Why the CIA must be held accountable
I happened upon a C-Span BookTV program last night that had first aired in September of 2005. Jennifer Harbury spoke about the CIA and its role in torturing captives beginning in Viet Nam through Abu Ghraib. Harbury's very personal interest in torture began after her husband was captured in Guatemala in the 1990s, tortured, and ultimately either dismembered or dropped from a plane into the ocean. Harbury speaks for a riveting 30 minutes about her experiences and about her research. She also knocks down one-by-one the arguments torturers use as rationale for torturing. She documents her research in a book: Truth, Torture, and the American Way. I highly recommend the program.
As others have mentioned here and as Harbury describes for us, our history of torture goes back at least to Viet Nam. Perhaps the Bush administration was the first one that felt guilty enough about doing it that they tried to legalize it, but torture already had been institutionalized on the far side of legal by our CIA shadow government.
The CIA has been torturing for 40 years or more and will continue the practice unless they are held accountable and brought to justice. Torture is carried out in our name and we cannot let this stand if we are to lay any claim to moral authority in the world at large or at home.
While I believe that DoJ eventually should mount prosecutions, I am among those who urge further investigation by a non/bipartisan independent commission that has the legal authority to carry out its mission and access to all classified material about interrogation methods.
Amnesty International , April 23:
"Amnesty International urges President Obama and Congress to quickly establish an independent commission of inquiry that has the force of law, subpoena power and adequate funding to fully examine and report publicly on torture and other ill-treatment of 'war on terror' detainees."
I believe further investigation is required in order to systematically determine who should be prosecuted, build solid cases for prosecutions, and to keep the process from degenerating into a partisan civil war to the extent that is possible. Those who are held responsible and prosecuted in the end must include someone from the CIA leadership at the very least and others if justified. "Just following orders" is not a legal defense.
One thing I wonder about with this is Who to put on such a commission. They need to be (i) respected non-partisan (political?) figures, (ii) competent or experienced on intelligence/military issues, and (iii) not personally tainted by past practices. I personally can't think of one person who fits the bill...
any ideas?
April 27, 2009 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Added thought: Jennifer Harbury mentions in the program that she knows of Republicans who are horrified about what has happened. I really do think there are people available to serve. I just don't know who they are.
April 27, 2009 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't have any names, Obey. I wish I did. But I'm optimistic enough to believe we still have men and women who are smart enough to understand why such a commission is necessary and to love our country enough to do a good job. I despair to think that we have sunk so low that we don't have this kind of statesperson around. The Baker-Hamilton commission on Iraq did a decent job. Hopefully there are others like them.
April 27, 2009 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for this piece FDR, btw. Rec'd! I'm not digging for problems out of an irrepressible urge for prosecutions, etc. It's just when we lay out the issue in terms of a long history of illegal practices, it begins to implicate so many members of the intelligence community and pretty much all qualified politicians who were involved in oversight. My preference for a special prosecutor is based on these kinds of worries. Take the Baker-Hamilton commission - how many of those people wouldn't be implicated somehow?
April 27, 2009 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good point, Obey, about finding people who haven't collaborated. If 12(?) good men and women can't be found then perhaps a special prosecutor is the way to go.
April 27, 2009 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
I watched her on CSPAN. Sh.. 2005. WHAT THE HELL.
Oh, we did not know this was illegal.
There were books and speeches and specials and documentaries telling these sob's they were doing wrong.
And all we ever got was cheney sayin: Soooooooooo.
WE WERE JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS!!!!!!!!
April 27, 2009 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly so, dd.
Good to hear from you.
April 27, 2009 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks so much for this piece, FDRdog. I've grown somewhat frustrated at discussions which ignore the decades of torture that came before Bush, but which are critical because they PREPPED key individuals involved, and organizations, and helped form networks, shape techniques, and so on. e.g. Cheney's been around this track many times, as has Rumsfeld, and Negroponte's trail through torture-world glows in the dark. Ambassador in the early 80's torture-ridden Honduras (as covered by the Baltimore Sun)... but ending up working for Bush at the UN, in Iraq and becoming his Director of National Intelligence. People keep asking how human beings can do this. Well, one way to become inured to the whole thing is to be part of it for decades.
I think Harbury would be a good nominee for a Commission. It always intrigues me why we think military or diplomatic or political personnel would be good choices, while having no one from the receiving end involved.
There's another possible good choice. She's a single mother, speaks 5 languages, and a trained doctor (pediatrician)... she's trained in military strategy, and has actually been defense minister... she was tortured herself, as was her mother, and her father died in prison after being tortured. She's met Rumsfeld and others from that world, but also worked on the reconciliation of a military that tortured, and civilians.
That is, Michelle Bachelet, the President of Chile.
But you begin to see some of the problems here. Guatemala lost tens, hundreds of thousands of people to this sort of insanity - enough so that personal American links would begin to show up, like Harbury. Negroponte was Ambassador in Honduras, and sadly for him, numerous of the torturers from there went into exile, and have talked. Chile...? Well, Chilean exiles and records and knowledge is pretty widely-distributed, and their President would be fairly credible. Anybody see anything in Vietnam? Maybe a few, eh? Iraq and Afghanistan? We're already hearing about that.
My view is similar to yours FDRdog. Open it up, exhume it.
Let the air in. Where's there's evidence - and this might arise anywhere along the chain from policy through implementation - then lay charges.
Now, the DIS-advantages of this expansion are what would spring first to most minds. But there are advantages as well. 1st off, it would get us out of this nonsensical 1-to-1 link that's been made between torture-and-terrorism. The whole "ticking time bomb" argument goes out the window, because people torture for LOTS of reasons. Like... an Al-Qaeda-Iraq link. 2nd, it gets us away from the silliness of pretending that our direct torturing vs handing prisoners over to people who will torture for us is a huge difference. 3rd, it will cross party lines, and cross different ethnic groups - this isn't just the GOP and it's not just Muslims. 4th, it would allow large numbers of Americans, who've been directly affected by the kinds of activities, in different settings, in different roles, to speak. 5th, we could SEE the degree to which torture "works" a bit better, when we get to see the transition that's been made by people like President Bachelet, and a lot of these other countries that have moved on.
I'll stop there, but thanks again for this. Really well done. And apologies for rambling on too long.
April 27, 2009 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I never view your comments and blogs as rambling, Q. I always gain insight from them. Thanks for commenting.
In fact, you've taken my thoughts in a different direction here. It occurs to me that once we open Pandora's box, there will be no turning back, no stopping place for prosecutions. How can we stop with the Bush administration when others were just as culpable. That others tortured, too, and much earlier is not a defense, of course, but how far back do we want to go with this? I wonder if this isn't Obama's dilemma?
Perhaps the most important thing is the exhumation, as you call it. But will that put an end to it? I can't see an end to the torture cycle unless there are consequences for torturing whether directly or indirectly. Making recommendations would be one of the commissions tasks, I guess.
I agree that Harbury would be a good candidate for a commission. She's smart and articulate. I believe Bachelet would make an excellent member of an international commission if we were to go that route or perhaps a good person to testify in front of a national commission. There is probably no end of witness to testify.
April 27, 2009 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think there IS a need for prosecutions, and I think the Bushco bosses would get hit hardest - and I'd be glad to see that.
But any real look at torture has to look at the wider truth. And in doing so, we'll HELP avoid the next chapter, which is pretty damned predictable. That is, if we focus narrowly, and insist on no direct US involvement, then it'll just get shoved back out to proxies. Back into the shadows. A
Plus, if we look at it truthfully, we're going to learn a lot that will help us to create a more sensible foreign policy moving forward. Learning something about the real world, and our real history in other countries might not be a bad thing.
April 27, 2009 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the Bushco bosses would get hit hardest
Really? Try thinking like the defense. The defense would want to subpoena the victims of Bush and Cheney's torture so that the ladies and gentlemen of the American public opinion could meet them up close and personal, see what they have to say.
The last time they were seen in public was in Gitmo court December 2008, this report gives a little taste of the possibilities, where they basically insisted on the urgent need to be martyred, appeared to be "sneering and laughing" to one 9/11 relative, and seemed to be taking advantage of having access to an international press audience to show themselves not as victims, but proud warriors.
I find all this theoretical talk in the liberal blogosphere to be moving a lot of people quite far away from reality of what real prosecutions might mean, that's not what people seem to want to talk about. What I see is a lot of philosophizing about how torture is bad, which is fine, but as if that takes a lot of convincing for most people. It doesn't, most people would agree, torture is bad. What I don't see much of, though, is confronting what bringing the actual specific "victims" into the accused perps picture would mean, and how they might color the picture a little muddier, the case more difficult, and the possible end results very very muddy. For example, try putting a Dick Cheney next to a shouting KSM telling America to go fuck itself, I spit in all of your faces, kill me I dare ya, I want ya to, and then who looks more sympathetic, who looks more like a war criminal? Chances are the supposed victims want to do everything possible to help themselves look as little as victims as possible, victimhood for posterity is the last thing they want.
A really good case of war crimes and other really bad sundries like thwarting the Constitution has actually been made against Henry Kissinger in way detail, and he is still walking around. When you take it from the theoretical to the actual specifics of what "bringing to justice" specific persons might mean, which some progressives have tried for decades with Kissinger, somehow seems to work out that the perps seem more human than they did before, takes away the evilness.
April 28, 2009 2:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. FDRdog has this line in his post which I think is important as to Bush/Cheney and is not made enough: the first one that felt guilty enough about doing it that they tried to legalize it. (I would go further and say that many in the administration tried to rationalize it to themselves as "not torture." How many times did we hear "we don't torture" from them?) This would most certainly come across in any "truth commission" or trial type situation. Really seems to me that if getting Bush/Cheney is your goal, I don't think the simple "they tortured the major terrorists in custody" case is your best bet. If you want to get them for trying to water down torture laws via legal mumbo jumbo in a desperate and delusional attempt to get back-up for their warped neo-con views about how invading Iraq was important for the U.S. to do, go for it, that seems like a good case. What law does that go under?
April 28, 2009 2:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Also agree on this. Putting W and Cheney directly up against the only people MORE disliked by Americans doesn't seem smart. Especially not if Bushco has ANY supporters (or documents) left in the CIA/military chain that would argue or provide evidence that "it worked."
A lot of the torture blogging is washing the real-world history, and personalities out of the picture - and in real-time, court-time, it won't be abstract or vague at all. Some image, face, person, line, event could easily capture the day. I'm a fan of going wide and long, and crayoning the lines in, again and again and again, that we're linked to torture, of people everywhere, and then, these same bad actors we already know from earlier rounds took a final step, and made it direct, in-house, with crackpot legal cover stories. Make that the last step of their long ugly stories.
April 28, 2009 3:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yup, I agree that a very narrow focus won't serve us very well. If you make it just about terrorists, just about Muslims, just about the post-9/11 period, I gotta say, even Cheney may get cut some slack by the public. But if you took a longer view, you'd get a chance to show the whole story, the whole film, in a way - and see more than Islam and 9/11.
e.g. We presented cakes to Saddam, right? He was our guy vs Iran. We gave him a few billion in cash, bio/chemo weapons, didn't break with him after gassing the Kurds, etc.... but then the story ends somewhere different. e.g. In Latin America, we did the coups, supported the mass killings, and yet what do we see now? Transformation towards democracy.
Showing stories, a series of them, would let people grasp that these are not snapshots of 1 guy we hate vs another guy we hate more; not 24 hour episodes where there's a damned bomb ready to go off. I mean, what do you say after you torture a young woman doctor and kill her dad, supposedly because she's an incorrigible terroristic communist, and now she's the president of Chile and our ALLY?
Something that's always struck me as remarkably underplayed, the great great horrific lie of the Right, was that Communists were effectively impossible to persuade, to change. They were Godless, "totalitarian," and could only ever be met by force. And it turned out that... they weren't. You just can't look at Asia and see what they said was there. And now, they're effectively just throwing the same thing at Muslims. So laying the one film over the other, especially s it played out in a dozen countries, with torture dripping off of each one, strikes me as an interesting way to widen and deepen the story. And each time, we're gonna see certain attitudes, practices, organizations and individuals appear.
Interesting AA. Hadn't thought much about those individuals in court. But makes me feel even moreso that I don't want to see Cheney 1 on 1 up against one of them.
April 28, 2009 3:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Quinn,
I think any independent inquiry into the whole Bush/Cheney unitary executive program of warrantlesss spying, torture, lies to invade Iraq, etc. would need to be put into context. It would be great if an outline of the whole twisted history that led to an administration claiming dictatorial powers was detailed. I’m not going to hold my breath (even for 40 seconds), but I really believe most Americans would support that.
jollyroger just happened to be discussing Negroponte and Reagan’s Southern adventures with me on another thread. A quick google showed that he was confirmed as DNI by a vote of 98 to 2 with Jay Rockefeller and Jane Harman pushing for his confirmation and praising him effusively.
I mention Harman and Rockefeller because I think there is a real problem with Congress or the WH setting up commissions to study what happened. I think Harman, Rockefeller, along with Pelosi and others, may have conflicts in that they allegedly cheered on some of the worst abuses when their obligation to oversee the executive would have required them to try and stop it.
Pelosi has been calling for a “Truth Commission.” While a commission might get at some of this and even lay blame on some of the bad actors, it very likely could be used to cover more than it uncovers (I think the 9/11 Commission revealed much but covered some ‘big asses’ too).
Congress and the President have not shown any interest in pursuing this, aside from the current firestorm, and they have passed laws to retroactively excuse much of it in the past (Patriot I and II, DTA, MCA, PAA, FAA). Any commission politically appointed would be subject to politics.
An independent prosecutor could be charged with investigating the whole kit ‘n caboodle and given the means to do it. Of course, the DoJ might bind an independent prosecutor to a specific crime like torture. But it's possible that if our latest torture regime gets an prosecutor appointed by DoJ, most of the abuses in the name of 9/11 will come out (well, I would hope that).
April 27, 2009 9:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Don. I have no idea what kind of investigation would work best, but I do know that any wider investigation is gonna catch a lot of politicians - and that's a problem for Obama.
That to the side, torture HAS to be recognized for its historic connections. And if I can say so, I've gotten REAL tired of idiots blogging in the highest possible moral tones, and anyone that raises something like this is considered to be adding unnecessary "complexity" to a pure moral issue. Then they say - straight faced - that we have to act on torture NOW, because otherwise, it'll be so much worse in the future.
To which I can only say... duh. Where the hell do they think Cheney and Rummy and Negroponte got the idea to crank up the torture machine? Saw it on Comedy Central one night? Those bastards got the idea... from DOING it. This latest round was just a twist. A NASTY one, don't get me wrong - these clowns thought they had free rein.
And all this detailed analysis of waterboarding? Good God, of course it's torture, but we've been sponsoring worse for a long time. For anyone under 30, I'll cut some slack. But to have lived through Reagan's 80's and Central America, or Vietnam, and to not understand that we are today looking at the thinnest slice of a monstrous meat-cutting machine? Well, time to stop reading blogs here at TPM and go eat some history. The Central American stuff alone (and yeah, I saw you & Jolly talking, and Bo Obama blogged on it yesterday) is just beyond comprehension.
What we have here is these bastards attempting to bring the torture machine directly under their control. And THAT'S worth going after. Hard. But when you crack the top off the barrel, don't stop digging. Pull as much as you can out, because if not, they will just go back to feeding their thugs, who'll do the dirty work.
Cheers guy. Good to see you and Gasket and FDRdog and the Jolly dude and a half-dozen others laying some of this stuff out.
April 27, 2009 11:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agree completely. I know my son, about to turn thirty, realizes that there were some college hippie dudes marching to protest Vietnam and the seemingly serial assassinations of leaders from the left sometime back in the day.
I've discussed other things with him like the ME oil maneuvers in the '40s and '50s, the coup installing the Shah, and arming Saddam, to provide perspective on today's actions, but I imagine he has no idea we were marching in the '80s to stop our bloody imperial meddling in El Salvador and elsewhere (no one wanted to hear it then either- Morning in America and all).
But you're right, I doubt many know the long and gruesome post-WWII history- coups and assassinations, "international" torture schools and CIA experiments in the name of "free trade" and "democracy building." Castro still rants at America and its foolish embargo but no one stops to think that maybe after our twelfth assassination attempt, he may have copped an attitude.
There may be many who don't realize that Rummy and Cheney concocted this idea of a wartime dictator after decades of Watergate/Church/Vietnam/DFH and Bush I pulling up short in Iraq festering in their fevered brains (with help later from Big Thinkers at AEI and the Federalist Society, etc.
But I think a lot of people are laser-focused on the torture issue because they see it as, at last, a crack in the armor they had built to protect their crimes. And they almost got away clean, and may still pull some Iran-contra immunity deal with a few sacrificial lambs, with nothing revealed and precedents carved in stone.
Torture has gotten some media traction and is a hairline crack in the dike. A little more hammering at this crack, and maybe a little more, and soon, the dam will burst (that's the hope anyway). An outraged public, especially one getting covered by the networks, has become such a rarity that stokers don't want to let up for a second as it might get buried as so many inquiries, investigations and commissions have these last decade.
[sorry, now I'm rambling} Thanks for the reply.
April 28, 2009 1:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think the Abu Ghraib images were an exploding bomb in the public consciousness.
However, since there was never any satisfactory explanation or resolution to Abu Ghraib (or Iraq, for that matter), it's like a fuse has been burning all these years in the interim.
Now, with the release of the torture memos, the public is experiencing the explosion all over again. In fact, we're seeing the Abu Ghraib images recycled: They are used to illustrate the "torture memo" story on TV and online and in print. That's probably why there's such force to the public reaction (whichever "side" you're on) and why it's a little inexplicable.
Just think: We don't have to imagine torture, we've all seen pictures of it.
That hasn't really happened since Vietnam.
April 28, 2009 2:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
And apparently more pics to come. Good.
April 28, 2009 2:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Okay thanks Q. I guess I'm one of those idiots, so dumb I'm going to walk into your meat-grinder once again. But even idiots and smart people around here agree on the goal - that this stuff doesn't happen again. Then there are the pragmatics of how that happens, and what institutions of government can best get us there.
You think elementary education of the idiots among us about all the sordid cold war practices (and, yes, I'm working on it) is the core essence of this - it gets the ball rolling in such a way the momentum becomes unstoppable. So I'm trying to see how this pans out. Laying aside nice wish-lists, the panel has to Appear to be credible as well as actually Be credible. So Not a bunch of foreign lefties, not a bunch of lefty academics, maybe best case something like Albright-Shultz, given Gasket's list. What is the central question of the investigation? You seem to advocate - 'what was done, and was it effective?' Is the ultimate narrative going to be clear-cut? Something along the lines of 'None of this nastiness was necessary'? 'All of this nastiness was ultimately counter-productive'? I doubt it with 500.000-dead-children-is-no-skin-off-my-nose Albright. And the others aren't much better. The whole US political establishment is invested in a certain Realist cold-war narrative already. Okay, say it says what you hope and expect it to say. When the report is published we're in 2011. So what do we do? Launch prosecutions, probably lopsidedly against republicans? Right before an election? and what will be, I presume, a continuing wrenching recession/depression? No, sorry, 'it's just not convenient at this time', is already ringing in my ears. There will be a bit of national repentance theatrics. But people will still be ignoring the question of whether Torture is legal or not. Not even discussing it. Just IGNORING it. That's what's flipping me out. The MSM finding it irrelevant. I don't think an investigation does anything to change that dynamic. Next time there's a terrorist attack and a less scrupulous administration, well, we go back to the same old crap.
You're still talking about its effectiveness. And to me, that isn't the question. And for all the idiots who don't pore through the thousand page report, I don't think the answer is going to be self-evident. There will be a perhaps more nuanced understanding that we did some Really bad things in a confusing time of paranoia about unknown unknowns, but in a cold war which we ultimately WON and the world was a better place for it. It will remain a moral muddle. And the more recent self-evident in-your-face horror becomes muddled up with that whole narrative. We get inured to it. And move on.
To me it's important at this point to get the law enforced. THAT is what gets the ball rolling, THAT makes the whole national introspective exercise you propose possible and effective. THAT makes every CIA operative think twice about torture, even indirectly, even if the ultimate justice is imperfect. It makes every administration in future care about getting the law Right rather than just getting someone to write convenient opinions. Anyway, end of my idiocy. Have a good day.
April 28, 2009 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
See bottom, O.
April 28, 2009 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's dust off the Church Committee members who are still alive and pick up where they left off. I'm sure Gary Hart is available. Also, there have been plenty of career government officials who resigned in protest over Bush's policies. I'm sure some of them are available too. At the very least, take statements from them.
This isn't hard. It's been done before. We have a model to follow. So adapt it. Get a move on!
No to James Baker for saying that the Church Committee caused 9/11.
April 27, 2009 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree there must be people around. The Church Committee is an interesting suggestion, rtb. I'm surprised to hear the members are still with us. The Committee sounds like a good model for our current mess. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the meetings could be televised?
April 27, 2009 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Recommended because you constructed your arguement so well. OK, that's a lie. I recommended because I agree with you and your post brought out some excellent comments that I also agree with.
I think you are barking up the right tree, Dog. Thanks for the work.
April 27, 2009 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for commenting, Lulu.
April 27, 2009 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
And here's a list of been-there-done-that folks. Definitely some hawks on that list, if that's a concern.
April 27, 2009 8:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the link, G. Surprised to see some of them on there.
April 28, 2009 1:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, me too.
April 28, 2009 2:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for the list, rtg. There may not be anyone from the past who is free of the taint of torture, but I feel sure there are some who regret being involved in it, or would be willing to end the practice if there is political support for ending it. I hate to think that it comes down to political support, but it's probably true.
April 28, 2009 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
This blog and the resulting comments make such strong and compelling statements. I find it both interesting and significant to note some of the other strong voices at TPMC that have not weighed in to dispute what is said here. I think the strength of your reasoning and exposition must be having some affect. I have no time right now to say more but then again I don't have much to say that has not been said better so I will just express my thanks to Q, AA. Dog, and others. Thanks.
April 28, 2009 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not at all surprise, Lulu.
April 28, 2009 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
That the others haven't commented, that is.
April 28, 2009 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obey, let's pull some stuff apart here - effectiveness, morality, legality and truth.
#1. I'm NOT only or even primarily interested in effectiveness. I originally said something on this to try & warn people away from a counter-productive argument that was showing up all over TPM - i.e. that "torture doesn't work." I said that this is a difficult argument to win, and if Cheney comes up with one case where torture DID "work," (in the eyes of the public), it's really weakened our case. Now, to argue against using a stupid argument is NOT to argue that "effectiveness" is the most important thing. I rediscussed it here, because AA raised some useful practicalities of the case (namely, the unpleasantness of some of the people who were tortured), and - since Cheney is now full speed ahead with this argument - suggested ways it might be met. i.e. Effectiveness is now being argued, so we probably need some response. One line we can use is that "seen long-term & broadly, the effects of torture are more damaging than any supposed benefits from the info gained." And that we HAVE evidence, from other countries where we tortured, to show they can become democratic & become allies with NO THANKS to torture - in fact, it made things worse.
But one more time, I'm NOT putting my weight on this argument. It just IS an argument that's going to be raised.
#2. Morality. People are riding this horse hard, and claiming this ground, but the way some are doing it is deeply & heavily insulting to others on this site. I'm not sure you've seen it, but people are blowing up friendships, here at TPM, precisely over this issue. Some are throwing around terms like unethical, immoral, monster, apologist and so on, and sometimes applying them directly to people... but OFTEN using them to describe, indirectly and generally, ANYONE who sees things differently.
Your comment the other day to me, while not even in the Top 100 of what's been said, basically amounted to saying, "Our moralities are far far apart (and I think torture is wrong.)" So what would that make me? I know you didn't mean it as a big personal dig, but do you hear how that comes across? No one can disagree on this stuff lately without being labelled as immoral or less moral. Some people are getting to draw the line, and stand there in what they see as perfectly clear morality, pitchfork in hand, ra-ra'ing each other on... and that anyone who doesn't stand precisely there is unethical. A monster. A Cheney apologist. So let's do a quick spin in reverse, ok? Because it's real easy to jump on this horse. As follows:
"Anyone who wishes to ignore American sponsorship and involvement in the torturing to DEATH of tens of thousands of men, women and children is a moral abomination. To ignore what Negroponte, Cheney and Rumsfeld did to these children - bayoneting them in mid-air, gang rape to death, digging eyes out with spoons, is to be complicit in those crimes. As for me, I'll continue my stand with the nameless and the faceless, the weak and the marginalized, little people, guilty of nothing more than being peasants, who were tortured in fashions far more terrible than waterboarding, and then horribly executed. To those who would forget, I believe your silence to be exactly the same sound as the silence of many toward the Nazis. You want show trials, rather than the full truth? Why, because this time it was done by American hands directly on the rack? Would you feel better if we just let our leaders go back to the old ways of using local butchers to do our dirty work, to fight our dirty wars, to keep the whole dirty business in the shadows? Don't mind the disappearing as long as they STAY disappeared, is that it? So long as we - the citizenry - are SEEN not to be doing this? Plausible deniability for an entire nation. Bah. Well, as for me, I will not accept that THIS is what we've come to. THESE are not the citizens the Founders had in mind. etc etc ad nauseum."
Now, just in case my point's not coming across, let me say this bluntly. People want to talk morality? Well they should make damn good and sure of their footing before terming others les than moral. People want to talk ethics and morality and who's an apologist and yak about pitchforks - well, bring it on. I've been polite as hell, and my harshest response is above, challenging people's ignorance. If that sticks in your craw, then think about whether you'd rather being told you're without morality, or lacking knowledge.
It's real easy to write from "moral" high ground. I'd prefer we just assume the others involved had some slight connection to their humanity. Fair?
#3. Legality. YES, it's illegal. I'm making no argument about that. SURE, there should be charges. YES, the bastards should go to prison. I don't even bother spelling that out because I consider it absolutely bloody obvious. As for whether initiating the process is best done through legal prosecutions or through a wider commission or whatever, I DON'T KNOW. Am I saying we MUST tie up legal charges for this latest round with events from the 90's and 80's and so on, I DON'T KNOW. I very much suspect the historic ties will COME OUT, first, because Clinton approved extraordinary rendition, which was almost certainly led to people being tortured. If that's the case, I'd LIKE IT if we actually got into the roots of this torture disease. Understanding Cheney's mind and the mind of the torturers is fine, but for God's sake, what's wrong with looking at THEIR OWN LIVES, that's what history is in this case - their own introductions to torture. I'm NOT saying this is a must, in legal terms. I AM saying I think failing to understand it will harm the nation, will mean we don't come to understand torture's roots, and will leave us the ability to just punt torture back into the shadows.
As I said above, YES, let's crack the top off the legal barrel, but once open, I hope we can pull as much of this stuff out as possible before everyone gets tired and wants it closed again.
#4. Truth. This one is my bottomline. I want the goddamn truth, Obey. And screw Pelosi and Clinton and whoever else may get jammed in the process. I want to know what we did. I also want a discussion of these goddamn illegal and immoral wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the Gulf War, and all the dirty filthy appalling dirty wars we engaged in.
So we beat the Soviets. We're supposed to be about the truth, not just burying the shit we don't like. And I want the truth on the damage done by the weapons we use. And the collateral damage. The whole damn thing. People wanna talk about the illegality of torture? Well, I wanna talk about the illegality of our wars. There's hundreds of thousands dead, and I'm not too fucking amused if we think waterboarding is the sum of our sins.
And do I GET that maybe all of that, maybe ALL of it - torture now, torture past, wars now, wars past - MAY end up being silenced, for a "greater good?" Damn right I get it. And if it meant the difference between winning and losing the next election? To a ticket of say, Palin & Cheney Redux? Or the difference between having 8 years of international peace and health care for all and an end to torture and war moving forward? MAYBE we have to sacrifice it. MAYBE.
But I'm not an immoral monster to at least WEIGH this stuff out.
April 28, 2009 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Q - on that comment the other day, I apologize AGAIN if you didn't catch the pug prostrating on the floor the first time. It wasn't meant that way, it was the badly expressed shock at seeing where the mainstream discussion was - "is releasing these documents endangering our country...?", and then seeing people judging this a fine Opportunity for cleaning up decades of horrendous practices. It seemed wildly unRealistic, not immoral. My point was (and still sort of is) the pessimistic 'realist' one that it would be an achievement if we could just wipe out the extremes of the last 8 years of inhouse torture practices and establish THAT as illegal; if we could get the MSM just Talking about legality and morality. It seemed that we're so far away from anything like what you suggest. Maybe that's wrong, but it's not a moral judgment of anyone. Though it may reflect badly on my morals to even consider it half-adequate. I'll grant that. And my additional point now is that this kind of thing is the first step to getting what You want.
As for the procedural stuff I was talking about, here is an interesting argument Against what I was saying
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/04/no-special-prosecutor-torture
This whole circular firing squad around here is getting to me a bit. The moral charges are going both ways (not from you), btw - all my opinions just come out of some smug self-satisfaction, I'm no better than Rush, Beck and co. This is nuts. I'm just making procedural remarks.
April 28, 2009 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obey. Agreed that wiping out the extremes of the past 8 years would be an accomplishment, and establishing that this is illegal. Agreed. I'll take some slices, half a loaf, whatever it's called, and then go to work on getting some more.
Also, agreed that the discussion here is a bit much lately. People have interesting personal lives here, and a lot have experienced some pretty nasty shit - so the feeling runs high. That's fine, but I've chosen not to join it, because I think it needs to run a bit cooler. I just think "moral" charges carry far too much personal weight, and would prefer if we all just agreed we're ALL moral creatures here, and then proceeded with some different ways to discuss it. It's like arguing with grenades in our hands.
As for your earlier comment, it was no great wound - I get it that it was the wording. I have some sense of who you are, and what you're after in life (and this is a POSITIVE comment by the way!) It's the weight that "moral" terms carry, when we're in a field like this. People have been really losing it in some of these debates, and I've felt it building, not wanting the blow-up's to happen - but they have. I just think we all have to run a bit cooler.
Anyhoo. Hope you're having a good day guy, and that we find our way through to some useful conclusions and insights on this awful topic.
April 28, 2009 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fear rears it's rather apathetic head.
Lots of words. Too many for me. A 'tortured' glut of verbiage, no less, to cloak what any three year old can say in three.
Torture is illegal.
I'll give you twice that many words to undo the truth of those three. Sure, sure. Our CIA has done it, the DEA has done it. All in secret. Not officially sanctioned, like it was this time.
That is what all those words skip over. Frankly, if people don't get morally outraged at this, I wonder if anything will make them get morally outraged.
They aren't the people I'd want running this country. That's for sure.
April 28, 2009 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bwak, this is crap. What you're doing with these kinds of comments. And it's cowardly.
Smarten up.
April 29, 2009 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't quite follow you, Bwak. How do you not see moral outrage in this post? That it has been tolerated for 40 years is outrageous. My point is that it has to be stopped, but it has to be stopped in a systematic way so that there's no wiggle room.
But thank you for commenting.
April 29, 2009 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink