Dear Mr. President:
Congratulations on the release of your new memoir, Decision Points, which helps me, as one of your supporters in two elections, to process your presidency. I would like to ask you a question if I may.
You write in your memoir that when the CIA asked for permission to torture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed by waterboarding him, you replied "damn right." You also admitted authorizing waterboarding for other "senior al Qaeda leaders."
You and the Vice President openly acknowledge that you approved waterboarding. This admission poses a profound question: Should we as a nation hold you personally accountable for violations of U.S. law and our most fundamental moral standards?
Let me say upfront that I don't know whether you actually believe that you broke any laws. You may think that you carefully charted a course on torture that maneuvered through the prohibitions and allowed you to avoid illegality. In order to believe this, however, you must also believe that waterboarding isn't torture, since you and the Vice President have both acknowledged your approval and support of this particular torture technique.
You are wrong. Waterboarding is unquestionably torture. You cannot sugar coat it or simplify it by calling it a mere dunk in the water. It was administered to produce severe mental and physical anguish, and it was done so to scare the victim into a desperate condition where he would reveal critical information. It is torture under the definition in the U.N. Convention Against Torture; it was torture under the terms by which we prosecuted our own soldiers in the war in Vietnam and Japanese soldiers after World War II, and it is torture under any application of common sense.
I've traveled in North Africa and the Middle East and been reminded of the loss of respect that Americans now confront. Ordinary citizens of those countries have asked me, with a pained expression, "Do you know that your government, allegedly a 'Christian country,' is conducting torture? You should be ashamed."
It was this very reality that led the 290 organizations that belong to the National Religious Campaign Against Torture to affirm that torture is wrong, unequivocally wrong. It is illegal, immoral and unjustified under any and all conditions. It breaks us as human beings, it destroys our divine spark and it corrupts the soul. We've stood for that principle for hundreds of years.
Look at what the United States said when we reported on torture to the United Nations in 1998 as part of our obligation under the U.N. Convention Against Torture (which is U.S. law):
"Torture is prohibited by law throughout the United States. It is categorically denounced as a matter of policy and as a tool of state authority. Every act constituting torture under the Convention constitutes a criminal offence under the law of the United States. No official of the Government, federal, state or local, civilian or military, is authorized to commit or to instruct anyone else to commit torture. Nor may any official condone or tolerate torture in any form. No exceptional circumstances may be invoked as a justification of torture."
There is no wiggle room for torture here. There shouldn't be. And yet you acknowledge using torture. And show no shame in doing so. And say you would do it again on the basis that waterboarding "saved lives."
With all due respect, sir, this position is wholly inadequate and unjustifiable. U.S.-sponsored torture has cost innumerable lives of both American soldiers and civilians, because it has inspired extremists to commit acts of terror against us. It has cost us dearly. Torture does not make us safer; it makes us more of a target.
What do we as a nation do when you and the Vice President, our highest elected leaders, admit to violating U.S. law and international law (which is what happened when you ordered the use of torture)?
Like many others, I have come to the conclusion that there is only one course for our country to take. We must establish a "Commission of Inquiry" that fully investigates all aspects of the use of torture by the United States to ensure that U.S.-sponsored torture never happens again. Messrs. Bush and Cheney, you brought us to this place. Shame on you!
Sincerely,
Rev. Richard Cizik
Rev. Richard Cizik is President of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, which is a member of The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT). NRCAT is a growing membership organization committed to ending U.S.-sponsored torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Since its formation in January 2006, more than 290 religious groups have joined NRCAT, including representatives from the Catholic, evangelical Christian, mainline Protestant, Unitarian Universalist, Quaker, Orthodox Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Baha'i, Buddhist, and Sikh communities.
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You voted for him? Twice?
Man alive.
If the administration commits an illegal act that directly saves lives, a court should rule on whether the act was justifiable, whether it qualified as self-defence. If the legality is dubious and individuals are sentenced, the president has the option to pardon them if he believes the defendants acted in good faith on behalf of the nation.
Jack in “24 Hours” always takes action that matches the threat. He’s right to do so and if a court decides that his methods are excessive, he should be forgiven by a grateful nation.
The upshot is that torture or anything that appears to be torture should be considered illegal and should be justified in court and the leaders who sanctioned it should be sitting as defendants.
To quote the addressee, "damn right."
With the various things and people the Church condemns, I find the words above to be ironic; if nothing else.
Time was we were the good guys....
Do you really think Americans care about torturing terrorists? We don't.
You can get more reliable information out of someone by sending him to Las Vegas than by torture.
Torture is used by those who are afraid.
A pretty conclusory statement. Do you have any basis to assert that it is “severe” or is that your own opinion? For example tasers, used by Police and private citizens to ward of assailants, shoot 50,000 Volts into the target causing significant pain. Is that torture? How about extended confinement? Is that not torture due to significant mental anguishment?
“It is torture under the definition in the U.N. Convention Against Torture”
I don’t believe there anything in the UN resolution states that Waterboarding is torture.
“I've traveled in North Africa and the Middle East and been reminded of the loss of respect that Americans now confront...You should be ashamed."”
Frankly the populations of these countries have never respected us (as evidenced by numerous srverys in the past). You can’t lose what you don’t have. Besides govt coercion and violence is the norm in these cultures, and it is far more brutal than anything alleged here.
“With all due respect, sir, this position is wholly inadequate and unjustifiable.”
Yes and everyone in the US must bow down to your conclusions of what is and is not torture, because?
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~changmin/Japan/Yokohama/Reviews/Yokohama_Review_Asano.htm
Article 1
1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.