Wednesday, July 19, 2017
The Torture-Friendly Trump
Administration
Only stupid people say torture works — and one of them is
sitting in the White House.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that Donald Trump is
pro-torture. He said on the campaign trail he’d approve waterboarding “in a
heartbeat,” plus “a hell of a lot worse.”
He added: “Only a stupid person would say it
doesn’t work.”
There are certainly a lot of stupid people then, because
everyone from interrogators to researchers have repeatedly concluded that torture doesn’t work. People will say whatever
you want them to say to make the pain stop, making torture not only inhumane
but also bad for intelligence.
A 2009 Senate Armed Services Committee review concluded that
torture “damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save
lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral
authority.” That’s why the Senate voted in 2015 to turn the presidential
ban on torture into official law.
To his credit, Trump did water down his original support for
torture, allowing Defense Secretary James Mattis — who opposes torture — to override him.
But if the Trump administration is now opposed to torture, why
are they nominating the architects of America’s torture fiasco to key posts?
Take Steven Bradbury, nominated to be general
counsel for the Transportation Department. Bradbury is infamous for
writing the legal memos authorizing CIA torture at the Bush Justice Department.
Bradbury’s confirmation was placed on hold by Senator Tammy
Duckworth, an Iraq veteran who lost her legs in the war. “The actions you
helped justify put our troops in harm’s way, put our diplomats deployed
overseas in harm’s way, and you compromised our nation’s very values,” she said
angrily at his confirmation hearing.
Or what about Donald Trump’s nominee to head the FBI,
Christopher Wray?
Wray was at the Justice Department when attorney John Yoo and
others were drafting their torture memos. Wray knew about detainee
abuse and did not, as head of the criminal division, bring charges against any
of the Bush administration torturers — except for one low-level CIA contractor who beat a prisoner to
death.
A third person connected to torture is Gina Haspel, who was
appointed deputy director of the CIA. Haspel ran a “black site” prison in Thailand
where suspects were waterboarded — and then helped destroy video of the
interrogations.
The Senate Intelligence Committee meticulously documented the
sordid U.S. record of torture under the Bush administration in a 6,770-page
report. But the public hasn’t been able to read it — only the executive summary
has been released.
Yet this isn’t just an exercise in history. In June, Human
Rights Watch and the Associated Press published explosive reports revealing a
secret network of prisons in southern Yemen run by U.S.-allied United Arab
Emirates and Yemeni forces.
The reports reveal horrific practices in which prisoners,
including children, have been arbitrarily detained, forcibly disappeared,
sexually assaulted, and tortured. One torture method, known as the “grill,” had
victims tied to a spit like a roast and spun in a circle of fire.
Reports indicate that the U.S. military knew about the torture,
received transcripts of the interrogations conducted by Yemeni interrogators,
and interrogated several detainees themselves.
According to one Yemeni security officer, American forces were only yards away from a facility where
torture took place.
Senators John McCain and Jack Reed immediately expressed
outrage, calling on the Trump administration to investigate the allegations.
But the reaction of the White House to these revolting reports is telling:
radio silence.
Trump’s refusal to publicly condemn these secret prisons,
together with the appointments of people who played a role in George W. Bush’s
torture program, should set off alarm bells.
Only stupid people say torture works, and one of them is sitting in the White House.
Medea Benjamin,
co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the author
of the new book, Kingdom of the
Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection. Her previous books
include: Drone Warfare:
Killing by Remote Control; Don’t Be Afraid
Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart, and (with Jodie
Evans) Stop the Next
War Now (Inner Ocean Action Guide). Follow her on Twitter: @medeabenjamin
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"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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