SAT DEC 13, 2014 AT 12:00 PM PST
When torture became debatable
attribution: US DOD/public domain
In our name, this was done.
I find that I again need the word "outrage." Because the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for the position of Attorney General of the United States is indeed an outrage. Not because he is undistinguished. God knows we've had plenty of undistinguished AGs. Nor is it because he may have condoned criminality. John Mitchell anyone? No, being undistinguished and a tolerator of corruption is not enough to trigger outrage.It was outrageous to me that the United State would consider having an attorney general who had asked for and approved the Torture Memos (PDF) of John Yoo and now, disgracefully, the appeals court judge, Jay Bybee.The obvious reason for outrage is that Gonzales was the prime legal architect for the policy of torture adopted by the United States, in violation of the Geneva Convention.
It was gratifying to me to find that many shared our outrage and we even convinced most Democrats in Washington to say No to Gonzales. Among those Democrats saying No to Torture and Alberto Gonzales was the newly elected U.S. senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.
Of course, we never convinced most Republicans, and we certainly never convinced one Richard Bruce Cheney. But most non-monsters began to see it our way.
Indeed, 10 years later, the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, in her finest hour, released the Torture Report, documenting that the Bush administration, led by the monster Richard Bruce Cheney, took the nation to some of its lowest depths and to no positive "intelligence" effect.
But now it seems, in some quarters, torture is debatable. Unfortunately, those quarters include the Central Intelligence Agency of now President Barack Obama. How did this happen? I'll consider on the flip.
After then-Sen. Barack Obama was elected president in a landslide in 2008, there was much discussion that he would name one John Brennan as director of the CIA. Many of us were appalled. And we said so. One of the reasons was his complicity in the torture perpetrated by the CIA under the Bush administration. To me, it was an easy call that Brennan was unacceptable to be CIA director in that he said about torture that:
It's a tough ethical question, and it's a question that really needs to be aired more publicly. [...] They can't be stifled, because I think that we as a country and a society have to determine what is it we want to do, whether it be eavesdropping, whether it be taking actions against individuals who are either known or suspected to be terrorists. What length do we want to go to? What measures do we want to use? What tactics do we want to use? Hopefully, that "dark side" is not going to be something that's going to forever tarnish the image of the United States abroad and that we're going to look back on this time and regret some of the things that we did, because it is not in keeping with our values. ... Sometimes there are actions that we are forced to take, but there need to be boundaries beyond which we are going to recognize that we're not going to go because we still are Americans, and we are supposed to be representing something to people in this country and overseas. So the dark side has its limitSuch a man should never have been in charge of the CIA. When Brennan was withdrawn from consideration for that post, many of us were quite pleased.
When the president banned torture, we felt we had a moral leader on the issue. That confidence began to erode when we were told to look forward not back on the issue of torture. Our confidence began to erode when the Justice Department decided that accountability was a bad thing. Our confidence continued to erode when the president named Brennan head of the CIAwhen Leon Panetta became secretary of defense.
Our confidence was further eroded when the Obama administration stonewalled the Senate Intelligence Committee on the Torture Report. Our confidence further eroded when the Obama administration condoned the CIA's illegal actions in spying on and lying to the Senate Intelligence Committee on the Torture Report.
Our confidence was further eroded when the president released a mealy mouthed statement on the release of the Torture Report.
Our confidence further eroded when the administration expressed its full support for the CIA director who lied to Congress, and lied about the CIA's illegal activities regarding the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Our confidence has been shattered by an administration that permits the CIA to continue to insist that torture worked, against all the evidence.
Our confidence has been shattered by a CIA director who held a press conference to insist that torture worked.
Our confidence has been shattered by a CIA director who says:
Over time, enhanced interrogation techniques, EITs, which the Department of Justice determined at the time to be lawful and which were duly authorized by the Bush administration, were introduced as a method of interrogation. As concerns about al-Qaida’s terrorist plans endured, a variety of these techniques were employed by CIA officers on several dozen detainees over the course of five years, before they ended in December of 2007. The legal advice under which they were authorized subsequently has been revoked.Our confidence is shattered by a CIA director who wants to debate torture and envisions a future where it may be used again.When the president came into office in January 2009, he took the position that these techniques were contrary to our values and he unequivocally banned their use. He has consistently expressed the view that these techniques did significant damage to America’s standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies and partners, something I have experienced firsthand.But as the president stated this week, the previous administration faced agonizing choices about how to pursue al-Qaida and prevent additional terrorist attacks against our country.
To regain this confidence, the president must take an essential first step—he must seek the resignation of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan.
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