Torture and America

When American POWs came home from the Korean War, we learned about the torture and brainwashing inflicted upon them by the Communists. American prisoners of war were isolated in cold cells, stripped of their clothing, deprived of sleep, forced to endure constant loud noises and harsh lights, and subject to severe, interminable interrogation. Some broke under the strain and collaborated with the enemy. The media contrasted the Communists’ barbaric behavior with the humane treatment given by American guards to enemy prisoners. It made us proud to be Americans. That was long before the administration of George W. Bush and his sinister “Eminence Grise,” Dick Chaney.

When the story of Abu Ghraib prison broke, Americans were shocked to discover that American solders in Iraq were inflicting the same kind of torture on prisoners as had been inflicted on American prisoners in Korea. While many of the tortures at Abu Ghraib were painful, the tortures were designed primarily to break-down the will of the Iraqi prisoners by subjecting them to profound humiliation.

At Abu Ghraib, detainees were urinated upon and assaulted with snarling dogs. They were required to strip, masturbate, climb on top of one another, and commit homosexual acts in front of female American guards. Other tortures included beating and sodomizing detainees with a metal baton, pouring phosphoric acid on detainees, and tying ropes to detainees’ penises and dragging them across the floor.

Who was responsible for these atrocities? Was this just the rogue behavior of a group of uncontrolled guards, or were these practices approved in higher circles? Several of the guards were court-martialed. But what of the higher-ups? It now appears that these tortures were the result of an atmosphere promulgated by the CIA and emanating from the Bush Administration. How did this come about?

Beginning in 2001, in dozens of top-secret meetings, high-level White House officials, including Vice President Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Alberto Gonzalez, and others met in the Situation Room of the White House and approved specific harsh methods of interrogation of prisoners by the CIA. In an interview with ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, President Bush admitted that he was fully aware of these meetings and of what went on. One participant in the meetings, then Attorney General John Ashcroft, was apparently deeply disturbed by the meetings and is quoted as saying: “History will not judge this kindly.”

In March 2003, just months before the Abu Ghraib atrocities, John Yoo, deputy legal counsel at the Justice Department, submitted a detailed written memo advising his superiors, and ultimately the President, that the President had broad legal power during wartime to authorize harsh interrogation methods and that any laws restricting that authority were unconstitutional.

As a result of the Yoo memo, the Cheney group and the President felt that they had legal authority to authorize “enhanced” interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, shackling prisoners in uncomfortable positions, painful slapping, and other pleasantries. The abuse at Abu Ghraib came months after the Yoo memo was submitted.

Photos of the Abu Ghraib barbarity spread around the world and caused fury among the insurgents and terrorists. There followed pictures of Americans being beheaded in retaliation.

Waterboarding is a nasty torture in which the detainee is laid on a board with a cloth over his mouth and made to feel like he is drowning while having water poured over the cloth. Two retired generals, Charles C. Krulak, former Marine Corps Commandant, and Joseph P. Hoar, former Commander of American forces in the Middle East, have described waterboarding and other interrogation methods as “euphemisms for torture.” They have written that these techniques amount to “conduct we used to call war crimes,” and have warned that such methods place American soldiers in jeopardy.

It is meaningless to get into a discussion of whether torture by the CIA or the military is legal or effective. That is not the question. The question is whether we are or are not a civilized nation. I realize that all of us were deeply angered by the 9/11 attacks, and most of us wanted to strike-back at the terrorists. But there has to come a time when we dust-off our common humanity and look at ourselves. What do we stand for as a people? Are we no better than our enemies? Are we still a beacon of freedom, decency, and morality, or have we lost our bright shining righteousness and integrity?