wake me up in january 2009

of all the posts i've read about today's new york times article documenting the bush administration's secret authorization of torture, hilzoy's post is one of the best. as she writes:

These techniques are not just morally abhorrent; they are flatly illegal. One might think that since the President is required by the Constitution to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed", this might be a bit of a problem. Not for the Bush administration. First, John Yoo wrote his famous "torture memo", in which he argued that interrogation techniques were illegal only if they produced pain equivalent to organ failure or death. When that memo became public, the administration disowned it. But they also issued another secret opinion reaffirming the legality of the various combinations of techniques described above, and then wrote another secret memo saying that none of the CIA's interrogation techniques constituted "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment.

The techniques in question are repugnant. But in many ways, the administration's disregard for the law is worse. When your policies violate treaties you have signed and laws that are on the books, you are not supposed to come up with some clever way of explaining that appearances to the contrary, what you're doing is not illegal at all. You're supposed to stop doing it. When Congress decides to pass a law banning "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment, you are supposed to stop engaging in such treatment, not to redefine "cruel, inhuman and degrading" so that it doesn't apply to anything you want to do.

but the most shocking thing about these revelations is just how unshocking they are. revelations about how the bush administration authorizes torture, breaks u.s. law, and then hides it from the american public and congress seems like old hat by now. once these were the things i would expect from some two-bit banana republic. but now, thanks to W, it doesn't surprise me when my own country acts this horribly, in utter contempt of the law. i'm tired for being embarrassed for my own country.