Debating Torture
A Moral Compass Spinning Out of Control
By Joan Opyr, 9-25-06
Every week on our small community radio show here in Moscow, Idaho, my co-host, Carl Westberg, Jr., and I read the names of the United States soldiers who have been killed during the preceding week in Iraq. To date, we've lost nearly three thousand service members. Twenty thousand more have been wounded in action. How many Iraqis have died? Our government doesn't keep count, but
I sit here in my happy home in Idaho, and I wonder: what are we doing in far-away Mesopotamia? I hear we're fighting terrorism over there in the desert so we don't have to fight it at home. Another day, another lie. According to the Canadian government, we arrested Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, on suspicion of being a terrorist. We then sent him to Syria to be tortured. Yes, you read that correctly. Tortured. By the Syrians. For us. Maher Arar was born in Syria. He'd fled that repressive dictatorship for a better life in Canada some twenty years ago. We arrested Mr. Arar at John F. Kennedy Airport and "rendered" him back to to Syria where he was held for nearly a year in an underground cell the size of a coffin and beaten repeatedly with a frayed electrical cable. Eventually, after months of this and worse, Mr. Arar was ready to admit to any and everything. He said that he'd attended an Al Qaeda training camp; he had not. In fact, Mr. Arar had done nothing wrong. Nothing at all. He was the wrong man at the wrong place at the wrong time under the wrong United States President.
Quite apart from the inhumanity of torture, quite apart from the sheer horror of what we have done and what we are still doing, we are faced with the fact that torture does not work. How long would you need to be locked in a dark, airless, underground cell before you admitted to being in league Osama bin Laden? How many beatings would it take before you said that you were a shoe-bomber? How much water-boarding, how much sleep deprivation, how many fingernails would our Syrian surrogates have to pull out before you admitted to killing Jimmy Hoffa, shooting JFK, or beating Jon-Benet Ramsey to death with a golf club?
The Canadian government has released an 822-page, three volume report about Mr. Arar's case. We -- you and me, with our votes and our tax dollars -- sent an innocent man to Syria, a country we have repeatedly condemned as a hotbed of terrorism and terrorist funding, expressly for the purpose of having him tortured. Yes, we should point the finger of blame at Mr. Bush. We should point it, too, at Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld. We should condemn the architects of this so-called War on Terrorism because it has become a war on universal human rights. But while we're pointing all of those fingers at Mr. Bush and his flunkies, we would do well to remember that We the People allowed this to happen. We have funded and financed and condoned this war, this President, and these horrific extraordinary renditions. You and me, right here in small town Idaho, are just as guilty as George W. Bush in Washington, DC. That's the responsiblity we bear in a democracy. The bumper stickers tell us that "Freedom isn't free." Usually, those are posted next to a yellow ribbon advising the reader to "Support our troops." I do support our troops, and I know that freedom isn't free, but that's a lesson we might better learn from the sad experience of Maher Arar. Does anyone have a sticker for him? A special ribbon? A letter of apology and a promise that nothing like this will ever happen again? No. Even as we condemn the treatment of Mr. Arar, we're doing the exact same thing all over the world to the countless and the nameless.
According to the Associated Press, the United States is holding more than 14,000 people in an assortment of unregulated and unnamed prisons around the world -- more than 14,000 people who have not been charged with any crime and who do not have access to an attorney. How many are really members of Al Qaeda? Does it even matter anymore? On December 10th, 1948, the United States, as part of the United Nations General Assembly, adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 5 promises that "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
When you become as bad as the thing you're fighting, you have lost because, as a people, you are lost. 46,000 dead Iraqis. 23,000 dead or wounded U. S. soldiers. The Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and our humanity in tatters. And who's sitting on top of this ash heap? The President of the United States, a man outside the law and clearly beyond reason. Mr. Bush is our problem, our responsibility, and our monstrous gift to the world.
We cannot wait until 2008. We must impeach this man now. Is that politically feasible? Is it realistic? I don't know, and I don't care. We must do something. We must reclaim our rights, our freedoms, our democracy and our humanity. Fifty years from now, when my grandchildren ask me where I was when my government set fire to the world, I don't want to tell them that I was sitting on my ass in Moscow, Idaho, my fingers in my ears and my eyes squeezed shut. It's time to act. Write a letter to the editor. Call your Congressman. Scream and shout and kick up a storm the size of Katrina. Together, we can sweep this disaster from office and begin to repair the damage. The work will be long and the work will be hard, but we owe it to ourselves, to our children, and to Maher Arar.
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Comments
I left the U.S. (permanently, as it turns out) for more compatible climes way back in 1972 -- I now hold New Zealand and Australian citizenship, but not U.S. If a few more people had spoken up about the direction America was going -- even back then -- I probably never would have left, even though I still have no regrets. Anyway, keep up the good work! Maybe you and your like will give hope to a current generation of young Americans, who it appears now need hope badly.
Geoff
so - isn't what is happening now making those in authority guilty of the same thing???
why aren't more people standing up and shouting/demanding that something be done?
posted from new zealand
In a speech on November 16th 2005, Iranian President Ahmadinejad spoke of his belief in the return of the Twelfth Imam. Ahmadinejad believes that Allah shielded or hid the Twelfth Imam until the end of time. Shi’ites expect the Twelfth Imam to return to save the world after its decent into chaos. The tyrannical logic behind Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whom, perhaps views himself as a self-proclaimed deputy for the Twelfth Imam, might wish to effect Mahdi’s return by expediting the chaos. Our modern day Neville Chamberlins don’t have a problem with this man having a Nuke.
Most of us in the west don’t understand Caliphates, Islamofacism nor who our real enemies are (it isn’t Bush). I’m convinced that we will need a few more hits before the Neville Chamberlins among us get their head out of the sand and realize the magnitude or our Islamofacist challenge and realize we won’t win a battle of civilizations with our hands tied behind our back.
The world’s ostriches believe the war on terror begins and ends with al-Qaeda. Awakenings are very expensive!
I am impressed by the focus of your article and the adherence to the theme of the title: A Moral Compass Spinning Out of Control. It is interesting that few of these comments are about the morality of what we're doing overseas, which, again, was the point of your column. I would love to see more comments here which directly address the questions Joan posed.
For the record, I'm with Joan.
One of Joan's first questions was: "what are we doing in far-away Mesopotamia?" Many posts respond to that question.
The Moral Compass Spinning Out of Control is the compass of the islamo fascists who sell their children into martyrdom for the bargain price of $25,000 so they can join Allah and 72 virgins.
There are many in America like myself that believe that America’s Achilles Heel is our enemy within whose empathy lies with our enemies instead of their own community.
America’s far left is the best friend the terrorists ever could dream of having, Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when speaking to the UN sounded like Howard Dean had prepared their speech for them, and America’s left cheered.
I’m afraid that it will take one of our cities being nuked before the left figures out the enemy isn’t the Republicans, and then unanimity will once again only live until the next election cycle.
Jill, it is moral to protect your country, it is moral to water board to extract information that will save lives, it is moral deprive terrorists of sleep and chill them if it will save lives. Jill what is immoral is to arm your enemy with hope by discrediting a national war effort.
When terrorists have advocates in America, it gives them the strength to carry on. These advocates are just as guilty of killing Americans as are the terrorists whom they embolden. Joan’s causality list wouldn’t be so large if America spoke with one voice.
Pacifists are the unwitting allies of the enemy.
I believe that "protecting my country", which you define as "moral" does not include supporting this President's war policies, which I believe are fundamentally immoral ones. That's MY moral code, and I am allowed to have it. Since I have a child in the military, I am fully aware of the effect of American policy on the troops, and it's not what you assume.
We have enemies because Bush and company have made us a laughingstock with their corruption, lies, unilateral arrogance and wrong-headed actions. Go to Europe and you'll find that people there speak with respect of Clinton but with disgust of Bush. Our old allies have been alienated, and it's a loss that can't yet be measured.
When you say we should speak with one voice, it makes me long for the days when we had leadership who could bring the American people to one voice, through reason, education, persuasion and earned loyalty. But we are led by a regime which wants to impose and force its point of view on us all, then accuse us of disloyalty when we refuse to go along.
Dissent is patriotic. Forcing compliance is fascism.
Europeans by and large are liberals and they will never like conservative Presidents, I will never expect them to nor do I care. When we swear in Newt on 1/20/2009 is the day they will start hating him. The fact that they respect Clinton is a poor reflection on them.
American dissent, arguably patriotic, inarguably prolongs wars and exponentially multiplies Joan’s death tally – feel free to carry on as it is your constitutional right. I am sure that you will be able to shrug off my contempt of America’s terrorist enablers as easy as I shrug off Europe’s contempt for us.
Our old allies will be begging for our help again when they loose control of their exponentially growing Muslim populations (20%) that seem to hate European culture, a European problem that isn’t anything but a boil getting ready to explode at which time Muslims the world over will go to the aid of their brethren in France, Germany etc. They better hope we want to help.
Bush did not invent Islamic Terrorism; the seeds for this discontent goes back to the 1920’s with the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood, the grandfather of Al Qaeda. Islam wants a Caliphate and the left wants to cede it to them because they want to be liked. Jill, this is America, and you are free to pick and choose the history that backs up your worldview, some say, ignorance is bliss.
Jill, there are a few countries that need their butts kicked but since there is so much dissension in America I think that we need to wait for the next attack on America before we do what should be done now in a decisive way. Our new status as a cowardly paper tiger that lacks a cohesive population will make us an easy target soon enough and this sleeping giant can awaken again, and hopefully you lefties will be on board because a nation divided will not stand.
This isn’t clairvoyance this is Math.
The only thing not to respect about Clinton was Monica, which by comparison to the current Republican sexual scandal, the the debacle of the Iraq war, the disgrace of profiteering on the war and Katrina, Bush's lies, the corruption of his administration, state-sanctioned torture, the incompetence of Rumsfeld and Cheney, was but a blip on the radar screen of life. Republicans do not hold the moral high ground; in fact it is clearly quite the opposite.
I don't shrug off anybody's contempt for terrorist enablers, since I have the same contempt. But you'd better not be counting Joan and me among them, because that would be a profoundly immoral mistake.
My family has a long and proud military history. I am a bit hawkish by comparison to many liberals. I have a child in the Middle East. Do NOT accuse me of enabling terrorists. I simply disagree profoundly with the way Bush & Co. have handled this crisis. That is not to say that I opposed a military component to our response; it just wouldn't have been THIS incompetent, disgraceful, failed military response.
Your insistence that every single American "go along" with Bush because totally cohesion is necessary is just not possible, logical, or desirable. It's fascism to impose one point of view on a people. Even in WWII, arguably some of our proudest days, there were plenty of Americans who opposed, yet right still triumphed over wrong. To focus on our lack of support for Bush's war as the reason it's not working is plain backward. We were with him on September 12, but he squandered our trust with the disgraces that followed.
On a simpler note, did it ever occur to you that maintaining cordial relationships with our former allies, our neighbors, and pretty much anybody is desirable simply because it's the civilized thing to do? One doesn't take a loaf of bread to a new neighbor to GET something out of them; one does it just to be a nice person. The relationship that is then established may, or may not, come in handy one day, but the bread is not offered with anything in mind. It's just How One Ought To Behave.
I'm willing to bet your mother would agree with me.
"This isn't clarivoyance this is Math"??? I'm sorry, but what in the HELL does that mean?
I agree, total cohesion is not possible, but if we had more we would have met better success in Iraq and we would have fewer dead soldiers, both now and in the future. Cohesion shouldn't be mandated, but it sure is an aspiring goal to hope for.
My arguments are lost on you as yours are on me, you should print out this thread and discuss it with your father and son.
I don’t think that most domestic terrorist enablers do so in a conscience way in much the same way that codependent spouses of the drug dependant don’t realize their actions enable their loved ones in their destructive behavior. When I say that pacifists are the unwitting allies of the enemy, inclusion in this group would be the outspoken dissenters that cripple the effort to wage an existing war effectively.
Our administration and military project our strong side, American dissenters project our week side, enemy tacticians weigh our strengths against our weaknesses and carry on or quit accordingly.
American media has been broadcasting to the enemy that we have so much dissent that we lack the will to go on. This is how we won nearly every battle in Viet Nam but lost the war, all the enemy had to hold out till we lost our will.
I study, analyze then conclude, there is nothing profoundly immoral about that. Enablers ignorant of their unwitting collusion exonerate them of subversion, as they know not what they do, but contemptible results nevertheless are the product, immoral no, negligent yes.
Alanon teaches codependents of substance abusers of their enabling ways, I attempt to do the same for a different kind of enabler.
I will always wonder if Al Queda et al did not feel safe bombing NY on 9/11 because they believed those who insisted that President Bush was dumb, and the time was ripe. Guess they probably don't feel that way now.