Looking at the US from a distance, one cannot help but wonder why there exists a culture where hypocrisy is alive and vibrant. The extreme variations between the political systems of thought and the almost zealous drive to hold onto those ideologies seem to undermine its strengths.
There has been a lot of debate in the news about the effectiveness of torture in the United States. I believe that is what is the most disturbing. Has tortured worked? is not the question one should be asking. Why has the United States resorted to torture? and Why are some people steadfastly supporting it today?
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham reportedly (according to Human Rights First) told an FBI agent that torture has been around for 500 years because it works.
This so-called leader of the free world is condoning the use of torture on a flawed logic. Torture has been around for 500 years because it’s a recourse to the vilest nature of the human being. I suppose when pushed we are all capable of violence – however, there is no justification under any circumstance to use torture.
The Jack Bauer ticking clock scenario has entered the imaginations of the TV generations. Fear and entertainment is clouding the judgment of dangerous people.
Then curiously, on Thursday May 14th 2009, the New York Times runs a full-page ad urging the media not to call torture – torture. By anesthizing the language it becomes easier to accept the “harsh interrogation” techniques and reclaim the moral fibre that frays the debate. The ad claims the media is distorting the truth and then lists all the torture techniques employed by the United States. I quote:
As you know waterboarding has not been used for 5 years and was used only on 3 detainees. Our own troops are subjected to waterboarding as part of their training.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded183 times in a single month. At what point does the torture to solicit the Jack Bauer ticking bomb information turn into a vile act of sadistic pleasure – a sort of cathartic revenge? One cannot even pretend that the torture of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib was done for intelligence gathering. It was pure sadistic action.
Senator Graham, in his well intentioned vision of his perfect Christian world order, fails to see the hypocrisy of his logic. Torture only perpetuates a hatred that terrorist organisations will use as recruitment material against American troops and indeed, the rest of the world.
