2
2
1
Andrew Sullivan, writing in the Atlantic Magazine, agrees that we cannot move forward until we address the stain of torture on our society. The "military necessity" loophole in the torture memos initiated our "descent into the ranks of countries that systematically torture prisoners."
Sullivan sees an alternative to a wrenching series of prosecutions in President Bush taking full responsibility for what happened. That would right the ship and allow us to move forward with civilized standards once again in place. He called upon Bush to "reject categorically the phony legalisms, criminal destruction of crucial evidence, and retrospective rationalizations"" Sullivan appeals to Bush as a fellow Christian: "Our faith tells us that what you authorized is an absolute evil. By absolute evil, I mean something that is never morally justified."
President Bush has himself asserted the proper standard. When some of our soldiers were captured in Iraq, he said: "I expect them to be treated humanely, just as we're treating the prisoners that we have captured humanely. If not, the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals."
I hope that Andrew Sullivan succeeds in his appeal. But this will not avoid the necessity for trials. The best we can hope for in President Bush's acceptance of responsibility is that it will take the sting of partisanship out of what must happen next. Sullivan himself states that "To ignore the flagrant evidence of war crimes, reported by the Red Cross, is itself a violation of America's treaty obligations." These obligations are not satisfied by any statement of contrition that President Bush might make.
We recently witnessed the case of an Army paratrooper who used a martial arts hold to subdue a drunk fellow soldier to get him safely back on base. The fellow died, and the paratrooper was convicted, sentenced to two years in prison, and given a bad-conduct discharge. In his defense it was argued that he had followed the recommended procedure for such cases, that the man was his friend, and that he obviously intended no harm. Even the victim's family called for leniency. "All of us firmly believe that Sergeant Boyle and the other soldiers were just trying to help Luke that night. It is not our wish to see Sgt. Boyle go to jail or to get kicked out of the Army." And yet the process culminated in conviction and sentencing.
If this can be done in the face of so many extenuating circumstances, surely we can also bring obvious cases of torture before the courts and seek justice. Even if we don't acknowledge collective responsibility for the original offenses, we cannot now escape our collective responsibility to see that justice is done and that proper safeguards are once again put in place.
Siegfried Othmer
Reference material:
The Complicit General, by Philippe Sands, The New York Review of Books, September 24, 2009, p.20
The Torture Memos: The Case Against the Lawyers, David Cole, New York Review of Books, October 8,2009 (p.14)
Dear President Bush, by Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic, p. 78
