America's Shame / Amerikas Schande

The US Senate Intelligence Committee Report on torture is frontpage news in Germany (and everywhere else).  It confirms our worst fears about what the Bush administration did in the post-2/911 era.

As Der Spiegel's Markus Feldenkirchen states in his commentary, this is America's Shame:

Dass Amerikas Ansehen in der Welt heute auf einem historischen Tiefstand ist, ist nicht die Schuld "der Islamisten" oder "der Anti-Amerikanisten" in Europa oder anderen Teilen der Welt. Schuld ist vor allen anderen Amerika selbst. Es ist das Werk von Regierungsbehörden wie CIA und NSA, die Menschen folterten und ein Überwachungssystem errichteten, das einer freien Gesellschaft unwürdig ist. Ob sie dies im expliziten Auftrag der Regierung taten oder im Laufe der Jahre ein Eigenleben entwickelten und ihrer Regierung einzelne Vorfälle verschwiegen, ist dabei sekundär. Die geistigen Väter der Eskapaden waren Präsident George W. Bush und sein Vize Dick Cheney.

(The fact that America's reputation in the world is at a low-point today is not the fault of the "Islamists" or Europe's "Anti-Americans" or elsewhere in the world. America has only itself to blame. It is the result of the work of government agencies like the CIA and NSA, who tortured people and created a giant surveillance aparatus - unworthy of a free society. Whether these were carried out under express orders of the government or, over time, developed a momentum on their own and was hidden from oversight is secondary.  The spritual fathers of these escapades were President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.)

I'm not a great fan of Senator John McCain, but I am proud of his speech on the Senate floor yesterday endorsing the findings of the report.  He is the sole member of the US Senate who can speak with authority on torture.  (Transcript and Video here)

If there is a silver lining or positive aspect about the release of this "report of shame" it was pointed out today by Gabor Steingart in his Handelsblatt Morning Briefing: 

Obama hat diesen zunächst als streng vertraulich klassifizierten Bericht zur Veröffentlichung freigegeben. Das allerdings verdient Respekt: Es gibt kein zweites Land auf der Welt, das so schonungslos mit sich selbst umgeht.

Comments

[Zyme]

I strongly doubt other countries would handle (seemingly) threatening individuals differently after an event like 9/11.

Do you think people in Europe share the outrage our organized press corps trumpets out right now?

[koogleschreiber]

"We must think the unthinkable now!" The famous quote of former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt and he demanded that at the peak of terrorism in Germany committed by the RAF. The public opinion was that it included everything from torture to execution of the already imprisoned terrorists and the majority, motivated by the tabloids of the Springer press, lightly agreed. Compared to 9/11 every crime the RAF committed was almost a non-event, nevertheless it had a huge impact on the population. So who are we to point our finger at the USA in this case?

[David]

@koogleschreiber
I was a student in Germany during the "Deutscher Herbst" and remember vividly the atmosphere of hysteria. Still, I don't believe that suspects were actually tortured. Nor did the BND establish "Blace Sites" like the CIA.

[Aboutathing]

Most experts agree that torture doesn't work. Most people will tell you anything you want to hear after a while. Torture is bad m`kay. Just listen to McCain's speech, which is linked in the above article. His war wounds, including wounds from torture, left him with lifelong physical limitations. PLus, torture is just not a cool thing to do to someone. It's disrespectful to the people that died on 9/11 to propagate an idea that their deaths led to our approval of torture. The people who say that torture is necessary are probably the same venture capitalists that are currently lobbying for harder drug laws in the U.S. We have to be careful not to create the American Gulag. We can't let gifts to the public, like this report, be belittled in bureaucratic jargon. America is split right up the middle with Democrats and Republicans. This is exactly the reason why my country can never get anything that matters done. Human beings need the illusion of two sides to entice them into the game. The game of opposites. I still refuse to debate torture any more than what I've already stated here. Moving forward, there needs to be a clear line drawn on torture in war scenarios. And maybe our government, since it seems so willing to forgive itself for all of its wrongdoings, could also try to be a little more forgiving of others.