Torturers for Harris | The Nation

Recently, a lifelong Republican, Torture Enthusiast Dick Cheney, along with his daughter Liz, said Donald Trump poses a threat to democracy and endorsed Kamala Harris for president. said She said she was “honored” to have the backing of such “esteemed” people, and touted the Cheneys’ endorsement during last week’s presidential debate.

But there was more to come. Last Thursday, former Attorney General Bush and, you guessed it,Torture advocate Alberto Gonzales also endorsed Harris, saying he had “confidence in her character and judgment” and calling her opponent “the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation.” (Trump fired back, calling Cheney an “irrelevant Republican,” but did not mention Gonzales at all.) His Relevance.

As someone who has defended clients who were tortured at Guantanamo Bay, it’s jarring enough to see Harris endorsed by these two people who played key roles in pushing the Bush Administration’s embrace of torture, and even more jarring to see Harris welcome the endorsement of such people.

These developments raise questions: What does it say about the current political environment that men who support torture can’t hold their noses and vote for Trump? What good are democracy and the rule of law if they don’t stop the torture regimes they are instigating? And what does it say about Harris that the Dick Cheneys of the world have found a politically welcome home in her campaign?

I think what’s really going on here is that it’s the very public vulgarity of Trump and those around him that really pisses off these classical establishment figures. In other words, it’s not what Trump does, but how he does it. Medieval sexual barbarism is okay as long as it’s hidden in a CIA secret base. But open misogyny and overt racism on the debate stage is not. International torture networks, the destruction of civil liberties, wars based on lies, and even rigged elections (think 2000) are okay as long as they’re kept within certain institutional boundaries. On the other hand, sending a mob to attack our democracy by sending it into the Capitol is unseemly.

This is somewhat reminiscent of the response of establishment “white shoe” law firms to the Bush Administration’s willingness to engage in illegal activities in the early days of the War on Terror. In the first two years after 9/11, especially in the Guantanamo litigation, very few major law firms were willing to help us fight our cases.There Was exception) The Bush administration officials on the other side of these cases looked like competent technocrats who didn’t care about legal niceties and just did their best to keep us safe. In contrast, with Trump, the mainstream bar was ready to sue him from day one.

Watching each situation unfold in real time, I can’t help but wonder if to establishment figures like Cheney, Gonzales and the big law firms, the incompetence and vulgar nature of the Trump administration seemed a bigger threat than anything Trump could actually accomplish.

Notably, most of these offices appear unwilling to get involved in representing students, faculty, and organizations doing pro-Palestinian work on college campuses. There appears to be no divide between the Republican and Democratic establishments on this issue. The “national security establishment” is to foreign policy what white shoe offices are to capitalism. And one would think that the Cheneyites who unleashed the Iraq War and wholeheartedly support the genocidal war in Gaza see Trump as a significant threat to their vision of “national security.” Again, ironies abound, but perhaps the more important point is that Harris do not It poses a fundamental threat to their vision of American power on the world stage.

There are many other Bush Republicans who support Harris. J. Michael Luttig announced in August: He will vote for Harris.Trump said,QuitThis is the same Michael Luttig who, as a judge in 2005, ruled that US citizens could be held as “enemy combatants” even on US soil, invalidating many provisions of the Constitution. letter The dark forces have signed on. Over 200 people from past Republican administrations and campaigns have signed on, most of whom I’ve never heard of (“Unknowns who support Harris”?). Posthumous endorsement of Ronald Reagan Over the weekend. (Still no word from Undead Kissinger. Maybe he wants more genocide.)

Why did other lawyers in the Bush administration, who also considered themselves legal intellectuals and members of the prestigious establishment elite,Not yet John Yoo, author of the torture memos (now a professor at Berkeley Law School), supported Harris. Is he waiting for Harris to clarify her position on this issue? Crush the suspect’s child’s testiclesIs former Attorney General (now a partner at a major law firm) Mike Mukasey waiting for her to say something? Waterboarding may not be torture After all, what about former President Bush himself? Disturbed Liked by Trump but not particularly elegant himself, is he waiting to see what happens with the wealth tax? Or is he worried about there being only two seats left on the Supreme Court? Loss of constitutional war crimes immunity?

Thanks to the sacred Constitution, my vote in New York doesn’t really matter, and for the first time in my life, I’m not going to vote for a Democratic candidate because of Gaza. But there’s another issue that’s far more important to me that neither Ms. Harris nor the Democratic platform says anything about: closing Guantanamo, the prison that still holds 30 men and whose presence there is a legacy of torture.

Most of the 16 people now cleared for release would have been released years ago if they didn’t have the records in their heads of what happened at the secret CIA facility. In the last four presidential elections, there was also bipartisan agreement on the fate of Guantanamo. Bush, Obama and McCain all agreed that Guantanamo should be closed because it was a detriment to national security. In fact, ISIS has filmed a video torturing a hostage in an orange jumpsuit at Guantanamo. Now that Biden is a lame duck with little to lose, he can close the prison. But only if, like everyone else, he remembers that the prison is still open. Doing so would be an important step in moving support for torture back outside the realm of respectable political debate.

The views expressed here are Shayana Kadidal’s own and do not represent the views or opinions of her employer.