The Obama Project@WindonWater.net

The Bigger Picture | By Andrew Sullivan.

I want to take a moment to thank God for the work that Andrew Sullivan has done on this issue.  Andrew Sullivan has a relentlessness that, misapplied, is awful to watch (the “Trip is not Sarah Palin’s baby” thing is an example).  But as is so often the case, what you dislike about a person is often the thing you most admire.  With determination, persistence, and focus – Sullivan stayed on top of this torture issue – and the fruits, such as they are, are now here to see.

I have to admit that I actively avoided the issue for months.  Having become a bit of a fan of The Atlantic, I nevertheless frequently skimmed over or altogether skipped reading Sullivan’s torture posts.  I have to admit – it is a case of cynicism that caused that.  As an African-American, well aware of US history of slavery, brutality, and callous disregard for African-American lives, it wasn’t hard for me to fathom that the United States probably did torture people, and that this was probably nothing new, and really nothing I was going to get worked up about.  Yeah, it’s bad.. but so are a lot of things…. I admit to having a hope that with President Obama, a lot of the bad things would get better, maybe not all at once, but still…  I admit to being perfectly ok with Obama hiding the ugly stuff under the rug – I assumed it was there, had always been hidden, and saw no reason why the nation’s first black president had to take on the job of putting it out in the public – so long as he got the job done of ending some of the worst of it.

As I said – it’s a cynical viewpoint – one that assumes the worst of the United States, while at the same time, hoping for the best, and believing, despite the cynicism, that better is possible.

Now that the memos have been released, I find that my cynicism, so deeply embedded, nevertheless, at no point accounted for anything so awful.  I honestly don’t know what I thought – I’m just taking stock of it all now.  I never imagined there could be such a thing as naive cynicism – but I have to admit that my cynicism was naive.  I was indifferent to the torture issue because I cynically assumed it was par for the course – I naively never believed it was anything this bad.
I want to echo Andrew’s sentiment:

If you want to know how democracies die, read these memos. Read how gifted professionals in the CIA were able to convince experienced doctors that what they were doing was ethical and legal. Read how American psychologists were able to find justifications for the imposition of psychological torture, and were able to analyze its effects without ever stopping and asking: what on earth are we doing?

Read how no one is even close to debating “ticking time bomb” scenarios as they strap people to boards and drown them until they break. Then read how they adjusted the waterboarding, for fear it was too much, for fear that they were actually in danger of suffocating their captives, and then read how they found self-described loopholes in the law to tell themselves that what the US had once prosecuted as torture could not possibly be torture because we’re doing it, and we’re different from the Viet Cong. We’re doing torture right and for the right reasons and with the right motive. Many of the people who did this are mild, kind, courteous, family men and women, who somehow were able to defend slamming human beings against walls in the daytime while watching the Charlie Rose show over a glass of wine at night. We’ve seen this syndrome before, in other places and at other times. Yes: it can happen here. And imagine how this already functioning torture machine would have operated in the wake of another attack under a president Romney or Giuliani.

That speaks volumes.  I guess, cynicism and all, I never believed the US could do anything this bone-chillingly awful.  But we have done it, and we have to account for it.  I’m deeply grateful that we have begun the process.
QT

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