What makes the terrorists hate Americans so much that they want to kill us, and are willing to die themselves to do it? Should we believe it is because they are evil religious fanatics who “hate our freedoms,” or is there another reason? We heard a range of opinions from people on the street in this video sequence. Do they have it right? What do you think?
By David Kasper
The fact that the US government designed and implemented an elaborate system of arbitrary detention and torture during the Bush administration has been clearly established. Yet there are still defenders who deny that what happened was actually torture. They claim that “enhanced interrogation techniques” were justified because they were successful and necessary to Keep Us Safe from terrorists. We are still hearing this from people like Dick Cheney, Jose Rodriguez, John Yoo and their supporters in the media, and in portrayals such as the movie Zero Dark Thirty. This is despite the fact that more than 100 detainees have died during detention, many likely tortured to death.
President Obama’s refusal to support any investigation or prosecution of torture crimes has helped to further this phony narrative. As Daniel Ellsberg points out in Seizing Power, even though Obama promised not to engage in torture, he has effectively decriminalized it and kept it as an option that he or his successor could re-implement at any time. Some suspect that torture is still going on secretly in places like Bagram prison in Afghanistan, and that it is being outsourced to other governments to maintain deniability.
The success of the “torture keeps us safe” narrative can be seen in a recent poll showing that 47% of the public believes that torture is always or sometimes justified. Efforts by the White House, the Justice Department and the CIA to suppress facts about the torture program, and to control the public’s perception have been undeniably effective. Suppression continues with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s refusal to release a 6,000-page report that, according to those who have seen it, blows the lid off of the official version pushed by the White House and the CIA.
A new report by the Constitution Project, an independent research group, strongly debunks the official story. This detailed report concludes that “it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture” and that those responsible included the highest officials in the White House, the Justice Department and the CIA. This report makes it much more difficult for torture proponents to continue their false narrative, and gets us closer to a full accounting of what happened and a form of justice for the perpetrators.
It was recently discovered that the Justice Department secretly seized hundreds of telephone records of reporters and editors at the Associated Press in an effort to hunt down the source of a leak that exposed a CIA operation. This is a dramatic escalation in the government’s efforts to conceal its activities and to intimidate and punish anyone in the government who dares to expose criminal activity and wrongdoing. It is another front in the continuing campaign by Obama’s Justice Department to harass and persecute whistleblowers, several of whom appear in Seizing Power. Not only does this kind of privacy intrusion intimidate whistleblowing, it creates a chilling effect on news gathering and freedom of the press. As investigative reporter Charles Lewis points out in Seizing Power, “It’s hard enough to do journalism, but if you’re being monitored while you’re doing the journalism, you have no chance at all. An anonymous source is a thing of the past. Is there any better way to chill the media itself? I don’t think so.”
We have organized our blog posts into four categories that we think will enlighten, inform and provide ideas on how you can continue to learn more about the topics covered in the Seizing Power documentary. Our goal is to engage people in the conversation and provide opportunities to be a part of the solution. It is time we “Take Back Our Power!”
Word On The Street Our camera crews have been going out to the streets to hear what the people have to say. We’ve asked questions such as:
Time To Start The Conversation Each of these series of posts will begin with a short video clip of one of people we have interviewed for the documentary. We will use our interviewee’s perspective to explore different topic areas, and then leave you with some provocative questions to help launch a conversation.
Take Back Your Power We will keep you informed of upcoming conferences, events, and legislation coming up in congress that are critical for us to learn about, and share our opinions on. Check out our Take Action page to hear what some of our interviewees have to say about what the individual citizen can do to take action!
In The Know These blog posts will focus on current events and our commentary about what is happening in the world. Basically, this is our “catch all” category and opportunity to talk about whatever is capturing our attention today that we want to share with you.