Self-loathing in the Face of Facts

What do you call waterboarding, especially if repeated 183 times on a single detainee, locking a prisoner in a claustrophobic box, prolonged sleep deprivation, shackling into painful positions, forced rectal feeding, holding a drill to someone’s head or slamming a head against a concrete wall, sleep deprivation, auditory overload, threatening to harm family members, being stripped naked and having a hood placed over your head?

When I was first active in Amnesty International in the 1970s, I read about such atrocities in prisons in places such as Argentina and other dictatorships around the world. In each case, the government first denied such things happened, then said that if they did happen, they weren’t authorized, and finally admitted they did happen but were necessary for national security.

Descriptions like these turned my stomach and moved me and tens of thousands of others. We demand an end to such tactics. We called it what it was—torture and it was horrifying.

The correct and graphic term made it clear that human beings were being treated in a way that was moral repulsive. It is hard to find an ethical principle higher than “never treat a person as a thing only.”

The information in the opening paragraph is taken from the Senate report on torture. And still there are some who won’t call it by its proper name. At his press conference the day after the Senate report was released, CIA Director John Brennan called the actions “abhorrent,” referring to them as EITs [enhanced interrogation techniques].

Rep. Peter King, like former Vice-president Dick Cheney, also wouldn’t call the methods “torture,” instead accusing those who released and support the Senate’s findings self-loathing.” This seems to be a classic example of kill the messenger.

Euphemisms are often used to cover harsh facts; in this case, they are used to hide from repulsive behavior, a cover to protect the self-image of a government agency, those who engaged in the practice and the honor of the country.

Most of us believe that we are good people. And most of the time we are. Think about your day today. In all likelihood you didn’t lie, steal, cheat or hurt someone; you behaved in a trustworthy fashion. In part our identities are built around perceiving ourselves as moral.

But torture isn’t moral, so to admit that this was carried out in our name is to create cognitive dissonance. We now have competing views of who we are. If we want to maintain our better image, we can’t accept the contrary evidence. So one way to bring back our equilibrium is to be in denial.

As a rule, denial is harmful. The first step to recovery is to admit to the wrongdoing. This is painful but necessary.

Euphemisms pull down a veil on reality. To live wholly, authentically and ethically, the first step is to accept the facts. In this instance, the fact is that the US used torture.

Torture wasn’t acceptable when used by military juntas in Latin America. It wasn’t acceptable when used by the US after 9/11. When we face the sad fact of this moral lapse, we are one step closer to regaining the moral high ground.