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Looking at Torture: Accepting Responsibility for Our Own Evil

Joy Helmer - November 18th, 2008

Nightmare Portends the Future?

Two days after Election Day I awoke from a terrible nightmare. A torturer had just cut off my legs and was forcing me to walk on the stubs of my legs. I woke up screaming. Who was my torturer? Why this dream? Why now?

In August 2001 I experienced repeated waves of doom that something dreadful was coming. Suddenly, on the morning of September 11^th, I understood immediately what my nameless fear had portended.

Looking Closer at Price We Paid to Torture

President-elect Obama promised to close Guantanamo during his campaign. As his transition team is looking closely into this, it is clear it will not be easy to do. There are people at Guantanamo who have been tortured and cannot be tried in courts of law. There are also people there who are considered dangerous to the public. What to do with them? These are thorny issues. We can be grateful that Obama’s temperament is to move carefully in making decisions.

We, in the United States, are now going to have to look at the issue of torture far more thoroughly than we have up to now. So far all investigations into torture have only convicted front line military personnel. No one in command has been held accountable. Jane Mayer’s research reveals that the worst acts of torture were carried out by CIA operatives and their actions were far worse than those of the military. It is clear that Donald Rumsfeld and the top brass of the CIA signed off on these actions.

Taking Pleasure in the Suffering of Others

That torture doesn’t work is well known. Relationship building with detainees is a far superior tool to produce information. Torture is done by people who want to hurt other people. It is a way to take pleasure in the suffering of others. Current MRI research into bullying documents the fact that the brains of bullies light up when they see people suffering. Take soldiers who have been sent into a war zone and who are being shot at by hostile forces. When they take prisoners you can bet they will resort to cruel and inhumane treatment. This is brilliantly documented in the film Taxi to the Dark Side. (To be reviewed here 11/21/08).

The Hidden Costs of Practicing Torture

What kind of people do we become when we torture other human beings? When we are deliberately cruel, what do we create in the world? People who have been treated cruelly as prisoners never forget it. If they weren’t terrorists before their experience they certainly may be later.

Our military who go to places like Afghanistan and Iraq to serve their country suffer a moral dissonance when they are asked to do things to other human beings that clearly are against the values they were raised with and which, they can see clearly, are unnecessary to defend the homeland. A sickness of heart results. It is not surprising that so many returning veterans come home with PTSD, and why so many end up killing themselves.

There is also a huge human cost to those CIA operatives who carried out the worst tortures over the past seven years. How many of them are now drinking themselves to death? How many will suicide after what they have done?

Turning to Face the Enemy

I know who the torturer in my dream was. My torturer was me, because I created my dream. As a country we have also created a torturer and it is us, we ourselves. We cannot label terrorists as evil without inquiring into and accepting responsibility for our own evil. Unless we understand the fierceness of our opponents’ rage and despair we face never-ending terror. If we fail to do this, the days of peace for ourselves and future generations will recede ever further into the mists.