Final Protective Fire

Monday, June 14, 2004

 

Kevin Drum gives us yet another waste of webspace with his incoherent diatribe about the Dept of Justice memo on the Convention Against Torture and US law. Drum's comments are just his usual silly content-less nonsense.

But in a failed attempt to provide content, Drum points to this posting by Froomkin purporting to be an analysis of the memo.

The simple fact is that what could be more reasonable than the Justice Dept writing an opinion on what the boundaries of coercion in interrogation are with respect to a treaty and implementing criminal statute? Drum points to Froomkin's slathering posting where we find this comment by Froomkin:
* Nowhere do the authors say “but this would be wrong”.
This silly comment informs us of Froomkin's intelligence, since the memo he's criticizing wasn't requested to discuss morality, just the applicable legal issues. A childish complaint by Froomkin.

Another example of the dishonesty of Froomkin's argument: Despite the increasingly heard right-wing complaint that the Supreme Court should not rely on the decisions of foreign courts, the Memo then turns to what other nations have said constitutes torture. Except that the "right-wing" ( grow up, Froomkin ) complaint about the Supreme Court relying on foriegn court opinions is about when the S.Ct. is interpreting our Constitution, not treaties. Stupid ass.

Mind you, there are some difficult questions posed by this issue. I think the Israelis have done a lot of difficult wrestling with their consciences on the question of what one can do to pressure what are essentially enemy war criminals into giving you needed information. Froomkin does not illuminate the moral debate at all, and his illumination of the legal debate is encrusted with his bile.

Robin 9:51 PM