Responding to moral outrage from most of the world, Congress finally approved a bill barring the CIA from using torture techniques such as waterboarding and sensory deprivation. Unfortunately for the world, and for America, Bush promptly vetoed it — even though his own army banned the practices in 2006.
Says CNN:
“Bush said the CIA must retain use of ’specialized interrogation procedures’ that the military doesn’t need. The military methods are designed for questioning ‘lawful combatants captured on the battlefield,’ while intelligence professionals are dealing with “hardened terrorists” who have been trained to resist the techniques in the Army manual, the president said.”
Those 19 interrogation techniques to which the bill would have restricted CIA personnel include the “good cop/bad cop” routine, making prisoners think they are in another country’s custody and separating a prisoner from others for up to 30 days.
Among the techniques the field manual prohibits are hooding prisoners or putting duct tape across their eyes, stripping them naked, forcing them to perform or mimic sexual acts, or beating, electrocuting, burning or otherwise physically hurting them.
And the kicker:
“This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe,” the president said.
No word from the president on whether torture “keeps America safe” by extracting false information from people who’ll say anything to make the pain stop, or by flushing the values it holds dear down the toilet. Or by giving hostile forces more incentive to torture any American prisoners they capture. Or by further inflaming anti-American sentiment in more and more parts of the world. Or by ensuring its own vilification in all but the most hawkish media. Or by…..
1 response so far ↓
1 B // Mar 10, 2008 at 11:09 pm
I didn’t look at the Abu Ghraib photos in the post above because I have no desire to see them, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to connect this post to the one that follows it. I don’t say that naively. I am all too aware that even in a more reputable force (ie. Canadian Forces) terrible things happen. A large part of warfare is the training that dehumanizes opponents. But when the one at the “top” had the audacity to veto the banning of torture… I honestly don’t know what to say.
Not to get self-righteous, but I sincerely have to question the morality of someone who considers themselves religious and yet promotes such heinous actions.
I honestly never thought I could think any less of the man.
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