Where is the Outrage?

Are we Americans truly savages or merely tone-deaf in matters of morality, and therefore more guilty of terminal indifference than venality? It's a question demanding an answer in response to the publication of the detailed 370-page report on U.S. complicity in torture, issued last week by the Justice Department's inspector general.

Because the report was widely cited in the media and easily accessed as a pdf file on the Internet, it is fair to assume that those of our citizens who remain ignorant of the extent of their government's commitment to torture as an official policy have made a choice not to be informed. A less appealing conclusion would be that they are aware of the heinous acts fully authorized by our president but conclude that such barbarism is not inconsistent with that American way of life that we celebrate.

But that troubling assessment of moral indifference is contradicted by the scores of law enforcement officers, mostly from the FBI, who were so appalled by what they observed as routine official practice in the treatment of prisoners by the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo that they risked their careers to officially complain. A few brave souls from the FBI even compiled a "war crimes file," suggesting the unthinkable--that we might come to be judged as guilty by the standard we have imposed on others. Superiors in the Justice Department soon put a stop to such FBI efforts to hold CIA agents and other U.S. officials accountable for the crimes they committed.

That this systematic torture was carried out not by a few conveniently described "bad apples" but rather represented official policy condoned at the highest level of government was captured in one of those rare media reports that remind us why the Founding Fathers signed off on the First Amendment.

"These were not random acts," the New York Times editorialized. "It is clear from the inspector general's report that this was organized behavior by both civilian and military interrogators following the specific orders of top officials. The report shows what happens when an American president, his secretary of defense, his Justice Department and other top officials corrupt American law to rationalize and authorize the abuse, humiliation and torture of prisoners."

One of those top officials, who stands revealed in the inspector general's report as approving the torture policy, is Condoleezza Rice, who in her capacity as White House national security adviser turned away the concerns of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft as to the severe interrogation measures being employed. Rice, as ABC-TV reported in April, chaired the top-level meetings in 2002 in the White House Situation Room that signed off on the CIA treatment of prisoners--"whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called water boarding. ..." According to the report, the former academic provost of Stanford University came down on the side of simulated drowning.

As further proof that women are not necessarily more squeamish than men in condoning such practices, the report offers examples of sexual and religious denigration of the mostly Muslim prisoners by female interrogators carrying out an official policy of "invasion of space by a female." In one recorded instance observed by startled FBI agents, a female interrogator was seen with a prisoner "bending his thumbs back and grabbing his genitals ... to cause him pain." One of the agents testified that this was not "a case of a rogue interrogator acting on her own." He said he witnessed a "pep rally" meeting conducted by a top Defense Department official "in which the interrogators were encouraged to get as close to the torture statute line as possible."

That was evidently the norm, according to FBI agents who witnessed the interrogations. As the New York Times reported, "One bureau memorandum spoke of 'torture techniques' used by military interrogators. Agents described seeing things like inmates handcuffed in a fetal position for up to 24 hours, left to defecate on themselves, intimidated by dogs, made to wear women's underwear and subjected to strobe lights and extreme heat and cold."

In the end, what seems to have most outraged the hundreds of FBI agents interviewed for the report is that the interrogation tactics were counterproductive. Evidently the FBI's long history in such matters had led to a protocol that stressed gaining the confidence of witnesses rather than terrorizing them into madness. But an insane prisoner is the one most likely to tell this president of the United States what he wants to hear: They hate us for our values.

Robert Scheer's new book, "The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America," will be released June 9 by Twelve.

Comments

[ebbtide]

Dear Mr. Scheer. You are absolutely right in your question. I think this question deserves some in depth analysis by professionals. It is simply unbelievable in all these past eight years, not only on the question of torture, but on the entire war, the lies, the dead, the wounded, the grief of American fanilies as well as that of Iraqi families---simply unbelievable that George Bush has easily gotten away with it without even a slap on the wrist or a hint that justice will be served on these crimes. Sets a precedent, doesnt it.

And we see a primary being run on almost the same type of manipulation, blatant lies, fear mongering, ie what if there was an assissination, and people flock to support the candidate, in spite of the vote to allow Bush to instigate this horrible, horrible war, and one where the candidate never issued on speck of regret. There seens to be a very unhealthy reluctance to question anything any politician says---once in office it's clear sailing. I don't know where the outrage has gone. It might have gone out with our generation.

[zjr909]

The absence of widespread outrage against institutionalized torture is best viewed within the context of the American view of justice. It is vengeance, pure and simple. The majority of Americans pull out the same shop worn trump card whenever the death penalty is questioned: What about the victim! It isn't much of a stretch to imagine this same majority approving outright torture right here at home, in our prison system. So of course they see nothing wrong in torturing "them" - even though "they" had very little to do with the events of 911. Bottom line: people cannot be shamed by what they approve of; and the majority of Americans approve of torture. Their view is as simple as it is horrifyingly simplistic: if they have to torture a million Muslims (or whomever the "other" of the moment happens to be) to "feel safe," then so be it. Outrage? Such people are too caught up in manufactured outrage to feel genuine outrage.

[JustifiablyParanoid]

Geez. And I thought I was cynical.

[Merlin7]

The U.S. killed more than a million people -- most of them civilians -- in an unnecessary war in Vietnam, and most Americans supported that fiasco until the end. The U.S. has needlessly killed hundreds of thousands of people, most of them civilians, in Iraq. And the polls show that the war-mongering John McCain might well win the presidency in November. And you expect Americans to care about a little torture? Ha. Put on the jackboots and pass out the swastika armbands, pal. This party isn't ending anytime soon.

[ohmercy]

ummm,
Maybe you don't remember the huge protests and demonstrations that took place, the arrests, being estranged from families, losing jobs.the police beatings, the shootings by the national guard, the organized resistance movements, the famous and not so famous people who joined in and did what they could, getting arrested, risking jail time, going to jail... records, the civil disobedience, the passive resistance (and the not so passive which I am not advocating but it was there) The college students, the working class, the activists. Don't you remember?

Where are they now?
Participating in the pathetically few and not very well attended protests and demonstrations like they've been doing for a few decades now. They are still expressing their outrage even if they have to allow themselves to be shoved into "free speech zones."
Though at this age not all of us are able to do the actual physical labor of marching, lying down in the streets, taking some mace.
You don't remember that?

Where are the **demonstrations** of outrage?
Where are a million or two people standing in front of the White House? Pentagon? Capitol?

If they can do it in the Ukraine when their election was stolen why can't it be done here?

Any theories?

[twofish]

Outrage? Here, here it is, right here! Actually, I've been outraged since W had the presidency stolen for him in 2000, and, frankly, I'm burned out. And impeachment is off the table.

If this gang pardons itself, can we still ship them to the Hague for international war crimes? Not that anyone likely to take power this year has the guts to do that.

[jhamm1]

Here, here. Between our nation's newfound status as an imperialist aggressor who's made an entirely new generation of enemies where none had previously existed, to the untold millions of certifiable morons in this country who continue to hail this embodiment of the so-called chief as the best thing since sliced bread, to an aedministration which has managed to elude prosecution from god knows how many warcrimes by a complicit congressional body, the prospect of becoming outraged seems totally redundant.

Like twofish, I too am all raged out.