note that when people say that “torture doesn’t work” as an intelligence-gathering method, the point isn’t that it never produces an accurate piece of information. The point is that its application doesn’t systematically enhance the quality of your intelligence. In this case, for example, not only does torture appear to have vastly eroded key elements of America’s strategy of self-presentation in the world, it contributed to our undertaking a massive policy blunder that led to much more loss of innocent life than occurred on 9/11.
Huffington is dead on, saying, "Isn't torture one of those things where there really is no legitimate other side?" She continues:
Memo to the media: Time to check in for a serious round of "right vs left" rehab. When it comes to torture, the only appropriate framing is "right vs wrong."
Obama and his team have had their own problems with the issue. Despite a commitment to looking forward, they failed to see the massive wall of public indignation directly in front of them.
After all the internal back-and-forth they apparently had about how to handle the issue, it was interesting to see how fast they reversed course -- the president quickly walking back from Rahm Emanuel's unequivocal "no prosecution" position.
Once the spotlight was turned on, it was impossible to sustain the let's-just-move-on stance. What is at stake is just too huge to sweep under the presidential rug. It leaves too big a lump in the middle of the Oval Office -- and too big a stumbling block in the path of Obama's presidency.
I understand the president's preference for "reflection" over "anger and retribution." But this is not about personal pique or a desire for vengeance. It's about the nation's fundamental morality.
Krugman takes on the "we're busy with other stuff" meme in his op-ed today:
In the past, our government has sometimes done an imperfect job of upholding those ideals. But never before have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for. “This government does not torture people,” declared former President Bush, but it did, and all the world knows it.
And the only way we can regain our moral compass, not just for the sake of our position in the world, but for the sake of our own national conscience, is to investigate how that happened, and, if necessary, to prosecute those responsible.
What about the argument that investigating the Bush administration’s abuses will impede efforts to deal with the crises of today? Even if that were true — even if truth and justice came at a high price — that would arguably be a price we must pay: laws aren’t supposed to be enforced only when convenient. But is there any real reason to believe that the nation would pay a high price for accountability?
For example, would investigating the crimes of the Bush era really divert time and energy needed elsewhere? Let’s be concrete: whose time and energy are we talking about?
Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to rescue the economy. Peter Orszag, the budget director, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to reform health care. Steven Chu, the energy secretary, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to limit climate change. Even the president needn’t, and indeed shouldn’t, be involved. All he would have to do is let the Justice Department do its job — which he’s supposed to do in any case — and not get in the way of any Congressional investigations.
I don’t know about you, but I think America is capable of uncovering the truth and enforcing the law even while it goes about its other business.
Still, you might argue — and many do — that revisiting the abuses of the Bush years would undermine the political consensus the president needs to pursue his agenda.
But the answer to that is, what political consensus? There are still, alas, a significant number of people in our political life who stand on the side of the torturers. But these are the same people who have been relentless in their efforts to block President Obama’s attempt to deal with our economic crisis and will be equally relentless in their opposition when he endeavors to deal with health care and climate change. The president cannot lose their good will, because they never offered any.
That said, there are a lot of people in Washington who weren’t allied with the torturers but would nonetheless rather not revisit what happened in the Bush years.
Some of them probably just don’t want an ugly scene; my guess is that the president, who clearly prefers visions of uplift to confrontation, is in that group. But the ugliness is already there, and pretending it isn’t won’t make it go away.
Others, I suspect, would rather not revisit those years because they don’t want to be reminded of their own sins of omission.
Then he follows up on his blog--taking us to where my mind had already gone when I was reading him this morning at starbuck...
One addendum to today’s column: the truth, which I think everyone in the political/media establishments knows in their hearts, is that the nine months or so between the summer of 2002 and the beginning of the Iraq insurgency were a great national moral test — a test that most people in influential positions failed.
The Bush administration was obviously — yes, obviously — telling tall tales in order to promote the war it wanted: the constant insinuations of an Iraq-9/11 link, the hyping of discredited claims about a nuclear program, etc.. And the question was, should you stand up against that? Not many did — and those who did were treated as if they were crazy.
For me and many others that was a radicalizing experience; I’ll never trust “sensible” opinion again. But for those who stayed “sensible” through the test, it’s a moment they’d like to see forgotten. That, I believe, is the real reason so many want to let torture and everything else go down the memory hole.
Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.
As someone who was active in the Anti-War movement during the run-up to the war I have to admit my blood still runs cold regarding those who fell in line... it was a sad moment in our history that we have to own up to--and these memo's brings a lot of that stuff back up in my gut. But it did radicalize me as well. I went from a "never gonna vote" for the center-right Democrats to Chair of a county party for the lesser of two evils. Not what most people think of as radicalization, but never-ye-mind that (I still get heat from my left-er than thou friends).
Torture is torture is torture.
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