General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I am noticing a lot of full-blown denial over Obama calling torturers "patriots" on DU. [View all]Vattel
(9,289 posts)Last edited Sun Dec 14, 2014, 01:31 PM - Edit history (1)
Obama clearly did suggest that we shouldnt be too sanctimonious about the CIAs use of torture after 9/11; and he defends that remark partly by appeal to the claim that a lot of the people who took part in that use of torture are real patriots. Lets review his words to see if there is any other reasonable interpretation. He begins the relevant part of the press conference as follows:
"With respect to the larger point of the RDI itself, even before I came into office I was very clear that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values.
Notice that Obama limits himself to identifying only one of the things we did wrong in response to 9/11, namely, we "tortured some folks." That is not surprising since his topic is the RDI report and its revelations about torture. He is not talking about NSA wiretapping or the various excesses of the patriot act. He is talking about torture.
Picking up from there he says, "I understand why it happened." The "it" here clearly refers to torture. That's what he was talking about. That is what he had just said we did wrong in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. He continues:
"I I think it its important when we look back to recall how afraid people were after the twins towers fell and the Pentagon had been hit and the plane in Pennsylvania had fallen and people did not know whether more attacks were imminent, and there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this."
Having just said that he understands why "it" (torture) happened, he is now explaining why "it" (torture) happened: we were afraid, there was enormous pressure on law enforcement and national security teams to do something. He then says:
"And, you know, it it it it is important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had. And a lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots."
This is pretty unambiguous. He cautions against sanctimonious feelings in relation to what he has been talking about, namely, torture. And he justifies that caution by suggesting that a lot of the relevant law enforcement and national security people (i.e., a lot of the ones who were involved in torture) were under enormous pressure and are real patriots. There is no other way to understand him. The idea that he suddenly veered off the topic of torture and was cautioning people to not feel sanctimonious about something else is ridiculous. And it would make no sense to suppose that he was suggesting that we shouldn't feel sanctimonious about torture because a group of people who weren't involved in torture are real patriots.