Torture

A new commentary every Wednesday - June 24, 2015

TORTURE

I am compelled to write this, despite knowing that most people don't want to read it and many people, perhaps the majority of Americans, believe that the "enhanced interrogation" program that began shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 is a good thing.

Let me begin this review of an article in the June 22nd, 2015 issue of New Yorker magazine by saying this is where I learned that two psychologists were paid $80-millon dollars to develop the torture program used by the C.I.A on accused terrorists. I cannot begin to describe how astoundingly diverse and stunningly impactful that one bit of information caused me to experience.

$80,000,000.00 to teach people how to inflict the maximum amount of physical and mental pain and suffering to make sure they are revealing the truth of the matter? I have long since admitted that you only had to threaten to touch a hot iron to my tongue or force me to listen to an unending loop of the rantings of Donald Trump, and I would plead guilty to anything!

Arizona Senator John McCain, who suffered extended torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese, was one of the first to declare his opposition to the network of secret prisons, some of which were maintained in foreign countries during the Bush II administration and continued through Obama's first term. McCain maintains that torture will not produce worthwhile intelligence.

When California Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, Chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was briefed on enhanced interrogation, she repeatedly questioned the methodology and effectiveness of the program.

Quotations that follow are taken from "The Inside War," Connie Bruck's incisive New Yorker article, referenced above.

"On September 6th, 2006, Michael Hayden, the C.I.A. director, appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee. He insisted that the interrogations were carefully run and unassailably effective." (This assertion has been contested in a six-hundred-page report made by staff members of Senator Feinstein's committee. After a review of the report made by former White House Chief of Staff Louis Panetta, the C.I.A was allowed to redact even the pseudonyms of all agents named in the report, on the basis that they and their families would be at risk. (We do not disagree with this action, even though I doubt that very few people have read the entire report, with the possible exception of Senator Feinstein).

Press reports have since described what was done to Abu Zubaydah, suspected of being a high Al Qaeda official: "He was stripped naked 24 hours a day for twenty days, deprived of sleep, confined in a coffin-size box and forced into painful postures. He was water boarded eighty-three times. Two C.I.A. psychologists reported that he was "ready to talk" during the first exposure, but 'we chose to expose him over and over until we had a high degree of confidence he wouldn't hold back.' By the seventh day, the torture team informed C.I.A. headquarters that it was unlikely Abu Zubaydah had the information about threats that the agency was seeking, but the team was instructed to continue. During one water boarding (where drowning is simulated), Zubaydah became completely unresponsive with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth."

"C.I.A. officers threatened detainees with harm to their family members. Other techniques included menacing a subjects with a cordless electric drill, and employing rectal hydration. (The threat of repeating the one small, brief enema I suffered early in my childhood cured me of malingering over undone homework forever. (Oh, you don't feel well enough to attend school today, Philip?)

"In this year's State of the Union address, President Obama said, 'There is one last pillar of our leadership, and that's the example of our values. As Americans, we respect human dignity, even when we're threatened, which is why I have prohibited torture.'" (This was late in coming. Furthermore, this executive order can be overturned by a succeeding president).

"Obama has not shown any interest in Senator Feinstein's recommendations, after she and McCain recently introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would permanently ban the enhanced interrogation techniques." (A final quotation taken from Ms. Bruck's article in the June 22, 2015 edition of New Yorker magazine).

Isn't one of the justifications for throwing off the rule of King George, the use of "cruel and unusual punishment?"

Have we become what we most abhor in our enemies?

-Phil Richardson, Observer of the human condition and storyteller

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