Published on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 by The
Torture Eats Away at the Soul of This Nation
by Diana Gibson & Ray McGovern
Anniversaries can be important. This Friday marks the 22nd anniversary of the U.N. Convention against Torture, ratified and signed under President Reagan. Last Friday marked the 150th day of the presidency of Barack Obama, who is trying to put a definitive end to the torture approved by the Bush-Cheney administration.
That Obama has not been able to do so is our collective shame. Worse still, the president has apparently concluded that he lacks the support to deter future abominations of this sort by launching a proper investigation and holding to account those responsible.
Something evil has seeped into the soul of our nation. Those many years when we looked the other way, choosing to ignore the abuse of detainees in
Americans who claim to believe in human dignity and the law do not seem scandalized by this inhumane and illegal activity. Many people of faith appear willing to tolerate unspeakable cruelty. Christians who follow one who himself was tortured by the powers of his time evidently are now ready to justify our own government's use of torture.
It is reminiscent of
Surely the deafening silence of the institutional church - again, with a few exceptions - accounts in part for the recent Pew survey showing that a majority of Americans who go to church regularly believe torture can be justified.
As faith leaders, we find this shocking and shameful. There is no counterweight to the demagoguery and politics of fear that hold sway, none to speak to the morality of the issue. None but us.
If you think the torture has stopped, you are wrong. Because of the sad state of our corporate media, it takes extra effort to find out what's actually going on.
Check out, for example, international human rights attorney Scott Horton's June 15 piece in Harpers. Horton describes as "residue of the Bush-era torture system" a "force-feeding" program of the kind formally banned by the World Medical Association in 1991. Guantánamo prisoner Abdullah Saleh al-Hanashi, one of the "force-fed" inmates, was pronounced dead June 1; an "apparent suicide," according to the camp commander.
It will be interesting to see whether Obama administration officials will react in the callous way their predecessors did to the June 10, 2006, suicides of three Guantánamo prisoners. Then-prison commander Rear Adm. Harry Harris described the suicides as "an act of asymmetric warfare committed against us." Colleen Graffy, a deputy assistant secretary of state, called the suicides "a good PR move."
President Obama has apparently decided he has stuck his political neck out as far as he can. Against very strong opposition, he did release the "torture memos" - the most shameful prose ever printed under Department of Justice letterhead - but has been reluctant to move beyond that.
Perhaps he hoped that we would read those memos, be appropriately outraged and create countervailing pressure to help him face down the torture aficionados still in his entourage.
Conference on torture (for those in the Bay or
"Torture is a Moral Issue" panel and conference will be conducted Friday and Saturday in
© 2009 The
DIANA GIBSON is a Presbyterian minister, co-executive director of the Council of Churches of Santa Clara County and coordinator for Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice. RAY McGOVERN, a former Army intelligence officer and CIA analyst, works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the Church of the Saviour in inner-city
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"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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