Doing Evil in the Name of the Good: Le Temps, Switzerland

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Le Temps, Switzerland

Doing Evil in the Name of the Good

"Lawyers - oh yes, lawyers! - catalogued this humiliating treatment and outlined how to implement it. They alerted the CIA tormentors of the limits that couldn't be crossed. And all in the name of the triumph of good over evil, a 'global armed conflict,' born on September 11 in the smoldering debris of the twin towers".

By François Gross

Translated By Sandrine Ageorges

May 2, 2009

Switzerland - Le Temps - Original Article (French)

Former Vice President Dick Cheney: His comments on the propriety of 'harsh interrogation techniques' have ignited an international debate on the decisions of both past and present U,S, administrations.

BBC NEWS AUDIO: North America editor Justin Webb explains why former Vice President Cheney has called for the release of further documents explaining where results have been achieved by using such techniques, Apr. 21, 00:04:32

Exemplary? Certainly. Edifying? Absolutely not. The publication by the White House of four memos that constitute a manual for "legal" torture has little precedent. The veil has been lifted on what was no longer a mystery to a large number of America’s partners - government and non-government alike.

Their release was a remarkable act of civic courage and a risk of great magnitude, but does nothing to minimize this sickening outpouring. Lawyers - oh yes, lawyers! - catalogued this humiliating treatment and outlined how to implement it. They alerted the CIA tormentors of the limits that couldn't be crossed. And all in the name of the triumph of good over evil, a “global armed conflict,” born on September 11, 2001, in the still-smoldering debris of the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center.

Like historians who scrutinize the archives of the Third Reich, readers of these administrative documents were flabbergasted by their meticulousness. Senior officials at the Department of Justice, men and women trained in the science of law, reviewed the procedures of the inquisitors in the minutest detail - in order to provide them with a blank check. Without soiling their hands with the tasks of their subordinates, these meticulous case workers relieved the conscience of the torturers: “Go for it! You are contributing to the defense of Western civilization.”

No second thoughts troubled this pretend president, nor his very cynical vice president, and even less his secretaries of Defense and Justice. They were and remain convinced that the end justifies the means, that any scruples must be shunted aside and that the infamous terrorists and their allies must be crushed. The allies of these Crusaders, worthy of their ancestors, remained silent. The enablers of the masters of the world caged foreign detainees on their own soil.

Even here, in a state that boasts of its democracy and claims a secular tradition of human rights, blindfolds were applied to the eyes of air traffic controllers when CIA aircraft and their “shipments” flew onto Swiss territory for furtive stopovers. A minister, riding roughshod over human rights like a young girl swinging on her horse, was suddenly struck dumb when a tenacious radical from the Ticino League denounced these legal perversions in the appropriate courteous tone. The transparency sought by Barack Obama confronts incomprehension from the practitioners of political secrecy and lies.

The savage violence of some cannot launder the crimes of others. These abuses generate the murderous violence [of the terrorists] and provides a pretext for their hateful narrative. Admitting to the calamitous excesses provoked by a mass murder is a step. If it were followed by the indictment of their instigators, that would be the proof of a justice system that doesn't shirk its duty in the face of the powerful.

Make no mistake about it! G.W. will not be worried any more than Vladimir Putin is.

SEE ALSO ON THIS:

Izvestia, Russia: U.S. and Torture: For Mr. Obama, It's 'Hard to Be Gorby'

Publico, Spain: Torture Charges Filed Against Bush Legal Team; Judge Garzon Handles Case

Hurriyet, Turkey: Dick Cheney's Torture Logic is 'Deeply Offensive'

Die Tageszeitung, Germany: America and Torture: 'Just Following Orders'

Financial Times Deutschland, Germany: Obama: Inviting the Next Torture Scandal

Jornal de Noticias, Portugal: Poverty and Torture: Bush Has Company in Europe

Le Monde, France: 'Fussy' Rights Groups 'Wrong' to Be Impatient with Obama

Le Figaro, France: Obama's Moral Crusade: A Few Words of Caution

The Independent, U.K.: America Doesn't Need a Witch-Hunt

BBC News, U.K.: U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Calls CIA Exemption 'Illegal'