Torturers and Nitwits

By Crispin Sartwell

 

If I were to refer to Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Alberto Gonzales as torturers and hypocrites, they'd just give me the official smile that expresses the pride they take in their craft. I might hope, however, that were I to call nitwits, they would at least be insulted.

   Their nitwittery consists in this: they are systematically making it impossible for their own policies in the war on terrorism to succeed. 

    On the torture and hypocrisy: No American administration has ever bloviated in rhetoric as sanctimonious about freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. And no administration has ever held them in as much contempt.

    Of late, spearheaded by Cheney, the administration has opposed a measure insisting that the armed forces observe their own field manuals in conducting interrogations. And it has summarily dismissed criticisms by its own prosecutors that the legal tribunals of detainees at Guantanamo are rigged.

    Now an ethicist might tell you that you should not punish, much less abuse, people without some idea, based on actual evidence, of whether they are guilty of a crime. And an ethicist might tell you that decent people practice the values they profess.

    But leave aside decency. What policy is likely to succeed in making the world and ourselves safer and more free?

   All over the world, images of American torture and tales of American abuse of prisoners have become the emblems both for those who preach violent jihad and those who preach democratic opposition to American policies. If American soldiers or officials fall into enemy hands, there would be ample material available to rationalize their torture and execution.

    Indeed, that is certainly on the mind of John McCain, the former prisoner of war who inserted the anti-abuse language into a defense appropriation bill.

    What is saddest about the whole thing is that it seems completely gratuitous: the powers the administration claims are powers it cannot need, or rather that it could only need for purposes other than those it professes.

   The administration insists incessantly that the people it holds at Guantanamo and a variety of other known or secret facilities, as well as the people it renders for torture to foreign powers, are "bad people," "terrorists."

    One hopes that they make these claims on the basis of some evidence. If not, then they should release these people immediately. If so, then they can produce this evidence in some sort of legal proceeding. They have been instructed to do so by the Supreme Court, which has insisted that the detainees have a right to confront U.S. accusations and challenge their indefinite detention.

    Instead, as electronic messages from two of the tribunals' prosecutors obtained by the New York Times make abundantly clear, the army simply rigged the proceedings and then went through the motions. "Among the striking statements in the prosecutors' messages," reported the Times, "was an assertion by one that "the chief prosecutor had told his subordinates that the members of the military commission that would try the first four defendants would be "handpicked" to ensure that all would be convicted." Other accusations - again made by prosecutors themselves - included that all evidence of the prisoners' innocence be treated as secret and not divulged in the proceedings.

    Recall that the administration's position at the outset was that it was under no legal constraints at all with regard to anyone: that it could secretly arrest, hold, and torture anyone it wished for as long as it wanted for no reason at all. Even the kangaroo courts it finally conducted had to be imposed on it by court decree.

    When the Constitution calls for due process of law, it does not distinguish between citizens and non-citizens, or between domestic and foreign facilities: it specifies not who must be treated according to the rule of law but how the United States government is obliged to act.

    I believe the archipelago of secret detention and abuse facilities that the Bush administration operates is illegal according to our founding document.

    But whether it is or not, our treatment of these people make a mockery of our claim to bring freedom and democracy around the world. Our treatment of these people brings us into a condition of moral equivalence with those we condemn as terrorists and murderers: dozens of prisoners against whom no evidence has been produced have been killed in our custody or the custody of countries to which we have rendered them for torture. We will never have a true count, will never even know most of their names or alleged crimes.

   Obviously, that doesn't bother Alberto Gonzales, Condoleezza Rice, or whatever ethicists they have on staff. But it makes what they're saying sound ridiculous, and it undercuts their policies around the world.