Thatcher, the IRA, Gitmo, and Torture: Not the Same

An article by Peter Cuthbertson at TCSDaily discussing Margaret Thatcher's legacy, and whether Hillary Clinton can (or should, or really intends to) claim it, makes a decent point or two, but also engages in some fairly deplorable rhetorical sleight-of-hand, as does Thatcher herself, apparently. While I have mellowed a little on Ronald Reagan, I still don't think much of him, and it is at least in part because, as I have argued here before, he wasn't really a small government conservative. All talk and no walk. (Or two be more precise, he actually enlarged government, so it's really backwards walk.) Thatcher, on the other hand, actually did take on and reduce some of the sclerotic welfare state she inherited (and was widely reviled by the left for it, even more so than Reagan), and I believe probably does deserve some credit for rejuvenating the British economy. More significantly, I have come around to the view that the staunch moral stance that both leaders took against totalitarian communism was, in fact, both important and the right thing to do, and they are to be commended for it. I think they were, indeed, vindicated by history, although mainly because of Reagan and Gorbachev's historic Reykjavik summit and subsequent treaties, not because "they won" the cold war. (I think the continued pressure at the very end of the Soviet Empire helped push it over the cliff, but it was clearly the inherent flaws in its system, combined with the 40-something years of the Cold War, that really did it in, of course.)

But Mrs. Thatcher and Mr. Cuthbertson really go beyond the pale when trying to equate Thatcher's strong anti-terrorism stance against the IRA with the current "war on terror." Cuthbertson admires Thatcher's strong stance against leniency or special treatment of IRA terrorists, and rightly so. But then, we fast forward to modern times and, as Cuthbertson writes:

In prosecuting the war on terror, she would make little time for those whose chief cause is to prevent the rendition of terrorist suspects or improve conditions in Guantanamo Bay. Instead, her response to court rulings favorable to terrorists has been the exhortation that "Conservatives everywhere must go on the counter-offensive against the New Left human rights brigade."

Well, gosh, I guess maybe the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo and rendition of suspects to foreign governments really is just the same as Britain's treatment of IRA bombers… Except… something is tickling at the back of my mind, some nagging little detail… what was that? Oh yeah, now I remember-it's called the rule of law.

The IRA prisoners, with whom Thatcher refused to negotiate or show clemency, or to capitulate to when some (in)famously went on hunger strike, were all convicted criminals. They had been duly tried, convicted, and sentenced in accordance with the laws of the United Kingdom. They were also incarcerated in actual prisons under humane conditions, in accordance with the law and modern standards of criminal justice. On the other hand, the Guantanamo detainees have persisted in a legal nether-world, their status invisible, and their jailers unaccountable to anyone outside of the direct chain of command back to the White House. Yes, of course all freedom- and life-loving people want terrorists locked up or dead, but how do we know they're terrorists? Because Dick Cheney says so? Why have most of the Guantanamo detainees been quietly released since the administration was told (by the Supreme Court, not some "liberal" human rights groups) that it had to actually take steps to prove that the detainees are actually guilty? The questions answer themselves. And as for "rendition," i.e. the outsourcing of torture to unscrupulous foreign governments, one would hope such a practice would be considered despicable in its own right, but the fact that completely innocent people have been tortured at our behest should shame even the most hard-core Bush defender. Should, but apparently doesn't. Disgusting. It shames me as an American, even though I didn't vote for Bush.

It seems like those who support this illegal behavior must be taking the old saw "break some eggs to make an omelet" to heart. While this expression apparently did not originate with Stalin, it is widely attributed to him, and rightly so, I'd say. I reject the hyperbolic rhetorical overreach of saying that Bush is "just as bad" as bin Laden, or the more general version that the U.S. is "just as bad" as the terrorists. I also don't have any particular problem with Bush's (in)famous use of the term "evildoers." But I do think that when we torture, solicit torture, and trash our proud heritage of freedom AND the rule of law--truly the envy of the world, or at least it used to be--by disregarding the Constitution, then at some point that "evildoers" finger does begin to turn back at us.