What the US communicates under the Cheney-Bush administration

Sid Blumenthal, who is the exective producer of a film (Taxi to the Dark Side) on the Cheney-Bush torture policy that is due in US theaters this coming January, writes An open letter to Karen Hughes (the czarina of "public diplomacy") Salon 10/11/07.

The issue of torture is a special case. Torture is state-sanctioned deviant behavior. It is degrading, arbitrary, cruel and illegal. As all responsible intelligence officers know, torture is the least productive technique of all, and torture yields inherently tainted information. Torture destroys the humanity of more than those tortured. It destroys the souls of those performing the torture. When Americans torture, Americans are shattered. Torture feeds secrecy. It undermines democracy. And it is shameful. Even the Gestapo and the KGB tried to hide their torture. Torture is considered uncivilized by most of the world's nations. At the Nuremberg war crimes tribunals, the U.S. tried, convicted and executed Nazi leaders for engaging in torture. Those that do not adhere to international treaties against torture are rightly branded rogue nations. Torture is the mark of tyrannies.

As long as that remains American policy and state-sanctioned practice, all the "public diplomacy" propaganda strategic communication we can finance isn't going to do much good.

Blumenthal doesn't rate Hughes' job performance very highly:

So far, to be honest, you have earned a reputation for being out of touch, for spouting platitudes without understanding the underlying issues. You are seen as oblivious to the concerns and sensibilities of groups of foreigners with whom you have met. However noble the abstractions of your rhetoric, your speeches are uniformly received as irrelevant propaganda. Even after objective observers have called attention to this pattern, you have done little to adjust. While it would be unfair to put the entire burden of transforming the image of the United States on you, it is a sad fact that your actions have deepened cynicism about American motives. And your inability to change has been consistent with the administration's unwillingness to shift course in the face of demonstrable failure.

One reservation I have about this otherwise excellent piece is that Blumenthal evokes the long-standing American conceit that we are a "special nation". He uses it in a positive way, to say that the government should live up to our own basic values and obey our own laws.


But America is not a "special nation" in any kind of moral sense. The flip side of saying that we're a "special nation" in that way is the view of the Cheneys of the world that the US is "special" in that the rules don't apply to us. Rules are for chumps in their world.

I'd settle for the United States being a functioning democracy that respects the rule of law and doesn't torture people as a matter of state policy. That's not special. That's the basic norm of the modern democratic world. The United States is not living up to it. To use a Biblical image, it's time for the US to give up our self-assumed prophetic "special" leadership role and become "like the nations". Like the democratic nations that follow the rule of law.

Greg Sargent at TPM/Horse's Mouth seems to have caught the Washington Post sloppily and wrongly misrepresenting Hillary Clinton's position against torture. According to the transcript Clinton's office provided to Sargent, here was how she stated her position:

Q: Can I ask you a follow up? You mentioned Blackwater, you’ve said that at the beginning of your administration you’d ask the Pentagon to report. When it comes to special interrogation methods, obviously you’ve said you’re against torture, but the types of methods that are now used that aren’t technically torture but are still permitted, would you do something in your first couple days to address that, suspend some of the special interrogation methods immediately or ask for some kind of review?

HRC: Well I think I’ve been very clear about that too, we should not conduct or condone torture and it is not clear yet exactly what this administration is or isn’t doing, we’re getting all kinds of mixed messages. I don’t think we’ll know the truth until we have a new President. I think once you can get in there and actually bore into what’s been going on, you’re not going to know. I was very touched by the story you guys had on the front page the other day about the WWII interrogators. I mean it's not the same situation but it was a very clear rejection of what we think we know about what is going on right now but I want to know everything, and so I think we have to draw a bright line and say ‘No torture – abide by the Geneva conventions, abide by the laws we have passed,' and then try to make sure we implement that.

Tags: bush administration, democracy, hillary clinton, sidney blumenthal, taxi to the dark side, torture

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