Torture

Confronting Administration Apologists On Abuse

5/14/04

by Ted Leibowitz, bagelradio.com

http://www.bagelradio.com/rants/torture040514.html

Don't let administration apologists off the hook. It is your job to engage in conversation those who have been “blinded by the right.” They will not want to hear what you have to say. Know that everything you say will be taken as a personal attack on their ‘values’ and the values of the ‘good Christians’ in the White House. Use this knowledge to manage your arguments. Prove that the actions and policies of the Bush administration do not jibe with the Christian values it claims to uphold. Help them see through the Orwellian double-speak, help them to connect the dots.

The core of the current argument is very simple: torture is bad. Torture is wrong. Torture is evil. Torture is inhumane. Torture is unconscionable.

Those committing these acts of torture at “Abuse” Ghraib and elsewhere are doing so in OUR name. The entire Iraq mess has been done in OUR name. People whose values include human dignity must oppose the evil, wrong-headed, inhuman policies that have landed us where we are today.

Get administration apologists to agree that good people don’t want anyone tortured in their name and that the soldiers who committed torture and those above them who ordered or allowed it to happen, need to be held accountable.

Administration apologists will try to sidetrack you with talking points like "the prisoners are bad people." That's an easy serve to return: no, some of the prisoners are bad people. The Red Cross reports that 70-90% of those in custody “were arrested by mistake.” For the most part the prisoners are not terrorists, these are ordinary citizens caught in the crossfire of an invasion, occupation, and now-erupting civil war.

On this subject the tables can be quickly turned: all of the torturers, and their superiors on up the line who condoned or turned a blind eye to their actions, are bad people.

One more thing -- even the ‘bad’ prisoners are human. No one deserves to be tortured. No one. It is morally wrong. It is legally wrong. It is bad policy, as the family of poor beheaded Nick Berg can attest.

Administration apologists will also tell you that ‘we’ are better than ‘them.’ Our humanity, our enlightened sense of what it means to be human (the inalienable rights of freedom, justice and equality) – that’s what makes ‘us’ better than those who would take innocent lives indiscriminately and celebrate death. As Paul Krugman wrote in a NY Times column on Tuesday, May 11, "If America's record is better than that of most countries - and it is - it's because of our system: our tradition of openness, and checks and balances." The ultra-secretive Bush administration has shown nothing but disdain for that openness, for those checks and balances, that ensure the rule of law. Adherence to codes of behavior is what keep us fallible humans in line.

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The Bush administration has grabbed power at every turn and has wielded that power with wild abandon and no sense of consequence. In so doing ‘we’ have become ‘them.’ We are now guilty of that which we accuse others.

When our government set up conditions conducive to institutionalized torture we lost the moral high ground. What were those electrodes still doing in “Abuse” Ghraib all these months after “Mission Accomplished,” anyway?

We are good people being lead astray by a group who does not represent We The People. The Bush administration is a collection of obscenely wealthy, insulated, misguided, divorced-from-reality fanatical ideologues who think they are doing the Lord's work. Isn’t that a scary thought?

Did I mention that torture is bad. Torture is wrong. Torture is evil. Torture is inhumane. Torture is unconscionable. Evil tyrant Saddam Hussein was guilty of torture and that’s why we had to take him out, remember? Hammer home the indefensible double-standard.

To quote the Jeevas, a band which recorded my favorite b-side of 2003, "How much do you suck to lose a popularity contest with Saddam Hussein?”

Bushtians will take the lead of Republican senators like James Inhofe of Oklahoma. Inhofe claims to be "more outraged by the outrage" than by the mistreatment of the prisoners. Inhofe also falsely claims that all of the prisoners are “murderers, terrorists, and insurgents.” Inhofe is apparently not troubled by facts.

They'll say we should be supporting the Administration (including Rumsfeld) in a time of war.

Counter that with a quote from the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt: "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

They'll say things like, "Everyone is frustrated and dissapointed. No one thinks war is easy, simple, or clean. If they do then they're idiots." The answer to that one is a home run: Rumsfeld SOLD us this war as something that would be quick, easy, clean, inexpensive, and imperative because Saddam and his WMDs were an immediate threat to our country.

Perhaps We The People are idiots for buying it, but the lying criminals who sold us these falsehoods need to be held accountable for their mistakes. We The People must right the wrongs done in our name.

"Our country is going through difficult times," they'll say, and they are right, which begs the question...why are we in difficult times that only seem to be getting worse? One reason has become painfully obvious: misleadership. Not only has the Bush administration led us in the wrong direction, it has lied up and down to get us there.

The administration's anti-terror strategy of attacking defenseless Iraq has made matters worse by creating more terrorists and giving previously unaligned militant groups common cause. The invasion has also isolated us from the world community. The Bush “with us or against us” challenge now means that those who are “with us” think that torture is A-OK. As I may have mentioned, torture is not acceptable.

When all else fails and the administration apologists parrot Tom Delay’s “some people are overreacting” line, ask them what the proper reaction should be to learning that representatives of We The People forced prisoners to sodomize themselves with broomsticks. Understand that the administration apologists may be Rush Limbaugh listeners. For over a week now Rush has likened the abuse to college hazing, an example of soldiers “blowing off steam” and “having a good time.” If this argument is raised it may be useful to introduce the fact that some of the abuse cases under investigation resulted in death.

If administration apologists insist that "the prisoners deserved it,"or that the responsibility for the abuse lies with a few bad soldiers, ask them why it is that on the President's direct authority, and not based on any laws or precedent, "illegal combatants" are being held off-shore at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. Help them connect the dots: unsupervised, offshore detention centers unencumbered by pesky things like rules were created to immunize soldiers from both U.S. and international laws governing the treatment of human beings.

The President’s “wanted: dead or alive” bravado and boasts that assassinated adversaries won’t be giving us any more trouble arrogantly dismissed any notion of lawful justice. Off-shore detention centers accountable to no laws and treaties were established by self-declared Presidential authority, and by doing so Bush set an "anything goes" tone for all under his command. This established an atmosphere where abusing prisoners became standard operating procedure. The grunts on the ground had no problem photographing and videotaping themselves committing these crimes because they knew that their actions were condoned by their superiors.

Bush/ Cheney/ Rumsfeld/ Ashcroft (the four horsemen of the apocalypse) lied us into an unnecessary, illegal war on false pretenses. Now Bush tells us that Rumsfeld is doing a ‘superb job’ when war crimes (torture, murder) are occurring on his watch. Sounding more like John Madden than a world leader, Dick Cheney called Rumsfeld the best Secretary of Defense in history. If Dubyah and Dick really mean what they say, if they really support the job Rumsfeld has done, then they too must be held fully accountable these crimes.

Just because the administration believes that it is above the law does not mean it is above the law. We must pressure Congress to hold these misguided ideologues accountable for what they have done. The administration suggests that We The People should unquestioningly accept it’s actions. That is democracy inverted – it is the government that needs to acceed to the wishes of the governed.

Administration apologists will tell you that there's no better place to live, that "the US is a beacon of light in a dark and twisted world." They are correct, but the smirking, arrogant, True Believer Bushists do nothing but darken said beacon of light.

What meaning do the ideals of freedom and justice hold when our leadership continually lies to us and to the world? It is Orwellian to suggest that the “perception management” campaign – a fancy term for lying – unleashed by the Bush administration somehow serves to strengthen our democracy. For the Bushists, our freedom is the right to be lied to; justice is to be meted out by Presidential fiat, not an established, agreed upon legal system. These things are not supposed to happen in a democracy.

Rumsfeld told us that Saddam was an immediate threat that had to be taken out immediately: WRONG. Rumsfeld told us our forces would be welcomed as liberators: WRONG. Rumsfeld told us that this whole adventure would be fast, easy, cheap, and in fact quickly begin to pay for itself with oil revenues: WRONG. Rumsfeld dismissed Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki for his prescient pre-war assessment that occupying and pacify post-invasion Iraq would require 200,000 troops.

Rumsfeld was WRONG again. Now we find out that Rumsfeld has known for months about allegations of the very abuse of Iraqis that we set out to eradicate. Saddam was a bastard who tortured and killed his people, that's why we had to "liberate" the Iraqi people, right? Yet Rumsfeld failed to (a) tell the President, (b) do anything about it. This is the guy we want in charge of the deadliest military force the world has ever known? A guy who is consistently horribly wrong?

People who are supporting Rumsfeld right now are people who strongly supported the attack of Iraq. To admit that Rumsfeld must go would be to admit that he was wrong about Iraq, which in turn would mean admitting that they were wrong about Iraq. Some people can't admit that they might have been wrong, and the Bush administration (theme song: Chicago’s “It’s Hard For Me To Say I’m Sorry”) support that character flaw by itself refusing to admit to mistakes. It takes courage to admit to one's mistakes, it shows cowardice to hide from them.

Keep that in mind when engaging administration apologists in conversation -- don't try to show them that they're wrong as individuals. They will tune you out. Try instead to show them that there is a disconnect between what the administration says and what it does. And what is does is dead wrong. Allowing them just that little distance might be what they need to start seeing the Administration for what it is: a cabal of misguided, radical ideologues blinded by their own faith, whose actions and interests are opposed to the best interests of the vast majority of humanity.

The mission is clear: we must remove the Bushes. For good. To do so we need to win the hearts and minds of their supporters. Now go get ‘em.