US out-sourcing torture?

[shamrock_uk]

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa_fact6

Pretty long but interesting nontheless.

[ 02-22-2005, 01:09 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[Djinn Raffo]

It's interesting that the greater condemnation comes against the US for outsourcing torture than against Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Jordan for the actual systematic use of torture.

[Lucern]

I've met people from two of those countries who have been tortured. What happened to one guy in Syria was awful. They get condemned annually by organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Int'l, and rightfully so. The US cannot chastise all of them, because Egypt, at least, is an 'ally'.

The US, however, was a leading author of the Convention Against Torture. It is also the largest contributor to the UN Voluntary Fund on Torture ($3M in 1999, to give you an idea). The US supports article 5 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights that states "no one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment." Harold Koh, the Assisant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in 1999 said torture was "categorically denounced as a matter of policy and as a tool of state authortiy...No exceptional circumstances may be invoked as a justification for torture."

Well over 100 countries employ torture in the world, (depending on the definition of torture used, of course - it would be less if we went by Alberto Gonzales' hypothetical "it's not torture until organ-failure or death" definition).

But Americans do not expect our country to be among them. I think the concept would bother most of us. More recently of course, actions have spoken louder than our words about torture.* Besides Abu Ghraib, there are mounting claims in Guantanamo and an Afghan prison, and we have a somewhat murky set of legal definitions at the moment. And these are home-grown, rather than outsourced, mind you. Torture, at the moment, might seem endemic to the current political climate to many Americans, but is epidemic throughout most of the world, and it would be wrong to blame the US exclusively when dealing with torture.

But, in case anyone's unclear about my take on it, I think anyone anyone in the US's representative bodies who has ever voiced support of, or allowed for torture to happen should be relieved of their posts. It's illegal and immoral by almost any standard. There is a problem, and we don't have to wait for it to become systemic before we reform.


*Or, less recently, I don't think you would be entirely wrong to associate the old CIA-run School of Americas with the prongs of human-rights violating troops trained to fight insurgents in Latin American countries.

[ 02-22-2005, 05:19 PM: Message edited by: Lucern ]

[Dace De'Briago]

Originally posted by Djinn Raffo: It's interesting that the greater condemnation comes against the US for outsourcing torture than against Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Jordan for the actual systematic use of torture.

Not really interesting at all.

[Djinn Raffo]

Originally posted by Dace De'Briago: Not really interesting at all.

I suppose not because in America you can express an opinion (and expect an opinion) contrary to the State as opposed to Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Jordan where such an opinion would give you an up close and personal view of just how that torture is performed.

[shamrock_uk]

So is this actually true then?

I'd never heard about it before and was expecting denials but is this just common knowledge?

Apparently Clinton started the programme but the Bush administration has vastly accelerated it but I'm always inclined to take things like this with a pinch of salt. Having said that, googling outsourcing torture does seem to pull up a lot of links.

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Djinn: America gets the flack for things like this because the world expects better. Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Jordan are well-known human rights abusers and really don't try to hide it.

The US on the other hand claims to have the moral right to re-shape the world around its views and impose its own system of government and ethics on other countries - its only natural that when this moral high ground is taken that the US gets more bashing for it. If a country wishes to act as the moral guardian of the world then it needs to uphold the highest possible standards, all the time.

Statements by the likes of Tom Ridge that torture might be permissable in certain circumstances, the allowance of evidence gained by torture in military tribunals, the now-infamous department of justice memo saying that the President could issue directives that superceded the anti-torture laws etc etc. Add to that the fact that restrictions brought in after the Abu-Ghraib affair have deliberately only restricted the army - the restrictions on CIA operatives have not been tightened at all and are still somewhat unregulated.

I think America has to take a serious look at itself - we expect things like this from immoral dictatorships but this is the US for crying out loud!

It seems that freedom, justice and legal principle in what some might call the world's greatest democracy are slowly being eroded by abstract concepts of faith, misinformation and knee-jerk reaction.

If the US continues to abandon its most basic principles in the interests of national security (which is a term so open to abuse in any case) then it will be forever diminished - its a slippery slope down the road from isolated cases of torture to a situation where they become more common-place and institutionalized.

[ 02-22-2005, 07:15 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[Dace De'Briago]

Springing to the defence of America every time shows loyalty, but doesn't mean that nothing is wrong.

I guess my point is that turning a blind eye every time when America does something wrong is naive. The defence "other people do it" doesn't mean that its right.