The recent release of the Senate report on the activities of the CIA in the wake of 9-11 is very disturbing. But I'm disturbed for reasons tangentially related to the document itself - that people will excuse violations of law and human decency in the pursuit of vengeance and political cover.
It's been over 13 years since the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were attacked. Many people were in extreme fear, as mainland America had never suffered a terrorist attack of this scale, nor had it been in the front line of any major wars since 1865. I remember my downstairs neighbor having a sticker on his car announcing "Lake Afghanistan" - as if the way to eliminate our fears was to bomb this country off the face of the earth. Even I was caught up in this fear - and lost sight of what my core values were and should have been.
Shortly after the attacks, the CIA was charged with gathering information which the government could act on. And as the report shows, they were ramping up a mass scale intelligence gathering program without much knowledge of how to do so. In short, they were flying by the seats of their pants.
In most technology fields, we deal with a three legged stool: Cheap, Bug Free, On-Time - pick any two. We have to make trade offs to deliver products with an acceptable balance of these three factors. In intelligence gathering, they have another three legged stool: Quick Information, Large Amounts of Information, and Accurate Information. Torture can produce a lot of information quickly, but the quality leaves much to be desired - as both Israelis and Egyptians would tell you. Skilled interrogation (as used by the Israelis and other governments) produces a lot of accurate information, but it takes time. In short, there is a trade off that has to be made in intelligence gathering.
What I find interesting about the executive summary of the report just published is that we have learned how many records were preserved by the CIA, save the videotapes of the "enhanced interrogations." This is reminiscent of the detailed records kept by a major Central European power in the 1930's and 1940's. The key difference here, is that in the USA, our CIA acted to hide information from both elected branches of government. In fact, one of the documents mention that if Colin Powell (then Secretary of State) hears about this, he'd be livid. Even worse, the CIA kept information from the then President himself! Only the Senate and House intelligence committees had knowledge of the activities in question.
Ronald Reagan's signing statement on the ratification of the UN Convention on Torture states:
The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called ‘universal jurisdiction.’ Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.”
Therefore, waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation activities" are likely to be considered torture by the treaties we've signed. Where is the outrage that our House and Senate oversight committees looked the other way while our laws were being violated? Are we a government of law, or that of expediency? This is a very important question.
Shortly after the executive summary of the Senate report was issued, I had a conversation with a gentleman I see regularly. And he parroted the view of the Republican rebuttal, as well as saying that this report should never be made public. He feels that whatever we do to others can be justified in the name of protecting Americans - even if it means breaking laws, then covering up the lawbreaking. I feel that we are a nation of laws, and sometimes it means that we suffer so that the powers of government are kept in check.
The big questions here that bother me very much are: Can we afford to allow a government act illegally, and then cover things up in the name of protecting Americans? Where is the point where allowing a government to act illegally harms Americans more than protects them? I have serious concerns in regard to religious obedience to law, as I know that some problems can not be resolved within the rule of law. On the other hand, how much freedom can we afford to give a government agency which seems to have gone rogue in the performance of its duty? I only wish I had good answers....
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