The "Dark Side"

Man, 73, armed with bolt cutter,
drives lawmower to pound and
busts out his dog,“Buddy Tough.”

Perhaps we were just not listening, or, if listening, not truly paying attention, or if paying attention, not paying close enough attention, or if paying close attention simply did not understand what we were hearing. You may recall that at some point when we were hearing endless lies about terrorism, Iraq, the conduct of our “war,” or whatever, our self-appointed Vice-President and chief puppeteer said, “we may have to go to the dark side.” I don’t remember exactly when this was, I don’t remember the context, but I clearly remember him saying it. I do not believe that anyone, at the time, bothered to ask what the dark side was, what did he mean, why did he say it, or anything like that. He said it and we just all moved on. Why was this?

I suppose it could have been simply that no one took him seriously. It might have been that as it was not the major point of what he was talking about it was taken merely as a casual remark. But Cheney himself must have had a reason for saying it, and he must have had something specifically in mind. He might have had any number of things in mind, but in our language the phrase, “the dark side” does not have any benign connotations. Indeed, darkness is always associated with evil or bad things and qualities: a black heart, a black rage, funereal black, the black arts, afraid of the dark, black pit, black cats, etc., etc. He could have meant, I suppose, we were going to embark in some more clandestine activity, spying or such. He might have meant we might have to do something somewhat out of the ordinary when it comes to the rules of war, something that would not ordinarily be acceptable. I guess he even could have meant we were going to have to do everything possible to win no matter what. But did he mean what we now know he must have had in mind…torture? Personally, I think he did.

I suggest that even if there had been a few people who registered this phrase when he uttered it, and then thought about it even carefully, they would not have thought of torture. Why is this so? Because I don’t think anyone would have believed that we, the noblest and best country on earth, the great “beacon on the hill,” the champion of liberty and freedom, the land of milk and honey, would ever have done such a thing. Never mind that we have almost certainly employed torture at times in the past as that was not common knowledge. I submit the idea of torture, per se, simply would not have occurred to anyone. This is precisely why everyone was so surprised, horrified and upset when we first learned of Abu Graib. Cheney has argued ever since that torture was not only necessary, it worked, it produced information we would not otherwise have been able to obtain. It has now been pretty well established there is no basis in fact for Cheney’s claims. It has also been established that organizations responsible for interrogations have known for years that torture does not, in fact, work. It produces faulty information as people are willing to say anything under such extreme duress. We also know now that most of the useful information we received from our prisoners was actually produced prior to the torture episodes.

An interesting question that might be asked, did Dick Cheney know that our chief interrogators did not believe torture worked and ordered it anyway? After all, Cheney has been in high-level government positions virtually all his life, would he not have known this? Aside from the question as to whether torture works or not, he must surely have been aware that torture was illegal both under U.S. law and International law. He ordered it anyway, a clear, premeditated, and indisputable war crime. It doesn’t actually matter what he knew or didn’t know about torture, it would still be considered a war crime (ignorance is no excuse). I believe Cheney knew full well it was against the law, and probably knew professionals did not agree with him, but ordered it in spite of that. If it is true that he knew it didn’t work, and that it was illegal, and ordered it anyway, why? What was his motive, his purpose? That is, he committed an intentional war crime that was not even necessary and has sought to exonerate himself by pretending to be so vitally concerned with our safety he had no alternative, or at least, he believed there was no alternative. Of course he has to make such a claim because any other motive might reveal personal qualities best kept deeply buried in his psyche. Anyway, it doesn’t matter what he believed, it is still a serious war crime, for which he has not been held accountable or punished. President Obama and our Attorney General have chosen not to investigate, thus, I believe, probably becoming criminals themselves.

I wonder what fine times the Cheney bunch enjoyed in their regular White House meetings, discussing and deciding on what specific forms of torture could be applied next. Rumsfeld, Rice, and a few other apparent ghouls were regulars at these meetings. It angers me no end to know that Cheney is still moving in high circles offering gratuitous comments on the performance of President Obama, and the latter recently entertained Condi Rice at the White House, and has treated George W. Bush with a respect he certainly does not deserve. Bush and Cheney actively boast about committing these crimes and go about their business completely free of accountability, and presumably even remorse. It appears that as far as the U.S. is concerned, American and Israeli war criminals are never to be held accountable for their crimes, whereas war criminals in Africa or the Balkans and elsewhere definitely should be. We are indeed a nation of hypocrites (and criminals).

LKBIQ:
To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.
Aldous Huxley

TILT:
One of the chief characteristics of Australian marsupial wombats is their backwards pouch.