Do as We Do, and We’ll Denounce You
By Mona
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Greenwald has a great find, the title of his post indicating what it is: Bush’s 2001 condemnation of Russia’s human rights abuses. (Brief ad click through.) These are some:
* Authorities continued to infringe on citizens’ privacy rights. Government technical regulations that require Internet service providers and telecommunications companies to invest in equipment that enables the [Foreign Security Service] to monitor Internet traffic, telephone calls, and pagers without judicial approval caused serious concern.…* Article 21 of the Constitution prohibits torture, violence, and other brutal or humiliating treatment or punishment; however, there are credible reports that law enforcement personnel regularly use torture to coerce confessions from suspects and that the Government does not hold most of the torturers accountable for their actions.…* The law permits the government to monitor correspondence, telephone conversations, and other means of communication only with judicial permission and prohibits the collection, storage, utilization, and dissemination of information about a person’s private life without his consent. While these provisions were generally followed, problems remained. There were accounts of electronic surveillance by government officials and others without judicial permission, and of entry into residences and other premises by Moscow law enforcement without warrants. There were no reports of government action against officials who violated these safeguards.
It is long, but reading the whole post is repaid. God what hypocrites this Administration has made us, losing America any moral standing in the world.
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
July 20, 2007 @ 2:35 pm
Yeah, but that was Before 9/11 Changed Everything, and before George looked into Pooty-poot’s soul and saw what a truly wonderful guy he is. Way to abet the terrorists, Mona.
Comment by Mona —
July 20, 2007 @ 2:53 pm
Well, yes, I know pointing such things out puts us at risk of mushroom clouds over every major U.S. city.
Has that been on Unsolved Mysteries or anything of the sort yet, cuz until it is, I won’t believe Bush reads souls. But if Robert Stack or Leonard Nimoy verify it, it is true.
Comment by Eric Martin —
July 20, 2007 @ 3:23 pm
Has that been on Unsolved Mysteries or anything of the sort yet, cuz until it is, I won’t believe Bush reads souls.
No silly, look for him as the next proprietor of the Crossing Over franchise…
Comment by Mona —
July 20, 2007 @ 4:28 pm
Oh, Eric, Bush hearing from the dead? That could and should be some seriously bad karma and just punishment.
Comment by Gary Farber —
July 20, 2007 @ 4:52 pm
“Bush’s 2001 condemnation”
I am unaware that we had begun to attribute all statements from the United State’s government as pronouncements from the Leader’s mouth. This seems to be a severe category error.
I’m pretty sure that, in fact, the Leader did not pen the State Department’s document. Or any other document from the State Department, or any other Department of our government. It’s not his government. They are not his personal tools. Acting as if they are, even for rhetorical purposes, is a terrible idea. “Bush” isn’t responsible for any of this stuff, and no matter how fun it is to claim he is, such claims have no sensible grounds that I can see.
I wish it were otherwise, but making attacks that make no sense and fail is a bad and counterproductive idea. Save your ammo for stuff that makes sense. There are all sorts of ways this attack could have been made without phrasing it a way that fails, as in “G. W. Bush gets personal credit for authoring all State Department text.”
I have a bad feeling Glenn is getting carried away with the sound of his own emphasis.
Comment by Gary Farber —
July 20, 2007 @ 4:56 pm
“‘Bush’ isn’t responsible for any of this stuff, and no matter how fun it is to claim he is, such claims have no sensible grounds that I can see.”
That was poorly phrased. He is ultimately responsible, of course. But he’s not personally responsible for the given text of an agency. Such claims would only be appropriate from the mouthpiece of a totalitarian regime proclaiming the Leader’s genius in each particle of governmental action; my point was that we shouldn’t accept or grant such totalitarian claims, and I did not mean to imply that G. W. Bush did not bear ultimate responsibility for his direction of the government. But we shouldn’t grant the premise that, in fact, the Leader pens all governmental documents, which is a completely nuts and totalitarian notion. We can’t grant it for purposes of criticizing him without granting a completely totaliarian vision as in fact in existence.
Comment by Mona —
July 20, 2007 @ 5:07 pm
Gary, are you aware that the Office of President is the Executive branch, that The State Department is part of that branch answerable to him, and that he appoints the highest officials therein?
Your contrarianism — and more than a hint of jealousy — is getting worse than old.
Comment by Thoreau —
July 20, 2007 @ 7:47 pm
Actually, Mona, I think Gary’s point is a good one: The State Department issues reports on human rights in countries around the world because it is one of their tasks under the law. The President is the one who supervises the execution of that task, of course, but the task is one that they have under law, and so the statements issued are ultimately the statements of the federal government, not the statements of the President.
Of course, the people performing the task, and the people supervising them, must have and exercise a certain amount of discretion and judgement, and so the opinions of the leadership are ultimately intertwined with the output of the process. But the distinction is there.
In a different time it might be considered a rather minor distinction. But we just heard the administration declare that the President can elevate executive branch employes above the law. At times like this, the distinction between serving the President (or his political appointees) and performing tasks dictated by law becomes a very, very important one.
Anyway, the fact remains that the next time the US government issues condemnations of nations that torture, deny due process, and fight wars of aggression, the rest of the world will laugh their asses off at the gall of our government.
Fuck you, George Bush. You brought us to the point where the US cannot credibly condemn human rights abuses in Russia. Your predecessors, flawed as they were, retained that moral high ground. We’ve never been perfect, but we’ve always been a credible critic of human rights abuses in Russia. Fuck you.
I wish I could say something less profane, but that’s all that comes to mind on this.
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
July 20, 2007 @ 8:27 pm
Thoreau – profanity is perfectly fine with me in this case. I empathize.
.
Gary:
Well, they certainly weren’t in February 2001, when the report was issued. He’s been working diligently to correct that in the 6 1/2 years since. (And if his picks for Secretary of State are any indication, he’s made great progress.)
Comment by Mona —
July 20, 2007 @ 8:37 pm
Exactly.
Comment by Barry —
July 20, 2007 @ 8:51 pm
Gary, does the term ‘pedantic asshole’ mean anything to you?
Just asking