This is a thoughtful article in the Boston Globe about the Torture Program. It questions why Americans are not rioting in the streets about the fact that we tortured our al Qaeda prisoners. But as thoughtful as the article is, it misses the mark…
The more Dick Cheney defends torture, the more we Americans must end our tortured ambivalence. Either we are above using the same interrogation practices that police states use, or we are are not. This past weekend, the former vice president said he knew about waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques used by CIA personnel on terror suspects and even defended officers who went beyond authorized methods. He said they were “absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives and preventing further attacks against the United States.’’
Going further, he said it “offends the hell out of me’’ that the Obama administration has decided to investigate prisoner abuse by the CIA. He called it an “outrageous political act’’ that will demoralize the intelligence community to the point where “nobody’s going to sign up for those kinds of missions.’’
It would be easy at this juncture to demonize Cheney, who was so wrong so often in his eight years in office, most notably about the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction that he and President Bush used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. That war has cost the lives of more than 4,300 American soldiers, with another 31,400 wounded, and about 100,000 documented deaths of Iraqi civilians, according to Iraqbodycount.org.
It is easy to demonize Cheney, and from my point of view, why miss the opportunity to do exactly that? Dick Cheney made his "Dark Side" comment less than a week after the 9/11 attack. Within six months, the OLC had laid the ground rules for the Torture Program including Rendition and suspension of the Geneva Conventions.
| 09/25/01 John C. Yoo |
The President’s Constitutional Authority To Conduct Military Operations Against Terrorists and Nations Supporting Them. |
| 09/25/01 John C. Yoo |
Constitutionality of Amending Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to Change the “Purpose” Standard for Searches. |
| 10/23/01 John C. Yoo |
Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States not be subject to the constraints of the Fourth Amendment . . . .” The memo is criticized and partly repudiated in Steven Bradbury’s 10/6/08 memo. |
| 11/05/01 John Yoo |
Authority of the Deputy Attorney General Under Executive Order 12333. |
| 11/06/01 Patrick F. Philbin |
Legality of the Use of Military Commissions to Try Terrorists. |
| 01/22/02 Jay S. Bybee John Yoo |
Application of Treaties and Laws to al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees ("Treaties and Laws Memorandum") to long-term detention at the U.S. navy base at Guantanamo Bay and trial by military commissions. Addresses treatment of detainees captured in Afghanistan with respectto long-term detention at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay and trial by military commissions. Concludes that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to al Qaeda members. Also concludes that the President has authority to deny the Taliban militia POW status. |
| 02/07/02 George W. Bush |
Humane Treatment of al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees In this memo, the President concludes that (1) none of the provisions of the Geneva Conventions apply to the conflict with al Qaeda, (2) the President has authority to suspend obligations under the Geneva Conventions with regard to Afghanistan, (3) Common Article 3 does not apply to al Qaeda or Taliban detainees, and (4) Taliban and al Qaeda detainees do not qualify as prisoners of war. |
| 02/07/02 Jay Bybee |
Status of Taliban Forces Under Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949 This memo finds that the President has sufficient grounds to conclude that the Taliban militia are not entitled to POW status under the 1949 Geneva Convention (III) Relative to Treatment of Prisoners of War. It also finds that it is not necessary for the government to convene Article 5 tribunals to determine the status of the Taliban detainees since a presidential determination of their status eliminates any legal doubt under domestic law. |
| 03/13/02 Jay S. Bybee |
President’s Power as Commander in Chief to Transfer Captured Terrorists to the Control and Custody of Foreign Nations. Concludes that, “the President has plenary constitutional authority, as the commander in chief, to transfer such individuals who are held and captured outside the United States to the control of another country.” |
We’re not "demonizing" Cheney. Cheney was acting like a "demon" – from the start.
But Cheney’s role is an old, if still developing story. After all, he warned us five days after Sept. 11 that our government would work on the “dark side.’’ He told the late Tim Russert, “We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies.’’ A majority of Americans thought Cheney was right. Despite the false pretenses for war and Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses that were exposed in the spring of 2004, Bush and Cheney were reelected.Now, as Cheney continues to defend the dark side – even without conclusive proof that waterboarding coughed up critical intelligence – he is daring Americans to come out of the shadows to demand a bright light on interrogation and prisoner-treatment practices that render us hypocrites on human rights. To some degree, Attorney General Eric Holder is attempting this with his probe. But it appears that the inquiry will be limited to any CIA officers who went beyond legally authorized methods.
That is not enough. President Obama has sought to avoid controversy – and avoid demoralizing the CIA – by saying he wants to look forward, not backward. But these last eight years have revealed too many brutal abuses to write them off as only the actions of a few rogues. We are at the point where nothing less than full congressional hearings, or a full Justice Department investigation, will let us know how high the rot started and how deep it went.
The reason I’ve quoted this whole article is that as thoughtful as it seems, it feels to me like the author has "drunk the koolaid" as we now say when someone accepts a false premise. And we know how high and how deep it went already. It went from the top to the bottom.
The rot in our national morality is evident in a June poll by the Associated Press, which found that 52 percent of Americans said torture was sometimes or often justified to obtain information from terror suspects. An April CNN poll found that even though 60 percent of Americans thought harsh techniques including waterboarding constituted torture, 50 percent approved of them. A Washington Post/ABC News Poll was almost evenly split between Americans who say we should never use torture (49 percent) and should use torture in some cases (48 percent).
More "koolaid." Without knowing it, the author is falling for the idea that they Tortured captives because they wanted to find out where al Qaeda was going to strike next. I don’t for a moment doubt that they would’ve loved to know al Qaeda’s plans, but I don’t think that’s why they did it. They either wanted to find a prisoner who would verify that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 plot, or to find a prisoner who could be made to say that Saddam Hussein was involved.
Whether it is because of the politics of fear that defined the Bush-Cheney years, the recession engulfing the Obama administration, or simply an indifference to foreigners languishing in jail, Americans have displayed scant curiosity about the dark side. A May McClatchy poll found Americans to be almost evenly split on having a “bipartisan blue-chip commission’’ on interrogations, and the CNN poll found nearly two-thirds disapproving of either a congressional investigation or independent panel. This is a level of apathy, even civic debasement that makes it no wonder Cheney can spout off despite leaving America in a disgraceful place. He feels empowered to defend the dark side, because we have yet to shine a light.
I’m not surprised that the polls show us to be apathetic about Torture. 9/11 was a national trauma. We’re acting like people act in the face of atrocity – do what it takes. But that’s not what happened. Our trip to the "dark side" wasn’t just about what Cheney is saying, and most Americans don’t yet know that. They don’t know that Rumsfeld tasked Paul Wolfowitz to connect al Qaeda and Iraq on the afternoon of 9/11. They don’t know that the White House was pressuring the interrogators to get them a reason to support their invasion of Iraq – using torture. They don’t know that the torture program was part of the frantic effort to amass a rationale to invade Iraq that went on in the months following 9/11. They still don’t know that the Iraq War was misguided, not because of bad intelligence, but because of the preconceived plans of the neoconservatives supported by lies – conscious lies. Our walk on the "dark side" was much bigger than betraying our principles because we were under attack. We became "dark actors" in a devious plot ourselves. Like I said, we’re not "demonizing Cheney." Cheney was acting like a "demon" – from the start. And the "outrageous political act" was Cheney’s perverting our government’s response to the 9/11 attack in the service of his oil exploration plans. It is likely that my seemingly paranoid formulation of this story isn’t paranoid at all – it’s what happened…
Here’s Dan Froomkin‘s very candid take on Cheney’s Chris Wallace interview…
And John McCain‘s take:
In a strong pushback against claims made by former Vice President Dick Cheney, Sen. John McCain insisted on Sunday that the use of torture on terrorism suspects violated international law, didn’t work, and actually helped al Qaeda recruit additional members. "I think the interrogations were in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the convention against torture that we ratified under President Reagan," said the Arizona Republican. "I think these interrogations, once publicized, helped al Qaeda recruit. I got that from an al Qaeda operative in a prison camp in Iraq… I think that the ability of us to work with our allies was harmed. And I believe that information, according go the FBI and others, could have been gained through other members"…
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