We Torture Because They do it

Glenn Greenwald has a great post up about why we we torture prisoners called Al-Qaida does it, too. Greenwald writes...

We have become a country that justifies whatever we do -- no matter how far it transgresses moral, ethical and legal limits -- by resorting to the third-grader mentality that "Al Qaeda does it, too."

For proof of this third-grader mentality all you have to do is look at the last Republican debate. The enthusiasm and obsession with torture at the debate was appalling and was highlighted by Mitt Romney's call for doubling Guantanamo, while the crowd showered him with applause.

Greenwald responds...

The reason that it is news that the U.S. tortures, but not news that Al Qaeda does, is because Al Qaeda is a barbaric and savage terrorist group which operates with no limits, whereas the U.S. is supposed to be something different than that. Isn't it amazing that one even needs to point that out?

Greenwald concludes by writing...

And with that twisted equivalency bolted into place, they have dragged our country on a path where that premise is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our own interrogation methods are reverse-engineered from the most brutal and barbaric countries and groups on the planet. And the policies and practices we have adopted over the last six years embody everything which this country, for decades, vocally deplored. But all of that happened because of this "belief" -- which is really just a self-justifying rationalization -- that we not only have the right to be, but that we must be, exactly like Al Qaeda, do what they do, in order to defeat them.

That is what leads to such indescribably inane though revealing protests: "Hey, you reported that the U.S. tortures, so why aren't you reporting that Al Qaeda does? Whose side are you on?" That is the rancid depth to which our public discourse and our national standards have descended, and those who brought it to that point have designs on dragging it far lower still.