Since the day President Obama took office, he has failed to bring to justice anyone responsible for the torture of terrorism suspects — an official government program conceived and carried out in the years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001…. Mr. Obama has said multiple times that “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards,” as though the two were incompatible. They are not. The nation cannot move forward in any meaningful way without coming to terms, legally and morally, with the abhorrent acts that were authorized, given a false patina of legality, and committed by American men and women from the highest levels of government on down.
In a country based on the rule of law, the law is impartial, nonpartisan, colorblind, and not open to interpretation for personal advantage. Those who run afoul of the law must as a matter of course suffer the consequences and pay their debt to society for disrespecting the rules that keep polite society from unraveling into chaos and corruption. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Of course, here in the real world, the rule of law is unequally applied…not that this reality should be considered breaking news. Inequality in the application of the law has been part and parcel of American history. Money, social position, and skin color have always meant that the rule of law was flexible and blind for some while being harsh and unforgiving for others. Seldom has this been more true than when it comes to those responsible for the CIA’s torture program. Those of us waiting and hoping that justice might one day be done…will evidently not live to see that day.
Torture is illegal under American law, of that there’s no question. Also arguably criminal is being President, knowing that torture is illegal, and finding lawyers who will interpret acts of torture- defined as such under the Geneva Convention- as “not torture.” Yes, the law may be an ass, but this is a case of law being twisted and bludgeoned until it cries and begs for mercy.
In the aftermath of 9/11, when a Jack Bauer mentality enveloped America, it was decided that we would defeat our enemies…by becoming them. Instead of living by the rule of law, and upholding the standards that make America the morally superior country so many consider it to be, the CIA engaged in all manner of officially sanctioned (and illegal) human rights abuses.
Americans, from the White House to CIA operatives on the ground, broke that law by sanctioning and engaging in torture. When Barack Obama walked into the Oval Office, he had an historic opportunity to demonstrate that America may have lost its way, but it could still hold those who broke the law responsible. The President completely whiffed on the opportunity presented to him, thus making him an accessory after the fact. There are Americans who should have long ago been prosecuted for their role in torturing detainees…and yet still freely walk the Earth. It’s time to change that and prosecute them as the war criminals they are.
Americans have known about many of these acts for years, but the 524-page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report erases any lingering doubt about their depravity and illegality: In addition to new revelations of sadistic tactics like “rectal feeding,” scores of detainees were waterboarded, hung by their wrists, confined in coffins, sleep-deprived, threatened with death or brutally beaten. In November 2002, one detainee who was chained to a concrete floor died of “suspected hypothermia.”
These are, simply, crimes. They are prohibited by federal law, which defines torture as the intentional infliction of “severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” They are also banned by the Convention Against Torture, the international treaty that the United States ratified in 1994 and that requires prosecution of any acts of torture.
So it is no wonder that today’s blinkered apologists are desperate to call these acts anything but torture, which they clearly were. As the report reveals, these claims fail for a simple reason: C.I.A. officials admitted at the time that what they intended to do was illegal.
Let’s ponder that for just a moment, shall we? C.I.A. officials admitted at the time that what they intended to do was illegal. They knew that they were breaking not only federal, but international treaty obligations…and yet they went ahead with the torture program anyway. Not only did they knowingly and deliberately break the law, they did so by engaging in a practice that the CIA has long acknowledged DOESN’T WORK. The Agency has long experience when it comes to torture, and has long acknowledge that the practice doesn’t yield timely, accurate, and actionable intelligence. Despite the claims of Dick Cheney, Michael Hayden, and John Brennan- just to name a few apologists- there is ample data to prove that torture DOESN’T work. Hmm…it’s illegal AND experience has shown that it doesn’t work? What are we missing here??
In July 2002, C.I.A. lawyers told the Justice Department that the agency needed to use “more aggressive methods” of interrogation that would “otherwise be prohibited by the torture statute.” They asked the department to promise not to prosecute those who used these methods. When the department refused, they shopped around for the answer they wanted. They got it from the ideologically driven lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel, who wrote memos fabricating a legal foundation for the methods. Government officials now rely on the memos as proof that they sought and received legal clearance for their actions. But the report changes the game: We now know that this reliance was not made in good faith.
No amount of legal pretzel logic can justify the behavior detailed in the report. Indeed, it is impossible to read it and conclude that no one can be held accountable. At the very least, Mr. Obama needs to authorize a full and independent criminal investigation.
That the CIA knowingly and willingly engaged in breaking the law for something they knew isn’t effective is astonishing enough. What makes matters even worse is the decision by Barack Obama to not prosecute those responsible. This President had the opportunity, as one of his first official acts, to stand up for the rule of law.
He passed.
He could have addressed what America and the rest of the world already knew to be true and commit that America would be a better and more lawful country going forward.
He passed.
He could have shown that America is not above the law and that it takes its role as the world’s last remaining superpower seriously.
He passed on that as well.
I love my country, and I support my President…but this miscarriage of justice makes me ashamed to be an American. We’re better than this…and yet we’ve clearly demonstrated that we aren’t.
The good news is that there’s no statute of limitations on the crimes of those involved in authorizing and conducting tortures. Accountability is still available…if only this President would display the stomach and moral courage to do the right thing and authorization an investigation. If he cannot, the U.N. should take the lead and do it for him.
The question everyone will want answered, of course, is: Who should be held accountable? That will depend on what an investigation finds, and as hard as it is to imagine Mr. Obama having the political courage to order a new investigation, it is harder to imagine a criminal probe of the actions of a former president.
But any credible investigation should include former Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington; the former C.I.A. director George Tenet; and John Yoo and Jay Bybee, the Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who drafted what became known as the torture memos. There are many more names that could be considered, including Jose Rodriguez Jr., the C.I.A. official who ordered the destruction of the videotapes; the psychologists who devised the torture regimen; and the C.I.A. employees who carried out that regime.
America’s at a crossroads, then. This President can prove that we’re a nation committed to the rule of law and its international treaty obligations. He can prove that America holds accountable those who violate the law. He can prove that American means what it says.
Or he can prove what many in the international community already believe to be true:
That America is a hypocritical, self-righteous nation, prone to moralizing and holding other countries to standards it would never dream of holding itself.
That America is a country willing to employ situational ethics when it determines circumstances warrant.
That America is a lawless country which pontificates about honoring the rule of law and expecting the rest of the world to do so, even as it hypocritically ignores its own moralizing.
That, worst of all, America is a country whose word can’t be trusted except to do whatever it determines to be in its own best interests regardless of cost, immorality, or illegality.
We’re better than this…or at least we should be. This President has the opportunity to demonstrate America’s commitment to the rule of law, if only he’d seize it.
You’ll have to pardon me if I’m not holding my breath in the hope that he’ll do the right thing.
