Democrats and torture

Both while writing and after submitting this piece for Guardian America, I was actually trying to convince myself that I really do believe that one or a few 2002-era Democrats should have (with the fervor for revenge in this country being what it was) risked his or her political career (and possibly more than that) by revealing that the CIA was torturing its detainees. Explicitly or otherwise.

The moral issue is black and white, but the practical one isn't. There might well have been political consequences for the entire party if powerful Democrats had taken it upon themselves to leak classified information about the war effort, or accuse the president of war crimes, at that moment. And that may well have, in a secondary or tertiary way, exacerbated the torture program itself.

After careful consideration and consultation with others, though, I'm convinced I do believe this. It's not that I don't understand the binds and the pressures these Democrats faced, and it's not that I presume to know exactly how or when the revelation should have been made. But here are a few thoughts: first, as a practical matter, the Democrats lost in 2002 and 2004 despite their silence. As a general rule, the Republicans will always find some sort of canard with which to smear the Democrats. Especially vis-a-vis national security. Meanwhile, Pelosi's and Harman's seats were probably safe no matter what.

The bigger issue, though, is that a sustained program of quietly acquiescing on all the major issues of the day is a losing and deeply unprincipled way to govern in the minority. Pelosi and/or Harman and/or Graham and/or etc probably wouldn't have been able to stop the torture. But the party would be in a much stronger position today to investigate the destruction of the torture tapes, and to push back against the president--who thinks the army field manual's detention provisions are quite simply too kind for Muslims--on the torture itself, if somebody had taken a stand way back when. As it is, they just look small and insincere.

In other words, this was one battle they should have chosen.

Turn on American television right now, change the channel to CNN or any of the other 24-hour cable news stations, and you're likely to see American politicians involved in some sort of cover-up - either of an actual crime or of their own failure or inability to prevent it.

One part of the cover-up has already taken place: the 2005 destruction of the videotaped interrogations of two suspected al-Qaida chiefs, which was finally exposed by the New York Times last week. What's still unclear is which officials knew about and supported the tapes' destruction. To hear the White House and the justice department tell it, hardly anybody in the administration knew about the tapes, and not a soul knew about - let alone approved of - the destruction until it was reported in the press.

The other part of the cover-up - the elephant in the room for some Democrats - has to do with the question of the moral leadership of those who claim that torture, and particularly the practice of waterboarding, is an illegal and ineffective and unacceptably vile policy.

Give the whole thing a read.