Mute on Torture
By SEAN HANNON

January 12, 2005

 I just read Andrew Sullivan’s review of two non-fiction books in the NY Times. It was called “Atrocities in Plain Sight”.  According to Mr. Sullivan, the books deliver the fullest picture yet of acts of torture inflicted by American military and the Bush administration policies that fostered and sanctioned it.

 I don’t know if I have the stomach to read the books. The review alone was like having my eyelids peeled back so that I couldn’t help but bear witness. The emerging picture is more hideous than you or I could imagine. And it is important to note, as the reviewer does, that these are not fanciful allegations made by antiwar journalists. The information comes from internal Defense Dept. documents, Army investigations and FBI records brought to light by the ACLU.

 We’re no longer talking about about a handful of disobedient miscreants, as President Bush dismissively burbled in his one testy soundbite on the subject last year.

 We’re talking about numerous documented incidents involving Marines, the Army, the Military Police, Navy Seals, reservists, Special Forces, and more, in detention facilities from Guantanamo to Afghanistan, Baghdad, Basra, Ramadi and Tikrit, not to mention hidden jails where “ghost detainees” are being held.

 Actually, we’re not talking about it all. Despite the mounting evidence of despicable acts of torture, our communities remain mute.  It is a truly chilling sign of our debased state that we are so numb and apathetic to this. The media is presently focussed on the showcase trial of one soldier, Charles Graner, with no interest in looking beyond it. Alberto Gonzales, the on-again, off-again sanctioner of torture is about to be confirmed as Attorney General with only a whisper of resistance by Senate democrats. The man who assisted Ashcroft in the round-up and detention of innocent Muslims families is Bush’s newest pick to head Homeland Security. Our government now wants to build more Guantanamo-type gulags to lock up hundreds upon hundreds of people for life without trial. And a month ago, a federal judge successfully won an important ruling, fighting our government’s contention that Americans overseas have no right to habeus corpus if they are imprisoned by a foreign power, even in situations where our own agents facilitate the abduction.

 The picture of torture developing in our darkroom is gaining sharp resolution and clarity and should scare the hell out of us. But our communities remain silent.  Want to guess what happens when “good” people stay silent for too long?