The ACLU does great work most of the time and I applaud their efforts to raise awareness of the torture issue and to put pressure on the Administration to prosecute all of those involved in the torture that was so obviously performed and authorized at the highest levels of the bush Adminsitration. That said, the new ad is very ineffective if it is intended to persuade anyone other than those already convinced.
If the ad is intended to convince people like me (those already horrified and wanting to see Cheney, Yoo and company on trial) then it ought to spend less time telling me what the memo says and more time telling me what action the ACLU would like me to take (send Holder a letter, sign a petition, come out to a protest?). I'm already convinced so what does this ad do for me?
But really, I think the ad is intended to try to convince the apathetic middle that something really awful took place. I've spent a lot of time talking to people in the apathetic middle and even those who are "OK" with the torture. If you want to convince them something wrong took place, here are the hurdles you must address:
- People think it is OK to torture terrorists. In order to undermine this you must bring home the point that most of those tortured were apparently not terrorists. YOu do this by showing the people who were tortured and having them tell their stories. You must humanize the torture. Especially the children who were tortured.
- They think torture was effective. It saved their lives, so if a few people got hurt, well then war is messy. We must answer by repeating that no one (except maybe in a few isolated cases) has established with any credibility that torture works. Hammer that point home again and again until it becomes conventional wisdom. Also, have actual interrogators explain they had success with non-torture methods.
- They think it isn't torture. This is what the add is trying to combat, but it fails. having actors talk about it does very little. You gotta show the small boxes, the implements of torture, etc.
- They think a torture investigation will cause too much political strife. You must point out the power of allowing precedent to stand and the fact that this country has survived enormous political upheaval before including Watergate, Iran-Contra, McCarthyism and yes, even the 2000 election.
- They think it has always gone on and now we are just namby-pamby for getting upset about it. I think this is best combatted by talking about the long list of War Crime tribunals where the United States has tried others for the very same actions. If it was torture then, why isn't is torture now? Sure the 23%ers think when we do it, it's not torture (by definition we don't torture). Or that it's not torture if you have a different intent or "God is on your side" or whatever. Forget about them!!! Facts don't matter to these people and they never will.
So my add would ditch the actors reading from a tortured legal memorandum and go atraight to stories and individuals that create empathy or sympathy in the viewer and to interrogators and historians who can combat the false arguments that the right-wing torture supporters cling to.
I mean seriously, did this ad cause any of you even 1/10 the outrage that a good article about a specific individual who was tortured has caused you?