US TORTURE REPORT There are three points about the torture report that I want to make. 1. People get the reasons for torture wrong. Regimes do not torture in order to obtain information. They torture to create a climate of fear. I remember this very well from my early childhood in Greece. I have no doubt that one of the reasons the Bush administration embraced torture in the way that it did was precisely because it wanted to create fear in those it identified as its enemies. The second reason there is torture is I am afraid more disturbing but again I have personal knowledge of it from what happened in Greece in my childhood and also from voluminous documentation on the subject. Briefly torture happens because those who perpetrate it (and those who authorise them) derive pleasure from it - specifically from the sense of power over others it gives them. If you dont believe me just look at the expressions of the US guards in the photos that came out of Abu Ghraib. Of course that is not to say in any way that most people are like that. Quite the contrary. The trouble is that there is a significant minority who are and when they are given the green light from those in authority they come into their own. 2. My second point is that the CIA of course at all times knew and knows perfectly well that what it did (and does) is torture, despite all the euphemisms (enhanced interrogation techniques) and rationalisations we have heard, and also knew and knows that what it did was both morally and legally wrong. That is why it has gone to such extraordinary lengths to keep what it was doing secret (with black sites, black ops, renditions etc). Of course the CIA did not aim for total secrecy since that would have negated the whole reason for the torture policy, which was as i said was to create a climate of fear. The kind of ambiguity about what was happening - where nobody was formally admitting that torture was happening but everybody was left in no doubt that it was, is exactly what one would expect in this sort of situation. 3. It is wrong to think that everyone in the US government embraced this policy. The FBI was consistently opposed. However what is really worrying about what happened is that for the first time in the history of the US and I believe in that of the western democracies a sustained attempt is underway not just to justify but to legalise the practice. No one during the Cold War was under any doubt that the CIA did some dreadful things and that torture was often one of them. No one however attempted to justify it in moral and legal terms in the way that they are trying to do now. This is the crossing of a major boundary and the reaction in the US to the release of the Senates torture report with the Republicans antagonistic, the CIA unrepentant and the Obama administration compliant shows that if anything these dangerous views are actually gaining ground. The view is often expressed that the US is the child of the 18th century enlightenment. I have never been entirely convinced by that theory. Regardless, it should be stated clearly that the embrace of torture is a complete and dangerous repudiation of 18th century enlightenment values. It was precisely during the 18th century that sustained critiques of torture began to be made, culminating in the famous prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments. Those who preach American exceptionalism should understand that by insisting on it and embracing such things as torture the US is fast losing those things that in their imagination made it exceptional.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 15:37:12 +0000
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