Gulags American-Style
Nation X allows prisoners to be tortured and mistreated in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Nation X refuses to cooperate with the International Red Cross in acknowledging who it has imprisoned and where these nameless prisoners are kept. Nation X kidnaps people and places them in dungeon-like secret prisons, the very existence of which is denied by officials of Nation X. Prisoners are held without being charged with anything, and are to be held indefinitely, with no legal representation and no contact with the outside world.
Nation X is not Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Red China, Iran, or Hussein-era Iraq. The nation in question is the United States of America, a supposed defender of democracy and human rights. We have the absurd situation where the Vice President of the United States wants to remove language from a congressional bill that would ban torture. Let's be clear, Dick Cheney and his allies in the administration are pro-torture. The CIA is running what can be accurately described as gulags, secret holding centers for enemies of the state. The prisons and their inmates do not officially exist.
These practices violate the laws of the United States and standards of human decency. Germany, France, and Italy (nations with rich histories of torture and human rights abuses) can now justifiably lecture the United States on proper ethical and moral standards for international conduct. Western Europe and Canada clearly respect human rights more than the United States does. We are less democratic, less free, than those countries. How can our nation have reached this point? Why aren't more people outraged over the CIA-run prisons recently publicized in The Washington Post? Why is Abu Ghraib ignored? Are we that racist in this country as to assume that any Muslim or Arab is an Al-Qaida member?
Keep in mind, the vast majority of those Iraqis humiliated in the famous Abu Ghraib photos have now been released. They were innocent people rounded up and locked up without being tried for any crimes. How can anyone believe that the CIA, which bungled the WMD intelligence so badly, knows for sure that all of its prisoners are guilty of terrorism? One person was grabbed off a street in Italy, flown to a secret military base, tortured and mistreated for months, and then released when he was found to be not guilty of anything. This is the kind of thing military juntas in South America used to do. We have our own "Disappeared" now, prisoners with no legal status that our government won't even acknowledge exist.
Even if I were solely concerned with the best interests of the United States, and did not care a whit about any non-American Muslim on Earth, the present policy of secret prisons and torture would not be a realistic solution to our terrorism problem. For one thing, torture doesn't work. Rarely if ever would torture enable us to extract timely information from a prisoner. This is the whole "ticking time bomb" excuse for torture that Alan Dershowitz and others push. Cruel interrogation tactics have been widely discredited.
Secondly, the ill-will generated by "getting tough" with terrorists is far worse than the intelligence gathered. The United States is alienating its European allies. We need the cooperation of their intelligence agencies in our fight against an international menace. More importantly, why would Muslims support America when we so such contempt for their people? We are giving ammunition to the Islamic extremists who want to make this a holy war. The leaders of the United States can descend to the level of murderers like Bin Laden, or rise to the ideals of freedom and democracy our nation was founded on.
Nation X is not Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Red China, Iran, or Hussein-era Iraq. The nation in question is the United States of America, a supposed defender of democracy and human rights. We have the absurd situation where the Vice President of the United States wants to remove language from a congressional bill that would ban torture. Let's be clear, Dick Cheney and his allies in the administration are pro-torture. The CIA is running what can be accurately described as gulags, secret holding centers for enemies of the state. The prisons and their inmates do not officially exist.
These practices violate the laws of the United States and standards of human decency. Germany, France, and Italy (nations with rich histories of torture and human rights abuses) can now justifiably lecture the United States on proper ethical and moral standards for international conduct. Western Europe and Canada clearly respect human rights more than the United States does. We are less democratic, less free, than those countries. How can our nation have reached this point? Why aren't more people outraged over the CIA-run prisons recently publicized in The Washington Post? Why is Abu Ghraib ignored? Are we that racist in this country as to assume that any Muslim or Arab is an Al-Qaida member?
Keep in mind, the vast majority of those Iraqis humiliated in the famous Abu Ghraib photos have now been released. They were innocent people rounded up and locked up without being tried for any crimes. How can anyone believe that the CIA, which bungled the WMD intelligence so badly, knows for sure that all of its prisoners are guilty of terrorism? One person was grabbed off a street in Italy, flown to a secret military base, tortured and mistreated for months, and then released when he was found to be not guilty of anything. This is the kind of thing military juntas in South America used to do. We have our own "Disappeared" now, prisoners with no legal status that our government won't even acknowledge exist.
Even if I were solely concerned with the best interests of the United States, and did not care a whit about any non-American Muslim on Earth, the present policy of secret prisons and torture would not be a realistic solution to our terrorism problem. For one thing, torture doesn't work. Rarely if ever would torture enable us to extract timely information from a prisoner. This is the whole "ticking time bomb" excuse for torture that Alan Dershowitz and others push. Cruel interrogation tactics have been widely discredited.
Secondly, the ill-will generated by "getting tough" with terrorists is far worse than the intelligence gathered. The United States is alienating its European allies. We need the cooperation of their intelligence agencies in our fight against an international menace. More importantly, why would Muslims support America when we so such contempt for their people? We are giving ammunition to the Islamic extremists who want to make this a holy war. The leaders of the United States can descend to the level of murderers like Bin Laden, or rise to the ideals of freedom and democracy our nation was founded on.
posted by David Bowden at 11:31 AM
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