Torture

Sunday

Alex Massie

Why does John McCain hate America?

John McCain tells ABC's This Week that - shockingly! - torture is " a very important issue to me" and consequently that he can't guarantee that he will vote to confirm Michael Mukasey as Attorney General if the nominee continues to fudge on the question of whether or not he believes waterboarding constitutes torture. McCain, noting yet again that it was a favourite method of Pol Pot's happy warriors, would, one senses like to vote No but there's the problem that... well, let's go and see what the GOP blogs are saying. Here's Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, confirming that supporting the use of waterboarding would indeed seem to be a prerequisite for anyone hoping to win the Republican nomination. This (cheese-eating?

Tuesday

Alex Massie

How anti-American is Jason Bourne?

Chris Orr decries Mickey Kaus's decrying of The Bourne Ultimatum as "anti-American". Chris is right to observe that the film's good guys are also American government officers and that Joan Allen's character says of water-boarding etc that "This isn't us" but ultimately (ha!) I can't quite agree with his conclusion. I thought it a rather searing indictment of the United States, albeit for rather different reasons. As my friends know I'm generally a pretty pro-America kind of chap. Some of my best friends are American, don't you know. Even so, there are limits. What The Bourne Ultimatum did capture was an arrogance that gives the United States a permanent right to do as it pleases anywhere in the world.