The United States is appallingly brutal in its practice of torture and
international terrorism. Not only must the policies change, but criminals
like Douglas Feith, Donald Rumsfeld, and George W. Bush should be arrested and
sentenced for their violations of international law and their crimes against
humanity.
The New York Times reported today that 110 Afghan
prisoners will be released from Guantanamo Bay, a facility labeled a “gulag of
our time” by Amnesty International. Are we releasing terrorists back to their
home country? Of course not. These are people who have been imprisoned for
three years and charged with no crime. There are hundreds of prisoners in
Cuba, but only four have been charged with crimes. They are tortured daily.
This is not disputed by the FBI, which acknowledges, but condones, the
practices.
The psychological and emotional torture is disturbing on
many levels, one being the hatred and enmity that it invites on America
from the Muslim world (and much of the the international community). Religious leaders are being leashed and made to
crawl around like dogs, wear women's clothing, and stand naked in front of female
officers. Female officers pretend to wipe menstrual blood on the detainees.
Doctors and psychologists abet the torture by instructing interrogators how to
exploit fear. The Qur’an is being desecrated (yes, just because Newsweek
doesn’t know how to report a story doesn’t mean the whole thing is
fabricated). There are accusations of torture ranging from the acts at
Abu Ghraib to murder and rape. While I don’t really care about the personal torment of a
terrorist, the fact is that, in the eyes of many, we are insulting and
disgracing Islam. American lives are directly imperiled because of this
administration’s illegal wars and inhuman policies.
Through FOIA requests, the ACLU has received thousands of
documents shedding light on the true abuses that have taken place in Iraq and
Guantanamo. Cigarettes are put out in prisoners’ ears, detainees are
shackled to the floor for 24 hours at a time, not given food or allowed to use
a bathroom. In Afghanistan, Sgt. Selena Salcedo kicked and beat a prisoner,
then slammed his head against a wall multiple times because he avoided her
questions. The prisoner later died from his injuries. For her crime, Salcedo
was given a letter of reprimand an reduced in rank from corporal to
specialist.
International Law is clear. The United Nations
Convention Against Torture forbids “any act by which severe pain or suffering,
whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person.” So maybe
Harvard law professor and prolific author Alan Dershowitz should research some
international law before asking, “But placing a sterilized needle under
somebody’s fingernails for 15 minutes, causing excruciating pain but no
permanent physical damage, is that torture?”
How has the media reacted to this shameful barbarism?
They ignore it, distort it, or even applaud it. Rush Limbaugh laughed off and
compared the Abu Ghraib abuses to frat “hazing.” Diana West wrote in the
Washington Times that following the Geneva Conventions means “we’ll serve tea
and crumpets.” Brit Hume, Chris Matthews, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and
countless others have rationalized and made light of the torture. O’Reilly
thinks that “progressives want to give terrorists condos on Miami Beach.” Fox
News’s John Gibson described the plaintiffs in the ACLU case as “liberal,
anti-war, ACLU-type activists….They allege a lot of stuff. And you feel like
Seinfeld. ‘Yada-yada-yada.” Yes, John, you feel like Seinfeld, you stupid
fuck.
Perhaps the most reprehensible comments come from sources
like the Wall Street Journal, which featured an editorial condemning those who
would oppose torture and saying that people “who threw around words like
‘torture’ so glibly are worse than wrong….they have endangered the lives of
soldiers by forcing a retreat in interrogation techniques so severe that it’s
hampering the U.S. ability to fight the counterinsurgency in Iraq.” So that’s
why this war is a disaster and there is no end in sight? Because we aren’t
torturing enough? The fact is that MOST EXPERTS – from CIA officials to
military experts – agree that torture is ineffective and counterproductive, to
say nothing of laws that it violates.
The media have been utter failures in bringing these
issues to the public consciousness and portraying what is happening as a
crime. These issues will stand until the perpetrators are arrested and jailed
for their crimes against humanity. The media will be remembered as an
accomplice.
(some of the information about media in this piece was
taken from Jacqueline Bacon’s article “Torturing Language” in the August
edition of Extra!)