The logic that torture is a “stain” on U.S. history is the heart of the problem, since it blocks an honest reading of whatever “values” Washington actually stands for.

“This is not who we are. This is not how we operate,” were the words of President Barack Obama commenting on the grisly findings of a long-awaited congressional report on the use of torture by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). But what if this is exactly who we are?

The report is difficult to read, not just because it is awfully long but also because it was most disturbing. Parts of it resemble the horror of an extremely dark Hollywood movie. But it was all real: From rectal feeding, to rape, to torturing prisoners to death, to blinding prisoners, to forcing them to stand on broken feet, for days. It is beyond ghastly. Also, it was useless. Worse, it strongly believed that the torture dungeons, many of which were outsourced to other countries, including 25 in Europe, including the democracy and rights-touting Britain, have achieved little but fabricated information. What else can an innocent man say when he has nothing to say; but lie, hoping that maybe such lies would save his life?

Quick to dismiss the report

Of course, aging accused war criminals like former Vice President Dick Cheney were quick to dismiss the report and its detailed brutal interrogation tactics as “full of crap.”

There can be no serious rethink and moral awakening without talking full responsibility, not just of vile torture tactics, but the entirety of the U.S.’ misguided foreign policy Ramzy Baroud

Without a shred of remorse, he told Fox News Channel on Dec. 10, a day after the report was released: “What happened here was that we asked the agency to go take steps and put in place programs that were designed to catch the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again, and that’s exactly what they did.”

It matters little that these “steps” killed innocent people, violated U.S. and international laws, and, equally important, lead to nothing but confessions under duress. Cheney’s complete disregard for human rights and international laws is not the exception, but very much defines U.S. attitude toward seemingly unimportant matters as law and due process in its most destructive so-called war on terror. His attitude was echoed repeatedly by many others, who insist on the U.S.’ moral superiority, yet without providing a shred of evidence to validate such an assertion.

Although one is relieved that the truth was, at least partly, laid bare, thanks to the persistent efforts of members in the Senate Intelligence Committee, the resulting discourse is still disturbing. Aside from the fact that top officials insist that there will be no prosecution for the war criminals, the language of President Obama and others promise little soul searching ahead.

Few bad apples?

“This is not how we operate,” Obama said. But how do “we” exactly operate when the report was the outcome of 6 million documents? That is 6,000,000. There can no longer be a “few bad apples” argument made here, as the horrors of Abu Ghraib were once justified. These practices were carried out for years. It involved numerous personnel. Numerous prisons. It was financed by a mammoth budget, and continues to be defended, brazenly by those who ordered them, who are unlikely to see their day in court.

Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, was adamant in her rejection of CIA torture. The program was “morally, legally and administratively misguided (and) far more brutal than people were led to believe,” she told the Senate.

Fair enough. But then this, the torture program is “a stain on our values and on our history.” There is this stubborn insistence on highlighting the same kind of moral superiority, contrary to all evidence. But isn’t the whole so-called war on terror, and the continued American military involvement in the Middle East, the lethal unmanned drone program, which has killed thousands, the unconditional support for Israel and all sorts of oppressive regimes, and much more, all “morally, legally and administratively misguided?”

Between Cheney’s bullying attitude and Obama’s/Feinstein’s, which claims that the massive, outsourced program is merely a “stain” on otherwise perfect American values, the report is unlikely to change much. Justice is unlikely to be served.

Moral awakening

There can be no serious rethink and moral awakening without talking full responsibility, not just of vile torture tactics, but the entirety of the U.S.’ misguided foreign policy, which is predicated on violence, and lots of it. “I will leave to others how they might want to label these activities,” Brennan said. The report indicated that detainees were tortured before they were even asked to cooperate. How does one label that Brennan? Even by the logic of those who torture, such tactics are senseless. Should some insist on the old, tired “few bad apples” argument, the report indicated that in “Detention Site Green” CIA interrogators objected to the continued use of torture, before they were told to carry on by their seniors. No few bad apples. The whole barrel is rotten. There can be no justification to what the U.S. has done, not just against suspects in its global wars, but against entire nations, who were completely innocent of any involvement in any terror attacks on 9/11, prior or after that date. But CIA torture being a “stain” on an otherwise flawless record doesn’t suffice either. In fact, in some way, this logic is the heart of the problem, since it blocks any attempt at honest reading of whatever “values” Washington stands for, and tries to achieve, using “soft diplomacy” of “rectal feeding.”

What is equally worrying to what the report has contained is the existing mindset in the U.S., among the ruling class and the media. This reality can be best summarized in the words of a Fox News show co-host, Andrea Tantaros: “The United States of America is awesome, we are awesome,” she exclaimed. “The reason they want to have this discussion is not to show how awesome we are. This administration wants to have this discussion to show us how we’re not awesome.” With such overriding thoughtless mindset, there is little evidence to show that such “awesomeness” will cease anytime soon, even if at the expense of many innocent people.

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Palestinian-American journalist, author, editor, Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) taught Mass Communication at Australia's Curtin University of Technology, and is Editor-in-Chief of the Palestine Chronicle. Baroud's work has been published in hundreds of newspapers and journals worldwide and his books “His books “Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion” and “The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle” have received international recognition. Baroud’s third book, “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story” narrates the story of the life of his family, used as a representation of millions of Palestinians in Diaspora, starting in the early 1940’s until the present time.

Last Update: Wednesday, 20 May 2020 KSA 09:44 - GMT 06:44