I was reading an article in Newsweek this week entitled "Spooked by the New Guy" (by Mark Hosenball), when a phrase caught my attention: "witch hunt." Here's an excerpt from the article:
"Liberal activists are frothing for investigations into officials who carried out warrantless-wiretapping policies and employed "enhanced" interrogation techniques on captured terror suspects. They hope to have an ally in Panetta, who wrote an article in 2008 strongly condemning the use of "torture" in the name of "national security." Some anxious spies fear the new CIA chief could launch a witch hunt—one that would destroy morale and make the agency more risk-averse."
I realize this article is out of context and might be difficult to understand without having read the rest of the article, so... http://www.newsweek.com/id/178865.
I really don't know too much about the CIA, but I know that there was/is much criticism of the Bush administration's torture tactics and a lot of talk about how the new president will deal with making changes. So, what might be the results of a "witch hunt", in this context? How might they be compared those of the Salem witch hunt?
Emily T.
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6 comments:
I think that this situation must be contrasted with the Salem witch trials, not compared. Mainly for the nature of the issue. Witch-hunting in Puritan Salem was a community-wide practice, and also something the community as a whole was very unified around. The issue of torture and its place in US security policy is a much different issue. The country is very passionately divided on the issue, and really would cause a "witch hunt" in any sense to develop into a partisan schism. The crusaders trying to purge torture from US policy would meet fierce resistance from supporters of the practice.
From my own limited personal experience I can say this would not go well at all. Even in my small committee at Yale, we discussed 3 separate torture bills. Tempers flared, shouting ensured, and overall this resulted in very bold lines drawn and disunity strengthened. A "witch hunt" could have potentially disastrous results.
Steve Szumski
I think that the principles of this witch hunt versus those of the Puritans differ on religious and political grounds. Each one is/was conducted to achieve a specific end. One was more extreme than the other, resulting in death. Yet both are/were conducted in order to wheedle out "traitors", or people that have gone against accepted standards.
The results of this current "witch hunt" couldn't be more extreme than some sort of sentence, right? I'm really unfamiliar with the topic, so pardon me if I make any false conjectures.
(Sam Maliha)
I don't know that I believe that this investigation would truly be a witch hunt. Yes, both people in Salem and these current governmental officials aimed to find wrongdoers but that is not enough of a similarity to call this a witch hunt. There seems to be some legal basis for this investigation, and a legitimate amount of reasoning behind it. Additionally, I believe condemning something as a witch hunt implies that the suspects are investigated randomly and unfairly, which I'm not confident is true in this instance.
The only similarity I really see between the Salem witch hunt and the investigation into potential torturers is that it may cause conflict within a group. As Steve said, torture is an extremely divided issue, with definitions more in flux than virtually any others. There would certainly be disagreements over who committed which acts and whether or not it the acts were in fact torture. However, despite the author's rather inflammatory word choice I see no evidence that this investigation would not be conducted lawfully and reasonably.
(Molly Dunbar)
In a general sense, I think the situation in this article can be similar to the Salem witch trials. In both cases, people accused others for their wrongdoings and actions that go against the morals. However, there is a clear distinction between the two cases in that the CIA case would have a proper investigation as well as data, evidence, and hopefully a reasonable standards to be used to judge the legality of the CIA practices.
Salem witch trial eventually created the divisions within the Puritan societies and ultimately led to the destruction of the religion as a whole. Certainly the new CIA investigation would create different voices and factions;however, I don't believe that the CIA itself will be destroyed due to this particular case.
Jennifer Park
While I'm inclined to agree with the general consensus that the Salem witch trials and the current issue with the CIA and torture are two different topics, I also agree with the possibility that the new administration's changes might cause internal conflict within the CIA. Obviously, liberals and conservatives are always going to exaggerate and push for something more extreme. As long as there is the possibility of a more modern-day "witch hunt" (though that label might be too strong. it seems like it carries an excessively strong negative connotation), even if there is no specific semantic correlation between the two situations, the two extensional results may be similar in effect if not in magnitude.
The term "witch hunt" is used today to describe the purging of a group of undesirables by using questionable methods. The details of the situations of the Salem witch hunt and the CIA's potential one are quite different. The term "witch hunt" is simply being used to underline the fear of some observers that attempting to eliminate all Bush-era officials from the CIA would expand into a department-wide "hunt" where all officials would be questioned on their loyalty to the new President.
Essentially, some observers believe that attempting to purge any officials that allowed "torture" to occur would cause more harm than good by destroying morale and by spreading worry and fear.
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