The morality and ethics of whether or not the CIA can torture people in our name are non-negotiable. There is no argument that can be made to justify this atrocity. The corporate media are treating torture as if it's just another "issue" like immigration reform or the federal budget. It isn't. You cannot justify the unjustifiable. People who attempt to apologize for torture done in their name are embarrassing themselves; raising their heads to be counted as barbarians at the gate.
— Joseph PolermoI usually try to avoid letting copied writings stand in for my self expression, but since I've been having such a hard time finding words to describe my reaction to the revelations of United States torture, I will let Joseph Polermo stand in for me, for now.
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Last August, President Barack Obama admitted to the press: "we tortured some folks." But he also added that torturing people "is not who we are." His CIA director, John Brennan, calls the CIA torturers "patriots." So which is it? Are they "patriots," deserving of our admiration, or sadists who engaged in acts that are contrary to "who we are?"
The Senate Intelligence Committee's executive summary report on CIA torture concludes that at least 26 of the people the CIA contractors tortured were innocent of any ties to terrorism whatsoever.
One of the CIA contractors, James Mitchell, was on TV lately where he was called the "architect" of the torture program. His Spokane, Washington company, Mitchell, Jessen, and Associates, received $81 million in taxpayer money for services rendered.
CIA Director John Brennan argues that people like Mitchell and his business partner, Bruce Jessen, were doing legitimate intelligence work. But isn't it also possible that these "patriots" were acting out their post-9/11 revenge fantasies against a bunch of Arabs and Afghans who fell into their clutches about whom they knew very little?
Mitchell and Jessen had no specialized knowledge of Al Qaeda or international terrorism; they didn't speak Arabic or Pashto, and had no experience interrogating prisoners.
What they did know about as psychologists was how to drill down into the human psyche. And they knew how to reverse engineer the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) techniques designed to help U.S. personnel counter torturers. They applied the same appalling techniques to their own interrogations. Given their lack of qualifications to head such an endeavor it's likely Mitchell and Jessen were just winging it.
Can we get our $81 million back?
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney might have "authorized" the torture program, but it's still a war crime that violates the Convention Against Torture, the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the U.S. Constitution. Letting the people responsible for torture ride off into the sunset free of any criminal charges throws out the window international and domestic law, as well as almost everything we've learned from the Nuremberg Trials, Hannah Arendt, or the trial of Adolf Eichmann.
One of the CIA's "black" (secret) torture sites was located at Guantanamo, which should raise some thorny legal issues because, unlike Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Afghanistan, or Thailand, the Supreme Court has ruled that Guantanamo is considered "U.S. soil."
Absent any criminal prosecutions, the only conclusion we will be left with is that these guys really are "patriots" and torturing people really is "who we are." But we shouldn't need "experts" like Max Boot, Joe Klein, or other apologists for torture to judge the morality of turning to torturers posing as "doctors" to root out suspected terrorists.
The morality and ethics of whether or not the CIA can torture people in our name are non-negotiable. There is no argument that can be made to justify this atrocity. The corporate media are treating torture as if it's just another "issue" like immigration reform or the federal budget. It isn't. You cannot justify the unjustifiable. People who attempt to apologize for torture done in their name are embarrassing themselves; raising their heads to be counted as barbarians at the gate.
We don't fight against terrorists to become more like them, but to maintain our differences.
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