The Torture Snowball

Perhaps to the chagrin of the Obama administration, the released torture memos have sparked a conversation regarding torture that continues to snowball towards a full blown spectacle usurping a significant share of the country’s psyche. Torture is not a superficial subject, its roots extending deep into challenging material taught in graduate level philosophy courses on ethics and the nature of morality. What can happen to few for the sake of the many? If a man falls overboard, yet stopping the ship to save him endangers the whole ship…or the entire convoy.. (He drowns.) Remember the agony of Sophie’s Choice? Choose which child dies, or both will be killed.

Even when the trade off exists, it is abhorrent and deeply disturbing. Darker still is implying the trade off exists when it does not.

Soulless, sick, and evil, the malignant Cheney shows no restraint in taking the country into the polarizing, painful, and soon enough, surprisingly consuming Pandora’s box of torture under the color of law. The mess will hinder the Obama administration and damage the country, but what does Cheney care? Worst of all, Cheney is forwarding an evil and malicious lie – attempting to frame torture in the context of the question of whether it works, i.e. that the trade off exists.

Already some are starting to crack and beginning to legitimize the question as Cheney desires, such as The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen in his article, What if Dick Cheney was right? As Sirocco observed, one has already fallen into darkness by asking the question. Does it work? I can solve hunger. Execute all without food. Unemployment? Shoot those without jobs. Incinerate the sick and uninsured and our health care concerns are resolved. The solutions work, no? SEMANTICS - What does it mean to "work"? See the lie?

The conversation gets messy quickly. Does torture really work when no other method does? Why waterboard when offering a good cigar does the trick? Until shown otherwise, I respect the protocol of the FBI, which is no cake walk for those on the tough end of the table. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has methods for getting information from you that you didn’t even think you had. They have highly proven and sophisticated methods refined over decades that masterfully drill towards the gold in your head. The FBI does not torture. It knows better, and it was getting good information, but not what Cheney wanted to hear.

Who in the world can possibly believe that something works if it has to be done 183 times?

The plot thickens and exposes intriguing fissures. A Pew Research poll found that among white evangelical Christians, a solid majority of 62% said torture was sometimes or often justified. For the religiously unaffiliated, the number was 40%. I find both numbers appalling, but what’s with those adhering to Christian values supporting torture? Those complexities at a later post.

The cup runneth over and I haven’t even started. Not only about torture, the conversation extends deeply into the nature of American democracy and the attempts (mostly successful thanks to a GOP Congress) of an evil administration to establish tyrannical control of the country. I could quote George Washington, other founding fathers, and numerous presidents including Ronald Reagan, who supported the UN Convention Against Torture. Prior to Cheney, the United States did not torture. This brutal conversation documents how America’s version of Nazi Germany muscled the bureaucracy into violating sacred principles at the heart of that for which the Union stands. Scholars and historians will be busy for years.

People identifying themselves as Republicans:

2004 – 30 %
2008 – 25 %
2009 – 21 %

Note the 4% drop in a single year after falling 5% in four years. The decline is accelerating dramatically towards the 15 % Cheney Limbaugh core.

Someday the departed will consolidate.