Talking the Terror Trade

The U of C hosted two influential voices on the U.S. "war" on terror this week. First, Jack Goldsmith, former head of the Office of Legislative Council presented at a poli sci workshop. Then David Cole, Georgetown Law professor shared his direct (and unintentional) refutation the very next day. Academic diversity at its finest.

Goldsmith (also a former U of C Law School prof) was here to promote his book, The Terror Presidency, which details in part his recent resignation from the government. In 2004, Goldsmith resigned after 10 months of government service in part after his revocation of the controversial CIA Torture memo.

Despite favorable presentations in The Nation and Newsweek, Goldsmith hardly seemed the arbiter of moral integrity he has been made out to be. In his words, he looked everywhere, trying extremely hard to justify U.S. actions (implicitly even if these actions amounted to torture) but in the end he had to withdraw his support because of the lack of legal precedent.

Um.... excuse me, Mr. Goldsmith... do you really mean to tell us, it would be okay to torture suspected terrorists if there weren't such a thing as the Convention Against Torture or the Geneva Conventions?

That's where the Cole presentation provided some much needed sanity to the debate. Cole notes that the preemptive doctrine pursued by the Bush administration has by any legal measure proven unsuccessful. Not only does he point out the abysmal conviction rate of the U.S. government in cases of suspected terrorists (We're at 29 percent, in case anyone else is keeping score.) Of the 93,000 young men of Arab or Muslim background brought in for questioning, fingerprinting, or "special registration" simply because of their ethnic background, zero have been found guilty of any crime. He also deplored the use of torture tactics by CIA operatives and those in charge at Guantanamo and other U.S. detention centers.

Thank you, David Cole, for taking the hard line that it is never okay to torture another human being under any circumstances. Even if you're America, especially if you're America.