Don't bless torture

[struggle4progress]

October 10, 2004

To stay strong in the war against terror, the West's democracies must show they are better than their enemies. A provision in the House intelligence reform bill that allows U.S. authorities to ship terror suspects to countries that permit torture mocks the nation's claim to any moral high ground. <snip>

Frankly, we're appalled the House would go there. The provision blatantly contradicts the pledge President Bush made after the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal that the U.S. would never waiver from the United Nations Convention on Torture, which prohibits the deportation of individuals to countries where there is a reasonable expectation they will be tortured, abused or persecuted.

The prohibition against torture is a taboo well worth preserving. The House is perilously wrong to undermine it.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion/article/0,1299,DRMN_38_3240844,00.html

[DuctapeFatwa]

1. This has been US policy for a long time, bit of a wedge issue right now

with some on the far left expressing some concerns about it, but the reality is that if the voters, the taxpayers, had objected to it, it would have stopped long ago.

I believe the bill that finally passed only gives legal sanction to detaining people indefinitely, on or off US soil, where the popular and longstanding practice of applying "pressure" to individuals, and their families, can continue as it has, off the record but on the practice.

[w4rma]

2. Folks don't know about it. And many folks who have heard about it

say they don't believe it is happening. It's tough to speak out against it, when folks don't even believe it is happening so you find a different issue to beat them on that folks do believe is happening.

[shraby]

4. We signed the Geneva Convention which prohibits

this. The bill will be shot down as uncontitutional because a treaty signed by our government becomes the law of the land.

[w4rma]

5. Maybe. Depends on the judges. (nt)

[struggle4progress]

8. As a general rule, judges stay away from treaties. eom

[struggle4progress]

3. Vote was Friday, I think, and this is dated Sunday ...

... but I don't know for certain that it's up-to-date.

If you know that "extraordinary rendition" procedures were stripped from the House bill, please provide link.

Also if you have evidence that "extraordinary rendition" was US policy under Clinton (for example), please provide link. I've followed human rights issues off-and-on for years, and if anybody had believed this were going on under Clinton, I'm pretty sure I would have encountered it in my readings.

[DuctapeFatwa]

6. It doesn't have to do with politics or politicians, it is policy

http://www.alb-net.com/pipermail/alb-club/Week-of-Mon-20011119/011311.html

Reprint of WSJ story from 2001

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MCC409A.html

America's Road to Abu Ghraib

It is not secret, far from it, google around and you will see that it is not confined to one administration or political party.

It is simply how the taxpayers wish their money spent.

[w4rma]

7. Bullcrap. If that's how taxpayers wanted our money spent then

the news and everyone else would have no problem at all talking about all the bullcrap out in the open. The fact that it isn't talked about by big media shows that they don't think that the American people would stand for it if they knew what was going on and believed it.

[DuctapeFatwa]

9. If it was something that started last week, you might have a point

But this is something that has been going on for a very, very long time, and I think it would be disingenuous to suggest that the taxpayers do not know about it.

100% of the American public may not be news junkies to the extent that people who post on internet message boards are ;) but they do not live in complete isolation either. Many millions of Americans have either served in the armed forces, or have family members who have. The same can be said of the growing corrections industry and law enforcement. This is not a "for foreigners only" practice.

In another thread, I asked the rhetorical question:

what would happen if the Department of Education came on CNN and announced tomorrow that 40% of all education funds would henceforth be used to fund mandatory nude exotic dance classes for girls 11 to 17, which would be televised on Pay Per View?

How do you think all those moms and dads of daughters would react?

[struggle4progress]

10. I'll agree that covert operatives have been subject to almost no ...

... oversight historically, and that this leads to all sorts of bad behavior. But isolated bad acts by unsupervised operatives don't necessarily constitute evidence of policy. And I'll agree that the US has often had an unattractive record of propping up thugs and murderers, though some administrations have been much guiltier than others. But I think you grossly fail to make your case.

The public has traditionally opposed torture and has in the past effectively made its opinion known to politicians. Otherwise, we would never have gotten the Torture Victims Protection Act through Congress and into the statute books during the Reagan years, for example, allowing victims of torture abroad to sue their torturers in US courts: its passage sent a clear message abroad about the official policy of the United States with respect to torture.

Seldom has any administration been so brazen in its contempt for human life and dignity: the present administration has been exceptional in its willingness to abrogate international human rights standards, to ignore constitutional protections, and to avoid customary transparency. And the shamelessness of the Bushistas in the big white house seems to have rubbed off onto their congressional lapdogs.

[Tsiyu]

11. Ask anyone who is in a US prison

Then tell me if torture isn't an American abomination. We have no room to judge any other country. We must clean up our own sadistic house.

[struggle4progress]

12. The thread's not about judging other countries. It's about ...

"a provision in the House intelligence reform bill that allows U.S. authorities to ship terror suspects to countries that permit torture," how that provision conflicts with our treaty obligations and international law, and why the House provision is a really bad idea.

So I'm not sure what your point is. Do you think the US should officially ignore foreign torture until we're perfect?

[eauclaireliberal]

13. Have you seen this one?

Guantanamo: What the World Should Know
Book Review posted at Counterpunch over Labor Day Weekend, September 4-6, 2004

By Douglas VALENTINE

http://members2.authorsguild.net/valentine/

[struggle4progress]

14. Thanks! It's a great review, and I'd missed the book. eom