Fear Doth Make Fools of Us All or the Courage to Be a Citizen

How is it that the citizens of the most powerful country the world had ever known are so given to fear that they permit the shredding of their Constitution, the launching of a war against innocents and the uncivilized use of torture that had no U. S. precedent? Have they lost confidence or purpose?

The New York Times (April 22, 2009) quotes a memo from Adm. Dennis C. Blair, Obama's National Intelligence Director, to his staff in which he states "high value information came from those (torture) interrogation measures." While this declaration was proved false by an actual interrogator, I asked myself at the time how this nation finds torture acceptable when in the midst of World War II with the devastating attack on Hawaii and the occasional shelling by Nazi submarines we did not find it either necessary or desirable? I have felt for some time that ordinary citizens of this democracy have lost the courage of earlier generations. When London was being bombed to smithereens, the British had 200 detainees, and Winston Churchill said, "We don’t torture." Today people in this country are prepared to destroy our Constitution out of fear. One measure of maturity is an ability to accept risk and persist in a human manner. Our citizens accept far greater risk when they drive down the street than they do from terrorists, yet they enter the danger of the "driving zone" casually every day. That we need to take precautions is clear, and that we do. That we need to shred our Constitution in response to terrorism betrays a citizen weakness fatal to democracy. Those who still approve of G. W. Bush most often argue that he kept us safe, which betrays the weakness we suffer from.


This defense of Bush administration torture has been made before. Unfortunately the argument has been couched in terms of whether valuable information was obtained rather than what are the full consequences of torture. Suppose we grant that "high value information" was obtained. Without knowing the value of that information and without bringing in all the other consequences of torture the phrase "high value" is meaningless. Was the information of such value that using the rack or singeing the victim at the stake would be warranted?

The defense of this torture has been based solely on American national interest. What if, in pursuing our national interest in this fashion, other countries felt either justified or compelled to torture also? Would a world addicted to torture be an advance for humanity? That is what the Geneva Convention is all about.

If I am correct in finding a difference in citizen courage between earlier generations and now, what could be the cause? Among the causes for this change I think the Cold War has had a lot to do with it. The baby boomers as children had to "duck and cover" and regular civil defense sirens built into them at a very young age. We lived for decades with immanent Soviet attack kept as a background for our daily lives. Many people built bomb shelters. Our movies were often based on what would the world be like after the nuclear exchange had taken place. Our leaders often talked of using the nuclear option. We had the face-off of the Cuban missile crisis. This partial litany should indicate how thoroughly fear was instilled in the American mind during these years. We have become a society of incipient panic. We need to understand what has happened to us and begin the process of readjustment before we do ourselves and the world irreparable damage. (Some interesting thoughts along this line may be found in the article Farewell to the American Century by Andrew Bacevich at http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/04/30/bacevich/print.html.)

If Americans could ever get it through their heads that they are not masters of this planet; that what we do others will also do; that we must always weigh our decisions in terms of the kind of world we are likely to generate; then perhaps we could contribute to a world that humanity, ourselves included, would find much more conducive to our happiness than it has been.

After I had finished this post I discovered an excellent article by Gary Kamiya titled America's Necessary Dark Night of the Soul. It is his view of what we must do to overcome what fear has wrought. It can be found at Salon.com at http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2009/05/01/torture_investigations/print.html.

Bob Newhard