Cheney Family Torture Excuses: No Ends, No Justifications

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Chad Rubel

The woman who stole the bread to feed her family: This is the classic justification for committing an illegal act, after all, there was a greater good. Rosa Parks refusing to move from the front of the bus: another classic justification for committing an illegal act.

Then we have Dick Cheney saying, essentially, we committed torture and it was okay because it worked.

Uh, we have a problem.

Liz Cheney defended her father almost as well as he defended himself this morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe (see video above). But it does become troubling for a defense when few without the last name of Cheney can try and justify these practices. And Liz Cheney's defense is as flimsy if not more so than her father's. She even used the waterboard training on our own troops to justify the United States' waterboarding.

Eugene Robinson was on the program as well, though the MSNBC folks let her completely dominate the conversation. But Robinson was able to freely weigh in on this issue in today's column.

This is the crux of Cheney's "argument," and I put the word in quotation marks because it isn't really a valid argument at all. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration approved programs and methods that previously would have been considered illegal or unacceptable: arbitrary and indefinite detention of terrorism suspects, waterboarding and other abusive interrogation methods, secret CIA prisons, unprecedented electronic surveillance. Since 2001, there have been no new attacks on what the Bush administration creepily called the "homeland." Therefore, everything that was done in the name of preventing new attacks was justified.

The fallacy lies in the fact that it is impossible for Cheney to prove that anti-terrorism methods within the bounds of U.S. law and tradition would have failed to prevent new attacks. Nor, for that matter, can Cheney demonstrate that torture and other abuses were particularly effective.

To stretch the opening analogy, we can't prove there was a family for the intended loaf of bread. It's one thing to say "the ends justify the means," but without ends, means are left hanging in the breeze.

Wanda Sykes made a relevant observation during her routine at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner Saturday night.

Dick Cheney is trying to defend torture, trying to defend torture. They should release the memos that show all that good information we got from our practices. You can't defend torture. That's like me robbing a bank and then going in front of the judge and saying, "Yes, your honor, I robbed the bank, but look at all these bills I paid."

Sykes is not an expert, but like so many comedians of the day, she points out the kernel of truth that you can justify just about anything, valid or not.

There is this sinking feeling among a certain percentage of the population, some of whom watch "24," that torture was justified because it "worked." We know rationally that, as a defense, torturing because it worked is still wrong, deeply wrong. But sadly, we are in the midst of the court of public opinion.

This particular audience would appreciate the fact that torture had a negative impact, potential or otherwise, on our fighting soldiers. Increasing potential harm to our brave fighting men and women is something that will upset those who seem to think torture ultimately was good.

But in the jingoistic element, the story is simple -- we are at war, they have the information, waterboard, waterboard, waterboard, haven't been attacked since. The truth is much more complex, extremely disturbing, and way more accurate.

The flip side of why torture doesn't work is false information. Even those who don't believe in paranoia or conspiracies have to wonder about the timing of the apparent suicide this week of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi in a Libyan jail cell. According to Senate investigators, al-Libi was the unnamed source behind Bush Administration claims of Iraq providing chemical and biological weapons training to al-Qaeda.

In February 2004, al-Libi recanted his story. When you read the description of what they did to "get the information" from him, you might be willing to say almost anything, even that Hannah Montana's songs are pretty good.

And if you have to wonder how much damage was caused by torture, the false information led to an unjustified war with over 4,000 U.S. casualties and more than a million Iraqi civilian deaths.

When you uncover the truth, all the truth, even all the memos Dick Cheney wants revealed, the ends aren't going to justify the means. The means are going to be much worse than we thought and the ends just aren't there, justified or not.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS