A recently released report from the Inspector General of the CIA reveals what many have already known. We do not know whether life imitates are or the reverse. We do know that film depictions of a rogue agency with operatives who feel respect no constraints of law, morality or human rights are pretty accurate images of the type of agency run under the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld regime. It may well be that such practices went on at some level in prior administrations, but the heinous practices described in the report and in prior leaks to the media appear to have become systemic during the George W. Bush Administration. The level of abuse is directly related to the level of permissiveness and tolerance shown at the top.
Practices that have been detailed at Abu Ghraib, at GITMO and other detention facilities cannot be excused as necessary or effective. They simply defy all principles of human rights and violate conventions against torture and cruel and inhuman treatment. Threatening a detainee with execution by putting a gun to his head, water boarding, putting a power drill to his head or other body parts has no place in a civilized society. It is not only unethical and morally corrupt, it is expressly illegal. Urinating on the holy book of a prisoner, or using psychological tactics that are intended not to extract information, but primarily to humiliate and degrade the prisoner or mock his religious and cultural beliefs is morally unjustified.
Right wing devotees who fall into the easy hateful and racist inspired rhetoric argue that “suspected” terrorists or terrorist supporters, in their view, are subhuman and deserve no rights. This way of reasoning, if it can be called such, is fallacious and short-sighted. The adherence to fundamental standards of humanity and the rule of law is primarily an internal value. When a murderer enters a health club and guns down several customers in an exercise class, such action is both illegal and immoral. But the societal response is not to torture and kill the perpetrator without due process. The internal values of the society are upheld and strengthened when a process involving the rule of law and incorporating human rights and civility standards is applied. To argue that the response should drop to the level of the actions of the perpetrator, or lower, only degrades and undermines the society.
President Obama is wrong in his position that we need to look forward instead of prosecuting the perpetrators of these horrible activities in the name of, and with the sanction of, the US government and its people. It will not suffice to try to sweep these activities under the rug. The people of the US are entitled to know the types of activities that have been carried out in their name and the legal and moral standards that govern such officially sanctioned conduct. To fail to expose these behaviors, such as assassination squads, secret prisons, extraordinary rendition for the specific purpose of promoting torture and the official use of unregulated mercenaries like Blackwater, is to advise the perpetrators that their conduct is acceptable and can be renewed at the first wink and nod from higher ups in the Administration.
This is not about one President or Administration trashing a predecessor. It is a concern that goes far beyond political retribution. The US citizens and the world need to know that certain minimum standards of conduct are valued and upheld, regardless of the political stripe of the current Presidential Administration. At present, and until Obama take more assertive steps to change the message and image, the standards to which the US government holds its agents is one that ignores the Geneva Conventions, condones and supports torture and promotes racial and ethnic profiling and bigotry. President Obama needs to make a decision whether he accepts that message and image on behalf of the country. If he does not, then he needs to take more aggressive action to hold accountable those who are responsible for approving and carrying out those practices, including George W. Bush if that is where the evidence leads.
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