Mark P. Shea, who says he's Catholic and Enjoying It!, points the finger at neo-conservative racism:
She says her Dad was a hero...
Although she said that act was "inappropriate", she hopes that "now maybe people will listen."
Charles Krauthammer has instructed us that if you have the "slightest belief" that torture will save a single life then you are morally bound to do it. Krauthammer, to be be sure, adds the science fiction caveat that we can only do this to people we know have life-saving information (apparently through our CIA mind reading devices which flash "SUBJECT POSSESSES LIFE SAVING INFORMATION OF INDETERMINATE NATURE"). This, apparently was the moral calculus the Bush Administration used when it renditioned the completely innocent Maher Arar for ten months of torture. Because, of course, torture always and only targets those who are surely guilty of something.
So, using this "slightest belief" moral calculus Krauthammer recommends, then surely, there is at least the chance that this woman is linked to other extremists and terrorists. She was, after all, raised by an extremist and terrorist and she publically acclaims him as a hero. So according to the Krauthammer Doctrine (as applied to Maher Arar), we are obliged to torture her for life-saving info that she may (or may not) possess. Sure, she said the attack was wrong, but she also said that, since he stood up to the system by this Al Quaeda-like act of terrorism, "now maybe people will listen".
I have the slightest belief that this was double-talk intended to justify the act of terrorism even while pretending to condemn it (those terrorist types are past masters at this sort of doublespeak. Their sacred texts tell them it's okay to do this). How can we sit there while precious seconds are ticking away and she may, even now, be flushing away the information linking her to the network of Timothy McVeighs which have killed before and may, even now, be preparing to kill again? We have to act NOW and nothing is too extreme when we are fighting a war against Real Evil. If she weren't guilty, would we even be torturing her? Of course not. Everybody we torture is always guilty. That's why we do it. We're not like the Bad Guys you know.
In short, if this woman were Muslim, the Rubber Hose Right would be demanding that she be subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques in order to determine who else she may know who might be about to fly a plane into a building as an act of terrorism. But because she's the white daughter of a home grown terrorist who looks and sounds like part of the right wing tribe of kooky "Patriot" types, she gets a pass, even while Marc Thiessen is seriously expecting that subjecting a low level lackey like the panty bomber to waterboarding for the sake of email addresses is going to accomplish something.
Make no mistake: part of what drives the push for torture is racism. Or, to put it another way, part of what keeps torture from being fully implemented in our culture is that those who advocate it would never dream of inflicting it on their own kind. It is for the Other.
The problem is that, once you open Pandora's box and press it into the hands of Caesar, he is famous for being color-blind and open to the indiscriminate use of the tools of tyranny in the service of his own acquisition of power. Someday that happy time will come when Caesar will be willing to torture this woman with the same alacrity that he has tortured people with dark skin and strange accents.
You won't like that day when it comes. That's why Catholics are bound to say something now. We've been on the receiving end of Caesar's magnanimous willingness to torture anybody for the sake of state security in the past.
Thanks to Will Grigg for the email.
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