At the start of America’s battle for independence, Gen. George Washington set our country on a course to be a moral beacon throughout the world. Despite British troops committing atrocities against American soldiers captured in battle, he said of our enemy, “Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren who have fallen into their hands.”
In outlawing torture, Washington demonstrated the righteousness of our fight for liberty, knowing that it would shame the British for how they treated our troops, and help win over prisoners to our cause.
For more than 225 years, those values were embedded in the moral fabric of the country. After the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, we sacrificed those values when we adopted “enhanced interrogation techniques” for suspected terrorists caught overseas. These techniques – largely conducted at secret “Black Sites” – included waterboarding, brutal beatings, sodomy, sleep deprivation, and much more.
These were acts of torture, plain and simple.
Despite this brutality, we received little to no useful information to assist in our war on terror. Instead, we emboldened our enemy and put our troops at risk.
After lengthy investigations, laws passed and executive orders signed, we thought we had put this dark stain on our nation behind us. To the contrary, we’re talking about torture yet again with President Trump’s nomination of Gina Haspel to run the CIA.
Haspel has been at the CIA for more than 30 years, mostly undercover. She is commended by many for serving her country, which is something we should all honor, but she should not be promoted.
Much of her career is classified, but we know that Ms. Haspel ran a CIA “black site” prison in Thailand, at which at least one detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was repeatedly tortured, including by waterboarding. Years later, after failing to stand up against the immorality of torture, she lobbied for and helped in the destruction of 92 video tapes, documenting the most brutal interrogations, in violation of congressional oversight and a court order.
Her defenders claim that she was just “following orders.” While this may be true, it does not mean we affirm it by elevating her to lead the agency that engaged in and led that conduct.
In setting up the Nuremberg trials after World War II, Robert Jackson wrote that acting “pursuant to an order of a superior … shall not constitute a defense.” Gina Haspel may not be on trial for war crimes, but she is on trial for whether she has the moral fortitude to stand up and say no when given an order that violates our Constitution, laws, and centuries of moral leadership throughout the world. With a president who campaigned on re-establishing the torture program, including bringing back “waterboarding” and “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding,” that fortitude is more important now than ever.
What’s needed in a CIA director is moral leadership and courage to confront abuse of authority, despite the professional consequences. What’s needed is the strength to resist impulse of misguided vengeance.
I saw a symbol of this strength while visiting Vietnam last week.
I stood in the Hoa Lo Prison, commonly known as the Hanoi Hilton, where Sen. John McCain and others were held and tortured for years. Even though the section where Americans were held has since been destroyed, it was nevertheless moving to be in the footprint of that prison, giving thought to the American ideals those men sacrificed for. Their strength to stand up against those who sought to erase those ideals is what keeps us safe today.
That strength is illuminated in Sen. McCain’s own capacity for forgiveness, to not only rise above the horrors of his own captivity, but to ultimately re-establish diplomatic relations with the nation that held him prisoner. When Sen. McCain says, “the torture of detainees in U.S. custody during the last decade was one of the darkest chapters in American history,” we must listen.
In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, fear, anger, and confusion lead us, not for the first time in our history, to compromise our values for wartime security. Consistent with our history, however, those values drove us to self-correct because our country is more than a place; it’s an idea. Torture is completely inconsistent with that idea.
Our choice now is whether to affirm once and for all that America does not tolerate or celebrate torture, or send a dangerous signal to the world and to our own posterity that our core values can be compromised — and that those who led the charge to compromise them will, rather than facing censure, be rewarded with positions of leadership.
History will remember which choice we make.
Steve Schmidt is a Vice-Chairman at Edelman and former senior advisor to Sen. John McCain and President George W. Bush.
