Eric Cantor’s Selective Embrace of Human Rights
Torture for me, but not for thee.
Eric Cantor loves human rights:
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the minority whip who has put out blistering statements about the White House’s response, spoke loudly and emotionally about “America’s moral responsibility to speak out on the protection of human rights wherever they are violated” — hint, hint. “I urge President Obama to follow the lead of this House,” Cantor said.
Adam Serwer wonders where this commitment was when “Cantor voted against the military appropriations bill that banned cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of terror detainees.”
Specifically, according to the State Department’s official human rights brief on Iran:
Common methods of torture and abuse in prisons included prolonged solitary confinement with sensory deprivation, beatings, long confinement in contorted positions, kicking detainees with military boots, hanging detainees by the arms and legs, threats of execution, burning with cigarettes, sleep deprivation, and severe and repeated beatings with cables or other instruments on the back and on the soles of the feet.
Now to be clear, neither the scale of abuses nor the intent of the abuses is equivalent in the United States and Iran. But when it comes to techniques, it’s hard not to notice the fact that several of the methods condemned here, most notably including sleep deprivation, stress positions (”long confinement in contorted positions”), and shackling (”hanging detainees by the arms and legs”) were specifically authorized by the Bush administration. Many of the others, though not specifically authorized, appear to have become widespread in several detention facilities in part as a result of the administration’s general habit of throwing out the human rights rulebook. These bad actions don’t justify bad actions on the part of the Iranian regime. But whenever you read about these kind of techniques being applied in Iran or North Korea, it’s immediately apparent to everyone that it’s torture, it’s cruel, it’s inhumane, and it’s wrong. It’s also cruel, inhumane, and wrong when authorized by Dick Cheney.
29 Responses to “Eric Cantor’s Selective Embrace of Human Rights”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
June 19th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Now to be clear, neither the scale of abuses nor the intent of the abuses is equivalent in the United States and Iran.
All too true – the United States has killed far more people than Iran ever has; it’s insulting to make such a comparison.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I think it’s worth taking a moment to work through the right’s philosophy on the issue of torture and human rights. Most American conservatives don’t think that torture is wrong. Rather, they think that it’s wrong when bad people do it to good people. If good people torture bad people, it’s automatically justified, because a good person could not mistreat an evil person, who deserves the bad treatment anyway by virtue of being evil. By definition, a good person is good, and almost nothing they do can turn them bad. This philosophy seems to combine a crude kind of Calvinism (a person’s goodness or badness isn’t determined by their works) with an extreme form of moral relativism (an evil act in one context can actually be good in another). There is a logic there, but it is pretty hard to fathom.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Whenever Matt snarks at US politicians who oppose torture overseas but support it at home, some tedious right-wing troll shows up and accuses him of saying that Guantanamo is morally equivalent to an Iranian torture dungeon (or North Korean, or Soviet, etc.)
I notice that Matt includes, here, a caveat to his post that explicitly denies the moral equivalence. But I suspect that this won’t make a damn bit of difference.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Obama speaks out and he has more moral authority than the hypocrite Eric Cantor has.
“And I’m very concerned based on some of the tenor — and tone of the statements that have been made — that the government of Iran recognize that the world is watching. And how they approach and deal with people who are, through peaceful means, trying to be heard will, I think, send a pretty clear signal to the international community about what Iran is and — and is not.”
The Supreme Leader has begun railing against England and England’s poodle America already, so I don’t think it taints the protesters now that it is late in the game as I’m afraid it is.
But if the protesters get crushed maybe it will do some good for morale that they heard that Obama warned the world is watching. Maybe Obama senses they’re about to be crushed?
June 19th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Yglesias, your argument makes no sense unless you can find something indicating that Cantor agrees with the State Department’s version of what constitutes torture.
On the face of it, there is nothing inconsistent with believing that waterboarding and sleep deprivation do not constitute torture, whether done at Gitmo or anywhere else, and opposing the human rights abuses in Iran, which go far beyond waterboarding and sleep deprivation.
June 19th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Cantor issues these blistering attacks on Obama, but the House Resolution he’s crowing out is a virtual restatement of what Obama has been saying since Sunday.
It condemns the violence used against the protesters, calls on the Iranian government to respect democracy, and questions the legitimacy of the official results – all without explicitly taking sides in the Ahmedinejad/Moussavi contest.
This seems to be one of those times when conservatives and Middle East hawks are starting a fight over nothing, just so they can pose and trot out some pre-written talking points.
June 19th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
The difference is huge, I must say. They US government is engaged in a struggle for Good against Evil, while the Iranian government is fighting for Virtues and against Vices.
June 19th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
5. Nice deflection there. The point is that condemming Iran’s human rights record is pretty rich given Cantor’s opposition to banning the US military from using interrogation “techniques” that intersect Iran’s “techniques” in more than a few places.
In other words, two people commit the same crime, but Eric Cantor will only condemn the person he doesn’t like instead of the crime they BOTH committed.
June 19th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
7. Please, if the US was truly fighting “good vs. evil”, we certainly put up a pretty weak fight in Darfur, no?
The whole Middle East clusterfrak, especially our half-century entanglement with Iran, has mostly been “good vs. oil”
June 19th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Specifically, according to the State Department’s official human rights brief on Iran: Common methods of torture and abuse in prisons included prolonged solitary confinement with sensory deprivation, beatings, long confinement in contorted positions, kicking detainees with military boots, hanging detainees by the arms and legs, threats of execution, burning with cigarettes, sleep deprivation, and severe and repeated beatings with cables or other instruments on the back and on the soles of the feet.
Hey, those are common methods of torture and abuse practiced in American military and CIA prisons, too! (Except when we do them they are merely harsh interrogations and not torture). I guess it shows that, despite our differences with the Iranians, deep down we have many similarities as well…..
June 19th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
On the face of it, there is nothing inconsistent with believing that waterboarding and sleep deprivation do not constitute torture, whether done at Gitmo or anywhere else, and opposing the human rights abuses in Iran, which go far beyond waterboarding and sleep deprivation.
Dude, leave aside whether it’s torture — a person who thinks waterboarding and sleep deprivation are not human rights abuses has no understanding of the term. Do you really think that if you waterboarded and sleep-deprived Eric Cantor against his will (i.e. not as part of SERE training), he would not believe his human rights were being violated?
June 19th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
#9
I think he was being sarcastic…
June 19th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
if you waterboarded and sleep-deprived Eric Cantor against his will…
Is this one of ‘em lawyer jokes?
Q: What do you call a lawyer with an I.Q. of 50?
A: Senator.
Q: What do you call a lawyer gone bad?
A: “Your honor.”
June 19th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Cantor is Jewish. I would start there if I were trying to figure out why he would want to enflame the situation in Iran. Sorry if somebody Jewish reading this feels I’m throwing you all under the bus.
This has nothing to do with ALL Jews, but it does have everything to do with SOME Jews.
June 19th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
That’s repugnant.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
@ #14 — That’s an asinine way of looking at it.
Cantor is the *only* Jewish Republican in Congress. There are a great many other Jewish people in Congress and none of them are saying anything this stupid about Iran. On the other hand, there are a great many non-Jewish conservatives who are saying equally stupid things about Iran.
This has nothing to do with Jews and everything to do with movement conservatives being a bunch of preening idiots.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Chris Diaz, are some of your best friends Jewish? That would sure go a long way towards making you look less anti-Semitic!
June 19th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/20/opinion/20iht-edcohen.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
Wow Roger Cohen who has been good on Gaza has a powerful column from Tehran. He convinced me that Obama should speak out more.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
I trust Barack Obama’s political instincts more than Roger Cohen’s. I don’t think that’s crazy.
From Cohen’s piece:
I still don’t want to make that guy’s job easier, Poptarts, and Cohen doesn’t give me any reason to think a lot of tough talk from Obama would do anything but that.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Poptarts, I see this pattern developing where you like risking other peoples lives to make yourself feel brave. It’s really rather revolting.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Poptarts, I see this pattern developing where you like risking other peoples lives to make yourself feel brave. It’s really rather revolting.
Think I give a fuck what you think?
June 19th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
I still don’t want to make that guy’s job easier, Poptarts, and Cohen doesn’t give me any reason to think a lot of tough talk from Obama would do anything but that.
I’m just suprised, as Matt noted Cohen was good on Gaza and Israel. Maybe it’s because he’s in Iran and witnessing the insanity up close. Cohen is not a Mike Pence conservative.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
21. It’s that exact attitude is why conservativism is so reviled around the world.
June 19th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I can see why being there would make one feel more sympathy for the protesters, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for the United States to explicitly take their side, or crank up the rhetoric.
What feels good and what is smart aren’t always the same thing.
June 19th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
As stupid as it is arguing with an unrepentant Iraq War supporter, you know what’s even worse?
It would make way more sense for you to want Obama to send the troops across the border and smash Tehran. That’s also something I’d find foolish, but it would certainly have an effect. You want Obama to sell a bunch of hot air, bullshit, wolf tickets like Bush used to do in order to be “moral”. It’s disgusting.
June 19th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Are Muslims fully human?
I rest Rep. Cantor’s case.
June 19th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
There is an old saying that you don’t point a loaded gun at someone if you don’t intend to use it.
What is Obama supposed to say beyond what he has already said? That we’ll give the protestors our full support? What does that mean? Do we commit to giving them military support? I get a bad reminder about Bush 1 telling the Shia to rise up against Sadaam at the end of the first Gulf War. Giving people a false promise is worse than doing nothing.
June 19th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Rep. Cantor is not overly bright and his staff isn’t bright enough to save him from himself.
June 21st, 2009 at 8:25 am
Now to be clear, neither the scale of abuses nor the intent of the abuses is equivalent in the United States and Iran.
The intent is actually very similar:
The Bush Administration used torture in order to obtain false confessions to be used as propaganda to build domestic support for killing Muslims.
The ruling faction in Iran similarly uses torture in order to obtain false confessions, to be used as propaganda to build domestic support for killing Muslims.
One did so as part of a massively destructive invasion, the other as part of a brutal crackdown on political dissenters. There might be some way to give Bush and Cheney some moral less-low ground in that distinction. Definitely part of the same karass, though, to borrow a term from Vonnegut.