HodgBlog

I’ve become increasingly troubled by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) lately, and I have come to think that it is a major threat to democracy in the United States. Here are some thoughts. Note that the activities described below have spanned the entire existence of the CIA, and have not been limited to the direction of one President or one political party.

The first way in which the CIA is a threat to democracy is by acting covertly and illegally overseas: assassinating leaders who do not agree with current US policy, trafficking in illegal drugs and weapons, and generally carrying out actions that would be impossible for our government to do by legal and open means. Chalmers Johnson has called the CIA “the President’s private army” — you can read what he has to say in his new book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. Or, listen to a recent radio interview, where he states that no US president has been able to resist the temptation to use the CIA to carry out illegal and covert actions. This is clearly not part of how a real democracy would operate.

The second way in which the CIA is a threat to US democracy is through its mistreatment of prisoners. Since its founding around 1950, as described in great detail in A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror by Alfred McCoy, the CIA has been developing brutal physical and psychological methods of torturing prisoners, using these methods on thousands of people, and promoting their use around the world. McCoy notes that the consequences of the CIA’s psychological methods are at least as damaging as brutal beatings and other physical methods, so they really cannot be considered any better or worse than any other type of torture. Also, McCoy documents that the CIA tortured and killed at least 20,000 people during the Viet Nam War, and has tortured at least 15,000 people so far in the current Gulf action, with at least 100 (and probably many more) people killed during this process. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has also just released a report on the practice of torture by the CIA in the Gulf region, which corroborates what McCoy wrote about; the HRW report also documents that the CIA has practiced “enforced disappearance” of detained people, where they are held without notifying anyone where they are. Finally, as documented by McCoy, the CIA has also trained police and military personnel around the world in their methods, notably in Latin America, the Philippines, Malaysia, Eastern Europe, and Iran.

Part of the reason that using torture is a threat to democracy in the US is that the deliberate torture of any human being for any reason is an internationally-recognized violation of human rights, and we cannot claim to be a functioning democracy if we do not have basic social justice and human rights protection. Furthermore, at least in my opinion, these rights must apply in all situations involving our government, not just to US citizens on US soil — I do not believe that the Constitution gives any branch of the government the right to violate its provisions under any circumstances. Similarly, when laws are passed, all branches of government must observe the laws, or democracy will be undermined.

And torturing prisoners of all types is definitely illegal under both US and international law, as is “enforced disappearance” (see the HWR report cited above for details). The CIA (again, as documented by McCoy and the HRW report) has attempted to circumvent the law through several tactics. First, they have advocated for a very narrow and harsh interpretation of words in the laws, such as “torture”, “cruel”, “degrading”, and “inhuman”, thereby trying to define their practices as legal. Second, they have claimed that the people being detained in the present conflict fall outside the laws banning torture, specifically the Geneva Convention, because they are “unlawful combatants” rather than “prisoners of war”. However, the President has justified using wartime executive powers by saying we are at war — so are we at war or not? Also the international laws against torture of detained people are not actually limited to prisoners of war. Third, the CIA has tortured people in places that are not officially part of the United States (such as the prison at Guantanamo Bay), claiming that the law doesn’t apply to non-Americans being held outside the US (which is not true). And finally, in some cases the CIA has made its torture harder to trace by illegally (without the extradition hearings required by both US and international law) transporting people to foreign countries, where they are tortured. While the CIA might argue that these four tactics have kept them within the law, I believe that they are operating outside the law, and therefore are a threat to democracy.

Another reason that using torture is a threat to US democracy is that there is no real, valid justification for it. Democracies, and moral nations in general, must carefully consider violent actions (such as the use of torture and acts of war), to see if they are justified. It is generally accepted around the world (though not by passionate pacifists such as myself) that some violent actions can be considered justified, but only if the reason for the action (the foreseen end result) is valid and acceptable, and if the proposed action has a good chance of achieving its targeted result. In the case of torture, the justification given by the CIA and others in the US government has been that we need to torture people in order to obtain information that we cannot get as quickly or at all by other means. But in fact, as detailed by McCoy, torturing a few individual people is not an effective means for obtaining reliable information, and non-violent interrogation methods (used by US agencies such as the FBI) are much more effective. On the other hand, mass torture, as practiced by the CIA during the Viet Nam War, can be effective at obtaining information, but to carry this out, many fully innocent people must be brutally tortured to get at the few who might have information, so it is probably never a justifiable level of violence for a moral nation. Therefore, a real justification cannot be found for engaging in such a violent practice, and if part of our government uses torture, it indicates that our democracy is not functioning properly.

So, what is there to do? Lately, I have not been impressed with the CIA’s ability to perform its stated, legal function of gathering intelligence on threats to the US, as CIA intelligence did not prevent our one major terrorist disaster in 2001, and the CIA was presumably involved in the misinformation surrounding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Certainly the illegal functions and methods of the CIA (assassinations, illegal trafficking in drugs and weapons, torture, enforced disappearance, etc.) also need to be stopped. So probably the best thing to do would be to disband the CIA entirely, and divide its legitimate responsibilities between the FBI and other agencies that confine themselves to at least mostly legal, humane, and effective methods of interrogation and intelligence gathering. We’ll see… I doubt any President will propose, or even agree to eliminate what Chalmers calls the “President’s private army” any time soon.

1 Comment »

I have been thinking lately about terminology in use by the news media and politicians, as related to the basic concepts of peace, human rights, and social justice. Here are some thoughts:

• It bothers me when instead of talking about people by using the terms “person”, “people”, or “human being”, they use the word “troops” to refer to our soldiers (as in “5 troops died today and one was injured”), and the terms “terrorist”, “insurgent”, or “the enemy” to refer to those people whom we are fighting. These terms dehumanize people on both sides, in an attempt to minimize the impact of their suffering and/or death.
• It bothers me to hear the term “the objective” used to mean “the extremely violent actions of war”. (There’s an example in this official military press release: “They define the wingman concept; meeting the objective under the worst of circumstances”.) Use of terms like this is an attempt to keep people from thinking about what is actually happening (in this case, presumably bombing Iraqi buildings, infrastructure, and people from airplanes).
• The use of the word “justice” by the Bush administration bothers me. Throughout the current crisis in Iraq, they have been talking about “bringing people to justice” via bombing and shooting them. (There’s an example in this White House press release from 2003: “…we’ve brought to justice about half of the al Qaeda network…. And so the other half still lives.”) I thought that Justice was one of the foundations of the United States, and meant things like a fair trial, being presented with the evidence against you, appeals court, and the other protections we have in our Constitution. Shooting first and asking questions later is not really the same thing, and it is still continuing (as in the recent “kill or capture” order from Bush for some Iranians in Iraq).
• The common use of the word “war” for things other than wars also bothers me. Two examples of this are the “war on drugs”, and a term I saw in the news recently, the “war on poverty”. Do the people who coin such phrases think about what the word “war” really means? War is an extreme, violent means of trying to resolve a disagreement by coercing another group to succumb to your point of view (or by killing them so they can no longer disagree with any strength). War causes many casualties in the armies of both sides, as well as in innocent bystanders. Is this the right imagery for thinking about how to solve problems like drugs and poverty?

3 Comments »

I just read an interesting report by the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) about the real causes of homelessness in the United States. The main findings of the report, called Without Housing, are:

• The number of homeless people in the US roughly tripled during the 1980s. Currently, about 3 million people experience homelessness each year, roughly 40% of whom are children.
• The social reasons people normally cite as the causes of homelessness (such as mental illness, drug and alcohol problems, etc.) have not changed dramatically since the 1970s.
• Direct subsidies from the US government that help low-income people pay their rent, as well as direct subsidies that build housing intended for low-income occupants, have fallen sharply since the late 1970s, and in particular, were cut drastically in the Reagan administration of the early 1980s.
• On the other hand, the tax deduction we have for payment of mortgage interest, which is basically a housing subsidy for the middle and upper classes, has increased dramatically in the same time period. As of 2005, the budget for this tax deduction is roughly four times the budget for low-income housing subsidies.
• There has also been a loss of existing public subsidized housing, and privately-owned low-cost rental units have also declined in numbers.
• Considering all of this, the report concludes that the real reason for the sharp rise in homelessness since the early 1980s is not the slight (if any) increase in social problems, but the sharp decrease in affordable housing. The social problems that lead individuals to need lower-priced housing definitely exist. However, in the 1970s, these people did not end up homeless because they could find affordable or subsidized housing. They cannot now, so if we actually want to end homelessness in the United States, we need to have more affordable housing or housing subsidies available. Working on mental health and drug rehabilitation is probably a fine idea, but it is unlikely to end homelessness by itself.
• Some methods for increasing the amount of affordable housing (which could be offset by lowering the housing subsidy for middle- and upper-income homeowners):
  • Raise the minimum wage, so that people with jobs can afford to pay more for existing housing.
  • Offer more rent assistance to people who cannot afford to pay for existing housing.
  • Offer more assistance with other expenses (health care, child care, food, clothing), so that more money is left over for housing expenses.
  • Create more housing with lower rent, either publicly-owned or privately-owned housing.

Here are a few other thoughts, based mostly on 2005 reports from the U.S. Census Bureau:

• The current federal minimum wage is $5.15 per hour. This translates to an annual income of $10,712 for someone who works 52 weeks at 40 hours per week, which puts that person at about the official federal poverty level for a single adult, and well below the poverty level if that person is the sole earner for a larger family.
• 12.6% of people in the U.S. are currently living in poverty.
• The poorest 20% of U.S. households (i.e. about 23 million households) earn less than $19,000 per year.
• Housing is considered “affordable” by experts if it costs less than about 30% of a household’s income (the National Association of Realtors says 25%, Fannie Mae and the National Association of Home Builders say 28%, and the MIT Center for Real Estate says 30%, for instance). Using the 30% figure, a household with $19,000 per year in income can afford up to $475 per month in housing costs.
• The census bureau reports that there are only about 8.2 million rental units (occupied or vacant) that cost $475 per month or less. Considering that there are 23 million households who need housing that costs approximately this much, this simple estimate says that only about 36% of the poorest households in the U.S. are likely to find rental housing they can afford. Perhaps some of them can purchase housing, but it seems likely that most will be renting… No wonder we have a problem.

10 Comments »

In a previous post, I wrote about some of the reasons why I do not think that world peace is possible. But some days I have more hope about it.

For instance, I recently heard Amy Goodman speak on the KUOW radio program “Speaker’s Forum”. One of the things she said (which I think is correct) is that if people in the US really knew what was happening in Iraq, the war would soon be over. She also said that rather than being a silent minority, pacifists are actually a “silenced majority”. Basically, she was implying that the news media are largely to blame for the non-peaceful situation we are in, by keeping the US public ignorant of what is really happening and making us feel isolated by not telling us what other people really think about it. So maybe the first step on the path to world peace lies in a media revolution, which actually seems a lot easier than changing US foreign policy and world religious teachings. Once the people understand what is happening, they will demand peace, and the leaders will have to deliver it.

Another ray of hope is the Non-Violent Communication movement. The basic premise is that by understanding that everyone has the same basic human needs and desires, and that everyone is subject to the same basic human emotions, we can learn to state ours and listen to others’ in a simple and direct way, without violence or coercion. The movement teaches a method for such communication, which can be used for everything from talking with your friends and family to negotiating between governments. Learning about non-violent communication helps me believe that there is a viable alternative to war, which, after all, is just a very violent (and unproductive) way of communicating disagreement. So once we have all decided that we don’t want war any more, there is a good tool out there to help us sit down at the table with our former enemies, and work out the terms of peace.

2 Comments »

Terrorism was in the news today (the U.K. apparently broke up a plot to blow up commercial trans-Atlantic flights)… it got me thinking about the question of whether it is possible to achieve peace in the Middle East, and the world in general. Here are a few thoughts.

First off, what would it mean to say that we had achieved “World Peace”? There are three components to my vision of World Peace. First, dispute resolution: regional and international disputes would always be solved without violence and without the threat of violence. Second, personal freedom: everyone in the world would have the right to believe, speak, and live the way they wanted to (as long as that manner of living respected others’ rights to believe, speak, and live in their own way), without oppression or fear of reprisal. Third, social justice: everyone would have access to the means to achieve at least a basic level of food, housing, health, education, employment, and environmental protection. I do not believe that anything short of all three of these conditions would truly mean World Peace.

I want to believe that it is possible to achieve this vision of World Peace, but I have my doubts. To have World Peace, it would require everyone in the world, fundamentally, to respect every other human being in the world. But today many religions (especially the fundamentalist branches of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, which appear to be growing) are teaching intolerance rather than respect — and in some cases, advocating violence against others who do not share their beliefs. If a group does not respect the right of another group to exist, obviously the two groups will never be at peace; if people do not respect the rights of other people to live and believe differently, there will always be the threat of oppression in the future. So, until these religions start teaching respect instead of intolerance, or until they fade away because people realize the inhumanity of what they are teaching, we will never achieve true World Peace.

Another obstacle to achieving World Peace, frankly, is U.S. foreign policy. Again, it is a problem of respect: the U.S. does not act as though it respects any other nation’s right to self-determination. If a country is being told what to do by another country, under an implied or more concrete threat of violence, then the two countries are not at peace. So, until the U.S. shifts its policy away from promoting U.S. business’ domination of the world economy under threat of violence, we will never achieve true World Peace.

Should I continue to hold onto my hope for World Peace?

3 Comments »