A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency (38 page)

But it defies reason and experience to make Sept. 11 the defining influence on our foreign and domestic policy. History suggests that we have faced greater challenges and triumphed, and
that overreaction is a greater danger than complacency
[emphasis added].

The scare tactic of telling Americans that every desired expansion of government power is justified by the Evil Terrorist Threat—and that there is no need to worry because the president is Good and will use these powers only to protect us—is effective because it has immediate rhetorical appeal. Most people, especially when placed in fear of potentially fatal threats, are receptive to the argument that maximizing protection is the only thing that matters, and that no abstract concept (such as liberty, or freedom, or due process, or adhering to civilized norms) is worth risking one’s life by accepting heightened levels of vulnerability.

But nothing in life is perfectly safe. Perfect safety is an illusion. When pursued by an individual to the exclusion of all else, it creates a tragically worthless, paralyzed way of life. On the political level, safety as the paramount goal produces tyranny, causing people to vest as much power as possible in the government, without limits, in exchange for the promise of maximum protection.

All of this is independent of the fact that vesting ever-increasing and unchecked power in a political leader most assuredly does not make a country “safer.” Though it is beyond the ken of the discussion here, it is well-established that open governments with substantial checks and oversight operate far more efficiently than highly secretive, unchecked governments run by unaccountable political leaders. As the American founders well understood, transparent government is critical for detecting errors, uncovering corruption, and ensuring accountability, while political leaders who operate in the dark, wielding vast powers with little oversight, virtually always conceal their mistakes and act to maximize their own interests rather than the country’s.

For that reason, the most radical and controversial Bush policies—from warrantless eavesdropping to detentions, torture and rendition carried out in secret and with no oversight—have not made us remotely “safer.” But even if one assumes that they had, our core political values are profoundly betrayed by the notion that we should vest blind faith and tyrannical powers in the president in exchange for promises of “protection.” The central rhetorical premise of the Bush presidency, however, has been that eliminating all risk of the Evil Terrorist Threat is paramount. Hence, the whole array of authoritarian powers seized by this administration is justified because none of the principles and values that are destroyed in the process really matter when set next to the scary prospect that The Terrorists will kill us. In his 2004 acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, the president described his all-consuming mission this way:

THE PRESIDENT:
This election will also determine how America responds to the continuing danger of terrorism—and you know where I stand.
(Applause
.)…Since that day [9/11], I wake up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country. I will never relent in defending America, whatever it takes.

AUDIENCE:
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

This approach has radically transformed America’s national character and has led us to engage systematically and openly in behavior we previously scorned when engaged in by other nations.
That
is why the Bush legacy has left the U.S. with the burden and danger of rising anti-American sentiment. A superpower—especially the world’s only superpower—can be either respected and admired or despised and feared. Since the end of World War II, America—albeit with numerous exceptions—has largely chosen the former. America’s leadership in advocating and defending universally applicable principles did not weaken it, nor did our efforts to avoid war make us appear “weak.” Quite the contrary. America’s strength has been grounded in the legitimacy and moral credibility of its power.

But with his monomaniacal obsession with annihilating perceived Evil, the president has squandered virtually all of the goodwill and respect that the United States built up in the last century. Accurately or not, large numbers of people around the world, on virtually every continent, now perceive the United States as a threat to peace. As they watched us invade and relentlessly bomb Iraq, a country that had not attacked us, and as we threaten still more countries with invasion, citizens around the world—including many of our own allies whose citizens had previously admired America—have come to view our country as a source of instability and aggression. Eight years is a long time, and millions and millions of young adults around the world have formed their perceptions of “America” based on its actions during the Bush presidency.

What is “Good” and what is “Evil” are not determined by some preordained or intrinsic distinction. Those are designations determined only by one’s conduct. America has always touted its principles as the source of its moral credibility in the world. But once those principles are relinquished and violated, America’s moral credibility and its legitimate claim to “Good” cease to exist.

THE ABYSS LOOKS BACK

T
hat anti-Americanism around the world has reached an all-time high is not, standing alone, conclusive evidence that America has veered off course from its ideals. Just as domestic majorities may be wrong in the views they hold, so, too, can international majorities. Like all other countries, America cannot, and should not, determine its actions solely by what makes it most popular in the world. All countries act in their own interests, and the U.S. has every right to do the same.

Nonetheless, in light of America’s need for international cooperation on virtually every front, the U.S. cannot be indifferent to surging anti-Americanism. U.S. interests generally, and national security specifically, can only suffer if the world turns against the U.S., or worse still, unites in opposition. There are reasons why America’s moral credibility in the world has declined so precipitously during the Bush presidency, and it is indisputable that many of those reasons lie in the decisions and policies of George Bush.

Perhaps the most potent example of the Bush presidency’s evisceration of American values is the administration’s May 2002 lawless detention of U.S.
citizen
José Padilla. The administration arrested Padilla on U.S. soil and declared him an “enemy combatant,” threw him in a military prison, and refused to charge him with any crime or allow him access
even to a lawyer
. He stayed in a black hole, kept there by his own government, for the next
three and a half years
with no charges brought against him, while the administration insisted on the right to detain him (and any other American citizen)
indefinitely
—all based solely on the secret, unchallengeable say-so of the president that Padilla was an “enemy combatant.”

To this day, one has trouble believing that we have a government that claims this power against American citizens, exercises that power, and aggressively defends it—and even more trouble believing that there are so many blindly loyal followers of that government who defend this conduct. The outrage that such conduct provokes when thinking about it has not diminished and prevails no matter how many times one reads, writes, or speaks about it. It is as profound a betrayal of the most core American political principles as one can fathom.

In late 2005, the Bush administration finally charged Padilla with a crime only because the U.S. Supreme Court was set to rule on the legality of its treatment of Padilla. Indicting Padilla enabled the administration to argue that his constitutional challenge was now “moot.” The government’s indictment made no mention of the flamboyant allegation they originally trumpeted to justify his lawless incarceration—namely, that he was a “Dirty Bomber” attempting to detonate a radiological bomb in an American city. That accusation was not asserted against Padilla in court because the “evidence” for that accusation was itself procured by torture and was therefore unreliable and unusable. Instead, the indictment contained only the vaguest and most generic terrorism allegations.

In September 2006, Padilla’s lawyers filed an extraordinary Motion to Dismiss the Indictment against him on the grounds that the government has engaged in outrageous conduct—specifically, that they tortured him for the three and a half years he remained in captivity, particularly for the almost two full years that they denied him access even to a lawyer. All of the treatment Padilla describes has been cited by numerous other detainees, and much of that treatment is now part of the “interrogation and detention techniques” which the president has the legal authority to inflict pursuant to the Military Commissions Act. Thus, much of what Padilla describes is now perfectly legal in the United States—even when applied against individuals charged with no crimes of any kind.

The argument section of Padilla’s brief begins:

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil 89 (Walter Kaufmann trans., Vintage Books 1966) (1886).

Padilla’s brief then details the treatment to which he was subjected, a small portion of which follows. One should bear in mind that José Padilla is a U.S. citizen, born in New York, and had never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any terrorism-related crime:

In an effort to gain Mr. Padilla’s “dependency and trust,” he was tortured for nearly the entire three years and eight months of his unlawful detention. The torture took myriad forms, each designed to cause pain, anguish, depression and, ultimately, the loss of will to live. The base ingredient in Mr. Padilla’s torture was stark isolation for a substantial portion of his captivity.

For nearly two years—from June 9, 2002 until March 2, 2004, when the Department of Defense permitted Mr. Padilla to have contact with his lawyers—Mr. Padilla was in complete isolation. Even after he was permitted contact with counsel, his conditions of confinement remained essentially the same.

He was kept in a unit comprising sixteen individual cells, eight on the upper level and eight on the lower level, where Mr. Padilla’s cell was located. No other cells in the unit were occupied. His cell was electronically monitored twenty-four hours a day, eliminating the need for a guard to patrol his unit. His only contact with another person was when a guard would deliver and retrieve trays of food and when the government desired to interrogate him.

His isolation, furthermore, was aggravated by the efforts of his captors to maintain complete sensory deprivation. His tiny cell—nine feet by seven feet—had no view to the outside world. The door to his cell had a window, however, it was covered by a magnetic sticker, depriving Mr. Padilla of even a view into the hallway and adjacent common areas of his unit. He was not given a clock or a watch and for most of the time of his captivity, he was unaware whether it was day or night, or what time of year or day it was.

In addition to his extreme isolation, Mr. Padilla was also viciously deprived of sleep. This sleep deprivation was achieved in a variety of ways. For a substantial period of his captivity, Mr. Padilla’s cell contained only a steel bunk with no mattress. The pain and discomfort of sleeping on a cold, steel bunk made it impossible for him to sleep. Mr. Padilla was not given a mattress until the tail end of his captivity….

Other times, his captors would bang the walls and cell bars creating loud startling noises. These disruptions would occur throughout the night and cease only in the morning, when Mr. Padilla’s interrogations would begin. Efforts to manipulate Mr. Padilla and break his will also took the form of the denial of the few benefits he possessed in his cell….

Mr. Padilla’s dehumanization at the hands of his captors also took more sinister forms. Mr. Padilla was often put in stress positions for hours at a time. He would be shackled and manacled, with a belly chain, for hours in his cell. Noxious fumes would be introduced to his room causing his eyes and nose to run. The temperature of his cell would be manipulated, making his cell extremely cold for long stretches of time. Mr. Padilla was denied even the smallest, and most personal shreds of human dignity by being deprived of showering for weeks at a time, yet having to endure forced grooming at the whim of his captors….

He was threatened with being cut with a knife and having alcohol poured on the wounds. He was also threatened with imminent execution. He was hooded and forced to stand in stress positions for long durations of time. He was forced to endure exceedingly long interrogation sessions, without adequate sleep, wherein he would be confronted with false information, scenarios, and documents to further disorient him. Often he had to endure multiple interrogators who would scream, shake, and otherwise assault Mr. Padilla.

Additionally, Mr. Padilla was given drugs against his will, believed to be some form of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or phencyclidine (PCP), to act as a sort of truth serum during his interrogations.

Throughout most of the time Mr. Padilla was held captive in the Naval Brig he had no contact with the outside world. In March 2004, one year and eight months after arriving in the Naval Brig, Mr. Padilla was permitted his first contact with his attorneys. Even thereafter, although Mr. Padilla had access to counsel, and thereby some contact with the outside world, those visits were extremely limited and restricted….

The deprivations, physical abuse, and other forms of inhumane treatment visited upon Mr. Padilla caused serious medical problems that were not adequately addressed. Apart from the psychological damage done to Mr. Padilla, there were numerous health problems brought on by the conditions of his captivity. Mr. Padilla frequently experienced cardiothoracic difficulties while sleeping, or attempting to fall asleep, including a heavy pressure on his chest and an inability to breathe or move his body.