When the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib first came to public attention, the blame was not placed on the government, but on a few lower ranking military “bad apples” who were then sacrificed to prison terms to appease public outrage, and President Bush grandly declared that “torture was not in the American soul.” Then, as it became obvious that government-approved interrogation methods violated the Geneva Conventions and U.S. military regulations, a process of legal nitpicking began about what really constitutes torture and special attention was given to waterboarding, which is an ancient torture method that was practiced on American prisoners by the Japanese during World War II, and considered a war crime.
Now that the specious debate about whether waterboarding is or is not torture has begun to fall apart, Bowden admits that it is torture, and is illegal, but we should be thankful that it was practiced because he assumes it saved lives.
But torture proponents will say, who cares if it is done to a terrorist like Abu Zubaydah? But the undisclosed black sites where real terrorist suspects are incarcerated reportedly include children, reporters, cab drivers and people who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. These people are presumed guilty, and have no right to legal defense, or even the right to know with what they are charged. Should such people be tortured on the basis of mere suspicion? We have already seen at least two cases of a Canadian and German who were mistakenly abducted, and sent to black sites for interrogative abuse. And anyone who believes that national security is more important than one’s legal rights should, in principle, be able to accept a decision of the president to declare any of their family members an “enemy combatant,” and have them disappear into some undisclosed black site.
It seemed peculiar for the Missoulian to open the new year with Bowden’s editorial, since the Justice Department has recently disavowed its 2002 documents that argued President Bush had the authority to supersede U.S. anti-torture laws. And Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who tried to construct loop holes which allowed Bush to permit the practice of torture, was forced to resign. It has been reported that the newly rewritten Justice Department document states that, “Torture is abhorrent to both American law and values and to international norms.” And most importantly, the new Justice Department document denies the right of U.S. personnel involved in interrogation to contend that torture was done in the name of national security.
One wonders why America never found it necessary to enact torture policies after Pearl Harbor, and while fighting such horrendously cruel and sadistic opponents as the Nazis and Japanese fascists with their extensive international networks of espionage agents and “fifth columnists.” Perhaps then we were a people more united and confident about what we stood for.
James Todd is an emeritus professor of art and humanities at the University of Montana. He lives in Missoula.
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