Outrageous

Our corpulent body of state awoke from an uneasy slumber this week, heaving its bulk upward and exposing long-neglected folds to the harsh glare of sunlight, emitting a noxious stench that caused many a man to quail and many a gorge to rise. This flabby, pale underbelly represents America’s long love affair with ignoring the golden rule and with having its cake and eating it too. We need, in a word, torture. And we need it bad.

George Bush[1] is our undisputed champion, striding confidently forward with that messianic gleam—and no sign of sentience—in his eye and proclaiming that black is white with so little finesse or panache that even a child could not possibly be fooled. But a nation of slumbering minds is fooled. A citzenry bedazzled by a capricious, negligent media laps eagerly at his hand. A corrupt leadership sees advantages for itself in his ideas. Somehow, these noisome ideas gain traction and power, creeping from the shadows to stand boldly in the light of day. If his wishes and demands didn’t elicit such violent, unquestioning response and didn’t set so many demonic wheels in motion to grind so many innocents, it might be funny, in a cynical, fuck-the-world kind of way. If it wasn’t that his nigh-on daily attack of the crazies didn’t end up hurting so many people, we could all point and laugh and throw him a quarter on our way to the subway. Instead, he’s our president. Life’s funny like that.

The Senate, which ostensibly contains within its ranks three senators very much against torture—including John McCain, GOP presidential hopeful and five-year resident of the Hanoi Hilton—was holding up Bush’s attempt to slither around the Geneva conventions. Earlier this week, they came to what in future history books will be known as a “Bush compromise”: Bush (including the executive and justice departments) agrees to comply with the Senate’s ruling and the Senate agrees that the president is free to interpret parts of the ruling as he pleases. A win-win, in other words.

Just to be sure that we’re all on the same page here, the article, ’Maverick’ GOP Senators Cave to Torture President by Cenk Uygur (AlterNet), cites the restrictions on torture imposed by the senate:

“torture, cruel or inhuman treatment, performing biological experiments, murder, mutilation or maiming, rape, causing serious bodily injury, and sexual assault or abuse, and taking hostages”

On top of that, Bush Offers Himself Amnesty for Human Rights Crimes by Robert Parry (AlterNet) notes that the same legislation “would block prosecutions for violations already committed during the five-year-old ‘war on terror.’” A quick rundown shows that Bush, in this compromise, has amnesty for past acts of torture and has gotten illegal acts defined in terms of “cruel or inhuman treatment” and “serious bodily injury”—all terms that Bush considers just as nebulous as the phrase “outrages upon human dignity”, which already caused him such great consternation. The Senate? The American people? Bush can continue to authorize the use of torture, but he’s not allowed to say that torture is compliant with the Geneva Conventions. Wow…that’s like patting yourself on the back for keeping crack from being declared “a healthy after-school snack”. It sure feels like we came away pretty much empty-handed. As usual.

McCain got himself a little boost for 2008, laying down two planks in his platform: “tough on torture” (bone to the left) and “compromiser” (bone to the right). And, just in case people hadn’t cottoned on to the idea of what a great negotiater McCain is, he stated in no uncertain terms: “there’s no doubt that the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved.” (The Abuse Can Continue (Washington Post)). Sure sounds like it, John. Keep fighting the good fight for us.

Are We Really So Fearful? by Ariel Dorfman (Washington Post) recounts the tale of an Argentinian torture victim, who, even years after being tortured, had “eyes that could not stop blinking and a body that could not stop shivering”.

Torture is not a laughing matter. Torture is not to be taken lightly. Torture is not a “policy”. Torture is not effective. In any way. Whatsoever. Torture is morally corrupt. It does not matter that it seems to work for Jack Bauer, conflicted though he is to use it. Torture is an act of depravity that backfires on each and every person who tacitly approves, numbly nods agreement, or apathetically continues profiting from a society that condones it. Why is it so easy—and so seductive—to think that another person’s pain can ensure one’s own safety? How exactly does that work? It’s just easier to mumble assent because that person doesn’t matter, that person is just a little brown cypher whose death will have no discernible effect—unless the chaotic ripple returns home through blowback like 9/11.

It’s so much easier not to think and to believe—with an unswerving faith—the steely-eyed president when he says that this little, useless life will guarantee safety. Thus goes the reasoning for torture; these are the ways by which this notion of torture has wormed its way to the forefront once again. There is no need to sweep them aside, deriding them as nonsense, to “honor the debate by participating in it”. There is no need to address these arguments as if they were cogent. Torture removes human dignity; it is not something that a civilized society does, condones or even entertains the notion of. We in America have already lost on all three counts. The fact that it is being discussed at all is a sign that we are way, way, way off the reservation.

“Can’t the United States see that when we allow someone to be tortured by our agents, it is not only the victim and the perpetrator who are corrupted, not only the “intelligence” that is contaminated, but also everyone who looked away and said they did not know, everyone who consented tacitly to that outrage so they could sleep a little safer at night, all the citizens who did not march in the streets by the millions to demand the resignation of whoever suggested, even whispered, that torture is inevitable in our day and age, that we must embrace its darkness?

“Are we so morally sick, so deaf and dumb and blind, that we do not understand this? Are we so fearful, so in love with our own security and steeped in our own pain, that we are really willing to let people be tortured in the name of America? Have we so lost our bearings that we do not realize that each of us could be that hapless Argentine who sat under the Santiago sun, so possessed by the evil done to him that he could not stop shivering?”