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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: Torture in "good faith" Today, two unique stories appeared in the outer edges of what the Beltway would consider "respectable" media. This one from McClatchy Newspapers and this one from Salon bring to our "torture debate" an element that has been conspicuously absent. For these stories actually call into question the motives for the torture. The main gist of these stories is that, for the first time, it is being suggested that the Bush administration's torture policies were carried out for reasons other than to "protect us" from the terrorists. These articles suggest that torture was used to manufacture fictitious links between Iraq and Al Qaeda thus giving Bush a solid justification for his invasion of Iraq. This, if true, is huge. But it is only one step down a road that should have been traveled well a long time ago. I have seen many a commentator on the “torture issue” lament the fact that we are a country that is even having a debate about torture. But why? What allows a debate about the practicality of acts long considered repugnant to every civilized person on Earth to take place in this country to begin with? The reason why we are actually debating the pros and cons of torture is because we never, ever, question that the torture was at least conducted under a good faith belief that the torturers were trying to “protect America” from another terrorist attack and save American lives. That underlying assumption, that the “techniques” were used by men operating under the good faith belief that they were just trying to “protect” Americans from other deadly 9/11 type attacks, marks the outer edge of the “anti torture” side that is allowed to appear in our mainstream media or be held by a federal politician. Thus when the limit of your debate is that good guys were torturing bad guys to protect us from murderous mass terrorist attacks the “debate” is inevitably going to end up to be one about nitpicking what constitutes torture and the pain level of this tactic over that tactic and morally obscene debates on how torture isn’t very effective. Wow. How ennobling. Torture isn’t effective! Let’s rally the troops with that slogan! Basically we have all been corralled into a debate that accepts at face value that white knights from the US Federal Government were getting a little rough with dirtball Mooslim terrorists to “defend us” from their evil plots. Just today Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe captures the essence of our national debate on torture: None of this is meant as a defense of torture, which I oppose as adamantly as ever. But even those of us who were against the Bush interrogation policy should be able to acknowledge the good faith of those who disagreed and the exigency in which they found themselves. To say nothing of the lives their decisions may have saved. Well that is amazing isn’t it? No matter what you personally believe about this “issue” we all must accept the “good faith” and good intentions of the torturers. Of course we should! Men who torture people should always be given the benefit of the doubt as to their motives! Well, if they are Americans that is. And we should also accept the claims of torturers as to the “plots” they saved us from because of their torture without question either. You see, after 9/11 our CIA torturers were frantic to prevent another terrorist attack from occurring so they had to torture these guys (reluctantly of course, just like Jack Bauer)! It wasn’t a fear of losing their jobs that motivated them. After no one was fired or demoted or in any way reprimanded for the myriad failures on 9/11 to defend the country from attack- our CIA guys knew that they had job security. Nope, what motivated them was their love for America and Americans and their desire to not see anther terrorist attack on us- the people- whom they love so much. Now, if this true. If it is true that the US government was using “harsh techniques” on these men for the publicaly stated reasons that they were trying to “defend us” then this would mark the first time in history that a government used systematic torture for honest reasons. And given our whoppingly delusional self image this would make sense because we think we are such a “special” nation- so special that our government uses torture for the reasons they say they do! Unlike every other government on Earth now and that has existed in history, which have always used torture to justify their criminal acts and policies, the US government uses torture judiciously and only in good faith. That is what you are supposed to believe without question when it comes to this “issue”. But the truth is that torture tactics have never been used by governments to get truth. Torture is never conducted in good faith. Torture is used by corrupt governments and brutal leaders to justify the unjustifiable. It has always been so. Governments use torture not to extract truth but to generate lies they then use to justify their own power or a particular policy or plan they wish to undertake. Torture is used by governments to terrorize. In fact- governments find it preferable to torture innocent people as that only adds to the torture's effectiveness as a terror tactic. Torture is used by governments to get people to admit to things they didn’t do. That is why torture is used. Stalin used torture for this reason. Hitler used torture for this reason. The North Vietnamese used torture for this reason. Saddam Hussein used torture for this reason. The inquisition used torture for this reason. Every government on Earth that has ever used torture as a matter of systematic policy has done so in bad faith- has done so precisely for the express reason to get people to admit to things they didn’t do so a particular evil or nefarious course of action by the government could then be justified. But not the US. Nope. We are the only country on Earth to ever use torture in a "good way". We have the most moralist and goodest torturers on the planet! Isn’t that obvious? Men who hang other men from ceilings by their shackled arms and leave them so for a week dressed in diapers are men whose “good faith” we should automatically believe in according to people like Jeff Jacoby. So now we have information that maybe the torture wasn’t conducted to “keep us safe” as is automatically and universally assumed in virtually all mainstream Beltway “debate” on this issue. Could it be that the United States government has used torture, gasp, like other governments have used torture? To justify lies? Ooops. Now I’ve done it! Not believing in the inherent goodness of the US government or that its motives and actions are always pure and “well intentioned” is to be “Anti American”. Stalin’s NKVD “techniqued” hundreds of thousands of people into admitting that they belonged to vast “Anti Soviet” plots and organizations, almost all of which were entirely fictional. He did so to justify his purges and to consolidate his power. No serious person in the West thought Stalin’s purges were being conducted because of the “threat” of counterrevolution. Did the US government torture people to justify certain policies? To create sustainable myths and broad narratives like the existence of “Al Qaeda” itself? As part of a campaign designed to justify a police state at home and wars of blatant aggression abroad? Oh no! We can’t even ask that! What we would assume to be the case if done by any other country that used torture is beyond the pale to even suggest about the US Federal Government. Those questions can’t be allowed to appear at all! That is to “hate America” to dare question the intentions and motives of the US government. No, instead, let’s assume, like Jeff Jacoby, that our government is staffed by saintly warrior poet paladins who used torture, only after wrestling with their super heightened sense of morality, to “defend” the good people of America from the heinous barbarism of radical Islam- just like our favorite TV characters would do. Yeah- and the Inquisition was about getting them “witches”.
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For those that remember Burkeman1, it looks like he has a regular writing gig for the Boston Libertarian Examiner. This is his latest.
"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." ~ William Colby, Director, CIA 1973–1976 The purpose of the legal system is to protect the elites from the wrath of those they plunder.- Elliott Jackalope
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