This week the federal government accused Ahmed Omar Abu Ali of plotting to kill George W. Bush. An American citizen, Mr. Abu Ali spent 20 months in a Saudi Arabian jail. He says he was tortured and that FBI agents watched his torture. Federal Judge John Bates said there is at least circumstantial evidence to support Mr. Abu Ali’s torture claim. No American court – at least as we have known them for the last 229 years – would allow charges to be brought based on evidence gained by torture in a foreign dungeon. Anyone tortured long enough will admit to anything. Don’t take my word for it, ask John McCain.
Last week, Mr. Bush nominated John Negroponte for the new post of national intelligence director. He too, knows something about torture. In the early 1980s, as U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Mr. Negroponte directed tens of millions of dollars in cash and CIA resources toward the Honduran military and the anti-Sandinista “contras.‿ Both groups were famous for kidnapping, raping, torturing and killing civilians on both sides of the Honduras-Nicaragua border. Although Mr. Negroponte’s atrocities are well documented, he has repeatedly lied to Congress about them and neither Congress nor the American media have done more than note that there was “some controversy‿ about his Honduran tenure.
Now Mr. Bush’s cabinet table seats Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who recommended the use of torture, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, who approved the use of torture and Mr. Negroponte, who directed its application. Given that this is the case, how does America still claim to hold the moral high ground in relation to people like Saddam Hussein? How can the parents of Ahmed Abu Ali hold out hope for a fair trial for their son? How does torture survivor John McCain sit day after day in the U.S. Senate and watch his party drive his country to visit on people – some foreign, some citizens – the same pain and cruelty and degradation that were visited on him 35 years ago?
The American public has witnessed almost a year of revelations about torture at Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. We have learned about “extraordinary renditions‿ – a fancy term for outsourcing torture – that apparently continues to this day. We’ve heard about “ghost prisoners‿ hidden from the Red Cross and a secret archipelago of CIA prisons in a half-dozen countries, all, presumably, practicing torture.
Why torture? Even torturers will tell you it’s a poor method for extracting useful information. As noted above, a person tortured will admit to anything, eventually. There is more to the torturer’s agenda than acquisition of useful information. There’s the acquisition of bogus information. Al Quaeda attacks the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Bush administration wants to invade Iraq, but Iraq had nothing to do with the al Quaeda attacks. Once an al Quaeda operative has been captured, he is tortured until he says Iraq was involved in the terror attacks. Now Bush administration officials can go on tee vee and before Congress and the UN Security Council and say, “high-level al Quaeda operatives have admitted Iraq played a role in the World Trade Center attack.‿ See how useful torture is?
The other use of torture – one John Negroponte knows well – is that it is an effective way to destroy people without killing them, or before killing them. Nuns, priests, teachers, doctors, union organizers were raped and beaten and burned under Mr. Negroponte’s eye in Honduras. There were deprived of food and sleep; electrodes were used to shock their genitals. If their spirits were broken, they might be released to tell their story as a warning to others; more often the warning was the mutilated body dumped on the street. The civilian population is terrorized; the soldiers are now more apt to accept orders to maim and kill.
Torture is now the policy of the United States government. The press, which claims to be shocked by Abu Ghraib, is not shocked enough to run stories on Mr. Negroponte’s past crimes. The public seems to be taking a “my country right or wrong‿ attitude. The Bush administration, noting the acceptance of torture by Congress, the press and the public, will now reach for an even bloodier tool. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Murderers’ Row
This week the federal government accused Ahmed Omar Abu Ali of plotting to kill George W. Bush. An American citizen, Mr. Abu Ali spent 20 months in a Saudi Arabian jail. He says he was tortured and that FBI agents watched his torture. Federal Judge John Bates said there is at least circumstantial evidence to support Mr. Abu Ali’s torture claim. No American court – at least as we have known them for the last 229 years – would allow charges to be brought based on evidence gained by torture in a foreign dungeon. Anyone tortured long enough will admit to anything. Don’t take my word for it, ask John McCain.
Last week, Mr. Bush nominated John Negroponte for the new post of national intelligence director. He too, knows something about torture. In the early 1980s, as U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Mr. Negroponte directed tens of millions of dollars in cash and CIA resources toward the Honduran military and the anti-Sandinista “contras.‿ Both groups were famous for kidnapping, raping, torturing and killing civilians on both sides of the Honduras-Nicaragua border. Although Mr. Negroponte’s atrocities are well documented, he has repeatedly lied to Congress about them and neither Congress nor the American media have done more than note that there was “some controversy‿ about his Honduran tenure.
Now Mr. Bush’s cabinet table seats Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who recommended the use of torture, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, who approved the use of torture and Mr. Negroponte, who directed its application. Given that this is the case, how does America still claim to hold the moral high ground in relation to people like Saddam Hussein? How can the parents of Ahmed Abu Ali hold out hope for a fair trial for their son? How does torture survivor John McCain sit day after day in the U.S. Senate and watch his party drive his country to visit on people – some foreign, some citizens – the same pain and cruelty and degradation that were visited on him 35 years ago?
The American public has witnessed almost a year of revelations about torture at Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. We have learned about “extraordinary renditions‿ – a fancy term for outsourcing torture – that apparently continues to this day. We’ve heard about “ghost prisoners‿ hidden from the Red Cross and a secret archipelago of CIA prisons in a half-dozen countries, all, presumably, practicing torture.
Why torture? Even torturers will tell you it’s a poor method for extracting useful information. As noted above, a person tortured will admit to anything, eventually. There is more to the torturer’s agenda than acquisition of useful information. There’s the acquisition of bogus information. Al Quaeda attacks the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Bush administration wants to invade Iraq, but Iraq had nothing to do with the al Quaeda attacks. Once an al Quaeda operative has been captured, he is tortured until he says Iraq was involved in the terror attacks. Now Bush administration officials can go on tee vee and before Congress and the UN Security Council and say, “high-level al Quaeda operatives have admitted Iraq played a role in the World Trade Center attack.‿ See how useful torture is?
The other use of torture – one John Negroponte knows well – is that it is an effective way to destroy people without killing them, or before killing them. Nuns, priests, teachers, doctors, union organizers were raped and beaten and burned under Mr. Negroponte’s eye in Honduras. There were deprived of food and sleep; electrodes were used to shock their genitals. If their spirits were broken, they might be released to tell their story as a warning to others; more often the warning was the mutilated body dumped on the street. The civilian population is terrorized; the soldiers are now more apt to accept orders to maim and kill.
Torture is now the policy of the United States government. The press, which claims to be shocked by Abu Ghraib, is not shocked enough to run stories on Mr. Negroponte’s past crimes. The public seems to be taking a “my country right or wrong‿ attitude. The Bush administration, noting the acceptance of torture by Congress, the press and the public, will now reach for an even bloodier tool. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
© Mark Floegel, 2005