BY TOM DICKINSON
On Nov. 12 the illegality of torture and the grotesque ways it has misshapen our country were highlighted in two presentations given by CIA whistle blower John Kiriakou and American Psychological Association (APA) reformer Bradley Olson at Hamline University and the University of Minnesota. These talks gave a rare airing of the problems torture has caused and continues to cause the U.S., both abroad—as news of our torture is used to recruit to ISIS and other anti-U.S. groups—and domestically— as harsh and brutal techniques learned from our military have transformed policing.
It is remarkable that the issue of the United States’ use of torture is as apparently unimportant to the public as it is. We at Tackling Torture at the Top, organizer of the Nov. 12 talks, have watched in dismay as those who authorized torture at the top, including President Bush, were given a pass by President Obama, and the issue fell to the back pages of the news. The ongoing existence of the illegal prison at Guantánamo with its known history of mistreatment of these illegally held prisoners (many held years without charge or due process) and the many stories from our many military incursions around the globe have inured our society to the horror. Our use of torture has become mundane.
Given that disinterest, it is not remarkable that over half of Americans currently view torture as a useful tool in the effort to make the nation secure, and that percentage has risen over the last 10 years according to the Pew Research Center. Even some presidential candidates are now saying they will bring back water boarding and any other illegal techniques in the wake of the recent attack in Paris.
John Kiriakou, a 14-year veteran of the CIA, was invited into its torture program soon after the 9/11 attacks, but he refused to join it. He told us that of the 14 agents in his group asked to join the program, 12 joined immediately, one resisted but joined soon after, and only one, he himself, refused. Kiriakou commented that one of the saddest aspects since his 2007 whistle blowing about the CIA’s use of torture and President Bush’s lies about it, is that no other CIA agent has come forward, though he knew others found the program(s) to be wrong.
Bradley Olson, a practicing psychologist and professor, told how he worked with a group of fellow APA members to detach the organization from its support for and complicity in torturous interrogation and imprisonment programs of the CIA and the U.S. military. Two [now former] members of the APA, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, received multi-million dollar contracts to devise interrogation and imprisonment techniques that included commonly acknowledged torture. The leadership of the APA worked closely with the government for 10 years, and only through incremental steps did the handful of stalwart dissident activist members cause enough trouble that the APA mounted an internal investigation that, to many people’s surprise was a damning account of lapses in professional ethics and the APA’s direction. On the strength of that report, which had been forced by the sustained efforts of Dr. Olson and his colleagues, the APA voted almost unanimously to stop its relationship with the government agencies.
Kiriakou and Olson were joined at both events by Jim Roth, a local attorney (retired) who works on civil rights issues, including torture. He has worked on writing legislation around the use of torture and he spoke about that and his activities concerning the most recent vote taken by Congress that directly addressed the status of the illegal prison at Guantánamo and the remaining prisoners there.
Many of those prisoners have been held without charge for years. In fact, in 2009 the military judge stopped a trial of one of the alleged masterminds of the 9/11 attacks because she saw that he had been tortured, tainting any court proceeding. Only five of the approximately 750 original prisoners have received trials, and of the rest most were never charged. Many prisoners have been released in dribs and drabs across the last 14 years, but in the manner of monarchies of old, our government has vowed never to charge and never to release 46 of the remaining Guantánamo prisoners.
The organizer, Tackling Torture at the Top, “a feisty bunch,” according to Bradley Olson, is a committee of one of the Twin Cities oldest and liveliest anti-war groups, Women Against Military Madness. The Hamline event was also sponsored by the university’s Model United Nations Program and departments of global studies, political science and psychology. The U of M event was sponsored by the Human Rights Program at the U and two nonprofits, World Without Genocide at the William Mitchell School of Law and The Advocates for Human Rights. The Hamline event attracted an unexpected overflow crowd. The U of M event had somewhat fewer in the audience, but since it was longer it allowed for a more extended Q&A.
It was encouraging to see so many young students in attendance. We who have been working on this issue for some years see mostly older (and old!) people attending the events and talks, so this was a change. I am reminded that no one under the age of 20 knows a time before George W Bush or Barack Obama as President; knows a time when we weren’t militarily engaged in Afghanistan; or knows a time when our government didn’t torture and attempt to justify it. We older people should have little problem grasping the horror of torture in our name since we know a U.S. that didn’t use it, or at the very least, it was hidden and shameful. It may be a long time before clarity and backbone comes back to our society, and it will have to come from the young learning and applying ethical standards we as a country seem to have mislaid.
After this article was published, I wrote to Tom and asked, “But still, does anybody care?”
His reply was hopeful and revealed the strong spiritual basis for the work of the Tackling Torture at the Top (T3) committee.
“We care. T3 and a lot of people consider this important. The rest care, too. The rest, the real “we”, ie., everyone, cares at base. The alternative is sadism and masochism and I really don’t think most people at base are sadistic or masochistic, just bent by fear, anger, ignorance, desire. The Reverend Dr. MLK said that “the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice.” 1. There only is the moral universe. 2. We are always at all the parts/times of that arc in each moment, so we can feel free to share MLK’s confidence. Jesus said something like: Choose carefully where you plant your seeds, fertile ground works better than a beaten path. But in the case of loving or just action I would hope he would revise that to say, “but good or bad soil, don’t stop planting.” Zen Master Seung Sahn said, “Just do it. Try, try, try, for 10,000 years non-stop! Get enlightenment, save all beings from suffering.” This was never taught as an impossibility but as frankly and obviously possible—just a very big project.” –Elaine Klaassen
Very good. Happy to post. Thank you.