"Legalized
Torture: Not an American Value"
Message to Maine
Commentary By U.S. Representative Tom Allen
1st District of Maine
Vice President Dick Cheney has been toiling behind
the scenes to kill an amendment sponsored by Senator
John McCain (R-AZ) to the Defense Department funding
bill. The measure would explicitly outlaw "cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment" of prisoners
in U.S. custody here or abroad. President Bush threatens
to veto the entire bill unless the CIA is exempted
from the provision. How can a nation that prides itself
on its centuries of courage and sacrifice in defense
of freedom even be having this debate? It is nothing
short of shameful.
This is not a mere theoretical discourse. The other
day, The Washington Post revealed that the CIA is
running a secret network of prison camps in Eastern
Europe and other countries where they are interrogating
terror suspects. This Soviet-style gulag was hidden
from the American people, from Congress, from the
people of the host countries, and, of course, from
the families and lawyers of the prisoners. These detainees
have been "disappeared," to use the infamous
term of South American dictatorships.
What is going on at these camps is anyone's guess,
but you can be sure Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney want a
license to torture for a reason.
The Bush Administration has shown its contempt for
American and international human rights laws in other
ways. They have "outsourced" interrogation
of detainees to countries where legal restraints and
a free press are non-existent; in sickening photographs
that shocked the world, U.S. military personnel at
Abu Ghraib in Iraq, goaded and inspired by U.S. intelligence
agency overseers, were seen physically and sexually
brutalizing inmates; several Afghan and Iraqi prisoners
are known to have died at the hands of Americans;
likewise, inmates at the U.S. detention facility at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have been ill-treated.
On November 7, the very day President Bush declared
"we do not torture," the U.S. Army charged
five Rangers with abusing detainees in Iraq. Not a
single senior officer or civilian has been held accountable
for any these abuses.
The Administration relies on a host of untested assumptions
to justify its torture policy. First, they suggest,
these suspects are guilty and therefore are entitled
to no rights. Second, these detainees have such crucial
knowledge about grievous threats to our security that
we cannot afford to be humanitarian. Third, torture
extracts useful intelligence.
Our values and the rule of law refute these assumptions.
First, the closed, secretive system created for "terror
suspects" allows no possibility of challenging
the guilt of these people. Second, if they were all
guilty or had valuable intelligence, why has the United
States released hundreds of people from Abu Ghraib?
An unpublished Army report last May concluded that
many Iraqis were held in that prison merely for expressing
"displeasure or ill will" toward the American
occupying forces. Third, torture is not useful, much
less moral, as expert after expert has argued. We
should be listening to John McCain-himself a POW victim
of torture in Vietnam. He knows far better than Dick
Cheney or George W. Bush that torture is ineffective
and unreliable, that even a brave man will say anything
in the thick of unbearable torture.
Our military leaders want to abide by international
standards; they believe that clear rules on interrogation
would have prevented the Abu Ghraib disgrace; they
know that torture is not only an unreliable and virtually
useless intelligence tool, but provokes cruel mistreatment
of our own men and women captured by our enemies.
Finally, as Senator McCain has said, "This is
about who we are."
Americans are appalled by what is being done in our
name. The policies of this Administration are destroying
our credibility in the effort against terrorists.
It is not enough to adopt laws that say we will not
torture or that we not ship our detainees to places
where the rule of law is blatantly ignored. Those
laws are needed-and I have co-sponsored them-but we
also must vigorously enforce basic human rights laws.
If we continue to countenance torture and other inhuman
practices by the CIA or anyone else under our control,
we will be seen as no better than our enemies.
We also have a duty to find out why these abuses occurred,
and hold responsible those who ordered or condoned
these acts. That is why I am an original co-sponsor
of H.R. 3003, introduced by Rep. Henry Waxman, which
would establish a bipartisan independent commission
to investigate detainee abuses. The truth must be
revealed so that our country's policies and practices
reflect our core values.
