US Television Provides Ample Platform for American Torturers, But None to Their Victims

Ever since the torture report was released last week, U.S. television outlets have endlessly featured American torturers and torture proponents. But there was one group that was almost never heard from: the victims of their torture, not even the ones recognized by the U.S. Government itself as innocent, not even the family members of the ones they tortured to death. Whether by design (most likely) or effect, this inexcusable omission radically distorts coverage.

Whenever America is forced to confront its heinous acts, the central strategy is to disappear the victims, render them invisible. That's what robs them of their humanity: it's the process of dehumanization. That, in turns, is what enables American elites first to support atrocities, and then, when forced to reckon with them, tell themselves that - despite some isolated and well-intentioned bad acts - they are still really good, elevated, noble, admirable people. It's hardly surprising, then, that a Washington Post/ABC News poll released this morning found that a large majority of Americans believe torture is justified even when you call it "torture." Not having to think about actual human victims makes it easy to justify any sort of crime.

That's the process by which the reliably repellent Tom Friedman seized on the torture report to celebrate America's unique greatness. "We are a beacon of opportunity and freedom, and also [] these foreigners know in their bones that we do things differently from other big powers in history," the beloved-by-DC columnist wrote after reading about forced rectal feeding and freezing detainees to death. For the opinion-making class, even America's savage torture is proof of its superiority and inherent Goodness: "this act of self-examination is not only what keeps our society as a whole healthy, it's what keeps us a model that others want to emulate, partner with and immigrate to." Friedman, who himself unleashed one of the most (literally) psychotic defenses of the Iraq War, ended his torture discussion by approvingly quoting John McCain on America's enduring moral superiority: "Even in the worst of times, 'we are always Americans, and different, stronger, and better than those who would destroy us.'"

This self-glorifying ritual can be sustained only by completely suppressing America's victims. If you don't hear from the human beings who are tortured, it's easy to pretend nothing truly terrible happened. That's how the War on Terror generally has been "reported" for 13 years and counting: by completely silencing those whose lives are destroyed or ended by U.S. crimes. That's how the illusion gets sustained.

Thus, we sometimes hear about drones (usually to celebrate the Great Kills) but almost never hear from their victims: the surviving family members of innocents whom the U.S. kills or those forced to live under the traumatizing regime of permanently circling death robots. We periodically hear about the vile regimes the U.S. props up for decades, but almost never from the dissidents and activists imprisoned, tortured and killed by those allied tyrants. Most Americans have heard the words "rendition" and "Guantanamo" but could not name a single person victimized by them, let alone recount what happened to them, because they almost never appear on American television.

Read the full article at The Intercept