Washington Office says government ‘condones and participates in torture’
By Craig M. Kibler, The Layman Online, September 23, 2005
The Washington Office of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is charging that the U.S. “government condones and participates in torture.”
In an e-mail sent to Presbyterians around the country, the Washington Office urges them to “write or call your senators in their district offices nearest you. … Tell them to send a message loud and clear to the U.S. military that no intelligence information is worth spoiling our country’s long-standing moral position that we in the U.S. do not condone torture, ever. Urge them to support [Sen. John McCain’s amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006].
The e-mail goes on to say that “torture is inhumane; doesn’t reflect our country’s moral values; undermines human rights standards worldwide; creates legions of enemies of the U.S.; brings danger of retaliation on U.S. troops and travelers abroad; and does not work – it does not produce reliable intelligence information.”
The amendment introduced by McCain seeks to establish the Army Field Manual as the standard for interrogation of all detainees held in Department of Defense custody. In introducing the amendment, McCain said on the Senate floor that it “would establish the Army Field Manual as the standard for interrogation of all detainees held in Department of Defense custody. … The advantage of setting a standard for interrogation based on the field manual is to cut down on the significant level of confusion that still exists with respect to which interrogation techniques are allowed.”
That confusion, according to Sen. Jeff Sessions, has to do with the rules of warfare. “These prisoners today are not under the Geneva Conventions and aren’t prisoners of war. They are unlawful combatants. They sneak into countries. They don’t wear a uniform. They don’t carry their arms openly. They make bombs. They direct them not at military targets but at men, women, and children who are going about their peaceful business. So it is indisputable that the Geneva Conventions don’t apply to them.”
In the floor debate, Sen. Lindsay Graham said, “What we are trying to do is have a guide our troops can understand with two parts – one for lawful combatants and one for unlawful enemy combatants. We will know what the rules of the road will be. We are putting congressional approval on those rules.”
“We have had the White House, Congress, and eventually the courts saying you can aggressively interrogate prisoners not covered by the Geneva Conventions,” he said. “We have been all over the board for the last couple of years. We are trying to bring it together in symmetry … we are trying to do away with that confusion to make it stronger, not weaker, to make us better at gathering intelligence and avoid the problems we have had in the last two years.”
Those problems include the abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, which all three senators condemned. Unlike the Washington Office statement, they also pointed out that those abuses were perpetrated by individuals and were not the policy of the U.S. Armed Forces or the government.
“The military commenced, on its own accord, an investigation that has culminated in the conviction of a number of people who have gone to jail for rather substantial periods of time for violating the policies of the Department of Defense and the laws of war on those prisoners in Abu Ghraib,” Sessions said. “It took place on a midnight shift and was not justified. It was beyond the law, and they have been punished for it.
“We have a statute in this country that prohibits torture of anybody in our control, and that statute stands firm and clear, and that is certainly a basis for a criminal prosecution for anybody who goes too far in interrogating witnesses,” he said, adding:
“We should not treat [prisoners] inhumanely. It is an order of the President that we cannot. We cannot torture them. We have a criminal statute that defines that and says you cannot do it. You can go to jail if you do.”
McCain was just as emphatic that the United States does not condone or participate in torture: “Our values are different from those of our enemies. When colleagues or others may come on this floor and say: ‘Well, they do it, others do it, al-Qaida does it, other nations in the world do it.’ What differentiates us, the United States of America, from other countries is the fact that we do not. We do not abuse human rights. We do not do it.”
“We are better than the terrorists, and we will win because we are better than they are. The enemy we fight has no respect for human life or human rights. They don’t deserve our sympathy. But this is not about who they are – it is not about who they are. It is about who we are. These are values that distinguish us from our enemies,” McCain said, adding:
“President Bush understands that the war on terror is ultimately a battle of ideas, a battle we will win by spreading and standing firmly for the values of decency, democracy, and the rule of law. I stand with him in this commitment. By applying to ourselves the basic standards we rightly preach to others, I believe we will only increase our effectiveness as the world’s ultimate champion of liberty.”
The Washington Office e-mail also provides Presbyterians with what it calls “some talking points” that can be used in writing to their representatives in Congress. Those points include:
- “I am deeply appalled to know that my government condones and participates in torture. This must be stopped.
- “I urge you to support Sen. McCain’s amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (FY 2006) requiring that U.S. armed forces must observe the humanitarian standards in international, national and military law – the Geneva Conventions, the U.N. Convention Against Torture, our own U.S. Constitution, and our military’s effective rules governing military interrogations.
- “Civilized cultures treat all human beings with dignity. The rule of law must be recognized as governing the behavior of our troops and agents overseas. Torture by U.S. agents is morally wrong. It puts our soldiers overseas in danger of retaliation. It doesn’t yield reliable intelligence information because those being tortured will say anything, true or not, to make the torture stop.”