For the Record: Torture

The New York Times published an article today about the findings of the independent, non-partisan 11-member panel appointed by the Constitution Project to review "interrogation and detention programs in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks." Those who are horrified by our country's use of torture after the 9/11 terrorist attack will feel vindicated by the review. Those who have convinced themselves that torture is justified--despite our country's repudiating torture in the past, seeking convictions of those charged with perpetrating torture, and being a signatory of the International Convention Against Torture--will probably continue to support the Bush Administration's decision to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" on prisoners. The power of propaganda lives on in the Orwellian language of the Bush Administration's torture memos.

But for the record, one more non-partisan review panel has concluded that our country did, indeed, torture people and that the nation’s highest officials bore ultimate responsibility for it.

The Republican leader of the panel, Asa Hutchinson, who served in the Bush Administration, said that "after the panel’s nearly two years of research . . . he had no doubts about what the United States did":

The panel found that the United States violated its international legal obligations by engineering “enforced disappearances” and secret detentions. It questions recidivism figures published by the Defense Intelligence Agency for Guantánamo detainees who have been released, saying they conflict with independent reviews. 

It describes in detail the ethical compromise of government lawyers who offered “acrobatic” advice to justify brutal interrogations and medical professionals who helped direct and monitor them. And it reveals an internal debate at the International Committee of the Red Cross over whether the organization should speak publicly about American abuses; advocates of going public lost the fight, delaying public exposure for months, the report finds. . .  

. . . .The core of the report, however, may be an appendix: a detailed 22-page legal and historical analysis that explains why the task force concluded that what the United States did was torture. It offers dozens of legal cases in which similar treatment was prosecuted in the United States or denounced as torture by American officials when used by other countries.

This report may be lost in the heavy media coverage of the most recent terror attack, that of the explosions at the Boston Marathon and the horrific--and fatal--injuries resulting from that attack. As of now, no one knows who is responsible for the attack--home-grown terrorists, an individual malcontent, or international terrorists. In the midst of such horror, some people are too ready to surrender freedom to fear, just as our country surrendered its ethics to fear in adopting torture after 9/11. But as these recent attacks indicate, we can never be completely protected from harm. Losing our "moral compass" is not worth such an impossible goal.

For further information:
The Constitution Project's Report on Detainee Treatment, at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/04/16/world/16torture-report.html

Commemorating 9/11

Just a few minutes ago, I walked out into the late-morning sunshine to pull dead plants from the window boxes at the front of our "new" (mid-40s model) house. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a woman in her late 60s walking down our street, her little dog forging ahead on its leash. As I crossed the sidewalk to attend to the other window box, the woman asked me, "Where are all the American flags on this street?"

A little confused, I replied, "Uh, I don't know. Should there be flags?"

"To commemorate 9/11," she replied. "Everyone is supposed to fly the flag."

I answered, "Well, I guess people commemorate in different ways."

"Evidently not this street," she said, her voice heavy with judgment, as she walked on, assessing the neighborhood. Cowardly absolving myself from the actions of my neighbors--though I was as guilty as they since I also did not have a flag flying in my yard--I said, "Well, I'm new here." I heard the woman's short laugh in the distance.

Clearly, people judge us by our outward expressions of faith or patriotism. But I was brought up in a strict Southern Baptist culture, and I took those stories of Jesus seriously as a child:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. . . . But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. . . . .When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. . . . But when you do fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen."

This just sounds like wisdom to me, no matter what one's religious or irreligious persuasion. The advice jibes with my own tendency to Stoicism. Flying a flag reveals a person's true heart no more than praying on a street corner. I'm suspicious of people who make a great deal of praying in public; I am suspicious of people who worship the flag.

Anyway, this administration has been commemorating 9/11 every day for the past six years. I think a silent prayer and little bit of humility is in order for today.