Between the Lines: Are we a nation of torturers?
American public is left out of the loop on Congressional debate over tacticsIn survey information recently released by the Pew Research Center and printed in The Washington Post, it became clear that more Americans were able to name the often forgotten position of Federal Reserve Chairman — as well as the president of Venezuela — than could remember even a ballpark figure for total U.S. casualties in the Iraq War.
As the U.S. looks back on five years of the war and commemorates a death toll soon to eclipse the 4,000 mark, who would have thought the conflict would receive as little attention as it does today?
Unfortunately, this ineptitude has manifested itself in other areas as well. Last week, the House of Representatives failed to gain the two-thirds majority necessary to override President Bush’s seventh veto during his presidency. As with the recent surveillance bill, which Bush insisted should include immunity for telecommunications companies who aided in illegal wiretapping, this bill divided Congress along party lines.
The American public, for all intents and purposes, seems to have let yet another liberty-squashing measure come to fruition in what our politicians so adamantly remind us is a “time of war” in which average citizens are called upon to make sacrifices. But must these sacrifices include the very ideals that have served as the backbone of our governmental structure since its inception?
Bush’s latest veto also involved the powers of the executive in dealing with the war on terror. The bill in question had authorized intelligence spending for agencies such as the CIA and had put in place a requirement that all interrogations of terrorism suspects be conducted according to the U.S. Army Field Manual. This was seen as an attempt to prohibit the CIA from performing waterboarding — a technique simulating drowning — which the agency has admitted to using on several occasions.
The White House has said that interrogators should not be limited to the methods spelled out in the Army Field Manual and has repeatedly stated that the technique known as waterboarding has been deemed legal by the attorney general. Remember that crony with the devilish smile who failed to answer questions from Congress as his career went down in a ball of flames? That would be Alberto Gonzales, the attorney general who authorized such measures.
Despite intense pressure from human rights organizations and the Democratic Congress, President Bush has towed the line on this new stance concerning interrogations. Unfortunately, this veto has far greater consequences than does the surveillance bill. For it is now clear to the entire world that the United States can and will utilize torture in pursuit of its national interest.
Some balk at calling waterboarding torture, yet our Special Forces members are forced to endure such techniques during training simply because it is meant to prepare them for such forms of torture if they are captured. Even Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, himself a victim of torture, has deemed waterboarding a form of torture and opposed the latest veto.
Amid this battle between the executive and legislative branches, the American public is left largely unaware of the issues involved. American soldiers, if they had not been prior to this as a result of issues like Abu Gharib and Guantanamo Bay, are now pushed further into harm’s way and risk being tortured themselves. Aside from this additional risk, the U.S. will lose international credibility and be deemed a hypocrite when criticizing the human rights violations of others.
This is what we as a nation stand to lose by practicing torture on detainees. Yet the administration insists it has gained vital information through the utilization of such tactics. We as concerned citizens must ask how many instances occurred in which no information was gained. How many new enemies did we create in the process? And is the information attained through torture even reliable?
As events of the last five years prove, the time for blind faith in our executive branch is over. There are certain basic principles which our civilization has embraced since our nation’s birth — torture is not one of them. So why do we let our leaders run rampant with their own assumptions about what should and should not be employed in our current conflict?
If torture is so vitally important to our safety and our success in the war on terror, then let us quit beating around the bush and say so. If we are to alter our culture to accept such violations of basic human rights, then the least the American public deserves is an honest, open and forthright debate on the subject.
Patrick Callahan is a senior political science major.
