“it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture” and that the nation’s highest officials bore ultimate responsibility for it.
The sweeping, 577-page report says that while brutality has occurred in every American war, there never before had been “the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after 9/11 directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody.”It describes the internal advice of the Bush administration's legal advisors which was used to justify the brutal methods as "acrobatic."
My first reaction was rather ho-hum. I mean who didn´t know that? The whole question had been reduced to one of semantics. Hadn´t the Bushies come right out and said, "Yes, we waterboard, but we don´t torture." (Never mind that we tried and executed a few Japanese after WWII for using that very procedure.) In the recent HBO documentary, "The World According to Dick Cheney," Cheney openly ridicules the concept of national or personal honor in comparison with the value of the use of torture. Oops, I meant enhanced interrogation techniques. The very use of that euphemism, with a wink wink and a nudge nudge, has always been an implicit acknowledgement that we all know the score.
Still I think this report, from a panel convened by the The Constitution Project, is important. For one thing, one of the co-chairs was Asa Hutchinson, who served in the Bush administration as head of the Drug Enforcement Administration and Under Secretary of Homeland Security. Also, because Obama refused at the beginning of his administration to support a national commission to investigate the nation's post-9/11 counter-terrorism programs, independent investigations such as this became necessary.
For all the debate about the Geneva Conventions and whether or not they are applicable, it has always been ignored that the U.S. "is a signatory to the international Convention Against Torture, which requires the prompt investigation of allegations of torture and the compensation of its victims." Remember how the right wing always used to oppose treaties with the Soviet Union because they never keep their word? Hmmm, maybe we're not so reliable either. Just sayin'.
And this isn't merely ancient history, or simply an indictment of the Bush administration. Read this story by one of the hunger strikers at Guantanamo and see how proud you are of your country and its applied values in year five of the Obama administration.
2 comments:
Living up to America's professed ideals for the preservation of human rights is no simple matter. If the man's story is altogether true, it is most unfortunate that the government won't release him. The question is, how can they know for sure? It is terrible that they use so much force to feed him, but that may be the only way to keep him alive. In the long run, he may be grateful they worked to sustain his body.
Diane, You're right that it is not a simple matter, and I am no doubt simplifying it to much.
(Which reminds me of a good motto to live by: simplify, simplify, simplify, but don't over simplify.)
Still, to my thinking, Guantanamo itself is a national disgrace, with or without the hunger strikes. Everyone there should be either charged with a crime and tried (by a real court, and not the rigged military tribunals)or released, even if the perceived risk of doing so is genuine.
After 9-11 it was common to hear people say that if we altered the way we lived our day-to-day lives, the terrorists would have won. I think the fact that we have ignored our values is another indication that the terrorists have, in a very real sense, won. It was our values that earned us the world's respect over the years.
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