Not-Quite-Paradise Lost

The recent release of Dick Cheney's book just as the machinery of remembering and hallowing the victims of the attack on the Twin Towers gets underway, reminds us of just what we really lost ten years ago. We did not see a paradise crumble and fall, but we surely moved into a darker world than we'd enjoyed, closer to Mordor than Gondor, and saddest of all,we chose to do so willingly. Dick Cheney underlined just how far down the path of darkness we've come.

As when the execution of bin-Laden was portrayed as a victory for the techniques of torture, the calluses on our soul have grown so thickened that we spend our time parsing the irrelevant  - did Condi Rice "tearfully" admit Cheney was right when he advised George Bush to not accept responsibility for false information presented to the public, did Cheney take cheap shots at his erstwhile opponents like Colin Powell - while basically accepting the most disturbing assertions with nary a murmur of dissent. Cheney remains, unsurprisingly, a firm advocate of torture. I'm not sure, but he may be the only advocate who also accepts it for what it is rather than attempting to hide behind fig leaf terms like "enhanced interrogation techniques". One must salute the man for his willingness to acknowledge torture for what it is; there is nothing else in his position that I cold commend. When did torture cease to be morally acceptable?  When the accounts are finally tallied, that may be the worst legacy that Cheney bequeathed us.

Previously when torture was discussed, we talked about the "ticking clock" and how maybe, moral positions needed to be changed when thousands of lives were at stake and we could gain the information to save them with a little judicious torture. We grappled with the agonizing questions that followed - how many lives need be at risk to justify torture? How small a window did we need to justify torture above conventional means? If we were unsure of the culpability of our suspect, should we torture a potentially innocent man in hope that we may save hundreds? Cheney basically circumvents all moral questions about torture by flatly accepting the need to torture terrorists - we have the right to torture these people because they're terrorists. And we know they're terrorists, otherwise we wouldn't be torturing them! Torquemada wold have approved the logic, since it was the exact principle of the Inquisition - and how useful torture proved to be, if we have any lingering doubts about the new morality of Dick Cheney.

In the end, Cheney with his narrow antagonistic world view, where everyone is either an unquestioning and uncritical friend or an enemy to be destroyed, has succeeded in defining a new enemy to hate and fear. The terror of the Red Menace has been replaced by loathing of the green crescent. When Americans object to intrusive searches of their persons, they qualify it with a willingness to see "the others" humiliated and searched in those same objectionable ways. I've said before that the stupidest part of targeting Muslims is that most Americans have no idea what a Muslim would look like. To a majority of them, A Muslim is a brown-skinned man, maybe wearing a turban. Not only did this simplistic view lead to the tragic killing of a Sikh man in Phoenix  - especially ironic given the historic animosity between Sikhs and Muslims in the Punjab  - but it is patently false. The Muslim world sweeps from West Africa, all along the north coast of that continent through west Asia, where it splits to plunge into Central Asia and the edges of China, while the southern branch twists across India and all the way down to the Philippines and Indonesia. So every African, and Asian, and even European - for the Kurds, Turks and Central Asians are not so easily distinguished from their European cousins - may be potentially a Muslim. Names too can take you only so far - while a name that includes Mohammed is likely enough Muslim, there's plenty of names that offer little evidence either way; some of those names may be distinguishable to someone from the same area, but would likely be as obscure to the average American. And a name like Kieth Ellison and John Walker Lyndh offer absolutely no clue to the faith of the men.

The only thing that distinguishes our enemies from the vast majority is their ideology. That remains the place they must be fought and defeated, but instead in this scared new world of ours, we spend our time attempting to block the construction of mosques and passing meaningless laws banning Sharia - all we do is alienate the as yet, liberal pro-America Muslims who live amongst us. emphasizing that they are not part of our country, that in a land that celebrates the freedom to follow any religion, the exception is theirs. The debts and economic inequalities of the Bush era will pass long before this legacy of fear, hatred and distrust that is the poisonous gift of Dick Cheney even as he robbed us of a part of our very souls, leaving us morally crippled and blind to the Furies he unleashed in our hearts.