I haven’t yet reproduced in this blog an oped in its entirety. But this one, from Tuesday’s Fayetteville (North Carolina) Observer, is exceptional.
Not only is North Carolina America’s most militarized state (per capita); this newspaper includes in its circulation area three of the main bases used to deploy US troops to the Middle East: Fort Bragg (US Army), Camp Lejeune (US Marines) and Seymour Johnson (US Air Force):
Die a little: It’s water torture, not an ‘enhanced technique’It’s not about Them, meaning al-Qaida, al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni insurgents, Shiite militiamen or Baathists. It’s not about people who may become our enemies in the future. It’s about Us.
What will we say when some enemy sends us video of an American serviceman being waterboarded?
Will we shrug it off, as some did early on, as no worse than a fraternity hazing?
Will we say it’s OK if it hasn’t happened often, or if those involved in what the Bush administration calls “enhanced interrogation” gain valuable information about something they view as monstrous — say, the invasion and occupation of their nation based on false intelligence?
Will we say, as Michael Mukasey, our nation’s chief law enforcement official, has said, that we’d have to know “the totality of the circumstances” before making a judgment about its legality because that’s “not an easy question”?
Will we say, as Mike McConnell, our country’s top intelligence official, has said, that it would be torture if done to us, but it isn’t necessarily torture if applied to others — unless, of course, the captor nation’s top lawman issues a ruling that ours has said it would be irresponsible of him to issue?
Absurd. The day that video airs will be the day the bombs rain down on the captor’s military, its cities and its capital.
Waterboarding is not simulated drowning. Drowning is suffocation and so is waterboarding, even if it’s not carried to the point of death. You could get the same effect with a garrote or a plastic bag. Waterboarding is (under ideal circumstances, assuming a healthy victim) repeated suffocation whose purpose is to inflict pain and terror. That makes it torture.
Americans know this. Some would like to believe it’s somehow different if the victim is despicable and a foreigner. Others understand that the practice itself is what’s despicable, regardless of what the victim is suspected of having done or planned. They don’t want this done in their name, and do not want whatever measure of security is bought at this obscene price. Not one would offer to stand to one side and chuckle about hazing if it were his loved one strapped to the board.
Americans are irrelevant. According to the administration, the president may make law by making up his mind that torture would be good in a given case.
If this is where we set the standard for ourselves, who will stand beside us? Who will fight for us, support us?
Torture is not how we overcome villainy. It’s how we become villains. It must be stopped.