Joel Surnow, the right-wing activist who created the torture fetish show 24, building a neat little wall around his conscience:
In a more sober tone, [Surnow] said, “We’ve had all of these torture experts come by recently, and they say, ‘You don’t realize how many people are affected by this. Be careful.’ They say torture doesn’t work. But I don’t believe that. I don’t think it’s honest to say that if someone you love was being held, and you had five minutes to save them, you wouldn’t do it. Tell me, what would you do? If someone had one of my children, or my wife, I would hope I’d do it. There is nothing—nothing—I wouldn’t do.” He went on, “Young interrogators don’t need our show. What the human mind can imagine is so much greater than what we show on TV. No one needs us to tell them what to do. It’s not like somebody goes, ‘Oh, look what they’re doing, I’ll do that.’ Is it?”
Yes, it is like that.
By August, Dunlavey was clear that the rule book FM 34-52 was too restricting for someone like al-Qahtani, who was trained to resist interrogation. In his memo of October 11 2002 he set out the key facts as he saw them. The usefulness of the existing techniques had been exhausted. Some detainees had more information. He requested that aggressive new techniques be approved.
Dunlavey told me that at the end of September a group of the most senior Washington lawyers visited Guantánamo, including David Addington, the vice president’s lawyer, Gonzales and Haynes. “They brought ideas with them which had been given from sources in DC.” When the new techniques were more or less finalised, Dunlavey needed them to be approved by Lieutenant Colonel Diane Beaver, his staff judge advocate in Guantánamo. “We had talked and talked, brainstormed, then we drew up a list,” he said. The list was passed on to Diane Beaver.”
[…] Beaver told me she arrived in Guantánamo in June 2002. In September that year there was a series of brainstorming meetings, some of which were led by Beaver, to gather possible new interrogation techniques. Ideas came from all over the place, she said. Discussion was wide-ranging. Beaver mentioned one source that I didn’t immediately follow up with her: “24 – Jack Bauer.”It was only when I got home that I realised she was referring to the main character in Fox’s hugely popular TV series, 24. Bauer is a fictitious member of the Counter Terrorism Unit in LA who helped to prevent many terror attacks on the US; for him, torture and even killing are justifiable means to achieve the desired result. Just about every episode had a torture scene in which aggressive techniques of interrogations were used to obtain information.
Jack Bauer had many friends at Guantánamo Bay, Beaver said, “he gave people lots of ideas.” She believed the series contributed to an environment in which those at Guantánamo were encouraged to see themselves as being on the frontline – and to go further than they otherwise might.
The new article provides a nice holistic picture of torture in America. The guys at the top – Dick Cheney, David Addington and his clan of neoconservative insiders – clearly wanted torture so badly that you wonder if they wrote those memos with their pants on. Jack Bauer was hardly needed with those guys*. However, the peope at the other end of US power don’t have such black souls. The privates and NCOs with more ordinary American values, guys who would soon be called on by their superior officers to do morally repulsive things, would need some extra motivation**. To get over their resistance to abusing helpless prisoners Jack Bauer, maybe the first mass media “good guy” who tortured on a regular basis, clearly made a major difference.
Think that Surnow will lose any sleep over the mess that he made? Sure, I bet. All of those guys we tortured to death must have been guilty of something.
***
(*) Ok, fine, Antonin Scalia. Aren’t these guys supposed to base their thinking on, you know, non-fictional precedent?
(**) Some veterans of the American prison system at abu Ghraib clearly had it in them from the start, but they’re a small minority of the total.
ThymeZone
Chilling, and depressing.
Splitting Image
“It’s not like somebody goes, ‘Oh, look what they’re doing, I’ll do that.’ Is it?”
Glad they finally admit it.
They can stop drumming up the phony outrage against pornography, video games, Hollywood movies, and Barbara Eden’s navel now.
sysprog
The news pages of the New York Times haven’t yet mentioned the ABC NEWS stories about Condi and the President personally reviewing and approving torture techniques.
But the top editorial on this morning’s editorial page is about that story, and about how much is still being covered up.
http://nytimes.com/2008/04/20/opinion/20sun1.html
The NYTimes editorial board is quite correct to assign blame both to Congress and to the Administration for the continuing cover-up of the facts, but they neglected to assign any blame to a vitally important part of the conspiracy of silence: the press, including the NYTimes itself.
May I suggest that people politely ask the NYTimes public editor, if this story is worthy of a lead editorial on the Sunday editorial page, then why is this story not newsworthy?
Why has there — still — been no mention in the NEWS pages of the NYTimes of the big story of what President Bush told ABC News?
Warren Terra
The reference to Scalia taking his morality lessons from a television drama reminds me of when Ruben Bolling transformed Scalia himself into a cartoon character in two memorable strips.
It’s been over five years, and I’ve not forgotten Scalia’s first line in the first Scalia strip:
matt
This might be a small point, or splitting hairs, but you described him as a
As far as I can tell, his views are fairly consistent with mainstream Republicans.
Conservatively Liberal
I have never watched 24,and I don’t know anyone who does. I guess it has something to do with the people you surround yourself with. When I heard of the show, my first thought was that it sounded like it was written just for bloodthirsty Republicans. The idea of a show ‘validating’ everything that the US
iswas once against was just sickening. Profiting from shit like that is what Fox is all about.It is no surprise that people were influenced by it, and I have no doubt that was the intention behind it. I bet the producer and Fox patted themselves on the backs for finding a way to profit from 9-11. What the rubes in our country who support this crap ignore is the fact that BushCo has never really been after Osama Bin Laden. You can’t catch the boogey man if you want to keep the public terrified and in your control. If they have their way, they will catch Osama when he is no longer useful to them and not a minute sooner.
I really hope that some people can be held accountable after Bush is out of office. I believe in karma, and I have a feeling that what has been going around may start coming back on them soon. This has to be one of the lowest points in the history of our country, and I have a feeling it is going to get worse before it gets better, if it ever does.
Brachiator
On the other hand, there are some who suggest that “24” has helped sell Americans on the idea of a black president, thanks to the strong character, David Palmer. So I guess your outrage mileage may vary.
So yeah, Surnow may be an ethically challenged doofus, and even a right-wing activist. But so what? Moral responsibility is moral responsibility. You can’t blame TV.
And if you want me to give up my favorite torture fetish TV shows, you will have to rip the remote from my cold, dead hands.
rob!
its funny how conservatives have been yelling for decades all forms of entertainment need to be curtailed/edited/censored because they negatively influence people’s behavior. EXCEPT FOR NOW, when some TV show actually espouses something they agree with, then its all just good clean fun!
i can’t wait until Bush declares “Hostel Part 2” the National Movie.
oh, and wasn’t Surnow behind the “Half Hour Comedy Hour” on FOX? he deserves a swift kick in the privates just for that.
numbskull
Brachiator, I’m pretty sure they were thinking along the lines of a Colin Powell when they went with the Palmer character. You know, a lying CYA warmonger with complete fealty to power. One o’ da boyse, just happens to be slightly darker than the rest of the scum.
Svensker
Yes, there is, Joel. You wouldn’t say that there are certain ideals worth dying for and some things worse than death. And you wouldn’t understand “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” And you wouldn’t stand up for any principals or ideals if it involved any risk to your self. That goes for all the other “freedom isn’t free” wimps, as well.
We’ve gone from “give me liberty or give me death” to “you don’t have any civil rights if you’re dead”, and one of the people who helped pave that road was Joel Surnow.
laneman
There are reasons I have morals.
And I have stooden fast on the idea that I will not lose the idea, ever.
4tehlulz
>>There is nothing—nothing—I wouldn’t do.
Lulz. Hollywood tough guy.
Catsy
I actually used to enjoy 24, back in the first and second seasons. Of course I didn’t know anything about its creator at the time, and my friends and I have always enjoyed intense, brutal dramas on TV/movies. We ate it up.
I lost track of the show early in the 3rd season, and by the time I had an itch to go back and catch up, I’d learned a bit more about Joel Surnow, and the effects of the show have become more obvious. I can’t in good conscience give that man any money.
Ranger 3
On another note, BSG can suck my dick. I just caught the last episode, and I’m done. Won’t give any spoilers here, those of you who are current with the show know what I mean.
I was OK with the killing off of key characters. And I overlooked the maddening habit of the show to NEVER take a clear stand on moral issues. But the recent killing of a certain character, and more importantly the way that he/she was killed is just too much.
Spare me any protestations about depicting reality or any of that bullshit. If I wanted reality I’d look out my front door. I’d look out my balcony when my neighbors crazy girlfriend bangs her head against the wall, apparently attempting suicide. Or I could watch Predator Raw, which is all kinds of realistic. Here’s an idea for a future episode, Adama gets caught with an 8 year old girl, and his dark secret is finally revealed.
Fuck that. I’m through.
It could’ve been a great show. It’s obvious that alot of talented people put alot of work into this. But in the end the creators were just too cute by half. I really don’t care how it ends now. I’ll probably find out, but not from watching the show.
I was really into this show, and I normally don’t get into TV like this. But they ruined it. I’m actually upest over this. It was truly disturbing.
Whatever, I’ve gopt better things to do with my time than watch this mindfuck.
Wilfred
More conscience wanking. The real life victims of torture, abu Ghraib, rendition, secret prisons, etc. are the dark skinned members of a particular religion. The nominal opposition party went along with the appointment of an attorney general who managed to equivocate about all of these activities.
If anyone actually gave a fuck about any of this it would be over in minutes. But the unwillingness of the Democrats to stand up to the Administration is aided and abetted by many of its constituents who like to wave their consciences around for all the world to see but who, when it comes time to actually stand up to their own enablers, zip up their mouths like body bags.
So some Hollywood asshole gets rich by feeding the s/m fantasies of the Christian/Zionist axis. So fucking what? But when Bush picked yet another torture enabler as AG – where was the outrage then?
El Cid
Yeah, this would be the banal aspect of the Banality of Evil.
Dan
Don’t forget that the right scoffed at the idea of 24 inspiring torture.
the politic golfer
This White House acts as if it believes that Fox’s 24 is real. But, when the Principals’ hero, Jack Bauer, takes matters into his own hands, he knows and accepts if he is called to task for his actions, he will go down. The cowards in the White House aspire to emulate Jack Bauer but, unlike their hero, they hide behind the skirts of dubious legal opinions drafted after they’ve made their decisions to protect their backsides.
ABC and AP report that the CIA came to the Principals for approval of interrogation techniques. It seems the CIA wanted cover from the White House for what it believed to be illegal. Astonishingly, the CIA got what it asked for from the Vice President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense of the United States, the Secretary of State of the United States, the Attorney General of the United States, and the National Security Advisor of the United States, all with the approval of the President of the United States. What a sad time for the United States.
September 11 shook the Bushies to their core. They came into office knowing, yes knowing, that because the United States was the biggest and strongest in the world, no one was stupid enough to really try to hurt us. … September 11 proved the Bushies wrong and they were terrified. Their reaction to their fear will take generations to overcome and may well haunt the United States forever.
slippy hussein toad
I think Barack Obama has sold himself quite effectively without any help from the media elite, thanks. 24 is still garbage, and Sunrow is human filth. But nice try.
Scott H
Don’t you enjoy the it’s 5 minutes! and there’s a nuclear bomb! and its everybody you love!
What sh!t. Never having seen it, I can’t say 24 is porn for d!ckless schmucks. Mostly sounds like it.
Speaking for myself, in the manner of St. John of Rant,
Torture (and the approval of torture) is for the very sick of mind and empty of soul who like to do it (or who get off heavily on the idea of it). That’s the only reason. They like it; it makes them wet. That’s what they are.
Torture is unreliable. This is fact. It dehumanizes the perp as well as the victim. This is fact. It is a catastrophe for a society.
Anyone who defends or justifies torture should face immediate Ridicule. Humiliation. Disgrace.
Dennis - SGMM
Well, some people are taking the threat of Islamofascistmakinguswearburqas terrorism seriously:
KCinDC
Is the guy even remotely acquainted with the concept of logic? How does saying that you would try something in a moment of desperation in any way support the idea that that something would work?
That said, I’ve watched a fair number of “24” episodes, and I’d have to say that it’s not completely a right-wing fantasy. Sure, Jack is running around torturing people, but the torture doesn’t always work and sometimes he gets bad information from it (not that that makes him stop). Also, most of what happens in the White House is pretty left-wing. The hawks are nearly always wrong and sometimes involved in treasonous activities.
Russ
Wilfred,
It sure seems the democrats could do more, but to say they are torture enablers, like the right is wrong. I don’t understand the politics as well as many but aren’t they just barely in a majority and have little power to do much? Also, hard reality dictates, that since the MSM, in large part is gung ho on torture, taking steps to eradicate it is a very steep up hill battle.
Walker
I have hated 24 since the first season, before everyone started talking about its torture fetish. Jack Bauer would regularly sell out the lives of large numbers of Americans for his wife/daughter/whatever. Someone that easily manipulated by personal emotional attachments should never be allowed to be in the position of power that he is. It is a liability for the US.
The reason Jack Bauer always has to solve things in 24 hours is because he sucks at his job. That’s what 24 is ultimately about — constantly having to cover up for the hero’s failings.
Grand Moff Texan
What the fuck? Non sequitur. “It does work because when you’re pissed off and terrified you’re likely to be violent. ” What a fucking two-year old. I guess that makes sense to a quivering little entitlement-tantrum like Surnow.
I want it! Therefore is must be good! It would take a dirty fucking hippie to not enable my violent impotence at someone else’s expense.
.
Brachiator
This is neither the way that the Palmer character has been depicted, nor is it the way that the character has been perceived by the show’s viewers. Are you sure that you have seen an episode?
Oddly enough, Palmer’s wife was depicted as “a lying CYA warmonger with complete fealty to power.” But she was also clearly one of the bad guys.
24, like the best of TV, is more complex than even the more despicable statements of its creator, Surnow. The funny thing about torture on 24 is that it is often ineffective. The wrong person gets tortured. A bad guy has been fed false information, or deliberately gives bad information to the protagonists in order to make it appear that the “enhanced interrogation” has been effective. But these nuances are lost on the weak sisters who are shocked, shocked, to find that torture is depicted on a TV show.
You have almost nailed it. It is far easier to work up faux outrage over a fictional TV show than it is to hold real politicians in the real world responsible for their political and moral cowardice.
However, that “Christian/Zionist axis” thing is total rubbish. Just saying.
Oh yeah, and how about those recent presidential debates on ABC? I really enjoyed the huge amount of time that was devoted to the issue of torture, and the hard-hitting questions thrown at the candidates about needed reforms.
Yes. I am bitter.
jrg
That does not sound like an unreasonable expectation on Surnow’s part. We’re supposed to be talking about adults, here.
I wonder if the U.S. ambassador to Japan learned how to do his job by watching ninja movies.
Or at least Scalia should get real about it and bring in Keifer in to testify. I’m pretty sure that what he did in “Young Guns” was illegal, so he might have a hard time with the prosecution.
Besides, where are we going to find a “non-fictional precedent” for torture? It’s not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, International Law, or Case Law. Also, we know that the U.S. is not torturing, because Bush said so.
I think I’ll go shoot some backwoods Republican. When I get arrested, I’ll tell them that I just finished watching “Deliverance”, so it was in self-defense.
KCinDC
Aside from being black, the Palmers were both young presidents. Dennis Haysbert, who played David, was 47 when season 1 premiered. D.B. Woodside, who played Wayne, was only 37 for season 6.
grumpy realist
Oh, there’s a lot of stuff about the legality of PARTICULAR forms of torture relatively recently…especially when it was “those damn Japs” doing it to US soldiers. Or red-neck sheriffs doing it to “uppity n*****rs” in the South.
And I’m sure if I rustled around in some church documents I’d find a lot of stuff.
Funny how it’s getting that people had more rights under the Inquisition than they do in Bush’s America.
(If Berkeley can’t kick Yoo out on his ass for having produced that stupid “prexy can do what he likes!” memo, they should kick him out for demonstrating absolutely no knowledge of the foundations of law. Myself, I think an appropriate punishment for Yoo would to be smothered under a ton of medieval writings on human rights, but that’s just me. )
4tehlulz
>>However, that “Christian/Zionist axis” thing
is the center of Wilfred’s existence. It is this axis that limits his work against torture to bitching about teh j00z on the Internet, for example.
Brachiator
The media elite is largely a fantasy or right wing nutjobs. But there have been lively discussions about the impact of David Palmer on the popular imagination on TV sites like Television Without Pity. And then there is this bit from Dennis Haysbert himself (Haysbert Says ’24’ Role Paved the Way for Presidential Hopeful Barack Obama):
It is easy, and reasonable, to blast Surnow for his reprehensible comments about torture. But the idea that 24, or any TV show is automatically bad just because you dislike the show’s creators is way off base.
Chris Johnson
I didn’t realise I was so bold and assertive. huh.
I mean, the idea of watching a hero guy forcibly overwhelm the resistance of a villain and compel him to reveal information via torture really leaves me cold. It just doesn’t give me a stiffy, like rape fantasies don’t give me a stiffy.
On the assumption that we gravitate to these things which do for us what we can’t do for ourselves, it suggests that just as children which torture animals are typically acting on feelings of powerlessness from themselves being abused and raped, these adults which are inexplicably hot for torture porn aren’t specifically out for blood or snuff, but rather the dominating quality, the assertion of naked power and will.
…suggesting that they are running scared from a great feeling of powerLESSness and inadequacy in these days of declining and falling American Empire.
…which really kinda makes a lot of sense.
I guess I don’t respond to those button-pushes because my history contains a lot of crazy things like homelessness and extreme poverty which I’m no longer afraid of- and the end result appears to be that my own domineering nature and force of will was hardened to where I don’t seek porn about domineering willpower.
My little pony pr0n, instead. Gotta have that sensitivity ;)
Rick Taylor
I’ve never watched 24, but I don’t feel any anger towards the people who produced it. When creating a television show, one shouldn’t have to worry how one does it, because the highest officials of the government might watch it looking for tricks and tips on how to torture people.
Wilfred
From one of the principal cunts of the blog. Hey, you forgot I mentioned the Xtians, too. The usual anti-semitic vapors from the simple substitution of Christian/Zionist axis for neo-con, as if the neo-cons were anything other than members of the Christian/Zionist front.
We have to update George Carlin’s old routine about the seven dirty words and make them fit the new reality of blogs. When dealing with the so-called Democratic opposition you can never mention who is a jew and who isn’t, hence the politically and legally sanctioned oppression of brown-skinned Muslims by right wing Christians and Jews can never be mentioned. You can however, deny or assert that Obama is a nigger Muslim.
It just sort of happens, you know, it’s not done by any particular people that might have an agenda against dark-skinned Muslims, like Mukasey, for instance.
Chris Johnson
Oh, and Surnow- ya know, if experts who have studied it in reality come to you and tell you that torture doesn’t work in the grand scheme of things (thus writing off ‘but it gets me off’ arguments), saying “I don’t believe” that is not an argument.
It’s not a faith issue, dude, it’s not up to what you BELIEVE. It’s a matter of whether it produces the results you look for in the big picture, out in the world where your enemies are motivated by good or bad assumptions.
It’s not a video game dude- the bad guys’ plot lines weren’t written by a scriptwriter, or even a Tom Clancy, who ended up producing really dumb motivations for his villains and probably still is.
It’s legitimate to say that torture absolutely doesn’t ‘work’ because it firstly gives bad information and secondly allows all of your enemies to CORRECTLY paint you as an evil bad guy who deserves to be stamped out. We go by shared fantasies that we call ‘civilization’ which is the reason we’re not going around shooting and eating each other on the street, which would otherwise be technically possible and save hugely on grocery bills.
When you reject fundamental tenets of this ‘civilization’ you by definition become evil and villainous. Some of it is very fundamental in nature and extends across all civilized societies. Violating this is not a neat trick, it’s a dumb and self-defeating trick.
Doctor Jay
The notion that torture could or would save members of your family is a fantasy. 24 is a work of fiction, not a historical document.
Those who testify that actual torture on actual suspects present the following evidence:
1. He told us about plots against bridges and shopping malls under torture that we didn’t get without torture.
2. We sent troops and law enforcement there.
3. Nothing happened.
Clearly, the torture was successful. The idea that maybe the attacks were works of fiction never seems to enter the equation.
Nobody has ever, to my mind, put forth a historical case analysis where someone’s family was saved, under urgent time pressure, by torturing a suspect. Never. The scenario is a fantasy.
4tehlulz
>>From one of the principal cunts of the blog.
Oh poor thing. Are we upset that you’ve been exposed as the Bizarro Bill Kristol? Talks all sorts of shit about how someone should do something about the Xtian/Zionist axis and yet does nothing but fap in front of his keyboard while the “dark-skinned Muslims” you allegedly care for die?
Wilfred
From my keyboard I point out the hypocrisy of people like yourself, and some of the other lames who post on this site. What else can one do from a keyboard?
Muslim-Americans who have stood up against the torture, rendition and other delights thought up by the the Christian/Zionist axis have suffered economically and professionally. Tell me the next time your name appears on an FAA list.
You don’t really see anything wrong with torturing Muslims – you just want to feel good about yourself and show that you care so you project your own self-loathing and do-nothingness when someone calls it the self-serving bullshit that it is.
Don’t prattle about things you know nothing to people you don’t know.
4tehlulz
>>You don’t really see anything wrong with torturing Muslims
You can believe what you want; since I don’t loop everything back to teh Axis of Judeochristianity, you’ll believe I like to torture people.
But this was funny:
>>you just want to feel good about yourself and show that you care so you project your own self-loathing and do-nothingness when someone calls it the self-serving bullshit that it is.
That describes yourself better than anything. Good work.
dslak
So if it weren’t for Jews or Christians, there wouldn’t be any torture? How does one propose we test this hypothesis?
4tehlulz
>>So if it weren’t for Jews or Christians, there wouldn’t be any torture?
You should probably include the Papists, too.
/Huckabee
Wilfred
You know, I doubt anyone can really address something this pathetically fucking stupid. I surrender the field.
Torture of Muslims will continue, rendition of Muslims will continue, Guantanamo will continue, abu Ghraib will remain unpunished and secret prisons will remain filled with Muslims. Cui bono?
Soylent Green
Nobody expects the Christian/Zionist inquisition.
Soliton
Actually, the Milgram experiment and the Stanford prison experiment both show that it is terrifyingly easy to get everyday people to torture their fellow human beings, even unto death.
The Stanford prison experiment was originally scheduled to last for two weeks but was ended after six fucking days because events were spiraling out of control.
One third of the “guards” in the Stanford prison experiment were judged to have shown “genuine sadistic tendencies”. And these were just fellow students, not “terrorists” that were being guarded.
What happens to someone after years of being in the position of a guard over those whom he is taught and encouraged to hate?
Wilfred
Oh for fuck’s sake. Ask Norman Finkelstein, or Mearsheimer and Walt or even Ward Churchill about the consequences of challenging a certain narrative. Daniel Pipes created an entire organization based on stifling debate in academia and I’ve yet to hear a fucking word about it by either Tim F. or Cole, both of whom are academics.
jrg
Yeah, it’s almost like there is a holy war going on.
Torture, renditions, and secret prisons are wrong. Arab men, in many ways, have been the canary in the coal mine. This shit needs to stop. I don’t care if you’re a Muslim or a Mormon, you still have rights.
That said, when Islam is mixed with anti-American sentiment, and the language of war is couched in religious terms, what do you expect? Of course the people being denied trial and tortured are Muslims – Fundamentalist Islam made itself the perfect enemy.
Your specific religion gives you no more a right to protest this criminal behavior than everyone else has.
Soylent Green
Wilfred,
It’s all too easy for you to strip Zionism from its historical context and use it as a code word to represent the neocon imperialists in the administration who helped push us into Iraq. Some of the key players are likudnik Jews. Some of the rest may be dominionist Christians. They form an evil Axis. Wake up, America!
If you want to critique the Zionist movement, go for it. But I’m not fooled by your use of the term. It’s the same musty old canard that goes back to the publication of the Protocols, in which Zionism represents a secret cabal of scheming Jews that controls the banks / the media / Hollywood / the Congress / the nation’s foreign policy / the torture and abuse of Muslims.
Get yourself a new dog whistle.
Wilfred
Agreed. The problem is that the only people being tortured by the United States for anything remotely to do with their religion happen to be Muslims. That means it is not an abstract problem but a concrete one. There are hundreds of laws against torture. My disagreement is when the implementation of torture is blamed on one party and the other is held unaccountable for its passive acquiescence to torture. Nancy Pelosi represents the most progressive district in the country – why hasn’t she taken a forceful position against torture?
The question reduces to the following: Why is there no concerted political effort to do away with all these activities which are currently being reserved exclusively for the members of one religion?
4tehlulz
In fairness to Wilfred, he hasn’t said that the
JewsXian/Zionist axis controls the banks.Yet.
In before he does.
Wilfred
Most, if not all of whom are Likudniks with strong ties to Israel. Or is it anti-semitic to say that?
The tried and true Daniel Pipes method: Anti-Semite, anti-Semite, anti-Semite. It’s what you’ve tried to smear Obama with it, but it doesn’t work anymore, get used to it.
People like you have always depended on a lack of critical thinking on the part of Americans, the kind that prevents certain questions being asked from fear of being labeled something. The emergence of people in academia who are willing to think for themselves will be the end of you.
dslak
I quite admire Finkelstein. I disagree with Walt and Mearsheimer on substance (so does Finkelstein, for that matter) but not in aim. Although Churchill has done some good things for Native Americans, the comparison of the victims of 9/11 with Adolf Eichmann was exceptionally callous.
Some of these men, if not all, have suffered in their careers as a result of unfair attacks. Other than that, I’m not seeing the relevance of your invocation of them. Is the point supposed to be that there’s a Jewish conspiracy afoot to silence all critics of Israeli policy regarding the Palestinians? If there is, it’s been a dismal failure in Israel itself.
Wilfred
There is a certain narrative. Challenging that narrative results in personal and professional consequences. Is this so difficult to understand? Several paragraphs would be sufficient to outline that narrative but it is more important to simply recognize that such things have always existed. Thirty some odd years ago it was enough to call someone a Marxist. Challenging that narrative resulted in charges of anti-Americanism, godlessness, etc. Things meant to push ruinous buttons in the minds of the uninformed.
The same things happen today, only now it’s a different narrative and the epithets against dissenters have changed. The mechanism remains the same. In the end it’s about power – who has it and who they use it against.
I ask the same question a different way: Torture is immoral and unethical, yet we practice it against Muslims and no one from either political party moves to stop it. Why not?
dslak
The punishment for “challenging the narrative” doesn’t just apply to those on the left on this particular issue. Similar things happen to fans of Ayn Rand at some schools, or religiously and socially conservative teachers at others.
What that has to do with torture, I’m still not sure. Why you would think there’s some kind of Jewish conspiracy behind it all is even less clear.
As an aside, prior to the 1960s, many of the victims of red-baiting would have been Jews. How does that fit into your narrative?
Soylent Green
I don’t know, genius. The Jews won’t let them, because as we all know, all Jews hate all Muslims, love to torture them, and with their special Jedi mind tricks, are tricking most Americans into accepting their pro-Israel, anti-Muslim narrative?
I am of Jewish heritage (although the religion means nothing to me) and I am a strong critic of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians, as are many other American Jews, as are many Israelis. But I won’t bother discussing the subject any further with the likes of you.
The thing I’ve always wondered about the secret Jewish conspiracy is: where’s my monthly check? How come I’m not getting any of the memos?
Wilfred
Finally, good spoof. Or is it? It’s hard to tell these days.
Liar.
dslak
As if Jews are even allowed to be critical of Israel policy!
Soylent Green
Okay, Willie, you win. I confess. I love Israel and hate America. I killed Jesus too. That Christian baby blood sure is tasty.
Wilfred
I’m just not able to respond to or engage in this sort of infantile nonsense. You win, actually. Mazel tov.
jrg
It is concrete in the sense that it’s happening, but it’s abstract in that it sets a precedent for future government actions against non-Muslim groups. In other words, torture and rendition are dangerous to non-Muslims in a “When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.” sort of way.
Trying to get people to agree on the rights of Muslims while getting in a twist about Zionism is a mistake. I’ll bet that neither Muslims nor Jews comprise a majority of readers on this blog. Don’t you think it makes more sense to appeal to shared concerns?
Wilfred
But there already are endless moral, ethical and legal precedents in place against the use of torture on generic human ‘subjects’. It is the specificity of Muslimness that has made those precedents be ignored. Mukasey’s equivocations on the use of torture were made with everyone knowing who the potential victims would be. it is only by pointing out and challenging the specific application of torture to a particular group that Bush’s assertion that “We don’t torture” can be exposed for the hypocrisy it is. Again, everybody is against torture, or so they say. Yet it persists against one group of people.
What shared concerns? I don’t believe a word out of the mouths of some of these people, especially the crocodile tears for water-boarded Muslims.
Soylent Green
But you have no problem calling me a liar to my face on the basis of absolutely nothing.
What a fucking tool.
slippy hussein toad
No, I think it’s a bad show because it’s a piece of shit. I merely extend that opinion to the show’s creator as well.
You mean a narcissistic TV actor overstates his own importance in the scheme of things? I would never have imagined it!
I stand by my statement that Barack Obama became a political star in his own right because of his personal talent at communicating with people. You’ve presented evidence showing nothing more substantial than the fact that the actor who plays this part thinks he is a role model. I bet a survey of potential Obama voters would reveal that a large majority of them have no fucking clue who that guy is.
Zuzu
Get Patterico over here pronto to explain why two minutes, but not three minutes, of waterboarding someone you are certain has the info on the ticking time bomb, and you are positive will squeal that info … is like, totally worth it.
Because like Surnow, he’s never met a stupid hypothetical he didn’t like.
Animal Structure
Liberals used to just be dumb hippies or naive middle class dopes or even naive rich idiots…they were never evil, just dumb and misguided, but there are so many blatantly anti-American Leftist scum on this board it is breathtaking!
You know nothing of early America so quit your constant appeals to it. The founding fathers were religious, they all believed in God, they all abided slavery, subjugation of women, massacring Natives. George Washington kicked British loyalists out of the country! They had to move to Nova Scotia for crying out loud! So save your BS Leftist Commie rhetoric.
Real men torture, period. If that offends you, so be it. But you seem pretty comfortable behind your little desk and your little computer spouting invective against the U.S. government. You seem pretty safe too. Unless you think the men in the black suits are listening to you. Yes pitiful Leftist, you think you are so important! Wake Up! NO ONE CARES WHAT YOU THINK! You’re all cranks, worthy of derision and nothing more.
George W. Bush is a Liberal. He governs like a 60’s era Liberal. He’s no conservative. Cheney et all are not conservatives. In any way shape or form.
You Liberal fascists make me sick.
A S
Zuzu
Oh HELL no. James Earle Jones was paving the way when Obama was a tyke.
Plus he had a role-model angry black power first daughter.
Zuzu
Hey, what happened to my link?
The Man
Mark
Hey, did anyone care to look at the date where the phrase “24” was uttered as a source of ideas for torture? September 2002, which was not long after the first season of “24” ended and several months before the start of season 2.
It’s been a lot of years, and I have since stopped watching the show, but IIRC, torture was not a prominently used tactic in the first season, at least not by the “good guys.” At most there was one torture scene perpetrated by the good guys, and I don’t think it worked.
That’s not to justify the constant torture of suspects that occured in later seasons (which ultimately was why I stopped watching). But this story just doesn’t seem to add up.
Dug Jay
I see that Andrew Sullivan has linked to this post with an endorsement of the conclusions. Also, tonight Sullivan is greatly upset with his former employer, The New Republic, for having published a piece in which their senior editor labels him a “Jew-Baiter.”
He is now on suicide watch.
WJA
The Guardian story has a giant logic hole in it. Beaver claims she was hearing Guantanamo interrogators cite *24* in September 2002. At the time, however, only the first season of *24* had aired, and it didn’t involve Islamic terrorists, but a Serbian paramilitary freak (played by Dennis Hopper) trying to coerce Bauer into assassinating a charismatic young black Senator about to be elected President. (Yes, eerie.) In that season, Bauer doesn’t really torture anyone– rather, it’s his *family* who’s kidnapped and threatened with harm and death if he doesn’t comply. Look, it aired from November 6, 2001 to May 21, 2002:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_%28season_1%29
The second season which did feature a lot of Bauer torturing Islamic terrorists and their allies didn’t air until October 2002. And according to the Wikipedia timeline, Jack doesn’t start turning the screws on anyone in interrogation until December 2, 2002:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_%28season_2%29
Either the Guardian source has her timeline confused, or she’s lying. In any case, the Guardian’s claim that “Just about every episode had a torture scene in which aggressive techniques of interrogations were used to obtain information” is provably false, especially for the first few seasons.
TenguPhule
Sweet Irony of the Day.
jrg
7.5/10. You’ve got potential as a troll, but some people on the right really do believe this, so I’m afraid you’ll have to come up with even more moronic bullshit. But keep it up, Sparky.
Did Americans give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell No!
George Arndt
I wonder if “24” has also inspired the Chinese treament of Tibetans?
George Arndt
I wonder if “24” has also inspired the Chinese treatment of Tibetans? Surnow and the Butchers of Beijing have much in common..
Darby Clash
I would like to ask Mr Surnow to repeat his statement with “rape the likely-terrorist’s young son, show him the video/audio recording of it, and threaten to rape the son again” substituted for “torture”. We don’t do this (to my knowledge), but evidently the Egyptian secret police have done, with what they considered good results.
It wouldn’t sound quite so butch. It wouldn’t make you sound like “a fair but hard [heh] Guardian on the Wall who understands how things must be”, and more like “a pathetic monster”.
Chris Johnson:
I agree; we can become evil. I’m against the Bad Guys, and I don’t want to be against the land of my birth. Too many people implicitly believe in a dumbed-down Calvinism which allows the Good Guys to do anything and stay good, and makes anything permissible to the current Bad Guys (who are but as chaff destined for the Fire anyway).