"This Government Does Not Torture People"

Many aspects of the devastating war in Iraq have compelled our attention - we agonize over the rising body count among our own forces, we express our rage over the staggering reports of innocent Iraqi dead, we read between the lines of official statements to glean the larger motive behind the invasion.

Another less visible battleground in the Iraq war has been the American Constitution. Under the broad mantle of national security, the Bush Administration has claimed exemption from the protections enshrined in our Constitution and defined in International agreements. Prisoners continue to be detained for years without acknowledgment of their whereabouts, without counsel. They are subjected to extremes of deprivation and torture.

There is a growing consensus that the harrowing images of Abu Ghraib did great trauma to our national psyche - and was one of the steepest falls from grace in our nation's history.

Like everyone else, I had seen the images that came out of Abu Ghraib and was shocked and saddened by them. And like so many others, I wondered how could people, particularly Americans, treat others so inhumanely? I initially set out to do a documentary about why ordinary people commit extraordinary acts of evil. Were the people who committed these acts psychopaths? Or were they the sweet kids next door behaving badly in times of war?

But as I began to do research for a documentary film and get more and more access to the people on the front lines, the people who were at Abu Ghraib in the fall of 2003 when the majority of these abuses took place, (I ended up interviewing well over a dozen people who were involved in the abuse) I heard the same thing over and over again "We did it because we were told to do it by people up the chain of command." Indeed, despite the Administration's denials, and assertions that Abu Ghraib "was the work of nine bad apples on the night shift," my documentary film, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib makes it clear that responsibility for the abuses at the prison goes right to the top.

So I was not surprised last week when White House press secretary, Dana Perino, denied that secret memos in 2005 written by the Justice Department sanctioned torture. "Regardless of where we are, we do not torture anybody," Perino said.

The 2005 memos were, according to the New York Times, "an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency." But because the Bush administration claimed these methods approved for use by the CIA - extreme temperatures of heat and cold, water-boarding or simulated drownings, prolonged stress positions and isolation - were "not torture" they had the deniability they are still claiming. "U.S. policy is not to torture -- and we do not." (It didn't matter that other nations had been calling these same techniques torture for decades.)

The Bush administration's narrower definition, unrecognized anywhere else, defined torture as "severe physical or mental pain or suffering" that results in significant harm of significant duration, lasting "months or even years." Still, when pushed for specifics about what the White House considers allowable in "getting information" U. S. officials can't or won't say.

The CIA memos revealed last week are very consistent with the horrendous torture policies the Administration put into effect after 9/11, and these practices continue to protected by legislation such as the Military Commissions Act which denies military detainees rights to due process granted under habeas corpus and allows the president alone to define what is and what is not torture.

Just last Friday, President Bush said, "this government does not torture people . . . we stick to U.S. law and our international obligations." This is familiar rhetoric. We heard him say the same thing in the wake of Abu Ghraib. We shouldn't have believed him then, and we shouldn't trust him now.

I am saddened and angered that America's standing as a global leader in human rights and a country with a deep and abiding respect for the rule of law continues to be undermined by the pro-torture policies of the Bush Administration. And many Americans agree: an essential part of winning the war on terrorism and protecting our country for the future is safeguarding the ideals and principles that Americans hold dear: that torture is not acceptable and the law must be respected.

Unfortunately, as our bedrock principles have eroded, I believe our legislators have been compliant, the media timid, and the courts mostly rudderless and conflicted. We are left - as so often in times of national crisis - to depend on individuals who have the courage to speak out.

In order to change the tide, it is essential that people get involved. For my part, I have initiated the Ghosts of Abu Ghraib Campaign . This is a national audience engagement and action initiative aimed at ending US torture policy. Working Films is directing the Campaign and we have partnered with Human Rights First , the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) , Amnesty International , and the National Religious Campaign Against Torture

The Campaign launches on October 17, 2007 - the one year anniversary of passage of the Military Commissions Act and little more than 12 months away from the next presidential election.

Of course, given the state of things and the actions, both past and present, of the current administration, the upcoming presidential race figures largely in the Ghosts of Abu Ghraib Campaign.

We are inviting our audiences to support the view that our next president must stand against torture in accordance with the Geneva Convention. Furthermore, we will demand that the Senate Judiciary Committee seek a commitment from the next Attorney General to reject torture and all the policies emanating from the Administration's opinions permitting it. Additionally, we will pressure Congress to act to ensure transparency relating to detainee treatment and that all U.S. personnel abide by a single standard of humane treatment.

The ACLU will use the film in roughly 1,000 key districts, not to push for any one candidate but to engage citizens to make torture a platform election issue. Amnesty International will kick off an 86-day campaign of organizing and protests starting with the anniversary of the Military Commissions Act and ending with anniversary of the first prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay. Human Rights First will screen Ghosts of Abu Ghraib in their "Elect to End Torture '08" campaign, which advocates the need for a president who won't allow torture to happen again in America's name. The National Religious Campaign Against Torture is organizing faith-based action-centered screenings in over 1,000 congregations nationwide the week of October 26th.

It is my hope that the film and these targeted actions will help to eliminate the policies and legislation sanctioning torture, that this initiative will contribute to more humane treatment for military detainees and will help to restore America's standing as a country committed to human rights, human dignity and the rule of law.

Comments

[Pdubya]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese402.html

[johnnyjust]

Liberals, again, find themselves on the wrong side of the issue; defending terrorists.

It's not that you care about them, you really don't. It's that you care less about the innocent than the guilty. It's why you want to eliminate the death penalty. The liberal philosophy says that the killer must have more rights than the victim. The victim "deserved" it, ala how we deserved 911.

It's not your fault, really. It's a spiritual thing. You can't help hate the innocent because your philosophy dictates as much.

[bumpersticker]

"this government does not torture people . . . we stick to U.S. law and our international obligations." - GW Bush

I wonder if outsourcing it to non-governmemt agencies allows Bush to say it this way? If you take a prisoner to a secret prison in another country, staffed by foreign "workers," does "this government" torture?

A deception is a lie where the listener or viewer is tricked into supplying the wrong conclusion.

[Collielady]

The test of torture should be that W and Cheney have to approve it... after experiencing it. Let's put them to the test and, if they don't cry and wet themselves, then we can use the "interrogation" methods. Torture would end because W and Cheney, tough guys that they think they are, were too scared to fulfill their military obligations, let alone experience any discomfort.

[dr7854]

Simply, we can never trust them again about anything! Everything MUST be independently verified by some other entity that's not under the thumb of this administration. Independent commissions, congressional committees, the press,etc...Just somebody! This administration just can not be trusted,PERIOD!

[Danny]

Question-- Who will head the "Truth and Reconcilation" Commission when this crowd is impeached, hounded, shamed, driven out of office?

[Norge]

All members of the United Nations are signaturs
to the United Nations charter and articles of Human Rights.

Abuse in all it's forms is in violation of the United Nations articles of Human Rights.

Words such a colateral damage,ren­ditioning,­soft interogations does not erase
the Human rights violations or restore the distroyed lives.

And it is human beings who are violating the rights, be they members of countries, corporations, religious organizations, brotherhoods, sisterhoods, firms, faternities.

The violators are the subservient slaves of their overseers.

[Pero]

Think:
Rupert Murdoch == William Randolph Hearst

[Pdubya]

we have always tortured people and we always will. the question is how much and how much we do it within the constitutional structure of our government.

when we change the definition of liberal

or conservative

or compassion

or war

or prisoner

or soldier

and ignore the constitution, we will get a fascist state.

until we re-instate the constitution and disallow foreign councils and corporations and elites to, with a stroke of the pen, change definitions, thereby making the rule of law mute, we will get more torture, more enemy combatants, more global elitism, more imperialist invasions, more fascist neocons, more socialist elitism, and we will cycle through history like any other despot country.

Unless we put a stop to it! Vote for a constitutionalist!

[longtimeamericalover]

It is wonderful to hear your voice. There is so much to tackle in the United States right now it really is time for every thinking citizen to step up.
Obviously Bush and his cabal are liars. Obviously they are a threat to the US and the world. Obviously America has a bigger responsibility to do the right thing. You CHOSE that position in the world. Your constitution defined it. It is still the best idea we have had for civilised living for the masses. BUSHco are killing it.Daily and obviously.
As well as the horrors inflicted on 'foreigners' it is the torture of the American people, the National Psyche and Heart
that is the fatal crime.
Good to see you rise up.Disgusting that you have to deal with the vocal idiocracy but that Democaracy for ya.

[mgloraine]

I agree that it's important to elect candidates who will oppose the de facto legalization and encouragement of torture which BushCo has forced upon the world, but it is also very important to hold the individuals in the Bush "administration" responsible for their actions. Bush, Cheney, and all of their henchmen must face trial for their War Crimes. They cannot be allowed to just take their stolen money and retire to their ranches. Until Bush and Cheney are in prison for the rest of their miserable lives, the US as a whole will rightly be regarded as a terrorist state by the rest of the world.

But we don't see anyone working in that direction. Our Congress has decided that mass murder, torture, embezzlement, war profiteering, etc. are not as serious as having a secret girlfriend. Illicit sex is an impeachable offence, but kidnapping, torturing, and killing a million or more people for profit is perfectly OK.

Is there no way for American citizens to press charges against corrupt executives when our equally corrupt Congress refuses to act?

[johnnyjust]

To a liberal, treating a terrorist with anything less than a trip to Starbucks for a scone and latte is torture.

Time to grow up, folks.

[JessWonderin]

You believe that torture can be defined as the "Governemnt" decides?? Such crap is Nazi revisionism - Read FRANK RICH - NYTimes "Good Germans" a viewpoint slighly more educated than your Reich Wing dig -

"Time to Grow UP?" - way past that chumpo

[white mende man]

It depends on what their defination of what "Torture" is and what they believe constitute or who is considered to be "People".

If you understand and put their thoughts and logic into context then you would understand and grasp the true meaning of what they are saying.

[Rainman]

We Americans can only hang our heads in shame.
CONGRESS needs to make this activity CRIMINAL.

[Norge]

Well yes, such is correct, no government anywhere or at any time has ever tortured any human being.

It is human beings and only human beings who have and are torturing other human beings in uncountable numbers of places on earth. And it has been done since those times when they first swung from the tree branches to the ground.

When there are humans who lack the ability, intelegence, motivation or empathy to see themselves in another human being, they will brutilize beyond most human beings comprehention all in the service of their superiors, supervisors, firms, companies, corporations, flags, brotherhoo­ds,sisterh­oods, faternities, religious fellowships or any of whom or which they are the slave.