Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
For the true devotee of irony, the New York Times reported last week:
The Obama administration stepped up pressure against Iran's government on Wednesday, slapping financial and travel sanctions on eight Iranian officials and accusing them of taking part in rampant human rights abuses.Under an executive order signed this week by President Barack Obama, the State and Treasury departments jointly announced the sanctions that target Iranians who "share responsibility for the sustained and severe violation of human rights in Iran," notably after last year's disputed presidential elections.
Gee, whatever happened to that "looking forward, not back" thing? Oh yeah, that only applies when it's our government engaging in torture, not when other governments do it. When other governments do it, it's evil and must be stopped. I think the Iranians should double down on the irony and just invoke the State Secrets Privilege.
"On these officials' watch or under their command, Iranian citizens have been arbitrarily arrested, beaten, tortured, raped, blackmailed and killed," Clinton said. "Yet the Iranian government has ignored repeated calls from the international community to end these abuses."
Yep, just like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld arrested U.S. citizen Jose Padilla and had him beaten and tortured. And just like the U.S. government has ignored repeated calls from the international community to punish those who authorized that torture -- you know, like we promised to do when we signed the U.N. Convention on Torture.
Glenn Greenwald responds with all due sarcasm:
Numerous detainees in American custody were also beaten, tortured and killed. The photos Obama caused to be suppressed -- even after two federal courts ordered them disclosed -- depicted multiple acts of detainee rape. Thousands were arbitrarily arrested and detained by the U.S. without due process, and continue to be. None of that resulted in a smidgen of accountability for the high-level government officials responsible for all of that, because the Obama administration formally took the position that they should be immunized. Somehow, though, the same Obama officials manage with a straight face to stand up in public and impose penalties on Iranians for the same conduct. Note, too, how freely the Associated Press uses the word "torture" to describe what the Iranians did, in contrast to the American media's refusal to use that term for what Americans did.Can you believe those crazy, paranoid Muslims and Arabs who claim that the U.S. maintains completely different standards for itself and the rest of the world? Such deranged, conspiratorial thoughts can mean only one thing: They Hate Us For Our Freedom.
I think I'm figuring out what all the wingnuts mean when they use the phrase "American exceptionalism" -- we get exceptions from all the laws we demand be followed by others.
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Sorry, Ed, but that's not even a pale shadow of the sarcasm that's due. Unfortunately (on so many fronts) Samuel Clemens is no longer with us.
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | October 4, 2010 12:20 PM
No, no, see, they arrest and torture citizens arbitrarily. We do it when some terrorist bargains years off his sentence by fingering someone or something. I guess the Iranians just roll dice or throw darts at a board or something. Arbitrariness is the important factor, not the torture!
Posted by: Michael Suttkus, II | October 4, 2010 1:20 PM
sanctions? The mullahs are quaking with fear. Extra baggage fees!
Posted by: asdf | October 4, 2010 1:28 PM
Maybe when you are thrown in jail and tortured for peaceful demonstration, or when your daughter is beaten and raped by the religious secret police for perceived social impropriety should you start making a moral equivalence analysis between the US and Iran.
Until those things happen, however, you should expect serious people to condemn your post as being utterly stupid and contemptible.
Posted by: Nam | October 4, 2010 1:32 PM
Nam,
Perhaps you might try actually reading the post, and figure out for yourself whether Ed is in fact making anything remotely like the claim that the US and Iran are morally equivalent.
Quick hint: The answer starts with "N" and ends with "O."
Posted by: Gretchen | October 4, 2010 1:38 PM
Gretchen, I hardly see how "Nabisco" is an answer.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | October 4, 2010 1:46 PM
@Nam, Do you suppose arresting and detaining people for years, without due process, and also abusing those people is not as terrible as what the Iranians have done? In what manner are such comparisons stupid?
Posted by: StevenG | October 4, 2010 1:47 PM
Nam, #4: Maybe when you are thrown in jail and tortured for peaceful demonstration, or when your daughter is beaten and raped by the religious secret police for perceived social impropriety should you start making a moral equivalence analysis between the US and Iran.
But it's all okay if these things are done by non-religious police?
I doubt that any victim of torture and/or arbitrary arrest and/or punishment that far outweighs the offence being punished rests any more easily knowing that these things are done more frequently in other countries. Or maybe some do, I don't know; I know I wouldn't.
Posted by: Chiroptera | October 4, 2010 1:49 PM
I would like to remind our right wing freinds here that those awful Iranians you hate so much are the same people
your hero Reagan sold arms to in the 1980s.Not to mention the support Raygun gave to Saddam Hussein and the same people who we are now fighting in Afganistan.
In fact if you people really wanted to end terrorism you would stop arming and funding terrorists.
Posted by: Paen | October 4, 2010 1:54 PM
Until Nam starts making cogent arguments, he should expect that "serious people will condemn his post as being utterly stupid and contemptible."
Thanks for the verbiage, Nam, it came in handy.
Posted by: Kenbo | October 4, 2010 2:01 PM
"But it's all okay if these things are done by non-religious police?"
No, it's never okay. And we need to call it out and oppose it when it occurs. That's the point.
Tu quoque is the argument that Iran wants to use. The idea here is that the US isn't perfect either, and therefore they aren't good. They (and Ed here) will take that further and say that the US is 'just as bad' as Iran. This just isn't true when you compare the human rights records (and it's so obviously so that it's contemptible to even suggest it).
Then this line of reasoning is taken further to say that the US shouldn't condemn the human rights violations of others (another suggestion made by this blog post). Well, do you think that's a good idea that everyone just keeps quiet about human rights? Or maybe do you think Obama can criticize the atrocities committed around the world and take care of things at home at the same time? Ed here makes it sound like the two are mutually exclusive.
Posted by: Nam | October 4, 2010 2:05 PM
What Nam means is when they start throwing white people in jail and torturing them. We all know that those other folks aren't the same as us and they don't feel pain and deprivation like those of us super races do.
Posted by: Outraged | October 4, 2010 2:06 PM
"Until Nam starts making cogent arguments, he should expect that "serious people will condemn his post as being utterly stupid and contemptible.""
Until somebody on this blog wants to engage with the fact that (1) it's true that Iran has a terrible record of human rights abuses and (2) that it's always good to raise awareness and condemn human rights abuses, then I'm going to go on thinking that people here are so concerned about criticisms of the government that they would rather that nobody speak up about human rights violations in Iran.
That's the point isn't it? It's a more clever world view to call Obama a hypocrite than to say "Yes, I agree that Iran has a terrible record AND those policies need to be condemned here too."
Posted by: Nam | October 4, 2010 2:14 PM
... when they start throwing white people in jail ...
and you people think I'm the troll.
(sigh)
Posted by: asdf | October 4, 2010 2:14 PM
Hey nam, if you think the police in the USA are beyond faking evidence, perjury & torture then you haven't had the lovely pleasure of being targeted by them for political reasons.
I assure you via personal experience that they are glad to do these & more.
Posted by: Rob Jase | October 4, 2010 2:15 PM
Seems somewhat academic to say the US is only a little bad while Iran is a lot bad when there are victims in both sets of jails.
If the US had owned up to the failure they might have a leg to stand on but the denying of justice is still going on and the US government has stated more than once that it would not act against the torturers or their bosses.
Which is worse: A government acting badly but not in conflict with their own laws or one acting badly against its laws and constitution? I'd argue the latter.
Posted by: MikeMa | October 4, 2010 2:21 PM
"What Nam means is when they start throwing white people in jail and torturing them. We all know that those other folks aren't the same as us and they don't feel pain and deprivation like those of us super races do."
I'll take the race-baiting here and reword it for you;
"Perhaps if white people were living in a society where white people were arbitrarily being thrown in jail and tortured, they might know what it's like for the darker-skinned people in Iran who they obviously don't think it worthwhile speaking up for."
Posted by: Nam | October 4, 2010 2:24 PM
Nam said:
Umm, no.
Again, no. The US can (and should) condemn the human rights violations of other countries as much as possible. However it should also acknowledge its own human rights violations in terms which are every bit as frank and unflinching, which is what this post is actually saying.
Posted by: Gretchen | October 4, 2010 2:27 PM
Actually, Nam, if you hang around here very long you'll find that Ed abhors torture anywhere it occurs. He also hates hypocrisy, the prime example of which is the belief that "we can criticize others for doing what we do." Close behind is that lame argument: "You can't criticize me if I can point to one person/place in the world who might be worse."
Posted by: Scott Hanley | October 4, 2010 2:50 PM
Let's not lose sight of the point of this post... Nam has a valid point to make, but nobody is suggesting that we should ignore anyone's human rights violations. I believe that Ed, like the rest of us, is appalled that President Obama, who promised to fix this shit if we voted for him, has climbed aboard the torture wagon ("looking forward, not back") and allowed American abuses to continue while shielding American war criminals from justice. And while we try to adjust to our new status as global Bad Guys, we can hardly ignore the glaring irony of the US demanding money from Iraq or sanctioning Iran for their human rights abuses.
Posted by: BT | October 4, 2010 3:09 PM
It belatedly dawns upon me that this whole "rules are sacred when applied to others" schtick is strong evidence that the current Administration is just as RWA-style conservative as the last one.
Should make for no end of outrage all around when I point that out.
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | October 4, 2010 3:50 PM
Iranians torture, but we use enhanced interrogation techniques. I don't see anything in the Geneva Conventions or the Army Field Manual prohibiting enhanced interrogation techniques.
No fucking shit, Sherlock. Our entire political establishment, our entire mainstream media, and almost the entire American population is aware that Iran is a shithole in which gays and 'uppity' women are stoned, to name just a few of the violations of rights they perpetuate. Do you really think that you possess enlightenment the rest of us lack?
Posted by: Blotto von Bismarck | October 4, 2010 3:59 PM
Not to pile on Nam, but...
Why are we not condemning Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, or Uzbekistan, or any of the countries where we sent prisoners, illegally detained and had them subjected to "enhanced interrogation"? How is it China, with it's extremely poor record of human rights is given MFN status? What of Colombia, and it's questionable methodology in police tactics? Why do we single out Iran for such sanctions and diplomatic hijinks?
There's this thing, it's called moral authority. It's what we invoke when we engage in this action. However, do as I say not as I do works neither for raising children nor diplomacy.
Posted by: Onkel Bob | October 4, 2010 8:25 PM
We've got lots of moral authority. After all, we stopped being an apartheid state - what - decades ago!
I do not understand why the world doesn't just laugh at us whenever we try to lecture them about what they should do. I bet there were people on reservations just rolling in the aisles when 'we' lectured the French about ethnic cleansing their Romany back in september. About the only thing we can say about most of this stuff is "you're not in our league."
There should be a statute of limitations on moral authority. Like, you're not allowed to lecture someone for doing something you did yourself within the last, say, 50 years. Of course that would leave us with nothing to do but saber-rattling. Which, if you'll notice, is really the only time the rest of the world actually listens to us anyway.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | October 4, 2010 9:16 PM
But we do laugh, a lot, and we even make songs and music videos about it.
Especially since, unlike the US, the French media, opposition, and even some conservatives politicians immediatelly started to attack the administration for its incredibly stupid and perverse attempt to woe the far-right voters.
Posted by: Laurent Weppe | October 5, 2010 2:12 AM
"American exceptionalism" -- we get exceptions from all the laws we demand be followed by others.
Actually it is more like might makes right. Name me one member of the government of any country who allowed torture that freely went and stood trial. All the ones I can think of required wars to be fought.
Posted by: old | October 5, 2010 4:51 AM
This is entirely true. Iran hasn't invaded another country for decades. Nor are they abducting citizens from allied countries left, right and centre before shipping them off to be tortured by their client states. Nor are they using unmanned drone aircraft to pursue a global policy of extra-judicial execution... I could go on in this vein for some time.
Posted by: Dunc | October 5, 2010 6:57 AM
It's something to with having the world's largest military and not being afraid to use it. Most of us do laugh at you, but every now and then somebody gets "bombed back to the stone age" as a result...
Posted by: Dunc | October 5, 2010 7:00 AM
Well, "not being afraid to use it" when the target is already crippled and cannot retaliate. The best proof that Iraq did not have Weapons of Mass destruction is the very fact that the US invaded: the chickenhawks would never dare to attack someone who can fight back.
Posted by: Laurent Weppe | October 5, 2010 8:23 AM
Iran hasn't invaded another country for decades.
Actually, with the exception of the U.S. Embassy takeover (technically, foreign soil), it's been hundreds, if not thousands of years since Iran has invaded another country.
And Nam, no one is saying that torture shouldn't be condemned. But the U.S. condemning it is like Tiger Woods condemning adultery. It's distractingly hypocritical.
Posted by: Les | October 5, 2010 12:31 PM