The Necessity Of Investigating The CIA For Torture
Posted 08-26-2009 at 02:49 PM by GCSTroop
One of the bigger stories receiving attention in the media from both sides is the investigation of CIA agents who allegedly tortured or used “unethical” interrogation practices on terrorists to uncover information. On both sides of the aisle, the biggest complaint seems to be “Who cares? They were terrorists! If you ask me, they should have been shot! Some of them intentionally killed Americans!” In all honesty, my feelings aren’t much different. I don’t tend to side with murderers when they’re convicted of murder and I don’t tend to side with many criminals when they’re convicted of a crime. While I’m not so quick to advocate for the quick execution of an individual, I do believe these people are a danger to our society and should be dealt with appropriately. However, “appropriately” does not necessarily mean teetering on the brink of what we as a society have deemed to be torture.
There is something holding me back from condemning the investigations of CIA interrogators in their quest to unveil information from terrorists. That something is precisely what enabled our own American troops held prisoner by the Nazi’s to be treated rather humanely. It’s called reciprocation. During World War II, despite the horrendous treatment of the Jews and other groups of people deemed not part of the “Master Race,” American and British soldiers were indeed held in POW camps. They weren’t treated nice but they also weren’t tortured and starved to death like their Jewish counterparts. Even Jewish-American soldiers somehow managed to, for the most part, elude the death camps that have been so synonymously ingrained in our minds when we hear about the Nazi’s.
It should be noted that a large part of the reason our soldiers were treated humanely by the Nazi’s is because we did so for their soldiers. Of course, during that war, much of the German (and American) high command also looked at their job as something of a profession and with much more high honor. This, in effect, created a more or less unwritten rule between the two sides that basically consisted of the thought that “We’ll take care of yours if you take care of mine.”
For further examination, and as an aside to the issue, one could also look at Col. Robert Stephens’ more than humane treatment of Nazi spies during World War II and the astonishing results he had because of it. His exploits are craftily noted in the book Camp 020: MI5 and the Nazi Spies.
Nevertheless, at this point in the argument, most readers would be self-assuredly thinking to themselves that this is all irrelevant. In fact, I can hear my Mom’s thoughts right now as she hopefully reads this thinking to herself, “But, these are terrorists! They’ve beheaded Americans! They don’t treat our captives with an ounce of respect! Why should we even give them food to eat?!”
The answer, in my opinion, lies not with the current “War on Terrorism,” (a colloquial ‘Bush-ism’ I liken to Ho Chi Minh declaring war on napalm attacks - it’s an act of aggression not a territory, how do you declare war on such things?) but rather all other future militaristic endeavors we choose to engage ourselves in at any point in our future. Make no mistake about it, the U.S. loves its’ wars and I’m sure before the next generation of children grows up, we’ll have found another place around the globe to stick our noses and send our children to. For all intensive purposes, I don’t expect that treating ‘enemy combatants’ of the “War on Terrorism” with genuine human kindness will yield our soldiers and civilians captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan or Iraq a better outcome. Indeed, I do believe that regardless of how well we treat one of theirs, we mustn’t expect the same sort of reciprocity from them. It’s sad but true.
However, I can’t help but feel that if we have allowed the CIA to stand on the brink of torture in order to gain information, we are setting a horrible precedent for the future of any and all American soldiers caught in the hands of any potential future enemies. To turn a blind eye to torturing people in hopes of garnering information is really no better than a Taliban member torturing one of our soldiers. Just because we, as Americans, are doing the torturing, doesn’t mean it’s any more humane than if someone else does it. It’s still torture and, not to sound cliché, but two wrongs simply don’t make a right.
Let’s also not forget that we, along with several other civilized nations, were the progenitors of the Geneva Conventions, the Laws of Armed Conflict, and the Rules of Engagement. Does the argument of “torture was necessary to thwart future attacks” really stand up in light of these self-proscribed ordinances? I don’t believe what few Japanese soldiers we captured during World War II were ever tortured to find out if other “Pearl Harbor-like” attacks were going to happen. I don’t believe German soldiers were tortured to find out if the Germans were planning on sinking another ship such as the Lusitania either before or after our engagement in World War I. So why are we so adamant to say that torture was necessary to prevent further and future attacks on American soil? It’s never been a necessity before. In the past, we were able to uncover this information from harsh but not completely immoral methods. Why the urgency to do so now?
Lest we also not forget that those supporting the CIA agents being focused on as targets of investigation are commonly cited as saying something to the effect of, “They were following orders. Their superiors and their chain of command should be held accountable.” Yet again, didn’t we already learn this lesson after World War II? Wasn’t the chief defense of the guards at concentration camps very similar? “We were just following orders,” was found to be an untenable and inexcusable defense during the trials at Nuremberg. How could we so easily forget that? Indeed, their superiors and their chain(s) of command should be held responsible but their citation of “Boss made me do it,” is no more an excuse than, say, an Abu-Ghraib prison guards’ excuse that they were ordered to do such things.
One of the things America purports to ideologically stand for is, and I quote according to the Geneva Conventions, “No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion.” This language is included, undoubtedly, not because we care so much about our prisoners but because we care about our own soldiers captured behind enemy lines. In what has become a more or less gentlemen’s agreement that “I’ll take care of yours if you take care of mine,” we have apparently crossed that boundary despite there being no agreement on the other side. This sets forth an awful precedent for any future conflict we might engage in.
To add insult to injury, I was amazed to find that the two reporters recently released from North Korea, though tired and having lost a little weight, reported that they were treated humanely during their captivity. The charges against them? Spying against the State, and, according to one news report, “plotting terrorist acts.” Though we all know this kind treatment of those two boneheaded reporters was more or less a ruse to seek to enter talks on an international stage, shouldn’t we be a little shameful of ourselves when a rogue, totalitarian dictatorship has managed to outperform us in its’ treatment of “enemies of the state?” I think so.
We should not tread lightly in our investigation of the CIA in all of this. It is irreparably harmful to any soldiers we decide to send to any front in the future. Whether we are being reciprocated or not, there will come a time in which we will pay great penance for our misanthropic actions in how we treated certain scumbags - regardless of how much they hate us or what they plan to do to us. It’s simply not beneficial for anyone to support the torture of these lunatics. For a change of venue, can we finally stop it with the "Do as I say, not as I do" attitude that we seem to so heartily subscribe to?
There is something holding me back from condemning the investigations of CIA interrogators in their quest to unveil information from terrorists. That something is precisely what enabled our own American troops held prisoner by the Nazi’s to be treated rather humanely. It’s called reciprocation. During World War II, despite the horrendous treatment of the Jews and other groups of people deemed not part of the “Master Race,” American and British soldiers were indeed held in POW camps. They weren’t treated nice but they also weren’t tortured and starved to death like their Jewish counterparts. Even Jewish-American soldiers somehow managed to, for the most part, elude the death camps that have been so synonymously ingrained in our minds when we hear about the Nazi’s.
It should be noted that a large part of the reason our soldiers were treated humanely by the Nazi’s is because we did so for their soldiers. Of course, during that war, much of the German (and American) high command also looked at their job as something of a profession and with much more high honor. This, in effect, created a more or less unwritten rule between the two sides that basically consisted of the thought that “We’ll take care of yours if you take care of mine.”
For further examination, and as an aside to the issue, one could also look at Col. Robert Stephens’ more than humane treatment of Nazi spies during World War II and the astonishing results he had because of it. His exploits are craftily noted in the book Camp 020: MI5 and the Nazi Spies.
Nevertheless, at this point in the argument, most readers would be self-assuredly thinking to themselves that this is all irrelevant. In fact, I can hear my Mom’s thoughts right now as she hopefully reads this thinking to herself, “But, these are terrorists! They’ve beheaded Americans! They don’t treat our captives with an ounce of respect! Why should we even give them food to eat?!”
The answer, in my opinion, lies not with the current “War on Terrorism,” (a colloquial ‘Bush-ism’ I liken to Ho Chi Minh declaring war on napalm attacks - it’s an act of aggression not a territory, how do you declare war on such things?) but rather all other future militaristic endeavors we choose to engage ourselves in at any point in our future. Make no mistake about it, the U.S. loves its’ wars and I’m sure before the next generation of children grows up, we’ll have found another place around the globe to stick our noses and send our children to. For all intensive purposes, I don’t expect that treating ‘enemy combatants’ of the “War on Terrorism” with genuine human kindness will yield our soldiers and civilians captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan or Iraq a better outcome. Indeed, I do believe that regardless of how well we treat one of theirs, we mustn’t expect the same sort of reciprocity from them. It’s sad but true.
However, I can’t help but feel that if we have allowed the CIA to stand on the brink of torture in order to gain information, we are setting a horrible precedent for the future of any and all American soldiers caught in the hands of any potential future enemies. To turn a blind eye to torturing people in hopes of garnering information is really no better than a Taliban member torturing one of our soldiers. Just because we, as Americans, are doing the torturing, doesn’t mean it’s any more humane than if someone else does it. It’s still torture and, not to sound cliché, but two wrongs simply don’t make a right.
Let’s also not forget that we, along with several other civilized nations, were the progenitors of the Geneva Conventions, the Laws of Armed Conflict, and the Rules of Engagement. Does the argument of “torture was necessary to thwart future attacks” really stand up in light of these self-proscribed ordinances? I don’t believe what few Japanese soldiers we captured during World War II were ever tortured to find out if other “Pearl Harbor-like” attacks were going to happen. I don’t believe German soldiers were tortured to find out if the Germans were planning on sinking another ship such as the Lusitania either before or after our engagement in World War I. So why are we so adamant to say that torture was necessary to prevent further and future attacks on American soil? It’s never been a necessity before. In the past, we were able to uncover this information from harsh but not completely immoral methods. Why the urgency to do so now?
Lest we also not forget that those supporting the CIA agents being focused on as targets of investigation are commonly cited as saying something to the effect of, “They were following orders. Their superiors and their chain of command should be held accountable.” Yet again, didn’t we already learn this lesson after World War II? Wasn’t the chief defense of the guards at concentration camps very similar? “We were just following orders,” was found to be an untenable and inexcusable defense during the trials at Nuremberg. How could we so easily forget that? Indeed, their superiors and their chain(s) of command should be held responsible but their citation of “Boss made me do it,” is no more an excuse than, say, an Abu-Ghraib prison guards’ excuse that they were ordered to do such things.
One of the things America purports to ideologically stand for is, and I quote according to the Geneva Conventions, “No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion.” This language is included, undoubtedly, not because we care so much about our prisoners but because we care about our own soldiers captured behind enemy lines. In what has become a more or less gentlemen’s agreement that “I’ll take care of yours if you take care of mine,” we have apparently crossed that boundary despite there being no agreement on the other side. This sets forth an awful precedent for any future conflict we might engage in.
To add insult to injury, I was amazed to find that the two reporters recently released from North Korea, though tired and having lost a little weight, reported that they were treated humanely during their captivity. The charges against them? Spying against the State, and, according to one news report, “plotting terrorist acts.” Though we all know this kind treatment of those two boneheaded reporters was more or less a ruse to seek to enter talks on an international stage, shouldn’t we be a little shameful of ourselves when a rogue, totalitarian dictatorship has managed to outperform us in its’ treatment of “enemies of the state?” I think so.
We should not tread lightly in our investigation of the CIA in all of this. It is irreparably harmful to any soldiers we decide to send to any front in the future. Whether we are being reciprocated or not, there will come a time in which we will pay great penance for our misanthropic actions in how we treated certain scumbags - regardless of how much they hate us or what they plan to do to us. It’s simply not beneficial for anyone to support the torture of these lunatics. For a change of venue, can we finally stop it with the "Do as I say, not as I do" attitude that we seem to so heartily subscribe to?
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