Here is a progression of statements we, as U.S. citizens, have been expected to swallow over the last 3 years.
- We are America and we do not torture people.
- Well, sometimes we use “intensive” interrogation techniques, but we do not torture.
- Yes, some of our techniques have been labeled torture in the past, but the way we do them is not torture.
- All right, sometimes we use techniques that technically could be called “torture,” but we don’t do it often.
- Now look — torture is perfectly okay when it is done to save lives. Not that we can prove that we have saved a single life with torture, but we definitely have!
- We would not be so embarrassed by our torture techniques if the new administration would stop releasing documents proving we did what we said we didn’t do.
- Gosh, this is all so unpleasant. Let’s just move forward. No point in digging up this ugliness of the past.
I can’t remember when I first knew the government was torturing prisoners, but it has certainly been many years. The Abu Ghraib story broke in 2004, so it was pretty clear something was amiss even then. We began incarcerating suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay in 2001, and I don’t think I was ever under any illusions about what was going on there. It was not long after 9/11 that public figures began discussing the feasibility of torturing prisoners to find out the plans of terrorists. I remember an Alan Dershowitz article way back in 2001 that laid out the argument for torture in certain circumstances. Torture has been in the air for a long time.
Finding proof positive that the U.S. government tortured prisoners was about as surprising as discovering that pro baseball players used steroids. Please. The only thing surprising here is that all these “smart” people were stupid enough to write it all down in memos.
But as offensive as all this is, nothing beats its sad coda — the argument that, now that we finally have the truth, we should walk away from it. Argument #7: Let bygones be bygones, put the past behind us, and move forward. For seven years we citizens have been treated like fools, lied to repeatedly about practices everyone knew were going on. Now that we have the proof in our hands, we are being told we should do nothing about it.
Why? Because our betters in Washington think we can’t handle the truth. Investigation and prosecution of public officials for war crimes is too divisive and painful for us weak, ignorant citizens. Even Obama is onto this theme, soft-pedaling investigations into clear violations of international treaty and U.S. law because he says we need to move forward. You know, the economic crisis and stuff.
He should be ashamed of himself. As should the entire Democratic party, who swept into power on the promise of doing things differently. Apparently doing things differently doesn’t include enforcing the law. The Democrats, like the Republicans before them, are afraid to bring the truth to the American people for legal action because they fear if the public fully assesses what its government really does, it will do the sensible thing and find entirely new leadership. Or at least terrorize the the current leadership until it does the right thing.
Conservatives are fond of calling the current leadership socialists, and in one sense they are right. Socialists tend to think private individuals don’t have the vision or the ability to deal with social problems. People are too weak or too dumb to really take control of their own society, so the government must do it for them. Although it is unfair to call the Obama administration socialists, there is a certain socialistic paternalism that sometimes creeps into its politics, a fear of true democratic government and all of the uncertainty it implies.
I, for one, have enough trust in the people of this country to think that we can handle prosecution of public officials for ordering torture. Yes, at first there will be a liberal-conservative divide that will roil our nation’s politics. But at the end of the day, conservatives can’t defend torture as a public policy any more than they can defend child molestation. No one is pro-torture. There are a few people who have argued that torture is necessary, but these people will melt away as the truth of what happened comes to light. Americans have never had much stomach for ambiguity, and defenders of torture will have great difficulty explaining how our government can function if the answer to every moral question is, “Sometimes.”
“24” is a TV show. Americans no more want their government behaving like the characters on that show than they want cops shooting people in the street like an episode of “CSI Miami.” This is even true on the far right, despite the illusions cast by conservative pundits. The extreme right is distrustful of government, and the gun toting, rock ribbed Republicans will, at the end of the day, realize that a government that can torture as it sees fit may eventually see fit to torture them.
We are in a deep economic recession, and could use a moment of clarity to rekindle hope. As hard as it may be for us to face the facts in the short term, isn’t it possible that an emphatic statement of principle could provide that light and clarity?