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Regarding the recent national debate on torture
I'd like to voice my opinion about the national debate in the United States regarding torture. And here is how I'd like to begin:
For the love of all things sacred, have we so totally lost our minds that we are willing to attempt a rational debate about torture?
I've been trying to express my astonished disgust over this for weeks, and in the white noise of everything I want to say at once, my voice comes out as screaming.
I'm not exaggerating in the least. I've been struggling how to frame my deep rooted objection to torturing people. I can't find the words. I've only just realized that I shouldn't have to. I'm not going to enter into a debate about The PROS and CONS of TORTURE.
I won't debate it's legality and the authority of the Executive Branch. I won't debate the pragmatic need for it, or ponder hypothetical situations. I will not rationalize a neo-Machiavellian end-case. I will not suffer "anything in the name of Freedom and Democracy." I won't debate these things any more than I would debate the practical upside of slavery.
It's torture.
yeah, but now the genie is out of the bottle as far as the US is concerned, how does the US get it back in to the bottle without discourse of some kind?
It's like that old saying about evil flourishing merely requiring that good folks do nothing.
I'm just saying...the evils of the past did not disappear as a result of a refusal to debate them.
Granted; and...
From my pov the even larger problem is that most Americans still don't really get that there is either a genie or a bottle (or a cat and a bag, or whatever). In terms of most people's personal radar, this issue just doesn't register. In polls most folks seem to say that, well, sure they're against torture, it just doesn't sound very nice; unless of course it helps us somehow in the war on terror in some "ticking-time-bomb" scenario, in which case it's OK in some circumstances... And that's about as deep as their thinking goes on the subject -- vague abstractions couched in a vaguer moral stance, cut with a dose of TV action melodrama...
And that's real easy to decry, and easier to be cynical about, but it's understandable, especially in a culture that's completely dominated by a consumerist ideology. For one thing, people are stuck in an information glut (whether it be TV, or radio, or reading forum posts on some obscure Internet site) in which it gets harder and harder to establish any baseline for telling "truth" from "truthiness", so most folks go with what "feels right" based on their picture of the world (formed, as noted above, from a variety of sources that further blur the line between entertainment and information); and beyond that, let's face it, torture is a real "downer" thing to have to think about, and consumerism is all about feeling good, all the time, usually by buying stuff, so there's just not much motivation to think deeper.
I don't think this is a new thing; I don't think people today in the US are any stupider than people in France during the French Revolution, or people in Ancient Greek city-states, or whatever. People evaluate their world based on the ideologies they've been imprinted with, unless they have a significant amount of reflexivity or self-awareness to see their own programming for what it is and try to deconstruct it.
So I guess I'm with Tony in wanting a dialogue, and it has to be an ongoing one so it doesn't get lost in the media blitz, and it has to go deeper than TV plotlines if it's going to have any productive consequence; ideally it will also get into what it means to have an ideology in which having a debate about the pros and cons of torture can somehow seem reasonable. And I'm also with Chris in personally holding that there is no justification for this action -- that's the position I want to hold in any ongoing dialogue.
The question then would become how to continue such a debate constructively and make it "sticky". Honestly, small as it may seem, simply raising the issue in any forum is worthwhile, even if (or especially if) it doesn't at first seem to fit. It's not like the mainstream news types are going to do so, given that thought-provoking "downers" are bad for ratings, but we (the people) can at least try...
One of the problems is that the definition of torture is continually mutating through expediency. If one is on the limits odf what various conventions allow, then it is easier to move the limit line than change what is being done. This is what the White House has done. This allows the US or the agents of the US at black sites to use a range of methods, especially psychological ones, and deem that they fall within the bounds of acceptable interrogation. There are techniques now being used that inflict enormous mental anguish, and potentially permanent psychological trauma, that don't leave a mark. This can be something a simple as sleep deprivation (which even your standard cop would probably have no problem using), through high volume sonic assault with disturbing sounds (crying babies, aggressive music forms) and on to even more egregious stuff that doesn't leave marks either, threatening muslims with dogs, humiliating stress positions, water-boarding. I'll pause here to include the Amnesty International definition:
"Because Amnesty International works primarily to combat human rights abuses by states and armed opposition groups, we usually use the term "torture" to refer to the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering by state agents, or similar acts by private individuals for which the state bears responsibility through consent, acquiescence or inaction. We also use the term "torture" to refer to deliberate pain or suffering inflicted by members of armed political groups."
Do you see the problem? I mean, how vague is that? Very, in my view. So what I'm interested in is the borderline. What is the point at which interrogation becomes torture? If anyone can tell me that, and if it isn't different for each person, I'd be surprised. The fact that US Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin has said in a new memo that torture may consist of acts that fall short of provoking excruciating and agonizing pain and thus may include mere physical suffering or lasting mental anguish, give room for hope, I suppose, but I don't think it will actually change what is going on.
Sounds like pornography. I can't say exactly what it is, but I know it when I see it. This whole debate overlooks the probability that this is nothing new. We live in a heightened state of paranoia post 9/11, and GW and the boys are out of control. Can't deny that. The media and the world is watching more closely than ever before, but I imagine these torture methods have been employed for decades on both sides of these struggles. The latest developments are merely chaotic proliferation, further exacerbated by an influx of dimwits and mental nut jobs in the military.
Abu Ghraib is what happens when the prozac nation goes to war in the desert. Saw "Jarhead" recently, not a great flick, but a strong effort. One definitely sees how mental stability can start to deteriorate in such harsh conditions.
The Black Sights are creepy, and they're what I mean by "nothing new." They're more widespread now, and actually there is a national discourse on the matter, but most people, smart people, are just like Kevin said, content to keep busy in their consummerist bubbles and focus on what matters to them. They know their govt is up to some questionable shit. They think it's screwy, but dismiss at as "it's a different world now" and don't really give a fuck as long as it's not happening in their backyard.
This is all horrible PR for America, and I'd say something like "the great eagle nation finally lost her innocense"...but this nation loses its innocense every couple decades already. We're just currently stuck in free-fall on a world level.
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Joined: 2006-01-10