“The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers”

The title quote is from Jung.

Bill Maher recently had a segment on his show about torture, questioning if we should investigate for fear of giving the Bush/Cheney supporters a cause for coalescence:


Bill Maher May 8, 2009 Panel Two - Click here for the funniest movie of the week

For quite some time, in a morning email I create (Madame Therese Defarge’s Knitting News) I have included torture items from the news and blogs I read as well as my reaction to the topic [a recent headliner until swine flue (or H1N1, if you prefer) bumped it off page 1].

I avoided putting it into the blog because it is a rather complex issue if you get into the “making us safer” v “abandoning our principles argument. However, this morning as I was doing said daily screed, I read a comment by Seymour Hersh about boys in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq being sodomized by their guards/interrogators with the evidence on video tape that has yet to be released. Mr. Hersh has a very good record of investigative reporting that breaks news which later is confirmed by other reports.

Sodomy between consenting adults is one of the many variations of sexual activity and a choice.

Sodomy as a means of punishment/questioning is an abuse of a person’s body and a crime. To put it simply, it is a form of rape and torture.

Arguing that the investigation of torture would lead to a solidification of the rightwing and a resurgence in their popularity (for being willing to do anything to keep us safe) is a poor excuse for ignoring illegal activity, particularly in a country that claims to be a nation of law.

Under international law the Spanish courts have started an investigation into U.S. abuses in Iraq and elsewhere as we fight the “war on terror.” We have sacrificed much of the world’s view of the U.S. -- our conduct during the invasion of Iraq and the photos and reports of prisoner treatment, rendition, enhanced interrogation, etc. Wouldn’t it be better if we confronted our own actions, instead of ignoring the issue and having the world call us to task.

While polls show that a slim majority of Americans do not want such an investigation, if a law has been broken, is it not a matter of concern if we ignore that lawlessness? In the Maher video, it is pointed out that we often do just that, with references to another issue with legal/illegal questions: the financial crisis and in rebuttal, I particularly love the turning of the concept of being for ‘Law and Order,’ often a cry of rightwing idealists, into a reason for investigating.

When the issue is one that we have accused others of being culpable (the Nuremberg trials, the trials and convictions of Japanese soldiers charged with torture in WWII), and investigaged our own troops in past conflicts ( the investigation – called a white-wash by some – into abuses inflicted by U.S. soldiers during the American-Philippine War 1899-1913, the investigation into My Lai during the Vietnam War), can we now choose to ignore the evidence that we have all seen, and hope that the problem will go away?

Richard Cohen, a well-known Washington Post editorialist defends former Vice President Dick Cheney, in speaking out for enhanced interrogation techniques as why we have remained safe, saying his willingness to speak remind Cohen of memories of late-night college discussion about the "‘free man’ -- not politically free, mind you, but free of bourgeois cultural restraints. (The once-important writer Jean Genet, a former petty criminal and prostitute, was often cited).” College free-wheeling discussions have their place as do analyses of “Crime and Punishment” or “American Psycho,” but the topic discussed in a dorm room, a class room or a book discussion group is very different from a civilized country’s actual interrogation techniques.

The argument that terrorists do it, so we are justified is answered by a childhood memory of a mother’s “if your friends jumped in front of a speeding bus, . . .” as well as the more logical approach of they are called terrorists, we are not.

And ;the issue goes on and on, as the arguments become more and more nuanced and less directly related to the actions taken in the name of our country. After some time, the idea of looking forward as opposed to taking responsibility for past actions will seem even more appealing. As Lillian Hellman said, “We are a people who do not want to keep much of the past in our heads. It’s considered unhealthy in America to remember mistakes, neurotic to think about them, psychotic to dwell upon them.”

So, to avoid charges of political retribution being met with retaliation, are we to ignore atrocious, criminal acts; to look forward not back?

We also have to remember what George Santayana said, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

And if we repeat and condone enhanced interrogation and torture enough times, of course all in the name of national security, how long before it becomes a part of our national character.