Moral Authority
Questionable developments abroad:
Iran announced today that it had uncovered new evidence against two imprisoned Americans and had launched an expanded investigation into their alleged activities against the Islamic republic.The statement from the country’s judicial branch dashed hopes of any imminent breakthrough in the case, after Iran announced last month that it was in the final stage of its probe and would announce whether the dual U.S.-Iranian nationals would be tried or freed within two or three days.
You have to be somewhat suspicious about a story like this in a country like Iran. “New” evidence in a case against someone imprisoned for a while often means that the detainee broke under “coercive treatment” and started offering bogus information.
What the hell, this is a blog. Let’s give Michael Ledeen serious wood and say that Iran did that. Let’s imagine that Iran held these foreigners whom it suspects of insurrection, terrorism or worse in cold cells with few or no clothes on, forced them to sit/stand in painful positions for five to eight hours at a time and spaced the sessions irregularly to prevent them from sleeping. Say for the sake of argument that delirious from hypothermia, sleep deprivation and pain the Americans broke and signed whatever it took to end the abuse.
Horrible. An obvious abortion of justice. Now tell me how that hypothetical Iran, which would surely provoke incoherent shouts of outrage from every corner of America, is the tiniest bit different from treatment that John Yoo, Michelle Malkin, Alberto Gonzales and Glenn Reynolds blithely cheerlead on a daily basis.
Assuming that Iran’s suspicions are weakly founded, which I feel safe in assuming, we don’t know that most tortured Muslims intend to attack America any better than Iran knows that these Americans planned to overthrow their government. Yet this cartoonishly awful Iran that I just imagined reflects exactly how America treats foreign detainees every day. The lengths to which Iran would have to go before America could complain without obvious hypocrisy are beyond disturbing.
taodon
Iran tortures. The United States uses advanced interrogation techniques. Implying that the US tortures just means that you’re a hysterical leftie who hates America.
srv
Some animals are more equal than others.
Pb
Hmm, yes, I seem to remember a previous story about this sort of thing…
zmulls
Heh. I’m reading ANIMAL FARM to my 9- and 11-year-old boys. They’re properly appalled.
Psycheout
So, Tim, when are you moving to Iran? It sounds like the “cartoonishly awful” Iran you envision would be “exactly” like America. And that’s just the worse case scenario, you seem to be saying. Therefore the real Iran must be better than the evil USA.
So, pack your bags and find a nice studio apartment in that Islamic paradise. Don’t forget to write.
Tim F.
Some animals are more animals than others.
My god, I thought that the “Saddam lover” argument died out years ago. Someone inform David Attenborough!
scav
Oddly enough, I was thinking this morning about the parallels between our rising horror at a rogue “Unitary Executive” and the world’s increasing horror at a rogue “Hyperpower”.
les
Don’t worry. Hypocrisy won’t prevent the American right from squealing like stuck pigs.
tBone
God is on our side, so it’s OK if we use aggressive interrogation techniques.
When they do it, though, it’s an affront to civilization itself.
I’m not surprised that you simpleton Lefties can’t grasp the distinction. No doubt years of inhaling fumes from pot smoke, patchouli and stinky Birkenstocks have eroded your cognitive facilities.
Go USA!
Jake
IOKIYAmerican!
I suspect this will get a big Who cares? from the fRighties. Dual citizen = Not American, in their tiny minds.
chopper
well, now that a 5-year-old child has weighed in on the subject, we can move on.
Chad N. Freude
Tim’s post doesn’t say that, but of course you are free to draw any inferences you want to, no matter how illogical they are.
I’d be more impressed by your postings if you made a case to refute this:
28 Percent
You are just trying to make America look bad by saying that we do the same things that evil people do. It will not work no matter how har dyou LIEBERALS try. You seem to think that because Iran does something then it is bad if Americans ever do it too and that is silly. If they are doing the same things that are being done in Guantanamo then it is not torture jsut maybe they are doing other things too that are torture did you ever thingk of that? they are not decadent like us they know that sometimes you do hard things you liberals would not understand.
Dulcie
28 Percent, you’re still incoherent in your incoherence.
grumpy realist
And the horrifying thing is, I’m sure we could find posters on Redstate and other right-wing boards that sound exactly like 28%. Heck, I can find them posting on Washington Post blogs!
The Other Steve
It’s actually called Alternative Conversational Persuasian.
We’re not interrogating… we’re just having a conversation here.
The Other Steve
The great thing about the US, if we held prisoners like this and we found additional evidence, we would prevent that evidence to the defendent so they could maybe argue against it’s validity or something.Or well, we used to.
taodon
The difference, however, is that we mock – they actually believe it.
UnkyT
Let me check my Big Book of Repub Rebuttals…
1. Clinton did it too.
—No that doesn’t work
2. Clinton was worse
—No
3. Iran/NK/Venezuela/al Qaeda is worse
—hmm, close
4. We do not torture
There’s the one. Lets tack on Liberals hate America for good messure.
Pixie
28% needs a new name change – Broder’s bounce has struck again! : http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19623564/site/newsweek
2. Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?
Approve Disapprove Don’t Know
Current Total 26% 65% 9%
Zifnab
Iran tortures people because they are the terrorists. We torture people to fight the terrorists. So which side are you on Tim? I haven’t seen you condemning Al Qaeda recently. Or Hugo Chavez. Or Hitler. I guess they all just get a free pass because the chicken in Gitmo was too dry for your tastes.
If you’re so against torture, then you should have no problem with us nuking Tehran. It’s that simple.
Dreggas
Don’t worry though Rudy just appointed Stormin’ Norman Podhoretz as his foreign policy advisor. The new campaign slogan for Rudy “If bush doesn’t bomb Iran I WILL!”
Formerly Wu
Good to know we’re in such esteemed company.
RSA
Not quite. We still have more painted school houses.
grumpy realist
Oh, I know our level of snarkitude here (and 28% does a wonderful job at the mindless dribble that comes out of their mouths)....
...it’s just that it’s so sad we have idiots here in the US who actually believe it.
I’d say “grow up”, but Podhoretz definitely demonstrates age is no solver of such idiocies.
May he be reborn as a Palestinian woman in the Gaza strip.
empty
Your error is right there. These “Americans” names sure sound like MUSLIM names to me. Clearly, Iran is just trying to curry favor with us by saving us from having to render these Islamofascists to them.
BlogReeder
Ho hum, another USA=Terrorist post from Tim…
What do you mean zmulls? ANIMAL FARM shows the flaws of socialism. Is that the appalling part? Or is it the capitalist farmer?
Tim F.
I’m impressed, blogreeder. Instead of your usual ad hominem blather you tossed out an ad hominem and you misread my post.
DougJ
Iran tortures
So did Clinton.
Chad N. Freude
I think maybe it’s the hypocrisy and lying of the leadership.
RSA
Including sending
U.S. soldiersBoxer the horse toIraqthe knacker’s, saying it would be acakewalka peaceful end in the hospital.BlogReeder
Thanks Tim, I’m blushing :)
Don’t you know I only read headlines and I skim the rest for certain words…USA blah blah Iran blah blah torture.
I don’t think the USA will ever have Moral Authority. Mahatma Gandi had moral authority.
Yea, there was that too. It’s been a while since I read it.
bud
I assume that, after the show trials of these Americans which feature their “confessions”, you’ll post another diatribe describing all the show trials generated out of Abu Ghraib?
If the Iranians decide to torture these guys, sleep deprivation is going to be the least of their worries. Oh, wait a minute, that couldn’t be, the US is the world’s most repressive regime.