Torture and moral responsibility

I've been posting a lot here about the Christian Right. I'm convinced that the authoritarian leaning of so many Christian Right leaders have been a powerful influence on some of the worst policies of this administration. The genuine element of religious fanaticism that they add to the current Republican administration has also been damaging in many ways.

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern has raised a question for people of all faiths and shades of political opinion, a question relating to the policy and practice of torture in the Bush Gulag. ("Bush Gulag" is the term Al Gore used for it. If it's good enough for Al, it's good enough for me.)

McGovern's article is called A Torturous Explanation Antiwar.com 09/27/05. So far, almost all of those prosecuted and convicted due to their use of criminal, sadistic torture on prisoners have been low-level soldiers. Yet we know that a practice so widespread could not continue without some kind of "atrocity-producing" situation being created, which involves (in the most benign interpretation) and terrible failure in command responsibility in the officer corps. Rumsfeld has admitted to authorizing physical coercion, though he claims he later withdrew it because it was decided the methods were wrong, or inappropriate, or whatever.

It's hard to imagine how anyone looking at this ugly situation could convince themselves to believe that Bush and Rummy didn't at least passively encourage this by neglect. Given what's on the public record, I wouldn't be that generous. Their encouragement has been more than passive, and almost certainly criminal.

But McGovern's article focuses on a broader question of political and moral responsibility:

So far, the silent acquiescence with which Americans have greeted President George W. Bush's open assertion of a right to torture some prisoners evokes memories of the unconscionable behavior of "obedient Germans" of the 1930s and early 1940s. Thankfully, despite the hate whipped up by administration propagandists against people branded "terrorists," polling conducted last year showed that most Americans reject torturing prisoners. Almost two-thirds held that torture is never acceptable.

Yet few speak out, perhaps because President Bush says he too, is against torture, and our domesticated media have successfully hidden from most of us the fact that the president has added a highly significant qualification. On February 7, 2002, the president issued an order instructing our armed forces "to treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva" (emphasis added). In the preceding paragraph, the president determined that Taliban and al-Qaeda detainees "do not qualify as prisoners of war." Never mind that there is no provision in the Geneva Conventions for such a unilateral determination.

But he gives the so-called Republican "moderates" more credit than I think they deserve on this issue:

More recently, Warner joined two other Republican senators, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, in attempts to introduce amendments against torture to the defense authorization bill. The amendments would require that U.S. forces revert to the standards set forth in Army Field Manual (FM 34-52) for interrogating detainees held by the Defense Department. The manual prohibits the use of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Another amendment discussed would require that all foreign nationals "be registered with the International Committee of the Red Cross." This would prohibit sequestering unregistered "ghost detainees" at prisons like Abu Ghraib and secret CIA interrogation centers.

Inured as I thought I had become to outrageous behavior at the top of the Bush administration, I found its reaction shocking. On the evening of July 21, Vice President Dick Cheney went to Capitol Hill to dissuade the three senators from proceeding with the amendments. But the senators have not been cowed"not yet, at least. Four days later on the floor of the Senate, John McCain – who knows something of torture – made a poignant appeal to his colleagues to hold our country to humane standards in treating captives, "no matter how evil or terrible" they may be. "This is not about who they are. This is about who we are," said McCain.

The mainstream press just loves that Maverick McCain. But their proposal looks like a meaningless donkey drill to me, although the administration's ham-handed response may yet make it a bigger deal than those bold Republican "moderates" intended to make it.

Because the acts of torture committed in the Bush Gulag are already criminal several times over. The recent Human Rights Watch Report (Leadership Failure) in its Conclusion section goes into some detail about the relevant laws.

In the 1950s, the widespread use of torture by the French in the Algerian War was a tremendous shock to the French public's image of themselves and their government. And our own torture scandals are no going away. The damage has been too great, and the implications are too far-reaching.

I'm sure the Christian Right will be the last to make a serious stand against criminal, sadistic torture under the Bush administration.