Comment: American Exceptionalism and Torture

America is a great nation. I say that, as a liberal, without irony. America is a great nation.

Wherein lies our greatness?

It is not that we are, as individuals, better people than those of other nationalities, though some of us are better than some others. It is not that we, as a society, are better than other societies, though in some ways we are better than some others.

One principal source of our greatness is our commitment to a national mission of achieving nobility and pure morality. We are on-again-off-again about pursuing such ideals. There are times when we get scared of some threat, and we run around burning witches and tearing down villages. The evil and the frailty that is in humanity generally is in us – as individuals and as a society.

But we always come back to our ideals eventually. It is politically incorrect to say this, but we know that our nation was born with original sin – the sins of genocide and slavery. Our founders were great in many ways, but their hold on the land and their prosperity was at the cost of genocide perpetrated against the Indians who lived here before our founders came. We can say many things to mitigate this sin: It was a warlike time, and they were all – whites and Indians both – warlike people. But still it was genocide, and still it was sin. American prosperity was built up in large part by slaves brought here in chains. We can say many things to mitigate this sin, too: The black slaves we bought were sold to us by other blacks in Africa. But still it was slavery, and still it was sin. And apart from these great sins that lie deep in our origins, there have been many others.

And still I say that America is a great nation. For notwithstanding our sin, we have always felt the call of ideals nobler than we are ourselves. Even while burdened by the depravity that led us to believe there is nothing wrong with driving the Indians out of their land and slaughtering them occasionally, and to believe there is nothing wrong with enslaving people – even while burdened with this depravity we dreamed of a morality that was above us. And we have been trying, however fitfully, to live out the full meaning of our creeds from the beginning.

Our greatness as a nation is not in the good things we have done – though we have done many good things. It is, first and most fundamentally, in our commitment to the perfectibility of our nation – and thus, our willingness to look ourselves in the mirror and confess that we have sinned. And then to try to do better.

Now. About Abu Ghraib – and Bagram Air Force Base, and Guantanamo Bay.

Some of our people have committed wrongs in our name. They have sexually humiliated people we have swept up in military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. They have physically assaulted and abused these people. Some of the abuse amounts, without question, to torture. It appears that innocent people have been mercilessly beaten. It appears that some of our people have participated in, or allowed, the raping of women and little boys. Some of our people have killed detainees, with no provocation or justification.

These crimes have been committed by individuals. The responsibility, however, runs all the way to the top – at the very least, for gross negligence in failing to prevent an altogether predictable train of abuses, but almost certainly for winking at and affirmatively nudging lower-down individuals in the direction of abuse. (Our government has also – as a matter of official policy – delivered people into the hands of torturers, with no more than a chuckling assurance that the torturers will commit no torture.)

These crimes do not shock me. They are awful, but they are the products of the innate depravity of humanity. There will always be people capable of doing such things – in any organization, in any nation. I have no doubt that there are senators and congressmen capable of doing this. We know there are priests and pastors capable of it. Perhaps I am capable of it. Perhaps you are. Put a lot of human beings into a situation that fosters this evil, and some individuals in the group will commit the evil. That saddens me, but it does not shock me.

What shocks me is that some of my fellow Americans refuse to acknowledge the sin, to hold those responsible to account, and to demand action to prevent further abuses. Many Americans simply will not look this thing in the eye. They will not say, “This is shameful. Our government let it happen. Never again.” Many Americans are talking like children: “Well, you should see what Saddam Hussein did. We should be talking about Saddam Hussein. He's the real monster. Forget what we did. Look at Saddam Hussein.”

The refusal to face facts and to call a sin a sin is un-American. This refusal – not the underlying sin – is what cuts the greatness of our nation. Of course we will sin. There are many of us, and we are all human, and conditions will sometimes seem to push us to sin. What makes us great is our willingness to confess our sins and to seek redemption by avoiding further wrongs, and righting those that can be righted. And this is what many Americans are refusing to do, saying instead, “Well, look what Hitler and Stalin did. Don’t look at us.”

No. We’re Americans. That’s not how we do it here. We are trying to live out ideals that are nobler than we are ourselves. We face facts, we confess sins, and we strive to do better.

Let America be America again.