None dare call it . . . what is that word again?
It's a word I associate with the McCarthy era and patriotic fanaticism; its commission is the cardinal sin against the nation-state and, as such, not only too easily flung at an ideological opponent but a frayed, simplistic concept, in that humankind ought to be reaching beyond national identities for global allegiance and a security that doesn't devalue life anywhere on the planet. It's a word I avoid. Certainly I've never accused anyone of it. Till now.
But as I have pondered the recently released torture memos and the sudden, long-delayed trickle of national soul-searching they have provoked over the crimes of the Bush era, I find myself shocked into new emotional territory.
Consider this little item from a McClatchy Newspapers story last week: "The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees" -- commonly known as torture -- "in part to find evidence of cooperation between al-Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist."
Indeed, Guantanamo interrogators, in 2002 and early 2003, were under pressure from way high up to "produce evidence" -- can you feel the moral drift here? -- that Saddam Hussein helped bring down the Towers so we could go to war with Iraq. This was when Khalid Sheik Muhammed was being waterboarded 183 times and Abu Zubaydah 83 times.
"The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link... there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results," the psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney, told Army investigators, according to the McClatchy story.
Let us pause the news cycle here and strip away the desperate delicacy of this language. The Gitmo intelligence crew was being told, from the highest levels of the Bush White House and the Pentagon -- think Cheney, think Rumsfeld -- to keep slamming these guys' heads against the wall, to keep pouring water down their throats, to keep tormenting them with dogs and insects, until they blubbered, in their pain and terror, a word or two that would justify the long-planned (and completely pointless) invasion of Iraq.
This drags the torture "debate" out of the fog that mainstream pundits are paid to generate -- does it work? is it legal? is it cruel? is it counterproductive? -- and exposes something that is troubling at the level of the soul, and begs only one question.
Is it treason?
As I say, this is not a word I use with any comfort or certainty. It's a word I distrust. But I use it now, summoning not its legal or constitutional meaning (though I don't doubt that the U.S. Constitution was flushed down the toilet along with the Koran); but rather, the emotional core of the word as it bubbled up from Latin and French into the English language in the 13th century: to hand over, to betray a sacred trust. That was an age that, if nothing else, was serious about its values. Are we serious about ours?
Raise your hand, stand up, step forward if you think a deep moral violation has occurred in this scenario: An American president, or at least his primary advisors, circumvent international and domestic law to permit the use of cruel and occasionally fatal interrogation techniques on Muslim detainees (sometimes randomly arrested and completely innocent), not for the purpose of mining them for actual information, which might have national security value, but to get them, sheerly, to lie as instructed.
The question of the moment is now, no longer: Is torture un-American? It is: Are we, as a nation, bigger than our transgressions? Can we establish a commission or an investigation with a moral force greater than the trust that has been debased? Can we face up to what has been done in our name, establish accountability and find a way to atone and change?
Politically, the answer is no. Politics as we practice it these days -- as the Democrats practice it, I should say -- is just another form of market-based consumerism. It is trend-focused and desirous most of all of not offending. While the Republicans are masters at creating wedge issues and harnessing hatred in order to govern, the Dems lack the skill to harness the opposite force, compassion and empathy, so they govern without clarity or fervor. In the words of Michael Dukakis, they aspire to "manage."
As citizens who are sick of the treasonous assault on our values, we can't let up in our demand for a serious investigation into torture and other crimes of "the war on terror." Finding and addressing the root causes of what we have done is the psychological equivalent of sustainability.
Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bkoehler@tribune.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.
© 2009 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
Politically, the answer is no. Politics as we practice it these days -- as the Democrats practice it, I should say -- is just another form of market-based consumerism. It is trend-focused and desirous most of all of not offending. While the Republicans are masters at creating wedge issues and harnessing hatred in order to govern, the Dems lack the skill to harness the opposite force, compassion and empathy, so they govern without clarity or fervor. In the words of Michael Dukakis, they aspire to "manage."
Perfectly said - 'the dems are desirous most of all not to offend.' No wonder they are ineffective against republican bullies.
A willingness to accept torture will eventually lead greater problems. Don't think for one minute that some politician isn't thinking that if the military can do it, why not local law enforcement? Amber Alert? Torture associates of the suspect. Unsolved robbery, round up a few dozen people, innocent or guilty( Remember: the mosaic principle isn't about guilt or innocence, it's about association-if you're in the general area, you MUST know something!) grab a few towels and see what info you get. Some of the GITMO detainees were pubescent, so children are fair game as well.
Is this the kind of US that is a world leader, that shining light on a hill? Other nations see that we don't mean a word when we speak of the sanctity of freedom and justice for all in our nation- it's just hollow words to give us some feel-good moment for being a two-faced, de-evolved nation.
"Are we, as a nation, bigger than our transgressions?"
Help send leaders in Congress and the White House a friendly reminder that they have a duty to uphold the laws of this nation, no matter the political fallout:
http://radicalrationalist.wordpress.com/a-friendly-reminder/
W & Co had established a pattern of treason by using torture to gain information from illegal warriors in the GWOT. The use of torture constitutes the use of cruel & unusual punishments on a suspect, not a convicted criminal. The US Constitution forbids the use of these practices. Some say that violating the US Constitution is treason.
The time to start the investigations is now, Mr President.
I have often wondered, when learning of the "little people" being rounded up "(sometimes randomly arrested and completely innocent)," what information they could produce... And what questions you ask to get them to produce it, without being completely leading? Where would those questions come from? Did they just dream them up?
I think you'll hear that most of this was a result of attempting to sell the garbage intelligence from the INC or "Curveball." Once Intelligence had repeatedly told the administration that the people like Chalabi and his cabal were worthless, they didn't toss it, they went looking for "corroboration." New sources, that hadn't been thoroughly discredited, and, hopefully, were completely unknown, so other countries couldn't do what the Germans did to "Curveball."
The Bush administration knew, full well, that they were selling the United States on a war based on lies. They used discredited witnesses, forged documents and a rush sell job, because they knew it, and they knew if they didn't do it quick it would fall apart. While we watch what happens in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we should remember this every time we hear that it's harder than we thought to our get foot out of the Iraq bear-trap, which we had no reason to step into.
"Is it treason?"
while at the same time expressing your discomfort with the word itself.
It's not, Robert, a political word. It's not dependent on who is in power or not, any more than whether murder depends on who is doing the killing.
If not treason, then what word would you be comfortable using?
America's laws were ignored and distorted to pursue an agenda that, in and of itself, violated our most sacred trust.
America was whipped into a frenzy of lies so that those same traitors could attack another country for reasons altogether different from the reasons given to the public and to Congress.
America's reputation has been damaged to a devastating degree by the horrendous violations not only authorized but pushed by those traitors.
Treason is a word that doesn't apply all that often - because most people aren't going to betray their country.
When they do - no matter who they are - there's a word for it. Treason.
It's not a word any of us want to be comfortable with - but it's the only word that actually applies.
Bush, Cheney, Rice, Bybee, Tenet, and the whole lot of them are traitors, pure and simple. And I, for one, am not afraid to say so. Are you, Robert?
It's time the world started treating them for what they are - and saying the truth about the level of the crimes they committed or aided and abetted.
when gasoline reached $4.00 a gallon, they cried drill. As soon as there is another big event, in the order of the 9/11 event, you will hear the people cry "get the information, we dont care what you have to do to them.
This is a serious discussion downplaying the silly emotionalism of the moment. (torture? yikes!)
So let's relegate it to its proper place on some backburner, okay?
Thank you.
I'm sorry, but if we find the body of a murdered woman on the streets tonight, I want the police to begin investigating it NOW, not in seven decades, not in seven years, not in seven days! NOW!
No. Disagree. Until we fix this, Americans cannot be proud of our country.
I raise my hand, stand up, step forward, jump up and down, scream, whistle, stomp and otherwise make a nuisance of myself. The actions of the Bush administration are deeply repugnant and utterly destructive. Thanks to Cheney/Bush, we have become the enemy we once reviled. They are war criminals.
"...let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING."
-Thomas Paine