http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1806906,00.htmlAndrew Sullivan: How America tiptoed into the torture chamber
Meet an American hero. He’s Army Captain Ian Fishback, a decorated graduate of West Point, and in training to become a member of the elite special forces.
He has served two combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is described by friends as a devout Christian who prays before every meal and carries a copy of the US constitution in his pocket. And while serving at Camp Mercury near the Syrian border in Iraq, he observed horrifying abuse of prisoners, in testimony that was released last week by Human Rights Watch.
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Fishback finally decided to take a stand when he saw Donald Rumsfeld testify to the Senate on television that the Iraq war was subject to the Geneva conventions. He went to his superiors and told them he believed that what was going on was a clear, continuing violation. They ignored him and told him his career would suffer if he persisted in his complaints.
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Fishback’s letter to McCain is a poignant illustration of what has happened to America these past three years: “Some argue that since our actions are not as horrifying as Al-Qaeda’s we should not be concerned . . . Others that clear standards will limit the president’s ability to wage the war on terror. Since clear standards only limit interrogation techniques, it is reasonable for me to assume that supporters of this argument desire to use coercion to acquire information from detainees. This is morally inconsistent with the constitution and justice in war. It is unacceptable.”
Of course it is unacceptable. But we have presidential memos dating from 2002 exempting the US military from the Geneva conventions in the war against Al-Qaeda and somehow those exemptions “migrated” to the war in Iraq. It is now beyond dispute that the abuses were condoned, enforced and tolerated by commanders throughout the war zone.
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One wonders when the American public will demand accountability for the abandonment of civilised warfare in their own military and by their own president, who is after all commander-in-chief and ultimately responsible.
Fishback is now sequestered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, being interrogated by military officials. From all we know of Fishback he will not crack under pressure. He wrote something to McCain that still rings in my ears: “If we abandon our ideals in the face of adversity and aggression, then those ideals were never really in our possession. I would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the idea that is ‘America’.”
Alas, I fear a large part of that idea has already been abandoned — by a president who swore an oath to uphold it.
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