Torturers for Harris

Recently, a lifelong Republican and torture fan Dick Cheney joined his daughter Liz in endorsing Kamala Harris in the presidential race, citing Donald Trump as a threat to democracy. Harris he said He was “honored” to support such “respectable” people and voiced his support for the Cheneys at last week’s presidential debate.

But there was still time left. Last Thursday, Bush’s former attorney general and—you guessed it—torture apologist Alberto Gonzales also endorsed Harris, expressing “faith in his character and judgment” and calling his opponent “the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation.” (Trump called Cheney an “irrelevant RINO” but didn’t mention Gonzales at all, which tells you all you need to know it’s his relevance.)

As someone who has represented clients tortured at Guantanamo Bay, the sight of these two men, both instrumental in the Bush administration’s embrace of torture, gave Harris a rather grudging approval. It’s even worse to see Harris accept the support of such people.

These developments raise some questions, including: What does it say about our current political environment that the men who supported torture can’t shut their noses and vote for Trump? What good are democracy and the rule of law if not to prevent the kind of torture regime they are responsible for? And what does it tell us about Harris that the Dick Cheneys of the world have found a friendly political home with his campaign?

I think what’s really going on here is that the public vulgarity of Trump and the people around him is what really offends these classic establishment figures. In other words, it’s not what Trump does, but how he does it. Medieval-style sexualized barbarism is fine as long as it is hidden in the black pages of the secret CIA; misogyny and outright racism, out on the debate stage, is not. International torture networks, destruction of civil liberties, wars based on lies, even stolen elections (remember 2000?) are fine as long as they are contained within certain institutional frameworks. Attacking democracy by sending them to storm the Capitol, on the other hand, is a bad look.

It reminds me a bit of the reaction of the “white shoe” law firms to the gleeful transgression of the Bush White House in the early years of the global war on terror. In the first two years after 9/11, hardly any of the big companies wanted to help us fight our cases, especially the Guantanamo cases. (There were exceptions.) Bush administration officials on the other side of the cases appeared to be savvy technocrats doing whatever they could to keep us safe, legal affairs be damned. In contrast, with Trump, the mainstream bar was ready to prosecute him from day one.

Watching each situation in real time, I can’t help but think that for authority figures like Cheney, Gonzales, and indeed the big law firms, the inept, declasse nature of the Trump administration seemed more of a threat than anything Trump had a chance at.

Notably, most of these companies once again refuse to participate in representing students, faculty, and Palestinian advocacy organizations on college campuses—an issue that appears to be at loggerheads between the Republican and Democratic establishments. What white-shoe companies are to capitalism, the “national security establishment” is to foreign policy. One also suspects that the Cheney-types—the crew that brought about the war in Iraq and wholeheartedly supported the genocidal war in Gaza—see Trump as a serious threat to their idea of ​​”national security.” Again, the irony is rich – but perhaps the more important point is that Harris not they represent a fundamental threat to their vision of projecting American power in the world.

Along with Harris, there are quite a few Bush Republicans. J. Michael Luttig announced in August that she would vote for Harrisapparently angry that Trump wantsto terminate” parts of our sacred Constitution — the same Michael Luttig who, as a judge, overturned several provisions of the Constitution in 2005 by ruling that an American citizen could be held as an “enemy combatant,” even within the United States. There is a letter Signed by a veritable Army of Darkness – 200 figures in past GOP administrations and campaigns, notable mostly because I’ve never heard of any of them (“Nobodies for Harris”?). Harris still got it Ronald Reagan’s posthumous endorsement on the weekend. (We haven’t heard of an undead Kissinger; he may be preparing for another genocide.)

It is legitimate to ask why the other lawyers of the Bush administration – most of whom also imagined themselves to be legal intellectuals, members of the dignified institutional elite –not yet agreed Harris. Torture Memo author (and current Berkeley Law School professor) John Yoo is waiting for Harris to clarify his position suspect crushing his child’s testicles? Is former Attorney General (and current white-shoe law firm partner) Mike Mukasey waiting to tell you? maybe waterboarding isn’t torture after all? What about former President Bush himself, who is clearly human embarrassed From Trump, but he was never that classy himself? Are you waiting to see where the estate tax thing goes? Or he fears he only has two seats left on the Supreme Court losing his constitutional immunity from war crimes?

Thanks to our sacred constitution, my vote doesn’t really count here in New York, and for the first time in my life, I’m not casting it for the Democratic candidate – because of Gaza. But there’s another issue of utmost importance to me that neither Harris nor the Democratic platform has said anything about: closing Guantánamo. There are still 30 men living in the prison today, whose presence is a legacy of torture.

Most of the 16 men currently set for release would have left years ago if they hadn’t, because they carry in their heads the records of what happened at secret CIA locations. Even before four presidential elections, a bipartisan consensus was formed on the fate of Guantánamo: Bush, Obama and McCain all agreed that it should be closed because it harms our national security. In fact, ISIS has tortured its own hostages on video wearing orange pants from Guantanamo Bay. Now that he’s a lame duck with nothing to lose, Biden can close the prison if, unlike everyone else it seems, he remembers it’s still open. This would be an important step in moving support for torture outside of the mainstream political debate.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of Shayana Kadidal and do not reflect the views or opinions of her employer.