America’s Leaders Violated One of the Commandments By Andrew Greeley

America’s Leaders Violated One of the Commandments By Andrew Greeley



T.S. Elliot summarized the issue, “When good does evil in its struggle against evil, it becomes indistinguishable from its enemy.”


....Many Americans — solid, patriotic Americans — seem to enjoy the prospect of treating prisoners the way the Nazis did just to show how tough we can be when we have to be tough. In fact, it shows how stupid we are. All the research on the subject shows that torture does not in fact work and that the enemy understands that our “tough” interrogators will believe any wild story that prisoners will tell to protect themselves and deceive the dumb “cowboys.”

As the next president tries to restore the reputation of America around the world, will he not have to authorize war crimes trials for torturers, especially the men and women who are responsible for snatching suspects off the streets of European cities by mistake? They tortured their victims, refused to release them, and then let them die by simply denying their existence. What difference does it make if you kill one more Arab? To paraphrase the inestimable Kit Carson: The only good Arab is a dead one.

There will certainly be blanket pardons for all the guilty cowboys before the president leaves office. A few minor figures will be left unpardoned — like all such sacrificial lambs, they will be low-level operatives. What would happen, however, if, let us say, Spain or the Netherlands or Italy or Costa Rica should indict the vice president? Would a Democratic president turn him over to some such foreign tribunal? Especially if the president were a man who was trying to draw the country together? Under the principle of our country, our heroes, right or wrong, would we tell these foreigners that they had no jurisdiction to accuse a vice president who had been pardoned in advance? After all, the president’s power in time of war is without limit of space or time. He had the right to pardon someone before he began his “enhanced interrogations.”

That is a challenge to international law unacceptable to a country that tells the world that it is “The Light” of freedom. A new president or judicial prosecutor in another country could easily find a list of suspects in The Dark Side.




Andrew Greeley is a priest in good standing of the Archdiocese of Chicago for more than 50 years, a columnist for 40 years, a sociologist for 45 years, a novelist for 28 years, distinguished lecturer at the University of Arizona for 28 , research associate at National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago for 46 years.

The point of torture has never been to extract truth. Not for the Nazis, not for Pinochet, not for Bush. The point of torture is to intimidate the hell out of people and keep them in line. The real target isn't the immediate victims. It's the potential dissidents and troublemakers.

But Greeley is an ancient, old-school priest who writes appallingly saccharine and bad novels about married life. Of course he doesn't get it.

to misattribute Greeley's sentiments to you.