cross posted from The Dream Antilles
This morning’s Docudharma Times led off with a New York Times story about the interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. It’s worth reading all the way through. I found it extremely disturbing, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. Hence, this essay is an expansion of this comment.
As Viet71 appropriately noted in the comments, the Times story
tries to put a “human face” on the CIA torture of prisoners by focusing on a CIA interrogator who doesn’t seem to be such a bad guy at all.
The writer displays absolutely no disgust for the topic about which he writes and paints a fairly calm picture of the CIA renditions and harsh methods.
There is no mention in the article of high-level administration approval of torture.
All in all, I believe this article is aimed at causing people to believe that what the CIA did in these renditions just wasn’t that bad.
In other words, the story appears to be propaganda for the acceptance of CIA behavior in extraordinary renditions illegal extraditions and harsh interrogation techniques torture.
I agree with the comment. How, I wonder, can the arrest, detention in a secret prison in Poland, illegal extradition, and yes, torture, of Khalid Shaikh Mohammad not provoke outrage? How, I wonder, did we end up with a story focusing on the “good cop” in the interrogation, and virtually ignoring the “bad cops”, the ones with whom the “good cop” was acting in concert in the interrogation, the “knuckledraggers” who admittedly, repeatedly abused the prisoner? Do we just overlook the war crimes and human rights violations? Are we numb?