[Peace-discuss] AOTA - a couple things worth saying: "The House I Live In" film, and Robert Jensen's "Torture is Trivial - Compared to its Other Crimes, That Is"

[Stuart Levy]

Two things I'd like to say if I do get to come to AOTA - which may 
happen but probably won't -

1) Upcoming event, by C-U Citizens for Peace and Justice:

*Free* screening and discussion of *"The House I Live In"*, a film about 
the *War on Drugs,*
      on *Tuesday, Feb. 5th, at 7:30PM*
      at the Art Theater in downtown Champaign

      Hear Michelle Alexander, author of /The New Jim Crow/, and David 
Simon, creator of The Wire, reveal how we ended up here.
      Hear people in more than twenty states tell how the War on Drugs 
ruined their lives and the lives of their loved ones.
      Listen to inspiring activists tell us how we end this war




2) Reading an article (~700 words, 5 minutes?) by *Robert Jensen*,
*"Torture is Trivial - Compared to Its Other Crimes, That Is"*,
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/18-9

The great American torture debate has been rekindled by the nationwide 
release of "Zero Dark Thirty," the hot new movie about the CIA's hunt 
for Osama bin Laden.

But all the fussing over whether or not the movie condones, glorifies, 
and/or misrepresents torture is trivial, because the United States' use 
of torture after 9/11 is trivial in the context of larger U.S. crimes.

Let me be clear: I don't support torture. I think torture is immoral. I 
think government officials who ordered or condoned torture should be 
held accountable. Torture crosses a line that should not be crossed.

But when I look at the decade since 9/11, torture is hardly the greatest 
crime of the U.S. war machine. Since 9/11, the United States has helped 
destroy two countries with, at best, sketchy moral and legal 
justification. The invasion of Afghanistan was connected to the crimes 
of 9/11, at least at first, but quickly devolved into a nonsensical 
occupation. The invasion of Iraq, which was clearly illegal, was a 
scandal of unprecedented scale, even by the standards of past U.S. 
invasions and covert operations.

While the Iraq war is over (sort of) and the Afghanistan war is coming 
to an end (sort of) the United States is also at war in Pakistan and 
Iran. The U.S. routinely unleashes murderous drone strikes in Pakistani 
territory, and we can assume that covert operations against Iran, such 
as the cyber-attack with a powerful computer virus, continue even though 
Iran poses no serious threat to the United States.

"The problem with "Zero Dark Thirty" is that ... it tells the story that 
Americans want to hear: We are an innocent nation that has earned its 
extraordinary wealth fair and square."

All of this was, or is, clearly illegal or of dubious legal status. None 
of it makes us more secure in the long run. And if one considers human 
beings who aren't U.S. citizens to be fully human, there is no moral 
justification for any of it.

The problem with "Zero Dark Thirty" is that it ignores all of that, as 
do most of the movies, television shows, and journalism about the past 
decade. It tells the story that Americans want to hear: We are an 
innocent nation that has earned its extraordinary wealth fair and 
square. Now we want nothing more than to protect the fruits of our 
honest labor while, when possible, extending our superior system to 
others. Despite our moral virtue and benevolence, there are irrational 
ideologues around the world who want to kill Americans. This forces our 
warriors into unpleasant situations dealing with unpleasant people, 
regrettable but necessary to restore the rightful order.

A less self-indulgent look at the reality of the post-World War II era 
suggests a different story. Whether in Latin America, southern Africa, 
the Middle East, or Southeast Asia, the central goal of U.S. foreign 
policy has been consistent: to make sure that an independent course of 
development did not succeed anywhere, out of a fear that it might spread 
to the rest of the developing world and threaten U.S. economic 
domination. In the Middle East, the specific task has been to make sure 
that the flow of oil and oil profits continues in a fashion conducive to 
U.S. interests.

This is not is a defense of terrorism but rather a consistent critique 
of terrorism, whether committed by nation-states or non-state actors. 
The solution to the problem is not more terrorism by one side to counter 
the terrorism of the other. The solution is not torture. At this point, 
there are no easy and obvious "solutions" available, given the hole into 
which we've dug ourselves.

But there are things we can do that would help create the conditions 
under which solutions may emerge, ways to support real democracy around 
the world and a just distribution of resources. The first step is for 
those with more wealth and power to tell the truth about how that wealth 
was accumulated and how that power has been used.

*The real problem with "Zero Dark Thirty" is not that it takes artistic 
license with some of the facts about torture. The film's more profound 
failure is that by reinforcing the same old story about American 
innocence, it helps obscure the larger truths we don't want to face 
about ourselves.*
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