In Torture We Trust?

“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today, at home and around the world!” (John F. Kennedy, 1917 - 1963, Inaugural Address, 1961)

Sometimes I have to check the calendar to remind myself what century I’m living in. Aside from Abu Garib and Gitmo, it appears our government has been running similar operations in Afghanistan and Eastern Europe. If you are not outraged or ashamed of this, I have no use for you. It is nothing short of pathetic that our government allows this to go on. We the people need to speak out and speak out loudly against this. Foremost, we must continue to press for open government and transparency. We cannot and must not continue to have our leaders dirty deal behind our backs any longer. Their decisions effect how we are viewed by the world. I do not wish to be counted among the liars, murderers, warmongers, or torturers of this or any nation.

In a recent vote of the Senate, a proposed rider on to an appropriations bill was added to outlaw the torturing of prisoners by our military, intelligence, or police agencies. The measure was passed with a 90-9 vote. That means there are at least nine members of the highest levels of our legislative branch who condone the use of torture to coerce information from prisoners of war or suspected terrorists. The President, in spite of his public denials, surrounds himself with advisors who openly support the use of torture; Dick “Dark Lord” Cheney being the most vocal among them. It is interesting that a man like Mr. Cheney, never having served in the military, and whose wealth and prestige have protected him from even every-day sort of hardships, would be so eager to see others being tortured. I’ve been through some painful times, be it illness, injury, relationships, or financial troubles, and I can’t find any good reason to wish any kind of sufferings, no matter how trivial, upon others. My sense of empathy is too strong. This is yet another strong indication of how ‘out of touch’ the corporate oriented Bush administration is with real life.

Now I’m not all that sure what agreements we have signed onto and which ones we haven’t, or what they mean or don’t mean or could mean or should mean, and I’m 100% sure that when I do actually sit down to read those treaties that some lawyer or Republican Bushbot will find a way to twist the obvious into the oblivious. Alberto “Speedy Execution” Gonzales is always available to parse the legalese in such a fashion that no one can make sense of it any longer. The terms combatant, soldier, terrorist, criminal, civilian, etc., seem to mean the same thing, nothing, and everything simultaneously. I’m confused about the legalese. Even if there exist such loopholes in the law, why would we be so desperate to exploit them in order commit heinous acts that much of the civilized world finds reprehensible?

I am reminded by the paranoid hysteric nationalists among us that “America is under attack” and “our way of life is threatened”, and this is the justification for war and the “by any means necessary” approach to national security. What if there was a bomb ready to go off and we needed to build 100s of naked human pyramids to get the needed information? Many experts claim the torture doesn’t work and, in fact, we have been torturing captives and it seems the war against their terror isn’t going all that well. The Bush administration seems intent upon “staying the course” and even escalating the level of their cruelty and incompetence, even though it does not and cannot produce the results it desires.

The most common defense I hear for the use of torture is along the lines of “They already do it to us! Haven’t you seen them cutting off heads? Do you think for a minute they wouldn’t hesitate to do that to you?” Taking a moral or ethical high ground is possible when you actually behave in a moral or ethical manner. Am I to justify our perpetration of such evil by the fact that they do it? What happened to protecting “our way of life”? Our culture of civility and rational jurisprudence does not permit torturing of anyone for any reason. As a civilized and somewhat humanitarian society, we are careful not to inflict undue harm, stress, or violence upon even those who violate our laws. The supporters of torture would like us to protect our way of life by changing it to look exactly as the enemy’s does.

Everything we do in a society requires a rational and measured approach. The ‘slippery slope’ argument has, from both a psychosocial and historical perspective, a great deal of merit. Once we get used to reclassifying the enemy as terrorists, once we begin to rename our actions, or once we begin to parse and spin the treaties we sign for other purposes, it is a short road to more and wider abuses through those same methods. The definition of ‘terrorist’ or ‘supporter of terror’ will eventually shift (if it hasn’t already) from real terror to common civil disobedience and political dissent. Anything and everything opposed to the nationalism of the ruling class can be reclassified as ‘supporting terror’, and soon the nationalists and patriots will be clamoring for opposition leaders and political opponents to face torture and execution. Nationalists may claim it is only a temporary measure for an extreme circumstance, but so was the Patriot Act! Once you give the government a power, no matter how urgent or specific the circumstance, it borders on impossible to rescind that power once the danger has passed.

Tyrants subvert language to whip the masses into hysteria and then elicit reactionary fervor. Redefining terms is just the beginning of a long chain of national immorality and injustice. It allows for the justification of any evil imaginable. This misdirection will herald the end of civility and humanitarianism, and to the moral capacity of the society that dares engage in such heinous acts of cruelty. We become a nation on the fast track to ruination should we choose that course of action as our ultimate goal. Pray that never happens.

Just having to bear witness each day to the bullshit, lies, malfeasance, incompetence, and obfuscations of this administration and their brainwashed followers is torture enough for me. How about you? Perhaps if we really want to torture the enemy we should give them this government!

“What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer.” (Bertrand Russell, 1872 - 1970)