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To
Torture or Not To Torture?
by
John W. Whitehead
2/13/2006
During
a recent debate in Chicago, former U.S. Justice
Department official John Yoo, who wrote the crucial
memos justifying President Bush�s policies on
torture, was asked, �If the president deems that
he�s got to torture somebody, including by crushing
the testicles of the person�s child, there is no law
that can stop him?�
�No treaty,� replied Yoo, now a professor at the
University
of
California
law school at
Berkeley
. He then went on to espouse the notion of the
�unitary executive.� This is the idea that as
commander-in-chief the president is the sole judge of
the law, is unbound by the Geneva Conventions against
torture and possesses inherent authority to
subordinate the entire government to his
rule�including Congress and the courts�when he
decides to do so.
This concept, the cornerstone of the Bush doctrine on
presidential power, was attested to by Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales in his testimony before
Congress on the Administration�s warrantless
electronic surveillance of American citizens. This
doctrine has also been vigorously championed by the
White House, which at some points has even argued in
defense of the use of torture.
Moreover, it has been widely reported that American
government agents have resorted to outsourcing
suspected terrorists for torture through a program
know as �extraordinary rendition.� The program,
apparently condoned by Vice President Dick Cheney,
involves the clandestine transfer of suspected
terrorists to countries ruled by regimes where it is
possible that torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman
and degrading treatment occur. Dr. William F. Schulz,
executive director of Amnesty International USA,
referring to a set of CIA flight logs obtained by the
organization, said the logs were �irrefutable proof
that the
United States
is �disappearing� people into secret facilities
where they are held incommunicado without charge,
trial, or access to the outside world.�
Such reports give rise to a host of moral and ethical
questions, such as: Can a country that claims to
champion human rights and whose elected officials
claim to abide by Judeo-Christian precepts advocate
torture of any kind? And if the
U.S.
is determined to advocate torture, should there be
limits to what can and cannot be done in the name of
fighting the so-called war on terror?
Various government regimes in numerous countries
throughout the world, including the
U.S.
, employ torture tactics. The following are just a few
of the many examples of brutal methods of coercion
employed by these regimes:
Uzbekistan
(currently an ally of the
U.S.
),
Iraq
and
Afghanistan
all have a long history of subjecting people to
torture and ill-treatment in the name of national
security. These include stretching limbs apart; burns
with cigarettes, heated instruments or a scalding
liquid; electric shock; asphyxiation by drowning,
smothering, choking or use of chemicals; penetrating
injuries such as stab and gunshot wounds and wires
under nails; chemical exposures to salt, chili pepper,
gasoline, etc., in wounds or body cavities; sexual
violence to genitals, molestation, rape; medical
amputation of digits or limbs and surgical removal of
organs.
Interrogators in western
Iraq
have stuffed insurgents face-first into sleeping bags
with a small hole cut in the bottom for air, which
resulted in suffocating to death. An American warrant
officer was recently found guilty of a similar act.
In forced labor camps in
China
, victims have been tortured through a specially
designed �death bed.� Consisting of a metal board
with a hole at hip level, the victim�s hands and
feet are stretched apart and tied to the sides of the
bed, the pants are cut open or taken off and all waste
products fall through the hole.
China
�s interrogators also use a method of torturing
women with a square-shaped metal cage made of small
welded steel bars. The victim is tied with her back to
the rear of a chair and the rope crossing between her
legs. She is then lifted up against one side of the
metal cage until her feet no longer touch the ground,
and the horizontal bar of the cage is used for
support. Her arms are spread apart, and each hand is
handcuffed or tied to the pipe. One leg is then raised
and held up by one of the guards, while another stabs
the victim�s hands with scissors or beats on her
feet with a plank, aiming repeatedly for one spot.
Then the other leg is forced in the opposite
direction. Variations of this torture include lifting
the victim�s legs while the guards insert a
broomstick into her vagina and poke around vigorously.
To muffle the cries and moans of anguish, the
interrogators gag her with a dirty rag and tape her
mouth with yellow tape. Many victims have suffered
massive hemorrhages because of this torture.
In
Burma
, government agents have devised various techniques of
torture against dissidents, whom they label �enemies
of the state.� One method, in which a rat is placed
in a pot that is attached to the prisoner�s stomach,
appears to have been taken from the pages of George
Orwell�s futuristic novel 1984. The pot is then
heated, forcing the rat to dig into the prisoner�s
stomach in a desperate attempt to escape, creating a
living hell for the so-called enemy of the state.
Torture by American interrogators of detainees in
Guantanamo Bay
,
Cuba
, has also been documented. An unnamed FBI agent
reports:
�On
a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to
find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal
position to the floor, with no chair, food, or water.
Most times they had urinated and defecated on
themselves, and had been left there from 18, 24 hours
or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning was
turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in
the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking
with cold. When I asked the MPs what was going on, I
was told that interrogators from the day prior had
ordered this treatment, and the detainee was not to be
moved. On another occasion, the A/C had been turned
off, making the temperature in the unventilated room
probably well over 100 degrees. The detainee was
almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair
next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling
his own hair out throughout the night.�
The FBI report also notes that at least on one
occasion an American female guard in charge �had
grabbed the detainee�s thumbs and bent them
backwards and indicated that she also grabbed his
genitals.� The memo also stated that �her
treatment of that detainee was less harsh than her
treatment of others.� One Marine indicated that
�he had seen her treatment of other detainees result
in detainees curling into a fetal position on the
floor and crying in pain.�
Most Americans were shocked by the photos of the
contorted bodies of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib as
the American guards looked on with ghoulish smiles.
Megan Ambuhl, a former guard at Abu Ghraib, said she
was stunned the first time she stepped into the
prison. There were naked men in dusty cells, male
prisoners wearing women�s underwear and others
hooded and shackled in contorted positions to metal
railings. An enlisted officer giving her a tour of the
prison in October 2003 pointed to a group of detainees
chained to a jail cell. As she told the Washington
Post, the officer said the bars
had often �been decorated like a Christmas tree,�
with prisoners as ornaments.
A Jewish prophet once proclaimed, �The heart is
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.
Who can know it?� Understanding this about people,
another Jewish prophet some 600 years later, who
suffered extreme torture himself, taught his followers
to �love your enemies, bless those who curse you,
and pray for those who spitefully use you and
persecute you.� Indeed, one wonders what Jesus, with
his professed love of children, would say to John Yoo
about torture that might justify �crushing the
testicles� of someone�s child.
_______________________________________
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