We Are the Sopranos

 I don't trust society to protect us.
I have no intention of placing my fate
in the hands of men whose only qualification
is that they managed to con a block of people
to vote for them 
--The Godfather, Mario Puzo

He died of old age, only somewhat prematurely 
--Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979)

The story of terrorism is written by the state
and it is therefore highly instructive…
compared with terrorism, everything else must be acceptable,
or in any case more rational and democratic
 --The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord
 _________________________

Yesterday at a bookstore Ranger noted a boxed set of the television series The Sopranos, and also skimmed the book "Hard Measures" by CIA wizard Jose Rodriguez -- a self-serving screed on the New World Order of enhanced interrogation and all the degradation tha implies.

Rodriguez discusses the special relationship of first narco-dictator in Central America with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); we supported him. Which leads to this essay.

We in the United States have become Sopranos, and we revel in this fact.  Our CIA and Special Operations Forces have become thugs and killers -- worse, assassins sans remorse who brag and have become movie and media icons for being heartless killers.  The Department of State, Department of Justice, National Security Council and Joint Chifs of Staff all enable this behavior (are co-dependents?)

Our courts have supported the behavior and to date no one has been convicted of torture or held accountable for extra-judicial murder (=assassination) on the part of the United States.  This is not the way a great liberal nation conducts business.  This does not win hearts and minds.  This does not make people love or trust us.  The Iraqi and Afghan peasants understand the secret prisons, the mindless drone that run these prisons and loose Hellfire missiles on their neighborhoods.How did we go from being the nation that helped defeat Nazism to become a caricature of Tony Soprano?  In World War II, President Roosevelt refused to allow assassination of enemy leaders to be U.S. policy.  The nation that claims to never forget has forgotten his historically moral and ethical position.

This new era was ushered in during the administration of John  F. Kennedy who, while presiding over Camelot, was no Galahad.  Kennedy planning the assassination of Castro and was complicit in the removal of Vietnam's President Diem.  The Vietnam War began with the lie that we were there to support democracy, and the lie was supported by the removal and assassination of a friendly leader of an allied nation.

In the subversion of Roosevelt's democratic no-kill policy into Kennedy's programs of assassination, 58.000 U.S. soldiers died trying to prop up the illusion of the former ideal.  Reality is ugly, and lies only make it more reprehensible.

Now, our citizens cheer as a glorious feat of U.S. arms when Iraq's former leader Saddam Hussein swings from a crude rope, or Usama bin Laden gets whacked in his bedroom, but these are all just iterations of the Sopranos template, and the U.S. public does not get it.  We have become killers in the Nazi mold.

How is busting into a room and killing UBL any more, or less, justifiable than than shooting Representative Giffords or a class of children in Connecticut?  In one, the shooters are portrayed as iconic killers preserving our way of life, while in the other, the killers are little Charlie Mansons.  And in sad a sense, the ST6 shooters ARE both creating and preserving this new American way of life.

Senseless killing can never be justified.  SEALs busting into a bedroom are every bit as merciless as the men sent by UBL that flew planes into the World Trade Center.  If UBL had been killed while in a legitimate operation, that would be another matter.  The U.S. Cannot become Sopranos in our response to mindless symbolic violence and retain a claim to democracy.  When we violate our humanity, we forget what life and reality are about.

Ranger sees us as sinking in the La Brea tar pits on a fast track to extinction.  We abhor indiscriminate killings by spree shooters, but idolize spree killings by SEALs and Predator drones.  The analogy is lost on us while we wallow in a national whining session about gun violence in the U.S.  We are too fat, dumb and happy to see that exporting death from Soprano-type policies is being mirrored here in Super Bowl heaven.

We have embraced death, and there's no returning from that tar pit unsullied.  The only problem with the UBL murder in our paradigm is that it was not done in the trunk of a Cadillac or the back of a M113 (as was done in the Diem murder); at least UBL was thrown overboard with cement boots.

Americans have always loved the trope of the bad/good guy wreaking vengeance for a perceived wrong (Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider or The Unforgiven, Charles Bronson in Death Wish, Michael Douglas in Falling Down, Liam Neeson's Taken, etc.)  This idea of trying to right a wrong via a simple act of vengence is appealing, and these films usually depicted men (desperados) on a solitary mission to right some wrong; invariably, they, too, suffered as a cosmic form of vengeance if only in the form of bad conscience. Today, we accept violence as a way of life.  Popular culture has embraced Tony Soprano and imbued him with a panoply of human emotions.

However, Tony Soprano has more dignity than did Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, George W. Bush, Barack H. Obama and their henchmen because he knows what he is, which is a killer.  Soprano has no pretension to being other than a mafioso, unlike the suits we elect to positions in government.  Ranger has not lost faith in his country, but it seems his country has lost faith itself.  In the nominations of the new Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, there will be no questions about morality or ethics during the theater called advise and consent.

Killing has been institutionalized as policy. Killers are us.

[Note: According to the Pentagon Papers, Diem was transported in the back of an M113 APC to the Vietnam Special Forces Camp Long Thanh (CLT), outside of Saigon, where he was dispatched prematurely into his next life.  Ranger was 17 at the time, but later as a young 1st Lieutenant he served at CLT as a U.S. soldier. The Diem murder was never discussed either in SF training or at CLT.

The camp was filled with political insiders and was a political sinecure for the VNSF even in 1970-71.  I often wonder what became of the camp after April 1975; probably relegated to the ash heap of history.]

Beanie Babies

 Vengeance is mine; 
I will repay, saith the Lord 
--Romans 12:19 (KJV)
 _______________

In the political circus we call nomination season, Vice Presidential nominee "I'm very fit and Catholic" Paul Ryan ended his first debate with VP Joe Biden with a comment on his 7-week-old Beanie Baby, implying that even the life of a bean is sacred.

Ranger wonders why an avowed Catholic would have a 7-week-old fetal ultrasound unless it was to discern any early possible problems with the fetus, and wouldn't that open the possibility of medical abortion of grievously damaged or non-viable beans?  Or is viewing the ultrasound just feel-good entertainment for self-involved pro-lifers? 

The same week a YouGov.com survey showed 69% of Americans favor assassinating know terrorists; 41% approve of using torture on suspected terrorists (Torture Creep).  Interesting that assassination is acceptable to a larger portion of respondents than is torture -- could this have something to do with the queasiness of facing the consequences (the tortured), versus the comfortable finality provided by death?

Glenn Greenwald notes, 

"It is often noted that the Catholic Church stridently opposes reproductive rights. But it is almost never noted that the Church just as stridently opposes US militarism and its economic policies that continuously promote corporate cronyism over the poor (Martha Raddatz and the Faux Objectivity of Journalists)."  

Our candidates all claim to be religious and presumably moral men (two Catholic, one Mormon, one, a pastiche) for whom assassination is acceptable while abortion gives them the willies.  Perhaps for them and the rest of the 69%, death by Hellfire missile is more moral than an abortionist's curette; it certainly sounds more apocalyptic.

So, Americans like Ryan oppose abortion, but are o.k. with blasting terrorists (=fully formed fetuses) into the great beyond.  What is missing from the debates and the party platforms are discussions of torture and assassination, and a coherence with the feel-good bean comments. 

The U.S. Army Military Police school used to teach that all life is sacred to an officer of the law, including that of the perpetrator. It is a clear and unambiguous statement, and forms the basis of federal law enforcement policy and doctrine.  It is not muddied by terms like "suspected perpetrator". 

Simply, the life of a terrorist is to be respected in the United States legal system.  But grasping this idea would require an honesty and intellectual rigor which has succumbed to visceral reactions.  Instead, the U.S. body politic operates as a blob of amoebic protoplasm, reacting to the light by lurching away.

How can a journo like Raddatz or politicians like Biden or Ryan or the lot of them look themselves in the mirror and imagine themselves to have done well by the people they supposedly serve?

Waterworld

--Bill Mauldin, 1940's

We have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will ...
it's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal,
basically, to achieve our objective
--Vice President Dick Cheney

[E]very one of these dead noncombatants represents
an alienated family, a new desire for revenge,
and more recruits for a militant movement
that has grown exponentially
even as drone strikes have increased
--Death from Above

Don't just stand there, kill something!
--Waterworld (1995)
______________________

In the previous post (Connecting the Dots) we speculated about the impending U.S. torture civil suits to come, in the vein of the Marcos' victims' suit.

Cheney's statement above got the torture ball rolling, with few raising any serious objectives to the criminal behavior to follow.

We wonder what Cheney's "objective" defined. Was it the defeat of terrorism, or the subversion of the American concepts of legality. If the former, that is a goal more ridiculous than Neville Chamberlain's "Peace in Our Time", for at least somewhere there is peace; for terrorism to be defeated, it must exist nowhere, and that menace will never be eradicated until humans in unequal positions with grudges are eradicated.

The books The Dark Side, by Jane Mayer, and Torture Team, by Philippe Sands address the U.S. approach to achieving Cheney's objective:

• Lawyers worked for a government led by reactors rather than leaders. They used tortuous legal logic to justify a democracy to use torture

• Torture was a top-down affair, contrary to the propaganda which portrayed torture as a bottom-up development

• Torture did not lead to significant counter-terrorism. Nothing of strategic or even tactical significance was gained through torture, contrary to the claims of George W. Bush or Cheney

• The civilian leadership of the Department of Defense bypassed the military, rendering its chain of command irrelevant with regards to torture. The paper trail resides on Rumsfeld's desk

• Whether the military chain preferred to be hoodwinked, bypassed and rendered ineffectual will never be known without careful historical analysis

• Torture was policy at Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Bagram and all of the undisclosed CIA secret dark sites.

• SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, escape) training was perverted to facilitate "breaking" prisoners. Medical and mental health professionals facilitated torture techniques. Torture became nothing but vengeance.

The U.S. courts have failed in their legal responsibilities to address crimes that violated U.S. and International torture statutes. This sidestepping has been achieved by invoking "national security" issues as superseding the law. However, at least one court in Italy has tried U.S. agents in absentia, finding them guilty of kidnapping and illegal renditions.

At some point, a court will address U.S. leaders and followers for their role in these illegal acts. The argument that the U.S. President may order illegal tactics to secure the U.S.'s well-being does not wash, as even the POTUS is subject to the rule of law.

Unless the courts address the issue, presidents can create endless wars via murkily defined and assumed spurious wartime powers.


NOTE: Today's NYT calls for "some measure of accountability" from the Bush administration, this time regarding the C.I.A.’s decision to destroy torture tapes in 2005 "rather than submit them to the judge for a decision on whether to order their public release ... a serious affront to the court and the rule of law" (A Case for Accountability).

Connecting the Dots

Here on earth,
God's work must truly be our own
--JFK inauguration speech (1961)

Congress's definition of torture in those laws
-- the infliction of severe mental or physical pain
-- leaves room for interrogation methods
that go beyond polite conversation
--John Yoo

This is not what God wants!
--See No Evil (2006)
___________________

Thousand of victims of torture under the regime of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos (who first sued for redress in 1986) were awarded a settlement by a federal judge January 13, 2011:

"A federal judge on Thursday approved the distribution of $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by thousands of victims of torture, execution and abduction under the regime of the late former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos

"Each of 7,526 eligible members of the class-action lawsuit will receive $1,000 under the plan approved by U.S. District Judge Manuel Real. Distribution is expected to begin in mid-February and take about a month" (Judge approves $7.5M payment to Marcos victims.)

The Marcos regime was a U.S. client, supported, trained, equipped and funded with US dollars. Marcos violated human rights under the rubric of defeating Communism, which equated with keeping Marcos in power. While this award is to victims of foreign atrocities, it is the shape of things to come for an America which participated in those same abuses.

It is bizarre that U.S. courts will rule on Philippine torture cases yet turn a blind to U.S. torture policy. Ignoring criminality will not eliminate it. Acknowledgment of torture is not accountability for it (Yousef Munayyer). The U.S. trumpets that it will not appease terrorists, yet we protect torturers.

Appeasing torturers who are every bit as criminally heinous and opposed to U.S. values as are terrorists is hypocrisy.

The Courts Work

--You're probably one of them knee-jerk liberals
that thinks us gun boys would shoot our guns
because it's an extension of our penises.
--Never thought about it that way. It could be true.
--Well, maybe it is. But this is gun country.
--Death Wish (1974)

What was done to me was monstrous.
And they created a monster
--"V" for Vendetta (2006)

The time is out of joint—O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
--Hamlet (I, v), Shakespeare

With liberty and justice for all
--fr. the Pledge of Allegiance
________________

Why did the recent terror trial, in which 284 of the 286 charges against Ahmed Ghailani were dismissed, leave a bitter taste in the mouth of so many Americans?

The legal approach to dealing with terrorism is the only way, though not all-inclusive or always satisfactory. Are our expectations of our legal system realistic? If not, why do we even have one? Why isn't direct response and vengeance the name of the game?

The justice system is just that -- a system, and one which does not stand alone. It is but one of the legs that support democratic thought. The system depends upon laws which are prudent and enforceable, based upon the Constitution and international law and which are implemented by legislative and executive action. This implies legitimacy and jurisdiction.

After this comes the enforcement agents and ultimately, the court system. Nothing works in isolation, remembering that covert military operatives, intelligence types and military police are not law enforcement, nor do they have powers of arrest or the right to interrogate criminal suspects. The Central Intelligence Agency is not a law enforcement agency, yet somehow in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) all of these have insinuated themselves into the legal system and have pretended to apprehend and arrest enemy combatants on the field of battle. All with no badges, no warrant and no jurisdiction.

Now we stand disgruntled, saying the legal system does not work, when the courts are functioning perfectly. They are one thing not out of sync, since they refuse to accept tainted evidence gathered via torture, and the courts still believe that prosecutors have the burden to prove the accused guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

If we expect the courts to do otherwise then we have lost our one true North; if the courts put the burden of proof upon the defendant, then the courts become dysfunctional per our democratic system. While the legislative and executive functions have lost their way, the courts have held their own.

When we expect the U.S. court system to be a punitive agent rather than an impartial adjudicator, we are attempting to miltarize a civilian concept of law, a notion less viable than nation-building.

The courtroom and the battlefield should remain distinct entities.

Son's of Liberty

Cause when you're talking to that many people
At one time
You're bound to be lying to someone
At some time
--I Can Explain Everything,
T Bone Burnett
_________________

Americans do not want to face the fact that their everyday soldiers, the sons and daughters of liberty and justice for all, were involved in torture at every level of the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©).

Talk of torture centers on a few egregious cases of Central Intelligence Agency abuse, and we are content to spin around these tales from the crypt. But much killing and abuse resulted from torture conducted on detainees while in U.S. custody. And, with President Obama's imprimatur, we still do not question the endless incarceration of untold numbers of prisoners held without any judicial oversight.

The U.S. populace is complicit in torture when it ignores any instance of its perpetration. If Congress were serious about stopping torture, they would make it a federal crime to even propose its use.

Ranger's outrage does not lie with the torture alone,but the fact that we tortured people that were not terrorists; we tortured out of meannesss and vindictiveness. We were neither discreet nor discriminating.

The U.S. government is living an edition of Soldier of Fortune magazine, only we are not the fortunate ones.

Ranger Rule: If it is bad when the enemy does it to our soldiers, then it is bad when we do it to them. D'oh.

Park the Car

It's not a question
but a lesson learned in time.
It's something unpredictable
but in the end it's right
--Good Riddance, Green day

_______________

Who is this guy? Speaking about terrorist suspects "seized outside the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan,

"[A] senior American military official said, “They’re both bad dudes. The issue is: where do they get parked so they stay parked?” (U.S. Relies More on Aid of Allies in Terror Cases.)

The U.S. does not "park" people without charging them and trying them in a court of law.

The question is not whether torture works, as former VP Dick Cheney asserts. The allies extracted sensitive data in WW II from some very bad dudes using methods other than torture (Ft. Hunt's 'Quiet Men' Break Silence on WW II).

The detainee issue boils down to one question: Is the U.S. willing to indefinitely imprison anyone who has not been convicted of a crime?

Torture is now branded "patriotic". If one demurs on torture, one is weak -- soft on terror; worse, a traitor. If one is against torture, one is de facto adjudicated pro-terrorist.

Ranger is not a weak-kneed liberal. If a federal court legally convicts and sentences a terrorist to death, he would volunteer to administer the sentence.

The only question is, does torture comport with our legal system.

The answer is, "No".

Wild World

Look inside, look inside your tiny mind
and look a bit harder
cause we’re so uninspired
so sick and tired
of all the hatred you harbor
--Fuck You Very Much, Lily Allen

I ain't like that no more
--The Unforgiven (1992)

But let judgment run down as waters,
and righteousness as a mighty stream
--Amos 5:24
_______________

If President Obama wishes to strike a conciliatory and forgiving pose, he would do well to remember his scripture.

In our democracy, judgment rolls down from a judiciary adhering to the rule of law. The president's job is not to impede the workings of our tripartite system. We've had enough unitary executive, thanks.

In the spirit of the recently released torture memos, Ranger will discuss "Communist Interrogation and Indoctrination" from a 1966 Special Warfare Center publication [U.S. Army Intelligence School, Department of Combat Intelligence #9808.]

Interesting title page disclaimer: "This article [73 pages] was reproduced with the permission of the American Medical Association and the authors." Interesting because of the complicity we have recently read about on the part of medical personnel in the Enhanced Interrogation [EIT] process.

This document on Communist terror tactics was one of the sources of inspiration for the architects of the EIT in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©).

"In the US, it is said that a man is 'arrested' when the police seize him, detain him, or otherwise deprive him of his freedom; and US law requires that the police obtain a 'warrant' or comply with certain other legal procedures before carrying out an arrest. . . . In the Soviet Union, the KGB may 'detain' a man on suspicion and interrogate him 'to see if he is a criminal.'

"For more than 20 years it has been the practice of the Russian State police to seize their suspects in the middle of the night. The 'midnight knock on the door' has become a standard episode in the fiction about Russia" . . .

And now, in the U.S., too! When the U.S. arrests Iraqis and Afghanis, it usually happens at night.

"A third method, said to be preferred when there is no warrant, is to seize the victim suddenly as he walks down the street."

The extraordinary renditions (= street snatches) in Italy followed this old Soviet standby. The KGB would be proud. There is a reason Mr. Bush could see into Putin's soul.

"According to Soviet administrative principle, a man who is arrested by the state police is not 'imprisoned.' He is merely 'detained.' In theory, he is detained in a quiet, healthy atmosphere where he has an opportunity to meditate upon his crimes, and a chance to talk them over freely and at length with police officers, without being prejudiced by friends, associates, or lawyers, who might induce him to distort the truth."

Isn't this entertaining?! Who would have thought after Uncle Ronnie's Wall speech we would import the nasty Soviet techniques into our own Central Intelligence Agency? If the KGB's actions were evil in '66, then why are the CIA's copycat activities not illegal in 2009?

"The KGB hardly ever uses manacles or chains, and rarely resorts to physical beatings. The actual physical beating is, of course, repugnant to overt Communist principles, and is contrary to KGB regulations, also. The ostensible reason for these regulations is that they are contrary to Communist principles. The practical reason for them is that the KGB looks upon direct physical brutality as an ineffective method of obtaining compliance of the prisoner. . . . In general, [brutality] creates only resentment, hostility, further defiance, and unreliable statements."

In following their manual, we forgot to notice their caveats. It appears the U.S. just picked out the nasty bits to use as a matter of policy, ignoring the disclaimers that these things just might not work. In fact, worse than being duds, they might backfire.

"Throughout the entire interrogation period, the prisoner is under some form of medical observation. Prison physicians are familiar with all the effects produced under KGB procedures, and evidently they are skilled at judging just how far the various procedures can be carried out without killing or permanently damaging the prisoner. . . . The unintended death of a prisoner during the interrogation procedure is regarded as a serious error on the part of the prison officials."

Yeah , and we're not foolin' here -- unintended murder = serious error! It's not like any heads are gonna roll, but definitely an error. Akin to not buckling up when you take your driving test. Big error.

This technique was adapted from U.S.'s Survival, Resistance, Evasion and Escape (SERE) training that taught resistance to Communist interrogation and indoctrination efforts. The fact that U.S. medical personnel would participate willingly in such perversions of the medical code exceeds our ability to comment.

"In typical Communist legalistic fashion, the NKVD rationalized its use of torture and pressures in the interrogation of prisoners of war. When it desired to use such methods against a prisoner or to obtain from him a propaganda statement or 'confession' it simply declared the prisoner a 'war-crimes suspect' and informed him that, therefore, he was not subject to international rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war."

This is so cute -- "in typical Communist legalistic fashion." Right-o.

The U.S. denied that PWOT detainees were legitimate combatants and proceeded to hang every nomenclature conceivable around their necks to enable the U.S. to ignore the Geneva Conventions. That is just so typical America, 21st century.

Our nation spent a generation or more fighting Communism, and now we have appropriated their techniques. What a wild world.

Milgram Excuse

There ain’t no substitute for the truth
Either it is or isn’t
You see the truth it needs no proof
Either it is or it isn’t
--The Truth, India Arie

Stupidity is an often fatal disease
--R. A. Heinlein

It may be we are meant to mark
with our riot and our rest
God's scorn for all men governing.
It may be beer is best
--The New Unhappy Lords,
G.K. Chesterton

_________________

Yesterday's Washington Post reported the 2002 military memo to the Pentagon advising against the use of "torture" because it doesn't work.

The military's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency advice to the Pentagon was,

"the application of extreme physical and/or psychological duress (torture) [JPRA term] has some serious operational deficits, most notably the potential to result in unreliable information (In 2002, Military Agency Warned Against 'Torture)."

It doesn't get any clearer than that. "Eyes Wide Shut" comments on the Bush administration's dismissal of military dissent against "enhanced interrogation techniques" [EIT], and "Interrogation Memos Detail Psychologists' Involvement" reveals the medical establishment' collusion. It amounts to a nice confirmation of the Milgram experiments, for all our high-falutin' protestations of being better than "them".

Techniques like extreme sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, dousing with cold water, sleeping on concrete and waterboarding were not employed because they "didn't cause organ failure," but because they don't leave marks on the body. Instead, they scar the psyche, a mark that America must also bear.

Watch for the Department of Defense to release at least 21 photographs by May 28, showing detainee abuse in prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan other than Abu Ghraib. They are meting it out to us in assimilable parcels so that we may process our outrage before the next onslaught of offense.

One can be assured we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

The End of our Rainbow

The problems of this world cannot be solved
by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited
by the obvious realities, but only by people
of vision, confidence, hope and imagination
--George Bernard Shaw

If you had had a sudden change of heart
I wish that you would tell me
so don't leave me hangin' on the promises
you've got to let me know
--Where is the Love?, Roberta Flack

Hate baby hate
When there's nothing left for you
You're only human
What can you do?
--New Sensation, INXS
________________

Re. the graphic: Yeah, right on. Classify this entry under "Culture Wars".

Sometimes my sap-meter just redlines. Tonight, in short order I was exposed to Trace Adkins' Arlington (And every time I hear, twenty-one guns,/I know they brought another hero home, to us) and Susan Boyle's rendition of I Dreamed a Dream on "Britain's Got Talent". "And even Simon liked her," the new Good Housekeeping seal of approval. *Sigh*.

You can imagine the glurge that "Arlington" is about. Ms. Boyle is the case of a doughty and homely, never-been-kissed, "almost 48-year-old" who harrumphs onto stage to jeers, only to be embraced by the once-hostile audience for her heart-tugging rendition of Les Miz's "I Dreamed a Dream". All within three minutes, mind -- a new sensation!

The sturdy Ms. Boyle was interviewed, if you could call it that, this morning by once heavy-hitter Diane Sawyer who had to feign incredulity with the contrivance. Are we really this naive?

Who buys this pap? A woman who describes herself as "a garage" sings: "There was a time, when men were kind/And their voices were soft/And their words were inviting," and the audience hops to its feet on cue, shrieking for this brave woman with the audacity to hope and sing of such things which were probably never her truth.

To dream the impossible dream. . . And speaking of the audacity of hope, it seems Obama had lost his die-hard constituency in our fair city.

The day ended with a late trip to our local food co-op. Sensing I might be a subversive activist, one of the clerks approached me on the checkout line: "Did you hear, Obama will not bring charges against the torturers? This is the first time I have been deeply disappointed by my vote." Others rallied around concurring. A pall hung over this last redoubt of liberalism in Tallahassee; no one was wearing their Shepard Fairey tonight.

"Where is the change?" he asked glumly, to no one in particular. And that was our hope: That our nation would be reinstated as the bastion of freedom and respect for human rights that it once was, before the Bush years tamped it down. The hope was that Obama would do a 180, and fully reject the abuses done in our name. A full rejection would require recognition of and amendment of those wrongs. Judicial review would be a part of that process, which has sadly been co-opted now.

In announcing that CIA operatives, including contractors, who followed Bush guidelines for torturing prisoners will not be prosecuted for these actions, Obama launched a pre-emptive strike covering those who might plead the Nuremburg Defense (New Interrogation Details Emerge).

I'm still hopeful, but things seem less bright/shiny/clean with this executive decision.

Lie to Me

Ask me no questions
and I'll tell you no lies
--Oliver Goldsmith

I believe in only one thing: liberty;
but I do not believe in liberty enough
to want to force it upon anyone
--H. L. Mencken

It is not those who can inflict the most,
but those that can suffer the most who will conquer
--Terence MacSwiney
_________________

The concept of torture being used on a prisoner held by U.S. is so terrible that we collectively want to sideline it, and Ranger is no exception. Only a sicko or a non-professional would even consider using torture on a prisoner held by U.S. authorities, be they CIA, Department of Defense or Department of Justice.

The April 9 New York Review of Books includes extensive excerpts of the previously unavailable International Committee of the Red Cross's 2007 "secret report" stating the Bush administration's treatment of al-Qaeda captives "constituted torture" thereby violating international law (US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites.) [The report was obtained by Mark Danner, author of "Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror" who has finally published its findings in his book.]

ICRC officials were "granted access to the CIA's 'high-value' detainees after they were transferred in 2006 to the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 14 detainees, who had been kept in isolation in CIA prisons overseas, gave remarkably uniform accounts of abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and, in some cases, waterboarding, or simulating drowning (Red Cross Described Torture at CIA Jails.)

While the report was shared with the CIA and top White House officials in 2007, the ICRC's guidelines "of neutrality in conflicts" prohibited its distribution. We are confused: Isn't that what the Red Cross does -- revealing instances of torture, in order to bar their continuation?

This strict neutrality is an idea that borders on collusion. It would have allowed the Nazis to continue running death camps in Europe. A moral position is not a violation of strict neutrality in any conflict.

If the ICRC exposes either side for illegal activities, this, too, is a definition of neutrality. One expects a moral position from the ICRC, as it was obvious elements of U.S. leadership had crossed to "the dark side".

"The CIA declined to comment. A U.S. official familiar with the report said, 'It is important to bear in mind that the report lays out claims made by the terrorists themselves.'"

Brilliant. The U.S. labels them "terrorists", holds them in secret prisons sans burden of proof or legal proceedings, ergo, they are unreliable witnesses. Yet. . . one-fourth of the 9-11 Commission Report was extracted from such prisoners in "coerced testimony." Their veracity does not seem to be a problem when the information is being used for the interrogator's benefit.

If you ask the CIA, they'll tell you there was no torture. That is because they are the Good Guys, and besides, we destroyed the tapes that proved otherwise (all hail Rosemary Woods.)

The sad fact of the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is that U.S. agencies just get too cute for their own good. Someday America will be held accountable for these actions; one cannot hide behind words forever.

Words provide concealment, but they provide no useful cover when the steel is flying hot and straight.

T Squared

John Yoo, Torture Memo author

Hear the loud alarum bells
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
--The Bells (1849), Edgar Allen Poe

The bells are ringin' for me and my gal.
The birds are singin' for me and my gal
--For Me and My Gal, Meyer/Leslie/Goetz
_________

The title refers to the subjects of this piece -- tinnitus and torture. Outrage, with a personal bent.

GWB the equivocator recently stated unequivocally that the U.S. does not engage in torture (isn't this a logical contrapositive: if a liar says something is not true [i.e., that the U.S. commits torture], isn't that the same as an honest person saying the truth is that the U.S. does commit torture?) Specifically, this addresses John Yoo's munificent definition in his original "torture memo" that torture is punishment that could result in organ failure.

Tinnitus is organ damage to the ear that can be caused by exposure to loud sounds. It can result in sensorineural hearing loss and a cascade of other problems emanating from the initial abuse. Some experts believe the damage is not only site-specific, but the brain is also involved.

Some effects of tinnitus are depression, inability to concentrate, irritability, impotence and even suicide. Tinnitus cannot be treated or reversed. Once you get it, you've got it for good.

Most combat soldiers have this condition and often don't realize it because the ringing and buzzing become the normal background.

One of the favored enhanced U.S. interrogation techniques is sleep deprivation combined with sensory overload/deprivation, combined with excessively loud music played over long periods of time. Tinnitus is being inflicted through this high decibel bombardment upon suspect's ears and brains.

As a bilateral tinnitus sufferer, Ranger knows the torture of lifetime damage to his ears. From that experience, I can assume lifetime disabling problems are being inflicted on these subjects. By John Yoo's definition, treatment equivalent to that which can result in organ failure is torture. Ears are organs.

The administration and intelligence agencies must stop this deplorable interrogation technique. It is neither cute nor effective. Inflicting this condition intentionally is torture in this Ranger's book.

Secret Suffering

"That explains it, then," Sam said disgustedly. "That's what
you were doing in Vietnam. That explains what the whole
country was doing over there.
The least little threat and America's got to put on its cowboy
boots and stomp around and show somebody a thing or two."
--In Country, Bobbie Ann Mason


Don't let the past remind us of what we are not now
--Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

To do evil that good may come of it is for bunglers
in politics as well as morals
--William Penn
__________

The marginalized character Emmett says of himself, "There's something wrong with me. I'm damaged. It's like something in the center of my heart is gone and I can't get it back." This dumbstruck sense of loss and damage is a feeling shared by many in our country now.

There are layers of misery this Ranger has witnessed, as everyone has, and one of them was the Republic of Vietnam. As a participant my perspective was much too personal and immature to fully realize the lie that was the war.

Ranger's life was dedicated to that lie, as that is what professional soldiers do. They ignore the lies and focus on words like duty, honor, sacrifice, country, and courage.

But nowhere in the Vietnam lie were there secret prisons, U.S. government-sponsored torture, murdered prisoners and secret dark sites in far-flung places.

Jane Mayer's piece in this week's New Yorker magazine, "The Black Sites," is a must-read. It won't make you happy, but it will make you informed. Not necessarily one and the same in this America.

Vietnam was still a lie and a circle of misery for the people of Vietnam, and of course, the wounded and killed on both sides bore that misery. But my Army and my war did not embrace such antithetical practices. It is all just part of a new lie.

But where is the protest? I remember protest. Where is the moral indignation? Where are our leaders? Why do we as a supposed beacon of freedom accept that our taxes support "secret sites" and presidentially-sanctioned torture at these sites?

Sending a dozen lowly enlisted men to prison on torture charges does not staunch the bleeding from the gaping wound that has been inflicted these six years on America's democratic principles, nor does it change the fact that American "democracy" is now a cruelly perpetrated hoax and a joke to all who have served and suffered in previous wars.

America never was lily pure, but only the fringes were questionable; now the center is corrupt and the fringes are silent.

Ranger's America is fast-disappearing -- like a mirage. America is not, was not and shall not be synonymous with words like "walking the dark side," secret sites, prisons and aggressive questioning.

Why is America silent? This is how it always starts.

This silence is another level of misery. Like Emmett, America's heart is damaged and the center is gone.

We must get it back, or America is a thing of the past.