Torturers and Their Tortured Defense of the Indefensible
The firestorm of political controversy engendered by President Obama’s release of four Bush administration torture memos is not likely to subside any time soon. Moreover, there is every good reason to assume that the intensity of debate about torture, and other abuses commonly perpetrated abroad in numerous instances by U.S. personnel during the Bush era, will increase with the Obama administration’s upcoming release of incriminating photograph of some of those abuses.
I am devoting particularly close attention to those who are doing their level best to deter criticism of the Bush administration’s extensive torture program. My monitoring of this group, and the rapidly evolving drama engendered by their illegal activities includes close observation of the increasingly bizarre behavior of Dick Chaney. The former Vice President probably ought to be spending his free time searching for a highly competent attorney, because his participation in sanctioning various modes of torture are almost certainly going to result in his needing one.
The torturers, and their supporters, are arguing as best they can that waterboarding, and other such barbaric attacks on helpless prisoners, somehow protected the U.S. from another 9-11-style attack. Interrogators closely associated with the so-called high value prisoners subjected to the extreme modes of abuse approved by White House principals reject these allegations out of hand. But the experience, and professional opinions, of such experts seem to be having little or no impact on Chaney and company, who are also conspicuously dismissing the commentary of the experienced FBI experts who contend that torture is counter-productive.
Many of the torture defenders, including former White House, CIA, NSC, and Pentagon higher-ups who oversaw the abusive interrogations, are desperately trying to undercut the growing public clamor for investigations and prosecutions. Their tense, but largely illogical, commentary on the matter is understandable. If the clamor is not squelched, many of them may well end up in prison doing hard time for engaging in crimes against humanity.
I am paying particularly close attention to the torture defenders because their tortured efforts to defend the indefensible provide important insights into the manner in which U.S. leaders have abandoned legality, ethics, and morality in their efforts to maintain and expand the American empire. All this is extremely important, and by the time final verdicts are rendered in courts of law, and the court of public opinion, we will have a good sense of the extent to which legality, ethics, and morality remain viable components of the U.S. system of government.