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Why Obama Is in Denial
Evan Vucci / AP Photo
The president is doing the American psyche a great disservice by refusing to aggressively push for the prosecution of those who engineered the Bush torture policy. Justin Frank, author of Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President, says there’s only way to psychologically move forward on the issue of torture: Prosecute the past.
The politics may still be hazy, but from a psychoanalytic perspective it’s clear: the psychological health of the nation depends on our prosecuting the Bush administration officials responsible for torture. Strange as it may sound, this can only benefit our own collective mental health: our psychic healing demands that we affix responsibility and recognize that, no matter how well we all hide it or compensate for it, George W. Bush’s cruelty exists in each of us.
It is not enough simply to acknowledge the sadism of Bush’s motives and leave it at that. Obama’s reluctance to pursue the matter further is sort of like turning up at a funeral wearing a red dress: One recognizes the death enough to show up, but denies any pain at the occasion.
Just as Bush outsourced his own sadism to Guantanamo, most of us outsourced our sadism to him by passively accepting what he did. It’s a truth we all want to avoid having to recognize—what drove his orders was a sense of pleasure derived from inflicting pain on others, And, like it or not, this tendency to derive pleasure from cruelty is a trait that, at some level, we all share.
A brief clinical example from my practice illustrates how this sadism gets expressed in daily life, and the cost of failing to recognize it.
This particular patient spent several years talking about the cruelty inflicted on her by her father, who, after beating her, would cry and ask for her forgiveness. Though she cried openly in treatment, I felt that something was missing. Eventually I noticed that she refused to acknowledge anything I said to her. She would reject my help with a smile, and say she valued me as a person even though I wasn’t helping her change. Her quiet rebukes made me feel small, and I began to wonder why I so badly wanted credit for my efforts to reach her.
It was only after I recognized my anger that I realized what was happening: she had placed me in the role she’d been in as a little girl—hurting me, then assuaging me with kind words—while she played the role of her unreachable father. She had begun to feel pleasure at treating me the way her father had once treated her.
When she recognized that she was doing this, she felt remorse. More importantly, she stopped blaming her father for inflicting pain on her, and saw that she was the cruel one in her adult life. Only then could the therapy move forward.
So it is with the nation.
Recent events reveal a variety of defense mechanisms we use to remain in denial about the meaning of the Bush administration’s atrocities. We turn away and ignore them, following the example of Peggy Noonan, who recently urged the nation to “move on.” We say that the torture orders were issued purely for national security reasons, or ascribe them to the darker natures of George Bush and Dick Cheney. We minimize their relevance in comparison to our economic challenges, or sabotage the investigation by politicizing the process.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Why Obama Should Hire Eliot Spitzer
Justin A. Frank is a clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center and a teaching analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and author of Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President.
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Justin A. Frank is a clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center and a teaching analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and author of Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President.
Why Bush Loves Violence
Justin A. Frank is a clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center and a teaching analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and author of Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President.
Spend almost 2 hours watching the documentary TAXIS TO THE DARK SIDE and you'll understand how torture in this country has been perfected, condoned and rationalized. Its effects on the enemy ( sometimes death) but also the brainwashing and confusion which effects our young men and women serving this country and committing torture, can not be justified under any circumstances. This article is such a perfect example of how it all goes wrong when we choose not to see it.
Good grief. An obsession with one's own dysfunction is more like it.
Nice try at rationalizing all that hatred, though.
Spend almost 2 hours watching the documentary TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE and you'll understand how torture in this country has been perfected, condoned and rationalized. Its effects on the enemy ( sometimes death) but also the brainwashing and confusion which effects our young men and women serving this country and committing torture, can not be justified under any circumstances. This article is such a perfect example of how it all goes wrong when we choose not to see it.
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This entry is reminiscent of many of the comments I have received in response to the letters to the editor I have written over the past three years for the Salt Lake Tribune. Suggestions for relocation, bred of anger, are puerile.
Think of it as "Bush Derangement II". The next chapter.
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"It is not enough simply to acknowledge the sadism of Bush's motives and leave it at that."
The United States did not acknowledge the sadism of the Japanese in World War II. We prosecuted and convicted them for waterboarding. Until we get over this national hypocrisy that it's for a higher cause if the US does it, but torture when others do it, we will have no moral authority in the world. If we have any decency, we'll take responsibility and do unto our own as we have done unto others.
The Japanese soldiers got 15 years hard labor and the Japanese commanding officer got 25 years. It would be fitting that the Bush Administration was treated the same way.
Obama's goal is to shield the torturers at the CIA from punishment. His claim that the CIA torturers should not be punished because "they were just following orders" doesn't wash away their crimes. Torture is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, and torturers are war criminals. By protecting the CIA torturers from all punishment, Obama has joined the coverup, making him complicit in the torture program as well.
I'm sick of hearing people telling me we need to prosecute these people to heal, as if this is the number one on the minds of most Americans at the moment...which it's not. I, and many other people I know that are down the middle politically look at it like this: 9/11 made EVERYBODY freak out a bit, and the Bush Administration was no different. They were charged with protecting us and went overboard. Now they are gone and we've decided not to do it anymore. Move on. There is so much going on in the world that needs our attention. This will turn in to nothing more than partisan fighting in Washington. Live, learn, move on.
A few thoughts:
1) #44's approach is recondite--torture is well defined in the Field Manual; political situational expediency is supplanting the concept of "A Nation of Laws". Not only does the U.S. need to be unafraid to look for the answers, no matter how hard they are to find and whom their discovery hurts. I am struck by the caviler revisionism/rationalization now in vogue;
2) methinks this underscores a ugly trend: that men who feel their power and place in life slipping for reasons (an election in 2008) that are beyond them tend to channel their own self-loathing onto others, and incorporate the prism of relativism and denial of their role in same ;
3) fundamentally decent people can be gulled by passion and resentment into behaving in their own worst interest (my MOS was 11-Bravo so I am highly sensitive to the treatment of prisoners of war from both a moral perspective, but equally importantly from the view the enemy as justification for torturing captured U.S. military personnel, and the tool it provides in recruiting extremists);
4) There were German jurists who articulated-&-memorialized the legal basis of the Third Reich's policies. When the Nuremberg trials commenced, there was a tenor/approach that the Germans are now our allies in the Cold War so, "cut `em some slack". UTTER & COMPLETE NONSENSE; justice is absolute, and should never be tempered by pragmatics.
It seems that there is a perverse application of Ben Franklin's quote of: "let us hang together or we shall surely hang separately"
It is undeniable that War Crimes have been committed; and to use the financial melt-down as the basis to ignore this fact is duplicitous.
I forgot to mention; the German Jurists were executed at Spandau...
What is missing here, I think, is the notion of the separation of powers. There is legislative and judiciary and executive power. As far as I know, the president is in the executive branch.
Keeping those powers separated is one of the big missions of a mature democracy. It seems like you are very used to a president seizing all kinds of powers that he doesn't really have.
I think Obama does a great job in focusing on issues that actually are his to focus and work on. Let the judiciary branch do their job. I am sure we will see more from this branch of the public institutions than we did in the years before.
It is remarkable to me how people so willing to distract and virtually tank the presidency of Bill Clinton over SEX think it important to "just move on" when it comes to torture and other crimes committed by the Bush Administration. The blatant disregard of all the principles upon which our country was founded is no small matter; the argument that "rule of law" only applies to the other party makes me equally sick.
Justin Frank has nailed these sick puppies from the beginning. The crimes of the Bush Administration belong in the pages of our history books. Otherwise, they will inevitably be repeated.
There are a couple of dynamics here:
1) Every Administration has incorporates the precedents/scope of powers promulgated by previous Administration, &
2) Regardless of the context, either the U.S. is "a Nation of Laws" or, it isn't.
It is convenient and WRONG to change the metrics (sic...Laws) after-the-fact...
wait for it,wait, that sound you here in the background is the sound of republicans shooting themself in the foot over this torture scandal.Becaues it's going to come down to what did Cheney know and when did he know it and the answer will not be what they want to hear
Th Nuremberg Trials stated in 1945 and ended in 1946, To quote former British Prime Minister William Gladstone: "Justice delayed is Justice denied"
This is very well stated and I concur with the author, but then maybe all psychologist are conditioned to think alike. I, also, concur that the separation between the executive branch and the judiciary exits for pragmatic reasons. In this case, however, it is difficult not wonder about a conflict of interest given the judiciary role in the previous administrations conduct.
Obama is not in denial about this, he is as mad as anybody but given what he needs to do to get this country back on track he is doing the right thing by bringing it out and letting others do with it what they may.
If it comes down to fixing health care education and energy I think as much as I'd like to see Cheney put his hand on a Bible to see if it would ignite, I think I would rather see the economy be fixed.
There is time to handle the problem's created by Bush but now is not the time to go balistic over this one.
We must stop the torture practices first then in time Bush/Cheney will be shown for the bad guys they are.
I think the policies of #43 & #44 highlight/reflect and re-enforce the ugly & growing pathologies of the country I served: the will to violence, tribalism and gun worship. The machismo (false bravado in my opinion) that #43 used so effectively has a disturbing syllogism; the implements of war are compelling when the wars are far away.
A solider (or CIA operative I hope) would never follow an ILLEGAL ORDER.
I think there is also an elitism present in the Court Martial of military personnel; near as I can tell no one higher than E-7 have been subject to same.
Lay it off on the "rogues" (enlisted personnel) when in reality it is the policies of #43.
These policies were initiated by the Administration and if justice is blind & equal; the accountability for these policies is theirs.
It's specious to and cowardly to not address this ugly chapter in America.
The core of the matter is "Are we a nation of law or not?" If a person drives drunk to the hospital with an injured friend and has an accident on the way, he is still to be charged with DUI. OK, 9/11 put Bush and company in a tizzy. That still does not excuse war crimes committed in the name of our country. It'd wrenching, but they are liable to prosecution, and we must do it ourselves.
Maybe I'm the only one of two minds here.
On the one hand,
because these illegal and immoral acts were perpetrated at the direction of our highest officials, it is Extremely dangerous Not to investigate/prosecute.
Conservatives who agree with Bush Inc's policies may feel justified or even happy about their abuse of power....
But I don't think they'd like the "liberals" ignoring the congress (especially if it's repub) or judiciary....
This evil precedent cannot stand without eroding the core values of our Republic...what is the saying ?...evil triumphs when good men do nothing....I know this is true
On the other:
I fear that dragging the Dems into this mess is exactly what the Repubs want. They don't care about the Country...They Want to Win and regain power....They were very successful in ruining the Very successful Presidency of Bill Clinton by constantly trying to drag him into investigations.... "gates" of all kinds were flung at us (but no productive policy...sound familiar)...of course they succeeded by trying him essentially for being an unfaithful husband (and of course that was the pot calling the kettle black...as all those resignations afterward proved). ...and distracted us from our real enemies...who benefited from all that nonsense...talk about "aid and comfort"
So this Must be done...But it may very well slow down or destroy a very needed, innovative presidency....
Justice-(To borrow er, butcher a line from William Faulkner) will empower this country to not only endure, but to prevail.
Unless of course, there are exemptions-(said exemptions are plain and simple; schizophrenia in the name of political reconciliation...)
Follow the truth wherever it leads and apply justice equally.
I am so tired of the equivocations of the Chickenhawk-right-most of whom didn't serve; pander to the worst instincts--(the myth, of moral superiority through militarism), and the spinelessness of the progressive's on this matter as both strike me as the ne plus ultra of hypocrisy.
From my perspective the right is in love with the "old lie"
~Horace~ Ode (iii 2.13) "Dulce et decurm est patria mori"
roughly translated: "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country"
It is never sweet, and its' toxicity-(my take) only seems to be compounded in the face of War Crimes.
Here's what happened: Throughout the WHOLE Bush Admin., they were caught with their pants down and then they overreacted with panic attacks. These low-lifes in the Bush Admin. were a bunch of frightened, old, lazy, immoral white men that had ZERO leadership qualities. The fact that they won two elections speaks horribly about the morality & judgment of more than half of the country! My God, how many times do they have to lie to you before you actually call them liars and traitors?
Torture is toxic to our souls. It shows moral bankruptcy and even our incompetence. Experts tells us we get get useful information in a better way. Sadly, it is being defended by many who profess to hold Christian values. I presume they believe that values like, "Don't return evil for evil," which come from the Beatitudes, are not meant for this world
David Brooks made a slip of the tongue the other night on Charlie Rose but hit the nail on the head:The real reason why Obama, he said, doesn't want to prosecute torture is because it will boil down to exposing the truths about what really happened on nine eleven. And is that because another foreign government has us by the balls?
Until we expose those truths we are doomed. All the Obama charm in the world cannot escape that fact and that fact only.
we all need to help Obama put away the red dress....and get on with the psychiatric business that faces the nation
Your tinfoil hat is too tight.
Thank you.
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