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THE CONSERVATIVE CASE FOR OUTRAGE - The Shame of Prisoner Torture
"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever." Thomas Jefferson, reflecting on slavery

When it’s all said and done, the most shameful legacy of our post-9/11 conduct will be the official sanctioning of the torture of other human beings in blatant violation of the Geneva Convention – which, like the Constitution, represents one of humanity’s most noble milestones. Of all my gripes with this administration, this one is the hardest to tolerate. To me, Bush is undermining the foundation of one mankind’s greatest achievements, not to mention endangering our troops and future generations of troops. Phil Carter has the roundup of articles (and his own posts), and they pretty much speak for themselves:...

...Perhaps part of the problem is that conservatives are seeing this scandal through the “tinted lens” of partisanship. That’s why I want to try to make them understand that the scandal is more than a left vs. right dispute. In fact, it violates their own most valued principles – and threatens their most strongly desired goals. In short, I want to make the conservative case for outrage....

...If the prisoner torture should piss off anyone, it should piss off Iraq hawks the most. Although my views of the war are well-known, I know that there were many good-faith supporters of the war who believed strongly in the cause and who believe strongly in democracy promotion. But there is nothing – and I mean nothing – that undermines our efforts and our mission more than the torture of Muslims, especially when that torture is coldly calculated to exploit Arabs’ religious views. The whole thing has a level of sophistication far beyond what nineteen-year old reservists from West Virginia could devise. And to those we most need to persaude, it vindicates bin Laden’s claims that we are hostile to Islam.

You can’t defeat an insurgency – whether in Iraq or in the war on terror, which is essentially a global insurgency – by military force alone. That’s because an insurgency isn’t finite. Its numbers and resources expand and contract with public opinion. (This is the main reason why the whole "so-we-don't-fight-them-at-home" line doesn't make much sense, logically speaking. Our efforts have increased the ranks of those that hate us.) We can raze every city in the Sunni Triangle (and we’re well on our way), but we will never defeat an elastic insurgency if we can’t win the hearts and minds of the local population. If you care about the success of this mission, both in Iraq and more globally, logic demands outrage. I mean, imagine if an Islamic army conquered America. Then imagine if you watched your countrymen get raped, tortured, and murdered by a foreign army who you didn’t really like anyway. Do you think you’d sign up for the Iraq 2.0 police squad or would you join the local insurgency with your family and childhood friends?

When the administration authorized torture, it threatened our troops and it threatened our mission, most likely fatally and beyond any hope of recovery. It is hard to underestimate the damage caused by the ripples of Abu Ghraib....