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And it isn't just the first-line victims who've been damaged -- it's all of us. Through either silent complicity -- or simply feeling too weak and impotent to

And it isn't just the first-line victims who've been damaged -- it's all of us. Through either silent complicity -- or simply feeling too weak and impotent to resist. As Vaclav Havel said in his famous New Year's address to the nation, in early 1990: But all this is still not the main problem. The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. ... We had all become used to the totalitarian system and accepted it as an unchangeable fact and thus helped to perpetuate it. In other words, we are all - though naturally to differing extents - responsible for the operation of the totalitarian machinery. None of us is just its victim. We are all also its co-creators.

pmoriarty 10y ago
And then there's Mario Savio[1]: "There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels…upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Savio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Savio
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  I didn't downvote your comment, but "unless you're free", that strikes me as too vague. What does that mean in practice? Is it just freedom from the old system?
  - erikpukinskis 10y ago
    In this case, I think "one genuine axis of control" would be a good place to start. Of course then you have to debate what constitutes genuine. But it's worth stating that we're not talking about "freedom to do whatever you want" which is the common straw response to declaring a moral right to freedom.
    - ZenoArrow 10y ago
      So freedom in the sense of free to choose whose set of rules to live by?
beloch 10y ago
You speak as if the damage is past-tense. It's still being done! The U.S. may have ended the policy of openly torturing people, but they're still proudly assassinating people in foreign countries with drones. This is a practice that's really going to bite the U.S. in the ass one day. Sooner or later, some other nation or terrorist group is going to start killing people they don't like on U.S. soil with drones, and the U.S. will have no moral high ground from which to complain!
- GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
  > The U.S. may have ended the policy of openly torturing people, but they're still proudly assassinating people in foreign countries with drones. That's a bit different. Arguably, that's taking place in a state of war. Also, what makes you think our complaining actually requires moral high ground? Complaints are made from a high ground made of power, not morality.
  - beloch 10y ago
    Drone strikes are taking place in countries like Pakistan and Yemen, where there is no official war with the U.S.. Their success rate is terrible[1]. They miss their intended target most of the time[2]. Thousands of civilians, including hundreds of children, have been killed[3]. I'm not sure what you meant by saying complaints are made from a high ground of power. Plenty of powerless people in Yemen and Pakistan have complained are are complaining. Perhaps you meant that complaints are actually listened to and addressed when made from a position of power? This is true. However, sometimes complaints can be made from a position of weakness and be listened to when made from a moral high ground and massively supported by the public. e.g. Gandhi's passive resistance movement. My entire point is that, when other actors are able to strike targets on U.S. soil with drones, power is the only thing that the U.S. will have to stop them, and it might not be adequate. Drones are going to be very difficult to control in a few years. The U.S. has opened a Pandora's box by using them in such fashion. Heck, the U.S. government has behaved so outrageously over the last decade that U.S. citizens are likely to blame their own government when drone strikes happen on U.S. soil! [1]http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/15/90-of-people-killed-by-us-drone-strikes-in-afghani/ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/15/90-of-people... [2]http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-obama-administrations-drone-strike-dissembling/473541/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-obam... [3]https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/drones-graphs/ https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/dron...
M_Grey 10y ago
There's a very good book called Torture and Democracy, in which the author goes into some detail (with a great deal of support; the book has a stellar bibliography) as to the organizational, cultural, and broader social impacts of torture as a state policy. I think he also helps to contextualize this recent scandal with the reality that torture has been endemic in the US for over a century and a half, in policing and corrections alone.

pmoriarty 10y ago

And then there's Mario Savio[1]: "There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels…upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Savio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Savio

ZenoArrow 10y ago
I didn't downvote your comment, but "unless you're free", that strikes me as too vague. What does that mean in practice? Is it just freedom from the old system?
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  In this case, I think "one genuine axis of control" would be a good place to start. Of course then you have to debate what constitutes genuine. But it's worth stating that we're not talking about "freedom to do whatever you want" which is the common straw response to declaring a moral right to freedom.
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    So freedom in the sense of free to choose whose set of rules to live by?

beloch 10y ago

You speak as if the damage is past-tense. It's still being done! The U.S. may have ended the policy of openly torturing people, but they're still proudly assassinating people in foreign countries with drones. This is a practice that's really going to bite the U.S. in the ass one day. Sooner or later, some other nation or terrorist group is going to start killing people they don't like on U.S. soil with drones, and the U.S. will have no moral high ground from which to complain!

GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
> The U.S. may have ended the policy of openly torturing people, but they're still proudly assassinating people in foreign countries with drones. That's a bit different. Arguably, that's taking place in a state of war. Also, what makes you think our complaining actually requires moral high ground? Complaints are made from a high ground made of power, not morality.
- beloch 10y ago
  Drone strikes are taking place in countries like Pakistan and Yemen, where there is no official war with the U.S.. Their success rate is terrible[1]. They miss their intended target most of the time[2]. Thousands of civilians, including hundreds of children, have been killed[3]. I'm not sure what you meant by saying complaints are made from a high ground of power. Plenty of powerless people in Yemen and Pakistan have complained are are complaining. Perhaps you meant that complaints are actually listened to and addressed when made from a position of power? This is true. However, sometimes complaints can be made from a position of weakness and be listened to when made from a moral high ground and massively supported by the public. e.g. Gandhi's passive resistance movement. My entire point is that, when other actors are able to strike targets on U.S. soil with drones, power is the only thing that the U.S. will have to stop them, and it might not be adequate. Drones are going to be very difficult to control in a few years. The U.S. has opened a Pandora's box by using them in such fashion. Heck, the U.S. government has behaved so outrageously over the last decade that U.S. citizens are likely to blame their own government when drone strikes happen on U.S. soil! [1]http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/15/90-of-people-killed-by-us-drone-strikes-in-afghani/ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/15/90-of-people... [2]http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-obama-administrations-drone-strike-dissembling/473541/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-obam... [3]https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/drones-graphs/ https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/dron...

M_Grey 10y ago

There's a very good book called Torture and Democracy, in which the author goes into some detail (with a great deal of support; the book has a stellar bibliography) as to the organizational, cultural, and broader social impacts of torture as a state policy. I think he also helps to contextualize this recent scandal with the reality that torture has been endemic in the US for over a century and a half, in policing and corrections alone.