Jane Harman and Israel derangement syndrome-UPDATE
One of the less salutary undercurrents flowing out of the U.S. government's classified information case against former AIPAC staffers is how haters of the pro-Israel lobby who otherwise might be spooked by a security establishment seeking closed courts and the criminalization of basic reporting techniques have been slow on the pickup.
With some honorable exceptions, you get the impression that ravaging the constitution is worth jailing anyone who once had "AIPAC" attached to their name.
One of those honorable exceptions has been Glenn Greenwald at Salon, who is almost unmatched in his disdain for the pro-Israel lobby, but who has written about the threats posed by the case.
He seems, however, unable to control himself in the case of Jane Harman, the California Jewish Democrat now mired in allegations that she considered intervening on behalf of the two former staffers, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman.
Today he counts her among Democrats who "assented" to torture techniques.
Actually, her staunch opposition to torture may be the reason she's been dragged into this mess.
Greenwald has argued in the past that Harman did not do enough to stop the program and he has weirdly conflated her support for eavesdropping with her opinions on torture.
Neither amounts to "assent."
He's argued persuasively for keeping torture from becoming yet another "politics as usual" Washington debate.
He should heed his own counsel.
UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald, below the jump, makes the fair point that he was addressing Republican claims about Democratic assent to torture. My apologies. This nullifies the whole post! Almost. I still think he's too casual about throwing Harman into the mix; she might not have done enough, but at least someone was raising her voice.
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As a proud American, I want to be able to stand up and declare to allies and enemies alike that my country is a shining beacon on the hill, a moral example for all the nations on Earth. But we don’t get to call ourselves a shining beacon for nothing---there’s a price, and that price is that we are not allowed to torture people. Our enemies can break our bones, but they cannot break our souls---only we have that power.
Now every time a sick, deranged tyrant faces trial for torture in some far-off, heaven-forsaken land, he’ll be able to declare that America tortures, too. That’s a stain that will be difficult for us ever to remove, and it was our fault.
It’s telling that these torture policies were formulated not by successful, career military men, many of whom, like Dennis Blair, Bob Gates, David Petraeus, strongly oppose torture, but by armchair warriors and chickenhawks like Cheney, Bush, Tenet, Rice, Addington, and Ashcroft, none of whom have any idea what war is really like.
And what upsets me most is that those who devised these torture policies knew what they were doing was wrong. They knew they were committing a crime. How do I know? Because they didn’t just classify the details of the program---they also destroyed any internal memos that expressed opposition and provided arguments against the torture policies, so that the creators of the torture policy could maintain plausible deniability about what they were doing in our name. Those are the actions of people who know they’re guilty.
Nobody has explained to me why things we prosecuted our enemies for---back in WWII for example---are legal when we do them. Nobody has explained to me why things we do to a tiny number of our most elite troops (with their consent) specifically to prepare them for being tortured by our enemies are not torture when we are the ones who do them to our enemies. (The difference between sex and rape is consent, after all.) Nobody has explained to me why strapping a man down and shooting water up into his airways 83 times is somehow not torture; is it because we mercifully provide a bag whenever he vomits from the choking?
I’d like to see just one of these so-called tough guys who approved the torture policies stand up, face the music, and take it like a man, instead of letting our brave soldiers, intelligence analysis, and interrogators take the heat for them.
If Cheney really loved his country and his soldiers, he’d announce that the buck stopped with him, and that he was going to take the heat for everything. He’d insist that everybody channel their anger in his direction and away from those who were following his orders.
But he won’t do that, and not for any love of country---it’s because he’s a coward and a flaming narcissist, and he’s watching his own rear and his own legacy. He’s in way too deep to come out for air now.
So now we’ve actually reached a point where we’re all standing around arguing about what constitutes torture and whether torture is effective or not. And the very same people who moan about the “political correctness police” hide behind euphemisms like “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
My country ‘tis of thee…
I concur with every sentiment stated by Neuroshock above. Let’s drop the Orwellian term “enhanced interrogation” and call it what it is: torture. To say that Harman supported or opposed torture is one thing, but if she sought to advance her career in exchange for a quid pro quo, that is another matter. She should be investigated---even if Porter Goss delved into her phone call opportunistically. The irony is that Harman did endorse surveillance of Americans via wiretapped phone calls, and while I think that practice is repugnant to the Constitution, she cannot argue now that it is unfair.
So first things first: investigate and let the cards fall where they may. As to the torture memos and Bush-era officials who cultivated such policies, once again, let’s investigate and let the facts dictate if prosecutions should follow. I suspect, as Neuroshock stated above, that the suppression of opposing views and the destruction of such internal memos is part of the smoking gun that exposes the true intent of such Bush officials. They knew what they were doing and they stopped at nothing to achieve it.
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Glenn Greenwald
04/24/09 03:47 PM
Actually, I never said that Harman supports torture (as opposed to illegal eavesdropping). Today, in the post to which you linked, I said the opposite—that although the CLAIM is made that Democrats like Pelosi and Harman assented to torture, we don’t actually know enough to say one way or the other what happened, because it all took place in secret and there are disputes about what occurred. This is what I wrote:
“To be fair, there are disputes about what exactly Democratic leaders were and were not told, and there are disputes about what they said or did not say. That’s what happens when a government operates in virtually total secrecy and does everything possible to stonewall public disclosure. The dispute over the role of Democratic leaders further bolsters the need for full-scale investigations: we ought to know everything that led to these crimes, including the true extent to which the “opposition party” was informed about what was being done and approved of it.”
It does seem that Harman sent a letter in secret raising concerns about waterboarding. I don’t consider that to be a discharge of the duties of a member of Congress to prevent lawbreaking by the Executive branch, but I don’t doubt it happened. I’d like to know everything else that Democrats were told and not told. That’s why I want investigations - for light to be shined on that.
You are right about my views on the AIPAC prosecution - though I think AIPAC does far, far more harm than good, that prosecution is wrong and dangerous and should be opposed by anyone claiming to believe in press freedoms and even free speech.
Glenn Greenwald