Extraordinary Means

In today’s Guardian, the fearless Oliver Kamm ventures into choppy waters with a qualified defence of rendition:

The principled objection to rendition is that it stands outside legal process, and the rule of law is the best means we have of constraining arbitrary authority by our own governments. But there is no supranational sovereign authority that can effectively implement the body of international law. After 9/11, peace campaigners urged a judicial approach to bring the perpetrators to justice. What they would have advised if Osama bin Laden had unaccountably declined to turn himself in was never put to the test…

There is an important role for Britain, whose commitment to the war on terror (a phrase I use without irony because it is accurate) is beyond dispute, to intercede with the US administration. There should be no rendition to autocracies whose word on the issue of torture is untrustworthy, such as Syria. Renditions should be used only in extreme cases, against those suspected of directly plotting terrorist acts. The country to which they are transferred must exercise due process under its own laws.

But Europeans have a responsibility too. We are the beneficiaries of American efforts to disrupt terrorism. Diplomacy on the issue of rendition should deal with anticipating and preventing abuses. It should not be an opportunity for hyperventilation on the identity of the hated Bush-Cheney regime and our declared theocratic enemies.

Naturally, rumblings ensue. One comment in particular caught my eye as it distils what might be thought of as the very essence of a Guardianista worldview:

The entire rendition process is about the desire to feed and sustain the sadistic fantasies of that perverse constituency which amuses itself with the Threat of Terror and the War against Evil. The victims themselves are merely stage props in this public demonstration of the anger and power and implacable stupidity of the Empire… Only by reducing international society to a clash between cultures and races can the neo-conservatives prevent people from coming together to deal with the real problems, poverty, disease, environmental degradation…

Ah, bless.

What’s interesting to me is how the subject is currently being discussed on the Guardian’s own moderated website, or rather reacted against, very often with wholesale fantasy. For every partially serious response to a particular point, there are two, perhaps three, comments that are unhinged and simply perverse, albeit in a broadly similar way. I stopped counting after a dozen different commenters asserted, smugly, that no war against terrorism exists, or that the West shouldn’t have made efforts to defend itself, or that the US is some kind of fascist autocracy, or that Osama bin Laden and his associates weren’t responsible for 9/11, or that the US government killed its own citizens for unspecified reasons, or that Bush and Blair are morally indistinguishable from homicidal jihadists. As a thumbnail sketch of Guardianista opinion, or a large part thereof, these reactions are worth noting. 

Comments

[amb]

That's one seriously paranoid thread.

[jkrank]

It must be nice for these progressives to have all the answers. These are tough decisions, with people's lives hanging in the balance; I guess that red-flags me automatically as an unthinking sadist.

I wish I lived by comfortable, shopworn templates sometimes. It must be far easier that pondering the grim trade-offs inherent in life.

[David]

I think there’s a tendency among some Guardianistas to try to out-moralise each other – to affect principles much loftier and more rarefied than the ones they actually have. I suppose it’s a strange variation of the ‘my-car’s-bigger-than-yours’ thing. And it can lead to some peculiar assertions – for instance, that the US is an evil empire killing its own citizens for unspecified reasons, or that Tony Blair is morally indistinguishable from Ayman al-Zawahiri. Or, my current favourite, that Oliver Kamm’s articles “encourage acts of aggression” and should be treated as “war crimes”.

[jkrank]

That's interesting. It would be like describing the growth of a mob. Very organic in its outrageousness.
One unsettling thing was witnessing--as the mob grew--how targets became clear. Not once was OBL or any terrorist mentioned as a worthy candidate for 'kidnapping.'
However, plenty of Westerners were, and all predictably political enemies of the Left. So transparent. And I wonder what their excuse for themselves would be? Ah, the answer's too easy...

[David]

“Very organic in its outrageousness.”

Well, it struck me as noteworthy. I realise pretty much any long thread will have the odd bonkers comment or two, but the sheer number of them on a moderated mainstream newspaper site is unusual and, I think, significant. I realise those who comment regularly on the Guardian’s website may to some extent be a self-selecting group – the hardcore evangelicals, as it were - but even so, the level of bonkersdom is remarkable. I suppose I’m asking what percentage of conspiracy theorising and wilful unrealism should begin to raise eyebrows? 20% of the total thread? 25%? 30…?

[swauden]

As many before me have pointed out, what's fascinating about many of these unhinged responses is their mutually exclusive inconsistancies. The same commentators who insist that we Americans cooked up 9/11 as some sort of justification for military adventurism don't hesitate to point out that we Americans deserve the wrath of the world and OBL was certainly justified in carrying out these attacks (even though he didn't). Oh, and at the same time they're accusing us of concocting these vast conspiracies and murdering thousands of our own citizens to provide a justification for ourselves, we're derided for our unilateral actions and our arrogant sense that we can act without justification whenever we want to. Brilliant really. Refute point A and the response is "See point B". Refute point B... well you get the idea.

[morbo]

Yes, I was also struck by how many comments expressed a desire to jail or even torture journalists and politicians they disagreed with. And how many commenters hyperventilated about the alleged sins of the US while turning a blind eye towards the Taliban, Saddam Hussein and terrorist organisations.

In the past I've been struck by how many CIF commenters are communists.

I suspect all of these observations are linked.

[morbo]

The conflicts change but the useful idiots remain the same.

[morbo]

Related comments:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/08/military.defence
Tim Blair's excellent take on it:
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/more_of_that_famous_support_youve_heard_so_much_about/

[Lovernios]

The ravings of these lunatics would be amusing but for the fact that history has shown what atrocities they're capable of committing.