that result make the U.S. safer?

If waterboarding is in accordance with U.S. law, then why do we Miranda criminals and have the 5th Amendment? Why don't we routinely waterboard suspects after we read them their rights?

We do not do this because -- it is ILLEGAL, which means that is against the law, gainsaying Mr. Rove's assertions. We do not have two sets of laws in the U.S., one for criminals and one for terrorists. (We do, however, have a bifurcation along wealth lines, but that is a different issue.)

The ignorance of Mr. Rove is palpable. How appropriate he was chosen as Mr. Bush's "brain".