[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 37 (Tuesday, April 5, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E529-E530]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
JEFF JACOBY SHOWS INTEGRITY ON TORTURE ISSUE
______
HON. BARNEY FRANK
of massachusetts
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, April 5, 2005
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, one of the saddest aspects
of our current political dialogue is that partisanship has extended
into the intellectual sphere. That is, I very much agree that people
should pick one party or the other as being more representative of
their views than the alternative and generally support that party. That
is legitimate partisanship. Excessive partisanship comes when people
are never willing to admit that ``their side'' ever makes mistakes, or
that the ``other side'' ever has any virtues.
It is for this reason, as well as the substance of his well-reasoned
articles, that I was very gratified to read Boston Globe Columnist Jeff
Jacoby's two-part series on torture. Mr. Jacoby is a strong, outspoken
conservative who supports the war in Iraq. But unlike many, he does not
let his general ideological position in this set of issues make him an
apologist for specific actions which go counter to the very moral
values that the war in Iraq is supposed to be vindicating.
In a forceful two-part series in the Boston Globe, Mr. Jacoby makes a
principled, thoughtful, fact-based case against the use of torture by
Americans, even in the service of our entirely justified fight against
terrorism.
Mr. Jacoby puts it eloquently in his first article: ``Better
intelligence means more lives saved, more atrocities prevented and a
more likely victory in the war against radical Islamist fascism. Those
are crucial ends and they justify tough means. But they don't justify
means that betray core American values. Interrogation techniques that
flirt with torture, to say nothing of those that end in death, cross
the moral line that separates us from the enemy we are trying to
defeat.''
In his second article, Mr. Jacoby argues that the case against
torture is not only a moral one but also a pragmatic one, noting, among
other things, ``torture is never limited to just the guilty.''
Mr. Speaker, I salute Jeff Jacoby both for the force of his arguments
and for the intellectual integrity he has shown in making them. No
issue confronting our Nation is more important than how we deal with
this set of questions and I therefore ask that Mr. Jacoby's very
significant contribution be printed here.
[From the New York Times, Mar. 17, 2005]
Where's the Outrage on Torture?
(By Jeff Jacoby)
In August 2003, when he was commander of the military base
at Guantanamo Bay, Major General Geoffrey Miller visited
Baghdad with some advice for US interrogators at Abu Ghraib
prison. As Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the military
police commander in Iraq, later recalled it, Miller's bottom
line was blunt: Abu Ghraib should be ``Gitmo-ized.'' Iraqi
detainees should be exposed to the same aggressive techniques
being used to extract information from prisoners in
Guantanamo.
``You have to have full control,'' Karpinski quoted Miller
as saying. There can be ``no mistake about who's in charge.
You have to treat these detainees like dogs.''
Whether or not Miller actually spoke those words, it is
clear that harsh techniques authorized for a time in
Guantanamo forced nudity, hooding, shackling men in ``stress
positions,'' the use of dogs were taken up in Afghanistan and
Iraq, where they sometimes degenerated into outright
viciousness and even torture. Did the injunction to ``treat
these detainees like dogs'' give rise to a prison culture
that winked at barbarism? Should Miller be held responsible
for what Abu Ghraib became?
The latest Pentagon report on the abuse of captives,
delivered to Congress last week by Vice Admiral Albert Church
III, doesn't point a finger of blame at Miller or any other
high-ranking official. It concludes that while detainees in
Iraq, Guantanamo, and elsewhere were brutalized by military
or CIA interrogators, there was no formal policy authorizing
such abuse. (On occasion it was even condemned in December
2002, for example, some Navy officials denounced the
Guantanamo techniques as ``unlawful and unworthy of the
military services.'')
But surely, Church was asked at a congressional hearing,
someone should be held accountable for the scores of abuses
that even the government admits to? ``Not in my charter,''
the admiral replied.
So the buck stops nowhere. And fresh revelations of horror
keep seeping out.
Afghanistan, 2002: A detainee in the ``Salt Pit'' a secret,
CIA-funded prison north of Kabul is stripped naked, dragged
across a concrete floor, then chained in a cell and left
overnight. By morning, he has frozen to death. According to
The Washington Post, which sourced the story to four US
government officials, the dead man was buried in an unmarked
grave, and his family was never notified. What had the Afghan
done to merit such lethal handling? ``He was probably
associated with people who were associated with Al Qaeda,'' a
US official told the Post.
Iraq, 2003: Manadel al-Jamadi, arrested after a terrorist
bombing in Baghdad, is brought in handcuffs to a shower room
in Abu Ghraib. Shackles are connected from his cuffs to a
barred window, hoisting his arms painfully behind his back a
position so unnatural,
Sergeant Jeffrey Frost later tells investigators, that he
is surprised the man's arms ``didn't pop out of their
sockets.'' Frost and other guards are summoned when an
interrogator complains that al-Jamadi isn't cooperating. They
find him slumped forward, motionless. When they remove the
chains and attempt to stand him on his feet, blood gushes
from his mouth. His ribs are broken. He is dead.
Then there is the government's use of ``extraordinary
rendition,'' a euphemism for
[[Page E530]]
sending terror suspects to be interrogated by other countries
including some where respect for human rights is nonexistent
and interrogation can involve beatings, electric shock, and
other torture. The CIA says it always gets an assurance in
advance that a prisoner will be treated humanely. But of what
value are such assurances when they come from places like
Syria and Saudi Arabia?
Of course the United States must hunt down terrorists and
find out what they know. Better intelligence means more lives
saved, more atrocities prevented, and a more likely victory
in the war against radical Islamist fascism. Those are
crucial ends, and they justify tough means. But they don't
justify means that betray core American values. Interrogation
techniques that flirt with torture to say nothing of those
that end in death cross the moral line that separates us from
the enemy we are trying to defeat.
The Bush administration and the military insist that any
abuse of detainees is a violation of policy and that abusers
are being punished. If so, why does it refuse to allow a
genuinely independent commission to investigate without fear
or favor? Why do Republican leaders on Capitol Hill refuse to
launch a proper congressional investigation? And why do my
fellow conservatives--those who support the war for all the
right reasons--continue to keep silent about a scandal that
should have them up in arms?
____
[From the Boston Sunday Globe, Mar. 20, 2005]
Why Not Torture Terrorists?
(By Jeff Jacoby)
(Second of two columns)
The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the United States
ratified in 1994, prohibits the torture of any person for any
reason by any government at any time. It states explicitly
that torture is never justified--``no exceptional
circumstances whatsoever . . . may be invoked as a
justification for torture'' Unlike the Geneva Convention,
which protects legitimate prisoners of war, the Convention
Against Torture applies to everyone--even terrorists and
enemy combatants. And it cannot be evaded by ``outsourcing''
a prisoner to a country where he is apt to be tortured during
interrogation.
In short, the international ban on torture--a ban
incorporated into US law--is absolute. And before Sept. 11,
2001, few Americans would have argued that it should be
anything else.
But in post-9/11 America, the unthinkable is not only being
thought, but openly considered. And not only by hawks on the
right, but by even by critics in the center and on the left.
``In this autumn of anger,'' Jonathan Alter commented in
Newsweek not long after the terrorist attacks, ``a liberal
can find his thoughts turning to--torture.'' Maybe cattle
prods and rubber hoses should remain off limits, he Wrote,
but ``some torture clearly works,'' and Americans had to
``keep an open mind'' about using unconventional measures--
including ``transferring some suspects to our less squeamish
allies.''
In March 2003, a few days after arch-terrorist Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed was captured in Pakistan, Stuart Taylor Jr.
acknowledged that he was probably being made to feel some
pain. ``And if that's the best chance of making him talk,
it's OK by me,'' he wrote in his National Journal column. In
principle, interrogators should not cross the line into
outright torture. But, Taylor continued, ``my answer might be
different in extreme circumstances.''
By ``extreme circumstances'' he meant what is often called
the ``ticking-bomb'' scenario: A deadly terror attack is
looming, and you can prevent it only by getting the
information your prisoner refuses to divulge. Torture might
force him to talk, thereby saving thousands of innocent
lives. May he be tortured?
Many Americans would say yes without hesitating. Some would
argue that torturing a terrorist is not nearly as wrong as
refusing to do so and thereby allowing another 9/11 to occur.
Others would insist that monsters of Mohammed's ilk deserve
no decency.
As an indignant reader (one of many) wrote to me after last
week's column on the cruel abuse of some U.S. detainees,
``The terrorists . . . would cut your heart out and stuff it
into the throat they would proudly slash open.'' So why not
torture detainees, if it will produce the information we
need?
Here's why:
First, because torture, as noted, is unambiguously
illegal--illegal under a covenant the United States ratified,
illegal under Federal law, and illegal under protocols of
civilization dating back to the Magna Carta.
Second, because torture is notoriously unreliable. Many
people will say anything to make the pain stop, while some
will refuse to yield no matter what is done to them. Yes,
sometimes torture produces vital information. But it can also
produce false leads and desperate fictions. In the ticking-
bomb case, bad information is every bit as deadly as no
information.
Third, because torture is never limited to just the guilty.
The case for razors and electric shock rests on the premise
that the prisoner is a knowledgeable terrorist like Mohammed
or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But most of the inmates in military
prisons are nothing of the kind. Commanders in Guantanamo
acknowledge that hundreds of their prisoners pose no danger
and have no useful information. How much of the hideous abuse
reported to date involved men who were guilty only of being
in the wrong place at the wrong time?
And fourth, because torture is a dangerously slippery
slope. Electric shocks and beatings are justified if they can
prevent, another 9/11? But what if the shocks and beating
don't produce the needed information? Is it OK to break a
finger? To cut off a hand? To save 3,000 lives, can a
terrorist's eyes be gouged out? How about gouging out his
son's eyes? Or raping his daughter in his presence? If that's
what it will take to make him talk, to defuse the ticking
bomb, isn't it worth it?
No. Torture is never worth it. Some things we don't do, not
because they never work, not because they aren't ``deserved;'
but because our very right to call ourselves decent human
beings depends in part on our not doing them. Torture is in
that category. We can win our war against the barbarians
without becoming barbaric in the process.
____________________