Reading the cascade of disclosures now pouring forth about the torture and prisoner abuse practices that were authorized and condoned by the Bush Administration, from the White house to the Secretary of Defense on down, is a sickening process. Even more disturbing are the excuses and facile explanations why such information should be concealed or is of no serious importance presented by officials involved in the torture or who were responsible for preventing such abuses under their command. The most recent revelation is in testimony by Retired Major General Antonio Taguba, who conducted the investigation that revealed the abuses at Abu Ghraib Prison back in 2004. He states that it is now beyond question that systematic torture was conducted against prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba with Bush Administration approval. He characterizes those actions, at least the worst of them, as “war crimes.” The only remaining question, he asserts, is whether those responsible for authorizing and condoning such tactics will be held accountable. This question is on the mind of many US citizens who long for the restoration of respect, integrity and moral authority that the US once enjoyed.
These allegations are supported by extensive documentation, including examination and interviews with former detainees. The argument that such detentions and abuses were necessary is belied by the number of prisoners held for years who were NEVER charged with any crime.
“Doctors and mental health experts examined 11 detainees held for long periods in the prison system that President Bush established after the 9-11 terrorist attacks. All of them eventually were released without charges.” Report by Physicians for Human Rights.
The Pentagon spokesman seeks to dismiss the accusations as irrelevant. Attempting to sweep the information under the rug, the Pentagon incredulously states with a straight face:
"All credible allegations of abuse are thoroughly investigated and, if substantiated, those responsible are held accountable," said Navy Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman. "It adds little to the public discourse to draw sweeping conclusions based upon dubious allegations regarding remote medical assessments of former detainees, now far removed from detention," Gordon said.
Such responses would be laughable if the matter were not so serious. The Bush Administration denied the International Red Cross access to many of the detainees and held them without the ability to communicate with anyone. Now the pentagon would argue that evidence of their treatment while held captive is not reliable because it is not direct evidence or eyewitness testimony obtained during the period when these people were actually detained. That is like arguing that Nazi concentration camp survivors cannot testify reliably about their experience because the testimony was not transcribed while they were held prisoner by the Nazis.
Indeed, many of the excuses and rationalizations used by former Nazi officials are chillingly resurfacing in the form of rationalizations used to support the Bush Administration torture regime. Terrorists and those suspected of supporting terrorist activity are not really people, so they have no rights, they argue. They presented a threat to the security of the motherland, so they had to be removed, is the explanation. Practices such as electric shock, simulated drowning, intense physical abuse such as slamming heads against walls is not really torture, any more than human experimentation by Josef Mengele was any more than scientific inquiry is the rationalization. And so the excuses and rationalizations go. While no gas chambers were employed by the Bush Administration, which we know of, there are numerous instances in which prisoners died in captivity as a result of their “harsh interrogation.” Since they were neither charged with any crime, given the right to counsel or a trial, such deaths can only be deemed executions.
Technically, the tactics by the Bush Administration were not as extreme as those used by the Nazis. Yet with the history and knowledge of what happened in Germany over 60 years ago, can the conduct of Bush Administration officials be deemed any less reprehensible? The world wanted to pretend that the Holocaust was not happening. But the world now knows undeniably that it did happen, and has expressly vowed that it shall not happen again. Armed with that knowledge and bound by that commitment, how then can the systematic physical torture, starvation and deliberate psychological abuse of detainees be seriously countenanced? We should know better. We owe ourselves and the world a higher standard of conduct.
Perhaps even more distressing are the results of a poll recently published in which approximately 50% of US citizens believe that the use of torture against “terrorism suspects” is justified or justifiable. To note that certain renegade officials engaged in war crimes is significant. That Congress stood by and failed to reign in such criminal behavior when evidence of it was manifest is a tragedy. Yet for the moral compass of the nation as a whole to have veered so far off course as to condone such barbarity is monstrous. In that regard the history of Nazi Germany is paralleled. Hitler could not have perpetrated the heinous war crimes that took place under the Third Reich without the support and consent of the German people.
It would be well to note that the self righteous, “don’t give a damn what the law says or other nations think,” arrogance of the Bush Administration does not play well outside the myopic and self deluded confines of the US borders. It is not because other nations hate the US, as Bush sycophants and apologists would argue. Outside the US, people simply look at the facts objectively and measure the US conduct against the values and ideals that the nation publicly espouses. A nation that systematically violates international laws, human rights standards and spies upon its own citizens in violation of its own Constitution cannot be respected or taken seriously when it preaches to other nations about “freedom, democracy, the rule of law and human rights.”
Indeed the US has stooped so low that it will take some time before it can legitimately hold its head up among nations of the civilized world. Respect must be earned. Taking deliberate and systematic steps as prescribed by the US Constitution, the court system and the Hague Conventions respecting war crimes would be the most responsible first step toward regaining that respect. This is something that the Obama Administration must support if it is to fulfill its Constitutional duty and if it hopes to regain stature as a world leader.
“Never again,” the motto declared after the Holocaust, must truly mean something. The only way it can have true meaning is that its lessons be understood and that steps are taken to hold those persons that choose to follow in the steps of Hitler and Nazi Germany accountable for their actions. That gas chambers and human dissection were not employed this time is only a matter of degree, and the comparisons of morality are far too similar.
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