Ever since the attacks on September 11, 2001, there has been an unbelievable discussion going on in this country - whether or not, under certain circumstances, or perhaps under present circumstances, the torture of human beings is not just an expedience, but a necessity (the ticking time-bomb crap, I mean argument). Once-noted attorney Alan Dershowitz has argued vociferously for the permission to torture. The Bush Administration, never a bunch to worry about legalities, has proceeded to torture anyway, and we, like a bunch rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking ship of state, continue to argue whether we should or not. We are torturing. What we need now is to accept this - and stop it.
Beyond the horrors inflicted upon the victims, our national reputation abroad, our constitution, our international agreements, covenenants, and treaties to which we are signatories, we need to consider the very personal toll torture takes upon those who actually perform it. I urge anyone who reads this to click the following links and read, in full (mentioning where you found them), what is written there:
Arthur Silber's On Torture - this is where you start, and you should return to it when you are finished.
Digby here and here for a commentary upon the honest reflections of one "interrogator" and what his experience has done to him.
TRex at Fire Dog Lake on the mysterious death of one interrogator who refused to follow orders (please note the image at the top of the post; if that doesn't hit home, nothing will).
To all these suprebly written, thoughful, and timely pieces (TRex insists on a new verb, "digby", to describe what happens when you want to write somthing, and discover someone has done it first, and done it better, than you; I couldn't agree more) I would only like to add this.
In Peter Padfield's biography of Heinrich Himmler, the author notes that a persistent problem Himmler faced was the physical and psychological deterioration of he members of the SS assigned to the concentration camps and death camps (there is a difference; Bergen-Belsen was a concentration camp, Auchwitz was a death camp). The members became alcoholics, drug addicts, abusive to their spouses and families, suicide was rampant, and the hazing of new recruits, including homosexual rape and enforced homosexual concubinage upon more senior officers all became part of the administrative problem facing Himmler. As older members dropped out, or sought duties elsehwere, the types that eventually ended up in positions of authority in the camps were those Himmler tried to restrict (oddly enough) as unfit for such duty - sadists, and those with borderline or clearly psychotic personalities.
The mental and physical toll upon those who, as members of the SS, were the most elite and most truly believed Nazi propaganda concerning the less-than-human status of their wards, was nonetheless phenomenal. Confronted, not by a stereotype, but a living breathing human being day after day, and being responsible for their pain, suffering, and death destroys the torturer.
I would ask anyone who advocates torture - would you be willing to do what you advocate? Would you be willing, free of guilt, to influct pain and suffering, day upon day upon day, upon a fellow human being?
This must stop. This has to stop. For the sake of the souls of those young men and women who are ordered to do unspeakable things to their brothers and sisters, young men and women ordered in our names, paid for with our money (and our children's and grandhcildren's money), to purposely inflict suffering on others - it must end.
