| by Dr. David Gushee Seven months into the Obama presidency, it is clear that the torture issue is not going away any time soon. It remains something like an abscess—it isn’t healing, but it isn’t such an important problem as to dominate attention right now. However, one major terrorist attack could put the issue on the front pages at any time. It seems to this observer that five separate but related trajectories can be identified for how the torture issue will surface in days to come: these can be summarized as truthtelling, legal accountability, policymaking, partisan politics, and moral debate. Truthtelling. The human rights community and some Democratic leaders have argued and continue to argue for a “commission of inquiry” to get to the bottom of Bush Administration detainee/interrogation policymaking and its implementation. A variety of models have been considered, including a bipartisan congressional investigation, a nonpartisan committee of experts, or a morally focused truth commission. President Obama has consistently refused to offer any support for such investigations in public or in response to private requests. He argues that we need to look forward rather than backward. He knows that his many complex and demanding policy initiatives, such as health care reform, need as much Republican support as he can muster. So it seems very unlikely that he will change his position. On the other hand, “the truth will out.” A variety of internal investigations within US government agencies have been undertaken or completed, based on longstanding processes of agency accountability. The Justice Department and the CIA have both undertaken investigations of the performance of their own personnel in relation to detainee policy and its implementation, and both reports are apparently quite damning. Meanwhile, enterprising activists and journalists, who have already done so much to shatter the secrecy associated with detainee policies, continue to do their important First Amendment work. In mid-August the New York Times offered two significant articles that helped fill in the blanks related to the people and the processes lying behind the development of secret CIA prisons abroad and brutal interrogation tactics. It seems very likely that over the next few years someone will win a Pulitzer and make a breakthrough career move by ferreting out the remaining secrets. Legal Accountability. If press accounts are to be believed, Attorney General Eric Holder seems to be leaning toward launching an investigation of the implementation of Bush Administration interrogation policies. News accounts have suggested that he will seek a narrow inquiry, led by a special prosecutor, related to whether the (already highly questionable) legal guidance given by Justice Department lawyers was exceeded in a criminal way by those implementing these policies on the ground. CIA operatives who face legal risk are being quoted as girding up for lengthy and expensive investigations. It is hard to imagine that implementation of flawed legal guidance, rather than the legal guidance itself, will remain the sole focus of the inquiry. Undoubtedly there will also be further civil suits filed by representatives of mistreated detainees and their families, and human rights lawsuits filed abroad related to abuses committed on foreign soil or by those appealing to “universal jurisdiction” and international human rights legal standards. Back in the US, lawyers and medical professionals involved in approving, facilitating, or implementing torture may face the loss of their professional credentials. There will not be perfect legal accountability; there never is. It seems very unlikely that the top US policymakers will face their day in court. But one never really knows, and it cannot be a very comfortable feeling being Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, or even Dick Cheney right now. They may not want to take too many European vacations for the time being. Policymaking. Barack Obama made his key policy decisions two days after he took office. He ended “coercive” interrogation policies that had been permitted to the CIA while being banned for the military; officially invalidated all legal guidance offered after 9/11 that weakened prior restraints on abuse; ordered the closure of secret overseas CIA prisons; promised the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay within one year; and ordered an internal six-month cabinet-level review of difficult remaining issues. In the ensuing months, Obama’s progress on these issues has slowed, and the human rights community has been less than satisfied. Progress in either trying or releasing Gitmo inmates has been very slow, and Congress has expressed horror at any idea that any of them (even those wrongly held or declared not a security threat) could even be imprisoned, let alone released, in the United States. The “six-month” cabinet level review process has been extended by several months. Military commissions and an executive order permitting indefinite detentions without charge are being considered by the new president. Critics say that the national security bureaucracy has gotten its tentacles into the once-idealistic new president, leading to disturbing retrenchment on these issues. Partisan Politics. But it may also be that the president and his team know how to read polls, which consistently reveal that half or more of the American public supports actual “torture” of detainees if needed to gain important information. They also know that a majority of Republicans, led most visibly by former Vice President Dick Cheney, believe that the steps President Obama has taken on these issues already have weakened national security. A trap has been laid for the president—if a serious terrorist attack happens, especially on our soil, Republicans will lay blame for that attack at the president’s feet. Even if it turns out that current interrogation policies had absolutely nothing to do with a successful attack, such facts won’t matter either to those criticizing the president or to many in the public. The president is probably also aware that one-third of Democrats in recent polls also support torture as a means of interrogation. The human rights activists pressing for the president to go further to redeem his original promise on detention/interrogation issues encounter a president who is running into these cold political realities. Moral Debate. As a Christian ethicist, I care not just about the policy issues we are considering here but even more about the state of the American moral compass—and, in particular, the Christian moral compass. It is very clear to me that the 9/11 attacks had a morally unhinging effect on the American people—and that even our nation’s most devout Christians have been deeply affected. Christian moral resources such as the example and teachings of Jesus Christ, the witness of theologians and ethicists who have mined the tradition to teach opposition to torture, and all the moral appeals to human rights that can be mustered, have bumped into a wall of grief, anger, fear and hatred. “We may be Christians and all that, but if you guys have a suspected terrorist in a room and you need to get information out of him, do what you have to do.” That is what most Christians not only think but what they say to each other, to pollsters, and to their political leaders. That this means many people will end up getting tortured, and that some of these people will be innocent, and that laws both international and domestic will be violated in the process, matters not as much as the fear of another 9/11. I am grateful for the election of a president who has, for now, ended the worst post-9/11 detainee abuses. But it is clear that the battle for hearts and minds—especially Christian hearts and minds—is far from over. We need deeper Christian theological and ethical efforts to counter the disturbing patterns of thought and action now apparent in our nation and in our churches. David P. Gushee is Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics and President of Evangelicals for Human Rights. |
ISSN: 17431719