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Torture is a Moral Issue

By Jeralyn, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 12:41:23 PM EST
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Earlier this week I took Jerry Falwell to task for his divisive comments that Jews and Muslims can't go to heaven.

With Easter and Passover approaching, there's an inclusive message Christians and Jews, as well as Muslims, Buddhists and those of every other religion, can get behind. From the National Religious Campaign Against Torture: Torture is a Moral Issue.

We urge Congress and the President to remove all ambiguities by prohibiting:

  • Exemptions from the human rights standards of international law for any arm of our government.
  • The practice of extraordinary rendition, whereby suspects are apprehended and flown to countries that use torture as a means of interrogation.
  • Any disconnection of "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" from the ban against "torture" so as to permit inhumane interrogation.
  • The existence of secret U.S. prisons around the world.
  • Any denial of Red Cross access to detainees held by our government overseas.

We also call for an independent investigation of the severe human rights abuses at U.S. installations like Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.

The torture and abuse crisis goes to the very soul of our nation. Get involved.

< Report: Torture by Special Ops at Baghdad Detention Center | U.S. News.Com on Secret, Warrantless Physical Searches >

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    Torture is a Moral Issue | 22 comments (22 topical)
    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 01:58:13 PM EST
    Yes, torture is a moral issue. Most of us will also agree that torture is intrinsically bad. Nevertheless, Bush's "We do not torture." emphasised the difficulty of drawing the line between interrogation and torture. Sure, we can all point to this or that picture or testimony and ask whether the action was really necessary, but until the left and the right come to terms on what constitutes torture, the debate is merely going to come-off as pro-Bush vs. anti-bush.

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#2)
    by Sailor on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 01:59:08 PM EST
    Torture, like virtue, is its own reward for these folks.

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#3)
    by Al on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 02:19:04 PM EST
    Fitzov, there is no difficulty in "drawing the line between interrogation and torture", as you say. Nor is it an anti- or pro- Bush question. Anybody who says so is merely trying to muddy the waters. It is, as TL says, a moral issue, not a political one. Anyone with a clean conscience will have no difficulty in calling a spade a spade.

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#4)
    by Sailor on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 02:43:20 PM EST
    until the left and the right come to terms on what constitutes torture
    Wrong!!! Torture has been defined by the UN, the GenCons, and many other documents, some of which the US has signed. Redefining torture is just another 'moving the goal posts' move by bushco. Ask yourself, if these acts happened to you, would you consider it torture?

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 03:30:20 PM EST
    Anyone who wants to learn about the 50 year history of the CIA's research & development of 'no-touch' torture techniques including self-inflicted pain & sensory deprivation need only look at Alfred McCoy's book, _A Question of Torture_ or google his article "The Hidden History of CIA Torture." He claims that what the Abu Ghraib pictures "record are CIA torture techniques that have metastasized like an undetected cancer inside the U.S. intelligence community over the past half century . . . Looked at historically, the Abu Ghraib scandal is the product of a deeply contradictory U.S. policy toward torture since the start of the Cold War."

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 08:03:35 PM EST
    Probably the only people left who still support Bush are the pro-torture people. Or maybe the only people left who support tortue are the pro-Bush people. Looking at recent polls and the comments at wingnut websites like NRO and it sure seems like one of those two statements is true.

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#7)
    by Edger on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 09:50:05 PM EST
    Limbaugh: the torture at Abu Ghraib was "about people having a good time" and that the perpetrators just needed to "blow some steam off." Weekly Standard editor Jonathan Last: "Worse things happen in frat houses across America." Fox News host Cal Thomas: "If there has been humiliation, it isn't the fault of the West. It is Muslims' fault." Anyone with any degree of intelligence and even a minor capacity to empathize with another human, anyone who is not sociopathic or an outright psychopath knows in their gut that toruring people is inhuman, immoral by any standard, and a base, cowardly and digusting criminal act without equal. For those incapable of understanding that it is evil, you should at the very least be able to comprehend that it is illegal, and if you support it you are not human. You are less than an animal. You deserve no human consideration. You deserve no respect of any kind. TORTURE Amnesty International Issue Brief January 2003
    Since its founding, the United States has cherished the notion that individuals have a right to be free from oppression and torture, and that certain human rights are unalienable. ... Among the international conventions the US has ratified that prohibit torture are the Geneva Conventions, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Convention Against Torture. The US ratified the International Convention Against Torture at the urging of President George H.W. Bush, who made it clear that, "The United States must continue its vigorous efforts to bring the practice of torture an other gross abuses of human rights to an end wherever they occur." The US reaffirmed these ideals in its report to the UN Committee Against Torture.
    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#8)
    by BigTex on Sun Mar 19, 2006 at 11:41:08 AM EST
    Wrong!!! Torture has been defined by the UN, the GenCons, and many other documents, some of which the US has signed
    Sailor, I would suggest that you are taking too narrow a view of what torture is. Most everyone agrees torture is wrong, but this goes into the realm of what is moral. Simply saying the Geneva Conventions or the UN say is torture is not taking a serious look at the issue. Just like with abortion or with EC, there is a standard that is out there, then there is the standard that we hold in our hearts. These two standards do not always match each other. When dealing with a moral issue, such as this is, there is going to be disagreement, because each person has a different interpretation of where the line is. To try to impose a line is to try to impose your morality on someone, which you have no more or less right to do than the next person.

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#9)
    by Edger on Sun Mar 19, 2006 at 11:57:17 AM EST
    there is a standard that is out there Human, or psychopath.

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#10)
    by Edger on Sun Mar 19, 2006 at 12:15:50 PM EST
    First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me: and there was no one left to speak out for me. Pastor Martin Niemöller
    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#11)
    by jen on Sun Mar 19, 2006 at 01:40:41 PM EST
    BigTex, Its also in the conventions we signed which makes it US law. Just because some california lawyer played with words doesn't mean we can start torturing.

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Mar 19, 2006 at 02:12:07 PM EST
    Gee, that's rich comin' from the likes of you, big tex. You're tryin' to force your morality on everyone else all the time. Nice try. No sale.

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#13)
    by Edger on Sun Mar 19, 2006 at 03:32:06 PM EST
    The War Crimes Act of 1996
    No less a figure than Alberto Gonzales, then-White House counsel to George W. Bush and now US Attorney General, expressed deep concern about possible prosecutions under the War Crimes Act of 1996 for American mistreatment of Afghanistan war detainees.
    This relatively obscure statute makes it a federal crime to violate certain provisions of the Geneva Conventions. The Act punishes any US national, military or civilian, who commits a "grave breach" of the Geneva Conventions. A grave breach, as defined by the Geneva Conventions, includes the deliberate "killing, torture or inhuman treatment" of detainees. Violations of the War Crimes Act that result in death carry the death penalty.
    In a memo to President Bush, dated January 25, 2002, Gonzales urged that the United States opt out of the Geneva Conventions for the Afghanistan war--despite Secretary of State Colin Powell's objections.
    It appears that Gonzales has been counselling bush to commit an act illegal on its face under U.S. law - an illegal act punishable by the death penalty.
    A person who incites another to a crime will become a member of a conspiracy if agreement is reached, and may then be considered an accessory or a joint principal if the crime is eventually committed. In the United States, a person who learns of the crime and gives some form of assistance before the crime is committed is known as an "accessory before the fact".


    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#14)
    by BigTex on Sun Mar 19, 2006 at 05:09:24 PM EST
    Gee, that's rich comin' from the likes of you, big tex. You're tryin' to force your morality on everyone else all the time. Nice try. No sale.
    Hey Kettle! You're Black!

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#15)
    by Edger on Sun Mar 19, 2006 at 05:16:09 PM EST
    A person who incites another to a crime will become a member of a conspiracy... an "accessory before the fact".
    Does "vote for" = "incites", I wonder?

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#16)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 07:00:37 AM EST
    edger quotes:
    Then they came for me: and there was no one left to speak out for me.
    In the case of the Danish editorial cartoonists it goes....
    Then they came for me: and no one on the Left had ever spoken up for me.
    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#17)
    by jen on Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 07:05:42 AM EST
    JimakaPPJ, (in slightly OT comment)
    In the case of the Danish editorial cartoonists it goes.... Then they came for me: and no one on the Left had ever spoken up for me.
    You should pop in at www.streetprophets.com more often.

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#18)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 07:16:18 AM EST
    edger quotes:
    Then they came for me: and there was no one left to speak out for me.
    In the case of the Danish editorial cartoonists it goes....
    Then they came for me: of course no one on the Left had ever spoken up for me.
    et al - Before you condemn the whole US and turn the keys of government over to the next terrorist who claims to have been tortured, let me remind you that: The US took the claims, investigated the claims, indicted some individuals, tried some and convicted some. That is very strong evidence that we are not "for torture." Well over a year ago I, as Big Tex has done, noted that we need to do two things. First, redefine who is, and is not a POW. In my opinion we need no changes, but it wouldn't hurt to have a discussion about it. Secondly, we need to redefine what is torture. Placing a pair of women's panties on the head of a prisoner, in my view is not torure, no matter how "insulted" they claim to be. Being questioned by a female officer is not torture. Having a copy of your most important religious object destroyed, defiled, etc., is not torture. Using dogs to control prisoners is not torture. I could go on, but I think you have the idea.

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#19)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 07:25:25 AM EST
    Jen - Sorry if my clumsy fingers have offended you this lovely morning. I do hope you read the complete comment. edger writes:
    It appears that Gonzales has been counselling bush to commit an act illegal on its face under U.S. law - an illegal act punishable by the death penalty.
    He then quotes:
    In the United States, a person who learns of the crime and gives some form of assistance before the crime is committed is known as an "accessory before the fact".
    edger, do you also use the same standard for Moussaoui? What is your preference for Moussaoui's execution? Hanging? Firing squad? Impalement?

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#20)
    by BigTex on Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 07:27:02 AM EST
    Its also in the conventions we signed which makes it US law.
    Jen - it makes it US law if 1) it does not run contrary to the Constitution and 2)we have not passed some law in the meantime that is contra to what was signed. One Congress has no more or less authority than any subsiquent Congress. McCain's torture bill passed since signing the GenCon, so that is current law, not the GenCons. The GenCons have not been applied to our soldiers;the serve no useful purpose anymore. We should pull out to avoid any confusion on what current US law is. Poker is absloutly correct, we need to define what torture is as a nation. Personally, if it doesn't involve pain, it isn't torture in my book. It might be humiliation, which can be mistreatment, but that is a lesser standard than torture.

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#21)
    by jen on Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 09:54:33 AM EST
    But what they are doing DOES involve pain. The dogs are biting these people. The feeding tubes are being put down their noses with no lubrication. The 'standing for eight hours' is being done while being handcuffed upright... and then continues for another eight. These stress positions taken to extremes cause pain. Great pain. Humiliation can be carried to extremes that constitute torture as well. Having underwear on your head is humiliating. (where the guards got that idea I do *NOT* want to know) being interrogated by a woman.. well, they can just deal. But being forced to be naked for 18 hours, and be interrogated by a woman while terrified by snarling unmuzzled dogs? Why not just put a cage with rats on the guys head and threaten to open the gate? Yes, that reaches torture. And if you don't see it then I might pray for your soul.

    Re: Torture is a Moral Issue (none / 0) (#22)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 10:10:18 AM EST
    The GenCons have not been applied to our soldiers;the serve no useful purpose anymore. We should pull out to avoid any confusion on what current US law is. Poker is absloutly correct, we need to define what torture is as a nation. Personally, if it doesn't involve pain, it isn't torture in my book. It might be humiliation, which can be mistreatment, but that is a lesser standard than torture.
    Well, thankfully we can hold to a higher standard than your book, tex. We are supposed to be better than them, remember, and I don't believe McCain's Legislation said anything about rejecting the GCs.

    Torture is a Moral Issue | 22 comments (22 topical)