And What about the Drone War?

The report on CIA torture can only be the beginning of change. What it describes is not the only thing since Sept. 11 going wrong in the U.S.

The facts are simple but hard to bear: Everything to do with pain for body and soul, everything man is capable of regarding humiliation and extortion in the treatment of terror suspects seemed suitable and justifiable after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 because it was for the security of the nation. The Senate report on detention conditions and interrogation methods — more precisely, about the systematic torture perpetrated by U.S. intelligence agencies — is a document of shame. They are worthy of no state, and certainly not a democracy.

One doesn’t know what is more shocking, the perverse brutality that is documented in the lies told to politicians and the public, with which those responsible sought to escape the control of democracy, or the cynical defiance with which [those responsible] — still! — claim that it had not been entirely in vain. Former Vice-President Dick Cheney continues to regard the practices, which were known as “enhanced interrogation techniques,” as having been justified, even before the report. The CIA program was politically authorized and legally verified. “I’d do it again in a minute.” He is not the only one who defends the former methods.

And here’s the payoff, which is clear in the report: It didn’t work. Many of the supposed findings from the interrogations were unusable, even misleading or false. The supposed findings may have put more at risk for the security of the country than served to help. Apart from that, the mere thought that torture could be justified in order to save lives is disgusting.

Only a Part of the Past?

It’s a dark chapter in American history, which the current government would like to close quickly. The report, of which only the heavily blacked-out summary is published, “can help us leave these techniques where they belong — in the past,” said President Barack Obama. For him, the detention and interrogation program of the CIA, which he had formally ended at the very beginning of his term, is “one element of our nation’s response to 9/11.” However, the situation can’t, and won’t be, that simple.

The report is the admission that the U.S. no longer holds much value in its own ideals of freedom and justice. The report is necessary for those who have already looked long at America with disgust, entitling them to the following conclusion: What was done here to people in the name of national security isn’t at all excusable.

The document also embodies a great hope — hope that these actions discussed entirely in a parliamentary process and brought to the [attention of the] public distinguishes a democracy that makes mistakes from an authoritarian regime, in which human rights have no meaning.

Not the Only Outgrowth of 9/11 Hysteria

America has been capable of ruthless self-criticism and impressive house-cleaning again and again throughout its history. Perhaps, the torture report and its subsequent discussion is [another] start.

The comprehensive re-appraisal of what the U.S. has accepted in its war on terror following Sept. 11 is still beyond the scope of the excessive surveillance activities [utilized in the time leading] up to and including the escalating drone war. The systematic use of torture may be a particularly terrible outgrowth of the hysteria that gripped the nation following the attacks — but it is by no means the only one.

The U.S. is far off from an effective reform of the National Security Agency, which is about the understanding that the intelligence service shot well wide of its mark in its data-collecting mania. And the criticism to the legality of highly questionable drone murders that rarely hit their target, and too often reach unintended victims, has been hardly politically challenged. On the contrary, [drones] are the weapons of choice for the Obama administration. Is it morally less reprehensible to kill terrorist suspects without transparent [recourse to] the rule of law, or arresting and torturing them? One shouldn’t have to ask this question.