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Planet Waves | May 11,
2005
My mother was a fanatic about lying. "Are you telling me the truth?" she'd ask, head cocked, giving me that squinty-eyed Mother assessment [you know, the one that puts your heart in your mouth and turns your knees to water?] "I want the truth," she'd demand ... and then the coup de grâce, "...and Don't Leave Anything Out!" Everybody has an agenda, everybody spins their story, everybody has a "face" they wish to present. "Don't Leave Anything Out" pretty much exposes the little details that vaporize any intent to obscure the truth. [Mom was a first class interrogator.] So, talking politics, today lets look at outsourcing -- and in the case of "extraordinary rendition," outsourcing torture. As regards an adequate explanation of this practice, our government has "left a lot out." That's because, they argue, it's a "secret." It is, at minimum, a secret agreement and a secret from us. They don't want the publics opinion because it would require us all to face one of the great moral dilemmas of our times; can we justify the systematic torture of others to keep this nation "safe?" Under what circumstances do we torture? How much torture is "too much?" Are these our new "American values?" And what happened to the Geneva Convention in our brave new world -- the "agreement of civilized nations?" I'm not going to get into Abu Ghraib or Gitmo -- history will show our thumbprint there, more's the pity. I'm talking about the kidnapping of "people of interest" to the CIA that are whisked away to cooperating nations that will torture them FOR us. Enough of those people have survived their experience and returned, with no charges filed, to blow the whistle. Nobody's telling the whole of it -- "plausable deniability" in our government today means it hasn't officially "happened" until you admit it. Consider this quote from a March New York Times article: In the most explicit statement of the administration's policies, Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, said in written Congressional testimony in January that "the policy of the United States is not to transfer individuals to countries where we believe they likely will be tortured, whether those individuals are being transferred from inside or outside the United States." Mr. Gonzales said then that he was "not aware of anyone in the executive branch authorizing any transfer of a detainee in violation of that policy." Administration officials have said that approach is consistent with American obligations under the Convention Against Torture, the international agreement that bars signatories from engaging in extreme interrogation techniques. But in interviews, a half-dozen current and former government officials said they believed that, in practice, the administration's approach may have involved turning a blind eye to torture. One former senior government official who was assured that no one was being mistreated said that accumulation of abuse accounts was disturbing. "I really wonder what they were doing, and I am no longer sure what I believe," said the official, who was briefed periodically about the rendition program. The Times article covered a history of rendition, including pre-9/11 restrictions placed on the CIA that "required review and approval by interagency groups led by the White House, and ... usually authorized to bring prisoners to the United States or to other countries to face criminal charges." Now we no longer need the charges or the review. Those are the restrictions that were deemed "quaint" and discarded by Alberto Gonzales. Still, how can George Bush say, with a straight face, "Torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture." Well, maybe the CIA is doing it behind his back? But -- hey -- if the President of the United States doesn't know if torture is being done in the name of the American people, who does? Evidently our good friend Egypt does: The New York Times reports on evidence that the United States has regularly sent terror suspects to Uzbekistan, an "authoritarian state" known for beating and asphyxiating prisoners, boiling body parts, using electroshock on genitals and "plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers." U.S. relying on regime notorious for
torture?
Saudi Arabia, Syria and Jordan have also "helped us out." Syria? -- "Axis of Evil" Syria? The very same. In this matter of rendition, I guess we've decided to take their word for it that they won't "hurt anyone." [But not for anything else.] "I'm no longer sure what I believe," said the senior official quoted above. Too much plausable deniability ... too many expose's and whistleblowers ... too many dark reports and evidence. We know there are women and children in Abu Ghraib. We know there are children at Gitmo. But we don't know who's being "dissapeared" in the night to a nation that will torture in our name ... shhhhh! It's a secret. Here's another Mom-ism. "If you lie to me today," she'd
say, "I won't trust you tomorrow. When you've broken trust with
someone, it takes a long long time to
mend."
On this topic of torture,
we've broken trust with the world, who get to see our policies
play out up close and personal -- and the real "secrets" we have
to worry about are those being kept from the American people. Our
reputation as the Land of Liberty will take, as Mom said, a long long time
to mend ... and how long, if ever, will it take to mend the lives
of those who are being tortured right now, this minute, in our
name?
Peace ~
Jude
Rule Change Lets C.I.A. Freely Send Suspects Abroad to Jails http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/politics/06intel.html The story of Canadian citizen Maher Arar, who was "rendered" to Syria for torture but never charged, told in Armando's diary, "Torture: One of Bush's Victims" http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/25/113914/269 The online interview with Jane Mayer, author of The New Yorker's "OUTSOURCING TORTURE: The secret history of America's
"extraordinary rendition" program"
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa_fact6 Eric Francis is on holiday. Jude,
the editor of Political Waves, is standing in for his daily
blog this week. You can subscribe to Political Waves (our
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