I had seen some posts earlier today on this, but combined with my host problems along with the lack of confirmation regarding the assertions in the news releases, I chose not to try to write about this issue at the time. Now, with confirmation, it provides a starting point for a post that I lost when my hard disk for my PowerBook died, so I will attempt to reconstruct it now.

The news story:

US acknowledges torture at Guantanamo and Iraq, Afghanistan: UN source

Fri Jun 24, 9:23 AM ET

GENEVA (AFP) - Washington has for the first time acknowledged to the
United Nations that prisoners have been tortured at US detention centres in Guantanamo Bay, as well as
Afghanistan and Iraq, a UN source said.

The acknowledgment was made in a report submitted to the UN Committee against Torture, said a member of the ten-person panel, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“They are no longer trying to duck this, and have respected their obligation to inform the UN,” the Committee member told AFP.

“They will have to explain themselves (to the Committee). Nothing should be kept in the dark.”

UN sources said it was the first time the world body has received such a frank statement on torture from US authorities.

The Committee, which monitors respect for the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, is gathering information from the US ahead of hearings in May 2006.

Signatories of the convention are expected to submit to scrutiny of their implementation of the 1984 convention and to provide information to the Committee.

The document from Washington will not be formally made public until the hearings.

“They haven’t avoided anything in their answers, whether concerning prisoners in Iraq, in Afghanistan or Guantanamo, and other accusations of mistreatment and of torture,” the Committee member said.

“They said it was a question of isolated cases, that there was nothing systematic and that the guilty were in the process of being punished.”

The US report said that those involved were low-ranking members of the military and that their acts were not approved by their superiors, the member added.

The US has faced criticism from UN human rights experts and international groups for mistreatment of detainees — some of whom died in custody — in Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly during last year’s prisoner abuse scandal surrounding the Abu Ghraib facility there.

Scores of US military personnel have been investigated, and several tried and convicted, for abuse of people detained during the US-led campaign against Islamic terrorist groups.

First: I take no joy in this. I feel shame for my nation.

Second: My nation has indeed done the right thing and admitted that individuals that were representing the United States engaged in behaviors that could be called “torture” under a reasonable interpretation of the word.

Third: This admission should NOT be read as anything more than what it is; an acknowledgment that certain individuals did not act in accordance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Going against this Convention is not a stated part of United States policy.

After all of the above, can we finally look at this issue?

I have stated repeatedly both here and in comments at other weblogs about how the prison at Guantanamo stains our national honor.

I want to clarify for those who do not get it exactly how this prison is wrong upon its very basis.

However, this explanation is perhaps too long for the modern short attention span, much less for the time I have available to reconstruct the coherent whole of the foundation of my beliefs.

So instead I will try a melange of my thoughts that perhaps might provide a better perspective, even if being less satisfying from a logical viewpoint.

I have grown very angry recently when I have seen defenders of abhorrent statements from prominent representatives of BOTH sides of the political spectrum, namely Karl Rove and Dick Durban.

Am I equating what they said?

No, I am not.

But I am indeed equating much of what I have read in defense of what they said.

Typically, the defense follows the pattern of “Yes, but the other side has said this…” followed by a listing of more egregious offenses than those presented by the offensive statements of the representatives of their preferred side.

In other words, relative morality at its apex.

When I was young and I wanted to do something, I would try to persuade my parents (mainly my mother) by saying something along the lines of “But Jimmy is able to do it!!!”

Consistently, the response I received was, “If Jimmy jumped off a bridge, would you jump off it, too?”

That lesson stuck with me.

The cries of defense when Durban or Rove say something idiotic, cries of “Well, the other side said…” ring hollow in my ears.

Should we base our statements and behavior on what our opponents do?

I do not think so.

I was tempted earlier to write a post entitled “Can someone show me the memo” that was followed up by the statement, “you know, the memo where we can justify any behavior by saying that someone else, usually our opponents, behave worse, so our bad behavior is just fine because it is not as evil.”

I do not know if it was fortunate or unfortunate that due to a mistake on my part my weblog was offline while I was mentally composing that post.

The residue of the feelings that provoked those thoughts remain, however. I am disgusted by the relative morality expressed by those who are more than ready to call foul on anyone who does not adhere to their own point of view, but defend to the point of unreasonable incoherence statements equally morally egregious from those “on the same side”.

To put it simply, no situation is evaluated on whether or not that person behaved in a manner right or wrong, independent of the acts of others. Instead, everything is brought to the appeal of “someone on the other side did worse”, regardless of how representative of the “other side” is this so-called archetype chosen by the opposition.

Let us take this to the extreme then. By this logic, I can rape whoever I want as long as I don’t kill them, because there are more than few out there I can point to who did worse than just “merely rape” someone.

I can essentially do or say whatever I want because I can always find someone whose behavior is worse.

Is that truly the mode of thought we want to follow?

This is the system we are setting up with the unreasoning, unreasonable defense of those who are behaving badly by any standard, but are defended by those who cannot see beyond their own partisan gain or loss.

What happened to “look at each situation to determine the right or wrong of it; do not let others determine your standards…”?

Apparently that baseline has disappeared.

This sums up why I call the prison camp at Guantanamo dishonorable:

A nation, or a person, the honor of either is shown by how they treat those whom they have in their power, those with no defense.

The foundation of the Untied States is in a nation of laws, not of men.

Yet…

We deliberately create a prison at Guantanamo to imprison people beyond the reach of law.

We do not set up a realistic, reasonable system to review the imprisonment of those held with consistent standards of evidence.

We created an environment where bad actors could carry out their bad acts with the belief they would not be caught.

Added to the mix: The President declares he has the power to name any US citizen an “enemy combatant” who upon being imprisoned cannot have any access to counsel, nor any appeal.

Are you seeing a pattern here that is a wee bit hypocritical compared to what we say we want to do, which is destroy dictatorships such as that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq?

Is there a distant but still dimly reflective mirror present here?

Answer honestly.

The defense of these actions is of the “Yes, but…” genre, which does not speak well of these actions in and of themselves.

In other words, honorable behavior does not depend upon the actions of others but instead is recognized on its own.

If your first defense of any act, whether perpetrated by Democrat or Republican, military or civilian contractor, starts with “Yes, but…” then the behavior you are defending is NOT honorable.

Honorable behavior stands on its own.

Honorable behavior does not need to be compared to atrocious acts to be held in high regard.

Honorable behavior has its own standards that are independent of the bad acts of others.

Honorable behavior does not depend upon relative morality.

Do the math.

When you cry, “Yes, but the terrorists are worse,” or, “Yes, but the Democrats (Republicans) have said worse,” consider what exactly is the behavior you are defending. If these acts were committed by someone on “the other side”, would you give them a pass on it? How does this behavior seem when evaluated independently, based solely upon its own merits and flaws rather than upon who “wins” or “loses”?

Honor knows no relative morality, and I am surprised by those who appear to have forgotten this basic lesson.