The Christian Humanist A curious act of political theater played out on the House floor last week when Republicans discovered that the intelligence funding re-authorization bill provided criminal penalties for “any officer or employee of the intelligence community who, in the course of or in anticipation of a covered interrogation, knowingly commits, attempts to commit, or conspires to commit an act of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.”
The furor among Republicans was predictable knee-jerk response to anything that impacts Republican fear-mongering about terror and terrorism—that where our “war” on terrorism is concerned, no treatment of prisoners is reprehensible or out of bounds regardless of our traditional national values or our Constitutional niceties, and that any reasonable restrictions on what the CIA or military intelligence officers can do to prisoners [called “enhanced interrogation procedures”] to extract information from them endangers our national security.
According to CNN, the section of the bill in question dealt with specific prohibited acts, namely “beatings, electric shock, water-boarding, deprivation of food, water or sleep and violations of the suspect’s religious beliefs” and decreeing that “responsible intelligence officers would face up to 15 years in prison or life behind bars if the detainee dies.” According to the bill’s supporters, those acts are already prohibited by the Army Field Manual and by Presidential Order reinforcing those existing prohibitions. We note that if terrorist suspects being held are “enemy combatants” captured on the field of battle in our “war on terror” then they are “prisoners of war,” and those proscribed acts are prohibited by international treaty. Alternatively, if the terrorist suspects are criminals, these acts are prohibited by American law. So it is hard to see how the Republican objections make any sense.
House Republicans objected that the interrogation provisions of the bill would result in intelligence officers fearing to interrogate prisoners because they might face prosecution, resulting in less useful information and further endangering our country. That claim would be worth considering if it were true, but both the FBI and former CIA officials have said that “enhanced interrogation” (torture) does not result in reliable information because prisoners will say whatever the torturer wants to hear. We know that false confessions were routinely obtained by torturers from a variety of nations without scruples [North Korea, China, Japan, Germany, East Germany] and used as a basis for executing prisoners, and we can point with some shame to the Inquisition as the classic historic example of false confessions being extracted.
Regrettably, after the Republicans objected, the Democratic controlled Rules Committee pulled those provisions from the funding bill. I do not know whether I am angrier at the Republicans for their blindness to the ethical issue that such treatment violates our sense of proper conduct, or at the Democrats for once again backing down under pressure and failing to stand for principle. I conclude that both parties are a disappointment and beyond redemption.
One comment in particular on the CNN blog got my attention because it raises an ethical dilemma worth considering, a theoretical problem sometimes called “the ticking time bomb” scenario. The comment: “Imagine your child is held captive by a violent criminal and you have his accomplice. Please tell us what you would do to get him to tell you where your child is. Is there anything you wouldn’t do? You can hate me all you want, but there is nothing I would not do. Nothing.”
That may be true. Any of us in a similar situation might do something that violates the law, but that does not excuse any of us from the consequences of the law. That is the concept of civil disobedience, which is based on the premise that an ethical dilemma arises when there is a difference in what the law requires and what the demands of justice (or duty) require, setting up a conflict of values.
From an ethical standpoint, there are some circumstances where impending or potential evil compels us to a decision or action that may be, at least from the standpoint of the person faced with the dilemma, the lesser evil. However the moral principle is that you then accept the consequences of your action, you don’t get a free pass. To see the moral dilemma posed by the conflict between obedience to law and the demands of justice, recall the Civil Rights era and the laws supporting inherent racism, and the decisions made in civil disobedience to intentionally and knowingly violate the law and a concomitant willingness to accept the consequences of doing so.
My wife and I discussed the issue faced by CIA, MI5 and other intelligence agencies about what to do when there is a situation of such consequences that, arguably at least, breaking the law becomes necessary in the circumstances of the “ticking time bomb” —and we concluded that the intelligence agent would have to break the law and hope that he was right but only if he felt strongly enough about the urgency that he was willing to bear the consequences of breaking the law.
That does not imply that mistreatment of prisoners should be condoned in law; on the contrary, it requires that enhanced interrogation methods be declared out of bounds and subject to penalties. It is too bad that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats grasped the importance of this issue. The proposed law would have eliminated routinely using “enhanced interrogation.” If the situation raised by Dick Cheney were to arise, that we were faced by imminent ticking bombs that put the country in danger, we would expect that the seriousness of the situation would lead courageous interrogators to make the moral decision as to whether their country or their personal safety was their immediate priority.
The Christian Humanist It is obvious to any thinking citizen that bias in a news reporter almost certainly affects the reporter’s judgment in determining what “news” is worthy to report, what “facts” deserve the stamp of credibility, and how that “news” is viewed in the light of other events. The credibility that we give to a news story is dependent on the source of the story. Some news organizations have a reputation for news integrity (generally the New York Times or the Washington Post) and some others do not merit that same credibility (Fox News) because of their known political or ideological bias. When we read the news we like to believe that we are getting something close to an accurate account of what happened without having to contend with the writer’s unconscious bias or undisclosed ideological or political commitments.
As a writer I try to be aware of my bias and where it is relevant, such as when I am writing on topics related to religion, I disclose that I am a non-theistic humanist who has selected the teachings of Jesus as an ethical model. The reader can then judge the extent to which he/she wishes to discount what I say on a particular topic. Disclosure has been the expected practice of reporters and writers so long as I have been writing.
ith that preface, I need to express my surprise and disappointment at the New York Times in its reporting about the assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai after it was discovered and reported (but not disclosed by the Times until it subsequently confirmed) that Ethan Bronner, the Times Israel-Palestine bureau chief, has a son serving in the Israeli military. Why should that matter? It matters because we have a right to know about his bias towards Israel; his job is to report fairly and accurately what is going on in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and given his bias as a partisan we have to assume he is unable to do. That may explain why some critics of the Times have found that its reporting has a pro-Israeli bias.
Regrettably as an expose in Counterpunch reveals, American journalism has several prominent reporters with an undisclosed pro-Israeli bias that affects how they see and report events in the region. This pro-Israel bias is alarming because it means that the news that is reported about a region of vital importance to U.S. military and strategic policy is being filtered in a way that may be detrimental and harmful to U.S. national interests.
A previous Times bureau chief, Joel Greenberg, before he was bureau chief but after he was already publishing in the Times from Israel, actually served in the Israeli army.
Media pundit and Atlantic staffer Jeffrey Goldberg also served in the Israeli military; it’s unclear when, how, or even if his military service ended.
Richard Chesnoff, who has been covering Mideast events for more than 40 years, had a son serving in the Israeli military while Chesnoff covered Israel as US News & World Report’s senior foreign correspondent.
NPR’s Linda Gradstein’s husband was an Israeli sniper and may still be in the Israeli reserves. NPR refuses to disclose whether Gradstein herself is also an Israeli citizen, as are her children and husband.
Mitch Weinstock, national editor for the San Diego Union-Tribune, served in the Israeli military.
The New York Times’ other correspondent from the region, Isabel Kershner, is an Israeli citizen. Israel has universal compulsory military service, which suggests that Kershner herself and/or family members may have military connections. The Times refuses to answer questions about whether she and/or family members have served or are currently serving in the Israeli military.
Many Associated Press writers and editors are Israeli citizens or have Israeli families. AP will not reveal how many of the journalists in its control bureau for the region currently serve in the Israeli military, how many have served in the past, and how many have family members with this connection.
Similarly, many TV correspondents such as Martin Fletcher have been Israeli citizens and/or have Israeli families. Do they have family connections to the Israeli military?
Time Magazine’s bureau chief several years ago became an Israeli citizen after he had assumed his post. Does he have relatives in the military?
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, while not an Israeli citizen, was based in Israel for many years, wrote a book whitewashing Israeli spying on the US, and used to work for the Israel lobby in the US. None of this is divulged to CNN viewers.
Now consider another disturbing fact. A large number of key government officials and policymakers in the Defense Department and in the State Department during the Bush administration were not only pro-Israeli, they were dual US-Israeli citizens. Some of these officials are no longer in government, but many remain in a position to influence our government’s policies toward Israel. Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, is a dual Israeli-US citizen. That creates not only distortion and bias in the way that events are seen at the White House, it creates divided loyalty in how the US responds to events in that part of the world. We have strategic interests in the Middle East that require us to have a balanced foreign policy. Peace in the Middle East is an urgent concern and it is in our national interest to be honest brokers. We face a powder keg of potentially explosive issues, from our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to oil and military bases in Arab and Muslim countries, to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, to a potential Israeli first strike against Iran over its nuclear reactors.
It is important that American interests come first for American policy makers. Yet with national reporters filtering information through a pro-Israel bias and in a favorable position to influence public opinion, and with pro-Israeli dual-citizens in position to impact our government’s policies in the Middle East, our ability as a nation to put pressure on Israel to abide by UN Resolutions, to end the settlements policy in Palestinian territory, and to enter into serious discussions with the Palestinians has been fatally compromised. We cannot have persons with divided loyalties in a position to get us into a war to defend Israel’s intransigence.
Arthur G Broadhurst
