But We Had a Good Reason

President Barack Obama on Friday starkly criticised the CIA’s past treatment of terror suspects, saying he could understand why the agency rushed to use controversial interrogation techniques in the aftermath of 9/11 but conceding: “We tortured some folks.”

[...]

“We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values. I understand why it happened.”

  Guardian

Oooh, very stark criticism indeed.

We tortured “some folks” and that’s a little controversial, but understandable.

(Surely they are not our values if we act contrary to them.)

In some of the most expansive and blunt remarks on the CIA’s programme of rendition and detention he has made since coming to office, Obama said the country “crossed a line” as it struggled to react to the threat of further attacks by al-Qaida. However, he also said it was important “not to feel too sanctimonious”, adding that he believed intelligence officials responsible for torturing detainees were working during a period of extraordinary stress and fear.

So that’s okay, then? He should be standing before the world in abject disgrace apologizing for crossing that line. This is not the dark ages.

We shouldn’t feel too sanctimonious? Are you feeling sanctimonious about this? Me neither. We’ll leave that attitude to Dick Cheney and the defenders of torture.

A declassified version of the CIA torture report is expected to be published in the coming days or weeks. All indications are that it will provide a damning indictment of the CIA’s use of torture of terrorist suspects, arguing it was morally unjustified and did not yield particularly useful intelligence. However the Senate’s report, the result of years of investigation, reportedly stops short of using the word “torture” to describe the interrogation techniques used by the agency.

Can’t have that admission in the records. Because “torture” is illegal, and somebody would have to be punished. Probably at the least the Congressional people who knew of the torture and kept their mouths shut. Perhaps an ex-president who signed off on the use of torture.

Friday was not the first time since he came to the White House that Obama has used the word “torture” to describe the CIA’s methodology. In 2009, for example, he said he believed that “waterboarding”, one of several controversial interrogation methods used by US intelligence agencies during George W Bush’s administration, constituted torture, and that “whatever legal rationales were used, it was a mistake”.

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While “some very poor judgment” was shown by the agency, Obama said, he added: “Keep in mind though that John Brennan was the person who called for the [inspector general] report and he’s already stood-up a task force to ensure that lessons are learned and mistakes are resolved.”

It was a mistake. Ooops. As was, I guess, Brennan’s and his predecessors’ lying to Congress about what the CIA was doing, including the CIA’s bugging of oversight investigators. Really, now can we move forward?

“When we engaged in some of these enhanced interrogation techniques – techniques that I believe, and I think any fair-minded person would believe were torture – we crossed a line,” he said.

“That needs to be understood and accepted. We have to as a country take responsibility for that so hopefully we don’t do it again in the future.”

It’s become acceptable in our political arena to simply say, “I take responsibility for” something grievous. You don’t want to, if you don’t have to. But, in the end, if you do, you’re off the legal – and presumably, moral - hook.

“Hopefully” “we” won’t do it again in the future.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.