Do Americans Have a Moral Conscience?

By Paul Craig Roberts

May 28, 2009 "Information Clearing House" --- Torture is a violation of US and international law. Yet, president George W. Bush and vice president Dick Cheney, on the basis of legally incompetent memos prepared by Justice Department officials, gave the OK to interrogators to violate US and international law.

The new Obama administration shows no inclination to uphold the rule of law by prosecuting those who abused their offices and broke the law.

Cheney claims, absurdly, that torture was necessary in order to save American cities from nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists. Many Americans have bought the argument that torture is morally justified in order to make terrorists reveal where ticking nuclear bombs are before they explode.

However, there were no hidden ticking nuclear bombs. Hypothetical scenarios were used to justify torture for other purposes.

We now know that the reason the Bush regime tortured its captives was to coerce false testimony that linked Iraq and Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda and September 11. Without this “evidence,” the US invasion of Iraq remains a war crime under the Nuremberg standard.

Torture, then, was a second Bush regime crime used to produce an alibi for the illegal and unprovoked US invasion of Iraq.

U.S. Representative Ron Paul (R,Tx) understands the danger to Americans of permitting government to violate the law. In “Torturing the Rule of Law” HERE..., he said that the US government’s use of torture to produce excuses for illegal actions is the most radicalizing force at work today. “The fact that our government engages in evil behavior under the auspices of the American people is what poses the greatest threat to the American people, and it must not be allowed to stand.”

One might think that the American public’s toleration of torture reflects the breakdown of the country’s Christian faith. Alas, a recent poll released by the Pew Forum reveals that most white Christian evangelicals and white Catholics condone torture. In contrast, only a minority of those who seldom or never attend church services condone torture.

It is a known fact that torture produces unreliable information. The only purpose of torture is to produce false confessions. The fact that a majority of American Christians condone torture enabled the Bush regime’s efforts to legalize torture.

George Hunsinger, professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, has stepped into the Christian void with a powerful book, Torture is a Moral Issue. A collection of essays by thoughtful and moral people, including an American admiral and general, the book demonstrates the danger of torture to the human soul, to civil liberty, and to the morale and safety of soldiers.

Condoning torture, Hunsinger writes, “marks a milestone in the disintegration of American democracy.” In his contribution, Hunsinger destroys the constructed hypothetical scenarios used to create a moral case for torture. He points out that no such real world cases ever exist. Once torture is normalized, it is used despite the absence of the hypothetical scenario.

Hunsinger notes that “evidence” obtained by torture can have catastrophic consequences. In making the case against Iraq at the UN, former Secretary of State Colin Powell assured the countries of the world that his evidence rested on “facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.” Today Powell and his chief of staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, are ashamed that the “evidence” for Powell’s UN speech turned out to be nothing but the coerced false confession of Al-Libi, who was relentlessly tortured in Egypt in order to produce a justification for Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq.

Some Americans, unable to face the criminality and inhumanity of their own government, maintain that the government hasn’t tortured anyone, because water boarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” are not torture. This is really grasping at straws. As Ron Paul points out, according to US precedent alone, water boarding has been considered to be torture since 1945, when the United States hanged Japanese military officers for water boarding captured Americans.

If the Obama regime does not hold the Bush regime accountable for violating US and international law, then the Obama regime is complicit in the Bush regime’s crimes. (Editor's emphasis) If the American people permit Obama to look the other way in order “to move on,” the American people are also complicit in the crimes.

Hunsinger, Paul and others are trying to save our souls, our humanity, our civil liberty and the rule of law. Obama can say that he forbids torture, but if those responsible are not held accountable, he has no way of enforcing his order. As perpetrators are discharged from the military and re-enter society, some will find employment as police officers and prison officials and guards, and the practice will spread. The dark side will take over America.

NOTE:

This piece by Roberts is not as good as his usual writing. There are several problems with it. First, while it's true that torture is used to produce false confessions, it is not the only reason--torture is also utilized to send a message to enemy combatants that they will be punished severely should they persist in an unwinnable battle (rather than submitting to surrender). Moreover, on occasion it is employed simply out of spite/revenge.

Second, it is disconcerting that Roberts references a Pew poll without providing proper documentation-- "most white Christian evangelicals and white Catholics condone torture. In contrast, only a minority of those who seldom or never attend church services condone torture."-- which presumably establishes that Christians are more likely to support torture than "non-Christians" although it is impossible to determine since he instead refers to those who "seldom or never attend church services." The individuals in question could of course be Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists and or Agnostics. From the information provided it is unclear whether these "Christians" who allegedly support torture are made up of Protestant Evangelicals and Neoconservative "Catholics" (both of whom--albeit for different reasons favor neoconservative foreign policy) rather than traditional/orthodox Catholics or non-Evangelical (mainline) Protestant Christians. The reader is incapable of determining given that Roberts failed to provide a detailed reference. The fact that some self-professing "Christians" mistakenly believe that the Gospel of Christ is compatible with torture does not make all or a majority of Christians--who rightly object to torture--guilty of it. That would represent a category error and a gross miscarriage of justice where the latter are concerned.

I clearly agree with Roberts that it is crucial to prosecute those who are responsible for the torture policies developed and implemented by the Bush administration. So far, it appears President Obama is more concerned about moving his agenda forward than enforcing the law and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert

We Are All Torturers in America

By Naomi Wolf

April 28, 2009 "The Guardian" --- As citizens' outrage over the torture memos heats up, and the US Congress is barraged with calls to appoint a special prosecutor, Americans may be about to commit an egregious miscarriage of justice. Republicans have now accused Democrats in Congress of having "blood on your hands too" in relation to the escalating calls to investigate. I would go further: not only do Congressional Democrats have blood on their hands - but so do we, the American people. And CIA agents may be about to be sacrificed to assuage their - and our - actual and associative guilt.

The suddenly urgent calls by our Congressional Democratic leaders, and even by many of the American people, to prosecute CIA operatives, military men and women and contractors who were certainly involved with, colluded in or turned a blind eye to torture are not only the height of hypocrisy, they are a form of unconscionable scapegoating. The scapegoating is political on the part of Congressional leaders, and psychological on the part of many Americans who are now "shocked" at what was done in their name.

Hello America, were you asleep for the past seven years? The fact that the Bush administration used torture has been the furthest thing from a secret. When the political winds were with the last administration, which framed qualms about torture as being soft on "the war on terror", just about every Congressional Democrat fell right into line to accept it, if not cheer it on. Even Hillary Clinton supported torture - right up through her presidential run. Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the torture in closed-door meetings. When activist groups and citizens called for a special prosecutor, all we heard from Congressional Democrats was how they did not wish to spend the political capital.

President Bush hid the torture in plain sight by championing it. Vice-President Cheney gave such explicit interviews about his role in directing the policy of torture that in legal terms, were there a prosecution, they would amount to a confession. Did the Congress that is now so piously calling for the investigation of rank-and-file agents and military personnel express their horror and outrage then? With a very few exceptions, they did not.

Since 2003 it has been fully documented by rights organizations, and accessible to anyone listening, that direct US policy for prisoners included electrodes on genitals, suffocation, hanging prisoners from bars by the wrists, beatings, concealed murders, sexual assault threats, sexual humiliation and forced nudity, which is considered a sex crime in warfare, international and domestic law. Many voices, from Jane Mayer's to Michael Ratner's to Jameel Jaffer's to Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, made similar documented charges. Did our leaders call for investigations? They barely even called for a moment's consideration; tolerating torture - "tough tactics", "enhanced interrogations" in those demonic euphemisms - polled well; supporting it made them look tough in close elections; it was overwhelmingly OK with them.

And may we please look in the mirror, for the sake of our own moral health? How many Americans spoke up when it was chic to thrill to the sadistic soundbite of "take the gloves off"? How many watched 24 without a murmur when the mass consensus was that it was OK - no, patriotic - to waterboard a bit? How many of us (as in civilized societies every­where when a wind of barbarism is set free) actually thrilled to the sadistic (and sometimes sexually sadistic) soundbites that came out of the Bush communications office: the "special sauce", the "belly slap", the phrase "we have our methods"?

So now the political and cultural winds have shifted. The members of Congress in their courage are now starting to call for investigations. Whom should they investigate? Well, in an ideal world, themselves: by knowing about and colluding with a declared and documented series of crimes, they are legally accessories to those crimes. So there is an element of cover-your-back in Congress finding its high dudgeon at last and pointing the accusing finger at subordinates in the CIA who obeyed orders that Congressional leaders helped to sustain as a mockery of domestic and international law, and as daily, appalling practice.

So we should call for retired General James Cullen's solution. A former military prosecutor, he has been at the forefront of calling for accountability - but the right kind. He urges us to indemnify those lower down the chain of command to get their testimonies, so they implicate the ringleaders; and then the only people who should be prosecuted are, as at Nuremberg, those who directed otherwise honorable men and women to commit crimes - the lawyers, and those who are on record as having given the orders: Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush himself. Lay the guilt where it belongs: on Congress; most particularly, and legally, on the leadership that directed this policy; and, emotionally and morally, on our complicit American selves.

NOTE:

I commend Naomi Wolf for having the courage to criticize leading Democrats as well as Republicans all of whom were given briefings by the George W. Bush administration regarding the so-called enhanced interrogation policies/procedures of the preceding administration. All Americans will be complicit in these immoral and illegal torture policies and procedures (which were devised and carried out in our names) if we fail to do our duty in holding accountable those whe are responsible for developing, authorizing and carrying out such policies.

President Obama's current policy is immoral as it fails to label what was done as not only immoral (he calls it contrary to our values-a purposely amorphous phrase that) but clearly not presumptively illegal as well. He apparently is unwilling to risk derailing his political agenda in the service of the greater (common) good.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert