CIA拷问报告以及美国的正统性危机

Conflicts over the release of a long-delayed US Senate investigation report into the Central Intelligence Agency's torture program have produced a deepening crisis for the Obama administration. Under conditions where the expanding repressive apparatus of the American state—from the CIA and the NSA down to local police departments—is increasingly viewed as illegitimate, there are growing concerns in ruling circles about the international and domestic consequences of the public release of a report exposing systematic criminality at the highest levels.

由于美国参议院针对CIA刑讯丑闻的调查报告公布时间长期拖延引发争议，令奥巴马政府进一步陷入危机。在美国政府部门上到CIA和NSA，下到地方警察局刑讯逼供都不断扩大的情况下，越来越多的人认为这是违法行为，并且令统治阶层关注到公开这份暴露高层系统性犯罪行为的报告会引发国际和国内影响。

It emerged on Friday that Secretary of State John Kerry took the unprecedented step of contacting Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein directly to urge her to "consider" further delaying the release of the report. Feinstein, a Democrat from California, chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was responsible for producing the report. According to State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, Kerry made the call "becase a lot is going on in the world, and he wanted to make sure that foreign policy implications were being appropriately factored into timing."

周五，国务卿克里史无前例的致电民主党参议员费斯坦因，直接要求她“考虑”进一步推迟公开该报告。费斯坦因加州的民主党人士，主持参议院情报委员会的工作，目前负责该项调查活动。根据国务院发言人帕萨其的说法，克里打电话“是由于报告中很多内容已经公诸于世，他希望确定正确的公布时间避免对外交政策产生影响。”

The implications for American imperialist foreign policy are obvious. The government of the United States asserts the power to invade, bomb and carry out "humanitarian intervention" and "regime change" anywhere in the world in the name of protecting "human rights." Meanwhile, top military, civilian and intelligence officials of that same country are implicated in the gravest violations of human rights, as well as in conspiracies to cover up those crimes—and nobody has been held accountable.

美帝国主义外交政策的寓意非常明显。美国政府能够以保护“人权”的名义，坚持以武力入侵、轰炸世界上任何地区并且实施“人道主义干预”和“政权更迭”活动。同时，这个国家的最高的军事、民事和情报官员们却牵扯到最残忍的违反人权行为，并且密谋袒护罪犯，至今没有人为此负责。

Just as concerning for the ruling class, however, are the report's domestic consequences—further exposing a state apparatus that is already deeply unpopular in the eyes of the vast majority of the population.

然而，就统治阶层的担心而言，这份报告对国内产生的影响会进一步暴露出在绝大多数民众眼中，刑讯手段已经非常不受欢迎。

The record of CIA torture and the subsequent investigations into it are a story of crime topped upon crime. The CIA torture program, which was launched in 2002 with the direct involvement of top officials in the Bush administration, was apparently more brutal even than has been publicly acknowledged so far. "This was real torture," a confidential source told the Telegraph earlier this year, calling the methods "medieval." It goes without saying that torture is an illegal act, violating both international law as well as the US Constitution.

CIA的刑讯记录和随后对此的调查是一部以暴制暴式的历史。CIA的刑讯活动于2002年开始实施，直接牵扯到布什政府最高领导人，明显比目前公开承认的情况更加残忍。“那是真正的折磨，”一位机密人士今年初告诉电讯报记者，认为这些刑讯方法堪比“中世纪”。但刑讯活动一直持续，认为这些并非违法行为，没有违反国际法以及美国宪法。

However, the Senate report is not limited to the torture itself. It also documents the CIA's systematic and criminal campaign over subsequent years to cover up the program. For example, in November 2005, the CIA destroyed tapes that it had made of torture at a secret "black site" in Thailand. (The Obama administration, under its doctrine of "looking forward not backward," refused to prosecute the CIA officials involved in destroying this key evidence.)

然而，参议院的报告并未局限于刑讯本身，还记录了CIA在随后时间里采取了系统性犯罪活动以掩盖刑讯行为。例如，2005年11月，CIA蓄意破坏了一个泰国秘密“黑牢”里实施刑讯的录像。（奥巴马政府基于“向前看而不是向后追溯”的准则，拒绝起诉涉及破坏关键证据的CIA官员。）

The Senate Intelligence Committee investigation began in 2009, and the report was completed in December 2012. Kerry's phone call is only the latest in a long series of efforts by the Obama administration and the CIA to obstruct the report's release. Earlier this year, Feinstein revealed that the CIA had broken into the computers of staff working for the Senate Intelligence Committee and had attempted to erase evidence of CIA crimes. Subsequently, the CIA wiped additional files in order to conceal evidence of the electronic break-in from a congressional sergeant-at-arms investigation.

2009年参议院情报委员会开始着手调查，并且在2012年完成了该报告。克里的电话只是奥巴马政府和CIA企图阻止报告公布漫长过程中最新一次举动。今年初，费因斯天透漏CIA曾经侵入参议院情报委员会工作人员的电脑，企图删除CIA犯罪的证据。根据国会安保部门调查显示，随后CIA删除了附加文件，以掩盖其通过网络入侵的证据。

One possibility is that the Obama administration hopes to delay the release of the report until control of Congress changes into the hands of the Republican Party, after which it will be easier to justify burying it altogether. Even so, the Senate Intelligence Committee does not intend to release the full 6,200-page report to the public. Instead, only a roughly 500-page "executive summary" will ever see the light of day. The CIA has been permitted to make redactions, which according to media reports account for roughly 15 percent of the text.

有种可能性是奥巴马政府希望推迟报告公布时间，直到国会易手为共和党控制， 这样将更容易为彻底埋葬报告进行辩解。即便如此，情报委员会并不打算将全部的6200页报告公之于众。相反，只会公布约500页的“简要”。CIA已经获准进行校对，根据媒体报告，校对内容占全部报告的约15%。

While Feinstein has postured as a critic of the CIA torture program, she and the rest of the congressional Democrats are just as complicit in the program as the Republicans. In an opinion piece in the Washington Post on Friday, Jose A. Rodriguez Jr.—the CIA official who was responsible for the destruction of the torture videos in 2005—pointed out that "leaders of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees and of both parties in Congress were briefed on the program more than 40 times between 2002 and 2009." Rodriguez added, "Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tried to deny that she was told in 2002 that detainees had been waterboarded. That is simply not true. I was among those who briefed her."

虽然费斯坦因对CIA的刑讯活动持批评态度，但她和过去其他民主党议员一样与共和党人串通一气。在周五华盛顿邮报的一篇评论中， Jose A. Rodriguez Jr——2005年负责破坏刑讯视频的CIA官员，指出“2002至2009年间，参众两院情报委员会以及国会中的两党领导人听取关于刑讯活动的汇报不下40次。”他还补充道“Pelosi试图否认2002年她曾被告知CIA对囚犯们采取了水刑。那是假话，我就是向她报告的人之一。”

Whatever tactical differences exist among the various factions of the ruling class, the bitterness of the mutual recriminations—and Kerry's extraordinary phone call—point to a mood of panic behind closed doors. Internationally as well as domestically, the lies and pretenses of the American state are being discredited in the eyes of millions.

无论统治阶层不同部分间存在什么样的战略差异，以及相互指责中存在的苦楚，以及克里非同寻常的电话，都指向幕后存在的一种恐慌情绪。无论国内还是国外，在无数人的眼中美国都被认为是虚伪和谎言的代名词。

There is a profound connection between criminality abroad and criminality at home. The so-called "war on terror" and military aggression abroad are linked to repression within the United States. As the WSWS has warned, the drive by the American ruling class to build up the infrastructure of a police state is in preparation for the inevitable confrontation with the working class. This is what lies behind the unprecedented levels of domestic spying, the assault on basic democratic rights, the CIA's trampling on legality and the Constitution, the militarization of law enforcement and the ongoing police rampage against working-class youth.

无论在国内和国外，犯罪行为都会紧密联系。所谓的“反恐战争”以及对外军事扩张都联系着对国内的压迫。正如WSWS所警告的那样，美国统治阶层趋向于打造警察国家的基础，那么不可避免的就要准备着与工人阶级产生对抗。这体现为史无前例的对内间谍行为，对基本民主权利的攻击，CIA践踏法律和宪法的行为，执法部门军事化行动以及正在上演的警察肆无忌惮的镇压工薪阶层年轻人的行为。

The ongoing behind-the-scenes conflict over the CIA torture report comes as the American political establishment has been rattled in recent weeks by nationwide protests over multiple separate incidents where police officers were not held accountable for serious crimes, including the killings of Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. In the working class, conclusions are being drawn. Just as there are no consequences for top government officials who authorize torture and assassination abroad, there are no consequences for police officers who commit murder at home. Nor are there any consequences, for that matter, for financial aristocrats whose illegal and speculative investments crashed the economy in 2008. Instead, war criminals continue to occupy top posts in the government, killer cops are placed on paid administrative leave or allowed a comfortable retirement and billionaire financial criminals are rewarded with free cash in the form of bailouts from the public treasury.

最近几周因警察严重犯罪却没有受到追责，多起独立事件包括：纽约的加纳事件和弗格森的布朗事件在内，引发全国性示威游行。 伴随这些问题的发生，以及目前正在幕后发酵的针对CIA刑讯报告的争议一起令美国政治当权派饱受诟病。工人阶级已经得出定论，即正如那些下命令在国外实施刑讯和暗杀行为的最高政府官员们没有下文一样，国内的警察实施谋杀后也是不了了之。另外，对于那些金融大鳄，他们非法投机经营导致2008年经济崩溃，也都没有任何结果。相反，战争罪犯们继续在政府中身居高位，杀人的警察享受着带薪休假或坐拥丰厚的退休金退休，并且亿万身价的经济罪犯通过公共财政的救助收益颇丰。

A picture is emerging of a political and social system that is essentially a criminal conspiracy to intimidate, deceive and rob the population, involving Democrats, Republicans and all the auxiliary political agents of the ruling class. Under these conditions, "restoring legitimacy" is a top priority in ruling circles. On Thursday, Obama—employing a hefty dose of identity politics aimed at obscuring the basic class issues—spoke of “strengthening relationships" between "law enforcement" and minority "communities," and of "restoring a sense of common purpose."

把政治和社会系统描绘成一幅图画，那实质上就是一伙罪犯串通一气恐吓、欺骗并且劫掠民众，包括民主党、共和党以及统治阶层的政治附庸。这种情况下，统治阶层的首要任务是“恢复法制”。奥巴马采取了一种强硬的身份政治手段，目的在于模糊阶级基础。周四，他宣称要“加强执法部门和少数民族的关系，”并且要“重塑一个共同的目的感。”

"I am absolutely committed," he added, "as president of the United States, to making sure that we have a country in which everyone believes [Obama emphasized this word] in the core principle that we are equal under the law." He stressed that the police could only "do their jobs effectively" if "everyone has confidence in the system.” On the contrary, workers in the United States and internationally must draw exactly those conclusions that frighten Obama and the rest of the political establishment the most: that the system is precisely the problem.

“我绝对坚守承诺，”他补充道“作为美国总统，我确保我们国家中每个人都坚信（说到这奥巴马加强语调）国家的核心理念，即法律面前人人平等。”他强调如果“每个人都对这一系统抱有信心”，警察部门“会有效的开展工作。”反过来说，美国国内和国外的工人阶级必须得出这些精确的结论，即令奥巴马和其他政治当权派们最为惊恐的是国家系统本身出现问题。

No confidence can be placed in efforts to "reform" this or that criminal practice under conditions where the entire social system is closing ranks for an assault against the interests of the vast majority of the population. To fight back, the working class must orient itself towards socialism—that is, towards the overthrow and replacement of the outmoded world capitalist system, which is the essential cause of social inequality, war, violence and the disintegration of democratic forms of rule.

在这种情况下，整个社会系统成为少数阶级团结起来损害绝大多数民众的利益，还要努力去“改革”这种或那种犯罪行为，则还有什么人会树立起信心。为了反击，工人阶级必须自我树立方向，走向社会主义，就是说想着推翻和取代世界上过时的资本主义系统前进。因为这是造成社会不平等、战争、暴力和民主统治瓦解的实质根源。