By Kenneth J. Theisen
One of the many controversies now currently in the news regards the role of current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The question being asked by the mainstream media is what did she know and when. Republicans and others are trying to implicate Pelosi, and by extension other Democrats, in order to hide or deflect their own complicity in the torture conducted to further the goals of the U.S. in it war of terror against the world. But the fact is that both the Republicans and the Democrats in Congress and in the executive branch are responsible for all the crimes of the U.S. government in this war.
The Democrats in the House have repeatedly voted to fund this war by appropriating money for the Department of Defense and the various intelligence agencies, including the CIA, which has admitted to using waterboarding and other tortures. They have done so even after the extensive torture crimes of the various U.S. government agencies and departments have become public.
You do not need to be a top-ranking member of congress, who gets intelligence briefings, to know that the U.S. has been practicing torture for decades, and that under the Bush regime the administration began to “legalize” this ongoing practice. Let me say it very clearly – both the U.S. intelligence agencies and the U.S. military practice torture. It is part and parcel of their tools in the war of terror. It is not a secret. The whole world knows this, despite what our so-called leaders say and what we are often told by the mainstream media. These tortures are not conducted by a few rogue elements acting without orders or on their own behalf. We need to refuse to go along with the Sgt. Shultz defense of “I know nothing, I see nothing.”
But let us look at what is being said in the current controversy.
ABC News reports that Pelosi “was briefed on the use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ on terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah in September 2002.” It based this report on documents prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. These documents seem to be in contradiction to Pelosi’s statements claiming she was not aware of that the Bush regime had actually used the “enhanced interrogation techniques” authorized by the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel.
In a February 25 interview on MSNBC Pelosi stated, “They did not brief us that these enhanced interrogations were taking place. They were talking about an array of interrogations that they might have at their disposal. … We were never told they were being used. … The inference to be drawn from what they told us was that these are things that we think could be legal…But what they never told us that they were being used.” (See the interview).
The CIA document explicitly states that Pelosi was given a “description of enhanced interrogation techniques” used on Abu Zubaydah. He was subject to extensive waterboarding that only a fool would deny was torture. He was also subject to other tortures. But let us accept for the sake of argument that the CIA document is wrong. As far as I am concerned Pelosi’s own words are enough to establish her complicity in torture. Whether or not she explicitly was told about waterboarding, she knew that the CIA had many other torture techniques that they used. Did she raise any objections then? Did she raise questions to clarify what she was being told? Did she ask for hearings in Congress, even secret hearings if she was concerned about exposing secrets? Did she do anything to discover the facts?
And after the various torture methods of the defense department and the intelligence agencies became public, did Pelosi use her position in congress to cut-off funding. Hell no! She continued to use her position to fund the war machine and the intelligence agencies so that they could continue to torture.
Pelosi’s defenders also state that she could not compromise “national security” secrets she learned from briefings, and that is why she did not go public or try to find out more about what was going on at the time. But this excuse of defending national security has been used repeatedly to justify going along with the fascist agenda set out under the Bush regime. This is why congress has repeatedly voted to fund the wars and the national security state which makes torture possible.
If you defend and fund the national security state and the war of terror you are also defending torture, even if you say you do not condone torture. It is immoral, wrong, and there is no excuse for it. Complicity in torture at the level of Nancy Pelosi is a war crime and crime against humanity.