Blackburn: Shallow coverage is pure torture

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — We now know - how could we not? - what Sen. Barack Obama's pastor said, what Sen. Obama thinks about it, what the talking heads think about what Sen. Obama thinks about it and what North Carolina candidates for local office think about it. We know more than is worth knowing about it. And you can bet that we have not heard the end of it.

On the other hand, we only have been tantalized by what went on in the White House situation room when the good and the great calibrated the torture applied to prisoners in Guantanamo and elsewhere.

According to ABC News, which broke the story April 9 and left it there, the principals - known as "the Principals" - met "dozens of times" to authorize interrogation techniques. They included the vice president, the secretaries of defense and state, attorney general, the director of central intelligence and the national security adviser, who chaired the meetings.

That last is Condoleezza Rice, now secretary of state and sometimes mentioned as a vice presidential possibility. Well, if Dick Cheney could plan torture when he was vice president, why would being part of it exclude anyone else?

President Bush has said repeatedly, "We do not torture people." He has his fingers crossed. We don't torture, but we use "enhanced interrogation techniques." Same thing, different words, heh, heh.

The FBI released a report last year listing 26 cases of "possible mistreatment" of prisoners at Guantanamo. CIA Director Michael Hayden testified that at least three prisoners were waterboarded. That we have torture chambers in other parts of the world has been admitted, but you can't know what goes on there because Al-Qaeda would find out. Maybe Mr. Cheney wants it to be a surprise.

For the record, the United Nations torture convention defines it as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether mental or physical, is intentionally inflicted." The full title of the convention incorporates "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" along with torture. The United States ratified the convention, but Congress added a weaselly proviso that the specifics may not apply to us.

ABC reported that the demand that someone higher up the chain of command authorize each torture session came from CIA officers who didn't want to have the can tied around their necks when the truth came out. By acting as a group, the Principals gave themselves the chance to play the blame game later. In the ABC account, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, of all people, looks closest to a human being.

The story left a lot of what talking heads call "troubling questions." Any Charlie and George from any network could get a good 45 minutes of questions about torture planning from the Principals. But why bother trying, if there are easier pickings elsewhere?

The minor story about the senator's pastor that keeps coming back like bad pepperoni may say something about the man who wants to act in our name. You can decide what and how much. But the big story is about actions that were taken in our name, allegedly to protect us. It went down the memory hole with the accounts of former prisoners snatched or tortured in our name by mistake.

Are we a nation of torturers? "We don't torture," says the president, but what we have done is torture in any language but presidential Texasese. We crossed a line drawn by St. Augustine in his reformulation of the Golden Rule in the Fifth Century and quoted to the United Nations by his big contemporary fan, Pope Benedict XVI: "Do not do to others what you would not want done to you."

Cross the line, even for what you think is a good reason, and you are a torturer. A little bit of torture is like a little bit of pregnancy. We may not meet our torturers - the ones who acted in our name - in the checkout line, at the PTA or in church. But we know they are there. And that's supposed to make us sleep more easily?

When politicians run, they'll talk about everything. You can't get them to shut up. Elect them, and it all becomes "national security." Maybe if some network's Charlie and George had about 45 minutes with the Principals they could ask if our torturers wear a flag pin in their lapel while they work.

Tom Blackburn writes for The Palm Beach Post.