On Torture and American Values
The New York Times | Editorial

Sunday 07 October 2007

Once upon a time, it was the United States that urged all nations
to obey the letter and the spirit of international treaties and
protect human rights and liberties. American leaders denounced secret
prisons where people were held without charges, tortured and killed.
And the people in much of the world, if not their governments,
respected the United States for its values.

The Bush administration has dishonored that history and
squandered that respect. As an article on this newspaper¹s front page
last week laid out in disturbing detail, President Bush and his aides
have not only condoned torture and abuse at secret prisons, but they
have conducted a systematic campaign to mislead Congress, the
American people and the world about those policies.

After the attacks of 9/11, Mr. Bush authorized the creation of
extralegal detention camps where Central Intelligence Agency
operatives were told to extract information from prisoners who were
captured and held in secret. Some of their methods ‹ simulated
drownings, extreme ranges of heat and cold, prolonged stress
positions and isolation ‹ had been classified as torture for decades
by civilized nations. The administration clearly knew this; the
C.I.A. modeled its techniques on the dungeons of Egypt, Saudi Arabia
and the Soviet Union.

The White House could never acknowledge that. So its lawyers
concocted documents that redefined ³torture² to neatly exclude the
things American jailers were doing and hid the papers from Congress
and the American people. Under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Mr.
Bush¹s loyal enabler, the Justice Department even declared that those
acts did not violate the lower standard of ³cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment.²

That allowed the White House to claim that it did not condone
torture, and to stampede Congress into passing laws that shielded the
interrogators who abused prisoners, and the men who ordered them to
do it, from any kind of legal accountability.

Mr. Bush and his aides were still clinging to their
rationalizations at the end of last week. The president declared that
Americans do not torture prisoners and that Congress had been fully
briefed on his detention policies.

Neither statement was true ‹ at least in what the White House
once scorned as the ³reality-based community² ‹ and Senator John
Rockefeller, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, was right to be
furious. He demanded all of the ³opinions of the Justice Department
analyzing the legality² of detention and interrogation policies.
Lawmakers, who for too long have been bullied and intimidated by the
White House, should rewrite the Detainee Treatment Act and the
Military Commissions Act to conform with actual American laws and
values.

For the rest of the nation, there is an immediate question: Is
this really who we are?

Is this the country whose president declared, ³Mr. Gorbachev,
tear down this wall,² and then managed the collapse of Communism with
minimum bloodshed and maximum dignity in the twilight of the 20th
century? Or is this a nation that tortures human beings and then
concocts legal sophistries to confuse the world and avoid
accountability before American voters?

Truly banning the use of torture would not jeopardize American
lives; experts in these matters generally agree that torture produces
false confessions. Restoring the rule of law to Guantánamo Bay would
not set terrorists free; the truly guilty could be tried for their
crimes in a way that does not mock American values.

Clinging to the administration¹s policies will only cause further
harm to America¹s global image and to our legal system. It also will
add immeasurably to the risk facing any man or woman captured while
wearing America¹s uniform or serving in its intelligence forces.

This is an easy choice.


http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100707Z.shtml

On Torture and American Values
The New York Times | Editorial

Sunday 07 October 2007

Once upon a time, it was the United States that urged all nations
to obey the letter and the spirit of international treaties and
protect human rights and liberties. American leaders denounced secret
prisons where people were held without charges, tortured and killed.
And the people in much of the world, if not their governments,
respected the United States for its values.

The Bush administration has dishonored that history and
squandered that respect. As an article on this newspaper¹s front page
last week laid out in disturbing detail, President Bush and his aides
have not only condoned torture and abuse at secret prisons, but they
have conducted a systematic campaign to mislead Congress, the
American people and the world about those policies.

After the attacks of 9/11, Mr. Bush authorized the creation of
extralegal detention camps where Central Intelligence Agency
operatives were told to extract information from prisoners who were
captured and held in secret. Some of their methods ‹ simulated
drownings, extreme ranges of heat and cold, prolonged stress
positions and isolation ‹ had been classified as torture for decades
by civilized nations. The administration clearly knew this; the
C.I.A. modeled its techniques on the dungeons of Egypt, Saudi Arabia
and the Soviet Union.

The White House could never acknowledge that. So its lawyers
concocted documents that redefined ³torture² to neatly exclude the
things American jailers were doing and hid the papers from Congress
and the American people. Under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Mr.
Bush¹s loyal enabler, the Justice Department even declared that those
acts did not violate the lower standard of ³cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment.²

That allowed the White House to claim that it did not condone
torture, and to stampede Congress into passing laws that shielded the
interrogators who abused prisoners, and the men who ordered them to
do it, from any kind of legal accountability.

Mr. Bush and his aides were still clinging to their
rationalizations at the end of last week. The president declared that
Americans do not torture prisoners and that Congress had been fully
briefed on his detention policies.

Neither statement was true ‹ at least in what the White House
once scorned as the ³reality-based community² ‹ and Senator John
Rockefeller, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, was right to be
furious. He demanded all of the ³opinions of the Justice Department
analyzing the legality² of detention and interrogation policies.
Lawmakers, who for too long have been bullied and intimidated by the
White House, should rewrite the Detainee Treatment Act and the
Military Commissions Act to conform with actual American laws and
values.

For the rest of the nation, there is an immediate question: Is
this really who we are?

Is this the country whose president declared, ³Mr. Gorbachev,
tear down this wall,² and then managed the collapse of Communism with
minimum bloodshed and maximum dignity in the twilight of the 20th
century? Or is this a nation that tortures human beings and then
concocts legal sophistries to confuse the world and avoid
accountability before American voters?

Truly banning the use of torture would not jeopardize American
lives; experts in these matters generally agree that torture produces
false confessions. Restoring the rule of law to Guantánamo Bay would
not set terrorists free; the truly guilty could be tried for their
crimes in a way that does not mock American values.

Clinging to the administration¹s policies will only cause further
harm to America¹s global image and to our legal system. It also will
add immeasurably to the risk facing any man or woman captured while
wearing America¹s uniform or serving in its intelligence forces.

This is an easy choice.


http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100707Z.shtml