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Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)

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How Bad Does This Make Us Look?

Posted on: March 10, 2010 12:32 PM, by Ed Brayton

How embarrassing should it be for this country that Iran -- Iran, for god's sake -- puts its officials on trial for torture and we don't?

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I guess the difference is that these guys are on trial for the "torture-death" of their victims.

Hard to dispute the definition of torture when your victims died, eh?

Not quite so easy for us, when we have people who insist that waterboarding isn't torture (although I'm sure they'd be quite unwilling to be subjected to it themselves.)

Posted by: kacyray | March 10, 2010 12:56 PM

Not so fast, Ed... The article says they are prosecuting 12 officials at a prison. Meanwhile, a former Tehran prosecutor was deemed responsible for 3 torture deaths, and it looks like he's failed upward to a government job.

If Iran punishes its little guys for despicable behavior while promoting its higher-ups who commit the same crimes, I'd say that's right on par with the USA, wouldn't you?

Posted by: Herb | March 10, 2010 12:57 PM

first, the Iranians are known for applying capital punishment and other severe punishments for what we would see as moral crimes - homosexuality, fornication, etc. in the US, capital and severe punishments are reserved for crimes like aggravated murder (not to say that we don't imprison far, far too many people; we do). so, there's no equivalence to be made between how the US and Iran harshly punish their "worst" criminals.

next, inmates in American prisons aren't tortured routinely, and if they were the guards would be routinely punished. our prisons are overfilled for various (some very wrong) reasons, but the prisoners are generally well-cared for, much better than they could expect in an Iranian prison, where apparently 1) a prisoner might be there for political crimes, and 2) he might be secretly tortured by the authorities (who will be punished if what they've done is discovered).

finally, those tortured or killed by the US are almost all foreigners on whom the Gov't has declared war. we've been torturing and killing non-Americans for centuries. we did it to the Arabs and Afghans, the Vietnamese, the Koreans, the Filipinos, the Indians, and our own African slaves. but, we generally have not done so to those we called "citizens", so again, there's no equivalence to be made with the Iranians.

so, it's not embarrassing at all.

Posted by: andrew | March 10, 2010 1:26 PM

Ed,

As I have said before, I an American who has lived in Japan for 35 years. I am also a military historian, primarily WWII. After that war, America and Britain tried and executed over 1,000 former Japanese military personnel for torturing Allied POW's. One of the primary techniques was water-boarding.

At this time, there are various serious debates going on about the future of the Japanese/American relationship, primarily about the future status of US military bases here.

As Americans, I think we are very fortunate that the Japanese media has not picked up on the water-boarding issue, and other things we have done in Iraq/Afghanistan, it would only throw gasoline on the fire.

But I am very appalled at the attitude some Americans have, "If other nations do it to our people, we will punish them, but it is OK for us to do it to others because we are Americans, and thusly we must be doing it for a good reason".

That kind of thinking is going to bring us no end of trouble.

Posted by: Max von Schuler-Kobayashi | March 10, 2010 1:40 PM

As usual, you libruls are missing the opint. Iranians are bad so they shuld try their pepul for tortur. But Amercans ar good so we4 dint do njutthing wrong. how why wuldyou punihsh soemone who dint do nuthting worng?

Posted by: James Hanley | March 10, 2010 2:16 PM

finally, those tortured or killed by the US are almost all foreigners on whom the Gov't has declared war. we've been torturing and killing non-Americans for centuries. we did it to the Arabs and Afghans, the Vietnamese, the Koreans, the Filipinos, the Indians, and our own African slaves. but, we generally have not done so to those we called "citizens", so again, there's no equivalence to be made with the Iranians.
so, it's not embarrassing at all.

So, on an arbitrary scale of evilness, we're still a rung or two up on Iran?

Your standards for embarrassment are disturbingly low.

Posted by: amphiox | March 10, 2010 2:18 PM

"How embarrassing should it be for this country that Iran puts its officials on trial for torture and we don't?"

why should this embarrass Americans? because we disingenuously claim to be opposed to things like torture, political suppression, and mass murder?

"So, on an arbitrary scale of evilness, we're still a rung or two up on Iran?"

if the evilness scale is in the domain of how we treat our own citizens, we're dozens of rungs above the Iranians. if the scale is in the domain of how we've treated various types of brown/yellow people across the planet, we're dozens of rungs below them. whether the average comes out a couple of rungs above/below them, who's to say? depends on how you weight "my people" and "foreigners".

"Your standards for embarrassment are disturbingly low."

within the domain of the original question (should we be embarrassed that Iranians do something "good" that we refuse to do?), it seems like such a relatively insignificant matter in comparison with the other things I mentioned that it doesn't really nudge my embarrassment meter very far, true...

Posted by: andrew | March 10, 2010 2:47 PM

We should not try Clinton and Blair for war crimes. When we wage war, it is legal. Bombs are not torture.

Posted by: jokester | March 10, 2010 3:27 PM

You must take this, as the ancients say, "cum granum sale". Is it a show trial to execute dissenters in the ranks, a show trial to protect criminals in the ranks, or are they genuine trials. Just like the USA, you get show trials and genuine ones in Iran.

Posted by: MadScientist | March 10, 2010 4:43 PM

regardless of relative-evil scale metrics, the fact that we're in a country that tortures/tortured recently says we're several rungs below where WE should be, regardless of any other country.

We should not be doing/have done that, and prosecution for those involved is still lacking.

Posted by: VikingMoose | March 10, 2010 5:01 PM

I originally misread the post as "How embarrassing should it be for this country that Iran -- Iran, for god's sake -- puts its officials on torture for terror and we don't?"

As in for the "war on terror" originating in the US, not any conspiracy theories or anything.

I fail at reading today I guess.

Posted by: Katherine | March 10, 2010 6:01 PM

@jokester: Declaring war is indeed a criminal act in many cases. When you cannot provide credible evidence that there is a genuine threat and cannot provide evidence that all other options have been exhausted, starting a war is an immense crime. Numerous civilians suffer needlessly due to an unnecessary war.

Gulf War Part 1 (starring Bush The Elder) prevented Saddam Hussein from occupying other sovereign states (well, other Emirates). Gulf War Part 2 ('The Clone of the Attack' as MAD puts it) was just Bush the Younger playing cowboy. Lies were used to frighten lawmakers into agreeing to an invasion - "weapons of mass destruction" and all that nonsense. When no such weapons could be found (despite numerous lies claiming to have 'found evidence' of such weapons/programs), the excuse changed to one of ridding the middle east of a brutal dictator. Oh gee, if we're in the business of getting rid of brutal dictators, why did we support both sides in the Nicaraguan civil wars and why do we tolerate the brutal tyrants of Burma? Why don't we show Kim Jong Il that he's the most pathetic god in history?

I don't see other nations approving of an invasion and the inevitable civilian casualties for the sole purpose of toppling dictatorships either.

Posted by: MadScientist | March 10, 2010 9:01 PM

MadScientist - I would have thought "cum grano salis". - Dingo

Posted by: DingoJack | March 11, 2010 3:48 AM

The thing is, in this context, the verb "to torture" has ceased to be a regular verb thus:

I use enhanced interrogation techniques,
You torture,
He/She is a war criminal.

It's marvellous what gets done to the english language in the name of political expediency.

Posted by: Rufus | March 11, 2010 4:49 AM

@DJ: I see both forms used - but 30 years without practice leaves me, as Ben Jonson said of Shakespeare, "He knew little Latin and even less Greek." The web seems to indicate that I've got it wrong though. The last time I saw "The Holy Grail" it took me over a minute to decide that "Romanes eunt domum" was in fact correct. It doesn't help any that I keep mixing my Latin and Italian as well (thanks to very little practice with either). I never fail to use "prope" rather than "in vicino".

Posted by: MadScientist | March 11, 2010 6:03 AM

MadScientist,

Could be worse, you could add "terrible with languages" to the lack of practice like I do. ;o)

----------

We should not try Clinton and Blair for war crimes. When we wage war, it is legal. Bombs are not torture.

As MadScientist pointed out, there are legitimate times to declare war. GulfWar one qualified, aggressive neighbor, request of threatened second neighbor, legitimate coalition of nations, etc. The operations in the former Yugoslavia qualified quite obviously as well. You can be quite frustrated by our picking and choosing which fights we wish to offer our assistance, but comparing Yugoslavia to Bush/Blair & co. in Iraq-2 "the sequel" is less than honest.

Posted by: dogmeatib | March 11, 2010 8:51 AM

I like the way Harry Shearer put it*: "Gulf war II. This time it's personal!"

* On "Le Show", early 2003 I beileve.

Posted by: dNorrisM | March 11, 2010 11:21 AM

MadScientist @ 15:

Wasn't that from "The Life of Brian"?

I don't know Latin, but I'd hate to think I'm forgetting my Monty Python.

Posted by: Escuerd | March 11, 2010 1:13 PM

Rufus @ 14:

Haha, that is awesome.

I think I'm going to have to steal that.

Posted by: Escuerd | March 11, 2010 1:16 PM