[lbo-talk] "Never Again!" vs. "Never Before!"

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

<blockquote>Other cultures deal with a legacy of torture by declaring  
"Never again!" Why do so many Americans insist on dealing with the  
current torture crisis by crying "Never Before"? I suspect it has to  
do with a sincere desire to convey the seriousness of this  
Administration's crimes. And the Bush Administration's open embrace  
of torture is indeed unprecedented--but let's be clear about what is  
unprecedented about it: not the torture but the openness. Past  
administrations tactfully kept their "black ops" secret; the crimes  
were sanctioned but they were practiced in the shadows, officially  
denied and condemned. The Bush Administration has broken this deal:  
Post-9/11, it demanded the right to torture without shame,  
legitimized by new definitions and new laws.

Despite all the talk of outsourced torture, the Bush Administration's  
real innovation has been its in-sourcing, with prisoners being abused  
by US citizens in US-run prisons and transported to third countries  
in US planes. It is this departure from clandestine etiquette, more  
than the actual crimes, that has so much of the military and  
intelligence community up in arms: By daring to torture  
unapologetically and out in the open, Bush has robbed everyone of  
plausible deniability.

(Naomi Klein, "'Never Before!' Our Amnesiac Torture Debate," <http:// 
www.thenation.com/doc/20051226/klein>)</blockquote>

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>