If you open the window of torture, even just a crack, the cold air of the Dark Ages will fill the whole room.
“I would personally rather die than have anyone tortured to save my life.” – Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, who lost his job after he publicly condemned the Uzbek regime in 2003 for its systematic use of torture.[6]
With all the reports concerning torture under the recent Bush administration, some people may be inclined to think that prior to Bush the United States had very little connection to this awful practice. However, in the period of the 1950s through the 1980s, while the CIA did not usually push the button, turn the switch, or pour the water, the Agency …
- encouraged its clients in the Third World to use torture;
- provided the host country the names of the people who wound up as torture victims, in places as bad as Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram;
- supplied torture equipment;
- conducted classes in torture;
- distributed torture manuals – how-to books;
- was present when torture was taking place, to observe and evaluate how well its students were doing.[7]
I could really feel sorry for Barack Obama – for his administration is plagued and handicapped by a major recession not of his making – if he had a vision that was thus being thwarted. But he has no vision – not any kind of systemic remaking of the economy, producing a more equitable and more honest society; nor a world at peace, beginning with ending America’s perennial wars; no vision of the fantastic things that could be done with the trillions of dollars that would be saved by putting an end to war without end; nor a vision of a world totally rid of torture; nor an America with national health insurance; nor an environment free of capitalist subversion; nor a campaign to control world population … he just looks for what will offend the fewest people. He’s a “whatever works” kind of guy. And he wants to be president. But what we need and crave is a leader of vision.
Another jewel in the crown, Miss Hillary
During the presidential campaign much was made of Obama’s stated promises to engage in direct talks with Iran, as opposed to the Bush administration’s refusal to speak to the Iranians and threatening to attack them and bomb their nuclear facilities. This was one more example of the much-vaunted “change” that Obama was going to bring. But, in actuality, it wouldn’t be much of a change. Mid-level American officials did in fact occasionally meet with Iranian officials, most notably after the September 11 attacks in 2001 and in mid-2003 after the US invasion of Iraq. These meeting were always in secret.[8] There were also at least three publicly-announced meetings between the US and Iran in 2007, primarily dealing with the fighting in Iraq. And now that Obama is in power, what do we find? We find his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, testifying April 22 before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and stating:
“We actually believe that by following the diplomatic path we are on [speaking to Iran], we gain credibility and influence with a number of nations who would have to participate in order to make the sanctions regime as tight and as crippling as we would want it to be.”
Would it be unfair to say that she’s implying that a reason for talks with Iran is that the US could get more international support when it decides to cripple that country? Is crippling a country the United States is at peace with supposed to be part of the “change” in US foreign policy? Is Iran expected to be enthusiastic about such talks? If the talks collapse, will the United States use that as an excuse for bombing Iran? Or will Israel be given the honor?
Later in the hearing, Clinton declared: “We are deploying new approaches to the threat posed by Iran.”
I would love to have been a member of the House committee so I could have had the following exchange with the Secretary of State:
Cong. Blum: Do we plan to impose sanctions on France?
Sec. Clinton: I don’t understand, Congressman. Why would we impose sanctions on France?
Cong. Blum: Well, if we impose sanctions on Iran on the mere suspicion of them planning to build nuclear weapons, it seems to me we’d want to impose even stricter sanctions on a country which already possesses such weapons.
Sec. Clinton: But France is an ally.
Cong. Blum: So let’s make Iran an ally. We can start with ending our many sanctions against them and calling off our Israeli attack dogs.
Sec. Clinton: But Congressman, Iran is a threat. Surely you don’t see France as a threat? What reason would France have to use nuclear weapons against the United States?
Cong. Blum: What reason would Iran have to use nuclear weapons against the United States? Other than an irresistible desire for mass national suicide.
If Congressman Blum had pursued this line of questioning, it might well have culminated in some Orwellian remark by dear Hillary, such as the one she treated us to a few days later when speaking to reporters in Iraq. As the Washington Post reported it: “Clinton played down the latest burst of violence, telling reporters she saw ‘no sign’ it would reignite the sectarian warfare that ravaged the country in recent years. She said that the Iraqi government had ‘come a long, long way’ and that the bombings were ‘a signal that the rejectionists fear Iraq is going in the right direction’.”[9]
So … the eruption of violence is a sign of success. In October 2003, President George W. Bush, speaking after many resistance attacks in Iraq had occurred, said: “The more successful we are on the ground, the more these killers will react.”[10]
And here is Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking in April 2004 about a rise in insurrection and fighting in Iraq over nearly a two-week period: “‘I would characterize what we’re seeing right now as a – as more a symptom of the success that we’re having here in Iraq,’ he said … explaining that the violence indicated there was something to fight against – American progress in building up Iraq.”[11]
War is Peace … Freedom is Slavery … Ignorance is Strength. I distinctly remember when I first read “1984” thinking that it was very well done but of course a great exaggeration, sort of like science fiction.
Clinton was equally profound on May 1, speaking to an assemblage of State Department employees. Discussing Venezuela and Bolivia, she said that the Bush administration “tried to isolate them, tried to support opposition to them, tried to turn them into international pariahs. It didn’t work. We are going to see what other approaches might work.” Oh … uh … how about NOT trying to isolate them, NOT supporting their opposition, NOT trying to turn them into international pariahs? How about the National Endowment for Democracy, the Agency for International Development, and the US Embassy NOT trying to subvert their revolutions? And when she says “It didn’t work”, one must ask: Work to what end? To return the two countries to their previous condition of client-states? Perhaps like with Nicaragua, about whom the Secretary of State said improving relations was important to counter Iran’s growing influence. She noted that “the Iranians are building a huge embassy in Managua. You can only imagine what it’s for.”[12] I can only imagine what Ms. Clinton imagines it’s for. What is the new American Embassy in Iraq – the biggest embassy in the entire history of the world, in the entire universe – What is that for? Another example of Obamachange that means no change. What is it with American officials? Why are they so insufferably arrogant and hypocritical?__________
1. Washington Post, February 24, 2009
2. See, for example, “Executive Order – Ensuring Lawful Interrogations”, January 22, 2009
3. See The Observer (London), February 8, 2009 for an account of how conditions were still very awful at Guantanamo as of that date.
4. Video of Bush
5. New York Times, February 10, 2009, plus their editorial of the next day. In April, a federal appeals court ruled that the detainees’ lawsuit could proceed.
6. Testimony before the International Commission of Inquiry On Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration, session of January 21, 2006, New York City
7. See William Blum, “Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower”, chapter 5.
8. The Independent (London), May 27, 2007
9. Washington Post, April 26, 2009
10. Washington Post, October 28, 2003
11. New York Times, April 16, 2003
12. Associated Press, May 1, 2009
