[Peace-discuss] Torture

[C. G. Estabrook]

[While the administration arranges for the cover-up and continuation of the US 
torture policy (preferably administered by foreigners -- see 
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/world/24intel.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=rendition&st=cse), 
some few speak out against it.  Here's an example. --CGE]


While Congress is sidetracked by who said what to whom and when, our nation 
finds itself at a crossroads on the issue of torture. We are at a point where we 
must decide if torture is something that is now going to be considered 
justifiable and reasonable under certain circumstances, or is America better 
than that?

"Enhanced interrogation" as some prefer to call it, has been used throughout 
history, usually by despotic governments, to cruelly punish or to extract 
politically useful statements from prisoners. Governments that do these things 
invariably bring shame on themselves.

In addition, information obtained under duress is incredibly unreliable, which 
is why it is not admissible in a court of law. Legally valid information is 
freely given by someone of sound mind and body. Someone in excruciating pain, or 
brought close to death by some horrific procedure, is not in any state of mind 
to give reliable information, and certainly no actions should be taken solely 
based upon it.

For these reasons, it is illegal in the United States and illegal under Geneva 
Conventions. Simulated drowning, or waterboarding, was not considered an 
exception to these laws when it was used by the Japanese against U.S. soldiers 
in World War II. In fact, we hanged Japanese officers for war crimes in 1945 for 
waterboarding. Its status as torture has already been decided by our own courts 
under this precedent. To look the other way now, when Americans do it, is the 
very definition of hypocrisy.

Matthew Alexander, author of How to Break a Terrorist, used non-torture methods 
of interrogation in Iraq with much success. In fact, one cooperative jihadist 
told him, "I thought you would torture me, and when you didn’t, I decided that 
everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That’s why I decided to 
cooperate." Alexander also found that in Iraq "the No. 1 reason foreign fighters 
flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. 
Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda 
in Iraq." Alexander’s experiences unequivocally demonstrate that losing our 
humanity is not beneficial or necessary in fighting terror.

The current administration has reversed its position on releasing evidence of 
torture by the previous administration, and we must ask why. A great and moral 
nation would have the courage to face the truth so it could abide by the rule of 
law. To look the other way necessarily implicates all of us and would of course 
further radicalize people against our troops on the ground. Instead, we have the 
chance to limit culpability for torture to those who were truly responsible for 
these crimes against humanity.

Not everyone who was given illegal orders obeyed them. Many FBI agents 
understood that an illegal order must be disobeyed, and they did so. The others 
must be held accountable, so that all of us are not targeted for blowback for 
the complicity of some.

The government’s own actions and operations in torturing people, and in acting 
on illegally obtained and unreliable information to kill and capture, are the 
most radicalizing forces at work today, not any religion, nor the fact that we 
are rich and free. The fact that our government engages in evil behavior under 
the auspices of the American people is what poses the greatest threat to the 
American people, and it must not be allowed to stand.

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