This Election Is About Torture
In 2004, after the Presidential debates had concluded, conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan noted an interesting omission from the question list. Neither George W. Bush nor John Kerry had ever been asked about torture. Abu Gharib was still of relatively recent vintage, and it seemed like the sort of topic that should have gotten some play. But no. We got a free pass. It’s easy to keep on torturing when nobody is reminding us that we do it. It’s harder when you have to stand up in front of the world and explain why simulated drownings are now part of the American example we try to set for the world.
A couple years later, as new allegations of torture started to trickle out, one of my co-bloggers argued that we should just “rip off the band-aid” and come clean with everything, all at once. Otherwise, he argued, the torture issue would never leave the public eye. I responded that perhaps torture should stay in the “public eye” until we, you know, stop torturing. It’s an important issue, and as members of a quasi-media body, we have an obligation to keep it on the agenda until such time as the government and American people come to a consensus that we cannot abuse the bodies of those under our custody.
It’s been nearly two years since I wrote that post, and torture continues to dart in and out of the media consciousness. But I humbly submit that there is no more important issue facing the nation today. One party seems specifically pro-torture, the other party just enables it. Some candidates take strong stands against torture, others are equally bold in saying that it is necessary for the defense of the nation.
It pains me to say we need a “debate” on torture. But we do, because it’s a salient issue that divides the party. Is America going to be the type of place that tortures? Put people on the record. Don’t let them duck and dodge and hem and haw about whether the particular “harsh interrogation procedures” qualify. Water boarding is torture. If it was torture to Jim Crow Mississippians when used on Black criminal suspects, it’s certainly torture now. And yes, the media has an obligation to call a spade a spade, and tell us that when Bush threatens to veto a bill that would prohibit waterboarding, he is protecting his right to torture. Enough language games.
If there is a debate to be had, then a debate we deserve. But what can’t happen is pretending that this isn’t the issue on the table. If we are going to be a nation that tortures, then we need to take responsibility for it the way a democratic nation should: we need to openly deliberate over it, vigorously debate it, and have critical media coverage about it. To do anything else is a disservice to who we are as a people, and what we represent as a nation.
Cross-Posted to The Debate Link
18 Responses to “This Election Is About Torture”
Please don’t describe waterboarding as “simulated drowning”. Water is poured until the need to breathe overpowers the gag reflex and water fills the lungs. There is nothing “simulated” about it.
I agree with Martin. Just call it what is is: torture.
To believe that torture is an important issue in the presidential campaign is laughable and just shows how disconnected the elite white liberals are to the rest of America. Of course you have no polling data to demonstrate that most Amiercans believe torture is important.
Issue such as open border and unlimited immigration, pathetic public schools, the inability of too many cities to get a hand on crime, the inability of the government to provide the infrastructure that the people need, housing speculation, foreign trade, the national debt are all more important than torture.
It seems that the extreme left just wants to talk about torture so that they do not have to talk about their long term failures such as controlling the borders of the U.S. or ensuring that high school graduates can function at the junior high level.
When every high school graduate can function at the 12th grade level and large cities have a 95% closure rate of homicide investigation, then you can claim that toruture is important.
SD, don’t forget affordable healthcare — you know, that issue that your buddies on the right would just as soon ignore forever
According to Gallup Poll taken 11/30 – 12/2, the most important issues Americans will be considering when going to the polls are:
Iraq 36%
Economy 16%
Healthcare 16%
Illegal Immigration 10%
Homeland Security 6%
Education, interesting enough, came in at 2%. But that doesn’t surprise me since it’s the kind of issue you focus on at the state and local level. Morals/christian belief came in at 2%.
Breaking down by party, registered Democrats say:
Iraq 46%, Healthcare 22%, Economy 15%, Homeland security 4%, Illegal immigration 3% (education 4%)
and Republicans say:
Iraq 29%, Illegal immigration 17%, Economy 13%, Homeland security 11%, Healthcare 7% (education 1% and even morals/christian belief only hit 4%)
and Independents say:
Iraq 34%, economy 19%, healthcare 14%, illegal immigration 10%, homeland security 7% (education 3%)
The difference on Illegal immigration is pretty striking, and I’m personally surprised by the healthcare #s as well. Interesting regional differences too, so check it out.
But any way you slice it, I think you’re right that this election is anything but a referendum on torture. It should be noted taht the answers to this poll were freeform — no multiple choice, so torture simply didn’t come up.
btw, the above poll is pretty consistent with all of these other polls:
http://www.pollingreport.com/prioriti.htm
Idiosyncrat,
Did you notice where global warming falls on the list for both Republicans and Democrats? It is not there either. It is one of the reasons that Al Gore is the darling of the coastal elites and not really like that much in fly over country. The middle class knows how much they will be screwed over in a push to lower carbon emissions below 1990 levels.
Also, if you notice, the Democrats have to avoid thinking about immigration so that they can justify a massive expansion of entitlement programs. the Democratic party also has to work every hard to ignore the effects of unlimited immigration on energy use, carbon emission, and infrastructure.
However, in the long run, when most people tell empoyers that the country is headed in the wrong direction it has to do with being stuck in traffic, with bad schools, with paying for healthcare and has little to do with torture, what the Europeans believe about us, or about saving the polar bears.
The Democratic leadership? Mayyyyyybe. Just maybe. But do you really think that the average Joe Schmoe registered Democrat polled is thinking “gee, you know, these illegals sure are pesky buggers, but damnit if i speak out against them all those wonderful entitlement programs will be cut!”. No way. I don’t think they are analyzing carbon emissions either.
You’re giving too much credit, SD. I’m not saying your average voter is stupid, but just simply not so complex in his or her analysis. You were right the first time — voters vote based on things that are near and dear to their everyday lives. These other issues, while important, are simply too abstract when put in the priority list.
That said, I can’t blame politicians and pundits from trying to gain prominence for the issues that are important to them. Just because the average voter isn’t considering something doesn’t mean that it’s not a big deal.
Idiosyncrat,
I think that the Democratic voters do not logically think about the implications of the policies that they support. They have to ignore things like immigration, workforce issues, education infrastructure to support the idea of single payer, unlimited health care for everyone. The generic idea of free health care sounds great. The details are the bad part and are thus ignored.
The same goes for carbon emissions. Cleaning up the environment sounds great and using less energy sounds OK. But it that translates into living in a tiny high rise apartment and standing around the bus stop, fewer people support it. That is why candidates ignore any level of detail in the policy speeches.
Superdestroyer–
How’s that Republican Party performing on the issues you care about?
Lots of logical thinking going on?
The real major issues of this election are there for all to see — just check the polls. There is no moral obligation for Americans to be intentionally psychotic about torture.
In fact, this is even disconnected from most of the out-of-touch elites. Torture is not even on the radar screen — the American public and electorate has not committed torture nor has anything to do with it. This is a post-modernist mentally-defective psychotic phenomenon exhibited by the Left, part of its destructive, nihilist, inversion-of-truth tendencies, seeking as its goal extreme collective guilt by Americans for whatever is the issue du jour (the lunatic fringists’ latest cause) for no legitimate, much less logical, reason. The idea is that the USA, all Americans, need to hang their heads in shame and repetitively over-exhaust themselves over the issue du jour, this time torture, and the USA (when not the rest of the West, or Israel) is depicted as a party that is wholly, shockingly, terribly wrong. Ideally, children would be brainwashed about this in the public schools to grow up with a massive sense of collective guilt and sense of the USA mainstream America as evil and harmful (systematic oppression and harmful behavior and other lies and myths, etc.). “Reparations” [sic] in the form of handouts to other, failed states to “atone” for “our” “sins” would be welcomed in addition by the lunatic fringe.
Global warming is more widespread, unfortunately, though the loudest activists (“we’re cooking the planet”; it could be the greatest catastrophe ever to befall our planetary home and the evil humans who engineered that catastrophe”) are typical childish lunatic fringists. (I also fear brainwashing of children about global warming nonsense the way children were given “nuclear education” — US and Western disarmament in the face of Soviet aggression; the USA and West conceived as the party in the wrong — because this cause has so many, and so many loony, adherents.)
George,
If you look at the Republican Debates and the home pages of the republican candidates, it is hard to tell if they really have any stances on most issues. I doubt if any of the Republican candidates could carry on a rational discussion about energy policy, trade, transportation, or most other domestic issues. The Republican candidates seem to go out of their way to appear to be empty suits.
superdestroyer:
And are the Republican and Independent voters Mr. Spock-like in their logic?
I’d be far more likely to agree with your arguments if they weren’t all proceeded by such clearly bias and unsupported statements.
Seriously, if your intent is to convince folks of the rightness of your view, don’t start off by sounding like a fanatic.
Really?
Am I going to have to bring this back up to you 10 years from now, when the storms in the area you live in have gotten worse due to the oceans getting colder? That’s what’s happening right now in Northwest Washington.
Well, it shouldn’t be. We should be shocked and horrified that this country is having a debate on the use of torture. Torture is immoral. It is evil. It should not be used. Ever. And we should be ashamed of all the representatives in Congress who voted against the bill to outlaw torture (198 Republicans voted against it).
I’ll pay attention to it when the storms in the area I live in actually have gotten worse, due to what you claim is already happening. Nobody is “forcing” you to bring it up again.
* * *
It is laughable — the issue is being raised here far above what is merited and what is normal. Grown-ups know torture is wrong, and can also put the issue into correct perspective; it is simply another thing gone wrong, like prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, with the war effort in Iraq. Grown-ups don’t keep going on and on about Abu Ghraib, either, I’m sure you’ve noticed. We didn’t torture anybody or abuse prisoners, and we wouldn’t, and it’s laughable to say we should be psychotically aghast, or guilty, about either thing.
DLS:
Having a very hard time following that.
Are you saying that, although torture is wrong we shouldn’t go on about it because it’s simply yet another thing that has gone wrong? That we shouldn’t object to evil because, hey, we’re tired of hearing about it?
Are you acknowledging that there was prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, yet in the very next next sentence saying we didn’t torture anybody or abuse prisoners?
WTF?
Please try reading again. We, the American public (this shouldn’t be necessary, but in case it is, there you are) know it’s wrong but we normal people aren’t obscessed with it or seeking to be psychotically upset or guilty about it.
Oh, OK. Once you change the text you wrote, sure, then your point is a bit clearer.
But still wrong (I’d add an “IMHO” here, but that shouldn’t be necessary…)
We, the American public, should most certainly not shrug our collective shoulders and stop complaining about the things which we know are wrong but our “leaders” insist upon doing in our name. If someone tortures a man in front of you, crying “I’m doing this for you, DLS!” would you really shrug, say “Well, OK. As long as I’m not the one actually laying hands on the guy.” and let it continue?
And you’re overstating it by suggesting anyone who does is “obsessed” or “psychotic”.