‘Torture Betrays Us’

May 17, 2007

Just two days after several Republican presidential hopefuls seemed almost desperate to brag about their appreciation for torture — as Slate’s John Dickerson put it, “Some candidates appeared ready to do the torturing themselves” — an important WaPo op-ed tries to set the record straight.

Charles C. Krulak, commandant of the Marine Corps from 1995 to 1999, and Joseph P. Hoar, commander in chief of U.S. Central Command from 1991 to 1994, explained how fear can drive Americans to tolerate the intolerable — whether that be internment during World War II, McCarthyism, or more recently, torture.

We have served in combat; we understand the reality of fear and the havoc it can wreak if left unchecked or fostered. Fear breeds panic, and it can lead people and nations to act in ways inconsistent with their character.

The American people are understandably fearful about another attack like the one we sustained on Sept. 11, 2001. But it is the duty of the commander in chief to lead the country away from the grip of fear, not into its grasp. Regrettably, at Tuesday night’s presidential debate in South Carolina, several Republican candidates revealed a stunning failure to understand this most basic obligation. […]

These assertions that “torture works” may reassure a fearful public, but it is a false security. We don’t know what’s been gained through this fear-driven program. But we do know the consequences…. Donald Rumsfeld once wondered aloud whether we were creating more terrorists than we were killing. In counterinsurgency doctrine, that is precisely the right question.

Victory in this kind of war comes when the enemy loses legitimacy in the society from which it seeks recruits and thus loses its “recuperative power.”

The torture methods that Tenet defends have nurtured the recuperative power of the enemy. This war will be won or lost not on the battlefield but in the minds of potential supporters who have not yet thrown in their lot with the enemy. If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable in situations of grave or imminent danger, we drive those undecideds into the arms of the enemy. This way lies defeat, and we are well down the road to it.

Josh Marshall adds, “The legacy of this imagination is frightening to behold, its philosophy of force and violence, its lawlessness.”

There are 613 days left in Bush’s presidency. That several of his would-be GOP successors share his twisted values is depressing. That Republican audiences applaud these values is beyond painful.

Is it not fitting that in these days where black is white and up is down, those who proclaim to be the strongest and bravest are the most consumed by fear — and even fearful of those who refuse to succumb. A terrorist does not lurk behind every tree, and even if that was the case, being afraid would not be a productive response.

  • Beyond painful, yes. But keep in mind that FOX News probably packed the hall with the most rabid of hard-core audience members who could be counted on to eat up that kind of garbage, so it was hardly a representative sample of the general population.

    At least I really hope so. Otherwise we are truly in deep doo-doo.

  • I’d love to hear Ralph Nader say in 2008 that there’s no difference between the parties.

  • I’d love to hear Ralph Nader say in 2008 that there’s no difference between the parties.

    $5 says he would still say that. He’s astonishingly myopic when it comes to that issue.

  • More on topic, I truly hope that the Dem nominee quotes Krulak and Hoar when confronting the GOP nominee in debates and in commercials. Constant repetition and media saturation may be enough to break the GOPs undeserved grip on the “party of security” position in the electorate’s mind. One can only hope.

  • And that’s just the few who would ADMIT to sharing those values!

    I mean, holy bejebus Batman…that’s a frightening statement in and of itself. The APPLAUSE of the audience just confirmed my worse suspicions.

    U-turn required, and fast. Time is running short…. help!

  • There’s a saying, that cowards make the best torturers.

    You would think, therefore, that anyone who wanted to avoid being identified as a coward might take steps to prevent their enthusiasm for torture from becoming well-known.

    But that’s not how today’s GOP works – they brag about their willingness to torture, and their supporters, who engaged in a mutual-admiration pact when it came to Bush telling them he didn’t aspire to be any smarter than they were, have made it known that they’re no braver than any of the candidates, and they don’t *want* to be.

    Judge not, lest ye be judged, apparently – though they’ll judge the ass off of anyone who *isn’t* one of *them*.

  • Same problem different day…

    People with limited intellect think torture works because a) It always works on TV and b) Their authoritarian leadership says it works.

    Unfortunately it’s just about impossible to get them to think, so they’re stuck.

    What we need is to remove the government authorities who think this insanity works.

  • Here’s the inherent weakness of torture: If I am on one side of a conflict, and I discover that my opponent is applying methods of torture against my friend, who was captured, then I will have an extremely good reason to not let my opponent take me alive—and to take as many of him with me when I die. It is a tactic that the ReThuglican cannot comprehend—because such comprehension requires intellect.

    And intellect, it has been said, is the bane of the dictator….

  • Victory in this kind of war comes when the enemy loses legitimacy in the society from which it seeks recruits and thus loses its “recuperative power.”

    — Krulak & Hoare

    I distinctly remember Wesley Clark saying, immediately after 9/11, that al queda not only needed to be attacked, but needed to be “discredited.” Bush’s failure to do that costs us dearly.

  • If torture becomes legitimate, why not then murder? Murder is from the same bag of tools. Once we’ve discarded our humanity for a perceived utilitarian necessity, we’ve become just another bloody thug-ocracy.
    We are starting down a road where Republicans and Democrats settle their domestic differences Iraqi style.

  • I was deeply pained by the idiocy of the GOP candidates and their lynch mob audience in response to the idea of torture. I believe the moderators were just as much to blame for rabble rousing. I am glad to see by the remarks of these Generals in the Op-ed that they show the necessary intelligence to avoid acting like General George Custer- George Bush yahoo cowboys who would charge right into an ambush getting everyone killed by over-reacting if you call them chicken. It takes deliberation and tact and serious thinking to out maneuver a competent enemy and these pretenders to the throne lacked all of these qualities and were easily manipulated(by the moderators and the audience). The jump to torture gives permission to the enemy to do the same. We lose the high ground morally and we get dubious results at best. The cruelest torture of all was the Inquisition and they did it in the name of God. Have we learned nothing. The idiot who called for “Jack Bauer” would also get the people he tortured on TV. They all died without saying a word. No one who advances torture as a national policy is smart enough to be president.

  • But it is the duty of the commander in chief to lead the country away from the grip of fear, not into its grasp.

    This, to me, is the crux of Bush’s delusional thinking when he seeks to compare himself to successful leaders in past times of crisis. He has never understood that he should have encouraged the public to resist the fear that would enable the country to cast aside cherished principles in the pursuit of an illusion of total security. Instead, he invoked fear over and over to consolidate his power and justify his inability to govern from a place other than his own fearfulness. He embraced the fear, cultivated it, and then wielded it. He demonstrated (and continues to demonstrate) neither the courage nor the imagination to do anything else. As someone (sorry I do not recall who) once said: “Bush has nothing to offer except fear itself.” Bush is a “Fear-ist” posing as a warrior against Terrorists.

  • Chris’ comment resonates with me. Francis Scott Key’s last stanza of the “Star Spangled Banner” credits this nation as being the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” It’s amazing how willingly this nation has acceeded to becoming neither.

    The British during the years of “The Troubles” understood that bombings would happen and that their nation would have to take a punch in order to overcome the IRA bombings. This nation would be much better off if we understood that we will have to take our knocks from time to time and move on. But instead living in perpetual fear is the current right wing mode we’re in.

  • They THINK we want to HEAR this crap. They think most of us are morons.

    1) Torture has blowback. Obviously, you can create more enemies, you lose moral “high ground”, you endanger your own troops captured, you get false information, you lose your soul.

    2) The torturer. No one talks about this. Who should/would have a job like this? Either a moral and great person, in which case they will be psychotic after short time because a moral person wouldn’t be able to live with this, OR someone that likes the job, you know…a sadist. He might not be that good at it because even getting the right info might want to just continue, OR some one “normal” but after time spent torturing…goes sadistic.

    3) How many folks would like to live next door to a professional torturer? Want your kids hanging with his kids at his house? You don’t want to borrow his lawnmower and then lose it, do you? Wonder if any of these folks turn serial killer? What would keep them from it?

    4) bad info. Subjects tell them what they want to hear.

  • By the way, I wasn’t totally clear on another aspect of it…

    for one, you shouldn’t be able to order a soldier to torture someone. That pretty much is obvious. SO, that would make that duty a “volunteer” job. Who would volunteer to be a torturer?

    That is the preface to my earlier comment on the three types you could expect: 1) moral person, which they will not be able to do this kind of thing without losing their soul, no matter how much they believe they are “saving lives” 2) sadist. The perfect fit for the job, but he might get too into delivering pain, ignoring when the subject cracks just for fun and 3) average person…either will break themselves or turn sadist.

    AND WE KNOW that innocent people have been tortured. That is the main reason not to…because as a society you’d be hard pressed to come up with a more grusome situation where say, you, innocent, are getting tortured to give up information you don’t have. Innocent people, generally tortured to find out specific information they don’t posess.

  • Agree that the responses of all candidates except McCain on torture were disgraceful.

    Remember that, in another context, Mitt Romney said that he “can’t wait to get my hands on Washington” Seems as though he can’t wait to get his hands on a prisoner to torture.

    Homer http://www.altara.blogspot.com

  • Defending the Indefensible

    While the loss of 2,973 Americans is tragic and unjustified under any conditions, can we now justify holding 6.6 billion people hostage as a result? We have declared war not only on the terrorists but on the whole world as well. When we start using the language of “either you are with us or against us” we force the world and ourselves to either accept everything we do or “embolden the terrorists”. Life despite what some in this administration would like us to believe is never that black and white. By defining the struggle in those terms we declare war on ourselves and our democracy. No one said having a democracy would be easy, no one said defending a democracy would be easy either. Living in a democracy we put our beliefs to the test every day. Those beliefs include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We believe that these are unalienable rights granted by a beneficent Creator.

    I do not believe that the way you defeat evil is with evil. I do not believe that the way you save a democracy is with a dictatorship. We have to kill the democracy to save it? I am not following that logic. As a democracy we have to maintain the high ground even when that high ground is difficult. I submit that it is when democracy is the toughest to defend, is when it must be defended the more. There are those who want to take shortcuts and easy outs to defeat this invisible enemy, but there are none. It is frustrating fighting a war without borders or an enemy with no state, but we will not defeat this enemy by might. We can only win this war by our ideals and our leadership, not by torture and injustice. This administration has lost the high ground in this war. By condoning torture and turning this into a war of cultures they have lowered our standing not just with our enemies, but with our allies as well. In the long run how we choose to defend our democracy will determine if we save our democracy. You will never know love, until the unlovable shows up. Anyone can love the cute kitten, but it is the wolf that truly tests our doctrine of love. Some people believe that democracy cannot survive terrorism; I believe that terrorism cannot survive a true democracy. One thing that the fall of communism should have taught us is that everyone wants to live in freedom. That freedom is defined in different ways by different people, but isn’t that what freedom is. We cannot expect everyone’s freedom to look like ours nor compel them to make it so. All that we can do is to promote an atmosphere where freedom in any form can flourish. That process though must begin at home with us, we must say no to those who want to lead us astray from democracy in the name of war. Torture can never be condoned under any circumstances in a democracy. By resorting to torture we are demonstrating to our enemies and our friends that democracy does not work or that our belief in it is not real. They can then tell their potential converts, “See we told you it was not genuine or that it will not work.” Our country has been the greatest experiment in human history. Can people from so many different backgrounds come together for a common cause and live in peace?

    There is a principle in our system of justice that states it is better to let nine guilty men go free, than to punish one innocent man. We do not always live up to that ideal, but it is that goal that separates us from those who choose to attack us. The system of secret prisons, torture, and state sponsored kidnappings must end. Our continued use of places like Guantanamo and imprisonment without any redress undermines our democracy not only in the world, but at home as well. Our domestic policies that place everyone under the umbrella of suspicion are not the answer to terrorism. I say that it is these policies, not the questioning of them, which in fact are emboldening the terrorist. The more they can change our democracy into a fascist system the more they win. We must stop defending the indefensible.

    The Disputed Truth

  • At the next debate, they’ll have a terror suspect out on stage and do the torturing themselves. Such much for the party of Lincoln..

    • Comments are closed.