I have been vacillating on whether or not to post anything on the torture report – after reading all the articles and opinions I hadn’t really been able to solidify my thoughts into a post, and I didn’t want to write something that was just an enraged outburst against our government. I finally decided to break down and do this post after reading this article:
The author makes a number of points that resonated with me. However, there is another thing that keeps bugging me. I was surprised to see the large number of politicians and media commentators are willing to overlook the atrocities because they may have gathered information that saved the homeland. Plus, John Brennen, director of the CIA, refused to rule out future use of these techniques.
Fine. If this argument is to be used to justify possible future use of these actions, then we need to expand these programs. Why should we limit these effective(?) techniques to foreign terrorists? Shouldn’t we expand Enhanced Interrogation Techniques for use by the FBI and State and local police departments? When or why is it not appropriate to torture domestic terrorism suspects, or radicalized associates of domestic murder suspects if it could lead to gaining information to prevent future crimes against the State? The same argument should be made for the drone program. Any domestic resident suspected of conspiring to commit murder should be subject to the same death-by-drone guidelines used to suppress foreign terrorism.
I would argue that the similar techniques used by the NSA and exposed by Edward Snowden should be enacted on domestic soil, but I think most Americans would agree that it is likely already the case. But we should formally disclose it.
If this great nation wants to repair the damage to our alledged moral authority to the rest of the world, I see it as we have two options. Prosecute the leaders (at the highest levels) of these programs as enemies of the state, or formally adopt these policies for domestic use. At least then America would be morally consistent.
Since there seems to be such a disagreement about the entire report I think we should publicly torture Dick Cheney to get the truth. (Note to the NSA: I am kidding)