Stop Trying To scare Us Porter Goss

[Joanne98]

Whenever the Bush administration’s treatment of detainees is challenged, whenever anyone has dared to speak the truth that torture is both immoral and illegal, it’s just a matter of time before one of the now former Bushies trots out that tired trump card: anyone who questions the use of torture is making Americans less safe.

The latest person to make this despicable argument is former Republican Congressman and former CIA Director from 2004-2006, Porter Goss, in today’s Washington Post. Goss is just the latest defender of torture who is trying to distract us from the real issue: that the Bush administration tortured detainees in an attempt to extract “confessions” about a non-existent link between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Goss is following in the finest tradition of the Bush-Cheney era by using fear in an attempt to distract those who would question the Bush administration. In his Post op-ed, Goss solemnly tells us that “the damage to our capabilities has already been done” –apparently by the release of memos revealing new details about the Bush administration’s torture of detainees. (It’s interesting, by the way, that Goss laughed off any concerns about damage to our intelligence capabilities when the Bush administration publicly exposed the cover of an undercover agent, Valerie Wilson. I’m sure it is just a coincidence that the Wilson matter involved Republicans, because Goss makes clear in the title of today’s op-ed that he is a man who puts security before politics).

Shame on you Porter Goss. Stop hiding behind the bogus assertion that torture is essential to security. Someone needs to ask Director Goss to explain how trying to extract “confessions” about the phony link between Iraq and Al Qaeda was essential to keeping us safe.

Goss is using an incredibly disingenuous form of argument. He will not engage on the real question: will anyone be held accountable for torture that had nothing to do with keeping us safe? (I think all torture is wrong but I think it’s worth emphasizing that this is about torture that had nothing to do with keeping anyone safe). Instead, he tries to change the topic, pretending that the real villains here are in the Obama administration, which undermined the CIA by releasing the torture memos.

Goss goes on to slime the Obama administration with other arguments unconstrained by the facts. He claims that the only thing Obama is willing to do when it comes to interrogating detainees is to ask their “name, rank, and serial number”, and intelligence officers will be “reduced to wordsmithing cables to headquarters while opportunities to neutralize brutal radicals are lost.” These are pathetic distortions. Goss falsely suggests that only two options exist when it comes to interrogating detainees: torture or kid gloves. Preposterous. Rejecting the use of torture does not mean ruling out using lawful, and effective, methods to extract information. Just three days ago, a former FBI agent who questioned Abu Zubaydah explained that using “traditional interrogation methods” (i.e. not torture) yielded “important actionable intelligence.” Renouncing and denouncing torture does not mean we give up on using proven, effective methods of extracting intelligence from detainees, That’s not my theory–that’s what a former FBI agent who actually interrogated detainees has told us. Obama has done nothing to discontinue use of the methods the former FBI agent described, he has simply required that techniques comply with the Army Field manual, a decision the former FBI agent applauds.

Goss also repeats another deception being used by other defenders of torture: that the outcry over torture is simply “an attempt to gain partisan political advantage“. As I have written previously, holding the Bush administration accountable for torture is not about politics, it is about basic morality and the rule of law. As organic democrat, posting on Daily Kos, aptly observes, it is time for Republicans to step forward and acknowledge that this is not about politics, it is about the fundamental question of what it means to have moral categories of what is right and what is wrong. This eventually happened after Watergate, when some Republicans (though certainly not all), notably Senator Howard Baker, recognized that there are times when politicians must speak out against excesses within their own party. The Republican party has precious few moderates left in its ranks, but where are Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins? What about Arlen Specter, or Republicans not in elected office, like Brent Scowcroft or Lincoln Chafee?

This is not a partisan question, it is a question of basic morality. Republicans may choose to close ranks, keep trying to scare us, and keep arguing this is just about politics. Perhaps some will consider whether their first allegiance is to party or to country, to partisanship or to the rule of law.

http://www.theseminal.com/2009/04/25/stop-trying-to-scare-us-porter-goss/