Torture
by Ed Kinane
It's frightening that at this time and in this nation torture must be discussed as if it were a legitimate issue.  What's next -- the pros and cons of child molestation?

Even hawkish guys like John McCain and retired General Colin Powell say torture is immoral and counterproductive.

 

McCain, himself a former prisoner of war, knows that torture is likely to generate disinformation. Those being tortured will tell their interrogators anything to avoid further torture.

Further, using torture spurs the other side to use torture. This puts our own soldiers and citizens, when captured or abducted, at extreme risk.

The rebuttal should end right there. What more need be said? Why isn't the torture issue dead and buried long since?  

The torture issue keeps coming up because the Bush administration keeps pushing torture as a "legitimate" response to "terrorism."  And George W. Bush's minions in the military and their contractors -- whether at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo or wherever -- keep torturing captives. Never mind that Bush Inc.'s war on Iraq is just terrorism with a bigger budget and bigger bombs.

I don't mean to suggest that the Bush administration initiated the use of torture. Probably any invader uses torture. The U.S. Army used torture in Viet Nam. Those techniques were then taught at the U.S. Army's School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Georgia long before Bush became Commander-in-Chief. The difference now is that Bush actually demands a license to continue torture.

Besides the McCain/Powell reasons to oppose torture, there are other compelling reasons:

• torture degrades and dehumanizes the torturer.

• torture undermines the moral stature of those who condone it. Torture loses "hearts and minds" and allies -- huge strategic mistakes.

• torture embitters the tortured and others. Torture recruits "terrorists."

• if enemy soldiers face torture upon being captured, they are less likely to surrender. Their determined resistance causes more casualties on both sides.

• torture is utterly inconsistent with New Testament Christianity. Jesus, who was himself tortured, urged, "Love your enemy."

The case against torture is unanswerable. Why then does the "Christian" George Bush, despite broad condemnation and despite the strategic cost, relish torture?

 

I suspect -- but would welcome being proved wrong -- that the Bush administration is seeking to establish a precedent. If US people and the US Congress can be conned or scared into tolerating the torture of "enemies," this will help legitimize torture generally. On this slippery slope, we will be de-sensitized to torture wherever it occurs.

So why would anyone want that? Tolerating torture abroad paves the way for torture at home. Not only will anyone designated a foreign enemy be liable to torture, but so will those designated as domestic enemies. If you don't support Bush Inc., you just might end up on that enemy list.

Sound farfetched? Consider, the Bush administration, by promoting torture, puts our own soldiers at greater risk. If the Bush administration dismisses the lives and rights of our own soldiers, why would it be any great respecter of non-soldier US citizens? Already we have seen how Bush Inc., through the so-called Patriot Acts and its illegal domestic spying, is no great respecter of the Constitution.

Domestic torture -- or internal terrorism as it might be called -- is business as usual for certain US allies and other authoritarian states seeking to squash dissent and intimidate opposition. Neo-cons here know they cannot succeed in conquering the world if they don't first finish conquering the US.

 

 

 

In 1998/99 Ed Kinane spent ten months in federal prison for writing "SOA=Torture" on the entrance sign of Ft. Benning, the home of the U.S. Army's notorious School of the Americas.

 

Contact him at edkinane@verizon.net