Torturers frame themselves as civilizing savages and so not accountable

Evidence

The West has appointed itself as the corrections officer to the non-West, and Charles Graner should not be understood as a man who has simply taken his duties too far. For what else is a civilized man to do in his encounter with savages but civilize them? … As the sheriff’s rage builds and climaxes in violence and orgiastic release, he reflects of himself later that night: ‘He tried to be a good person and treat everybody right: it wasn’t his fault if the n----- had taken it into their heads to fight against God and go against the rules laid down in the Bible for everyone to read! Any preacher will tell you that. He was only doing his duty: protecting white people from the n-----s and the n-----s from themselves.’ — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 190