Progressive World Review

When the shocking pictures from Abu Ghraib surfaced, high ranking officials in both the military and the administration tried to contain the damage by claiming the abuses were the result of just a few individuals that had run amok and were not indicative of our treatment of detainees in general.  President Bush even proclaimed to the country, “We do not torture.”  And the only convictions to come out of the scandal were of low ranking soldiers while the conviction of the only officer was eventually overturned. 

However, as time went by, a different picture began to emerge.  Reports of similar abuses were coming out of different detention centers such as Guantánamo, stories of rendition, the whisking away of detainees to foreign countries like Egypt, where torture is tolerated, were heard and finally, the torture memos, legal justifications for abandoning the Geneva Conventions and employing “enhanced interrogation” techniques were revealed.

It became clearer and clearer that these abuses were the result of high level policy decisions rather than just a matter of a few rouge individuals acting on their own so when Jane Mayer’s new book was released, The Dark Side, detailing the systemic abuses of detainees, many of whom are most certainly innocent of any wrongdoing, it came as little surprise.  I have yet to read the book but reviews and interviews with Mayer are enlightening, not so much for any new information revealed but because her book is more of a comprehensive compilation of the whole story.  From a Washington Post article which includes a transcript from a question and answer session hosted by the Post’s online Book World Live,

Recast as a series of indictments, the story Mayer tells goes like this: Since embarking upon its global war on terror, the United States has blatantly disregarded the Geneva Conventions. It has imprisoned suspects, including U.S. citizens, without charge, holding them indefinitely and denying them due process. It has created an American gulag in which thousands of detainees, including many innocent of any wrongdoing, have been subjected to ritual abuse and humiliation. It has delivered suspected terrorists into the hands of foreign torturers. Under the guise of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ it has succeeded, in Mayer’s words, in ‘making torture the official law of the land in all but name.’ Further, it has done all these things as a direct result of policy decisions made at the highest levels of government.”

As Mayer has conclusively demonstrated, we do indeed torture.  And while the results of these “enhanced interrogations” are classified so we don’t really know exactly what came out of them, according to Mayer, probably not much,

Tampa, Fla.: Just how much actionable intelligence has been gathered as a result of torture?

Jane Mayer: FBI agents who are expert in Islamic terrorism have told me that the CIA’s program of “enhanced” techniques yielded little to nothing - but then - there is some institutional rivalry to consider here. A former top CIA officer who worked closely with George Tenet, however, told me very candidly that, “Ninety percent of what we got was crap.”

In fact, while listening to an interview on NPR, Mayer revealed that most of the interrogation techniques used came from a military program designed to teach soldiers how to resist Soviet torture techniques.  The remarkable aspect here is that the Soviets were much more interested in extracting false confessions to be used for propaganda purposes rather than to obtain any useful information.  Our government’s use of torture was clearly in the hope of getting good information so it would seem that this is as much a story of abject incompetence as well as moral repugnance.

What may be the most disturbing part of all this, other than the torture itself is the complicity of those that you would hope would at least attempt to stop these kinds of activities.  While there’s little doubt that these plans were hatched by the more radical elements in the Republican Party, certain key Democrats have been aware of this almost from the beginning.  That’s disturbing in its own right, but even more so when you consider that Democratic knowledge of torture programs may very well prevent the perpetrators of these crimes from ever being held accountable,

New York, N.Y.: In your interview with Harper’s yesterday, you said that this about why war crimes prosecutions are unlikely: “An additional complicating factor is that key members of Congress sanctioned this program, so many of those who might ordinarily be counted on to lead the charge are themselves compromised.”

What did you mean by that? Who specifically is compromised ” who might ordinarily be counted on to lead the charge are themselves compromised” — Nancy Pelosi, Jane Harman, Jay Rockefeller? — and how are they “compromised”?

washingtonpost.com: Six Questions for Jane Mayer, Author of The Dark Side (Harpers.org)

Jane Mayer: The ranking members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees were briefed dozens of times about the CIA’s interrogation and detention program over the past seven years - so any member who has held one of those posts has arguably been complicit. Some say they tried to object, internally. But either because of the threat of violating national security, or, because of the fear of the political price of dissent, these figures in both parties would find it very hard at this point to point the finger at the White House, without also implicating themselves. (emphasis added)

So there we have it.  Once considered the moral beacon of the world we have now sunk to the depths of depravity once reserved for the worst nations on earth by employing the despicable and illegal techniques of torture.  This would still be deplorable even if it had worked but it didn’t work and as many in the military will tell you, it can’t work.  Useful information is rarely if ever obtained because its victims will simply tell you what they want to hear.

But beyond the moral arguments against torture it’s important to note that the victims are not just those individuals subjected to such inhumanity, nor are they limited to those who lose their own humanity by employing such tactics, the fact is, the whole country loses.  It’s no coincidence that the same administration that has encouraged the use of torture also feels no compunction against spying on its own citizens because once you consider yourself above the law, once you decide that the ends justify the means, literally anything goes.  What moral, ethical or legal limit could there be on someone who’s willing to resort to torture or has no qualms against violating the Constitution, the very same document they’ve sworn to protect?

–Paul Wilden

Digg buttons brought to you by diggZ-ET (WordPress Plugin)

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.