S. BRIAN WILSON: Torture Is an American Value: Reality vs. the Rhetoric

[Tace]

By S. Brian Willson -- Vietnam Veterans Against the War

I became aware of torture as a U.S. policy in 1969 when I was serving as a USAF combat security officer working near Can Tho City in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. I was informed about the CIA's Phong Dinh Province Interrogation Center (PIC) at the Can Tho Army airfield where supposedly "significant members" of the VCI (Viet Cong infrastructure) were taken for torture as part of the Phoenix Pacification Program. A huge French-built prison nearby was also apparently utilized for torture of suspects from the Delta region. Many were routinely murdered.

Naive, I was shocked! The Agency for International Development (AID) working with Southern Illinois University, for example, trained Vietnamese police and prison officials in the art of torture ("interrogations") under cover of "public safety." American officials believed they were teaching "better methods," often making suggestions during torture sessions conducted by Vietnamese police.

Instead of the recent euphemism "illegal combatants," the United State in Vietnam claimed prisoners were "criminal" and therefore exempt from Geneva Convention protections.

The use of torture as a function of terror, or its equivalent in sadistic behavior, has been historic de facto U.S. policy.

more

http://worldnewstrust.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=1824

[bemildred]

1. "Torture is as American as cherry pie"

To paraphrase H. Rap Brown, has been from the beginning. All this sanctimonious bullshit doesn't change the facts of slavery, of the Mexican War, of the Phillipines insurgency, of the neverending Latin American interventions. It goes all the way back and it goes on and on.

[papau]

2. Wow - great , albeit sad, report. I was not aware of "criminal" being

used to justify torture but looking back it is obvious.

Well written World News Trust story, as always.

This mess is so much like Vietnam, the question really is how many more do we want to die before we leave.