So much is being made in the CIA Inspector General’s report of the various torturous and illegal thing that were done, but one caught my eye: mock executions.
The report here talks of cases where prisoners were fooled into thinking they were going to be executed, either by direct threat, or by staging mock executions (e.g., hearing an interrogation going on next door, followed by a gunshot, a thud, then silence).
Such threats are forbidden by US law, not to mention the Geneva Convention and similar old-fashioned Euro-weenie-liberal-socialist rags.
What caught my eye, though, is that this is something the American public expects. We shrink back from (well, most of us do) actual thumb-screws and water-boarding types of pain infliction. We get uncomfortable over the idea of slapping a prisoner around, relegating the rubber hose and the “third degree” to old film noir, not how we want our police (or military) behaving in general. And I think most people would agree that threatening to rape someone’s mother and/or kill their children is reprehensible behavior.
But the “hey, let’s fool this guy into thinking he’s going to die” entrapment scheme was a regular staple on, of all things, Mission: Impossible. The third episode of the first season, “Operation: Rogosh,” deals with fooling a commie agent / asssassin (play to the hilt by Fritz Weaver) into thinking he’s been arrested by the homeland and will be executed unless he spills the beans about a “ticking time bomb” plot (which the IMF wants to avert). It’s an excellent episode, a classic IMF caper, and includes both the promise of an execution, a mock execution of another “prisoner” held out in the courtyard where Rogosh can see, and an actual death threat.
Most people seeing this episode, even today, would probably cheer, and say, “How clever,” not to mention, “If only Mr. Briggs and his IM Force were in charge of Gitmo, we’d know all sorts of things” (and the facility would cost about ten times more to run, but that’s a side detail).
So is the IMF a terror organization, and Mr. Briggs & Co. war criminals (who can be conveniently “disavowed” if indicted)? Is this a case of where the entertainment media hasn’t caught up with (since I’m pretty sure similar “capers” can still be found in today’s TV and movies) the law? Is this a case of being desensitized by TV (emotional) violence? Or a case of “acceptable” cognitive dissonance on my part?
I dunno. But I still find the behavior of the interrogators (I just mistyped “interrorgators”) in the IG report to be loathsome, and at the same time I still love Mission: Impossible.
Good questions, ***Dave. I think an argument can be made that Mission: Impossible was clearly a fantasy-play; many people have fantasies that are quite macabre (see, for example, asphyxiation for sexual pleasure) but have no bearing on the “real world.” Even if presented in a ‘factual’ or ‘realistic’ fashion, as M:I could be argued as demonstrating, I think only the most misguided could mistake the show for reality. A quick resolution of stark black-and-white ethical problems allows us to mentally cool off—perhaps even cool down from the sort of hysteria the Bush regime was so fond of using—and approach the real world’s problems, which are quite ‘grey,’ with a better perspective on what truly needs to be done. To that end, the CIA’s actions were immoral, unethical, and plainly illegal (despite the best efforts of the Bush Justice Department to redefine morality, ethics, and the limits of the law).
Oh, I’m not saying the world is as simple as that of MI. But does the presentation of such simple morality plays, now, or even decades past, create an internal rule set that influences how we see things later?
Or, put another way — I’m not sure that I see mock executions of the Rogosh type as that reprehensible, without some serious consideration. On the other hand, I can’t imagine Rollin Hand telling Rogosh that he was going to track down his Mom and rape her, either, even as a “caper.”
(And, put another way, have TV and the movies fondness for the “ticking time bomb” crisis made folks more willing to allow actions predicated on that extremely rare scenario, even when that scenario isn’t occurring?)