As Gore Vidal said once, “we are the United States of Amnesia.” We are. We don’t read. We don’t know other languages. We don’t study our own history. Our history is the history of an idea – an imperfect idea.
Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines hosted a fantastic debate of various experts discussing the Bush legacy of torture.
While the discussion does cover many of the things covered in the media, some of comments made by the panelists are fantastic, including Wilkerson’s explanation in response to an audience question about the implications of not doing anything:
They’re serious in terms of diminishment of our real power in the world, because our real power is as much wrapped around an idea as it is around the military, nuclear weapons or whatever. We’re unique in that respect in the world and so many Americans seem not realize that, because they don’t know our history.
As Gore Vidal said once, “we are the United States of Amnesia.” We are. We don’t read. We don’t know other languages. We don’t study our own history. Our history is the history of an idea – an imperfect idea. Our constitution made people like you slaves, made them three fifths of a person. Our constitution has changed.
We’ve grown. We’ve moved towards that more perfect union. We ain’t there yet. We never will be there. But that idea is our most powerful weapon in the world and we have done consequential damage to that idea in the world. Our power has been diminished by doing that.
First, it was Christopher Hitchens that took the challenge to prove that waterboarding was not torture. His view changed after 15 seconds being waterboarded.
Then, Sean Hannity said on his show that he would be waterboarded for charity taking the debate about torture to a sick level – as if it was a comedy.
Now, Eric Mancow has taken the challenge and learned in 6 seconds that it is definately torture.
I saw this movie today and have to recommend it to anyone who wants to see the consequences of torture. Taxi to the Dark Side is a 2007 documentary film directed by American filmmaker Alex Gibney, and produced by Eva Orner and Susannah Shipman, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Documentary Feature.
The film focuses on the murder in custody of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar. Dilawar was beaten to death by American soldiers while being held in extrajudicial detention at the Bagram Air Base.
Taxi to the Dark Side also goes on to examine America’s policy on torture and interrogation in general, specifically the CIA’s use of torture and their research into sensory deprivation. There is description of the opposition to the use of torture from its political and military opponents, as well as the defense of such methods; the attempts by Congress to uphold the standards of the Geneva Convention forbidding torture; and the popularization of the use of torture techniques in shows such as 24.
The film is part of the Why Democracy? series, which consists of ten documentary films from around the world questioning and examining contemporary democracy. As part of the series Taxi to the Dark Side was broadcast over 30 different countries around the world between the 8th and 18th of October 2007.
As the final days tick down on the worst President of the United States, it seems that history has already started judging his legacy. Today’s Guardian has a couple of interesting pieces both about the Bush White House.
David Miliband, UK Foreign Secretary, writes that:
The terrorist attacks in Mumbai seven weeks ago sent shock waves around the world. Now all eyes are fixed on the Middle East, where Israel’s response to Hamas’s rockets, a ferocious military campaign, has already left a thousand Gazans dead.
Seven years on from 9/11 it is clear that we need to take a fundamental look at our efforts to prevent extremism and its terrible offspring, terrorist violence. Since 9/11, the notion of a “war on terror” has defined the terrain. The phrase had some merit: it captured the gravity of the threats, the need for solidarity, and the need to respond urgently – where necessary, with force. But ultimately, the notion is misleading and mistaken. The issue is not whether we need to attack the use of terror at its roots, with all the tools available. We must. The question is how.
The idea of a “war on terror” gave the impression of a unified, transnational enemy, embodied in the figure of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The reality is that the motivations and identities of terrorist groups are disparate. Lashkar-e-Taiba has roots in Pakistan and says its cause is Kashmir. Hezbollah says it stands for resistance to occupation of the Golan Heights. The Shia and Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq have myriad demands. They are as diverse as the 1970s European movements of the IRA, Baader-Meinhof, and Eta. All used terrorism and sometimes they supported each other, but their causes were not unified and their cooperation was opportunistic.
