In the midst of all the scandals and other problems plaguing the White House last week, Vice-President Cheney found time to renew his call for the legalization of torture. Even the hawkish Washington Post denounced the idea of giving public approval to this gross violation of human rights.
In addition to being un-American, torture is not even particularly useful in practical terms. When a suspect is being tortured, he will say what he thinks his torturers want to hear, whether it's the truth or not. Torture gets you a lot of information, not necessarily information that is useful, or even practical. One of the most potent denunciations of torture in recent times was made by the former French Gen.Jacques Massu. Torture was widely practice by the French army during the Algerian War, of which Gen. Massu was a prominent figure. French conservatives justified torture against Algerian suspects in much the same way some American conservatives defend it today. "They're the enemy. They deserve it, even though we only THINK they're guilty. What harm can come of it?"
Except Gen. Massu concluded that torture was counterproductive to the French effort on so many levels. It debased French soldiers on the ground, turning them into sadistic monsters no better than the enemy they were fighting. It undermined French public opinion by making Frenchmen question what the purpose of the war was if torture was going to be its result. It destroyed any hope of the French army getting cooperation from indigenous Algerians, which eventually proved fatal to the French military effort. (In colonial excursions, torture and human rights abuses always undermined to any effort to 'win hearts and minds'). It harded the attitudes of enraged locals who had a lot more motivation for a long, bloody war of attrition since they defending their homeland, a sentiment French soldiers generally didn't share. And Massu noted that much of the information extracted under torture was wrong, something which cost French lives. Massu concluded that the French would've been more likely to win the war (and let's not forget they lost it) if they hadn't used torture.
As for Cheney's call, The Washington Post notes that the US state department issues an annual report criticizing countries who practice torture and engage in other human rights abuses. That the vice-president seeks to legalize a practice so often decried when other regimes practice it is emblematic of this administration's hypocrisy. Is this legalization of torture part of the Crusade for 'freedom and liberty' (said breathless) the administration claims to be leading? Wasn't the horrific abuses of Saddam Hussein's regime an important justification for the aggression against Iraq?
Click your heels and repeat after me, "They hate us because we're free" until you delude yourself into believing it.
The paper's editorial noted: The CIA is holding an unknown number of prisoners in secret detention centers abroad. In violation of the Geneva Conventions, it has refused to register those detainees with the International Red Cross or to allow visits by its inspectors. Its prisoners have "disappeared," like the victims of some dictatorships.
Click your heels and repeat after me, "They hate us because we're free" until you delude yourself into believing it.
The paper also reported that the CIA was running a secret prison camp in eastern Europe. Not just any secret prison camp, but a secret prison camp built by an ally of that Evil Empire, the Soviet Union. There are alleged to be other secret prison camps, where kidnapees are held, around the world.
The camps were likely set up to get around pesky restrictions, like US law, US-approved treaties and the Constitution, against inhumane treatment of prisoners. It is believed that over 100 kidnappees have been 'disappeared' (a term usually reserved for old Latin American banana republic dictatorships) into these camps.
The CIA refused to comment on the existence of such prisons.
Click your heels and repeat after me, "They hate us because we're free" until you delude yourself into believing it.
And even at the non-secret camps, things aren't so peachy.
LAST MONTH a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay military base excused himself from a conversation with his lawyer and stepped into a cell, where he slashed his arm and hung himself., notes another editorial in The Post.
No, the suicide wasn't because of alleged 'Koran abuse' or the chicken and rice dinners. But because of the torture of holding kidnapees indefinitely, without trial and without any hope of any resolution, without any hope of anything.
(Again, I call them kidnapees because they're not prisoners of war, according to the administration, and because they haven't been charged with a crime and there's no timetable for them to be so charged. The Post notes not a single al Qaeda leader has been prosecuted in the past four years. The Pentagon's system of hearings on the status of Guantanamo detainees, introduced only after a unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court, has no way of resolving the long-term status of most detainees. The CIA has no long-term plan for its secret prisoners, whom one agency official described as "a horrible burden.")
The paper adds: This desperate attempted suicide by a detainee held for four years without charge, trial or any clear prospect of release was not isolated. At least 131 Guantanamo inmates began a hunger strike on Aug. 8 to protest their indefinite confinement
Click your heels and repeat after me, "They hate us because we're free" until you delude yourself into believing it.
Whether you think the Iraq war was a good idea or not, everyone should agree that torture should never be legalized. Not against convicts. Not against the accused. Not against suspects, which is what the kidnapees are.
The vice-president's and the administration's hostility toward basic standards of human decency is loathsome and detestable. This contempt for civilized behavior antithetical to the values almost all people in this country claim to believe in and should be condemned by all Americans with a conscience.
No comments:
Post a Comment