How The CIA's Torture Program Is Destroying The Key Foreign Power The US Had: The Moral High Ground
from the depressing dept
Over a year ago, we wrote about a wonderful piece in Foreign Affairs by Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore, noting that the real "danger" of the Snowden and Manning revelations was that it effectively killed off the US's ability to use hypocrisy as a policy tool. Here was the key bit (though the whole article is worth reading):The deeper threat that leakers such as Manning and Snowden pose is more subtle than a direct assault on U.S. national security: they undermine Washington’s ability to act hypocritically and get away with it. Their danger lies not in the new information that they reveal but in the documented confirmation they provide of what the United States is actually doing and why. When these deeds turn out to clash with the government’s public rhetoric, as they so often do, it becomes harder for U.S. allies to overlook Washington’s covert behavior and easier for U.S. adversaries to justify their own.The argument that Farrell and Finnemore made was that the revelations that came about because of the whistleblowing by Snowden and Manning made it such that this hypocrisy didn't function as well, because it made it much easier for others to simply call bullshit.
Few U.S. officials think of their ability to act hypocritically as a key strategic resource. Indeed, one of the reasons American hypocrisy is so effective is that it stems from sincerity: most U.S. politicians do not recognize just how two-faced their country is. Yet as the United States finds itself less able to deny the gaps between its actions and its words, it will face increasingly difficult choices -- and may ultimately be compelled to start practicing what it preaches.
Now, a new article at Foreign Policy, by Kristin Lord, takes this argument even further, by looking at the CIA torture program and how it has totally undermined America's "soft power" in diplomacy. Lord, thankfully, makes it quite clear that the problem here is the CIA's program and not (as some have tried to argue) the release of the report about the program:
But the fault lies not with those who released the report, as some critics argue, but with those who permitted and perpetrated acts of torture, those who lied about it to America’s elected representatives, and those who willfully kept the president and senior members of the Bush administration in the dark. Their actions undermined not only American values, but also American influence and national security interests. In the words of a former prisoner of war, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the actions laid out in the Senate report “stained our national honor” and “did much harm and little practical good.”But the key point of Lord's article, like the earlier one by Farrell and Finnemore, is that the US has long relied on its "soft power strategy" of convincing others to do things because it's "the right thing to do." The US has long presented itself as holding a higher moral ground. However, as Lord points out, the soft power the US uses goes beyond just the moral high ground:
While morality is a normative system of values and principles that guides just behavior, soft power is ultimately about influence. As Joseph Nye, the former dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, has argued, there are many different ways to affect the behavior of others. One can coerce with threats. One can induce with incentives. Or one can exercise the power of attraction, co-opting others who want the same things you want through the legitimacy of your policies and the values upon which they’re founded. The latter is called soft power.As the article makes clear, it seems like US leaders don't seem to recognize just how important the US's "soft power" is -- and how fragile it might be in the wake of the revelations of the past couple of years. What Farrell and Finnemore described as the power of American hypocrisy is becoming increasingly clear, making it an increasingly less effective diplomatic tool. And others are seizing on this.
Moral authority facilitates soft power, but so do relationships, shared values, and interlinking interests. Given the ideological component of so many of the national security threats that face the United States going forward — and the inability of any one country to meet them alone — soft power can be an important part of the strategy to address these threats. But Americans will need to cultivate it.
Lord's piece then goes into a detailed explanation of what the US needs to do if it wishes to continue exercising "soft power" to influence the world. And part of that is recognizing just how badly the US has screwed up over the past decade and a half (mostly in response to 9/11):
First, it has to “walk the walk,” aligning actions and values, rhetoric and deeds. This is understandably difficult in a country with complex and wide-ranging foreign policy interests, but the United States could do better in one key respect: weighing potential damage to America’s moral authority when considering policy options. Such considerations are often trumped, and not without cause. Policymakers are regularly forced to choose from a series of bad options, and when they do, clear and short-term consequences weigh more heavily than diffuse costs to notions like reputation. If the United States is serious about countering challenges to its national security interests and democratic ideals, however, this must change. Perceptions that the United States does not live up to its own values fundamentally undermine American power and inhibit the country’s ability to defend not just its own interests, but also universal standards of what is right and just. They undermine America’s ability to defend the time-proven value of the moral high ground, and they empower cynical actors eager to seize the propaganda advantage.Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be happening. Rather than using the release of the Snowden documents or the CIA terror report as a true chance to reflect, to admit where things went wrong, and to show a real commitment to doing better in the future and being transparent about it, it has instead resulted in typical partisan bickering, ridiculous and counterproductive defenses of harmful surveillance and torture, and very little actual introspection. It is this response that only helps perpetuate the continuing and rapid deflation of any moral high ground that the US had to stand on.
The basic stated values of the US are something worth spreading and perpetuating. But the only way you can legitimately do that is to admit when the country has strayed from those values, and that means a true and honest accounting of where things went wrong, along with a transparent and concrete plan for dealing with those failings and making sure they don't happen again. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be happening, and many in power don't seem to understand the damages this is doing to the US's power around the globe.
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Filed Under: cia, cia torture, diplomacy, hypocrisy, moral high ground, soft power, torture
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The cited Techdirt article from one year ago has a great deal of details on whole all the pieces of hypocrisy and doubts work together.
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Welcome to the Plutocracy that is the US.
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I havent seen the movie but from what i heared the whole trial was illegal and completly unjust, not to mention the "confession" of tortured prisoners and the intentionally botched executions.
Shit Patton wrote a book about his experiences and opinions, really disturbing stuff.
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What about post-WWII CIA in South and Central America, among other places? It was the hip thing for both soviets and allies.
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Meh - we lost the moral high ground when we went into *Vietnam. Torture and spying are just more nails in an already-sealed coffin.
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Increasingly difficult choices
Let's see, 9-11 happened, and we made some difficult choice to, for starters, torture and spy on everyone.
So, we failed to make the right choices there, and yes, I'm quite willing to believe there will be future choices more difficult than how to respond to 9-11.
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Re: Increasingly difficult choices
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When you go torture someone, you lose any claim to human rights.
When you make an executive decision to abandon Miranda rights, the 6ᵗʰ amendment guarantees to a speedy trial and the right to face your accusers, the 4ᵗʰ amendment right to search and seizure, the 5ᵗʰ amendment rights to due process, the 8ᵗʰ amendment rights against cruel or unusual punishment, you have not only trashed the laws that give you the power to act in behalf of the nation but you have led the country into lawlessness. Hardly the beacon of showing how to walk the walk and talk the talk.
Because of 'terrorism' jerk knee responses, you've just thrown out the guarantees that makes this country what it is.
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No, there is no lawlessness, just different laws. The U.S.A. is an occupied country, with a sham democracy, and with the country actually run by the military-entertainment-corporate consortium.
There is not much of a need to create unrest by formally putting out a Constitution actually governing the country since this country heeds the rule of power rather than be restrained by abstract rules.
It's sort of the Communist antithesis, the dictatorship of the non-proletariat.
In a way, it is similar to a number of other countries where the U.S. government installed dictatorships, masked by whatever pretension of democracy may be politically opportune without being disruptive.
One might call it the Commongreed.
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Consequences
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Re: Consequences
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Who has been kept in the dark? Cheney and Bush knew what was going on:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/12/17/dick-cheney-confirms-it-bush-dese rves-blame-for-cia-torture/
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30427211
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It was our citizens that you were torturing. We did notice.
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It's just that the other citizens were determined to bury their ass in the sand, then stick their head up their ass.
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The US never had a moral highground. It only existed in the mind of those who fell for hollywood propaganda.
When was the last time the US did anything moral for foreigners?
Iraq was an attrocity, they were one of the most advanced country in the area, then the US decided they need more Democracy and turned it into a shithole with decades of sanctions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq#Effects_on_the_Iraqi_people_during_sa nctions
Then there was this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
Kinda obvious that the CIA was involved in covering this one up too. They fuckin threatened to murder entire families if they dont agree to settle for a small sum.
Disgusting. And there are countless other examples.
A dozen tortured people is nothing compared to these.
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That will be a pretty big stain on US.
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Reference please (yes I have already googled and didn't find anything)?
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Aggressors never have any moral ground
When the military defense industry psychopaths took over the moral ground was paved over for a tanks parking lot.
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Empire, democracy, republic, where next?
In software terms, that's the plan. We need to worry about how that plan was implemented.
In corporate terms, those basic stated values are PR speak, totally unrelated to what's going on in board of directors' chambers. You voted in the board.
Both Roman and British empires would have said the same thing about their basic stated values. American Empire carries on the fine tradition.
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What's the difference? At least the attacker pays for his own weapons, making sure poor people have less power?
I mean, all the drone attacks the U.S. flies on sovereign countries presumably are not terrorist attacks because the U.S. pays a lot of money for the Predator drones?
Or is there any other distinguishing feature?
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By bombing do you mean dropping bombs out of airplanes, or people carrying bombs into the country? Because if the former, I can't even describe how wrong you are. :-)
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An admission will not be enough
As a MAGW, I have absolutely no faith in the current status quo and do not want to be associated with it in any way. The USA will have to improve significantly on all four of these points before getting out of the moral swamp.
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Linkage
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Paying taxes is like giving money to a drug addict. They cheat, steal, and lie and the more you give them the worse they get.
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Dec 25th, 2014 @ 12:28pm
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vietnam
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Hmmmm Lets See
1-Nuke anyone that attacks us
2-Execute anyone that disagrees with us.
3-Make sites like this disappear, truly eliminate "Free Speech"
4-Jail or Execute dissenters
5-Eliminate the "Rule of Law"
6-Dissolve a government that can be changed by people that actually give a dam. We can vote change.
7-Eliminate the freedom of religion or the Freedom to have no religion.
8-Permanently occupy countries that we are forced to go to war with.
9-Don't forgive debt to the countries that we bailed out.
10-Shut our boarders and don't give a S&*t about the rest of the world.
11-Finally, when we are forced to go to war, leave the losing country in the destroyed state.
The comments in this piece are funny/sad.
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Re: Hmmmm Lets See
Are you really saying that until we do all of those things on your list, we still have the moral high ground? You're right, that is sad.
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Re: Hmmmm Lets See
They could be used as a last screw you by a defeated country though.
It is why the US never directly attacks anyone that can defend themselves
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Re: the CIA and the U.S.
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They love it.
They don't care.
It's part of the same mentality that your average authoritarian citizen shares. Like the cops. Sure, they get concentrated in some places - places of power - but this is not surprising once one grows up enough to learn that some people lack empathy, or don't think very well, or only for the short term, or who will do anything to get to the goal they are striving to attain (even when they or anyone else knows it will damn well not work). Never mind when these people are part of an institution, institutions seek to perpetuate themselves at any cost.
And the militaristic cult, they think that anything is fair in war, and that any sort of damage accomplishes their goals. Doesn't matter if you are alienating allies or pissing off the occupied. Doesn't matter if they knowingly and directly violate the the ideals they claim they are fighting for. Only the tribalism matters, not the things that distinguish the tribes.
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The C.I.A. and similar organizations with their supporters.
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Torture of USA citizens
This has rung most true over the past 13 years with numerous events here on US soil that have been used as excuses to take away rights and trash the Constitution.
Unless there is civil unrest and major changes made, there should be no doubt that we will see blatant disregard for our rights, the 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments as mere beginning. Torture of US Citizens will come to these shores as well.
History has proven time and time again that what oppressive regimes practice on externals will eventually be practiced internally.
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Re: Torture of USA citizens
Forcing a man to have several enemas just because they have the power to. where their local DA backs up the cops torture because again they have the power to.
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And for MANY things, this is just another to that growing list, and its not just the US government........and i stress the word government....an entity seperate to the people of a land
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Or becoming that thing they demonize so much, but nothing like we've seen before, another level of militirization, manipulation and propaganda......its happening now, its only gonna get worse, because most people dont want to see it, so they'll keep getting away with it........we need pioneers of enlightenment not leaders of war
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This.
Despite the example of entirety of human history, people don't seem to take to heart that fact that you really do become what you hate.
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When those in power won't even take action against those who are shown to have violated the law, why would they expect anyone else to obey the laws?
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high moral ground?
Their ability to believe in American exceptionalism while acknowledging the many failures of their civilization (compared to other developed countries) is truly staggering.
Having more weapons than others, does not make a person or a country more respected, just feared.
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Lost high moral ground
Precisely on August 6.
Dropping a couple of nuclear bombs on cities full of civilians does it.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Don't get all moralistic and tell me that the war would not have ended if we'd not done it.
Before that, I'd figure that owning slaves was a good reason, too.
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Re: Lost high moral ground
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I've never seen a politician admit they made a mistake in my life. Let alone take responsibility for those mistakes. So I believe America's moral high ground gone for the foreseeable future.
Besides, there's other forms of soft power to inflict on other nations. Such as economic sanctions, which America is currently using against Russia.
The real danger is when America can no longer use it's economic might as a soft power. Seeing as China is now the #1 economy in the world. It appears that future for America isn't far off.
Without a strong economy it's impossible to have a strong military. Without a strong military, we won't even be able to push our foreign policy objectives through hard power, militarily.
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When the peoples of the world stand up to us, they will not delineate between our leaders and our citizens. We will all be punished for the actions of the plutocrats and demagogues; that is, of course, unless we make a stand against them first.
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Torture ?
if anything we lost that ground because of the dramatic increase in drone strikes which on average kill a couple of innocents everytime we "kill" some terrorist ... seems immoral to me ...
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Re: Torture ?
Even the President admitted we tortured people.
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Re: Torture?
Here's a link to refresh your memory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
Now go away with your silly 'it's not torture until we say it's torture' act.
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That bar isn't all that high. Let's match up statistics? Of course, only include super powers, compare apples to apples.
US vs. Russia? US vs. China? Anyone else? Bueller? Bueller?
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US vs US's stated ideals. As mentioned kind of all through the story, which makes me wonder if you only read the headline or something.
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Of course it has to be comparative. If you have the high ground by yourself, you are just on a hill, which means nothing.
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You are free to compare the US's actions against other countries, but that isn't what this article is about. This article is about comparing the US's moral actions to its claims about itself, and the effect that discrepancy has on international relations.
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Of course it has to be comparative."
Indeed it does, and that comparison is between the ideals you proclaim and your actions.
But let's be clear with an example. If you are constantly telling people that torture is wrong and you don't do it, but you're doing it anyway, then you've lost the moral high ground in the sense that you have no credibility when you tell or insist that other people not to engage in torture.
If you torture people but have never proclaimed that you don't, nor argued that torture is wrong, you haven't lost the moral high ground (you never really had it in the first place), but you do get a couple of brownie points for not being a hypocrite.
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CIA torture? For the Arab world, that's no surprise
"....woven into some of the media reaction is another theme, too. It's in the Washington Post's editorial, which states: "This is not how Americans should behave. Ever."
It's in the many references, within the US, to the CIA torture as the antithesis of "national" and "American" values. And it is in Vox editor-in-chief Ezra Klein's observation: "We betrayed our values. We betrayed who we are."
Across the Arab and Muslim world this kind of response from the West might come over as somewhat belated and, well, maybe a little bit delusional, too. After all, "who we are" has been going on since 2001, at the very least (let's not get into the torture that was such an integral part of colonialism, or even the torture training that the CIA gifted a variety of brutal regimes during the 1970s). And "who we are" has for some time been painfully clear to those at the receiving end of it."
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First Church of the Pharisees
But don't call them a Pharisee lest ye be smited.
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Re: First Church of the Pharisees
It's very strange that most of the support for guns and torture come from those who consider themselves Christians.
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