[NYTr] Torture: What's in a Name?

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by rich winkel - activ-l

Truthout - Oct 13, 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101307C.shtml

Torture: What's in a Name?

By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III

    In 1594, Shakespeare wrote, "'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.
What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would
smell as sweet." As it is with roses, so it is with torture. Physical
abuse or extreme measures of interrogation conducted by trained
professionals in the administration of a counterterrorism program is
still, by all accepted international standards, torture.

    For months, President Bush has tried to defend the extreme tactics
being used by the CIA to interrogate individuals suspected of terrorist
activities. This, in spite of recently released documents from the
Justice Department indicating that in 2005, then Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales issued a secret opinion authorizing physical abuse to
extract information. According to The New York Times, "The new
opinion ... provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects
with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics,
including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures."

    On Friday, October 5, President Bush said, "This government does not
torture people." The problem with his statement is that it contradicts
his attorney general's memos, Webster's definition of the term and the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Webster's defines torture as "the
infliction of intense pain." The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
which was adopted by the UN in 1948, states, "No one shall be subjected
to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
In my opinion, subjecting human beings to painful physical and
psychological tactics is torture.

    As further evidence of this contradiction, former President Jimmy
Carter, when asked by Wolf Blitzer if President Bush's statement was
accurate, said, it was not accurate if you use the accepted
international norms of torture, as have been in place certainly in the
last 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was
promulgated. When asked if he thought the US had tortured individuals,
former President Carter said emphatically, "I don't think it, I know
it."

    Carter went on to say, "You can make your own definition of human
rights [... ] and you can make your own definition of torture and say we
don't violate them." So, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
by any other name would smell as sweet." So it is with torture.

    What are to make of this and why does it matter?

  * First, most experts will tell you that using techniques such as
    induced hypothermia, long periods of forced standing, sleep
    deprivation, and sound and light manipulation do not result in
    obtaining useful information. According to Newsweek, "US
intelligence officers say they have little - if any - evidence that
useful intelligence has been obtained using techniques generally
understood to be torture."

  * Second, because of policies such as extraordinary renditions and
    torture, America has lost its international moral authority as a
    protector of human rights and a defender of civil liberties. The
    September 11, 2001, attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, and
    United Flight 93's crash in Pennsylvania, galvanized international
    sympathy for the US. Mainstream media and governments worldwide
    denounced the attacks and supported America, as evidenced by the
    headline of France's Le Monde newspaper: "Nous sommes tous
    Americains" as translated, "We Are All Americans."

    Instead of taking the moral high ground and using this tragedy to
unite international efforts to work towards peace, President Bush, Vice
President Cheney and the other "Chicken Hawks" in the Bush
administration exploited the circumstance and imposed their corrupt and
vile ideology of unilateralism and militarism on the world. Instead of
using restraint, moral suasion and diplomacy to find common ground, the
Bush administration has become like the very people they called
enemies. They have decimated habeas corpus, ignored the UN, used
immoral and illegal tactics to invade a sovereign nation, and kidnapped
and tortured people. This sounds more like the actions of a dictator
than the president of a constitutional republic.

    President Bush stated, "The American people expect their government
to take action to protect them from further attack." This is true; the
problem is, the tactics being used by this administration are not making
American people safer; they are putting the American people in harm's
way. As a direct result of the tactics used to execute the "War On
Terror," The New York Times states, "The Iraq War has invigorated
Islamic radicalism and worsened the global terrorist threat. The most
recent National Intelligence Estimate, found that, rather than stemming
the growth of terrorism, the war in Iraq helped fuel its spread across
the globe." Is it any wonder why a majority of American's still don't
feel safe, six years after 9/11? They are doing with the issue of
torture what they have done with the invasion of Iraq and the so called
"War on Terror": defend the indefensible.

    Just as there were no WMD's, no coordinated efforts between Saddam
and Osama, and no attempt by Saddam to buy yellowcake from Niger, you
can't make your own definition of human rights and your own definition
of torture and say we don't violate them.


[Dr. Wilmer Leon is the producer/host of the nationally broadcast
call-in talk radio program "On With Leon" on XM Satellite Radio Channel
169, a regular guest on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight," producer/host of the
television program "Inside The Issues With Wilmer Leon," and a teaching
associate in the Department of Political Science at Howard University in
Washington, DC. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: wjl3us at yahoo.com.]