Lucia

de Vernai

Read Lucia's bio and previous columns

April 22, 2009

Liberals’ Torture Memo Dilemma

The liberals’ revenge is sweet – and likely naïve, short-lived and full of complications. As President Obama seeks transparency through the disclosure of the “torture memos,” Americans from all political persuasions are asking the right questions: Is it right? Is it practical? Is it legal? Unfortunately, no one seems to be asking all these questions at once.

Is it at all possible that it was morally wrong, perfectly legal and anything but simple? Not to those who insist that the case boils down to freedom or an international treaty, nothing more and nothing less, just like any big moral dilemma. The plurality of approaches is oddly simplistic, leaving little room for the use of moral imagination.

As exciting as it may be to finally get the kind of transparency the Bush Administration denied us in the matter, Obama’s decision creates another set of murky ethical and political problems that cannot be settled by declaring that the end justifies the means or that the U.S. needs to live up to a higher standard. Anyone who wishes to reduce it to a reckoning with the previous administration will soon find that all the evidence has not been presented and democracies are the most fickle jurors.

If the memos former Vice President Cheney wants released show that waterboarding has prevented attacks on the U.S., no analysis of correlation versus causation from the liberal media is going to convince the public. The key word in this process is not “logic,” it’s “9/11”. It worked when the U.S. went into Afghanistan, when it “found” weapons of mass destruction, took up nation-building as a good alternative to not bankrupting the country, and it will work again.

Lulled by Obama’s victory, not-so-secretly haughty in our liberal convictions, we may soon pay for our rush to undo what elected officials of mere months ago put in place. Sounds like a plan, but all it would take for the crusade to undo Bush policies is to make the American people believe that waterboarding and all those evil lawyers and interrogators that let it happen are actually heroes, saving us from terrorism or those weapons of mass destruction.  

Next thing you know, instead of holding rubberstamp Department of Justice culprits responsible, we’ll be pulling out of international treaties. Contrary to what you may have been told, democracy is not about what’s right, it’s about what’s popular. By now we know that making really ridiculous ideas a popular cause is not difficult in our country, so instead of undoing the mistakes the previous administration made, this may prove to be a Pandora’s box for bitter liberals.

If we can keep already scared, struggling America from seeing the memo release from a narrow point of view and acknowledge the complexity of the issues involved, there is a fair chance of holding the government accountable and finding the right path for the country to follow. If not, the liberal victory dance may be cut short before mid-term elections.

Click here to talk to our writers and editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.

To e-mail feedback about this column, click here. If you enjoy this writer's work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry it.