Now that the dust has settled, it’s time
for a closer look at what U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin actually said.
Why did it ignite such a strong reaction? My take is that the furor
over Nazis by Republicans and talk radio was a smokescreen, part
distraction and part denial. What really got Durbin in trouble was
telling the truth — that America’s behavior
doesn’t match its ideals.
On June 14, speaking from the Senate floor,
Durbin appealed to American values, which were, after all, at the
center of the 2004 election campaign. “Muslims respect our
values,” he said, “but we must convince them that our
actions reflect these values. That’s why the 9/11 Commission
recommended: ‘We should offer an example of moral leadership
in the world, committed to treating people humanely, abide by the
rule of law, and be generous and caring to our neighbors.’
”
Later in his speech, he quoted a year-old memo
describing what one FBI agent saw at the U.S. prison at Guantánamo: “On a
couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee
chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair,
food, or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves,
and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the
air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so
cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold.
On another occasion, the air conditioner had been turned off, making
the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The
detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next
to him. He had literally been pulling his hair out throughout the
night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably
hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had
been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in
the fetal position on the tile floor.”
The prisoner abuse at Guantánamo
reported by this FBI agent is outrageous. Congressional leaders
should be demanding an apology from the Bush administration.
Republican leaders should be joining with Democrats to insist that
the administration declare that it will not subject any detainee to torture, or to cruel, inhuman, or
degrading treatment.
Instead, Republican leaders joined
conservative talk show hosts on the moral low ground, seizing on
Durbin’s next paragraph to blow him out of the water.
“If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an
FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their
control,” Durbin said, “you would most certainly
believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags,
or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no
concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the
action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.”
All of a sudden, politicians and commentators
were saying that Durbin was “comparing” or
“equating” U.S. actions to those of the Nazis. Rush
Limbaugh pronounced that he was “stunned,” not by the
abuse of prisoners, but by the mention of Nazis. “We have
nothing in common with them.” Senate Majority Leader Bill
Frist called Durbin’s remarks about Nazis a “heinous
slander against our country.” Chicago Mayor Richard Daley
said “it is a disgrace to say that any man or woman in the
military acts like that.”
Is it a disgrace to say it? Or is it a disgrace to
act like that? After Durbin apologized for his “poor choice of
words” to quell the drumbeat of criticism that was taking on a
life of its own, many commentators said he had been misunderstood, his
remarks taken out of context. I don’t think so.
I think he was well understood. What rankles
old-fashioned patriots such as Mayor Daley is the suggestion that
America would say one thing and do another. A more confident
citizenry might dismiss allegations of prisoner abuse as
preposterous, but after Abu Ghraib there are lingering doubts.
Allegations that the U.S. government is being hypocritical about
values begin to ring too true. It shouldn’t come as a
surprise that those in power would attack the messenger when the
message is as clear as Durbin’s was. “To criticize the
rest of the world for using torture and to turn a blind eye to what
we are doing in this war is wrong,” he said in the speech
that ignited the firestorm. “And it is not American.”
This article appears in Jun 30 – Jul 6, 2005.
