Forcing pureed hummus into a prisoner's rectum for medically unnecessary reasons is justifiable, according to Republican critics of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the CIA's horrific torture program during the Bush era. Though that may sound over-the-top — not the blender-enema act; the CIA really did that — it is the natural endpoint of the GOP's tortured logic to defend the CIA.
On Tuesday, the Senate released a long-awaited report into the CIA's torture program that concluded the agency lied about the brutality of its techniques and their effectiveness in extracting information from detainees. Among the lowlights: The CIA played Russian roulette with a detainee, reduced another to dog-like docility, and, yes, forced at least five to endure "rectal feeding" or "rectal hydration."
The findings are unambiguous: The CIA tortured prisoners in grotesque ways.
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Some GOP hawks have tried to wave away the report by arguing it's a partisan hackjob that will only endanger America.
That argument does not hold water. But it's less insidious than another GOP justification: Torture worked.
The torture program "enabled a stream of collection and intelligence validation that was unprecedented," Senate Republicans claimed in a lengthy rebuttal to the report. Likewise, Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Saxby Chambliss (Ala.) wrote in a joint statement that it was "incontrovertible" that the program produced information that helped nab Osama bin Laden.
"Regardless of what one's opinions may be on these issues, the study by Senate Democrats is an ideologically motivated and distorted recounting of historical events," they wrote.
The claim that torture saved lives is demonstrably false. The Senate report picks apart every example the CIA cited to claim harsh interrogation practices produced good intel, and concludes that the agency either oversold the information it gleaned, or lied outright about what it learned.
But even if we are to believe that the CIA thwarted terror with torture, does it in any way mitigate the fact that torture is grotesque, disturbing, and morally repulsive? Does it mean, as a matter of policy, that CIA interrogators should ramp up their rectal feeding efforts?
Torture is the deliberate destruction of humanity, an attempt to remove free will and compel compliance. It is quite simply the brutal process of turning a person into a tool of the abuser. A CIA interrogator cited in the torture report concedes this point when discussing forced rectal feeding, saying the result is "total control over the detainee." In another instance, the CIA gloated it had produced "a broken man" willing to do whatever it asked of him.
Torture's defenders love to cite the ticking time bomb scenario to support their position. If you could torture one bad guy into giving up an imminent plot that would kill hundreds, wouldn't you do it?
The problem with this reasoning is that it addresses torture in a vacuum, rather than recognizing the years-long horror show the CIA was actually running. According to the Senate report, the CIA tortured prisoners before even asking them to cooperate. It was so inept and cavalier in the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" that it mistakenly used them on its own informants, as well as completely innocent people who were mistakenly detained. When wielded by the CIA, torture was not a tool of last resort to avert certain suffering on a mass scale, but rather a "well worn" waterboard.
The debate about torture is a debate about ourselves and our own values. For all his cranky, hawkish tendencies, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) got it right when he broke with his party in this debate.
"This question isn't about our enemies," he said in a stirring Senate speech Tuesday. "It's about us. It's about who we were, who we are, and who we aspire to be."
Other Republicans would do well to heed McCain's advice.
