FBI Director James Comey looks at the Holocaust, and our capacity for evil and moral surrender.
The Holocaust was, as I said, the most horrific display in world history of inhumanity. But it was also the most horrific display in world history of our humanity, of our capacity for evil and for moral surrender.
And that second significance is the reason I require every new FBI special agent and intelligence analyst to go to the Holocaust Museum. Naturally, I want them to learn about abuse of authority on a breathtaking scale. But I want them to confront something more painful and more dangerous: I want them to see humanity and what we are capable of.
Why I require FBI agents to visit the Holocaust Museum, James B. Comey, Washington Post
Again, of our moral surrender. Of our being cowed by those in power. Of our ability to convince ourselves of nearly anything. Of how susceptible we are to this. Of how frightening the lesson is.
And that’s the most frightening lesson of all — that our very humanity made us capable of, even susceptible to, surrendering our individual moral authority to the group, where it can be hijacked by evil. Of being so cowed by those in power. Of convincing ourselves of nearly anything.
Of how frightening the lesson is. Of our ability to convince ourselves of nearly anything.
They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do. That’s what people do. And that should truly frighten us.
Using the example of the Holocaust, FBI Director James Comey asks us to look at ourselves, and to realize our capacity for rationalization and moral surrender.
That is why I send our agents and our analysts to the Holocaust Museum. I want them to stare at us and realize our capacity for rationalization and moral surrender.
Our FBI Director, James Comey, does not need to look to the Holocaust for examples of moral surrender. He knows, from specific personal experience, how moral surrender works, as well as anyone else.
In May 2005, James Comey gave his approval to waterboarding. He declared that waterboarding could be legal. He surrendered to it. He knows, from specific personal experience, what we are capable of, and the rationalizations we can use.
In June 2004, after the torture at Abu Ghraib had been revealed, the content of one Bush administration torture memo, Bybee I, was leaked to the press. Jack Goldsmith, at OLC, withdrew the memo, and resigned. The content of another memo, Bybee II, that it included waterboarding and mock burial, was leaked to the press as well. Bybee I was legal justifications for torture, Bybee II was a listing of techniques to be used.
With Bybee I rescinded, and Bybee II thus undermined, Bush administration officials put on a bureaucratic press to shore up support for torture.
A year later, on May 10, 2005, James Comey signed a memo of approvals for 13 torture techniques. It was essentially a rewrite of Bybee II. The techniques include wall slamming, cramped confinement in boxes, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and waterboarding. In the weeks leading up to his signing this memo approving torture, Comey had been trying to resist portions of a second memo, which approved how torture techniques could be applied in combination.
As specific personal experience with moral surrender, James Comey had once approved 13 torture techniques, under considerable bureaucratic pressure. He was given the task of calling the lawyer for our intelligence agency, to comfort him that waterboarding would be allowed.
He [Alberto Gonzales] also directed me to call John Rizzo and the CIA, and give him some comfort by saying the first would be done and that we would need to do work on the second.
Subject: Interrogation, James Comey
The record suggests that he had done this, by leaving a message.
Today, I left a message for Rizzo.
In June 2013, Barack Obama nominated James B. Comey to be director of the FBI. In hearings, Comey said that waterboarding, which he had once specifically approved, was torture, and illegal.
The Senate voted in favor of his nomination by 93 to 1. Two Democrats, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, voted "present."
In 2013, the bodies of some dozen men were discovered near a small Special Forces base in Wardak province, Afghanistan. The men had been tortured, their bodies had been mutilated.
Someone called and said that the body of my brother had been found under a bridge near the Special Forces base. We went there and found his body; he had been tortured mercilessly. His left hand had been cut off and the index finger of his right hand was missing. His throat was cut and he had bruises and signs of torture all over his body ... His chest had several little holes in it; they seemed like marks from being stabbed. His hand had the same kind of injuries.
Left in the Dark, Amnesty International
They had been rounded up in the kind of raid where the men and boys of a village are gathered, with some sent to a prison system where torture is systematic and justice unavailable, and some just killed and dumped under a bridge.
The press has reported in detail on the case. There has been no effective investigation, by the FBI or anyone else. Torture by our nation still has an impunity. Torture by our nation still goes on.
In 2002, Redha al-Najar was the first prisoner sent to the CIA black site known as the Salt Pit. The Salt Pit was, essentially, a dark horrific dungeon, beyond ability to imagine. Early this year, al-Najar had been transferred from an American-controlled prison to an Afghan one. Torture victims, by our nation, are still locked away. We still put them beyond the reach of the law, and largely away from our remembering that they exist.
To remember the conditions of the Salt Pit, and then confront our solution of locking people away for what we have done to them, to try to imagine Redha al-Najar's prison conditions now, would fairly be called painful.
But I want them to confront something more painful and more dangerous: I want them to see humanity and what we are capable of.
Why I require FBI agents to visit the Holocaust Museum, James B. Comey, Washington Post
In 2002, Binyam Mohamed was sent, by the United States, to Morocco. He got a monthly schedule of scalpel cuttings to his penis. Hot stinging liquid was poured into the open wounds.
Later he was sent to the Salt Pit. He was kept in near permanent darkness, and subjected in the darkness to loud nightmarish noise. He was starved, and in four months he lost between 40 and 60 pounds.
In 2010, the Ninth Circuit said, outright, that justice for this torture could not be obtained. The decision keeps details of the case from being discussed in a court of law.
In 2011, the Obama administration released an official acknowledgement of its indefinite detention policy at Guantanamo. The lack of access to justice for our prisoners kept in Afghanistan has been even worse, and less well known.
We have instituted, in Afghanistan, a secret police system. The best historical parallel for it would be the same system in Afghanistan during Soviet occupation. Beatings, with cables, are a favored interrogation technique.
We know this. We know that we have set up and supported a secret police system in Afghanistan, and a system of prisons where torture is systematic, and where justice does not exist. We know that the military tribunals at Guantanamo are the most absurd of kangaroo courts. We know that Binyam Mohamed had his penis sliced, monthly, and a court has said that no justice is possible for it. We know that this is painful to consider.
We forget this. We manage to look away. We have other concerns. We have rationalizations.
James Comey, who had once approved 13 specific torture techniques, including waterboarding, including confinement in small boxes, is currently the chief law enforcement officer of our nation. The vote in his favor was 93 to 1.
We have had, here, abuse of authority on a breathtaking scale. We have an entirely institutionalized system to protect it.
James Comey asks us to stare at us. To realize our own capacity for rationalization and moral surrender. It is not an easy task.