by Cheryl Rofer
Caitlyn raises a point that has bothered me for some time: what of the torturers? I suppose they react to their experiences in many ways. Frank Snepp says that he’s still haunted by what he did as an interrogator in Vietnam. Tony Lagouranis came out in 2005 and said that he had been involved in torture. The two of them seem to be living relatively normal lives, although with burdens they’ll probably never be able to put down.
But what of others? Do they feel guilt or are they looking for more ways to feel as omnipotent as they did when they completely controlled another life? Did they volunteer or were they required to do what they did? Did they object or quietly manage to find a way to another assignment? How many of them are back at home in the United States? Do their families know? How do they deal with telling them or not?
All questions. I have no answers.
Another issue that is bothering me and has little coverage is the systemic breakdown that allowed torture. Mark Danner wrote about it in the Washington Post Sunday. Tony Lagouranis and others told us about torture years ago. We’ve known that President Bush was lying (or doing some complicated mental adjustments) when he said “We don’t torture.” Yes, it looks like it was ordered from the top, and yes, each of us has very little power by ourselves. But where, as Danner asks, was the political elite? And why didn’t we all make our concern a little bit more known?
This is not easy to untangle. For those close to the decision-making, keeping one’s job can be merely the desire for comfort, but it can also be an attempt to prevent things from getting worse. And there are limits to the objections one can make without becoming completely discredited within a system. And there was the president reassuring us, which made things ambiguous enough that the urge to write our Senators was blunted.
Fear of political opposition? Yes, another way to become discredited. Or maybe, if enough legislators had stood up against these policies, they could have turned the tables. Or maybe they really didn’t know the full extent of what they were approving. We still haven’t heard this full story.
It’s this uncertainty and lack of information that leads me to favor some form of truth and reconciliation commission. I’d like to hear their experience from those who were directly involved at the bottom of the chain. I’d like to hear what went on in the legislative briefings and who was included. I’d like to hear more.