The Legalization of Torture, the End of a Nation

Government television, PBS, has begrudgingly agreed to air “Torturing Democracy”. However, the program will air on January 21st, 2009, one day after President Bush officially leaves office. Truth be told it should have been shown at its earliest availability, as the abuse evidenced within the documentary is enough to make one’s stomach turn, yet must be repudiated by our nation as wholly unacceptable. The evidence presented makes me ashamed to be an individual living in Neo-America. Everything our founders fought so hard to secure, has been squandered away. Not only have we allowed our inherent liberties to be legislatively curtailed in a post 9/11 world, almost silently the Bush Administration and its demented perverse sycophants, wholly jettisoned every last shred of our Republic’s decency.

The thought occurred to me as I watched memo after memo and heard line after line of official interrogation detail, that had I been taken captive or kidnapped via a rendition, that my retaliation to such treatment would be to bash my head against the wall until I was dead. Shortly thereafter, actual film from inside Abu Ghraib shows a detainee doing exactly this after being subjected to a variety of acts no reasonably decent person could even fathom.

Many of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” come from the C.I.A.’s 1963 “KUBARK”¹ manual which was so severe and inhumane that it was originally shelved. That is at least until Afghanistan, when it was dusted off and its techniques reemployed on enemy combatants. Techniques range from multiyear isolation, total sleep deprivation, water-boarding, to threats of repeatedly raping or killing one’s family members all in the hopes of obtaining a confession. In fact some of the techniques employed date back to punishments inflicted by the Spanish Inquisition as well as those of the former Soviet Union’s K.G.B.

Experienced soldiers and other military personnel will tell you, torturing only yields whatever will make the interrogator stop the abuse. Nonetheless and even though 500 of the approximately 700 to 800 detainees at Guantanamo have been released and never charged, countless were subjected to these techniques of dehumanization and legalized torture thanks to the sociopaths within the Bush Administration.

If we are to retain and restore the image of America, we must begin by forever outlawing this type of treatment in precise words so as not to give any room for a future John Yoo or Alberto Gonzales. Secondly, we must demand as decent law abiding Americans that all of those in the Bush Administration including the President, be tried and found guilty of Treason for their gross negligence both to their oaths of office and torturous war crimes; legalized, advanced, and committed on their behalf.

The film may be viewed in its entirety ahead of the scheduled January 21st, 2009 broadcast at TorturingDemocracy.org Additionally, their website has every single Presidential Directive, memo, and interrogation detail cited in the movie for your personal review.

Source(s): TorturingDemocracy.org “Torturing Democracy the Movie” • Hamden -v- Rumsfeld et al, No. 05-184. Argued March 28, 2006–Decided June 29, 2006 • ¹The National Security Archive at George Washington University