Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
If the US Does It, It's Not Torture
The NYT's Definition of Blinding American Exceptionalism
There's been a major editorial breach at The New York Times today, in this obituary of an American fighter pilot who was captured by the Chinese:
Harold E. Fischer Jr., an American Flier Tortured in a Chinese Prison, Dies at 83. . . .
From April 1953 through May 1955, Colonel Fischer - then an Air Force captain - was held at a prison outside Mukden, Manchuria. For most of that time, he was kept in a dark, damp cell with no bed and no opening except a slot in the door through which a bowl of food could be pushed. Much of the time he was handcuffed. Hour after hour, a high-frequency whistle pierced the air.
After a short mock trial in Beijing on May 24, 1955, Captain Fischer and the other pilots - Lt. Col. Edwin L. Heller, First Lt. Lyle W. Cameron and First Lt. Roland W. Parks - were found guilty of violating Chinese territory by flying across the border while on missions over North Korea. Under duress, Captain Fischer had falsely confessed to participating in germ warfare.
So that's torture now? To use the prevailing American mindset: a room that doesn't meet the standards of a Hilton and some whistling in the background is torture? My neighbor whistles all the time; does that mean he's torturing me? It's not as though Fischer had his eyes poked out by hot irons or was placed in a coffin-like box with bugs or was handcuffed to the ceiling.
Also, using the editorial standards of America's journalistic institutions -- as explained recently by the NYT Public Editor -- shouldn't this be called "torture" rather than torture -- or "harsh tactics some critics decry as torture"? Why are the much less brutal methods used by the Chinese on Fischer called torture by the NYT, whereas much harsher methods used by Americans do not merit that term? Here we find what is clearly the single most predominant fact shaping our political and media discourse: everything is different, and better, when we do it. In fact, it is that exact mentality that was and continues to be the primary justification for our torture regime and so much else that we do.
Along those same lines, I learned from reading The New York Times this week (via The New Yorker's Amy Davidson) that Iraq is suffering a very serious problem. Tragically, that country is struggling with what the Times calls a "culture of impunity." What this means is that politically connected Iraqis who clearly broke the law are nonetheless not being prosecuted because of their political influence! Even worse, protests the NYT, there have been "cases dismissed in the past few years as a result of a government amnesty and a law dating to 1971 that allows ministers to grant immunity to subordinates accused of corruption." And the best part? This: "The United States is pressing the Iraqi government to repeal that law."
Thankfully, we're teaching the Iraqis what it means to be a "nation of laws." We Americans know how terrible it is to have a system where the politically powerful are permitted to break the law and not be held accountable. A country which does things like that can fall into such a state of moral depravity that they would actually allow people to do things like this and get away with it. Who could imagine living in a place like that?
* * * * *
One related point: I'm truly amazed to watch the eruption of "controversy" today over the fact that Nancy Pelosi was briefed in 2002 on various aspects of the CIA's interrogation program, as though (a) this is some sort of new revelation and (b) it has any bearing on whether there should be investigations and prosecutions into Bush crimes. As many of us have long pointed out, the extent to which Democratic leaders in Congress were complicit in Bush lawbreaking -- including torture -- is a major issue that needs resolution, and is almost certainly a key reason why there have been no investigations thus far. There are real disputes still about what these Democrats were and were not told -- how complete the briefings were, the extent to which they obfuscated rather than illuminated what the CIA was doing -- though they were obviously told enough to have warranted further action on their part, to say the least.
But what's the point of all of this? Secretly telling Nancy Pelosi that you're committing crimes doesn't mean that you have the right to do so. And the profound failures of the other institutions that are supposed to check executive lawbreaking during the Bush era -- principally Congress and the "opposition party" -- is a vital issue that demands serious examination. This dispute over what Pelosi (and Jay Rockefeller and others) knew highlights, rather than negates, the need for a meaningful investigation into what took place.
UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan has related thoughts about this obituary.
- Posted in
22 Comments so far
Show Allhttp://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/06/us-interrogators-killed-dozens-human-rights-researcher-and-rights-group-say/
I hope the next super power treats us better than we are treating them. Because we are on our way out the door.
E a r t h _ b r e a k i n g _ N E W S :
NYT acknowledges its being one of the major successful vehicles for heinous CIA PSYOPS and propaganda imposed upon the gullible America people (¿ is that redundant ?), but also reports that the profits from this illegal traitorous behavior is all that is keeping their newspaper solvent.
¿ Should America allow such felonious trickery to continue,
just to maintain their access to the Sunday funnies,
or
should heads roll as the ground shakes
and criminals be imprisoned ?
Namaste
Where does NYT acknowledge this? Sounds like an interesting document.
Oregoncharles
We need to get organized. But how, with so many progressives - all grown up and serious now - protecting the very people who sold us into paucity and corporate slavery - all for empire?
"They bite the hand that feeds them and lick the boot that kicks them."
80% of people will defer to whomever they consider the "authority." (see Milgram authority studies) Until this changes, the empire will easily have its way with us. Obama will be either re-packaged or another product will take his place ... and the brutal agenda will go on.
We've been trying to "take over the Dem party" for decades and look where it's gotten us! Close to fascism. We've been brainwashed into thinking that the savvy voter has to be sly, as if the empire isn't miles ahead of us!
The only way to stop this is to stop this. Support only those who have a proven track record of serving the needs of the people, regardless of the scary alternative. It may take an election or two but as journalist Lawrence O'Donnell said: as long as we keep voting for them nothing will ever change.
"We've been trying to "take over the Dem party" for decades and look where it's gotten us!"
"They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom for trying to change the system from within..." - Leonard Cohen
What group(s) might be able to organize state and local ballot measures for local election reforms?
Local, I say, because we won't get Congress to vote against lobbies until they can do so without losing their positions. If we can fix campaign funds and guarantee equal media time to local candidates, that may reduce reliance on bribes to the point that representatives can support popular issues and win.
Excellent points in this article. I have noticed the same mindset in the sheeple in my family I speak with about torture, for instance. They get shrill and red-faced when they talk about Saddam's "rape-rooms," and all the innocent Iraqis he killed (over 200,000!) while alive. But when I ask about all the prisoners that US soldiers have raped with broom handles and fluorescent lightbulbs, or the 1 million+ Iraqi women and children we have killed (sorry, I mean "collateral damage"), they say that it was only a few bad apples who did it, and that that 1 million figure is ridiculous. When I point to the prestigious organizations and universities that conducted the surveys to come up with the figure and the evidence they have, again: "well, they are wrong." And as for all the torture the US does, my own Christian mother says "they deserve it."
Indeed, who would Jesus torture? The United States of Hypocrisy. God, I just love this country!
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
Sinclair Lewis, "It Cant Happen Here", 1935
Yep, " they deserve it " for
being the neoCONer's patsy of false-flag _ 9 _ ! _ ! _ assaults on America,
to derail multitudinous financial fraud investigations of trillion$ stolen,
to twist American attention away from logical and critical thinking,
to instill devious fear mongering and nationalistic hate of Muslims, and
to force infantilism and drive appeal of authoritative father figures
Namaste
Ah, a variation of the Nixon doctrine.
Thanks Glenn Greenwald, it is amazing what Ameri(k)a has become.
Keep writing sir. Again I thank you.
I love this flip on the torture issue; when the US does it, it's ok. The Repub's I know (one or two, I admit it) do get quite red-in-the-face with this topic of discussion...."But, but, we did it to save lives! 'They' do it because they are EVIL!"
The other day I ask one of these types whether it was ok for our local cops to torture suspects to get 'critical' information. (Suspects mind you, not those already tried and convicted) The response was whole-heartedly negative. "That's just against the law."
So, in the mindset of the Bush conservative, it's not only that if the US does it that it's legal and right. It is only legitimate if it's done offshore.
Next time I'll ask how my Repub friends teach this concept to their kids.
Thanks Glenn, keep at it.
We need to give our legislators the same advise Bob Newhart gives this patient:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpHeSKu0_LU
This is why newspapers are going bankrupt.
Before the Internet, millions of people did not realize how much they sucked.
Yes. But we also found few alternatives. After the morning paper, the evening news, and the odd magazine of punditry (perfidy, if you prefer), everything else involved time few people had.
But the near total betrayal of readership around the Bush invasions made a big difference. I have taken to informally polling classes about media use for news. My students almost completely stopped reading newspapers and magazines around 2004. The media-savvy and the readers went to the Web, whereas the others had gotten any news they had from TV anyway.
I worry that the papers are going down, but I find it hard not to be gleeful, too, since they lie so consistently and so badly.
For those who care to study the Nuremberg war crimes trials of 1946, you will find out that each time a prosecutor from the US, UK or France accused a Germam defendant of committing war crimes, the German Defendant simply pointed in the direction of the prosecutors from the USSR and said "So did they". They weren't war crimes unless the Axis soldiers and politicians did them. THe double standard continues today.
This is not quite accurate.
Whether torture is called torture not a function of whether the United States does it.
It is a function of whether the Democrats or the Republicans did it.
If a hypothetical Democratic Administration had been caught waterboarding, it would have been called torture from the outset. There would be no phony debate about whether torture is torture, and the prosecutions would have started immediately.
Truer words have never been spoken .
Perhaps, but what appears more certain is that the Dems are sufficiently implicated that most of them do not want to prosecute it.
Here's a blast from the past regarding U.S. attitude to torture or treating with cruelty and dishonour enemy prisoners. Nowadays he would probably be accused of being 'unAmerican' or hopelessly limp by one of the many 'experts' on what it means to be an American - the armchair generals from O' Reilly to Dershowitz. For those people who do not find such concepts as honour, humanity, dignity and justice outdated however I think they still ring true.
"Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause... for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country."
- George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775
We don't even have consult the "outdated" and "quaint" Geneva Convention to understand that the current regime are behaving in a sub-human way and by association diminishing all our humanity regardless of who we vote for or our private opinions. It is eerily like the Spanish Inquisition or as if some kind of mass hypnotism were in effect where we can look at the ugliest of acts and convince ourselves of their inherent good. Is this not the absolute essence of doublethink?
Orwell: Doublethink is, "the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies".
When I saw the conquerors standing there before the cameras laughing and maligning the names of the sons of Sadam after they had them killed I knew we were in a lot of trouble with our leadership in the hands of a group from Hades .