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<font size=3>Liberty Beat<br>
by <b>Nat Hentoff<br>
</b>Torture as Foreign Policy<br>
The House Republican leadership authorizes torture in our war against
terrorism<br>
October 22nd, 2004 6:15 PM <br><br>
<i>Let me make very clear the position of my government and our country.
We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never
order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a
part of our soul and our being.</i> <b>George W. Bush, June 22, 2004,
after the photographs of abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib were made
public</b> <br><br>
<br>
<i>Republicans in the House apparently think that torture done quietly
for us by others is something that not only shouldn't be challenged, but
actually should be encouraged as long as it's done discreetly.</i>
<b>Congressman Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, </b><i>The
Boston Globe</i><b>, October 6, 2004</b> <br><br>
<br>
There has been much talk of values during the presidential campaign, and
from the president, the doctrine that exporting the ideals and practice
of constitutional freedom can bring liberty to parts of the world
afflicted by tyrannical regimes. <br><br>
However, on October 8, the House Republican leadershipwith Speaker
Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay in chargerolled over the
Democrats to pass the 9-11 Recommendations Implementation Act, H.R. 10,
ostensibly to enact recommendations by the bipartisan, independent 9-11
Commission to actually make our intelligence apparatus live up to its
name. <br><br>
As draftedwith no input at all from the Democratssection 3032 of the
bill empowers the secretary of homeland security to remove "certain
aliens," including those on American soil, from the protections of
the international Covenant Against Torture (which the U.S. signed) when
the secretary finds those "aliens" a danger to the U.S.
<br><br>
Thendig thissection 3033 gives this imperious secretary of homeland
security essentially unchecked power to deport or transfer a foreign
person to any country in the worldregardless of whether the foreign
person is a citizen of that country or has ever been there. <br><br>
This means, as debate in the House conclusively confirmed, that this
person detained by us can be sent to countries that torture their
prisoners, so that the torturers can extract information from them that
our interrogators can't. And some of these detainees have no U.S. charges
against them. <br><br>
As noted here before, these "extraordinary renditions," as
they're known in the torture trade, have already been conducted secretly
by the CIA. On October 6, 2004, Shaun Waterman of United Press
International noted that "at present, the procedure is carried out
in a covert, extra-legal fashion by CIA operatives in chartered
Gulfstream jets . . . <br><br>
"U.S. law [until now] explicitly prohibits the deportation or
removal of people from the United States to countries . . . <i>where
there is a reasonable expectation they might be tortured</i> . . . "
(Emphasis added.) <br><br>
While the House approved violating that rule of law, the Senate passed a
9-11 recommendations act without a torture provision. As of this writing,
a House-Senate conference committee will decide whether torture stays in
the final bill. If it does, America will tell the world that torture is a
weapon we righteously use against terrorism. <br><br>
Americans have been repelled by Al Qaeda's beheading of its captives in
Iraq, but the House Republican leadership does not flinch at sending our
captives to be torturedthough presumably not beheaded, since they have
to be sent back to us with their "confessions." <br><br>
In the House, the opposition leader against this official, brutal
revision of what the president called our "values, "our
soul," "our being" has been Edward Markey. Markey had
previously introduced a bill, hardly noticed by the media, that would
have forbidden any rendition of anybody under American control to
countries that torture. <br><br>
Now, Markey said on the floor of the House (October 7) during the debate
on the torture sections of H.R. 10: "It's outrageous that these
provisions have been snuck into the 9-11 bill behind closed doors when
the 9-11 Commission specifically called for the United States to 'offer
an example of moral leadership in the world, committed to treat people
humanely, abide by the law . . . ' Nothing could be farther from the 9-11
Commission's intent." <br><br>
It should also be noted that in addition to violating the international
convention against torture, Bush's leader in the House broke our own law,
section 2242 of the 1998 Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act,
which says the policy of the United States is "not to expel,
extradite, or otherwise effect the involuntary return of any person to a
country in which there are substantial grounds for believing the person
would be in danger of being subjected to torture, regardless of whether
the person is physically present in the United States"or had been
captured by the CIA in another country. <br><br>
Among others opposing American involvement in torture are the American
Civil Liberties Union, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops,
the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, members of the 9-11
Commission itself, the American Bar Association, Human Rights First,
Freedom House, and Amnesty International. A joint statement signed by
some of these groups emphasizes that the torture provisions
"undermine the credibility of U.S. efforts to promote human rights
and democracy in the Arab world, which President Bush has identified as a
key element in the Administration's long-term strategy to combat
terrorism . . . " <br><br>
Before the vote on October 8, John Ashcroft's Justice Department
supported the torture provisions, but the White House said the president
did not. However, Bush gave no indication that he would veto H.R. 10 if
the torture sections remained. Next week: a last-minute Republican trick
in the House to get the president off the hook with an amendment that
allows the permanent imprisonment of detainees here without due
processor the sending of them to countries that torture, if we get
assurance they won't be tortured there. The first part is
unconstitutional; the second part is fraudulent. <br><br>
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