Condoleezza Rice carried Dick Cheney?s water to Europe this week, confirming what has become clear to many observers over the past three years: the halls of power and the tender embrace of a simple cowboy have stripped Rice of her principles as a scholar and of her moral backbone.
Since her conversion from academic offensive realism to evangelical liberalism between 2002 and 2003, Rice has essentially adopted the disdain for objective facts that characterizes the rest of the Bush administration. She has become as blind in her support of American foreign policy as any member of the Bush team. Rice?s speech in support of torture on Monday showed more vividly than ever before the depths of her commitment to the party line.
When Rice, in the same speech, both denied that the United States tortures suspected terrorists and defended the practice, she forfeited any claim to a possession of reason, morality or credibility.
She claimed specifically that torture is necessary because some detainees have ?information that may save lives, even thousands of lives.? What she doesnt mention is that torture is more likely than not to yield faulty intelligence, much of which was used by the Bush administration to start a war that has indeed cost thousands of lives.
Rice is undoubtedly aware of this and other amoral arguments against torture. She must know that it contributes to a radicalization of conflict, decreases American prestige worldwide and especially in the Middle East, and will likely boost terrorist recruitment. These arguments are ignored for the sake of George Bush?s noble name.
That Rice ignores the moral argument against terror is not surprising, but it does present an odd juxtaposition with her willingness to sacrifice American lives for the sake of human rights, democracy, and the spread of American values.
Either Condoleezza Rice is foolish enough that torture actually makes her feel more secure, or she has abandoned her values and subscribed to the groupthink of the Bush administration. It would be unfair to the former Stanford provost to attribute to her such a lack of intelligence, wisdom and knowledge. She has simply sold out.
