Psychological warfare

Column Lives the investigative
journalism, or are the revelations about US torture prisons with
Carefully disseminated information from the Pentagon? It flatters us when the Washington
Post secret CIA torture chambers in Europe revealed. It increases our
Self-esteem when the Italian media report on the protraction of
innocents from our cities come to light, British colleagues
Transport flights with bound, gagged and drugged passengers
unmask the suspects. Wow! we say and consider the illuminations to be
proof that investigative journalism, which was believed to be dead, can still be
lives - more: that it has an effect.

That was considerable. Democrats deliver sharp sentences about
Human rights to be heard. The Council of Europe is investigating. Because it
Tony Blair is once again "under pressure". The Milan
Public prosecutor's office seeks 22 CIA agents by arrest warrant - and gets
in return for a beating from Silvio Berlusconi. In Berlin, monumental
Debates about whether the matter should be debated. Sweden's
government... Only the Swiss Federal Council knows nothing, is waiting for
Evidence, asks for clarification in Washington without consequences.
Consequently, Berne is directing its entire prosecutorial
energy on the unknown discloser of a torture fax instead of on the
Violations of human rights and international law by US agents on our territory
Floor.

Thus, among some journalists, in a beautiful fusion, indignation
with the feeling of commanding power over a small parcel of land, the power
of the word, of enlightenment, in short: the power of the fourth estate.
It would be nice. Those who are still in doubt ask: How come?
that the "Post" of all publications brought the matter to light? The paper
shines more with its malice than with enlightenment. Hardly a lie of the
US government, which has not been repackaged as information. The
Most US journalists understand themselves, as the philosopher Alain
Finkielkraut, "as soldiers of civilization". The
ritual autoflagellations of the US media. Soldiers obey,
they don't ask.

So what if the US government staged this leak itself?
would have? One does not ask such questions without being accused of anti-Americanism.
become. Done. The revelation serves President Bush's goals. Europe,
which asserted its own position on war and peace, is now, from
view of the world, into the imperial outrages. Because the
most European governments the "war on terrorism"
silently approved their services, including the Swiss ones,
occasionally even got involved, the revelation is now forcing them,
to rewrite the essential values of their own societies. Torture, for example
is being trivialized. Since the German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble,
from whom one could expect better things, semantically to the point of
to the point of unrecognizability, will one day also be seen on German soil.
are not tortured. And when Swiss services in Guantanamo
want to be interrogated, even though they know about the torture in the US camp,
they incite human rights violations.

Warlords tortured, even "civilized" ones. But this was opposed by the right
- the declared intention of wanting to ban torture as an act of
civilizational self-taming. Sometimes with success. The actual
What is appalling about the current debate is this slow grinding away
of this resolution.

Conspiracy theory? Oh no. It would be naive and arrogant
to accuse the Americans of not having shared the information with
Carefully scattered. Hundreds of clever minds in the Pentagon, in the CIA, in
Think tanks deal with "psychops" - psychological
Warfare. They know about the power over people's heads. Before the
The symbolic violence comes with cruise missiles. About these devastations
to think about - that would have actually flattered us journalists.

Oliver Fahrni is a freelance publicist.