Torture

We will look back on the Bush years and find it incredible, and disgraceful, that individuals were captured in battle or "purchased" from self-interested tribal warlords, whisked to Guantanamo, classified as "enemy combatants" but not accorded the rights that that status should have accorded them, held for years without charges -- and denied the right to prove that they were victims of mistaken identity and never should have been taken into custody.

Today Eugune Robinson offers us After the Torture Era.   It is, as is usually the case with Robinson, a well-written, even powerful, column on a subject of great importance.  But after reading the entire piece, which I suggest you do, I found myself return to the paragraph I have quoted and find myself disagreeing -  I won't have to look back, and do not find it incredible, because many of us realized early on that there were problems inherent in the Bush administration's approach to the so-called "Great War on Terror."  

I will explore Robinson's column, but this posting will more be my own thoughts.
Robinson begins by quoting the remarks Obama made on "60 Minutes,", that he will close Guantanamo and that America does not condone torture.  Robinson notes pointedly that

it has been easy to lose sight of the terrorism-related "issues" that defined George W. Bush's presidency and robbed America of so much honor, stature and goodwill.

Robinson writes

I put the word issues in quotation marks because torture can never be a matter of debate. Yet the Bush administration sought to numb Americans to what has traditionally been seen as a clear moral and legal imperative: the requirement that individuals taken into custody by our government be treated fairly and humanely.

Yes, the Bushites sought to numb us.   They have since the very beginning to move us away from any commitment to basic human rights.  They lied, they obfuscated, they rushed through legislation that stripped away not only the rights of those accused of heinous acts, but all of us in the name of protecting us.  If the basic rights of Americans could be restricted in the name of providing security in a horrid piece of legislation mislabled the USA PATRIOT Act, where if at all would the line ever be drawn restricting the executive from doing anything it chose?

If things like the so-called Bybee memo (actually written by John Yoo) could be released and those responsible not immediately removed from office by the Congress of the United States as violating their oaths of office, what restriction is there on executive power?

If members of the Congress could look at the many pictures sent to authorities by Joseph Darby and been willing to accept the absurd contention that it was just people in one rogue unit, and not hold responsible the General Geoffrey Millers, the Assistant Secretaries Steve Cambone, the SecDef Donald Rumsfeld who as highers up in the chain of command at a minimum created the environment in which such actions occurred and under the doctrine of command responsibility were responsible for the actions of all subordinates - if they could be so willfully blind, are not they in part also culpable?   In refusing to release the pictures to all of us so we could see what was done, ostensibly in our name, did they deny us what we needed to know to do what we could to throw out of office anyone tainted by this stain on our honor?  Did they deny us the right to exercise our constitutional powers through the ballot box?

Robinson writes of a new report from Cal Berkeley. It may be interesting, but I do not think it really informs us of anything we did not already know - that the mistreatment began before the men got to Guantanamo, that many were innocent of anything except being people Afghan warlords could grab and sell to the Americans for bounties -  and think of the distortion that approach has created.  

Robinson continues with his theme of how we will look back:  

Years from now, we will be shocked to see those pictures of naked prisoners being humiliated and abused at Abu Ghraib -- and we will be ashamed of a U.S. government that punished low-level troops for their sadism but exonerated the higher-ups who made such sadism possible.

Years from now, we will know the full truth of the clandestine, CIA-run prisons where "high-value" terrorism suspects were interrogated with techniques, including waterboarding, that both civilized norms and international law have long defined as torture. From what we already know, it's hard to say which is more appalling -- the torture itself or the tortured legal rationalizations that Bush administration lawyers came up with to "justify" making barbarity the official policy of the U.S. government.

Here again I find myself in disagreement.  We will not need to wait for years -  we are, or already, should be shocked.  And the full truth, including all pictures, executive orders, documentation, needs to be released immediately, as soon as the new administration takes over, lest there be those tempted to cover up and then perhaps themselves slide down the slippery slope of self-justification in the name of security.

Even we do not completely disclose, then maybe some of the words from the following quote will prove more applicable than we might want to admit:

Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because, deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline.  Otherwise I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand at post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled.

You don't want the truth because, deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.    That is part of what this administration tried to convince us . . .  that we wanted them to be Nathan Jessup overseeing the fence-line at Gitmo.  

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said "thank you" and went on your way.   The current administration will argue - already has argued - that its actions, even if over the top, were appropriate steps taken to fulfill the president's responsibility to keep the American people safe.

But the president does not swear an oath about the safety of the American people, but rather one in which he commits that he

will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

TORTURE   that is the single word of my title.  And that is key.  As is the idea of the slippery slope.  When we begin to justify restricting rights guaranteed in the Constitution, when do we stop?  When we promulgate a doctrine that a president in the time of war can do anything he deems necessary to keep the nation secure, how is that chief executive still constitutionally restricted, other than a tyrant, at least in potential?  

Think of all we already know.   Unitary executive.  "Gitmoize" Abu Ghraib.  John Walker Lindh denied counsel and kept naked in a shipping container.  USA PATRIOT Act.  The attempt at PATRIOT ACT II.  No Fly lists that are difficult if not impossible to challenge. Taking prisoners, cutting off all their clothes, using anal suppositories to sedate them, and entombing (yes, I use that word deliberately) in a cocoon of sensory deprivation -  and this is just to transport them to where the real torture will begin.  Waterboarding.  Threatening to rape one's children.  Transporting children to Guantanamo and imprisoning them with no rights, no trial.  Allowing rapes of prisoners for whom we were responsible, male and female.  

If you are not already disgusted, why not?  Because they are "other" in some fashion, not like you and me?   Are you sure?  Perhaps if the administration decides you or I represent threats it will assert - as it already has - that our status as American citizens does not protect us from similar violations - of our persons as well as our rights.

Torture -  is it not the logical end at which we will arrive when we beginning loosening the strictures our Constitution deliberately places upon our government>  If we begin to justify unconstitutional actions, is there any line beyond which we can not go?

Here I think of words offered in a different context, in a different war.  The issue then was mandatory recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, and the conflict was World War II.  I think one part of Robert Jackson's opinion declaring such mandatory exercises unconstitutional is helpful in understanding the issue about which I am writing.  Let me offer only these words from that opinion:

It seems trite but necessary to say that the First Amendment to our Constitution was designed to avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings. There is no mysticism in the American concept of the State or of the nature or origin of its authority. We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent.

Jackson is writing about something very basic - freedom of expression, the fact that the Constitution and Bill of Right prohibits forcing consent.  And if we have government of the people, the actions that government does, any action, must be within the consent granted by the American people.  And if we are denied the full facts, we cannot give informed consent.

We sit as judge and jury of our government officials each time we vote.  And in a court of law proper verdicts cannot be rendered absent complete information.  The Nathan Jessups -  and George Bushs and Donald Rumsfelds and Dick Cheneys and David Addingtons - are wrong.  We can handle the truth.   We do need to know what is done in our name.

Because if we do not insist upon knowing, if we willingly avert our eyes from the pictures of Abu Grhaib, if we accept the words of those in power that the images are too horrible for us to see, what then is there to shock our consciences into protesting, how are we going to insist that such things cease, that all responsible, no matter how high their positions, be held accountable?

I wish torture on no person.  Yet I cannot help but wonder how mind might be changed were we to watch as officials of some superior power (not, I did not say authority) came and grabbed, say Alberto Gonzales or David Addington or Jay Bybee or John Yoo, cut off all their clothes, placed a suppository sedative, and wrapped them in a sensory depriving cocoon, transported them to a distant place, and then waterboarded them.   Would we be shocked because we could see it?  Because they were well-educated?  Because they were not Arab or Muslim?  

If we were not shocked, then we have lost our own moral compass.

And if we can be shocked by such treatment of them, why are we not shocked, outraged, at such treatment of anyone?

If we accept the first denial of rights - to anyone, however loathsome we may believe them to be - then where do we draw the line?  At what point are we going to be willing, or able, to say "stop!"???  Or we have become so willfully blind and ignorant that we will be unable to speak, or no longer aware of what is being done?

Torture is wrong.  Except for the very few who argue about ticking bomb scenarios, we all espouse that simple principle.  But what happens with too many is that we begin to rationalize - we argue that something is not torture because it does not pose an imminent threat of death or organ failure.  But what about the loss of soul, of psyche, of trust if returned to one's own community?  

In his final paragraph, Robinson writes

The new Obama administration has a duty to conduct its own investigation and tell us exactly what was done in our name. Realistically, some facts are going to be redacted. Realistically, some officials who may deserve to face criminal charges will not. But to restore our national honor and heal our national soul, we at least need to know.

Here again I disagree.  If we allow redaction of the facts, then we again start down that slippery slope.  What has been done is so horrible that it needs to be completely exposed, so that no future official, high or petty, will ever again be tempted to such abuses and rationalizations in the belief that his misdeeds may remain covered by secrecy in the name of national security.

I am a fierce defender, even an absolutist, on the notion of protecting individual rights.  That applies to those I find most loathsome.  And in that category I put many current and former officials of the Bush administration.

Let them face charges - in open courts, with all the rights that they have denied to others.  Let us begin to restore the idea that our government and its officials cannot abrograte on their own the strictures placed upon them  by We the people of the United States through our establishing document.

For if we do not so insist, if this too is allowed to go undisclosed in full, then the Nathan Jessups will have been proven right.

And there will be no point beyond which we will not be willing to go, or have gone in our name.

Torture -  one word.  We can not deny it was done, and is probably still being done.  We should have known that it was a logical outcome of the first steps at restricting liberty in the Patriot Act, in secret executive orders, in a Congress too willing to abandon its responsibilities of oversight on our behalf, and of a judiciary willing complicit in the unconstitutional expansion of executive authority.

If we do not now, once and for all, make clear how unacceptable this is, then we too become complicit.  In what?

Torture

Comments

... (West Ailsworth - 11/18/2008 8:45:17 PM)