Quote from Lawrence Wilkerson (former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff) Thanks to LithiumCola's comment to diary Breaking: Dissenter on Torture w/in Bush Admin speaks out! that included this:
Simply stated, this philosophy held that it did not matter if a detainee were innocent. Indeed, because he lived in Afghanistan and was captured on or near the battle area, he must know something of importance (this general philosophy, in an even cruder form, prevailed in Iraq as well, helping to produce the nightmare at Abu Ghraib). All that was necessary was to extract everything possible from him and others like him, assemble it all in a computer program, and then look for cross-connections and serendipitous incidentals--in short, to have sufficient information about a village, a region, or a group of individuals, that dots could be connected and terrorists or their plots could be identified.
What and who was needed at each level to make this whole detention and torture thing possible? what kind of people make it happen and how did they see the world?
Little Boys, Bullies and Sociopaths
A sheep sandwich: 2 slices of Twisted with a thick chunk of sheep in the middle.
The Human complexities that allowed small minded, obsessed and inept people to be elected and the evolution of our government and media to the point where the mess of the last decade came to be not only possible but to have been almost inevitable is a gigantic multi-level, long term story. That process and and how to get free from it has bee most of what DKOS has explored since it began. The topic is endless and too much for or one diary or 100,000 diaries. So this one is just a little expedition to think about only one aspect of how we ended up perpetrating Gestapo-style, Authoritarian activities of the Bush era not to mention plenty before. How did we get from Watergate to Guantanamo? What kind of people are needed to make torture possible? Not even the politics... just the personality defects needed in certain positions.
First consider little boys who used to like to break windows and smash up stuff... and when they grew up they lucked into a job that allowed them to do it legally... in demolition or maybe as rogue firefighters... or maybe if as kids they liked maiming animals and tearing wings off of flies, later as adults a few not only did not end up in jail for violent offenses but somehow got into torturing people in the military or black ops instead. But regular ordinary bullies or people with other problems overcompensating for a repressed fearful little boy they still have inside can also grow up and fit into these roles just as easily. But they only get a chance to really shine in sadistic ways if it is in a socially sanctioned, protected, organized context. But they cannot do this alone, the morally impaired at the bottom of the chain need their enabler cousins above them and even at the top.
The second group are these higher level fear junkies in positions of power whose inner demons may not only allow torturers to torture but make these un-official roles possible in the first place. These high level enablers appear to be a collection of Chickenhawk bullies, borderline sociopaths and the former bullied who all somehow get others to carry out the acts they cannot do themselves and acts that they may not even consciously want. But however they come to enabling them, they are acts that they can and even must justify with apocalyptic language and delusional thinking. Unlike sociopaths or psychopaths, they do not set out to be torturers. They do not have violent fantasies that they relive over and over and they would not confide that this is something that they yearn for. But they might have repetitive fear scenarios that play out over and over, fear scenarios that they begin to flesh out with real elements that add up to more of a threat than rational people would see. So their inner drives and fears can propel them to a time and place where torture is just one of many irrational desperate things that become almost inevitable and seem obviously rational to them.
And exerting the power they have is part of the ongoing process of proving to themselves that they can push back their nightmares. Whether they are like Nixon spying on Democrats or Kissinger coolly considering act that meant the deaths of countless lives in East Timor or Cambodia or our latest crop of nightmare peddlers they all must suffer from some moral deficiency or their own internal nightmares start with to be able to generate so much suffering out in the real world and to be so apparently indifferent to it. The only links from the violence and destruction in the past, from The Romans to Genghis to the inquisition to modern genocide and more is just that fear and pain just makes more fear and pain. And in whatever form it comes in for whatever purpose or lack of purpose, it reveals no truth other than this: people do no like fear and pain and they can learn very powerful warped lessons from them if they suffer them as children. As the twig is bent and twisted so grows the tree. We all learn lessons from love too but not so sharply. It's all just a survival strategy baby... Nice not live so good when not-nice ruleth. And some are forced to learn this in such a savage way that they will feel compelled teach it in turn in many ways to many others. It's just good that some can unlearn it too and others feel compelled to shut the pain teachers down.
The Bullied and the Sheep and breaking eggs
Ends? Schmends... but love me them MEANS!!
Some victims of bullying and or abuse may not engage in classic bullying behavior when they are old enough... but may become a type of closet bully when they are adults by empowering other bullies to help act out responses to their own secret fears and anger. It is a truism that all bullies were bullied to begin with and all bullies felt fear first. And all bullies do or allow almost anything to avoid pain and fear in the future. And if they get into positions of power and their paranoia is advanced enough, sometimes there are ends that seem soooooo important to them that they are then able to set in motion things that are normally unthinkable. And being at the top and remote from the inevitable nasty realities that they make possible. (The Fuhrer did not tour death camps for instance) And free from having to witness the evil they make possible, they can freely enable an environment where anything goes and where any MEANS are justified for those very special ENDS; all rules off the table and human beings, the wrong kinds of human beings or just possibly useful people, can be bent, folded, spindled and mutilated for a higher purpose. And this is done in part by using some people to do parts of it that we wouldn't want loose on our own streets.
The psychopaths lower down the chain who actually carry out torture or other extreme measures get to keep doing it because they have no scruples or morals holding them back and are therefor better at it.... and also likely have little use for rationalizing things...ends? schmends?! whatever... the MEANS are what I like... gimme more... encapsulates something of their mindset. But they are rare... along with them there are MADE sociopaths, borderline people who given the opportunity blossom alongside the pre-existing sickos. And whose acts make them almost indistinguishable from the long term violence-lovers. But whether the torturers are bullied who graduate to being bullies and maybe go back to obsequious toadies when they finally go to far and are tried and sentenced for doing what they were told stupidly or with too much enthusiasm the pain still felt the same to those they tortured. And what of the torturers? Torturers who still have a spark of morality and empathy walled off from what they are doing do not have normal lives after they stop harming others. They will never forget either.
Lastly there are the all important sheep. Fortunately there are never enough hard core, damaged people capable of serious evil, so of course these kinds of undertakings need a good number of sheep who just obey and try and fit in without the moral courage or strength to reject participation in abominable practices... but those sorts are not likely to be assigned directly to the places of torture in the first place or last there for long. And still many in the sheep category helping with the pain and fear production or a step or two removed from direct involvement still want to succeed in their jobs so they often find ways to buy into the immorality just enough and help make things possible or even easier. They will help break any eggs you say and help make any kind of omelet too, even ones that are no good for anyone...(Way too many people are just a few short-orders away from being Concentration camp guards.) But making or enabling pain and suffering cannot last forever and once these along-for-the-ride people have to accept what they helped with, though a lot better off than the tortured or the torturers they are never the same afterwords either. If they can be part of making sure there is less pain and fewer people making it... then some good can result. But that's competing with the next generation of pain makers and enablers they infest the world.
Abuse, Amorality and Angst
Rats in the alternative reality corner
It's a combination made in hell: Closet Bullies, compliant Sheep and harnessed sociopaths/Psychopaths. Out of control, expedient, amoral policies made by defective people leading unquestioning sheep in ways that enable other people to "legally" find their inner beast and immoral limits. And it's process that ends up rewarding sociopaths with "valued" roles committing certain pre-approved crimes with added pressure and incentives from authority to find expected pre-conceived results. This combination is found wherever and whenever the rule of law breaks down and impatient, small minded paranoids/sociopaths have inserted themselves in positions of power and control. It is a step by step process and over and over societies find themselves in nightmares they have helped create or allowed to grow over time. It is usually a nightmare that is denied or unrecognized by many growing out of control until it can no longer be denied and by then it is sometimes too late to just wake up to do any good. The whole script must grind on till the destruction it creates cannot continue and it almost ends itself. That is, it loses the power to prevent good people from pulling the plug on what's left. But by then so much wrong has been done that many people can't imagine why they did not notice and do anything sooner. And it's not as if it was not done at least partially plain sight and there were no warnings.
Why were so many blind to the fact that people in powerful positions were acting like cornered rats long before they had actual reasons to act like cornered rats? Was it the Bluster and fear mongering that resonated with so many powerless fearful people that they validated the message they heard and the actions that ensued? Did they mistake small, fearful people pretending to be leaders as worthy of our trust? They obviously did not see them acting like overcompensating closet bully victims living out their repressed fears in public and did not believe those that did see it. I do not know if Bush II or Cheney or Rumsfeld or Rush or Karl or a whole generation of Neocons were actually bullied or abused as kids, but they sure acted as if they were.
No matter how powerful the previously bullied become, somewhere inside they are still fearful and angry cowering in a corner and extending their own mindset to an entire country and its place in the world... These figurative rats cannot comprehend that they are not in an apocalyptic reality where their very survival is directly in question... But since emotionally they inhabit an alternate reality that resembles this, their responses are so out of proportion to actuality that they almost create and guarantee the extremes they want to prevent. And they are unshakable as only the truly afraid can be so they cannot hear or accept information that conflicts with the delusional view and eventually surround themselves with yes men who provide an extra layer of filtration that only re-enforces the paranoia.
The Mission Justifies Anything
From Iraq to Beck and 2001 to Fawlty Towers
As their "reality mis-compares" get even worse and their defensive measures more expedient they make everything worse; domestically where dissent is ignored or suppressed in some way and overseas where tortured survivors become radicalized along with their outraged families and neighbors. Their understandably vigorous actions eventually justifies even more extreme counter defenses and actions. Even rational, yet uninformed people in the US believed the War on Terror justified some pretty extreme measures and yet those at the top still knew the real extremes were unlikely to be supported and had to be kept secret.
Both perpetrators and victims fall into the hands of unbalanced people on their own "Side" who also justify extreme measures as the only desperate option. The Mad leading the desperate till everyone become perpetrators of some sort in an out of control spiral of irrational destruction. And it is a madness that infects others and expands in a way that ensures additional forms of counter-madness appear to be rational options for the normally sane. Fighting fire with explosives and poorly executed firebreaks and spreading the fire much more widely becomes accepted policy along with very imaginative speculation on the cause of the fires. TV pundits pouring "gasoline" on a person are but a paranoid symptom of the larger pyromania.
They just don't get why the old saying "Violence begets violence" is true... And it is multi-generational in families and nations too. Once a country or people goes too far down that road, being restrained will not bring success. Unless those who choose this route go 100% Genghis on the enemy and exterminate their own humanity along with the existence of ALL of the foe, there will always be anger and revenge in response from survivors or if they cannot there will at least those who have retained some morality who will look them in the eye and wordlessly damn them for what they have done or allowed to be done and they know that they know.... And the Cheney or Stalin type mindsets of the world cannot stand that kind of knowledge. Reality must conform to their view... dissenting understanding is anathema and they are above reproach.... it would weaken the defense they imagine is absolutely vital and maybe subconsciously they also realize it calls into question the actual need for extreme defense in the first place. And by extension that questions their judgment and competence and any justification to continue in power and even whether they are quite sane... (See Hal... 2001) The Torture enablers are like HAL, and feel compelled to kill the crew morality and the law for the sake of the mission's success (not to mention their own safety by extension) and continue to do whatever they can to perpetuate and justify the disaster they have created. It's like Basil Fawlty on ultra-steroids going to self-parodying extremes of arrogance, fear, denial and self justification only no one is laughing.
Extremes of Denial
A Few Waterboardings short of Nuremburg?
Along the spectrum of evil from minor, banal torturers to world class exterminators, the truth of what they have done is a horrible thing that they want to wish away in any way they can. Whether it's evil-lite like "just" memos leading to torture or all the way along the scale to outright genocide there are many ways to try and make it go away whether through spin or avoidance or trying to not be damned for all time in history books. Whether the level of wrong that someone needs explained away through enhanced interpretations, explanations or just plain old lies is trivial or enormous. And whether it's relatively "harmless" (barely hundreds or up to tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands dead or damaged in some way...) well on the way to serious mega-death level statistics... there is always an attempt to explain it all or lie about it or try and pretend it away.
If not just suppressing differing notions and information with the aid of bought and paid-for politicians, owned media and other enablers then just plain old beat any dissent out of the public with a few "Examples" and if that doesn't work then more and more examples till the whole thing reaches nightmare proportions... Some people in some times and places have put this to the test... How much is enough, when is it not just a bad idea but when does it become so self destructive that few can deny it. How long can a pattern of being lied to and lying to yourself go on before it collapses under its own weight? We did not get too far in the wrong direction relatively speaking...but the harm done was still so horrific that it is astonishing that so many still do not comprehend how bad we were getting to be. If the wrongs that America has done under Bush could be considered "relatively minor"... we don't want to ever find out what REALLY bad is like.... and that said, just because we stopped short of automatic "do not pass go, go straight to Nuremberg trials" extreme, that does not excuse or minimize the level of harm we caused to others and ourselves.
Dressing things up with memos and delusions from tv shows cannot change the "eye for an eye" blindness of reality. The evils build on evils and the fear and response can grow ever larger, without end, till can reach all the way to a cataclysmic end game. At every decision to escalate to new levels of violence there is a chance to back down from the unthinkable. But even if we killed every last person that might try and get some form of justice or revenge, that would be a hollow "victory" that would leave us as victorious barbarians stripped of any good or virtue we might have had We would be left morally as some figurative 4th Reich ready to reign for 1000 years on the bones of our erased victims...
At some point the sane in any group can see that what may seem "Minor" now is part of a continuum that is found in the history of any people that has descended into evil.... not phony Fox and Fundie evil but the real deal full on evil and we don't want to be anywhere near even the first steps to that kind of evil.... that kind has a way of feeding and re-feeding on everyone and itself till people end up far beyond what they imagined they were capable of. Civilization is said to be only a few meals away from anarchy and like that we are just a few waterboardings away from the moral abyss figuratively speaking...
Torture Polling for Intel
Whole city shotgun biopsy scans!
Building a helpful intel picture by routinely torturing like it was a poll sample .... The banality of evil as torture polling: abducting likely information sources, innocent and or guilty alike and torturing everyone to help get an overall picture of enemy operations. Imagine diagnosing disease by repeated random biopsies of diseased and healthy tissue alike from the patient with little regard to how wounded they are getting.... it quickly becomes counter productive no matter what is "learned" especially if there is a successful diagnosis announced later at the funeral. It is no more useful than a neutron bomb is as a diagnostic device to help "understand" an entire city or country. You would get a nice macro scan, static picture of the area frozen in time that you completely control as an unchanging sample, like an electron microscope helps us do for the very small. But the thing you are studying has to be dead and the vacuum and beam would be fatal anyway... We had to nuke the town in order to understand what was going on in it. Unfortunately the sample being probed in the torture polling effort is changing and degrading all the time... they still have to be alive to get any data from. Abduction and Torture kills the community that existed there before.... It kills what they were and how they lived, and kills the future that would have been for everyone there. These are those new realities that the anonymous Bush administration source was so proud of.... realities of fear and anger and grief, grief for not only who was lost or what they lost but the alternate life of possibilities for the whole community that also died.
And all of this seems to be the same combination of social and political dysfunction that leads to War and other human caused catastrophes ... by the time it becomes not only possible but necessary theses kinds of large scale human derangement almost has to run it's course of destruction in order to reset people to some sort of normality - recovering from the period of madness as if it was a severe illness; like being swept up in a panicked crowd the aware and the unaware alike are forced to endure it till it's inevitable conclusion due to the exhaustion of will, fear, anger and hatred. And the same horrible repeating scenarios are preventable up to a point but at some point there is no turning back and the extended set of explosions will happen; it's just a matter of time and all must suffer some consequence whether direct or indirect. Most of us did not live the daily nightmare of Iraq and the "war on Terror" over the past years but we are tarred and scarred by it in so many ways.
If we really become again a country that does not torture we will be much more able to resist going wrong in other ways. We will be less likely to have leaders who choose people at random to torture in order to get "better" intel and allow us to "connect up the Dots". We will not have leaders oblivious to the truth that fighting evil with evil only makes more evil... We will not have leaders who allow labeling the innocent as Evil since that truly makes the labelers the evil ones. And we will not see evil where it is not.