Chris Durang blogged about torture on Huffington today to promote his new play. It’s called, he writes. . .
Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them, and — hoping you’ll forgive the “advertisements for myself” quality of this — it is a comedy, kind of in the Dr. Strangelove style but with a few more likable characters.
He agrees with Rich (see below) that the purpose of using techniques adapted from Chinese torturers seeking false confessions was not information discovery but rationales for pre-fab policy objectives (Iraq).
He doesn’t use the word treason.
He wants Obama to let investigations go forward without involving himself in them.
All very decent and moderate.
His post is neither in the Strangelove style, nor comedic, and it goes on and on and on.
Hopefully the play is tighter.
Its main characters are, he says, “a bit like Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.”
I’ll wait to see it on YouTube.
Frank Rich, in his NY Times column last Sunday, is one of the few torture pundits who seems to get the point of why Bush administration architects of US torture policies should stand trial: the White House used torture, to produce not valuable truths, but useful lies.
The four recently released White House torture memos were designed to sanction the torture of “mastermind” Abu Zubaydah, a man known by then to be mentally unstable, a hireling who had not produced any new intelligence in the many years of his confinement. As Rich says:
…there were no links between 9/11 and Iraq, and the White House knew it. Torture may have been the last hope for coercing such bogus “intelligence” from detainees who would be tempted to say anything to stop the waterboarding.
In other words, the use of torture by the Bush White House was possibly not intended to produce intelligence — it was more likely designed to manufacture it. Pundits currently cogitating about “24,” ticking bombs and leaders “acting in good faith to protect our freedom” all know that this is what torture does best: it extracts from the victim whatever words the master wants or needs him to say, and the White House knew it.
When you look at the chronology of the recently released torture memos as Rich has done, and when you contemplate the obscenely inhumane treatment of Zubaydah (he was waterboarded at least 83 times in ’02, long after any information he might ever have had would remain relevant), it’s hard to imagine that the intentions and actions of the administration in this case were strategically designed to protect our country. In fact, it’s hard to imagine that the administration’s intentions were anything but criminal, and if this is wrong, the parties concerned should have a chance to clear their ames of suspicion.
Obama needs to find another way to get this hot potato off his plate than to announce he’s not hungry. He can’t dismiss US approval of torture techniques as “The Past.” As had been pointed out by people who give a damn, all criminal acts take place in the past. Politically motivated uses of torture are not “mistakes” made in the fog of war; they are threats to our freedoms as great as any the enemy has thrown at us. You could go so far as to call it treason, and I wish one of those pussies with a pulpit would.
Andy Worthington has been doing superlative coverage of US torture-policy contortions now-in-progress. Among the gifts he has on offer are, 1) his book (click it to order) 2) this link to a piece by Philip Zelikow, the White Burkett Miller Professor of History at the University of Virginia and ex-deputy to Secretary Rice at Department of State, 2005-2007, and 3) the following comprehensive list of issue-links:
For a sequence of articles dealing with the use of torture by the CIA, on “high-value detainees,” and in the secret prisons, see: Guantánamo’s tangled web: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Majid Khan, dubious US convictions, and a dying man (July 2007), Jane Mayer on the CIA’s “black sites,” condemnation by the Red Cross, and Guantánamo’s “high-value” detainees (including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) (August 2007), Waterboarding: two questions for Michael Hayden about three “high-value” detainees now in Guantánamo (February 2008), Six in Guantánamo Charged with 9/11 Murders: Why Now? And What About the Torture? (February 2008), The Insignificance and Insanity of Abu Zubaydah: Ex-Guantánamo Prisoner Confirms FBI’s Doubts (April 2008), Guantánamo Trials: Another Torture Victim Charged (Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri, July 2008), Secret Prison on Diego Garcia Confirmed: Six “High-Value” Guantánamo Prisoners Held, Plus “Ghost Prisoner” Mustafa Setmariam Nasar (August 2008), Will the Bush administration be held accountable for war crimes? (December 2008), The Ten Lies of Dick Cheney (Part One) and The Ten Lies of Dick Cheney (Part Two) (December 2008), Prosecuting the Bush Administration’s Torturers (March 2009), Abu Zubaydah: The Futility Of Torture and A Trail of Broken Lives (March 2009), Ten Terrible Truths About The CIA Torture Memos (Part One), Ten Terrible Truths About The CIA Torture Memos (Part Two), Who Authorized The Torture of Abu Zubaydah? (all April 2009). Also see the extensive archive of articles about the Military Commissions.
For other stories discussing the use of torture in secret prisons, see: An unreported story from Guantánamo: the tale of Sanad al-Kazimi (August 2007), Rendered to Egypt for torture, Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni is released from Guantánamo (September 2008), A History of Music Torture in the “War on Terror” (December 2008), Seven Years of Torture: Binyam Mohamed Tells His Story (March 2009), and also see the extensive Binyam Mohamed archive. And for other stories discussing torture at Guantánamo and/or in “conventional” US prisons in Afghanistan, see: The testimony of Guantánamo detainee Omar Deghayes: includes allegations of previously unreported murders in the US prison at Bagram airbase (August 2007), Guantánamo Transcripts: “Ghost” Prisoners Speak After Five And A Half Years, And “9/11 hijacker” Recants His Tortured Confession (September 2007), The Trials of Omar Khadr, Guantánamo’s “child soldier” (November 2007), Former US interrogator Damien Corsetti recalls the torture of prisoners in Bagram and Abu Ghraib (December 2007), Guantánamo’s shambolic trials (February 2008), Torture allegations dog Guantánamo trials (March 2008), Sami al-Haj: the banned torture pictures of a journalist in Guantánamo (April 2008), Former Guantánamo Prosecutor Condemns “Chaotic” Trials in Case of Teenage Torture Victim (Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld on Mohamed Jawad, January 2009), Judge Orders Release of Guantánamo’s Forgotten Child (Mohammed El-Gharani, January 2009), Bush Era Ends With Guantánamo Trial Chief’s Torture Confession (Susan Crawford on Mohammed al-Qahtani, January 2009), Forgotten in Guantánamo: British Resident Shaker Aamer (March 2009), and the extensive archive of articles about the Military Commissions.
see here for his definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, published in March 2009.