Imperial Crimes in the United States and the Middle East
Rami G. Khouri
December 15, 2014
This moment is about as American as it gets here in the
United States. The exemplary release of a Congressional investigation into the
Central Intelligence Agency’s brutal interrogation techniques reflects the
finest practice of citizen oversight of government executive and security
agencies, truly one of the United States’ great gifts to the world; at the same
time, the revelations of torture and deception at the highest levels of
government reflect the worst practices of police states and authoritarian
despots.
So is the United States the shining republic, or
just another banana republic? Is this a moment of pride or shame for Americans?
Right now, it seems to be a bit of both, but how it emerges in the longer term
remains to be seen. I deeply admire that the Congressional committee carried
out the multi-year investigation into the CIA’s practices and then agreed with
the president to release the executive summary of its findings. The fundamental
reason for doing this has been the right of the American people to know what is
being done by their government, in their name.
Regardless of the awkward, awful and even
criminal findings of the report, this episode affirms the central idea that the
American revolution, Declaration of Independence, Constitution and 240 years of
democratic governance experience have given life to — the consent of the
governed. This means that the citizens rule by choosing their government every
few years, and by holding it accountable every moment of every year, through
the institutions of the rule of law, a free press, an independent judiciary,
the right to protest peacefully, and parliamentary oversight.
Will this example of democracy at work prove
more lasting and productive than similar previous revelations of misconduct by
officials or security agencies? The report’s findings and the intense
discussions now taking place across the country are not unique, so it is fair
to ask whether its publication will trigger the positive changes that most
citizens would desire to see. The United States has published similar reports
or revealed other misconduct — such as massacres in Vietnam, criminal conduct
and cover-ups in the White House, illegal domestic spying on private citizens,
or racist denials of equal rights to all citizens — often without subsequent
strong action to prevent such things from recurring. So the American system is
being tested once again; most admirably, it is testing itself.
The discussions since the report’s release last
Tuesday have mostly centered on several issues: whether the CIA methods used
constitute “torture,” how honestly and fully the CIA briefed the executive
branch and the congressional oversight committees, and whether the
interrogations were effective in providing information that truly served
American legitimate national security interests, by helping to capture Al-Qaeda
operatives or to avert other terror attacks. The public discussions themselves
are a critical dimension of rule by the citizenry.
Time will tell if definitive legal safeguards
will be installed to prevent recurrences of torture and deception, and whether
those who are identified as having acted improperly and illegally will be held
accountable in a credible manner. I would add two other questions that should
be answered in the months and years ahead.
The first is about the legality, morality and
efficacy of other war-making techniques that the United States continues to use
today. These include assassinating scores of people around the world via
drone-fired missile attacks, and holding detainees at Guantanamo Bay and
perhaps other places we do not know about for many years, without legal
safeguards. These and other such issues are not only about legality, legitimacy
or efficacy. They define the bigger fundamental issue of how an imperial-minded
United States uses its immense global military and technological capabilities
in any ways it sees fit, and justifies anything it does simply by claiming
pre-emptive self-defense in the face of imminent attacks against it.
The second issue that desperately needs
discussion and action in our part of the world is about the roles that Middle
Eastern countries played in capturing, detaining, interrogating, torturing, or
transporting detainees that the United States sought, and in many cases took to
Guantanamo. A 2013 report by the Open Society Foundation’s Justice Initiative (Globalizing
Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition) charged that 54 foreign governments participated
in the CIA’s program of “extraordinary rendition,” including 11 in the Middle
East (Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey,
United Arab Emirates, and Yemen). These are serious charges that deserve more
public discussion in these Middle Eastern countries, because if the charges are
correct they reflect a double failure in our societies: the unethical and
criminal act of participating in torture activities, and the politically
subservient behavior of supine colonial subjects who perform any act —
regardless of its legality or morality — demanded by the distant power they
cannot resist. Will we speak of or try to repair our own criminal and imperial
collusions nearly as openly as the United States addresses its own?
Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly in the Daily Star. He was founding director and now
senior policy fellow of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and
International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. On Twitter:
@ramikhouri.
Copyright © 2014 Rami G. Khouri—distributed by
Agence Global