The crux of Mr. Goldberg's argument in defense of the now infamous "torture
memorandum" follows:
. . . . . . . Osama bin Laden . . . . . . . . . . . . . lives outside our
neighborhood, our community, our laws. He lives outside all of the rules of
civilization, at war and peace. Every day, he violates the Geneva Convention
before he has his second bowl of muesli. He blows up passenger trains and
hijacks civilian aircraft. His henchmen don't wear uniforms, and they don't
abide by any of the rules governing professional armies.
Dear Mr. Goldberg
You seem to be missing a few points here - or skipping them. One is that none of the inmates of Abu Ghraib are Osama bin Laden, and
very few, if any, were even suspected of being
members of Al Quaeda*. In fact, it now appears that perhaps 70 percent of
them were there "by mistake." (*Of course, they may be more sympathetic to
Osama and his cohorts NOW - I am not sure I would blame them for deciding
our enemies are their friends.) And there is the oft-cited but improbable
intention to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis for our brand of democracy -
a quest which the revelations from Abu Ghraib have made to seem even more
harebrained and unlikely than it was to begin with. But all of that deals
only with the victims of torture, and I infer from your article that
compassion for Iraqis is not a motivator for you.
Well then, are you capable of empathizing with the torturers - the young men
and women who have taken such a dark and terrible, hopeless path?
There was a ten year
old boy in a neighborhood I once lived in who tortured cats to death -
including my own cat. He might have been stopped, but his mother refused to
discuss his behavior - or even come to the door - shouting out at me that
"it was only a cat." "Yes," I yelled back, "but your son is a human being
and if I were you I'd be afraid."
I was disgusted and angry, of course, but
I also pitied him. Mostly, though, I was very relieved to move out of that
neighborhood - because I really didn't want to watch that kid grow up.
(I was probably too pessimistic: he might have had a brilliant future at
the National Review.)
Human beings are obviously capable of great cruelty; most of us learn
compassion, but for some, the savagery is apparently only dormant. If you
order or permit those whom you command to torture others, you are forcing or
allowing them to abandon some essential quality of decency, and take up a
life, frankly, of brutish perversion.
Lynndie England is described by
friends in her hometown as someone who "wouldn't hurt a dog" She might have
gone her whole life through without ever having put a human on a leash. The
unfortunate on the other end of that leash - whatever his crimes or whatever
knowledge he may have possessed (if any) will now forever be a victim - a symbol of all that has gone wrong with our foolish war on terror.
Lynndie herself will be fortunate to recover her humanity.
Torture is a poor way to uncover evidence; the tortured will say anything. Torture says nothing about the tortured.
It says everything about the torturer.
Fortunately, there are always some (apparently about 20 courageous
dissenters in the case of Abu Ghraib) who refuse, or object, or rat the
bastards out. Their bravery and humanity redeems America. In spite of their patriotism, they are rarely treated well by
the establishment. It is well that such integrity is not dependent on the
approval of others - even their ostensible 'superiors.' The hero, after all,
is as often scourged as praised.
But there are those weaker ones, who get 'into it.' Unless they are true,
morally defective psychopaths, maturity can only bring them a life of shame
and guilt. The photos from that hellhole are not, after all, exposing some
cool, scientific method of 'information extraction' in process (which would
probably not be much of an improvement for the victim). They depict bestial, sadistic
orgies - repugnant to all but the most debauched and corrupt. The political
goal of humiliation may require the smearing of a helpless captive with
excrement - but what kind of human being does it require to act it out?
And those young Americans pictured are grinning as stupidly as if they
shared nothing with the human beings they've brutalized - nothing at all.
Not a mind. Not a nervous system. The ugly photos seem designed to confirm
in the minds of devout Muslims, all that their most fanatical ecclesiastics
say about Western culture.
To think that my son or daughter might be tortured in misplaced revenge
would terrify me. But the idea that my children could be so degraded as
to take part in the activities shown (which, some assert, are the least of
it, as they do not include the hinted-at pictures of women and children)
would be ultimately more devastating. A victim of torture, at least, might emerge
from the
experience with honor.
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