To paraphrase Yeats, if you feed the heart a lot of violence, the heart grows fond of the fare.
My deep belief is that Presidents Obama and George W. Bush have done exactly this to our military. American taxpayer dollars have been used to encourage our intelligence officers to torture free from any risk of judicial or other consequences. If you question this assertion, you must read the Senate Intelligence Report on Torture and read for yourself what your money paid for. And as promised, no high-ranking intelligence officers have gone to prison for violating national and international laws.
The Bush people thought that by getting a law professor to write a justification of torture they could make an orange into an apple. Every dictator in history has tried this approach. They can call it "pressure" or "rough interrogation," but the decent will never abide such treatment. Torture is torture, and any victim who has ever suffered it can tell you its effects. There are millions of torture victims who know that rewriting rules to legitimize pain and debasement does not change the basic fact that torture hurts them as well as the torturers, and the pain can last long after physical wounds have healed. This is the fare fed by governments of the world to the poor and powerless, and even sometimes to the rich as well.
Recently, the President applied for authorization to kill an American with a drone and without judicial review. Drone strikes violate international law and I believe national law. The Constitution has always required judicial review before carrying out a death sentence. Americans have created new enemies from these vaporizing moments. Drone usage is wrong, per se, and must be forbidden by law.
Over three thousand drone strikes have been deployed in at least six countries. Innocents have died regularly in these strikes. How many of these strikes have struck the wrong people? There never has been an accounting of how many innocents have died. And if you want to get into the details of why the information is so obscure, just try to find the chain of command for each strike. From the place of discovery to the point of the strike, there is massive room for possible mistakes. For example, imagine Hussein was number two in the 'deck of cards' of suspected terrorists. Ali says Hussein is in the blue car. There are two or three blue cars that day. Ali is sure Hussein is in the car. But Hussein may be aware that he is a target and switch cars. Or, Ali says Hussein is at a wedding or a funeral. And then picture the soldier in Las Vegas or Tampa who then has to call in the strike. Soldier Wilfred is having a bad day. Does he strike that blue car or wedding party or that funeral? Does he believe Ali about Hussein? Maybe Ali is from another village, which hates that clan on that side of the mountain. You might think I am exaggerating, but I tell you this is how it goes. We do not have our own people identifying targets. We pay local people to tell us where to strike. The informant may even get rich for providing us with information and perhaps eliminating his own enemy.
Torture and drones leave behind American DNA. We like to think that we do not behave this way, but we do. Remember when Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta wanted to give a special medal to the best of the strikers. He actually spoke to this need in the military. Do you get it? A medal for bravery for sitting in Las Vegas and killing people in Pakistan. Do we do the same for the best torturer? For all we know, this may have happened.
The United States must get out of the business (and it is a business) of torture and drones. Both are morally and legally wrong, and inflict great damage to the victims and to the American soul. Presidents must stop feeding violence to our military for they will grow fond of the fare.
We must stop co-opting the medical and legal professions to justify torture and drone use. These two professions need to be protected from government exploitation, for they too become fond of the fare. Violence seems to be catchy.
Please order your own copy of the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture. If you can stomach it, read all 549 pages and you will see why I feel the strong need to repeat this basic information. The NY Times has added its voice to this debate. Late, but needed.