“…he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,”
The United States Constitution, Article II, Section 3
I’ll be perfectly honest with you. I don’t know what to say. I was watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and I remember growing numb as I listened to what I was hearing. I’m still kind of numb, even as Rachel Maddow interviews Rep Adam Schiff about what we learned today, and I don’t know how to admit it, but I can’t quite remember exactly what it was that they say our former president, George W. Bush, the man who stood before the American people and said, “We do not torture!”, authorized be done in my name, in your name, in all our names, to the people we captured after September 11. I remember this: It was torture. And we did it.
I’m not going to tell you that I stood by our president the whole time and said, “Well, if he says we aren’t torturing anybody, then I take him at his word.” I’m not stupid. I’m not insane (by certain definitions). I’m not naive. At the time he stood before us and said those words, those four words far more nefarious than the sixteen words, I knew what kind of person was telling me that. A pathological liar. A sadistic man-boy. A spoiled child who was given everything he had in life, including his millions of dollars, and never once understood the concept of responsibility. A man who didn’t know how to admit a mistake, even when it was obvious to people less intelligent than he. A man who could not make the mental connection between the the things that he did and the events that resulted from them. Or between cause and effect in general. His mind simply does not operate from a factual basis. He makes decisions based on things that he believes, not necessarily things that are actually, provably, demonstrably, inconclusively true. He knows that torture is not legal. But he was told that what we were doing was not considered torture. And he believed that. So it was, as far as he was concerned, if he had any concern at all about the subject, true. And so he told us, “We do not torture.” Except that it was. And it was done in our name. It was torture. And we did it.
No, I knew immediately that when George W. Bush uttered the words, “We do not torture,” that we were, possibly at that very minute for all we knew, torturing people. It wasn’t a matter of legal nuance, of whether the specifics of what we did constituted torture. It was a simply a matter of knowing that if George W. Bush emphatically states something, as emphatically as stated that “We do not torture,” it was probably not true. And as much as I knew that he was not telling the truth, I wasn’t exactly sure I could call it a “lie.” What he said might not be considered a lie because he insanely believed it to be true. (The lies about Iraq would come later, and those I knew to be falsehoods at the time.) And while I knew his words carried no truth, I also figured it could never be proven. I was wrong. And while one might think I would be happy to know I was wrong about something (those who know me know that I am not always certain about my facts, and that I welcome people to prove me wrong), I am actually devastated. Because we have proof that we did indeed torture. We did things to people that we prosecuted other people for doing, even sending some of them to jail for long periods of time. Not just the Japanese soldiers in WWII, but even Americans. It is illegal. Our nation signed an International Treaty that said, “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.” We committed acts “by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession.” It was torture. And we did it.
What hit me earlier (and of which I am reminded as I re-watch Countdown) was that our government classified the proof that we tortured. And yet Secretary of Defense Bob Gates told reporters that they are releasing the memos that proved we tortured because it “would eventually come out.” When I served in the Air Force, one of my duties was to keep all the technical manuals and regulations up-to-date. And that included AFR 205-1, “SECURITY: Safeguarding Military Information”. It defines classified information as “Official information, the safeguarding of which is necessary in the interest of national defense, and which is classified for such purpose by appropriate classifying authority.” Well if this information could now be so casually declassified, how could it have related to “national defense”? Should it ever had been classified in the first place? Was it classified because it related to national defense, or was it classified by the Bush Administration because it proved they were guilty of violating international treaties banning torture? It was torture. And we did it.
What they euphemistically called “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” were actually torture techniques that were used in training programs for some of our military personnel. The techniques chosen from the program known as “SERE” Training were chosen specifically because they were illegal. They then decided to declare them “legal”, and authorized CIA and military personnel to use them on captured prisoners. They refused to discuss details of the program, ostensibly because the details were classified. But they weren’t classified because they related to national defense (as evidenced by the fact that they are now releasing it just because they believe it will come out anyway, without apparent concern for our national defense), but because the details were proof that they were using illegal methods in their interrogation of prisoners. They’ve admitted to three prisoners being subject to these techniques, but who knows how many more there really were? It was torture. And we did it.
And it was illegal. Our country, a country which claims to respect the Rule of Law, has sent governors to prison. When a president says, “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” we best demonstrate that we are a nation that governs by the Rule of Law when we hold that president accountable to the law. George W. Bush clearly, undeniably broke the law. Not a minor law, but one that goes to the heart of what differentiates the civilized from the uncivilized. George W. Bush authorized the illegal torture of captured prisoners. We lock up governors, why don’t we lock up presidents, too?
Well done, Wayne.
I hope we get an answer to your question.
Well done, honey.
“believed it to be true…”
Have you noticed how this country extols ‘belief’ as an inherent good, something to be admired?
“Believe in yourself” is a mantra woven through the entire fabric of US society.
“Follow your dream! Listen to your heart!” What the hell does any of this mean?
It means you can do whatever the fuck you want or think you want or rather believe you want or believe you SHOULD DO, and when your actions don’t work-out–or rather when they DO work -out but others raise objections, belief voids responsibility.
A mother drowned her children. A father killed his entire family. Why?
Because they both BELIEVED it was necessary, because they believed their kids were possessed, because GOD TOLD THEM SO AND TOLD THEM to “save” their souls.
Believers are a THREAT. They aren’t SANE. They don’t even understand what the word means. They UNDERSTAND nothing except that which serves their beliefs.
Isn’t it interesting how when people kill their families, or others because God told them to, the defense is “not guilty by reason of insanity”, BUT no matter how many times a politician insists that God controls the weather and determines all our fates and that certain issues of life and death and suffering are beyond our mere human efforts to change–he still gets paid and is allowed to walk the streets freely and to continue to legilsate or block legislation because of his fucking BELIEFS!?
Have you noticed how often, over the past eight years, when these Bible thumping right-wing politicians are interview in the papers and on TV about this or that issue, the question most asked of them is “What do you BELIEVE?! ”
“Senator Inhofe, do you BELIEVE in Climate change? ”
Senator Boehner, do you BELIEVE these harsh interrogation techniques were justified? ”
“Mr President, do you BELIEVE Saddam Hussein is a serious threat to World Peace?”
NOT, “what do you KNOW about the basic scinece behind climate change, or WHY aren’t these techniques illegal, or HOW big of a threat IS Saddam–be specific! What facts are the to support your assertions? What PROOFS can you present o justify your position?”
In otherwords, show your work in the margins to demonstrate you grasp the principles that need to be applied in order to solve the problem!
We constantly ask ourselves, how can religious conservatives hold two opposing viewpoints at the same time? How can they say one thing, do another, and fail to register any conflict between their arguments and their actions? !
EASY! BELIEF takes care of that .BELIEF requires no test, demands no comparison. BELIEF is beyond external rational examination and challenge, BELIEF is ALWAYS self affirming. It is a closed loop. It connects to nothing but itself.
BELIEF demands ignorance of anything that challenges belief–it wouldn’t be belief otherwise. When believers fly in planes , they just accept that planes fly. but when they crash, God saves the survivors. Does that then mean the dead were all wicked sinners? It SHOULD mean that to the surviving believers–but they refuse to even think about it–and the fucking journalists who describe such events as miracles and approvingly air their comments of “God was looking out for me” NEVER ask ” What about the other poor sods?” NEVER!
Belief inherently goes unexamined and believer are the most dangerous fucking people on the planet–because the proof is there, always has been.
Pragmatism can cause terrible things too, but pragmatism can be measured and judged and adjusted–or indeed abandoned.
Belief however, cannot. It is absolute, it suffers no judgment and therefore no consequences or the threat of consequences. And as long as BELIEVERS act on their own beliefs, firs and foremost, and as long they go unchallenged, the affirm of acquiescence to the supposed benefits and ‘nobility’ and mystery of BELIEF will endure and curse the rest of the rational world–because the rational world is anathema to BELIEF and they will use ALL the products and benefits of the rational world to actually undermine it.
The Bush administration’s actions and the GOP’s legislative tenure these last 30 years have proven this to be the case–rigged elections, claims of executive power and immunity, belief employed at the expense of fact to start a war and torture to try and reaffirm those beliefs in spite of rational argument and mounting fact and proofs that their beliefs were and are insupportable.
There’s no point asking BELIEVERS believers WHY? The only issue is HOW to deal with them!
This looks like another guest blogging post…
Good one, Wayne
Excellent job, Wayne. One of the most chilling parts of Keith’s program was the photo of the soldier ‘supervising’ in Viet Nam. If he was brought before a courts martial, well there is a precedent to follow. Right up the chain.
And to you as well,5th. I thought I was sort of alone in my irritation with this trend towards gubmint by belief.