ShareThisThe long-awaited secret Justice Department memos on torture are now public, and there's nothing in them that any reasonably attentive person didn't already know or couldn't have guessed. Indeed, that was one of President Obama's rationales in releasing them.
The 14 interrogation techniques outlined in the memos, written between 2002 and 2005, run a gamut of discomfort, but in fact are relatively mild compared with the voluminous literature on the Internet of how humans inflict pain on one another. In short, we're not really telling anybody anything.
The most serious technique is waterboarding, or simulated drowning, once again defined as illegal under U.S. law. There are other techniques that involve slapping around, sleep deprivation, humiliation and cramped confinement. The lawyers solemnly dealt with the question of whether CIA interrogators could sic a caterpillar on al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaida, who was reportedly terrified of insects.
The American experiment with torture -- the euphemism is "enhanced interrogation techniques" -- is not one of the happier chapters in our history. And, as Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair put it, "These methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear graphic and disturbing."
But, it's safe to say, in the pain, outrage and desire for revenge in the aftermath of 9/11, most Americans would have sanctioned far worse methods against a shadowy enemy with so little regard for human life.
It took us a while to recover our moral equilibrium, but our society is marvelously self-correcting. We hold ourselves to higher standards than the loathsome regimes and movements that seek to do us harm.
The memos, with admirably little redacting, were released pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act suit by the American Civil Liberties Union. The intelligence community was divided on the release, largely because officials worried about the precedent of disclosing classified procedures. It is a concern that shouldn't be idly dismissed.
Obama rightly pledged that U.S. interrogators who in good faith relied on the memos for guidance would not be prosecuted. It is an important assurance because the work goes on in a dangerous world and our operatives need to know that the White House has their back.
If we thought that by releasing such documents, which no other government would have guts enough to do, we would score points with human-rights activists specifically and the international community generally, we were wrong. Seemingly oblivious to the fact that we were the aggrieved and assaulted party, they demand prosecutions.
Too bad. We didn't do this for them; we did it for ourselves, for who we are.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
