Torture American Style

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Torture American Style by Philip Giraldi

One of the many genuine tragedies that have come out of the Bush Administration's maladroit handling of the past six years has been the transformation of the United States into a pariah among nations. American democracy has always had its flaws, but the country was truly viewed by many around the world as "the shining city upon a hill" rhetorically much loved by Ronald Reagan. Confronted only by a Democratic congress that is too terrorized and internally riven to pose any obstacle and a tame press, the White House now appears hell bent on a course that can only add new embarrassments during the fourteen months that George Bush and Dick Cheney will continue to be in power.

The disregard for the values that once made America a beacon to mankind has been nowhere more evident than in the approval of Michael Mukasey as Attorney General of the United States. Mukasey refused to call simulating drowning or waterboarding torture when confronted by a limp wristed congressional attempt to have him define and thereby eliminate the practice. He was let off the hook and given the majority needed for approval by the Judiciary Committee's Democratic Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California, who broke ranks with fellow Democrats to approve the nomination. As Mukasey, Schumer, and Feinstein are all Jewish one would have hoped that they might have paid more attention to issuing a free pass on the torture issue given its historical antecedents. In particular, they should perhaps study the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials to learn how the Nazis institutionalized torture as part of the judicial system, acceptance of torture being just one part of an institutional mindset that led to much greater horrors.

Schumer and Feinstein might profitably recall that the United States defeated Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Communist Russia without having to torture anyone and without suspending the constitution. Nineteen fanatics crashing planes into buildings should not have resulted in a trashing of the rule of law, but apparently it has, at least for some people. The changes that have taken place have made official Washington adhere closer to the values that drove the occupants of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin than to the Founding Fathers, whose declaration of independence cited a "decent respect for the opinions of mankind." Instead of adhering to a constitution that guaranteed liberties, the Germans in the 1930s adopted a principle of government that placed the country's leadership above the law. It was called the Fuhrerprinzip or "leadership principle" and basically said that a leader is answerable to no one and can be relied upon to do what is good for the country, even when he violates the law or constitution. This is more-or-less the operating principle of today's "unitary executive" which has determined that the torture of "enemy combatants" is an acceptable practice. The increasing tendency to designate critics as enemies or as allies of terrorists in the current political debate in the United States, insofar as there is one, suggests that the worldview of 1936 Berlin is not so far removed from that of 2007 Washington.

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Reports from Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib suggest that torture of terrorism suspects has been a deliberate policy of the Bush White House. Beatings and sexual abuse were the common fare at Abu Ghraib. At Guantanamo the process has been more sophisticated. Prisoners have reportedly been soaked in cold water and placed into freezing rooms where they eventually pass out, only to be revived and subjected to the same treatment again. The benign sounding sleep deprivation is anything but. A US prisoner in the Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War was deprived of sleep for more than twenty days. During that time he was often delirious and subject to physical convulsions. And then there is waterboarding. It simulates drowning, which is physically and mentally like dying.

The neoconservatives who provided the media and think tank arguments that have led to many of today's horrors are fond of comparing the present crisis to the historical events of 1938, when the world failed to confront tyranny. The historical analogy is correct in principle, but it may really be 1946, when the international community began to become aware of the abominations that had taken place over the previous ten years and resolved to do something about it. Hopefully it is not too late for the United States to realize that it has been going down the wrong road, but it will require the Schumers, Feinsteins, and Pelosis of this world to develop a moral compass linked to a little backbone to bring about the much needed changes that will restore our constitution and our liberties. A return to sanity will now be that much more difficult with torture-denier Michael Mukasey as Attorney General.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-giraldi/torture-american-style_b_72188.html