This Week in Tyranny
Philippe Sands’ Vanity Fair article has provided lots of detail on how we became a state sponsor of torture. The decision making process at the top comes across as appallingly mundane, which seems consistent with other implementations of institutionalized evil. The most vivid anecdotes are from farther down the chain of command, such as the following from Lieutenant Colonel Diane Beaver:
The first year of Fox TV’s dramatic series 24 came to a conclusion in spring 2002, and the second year of the series began that fall. An inescapable message of the program is that torture works. “We saw it on cable,” Beaver recalled. “People had already seen the first series. It was hugely popular.” Jack Bauer had many friends at Guantánamo, Beaver added. “He gave people lots of ideas.” The brainstorming meetings inspired animated discussion. “Who has the glassy eyes?,” Beaver asked herself as she surveyed the men around the room, 30 or more of them. She was invariably the only woman present—as she saw it, keeping control of the boys. The younger men would get particularly agitated, excited even. “You could almost see their dicks getting hard as they got new ideas,” Beaver recalled, a wan smile flickering on her face. “And I said to myself, You know what? I don’t have a dick to get hard—I can stay detached.”
Which makes this a good time to remind ourselves that the right wing scoffed at the idea of a TV show inspiring torture. Another of the handmaidens. It also is a good opportunity to revisit CIA director Michael Hayden’s contention that “torture” is a legal term and using it clouds the debate. No - the play, pause and explain strategy clouds the debate. There is no ambiguity except that which you try to bring to the subject. And please don’t forget the Pentagon may try to time the torture tribunals for political benefit. Just in case you thought it was all about protecting us.
Michael Chertoff checked in from his home planet to let us know fingerprints aren’t personal data because we leave them around everywhere. I believe we need a Manhattan Project type program to develop sufficiently powerful levels of sarcasm to properly characterize the clowns that are in charge these days.
Finally, Marie Gottschalk quotes Winston Churchill: “The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country.” Is it possible our continuing use of the death penalty and “law and order three strikes and lock them up forever” attitude are indicative of a kind of collective callousness and vengeance-mindedness that lets us also quietly accept a systematic torture regime?
Dan
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Reader Comments (1)
That's funny, at the airport they insisted I had to give them my fingerprints from my very own fingers, just like they couldn't get them anywhere else but from me. Should I have told them to go check on the plane, because I'm sure I left a bunch of them there?