On Torture

I've been reluctant to wade into this discussion.  I am appalled at the acts of cruelty we can inflict as humans upon each other, among other things (don't get me started on animal cruelty).  This cuts all ways.  Hijacking planes and crashing them into the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon, and attempting to crash one into presumably the White House is as much an act of cruelty and torture as waterboarding.  The intent and effect are the same: create fear and exercise power.

That said, I am pleased to see this issue so intensely debated in the public sphere right now.  But I am of two minds, or I should say, many minds.

I was not a policy maker in the post-September 11th moments.  When a nation looked to leadership on explaining how we could be attacked in such a brazen and clearly well thought out way by a loose organization based in the remote mountains of Afghanistan.  There is no way I could know the decision making process that went through American national security agencies on how to find the people, still alive, responsible for the attacks, much less find the "cells" who may be plotting even more strikes against a clearly vulnerable nation.  But the emotions in those security agencies must have ranged from anger, grief, fear, and more anger.

Torture is a reflection of inhumanity but it is also caused by anger.  Anger is, unfortunately, a human emotion we have all felt and expressed, over time, in ways we have regretted.  And the policy makers, from lawyers who wrote memos condoning the use of torture to the officials who asked the lawyers to produce those memos, were angry.  

Anger does not justify a crime.  

But it seems to me there are so many people, so many policy-makers, from Republicans to Democrats, who knew about these methods, knew they were being used, and whether overtly or covertly, condoned the actions.  To prosecute may mean taking down the whole policy-maker infrastructure of Washington, DC.  Housecleaning like that may be a good thing, but is it necessary?  And what are the long term consequences of prosecuting ex post facto methods done in good faith to protect American citizens?  Does that open the door for future Administrations to prosecute former Administrative officials for acts they deem illegal?  Is that what we want?  It seems if that happens we are not that different than nations we condemn in Africa, Asia, South America...

On the other hand, it seems to me that understanding the motivations, the reasoning behind the authorization of these methods would be helpful.  South Africa had enormous success with Truth and Reconciliation Commissions.  But the key is reconciliation.  Once the information is out, we need to forgive, to understand, to reconcile.  We were all angry after September 11, 2001.

President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are against this sort of commission.  Probably because they are aware almost every one in Washington, DC would be implicated.  But, if we truly reconcile, perhaps it will make those same folks even better leaders and us, better citizens.