The Immoral Majority

We were struck by the results of the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll on CIA interrogations, which showed that a large majority of Americans (59% to 31%) approved of the CIA's use of enhanced interrogation methods torture.  A similar majority (53% to 31%) think those methods resulted in important information being obtained, contrary to all experience and evidence.

What's also striking is that a plurality think what the CIA did was torture (49% to 38%), yet a significant subset of those still approved of the CIA's methods. The poll confirms an earlier Pew Research Center poll that showed a similar willingness of a majority of Americans to let the CIA bring on the waterboards, coffin boxes and rectal infusions.

At this point, Americans have no moral authority - zero - to lecture other countries about human rights abuses, a point that was highlighted with bitter irony by the North Korean regime, which is now urging the U.N. Security Council to look into the CIA's methods.  (You recall the Council recently agreed to consider a resolution that would refer a U.N. report of North Korean human rights abuses to the International Criminal Court.)  Until Americans understand why torture is both morally and legally wrong and those responsible for it get punished, we need to dismount from our moral high horse.

That said, there were two letters in the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle that express matters so well, we would like to share them:

When I was young, I read of cold medieval dungeons where prisoners were doused with cold water and left to shiver and die. How unimaginably barbaric, I thought. 

As a teenager I read of Soviet torture of those considered enemies of the state. How awful, I thought, if the Russian people knew what was being done in the name of public safety and preserving their way of life. How could an ordinary person feel anything but shame? How could anyone defend torture? 

I was glad to be living in the home of the brave. 

And here we are, all illusions gone. 

Robin White, Washington 

My first priority is not to be kept safe by any means necessary. I am extremely offended by proclamations that the American people want to be kept safe above all else. 

For many Americans, protecting and defending the Constitution and our principles of individual freedom and due process of law are the highest duty we expect from our public servants. I believe we became a nation of cowards the day Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush lost their heads after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. 

We send our military off to die, but we are afraid to risk another attack because we failed to torture the right person? I’m willing to take that chance if it means we can hold our heads up again as Americans and stand for something other than expediency and saving Mr. Cheney’s reputation. 

Cathy Clary, Afton, Va.

What, other than the fear and loathing of others that has been pounded into their heads by the politically motivated Republican Party and its minions anxious to deflect attention from their pre-9/11 failure to protect the homeland,  has led this majority of Americans to allow torture -- torture! -- to be conducted in their name?  We need to come to terms with this as a people, and quickly.