The psychology of government-sponsored torture

Based on what's now being written about the last eight years of governing, some may wonder if they really are living in the United States of America.

This not a country that tortures its people, many say. Nor is it a country that treats foreigners with disrespect. This is, in fact, the land of Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty and other gateways that lend credence to the saying, "Give us your tired, your poor, your weak...."

But when they to read about what some describe as the foibles of the Bush administration over the past years, some view the dark, grisly emperor from the "Star Wars" movies as a better metaphor for what the United States become - or vice-versa.

A book called "The Dark Side" by Jane Mayer, which I recently read for my Columbia University Bookwriting class, may convert those who never considered themselves as extremists of the left, and never a part of the let's-throw-the-Bush-administration-in-jail for war crimes crowd, into the foot soldiers of prosecution - if what the book says actually happened.

The book not only speaks to the psychology of torture, and how it can make or break one's will. It speaks to the psychology of a country that some believe became so cynical following the Sept. 11 attacks.

The idea was that torture would work, but from the book's point of view, it really didn't. If anything, if was a re-enactment of the eye-for-an-eye mantra of the Old Testament culture that eventually led to a period of rebirth of faith and healing - but only after years of fighting and bloodshed.

The book describes conservatives who were hell-bent on expanding powers of executive branch, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, who watched those powers shrink following Watergate scandal when he served as President Ford's chief of staff.

He was helped by a what critics described as a "henchman" named David Addington. He had his own henchman, they say, a hack lawyer by the name of John Yoo, who constantly issued interpretations of the U.S. Constitution that allowed the Bush administration to subvert the law in the handling of alleged terror suspects, according to the book.

Following the Sept. 11 attacks, if you wanted to discuss national security and the handling of prisoners, you had to go through Cheney. Or Addington. Or both, the book says. They wouldn't hear any other opinions.

One of the first prisoners was John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban who was beaten up because he fell in with the wrong crowd. If you believe the book, Lindh was stupid and naive. But he wasn't Osama bin Laden. He was treated as such, however, and was beaten until he was nearly dead.

The trend continued from there. The CIA and other terror-handling agencies stuck things up people's you-know-whats - suppositories and the like - if they wanted to get information, according to the book. They beat them and kicked prisoners who were held in secret prisons in countries that were supposed to be our enemies, or at the famous Gitmo prison in Cuba.

They blindfolded them and made them stand for hours on end. They had women flirt with Muslims who considered such a situation as a fate worse than death.

They were transported to parts of the globe that did not treat people very nicely, such as Syria. They were carried by clandestine planes. Some reporters did research for exposes they planned, but they didn't get very far - for whatever reason. That's probably because, the book points out, if they got anywhere at all and wrote something about, they were ignored by the reading public.

Addington and Yoo found ways around the law, justifying their actions after they happened. They didn't believe in the Geneva Conventions. They believed the president had the authority to commit toture as he sees fit.

Former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld didn't want any part of it, at first. But when Iraq war broke, he was on board. His own people, the book says, carried out his own battle plan.

That's what led to Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. Prisoners were picked up even when the government had slim evidence. Some didn't get out right away, even when they were innocent. One even died an hour after he was picked up just an hour before, suffocating after suffering a rib injury, the book says.

They adopted procedures called SERE, which taught CIA and others what happens when you torture. Psychologists assisted, but they weren't there to experiment. They were there to help the torture proceed.

Results were mixed. It became like a latter-day KGB, where torture led to more wrong answers than right answers.

Some tried to reform it, and met resistance. When the Supreme Court released a decision that effectively eliminated torture, the resistance continued.

The White House went into cover-up mode, the book says. People were brought in to reform the system. Instead, they continued to do the administration's bidding. It was either that or lose their jobs.

Led Sen. John McCain and mounting public pressure, as well as evidence leaked to the press, Congress finally did something about torture, the book says. Evenutally, Cheney fought for continuing the reversal of the Geneva Convestions, and lost. But he did manage to squirm something into the final legislation that kept executive power intact. McCain, running for president this year, let it happen, according to the book.

There is no evidence that torture has actually helped. In fact, it's only hurt. It has become the number one problem for Muslims in terms of their view of America, the book says.

Once the record becomes more evident, the chorus of opponents quite possibly could become much larger.