the Shackle Report

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.