readers react

Spooked

The interview with Robert Grenier ’76 [“A Tremendous Exercise in the Spy Game,” July/August] was most interesting and very well done. A lot of meat. He presents as a smart and thoughtful man, respectful of genuine views different from his, able to see that there can be many worthy sides to an issue.

After having listened to Dick Cheney growl about the benefits of torturing our enemies while hearing too many times his mendacious, after-the-fact, impotent ratio- nalizations for sending 5,000 Americans to their deaths in Iraq, I was curious to hear Grenier say it is “ridiculous” to contend that enhanced interrogation techniques never worked. It made me wonder why he said that. I would be interested in just a few examples of what information was gained that saved American lives and fostered American interests, which folks might say go far toward justifying the means. Such ex- amples can’t all still be classified, can they?

Bozeman, Montana

Interesting and erudite comments, as one would expect from Grenier. I would hope that he has the chance to write about his earlier career, too. We served together in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in 1986-87. I was the State Department deputy principal of- ficer and occasional acting principal officer. He was the head of his section. It was an era when both the State Department and the CIA were talking about diversity and change, so it was not necessarily a surprise when there were some caustic comments about not just Ivy Leaguers in charge but two from Dartmouth at the same place.

Fairfax, Virginia

DAM should be embarrassed to feature a likely war criminal as a cover story subject, giving Grenier “rock star” alumni status of sorts. The Q&A reeked of appalling and self-serving statements that went unchal- lenged, including, “There is torture and there is torture.” What does that mean, and what torture is justified in Grenier’s world?

He should have been asked whether he thinks he and the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bush cabal need not comply with the Geneva Convention, U.S. and international laws and basic morality. He should have been pushed to explain what he meant when he said CIA “interrogators” (read torturers) have “refined” their methods and asked about the negative consequences to this country and others from failed CIA opera- tions in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Grenier’s smugness and his attempts to justify his rotten conduct made me angry and sad, as did the interview because of its sterile treatment of what he did.

Boulder, Colorado

Grenier says, “I have yet to hear someone say, ‘As a matter of principle, the United States should never use harsh interroga- tion, and I’m willing to see Americans po- tentially die in order to uphold that prin- ciple.’” In October 1990 the U.S. Senate ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and it thus became law in the United States. Article 2, Clause 2 of the convention states: “No exceptional circumstances whatso- ever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.” In ratifying the convention, members of the Senate were certainly aware that in refraining from torture the United States was sacrificing a potential means to safe- guard the nation. But they also recognized that torture is an inhuman and morally un- acceptable response to danger, however serious, and that only by voluntarily giving up the right to torture could the practice be eliminated.

Grenier may think that torture can keep us safe, but others, many others, pre- fer to live in a somewhat less safe but more humane world.

McLean, Virginia

Claiming, as justification, that only three people were waterboarded begs (or at least avoids) the question of whether wa- terboarding is torture. If waterboarding is torture, and we do it to even one person, we have engaged in torture and we become what we condemn in our enemy.

East Dummerston, Vermont

It is appalling to find defense of torture in the alumni magazine and an Orwellian euphemism on the cover. Grenier says that “there is torture and there is torture,” as though decent people might disagree over what is meant. But torture is torture. Call- ing it something else tacitly acknowledges the problem, as does the offer of preemptive pardons. The problem (not to mention the moral outrage) is that torture is illegal.

Grenier says he respects the legitimate position of critics. But opposition to torture is the only legitimate position, because tor- ture is a felony. Those who commit it are criminals, subject to universal jurisdiction as enemies of the human race, according to the case Filartiga v. Peňa-Irala, 1980. Our law regarding torture contemplates no exception, even in national emergency.

If torturers are U.S. officials, they are also traitors, having betrayed their oath to defend the Constitution. No wonder the CIA has gone to such lengths to keep the details from public view, including hacking congressional computers. Among Demo- crats it is not easy to find overseers more sympathetic to the CIA than Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). That she was moved to public denunciation is significant.

If the government can secretly torture “the worst of the worst,” it can also torture you and me, and it gets to decide who is who. For the record, I want to let Grenier know that I am willing to die and to see others die rather than to see that, because it assaults the very foundation of the republic: the rule of law.

Minneapolis

Now that our in-house spymaster has been allowed to expound in the pages of DAM, perhaps you can find someone to write a more balanced account of events in the Middle East. Such a person might point out, among other things, that Hamid Karzai is a true patriot of his battered country. By refusing to sign a pusillanimous status of forces agreement and abandon a slice of sovereignty, President Karzai laid claim to an honorable place in the history of his na- tive land. How many other men in that sad part of the world can make such a claim?

Walpole, Massachusetts

I was disappointed to read what was essen- tially a promotional piece for the CIA and its nefarious activities of torture and killing and overthrow of governments around the world, not to mention your frivolous title. The CIA is simply the U.S. version of the KGB and has about the same level of moral turpitude. It is a terrorist organization and will beget terror in return.

Chesapeake, Virginia

Weather Alert

On page 16 of the July/August edition of DAM [“Campus”] the number of Com- mencement ceremonies rained out in the past 35 years was listed as “1, forcing the proceedings into Thompson Arena (1994).”

The class of 1982 graduated in Thomp- son Arena due to frigid cold—for June—and the threat of several inches of snow. Not rained out, true, but certainly a more New Hampshire-esque sendoff!

Little Rock, Arkansas

Color Bind

Great. Not only are 19 percent of an enter- ing class recruited athletes (necessary to field “successful” athletic teams, according to the dean of admissions) but your July/ August “Campus” item implies they include applicants whose attraction to Dartmouth has something to do with the color of Dart- mouth’s football uniforms.

Saunderstown, Rhode Island

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