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The New third Reich?
A dark storm is threatening to engulf the very soul of our once great nation and if left unchecked has the potential to render the very foundation of our liberties to rubble. Even before our nation’s conception, when to speak of independence was branded as treason and punishable by death, our founding fathers new all to well the hazards of cruelty and the importance to protect against it. As evident by the 8th Amendment of our Constitution, our founders wanted to protect all citizens from its perils. The Amendment reads, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Every four years when a new president or an incumbent is sworn into office, they swear an oath to, “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of [their] ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” This ritual is of the utmost importance because they are given the power to either help humanity or left unchecked, the power to extinguish all hope of freedom. Looking back in history we can cite numerous examples of tyranny and injustice. The atrocities committed by the Germans under Hitler’s reign rank amongst the most horrific in world history. Secret police interrogators, military internment camps, inmates held without charge, torture and other cruelties too heinous to comprehend all were recorded at the hands of the Nazis. These crimes against humanity and its naked aggression against its neighbors brought the world to war against Germany. The United States played a pivotal role in the success of the Allied Forces in World War 2 and the ultimate defeat of Germany’s tyrannical regime. In similar fashion, America led the charge against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, a dictator who for years had tortured, imprisoned, raped and killed countless citizens under his rule. The United States in both these accounts, stood steadfast to its morals and convictions, liberating millions of men, women and children from the injustices committed against them. On June 26, 2005 our then President George W. Bush so eloquently said, “On United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the United States reaffirms its commitment to the worldwide elimination of torture. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right, and we are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law…Throughout the world, there are many who have been seeking to have their voices heard, to stand up for their right to freedom, and to break the chains of tyranny. Too many of those courageous women and men are paying a terrible price for their brave acts of dissent. Many have been detained, arrested, thrown in prison, and subjected to torture by regimes that fail to understand that their habits of control will not serve them well in the long-term.” (Wikiquote) In this speech, George W. Bush, who wasn’t known for his speaking ability, actually managed to address the core beliefs of the United States as outlined by our founding fathers and put into practice by every sitting president in our countries history. Later in November of 2005 he was quoted as saying, “We (United States) do not torture.” We get it all ready; the United States is above such acts of torture and violation of human rights. The Geneva Convention classifies torture as the following: “For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.” (UN Convention) The importance of George W. Bush’s speech and the Geneva Conventions articles on torture is to illustrate the illusion we have been living under. The fallacy in which we believed our government operated under and the principles that we believed could never be compromised. Under the Bush administration, the United States resorted to medieval methods of torture to obtain information from enemy combatants. After September 11th, not only did America change but so did the world. The way we looked at every aspect of our daily lives changed. For months after the attack I found myself avoiding large groups of people out of fear of another attack. My fear was causing me to miss out on life. I quickly realized that it is when we alter who we are and what we believe in that the terrorists win. When under attack you don’t disregard the very principle that separates you from your enemies. Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety.” It is imperative in times of trouble that you as an individual or a government hold fast to the ideology that defines ones being. It was appalling to watch the United States fail so miserably and fall so far under George W. Bush’s watch. Under Bush, the CIA was allowed to use “extreme interrogation methods” which equivocated to by any means necessary. The preferred method of terror for their captives was water boarding; a technique of torture that dates back before the inquisition. Water boarding is the methodical method of simulating drowning by laying the prisoner on a board upside down, placing cloth over their face and pouring water over their mouth and nose (Layton). When the prisoner passes out do to lack of oxygen they are rewarded by being revived so the process can be repeated again and again until they provide the interrogator with “useful” information. The problem with this particular means of torture, as with any, is the victim overwhelmingly gives false information in order to receive a reprieve from the abuse. Our then Vice President Dick Cheney not only applauded the use of torture but also the use of covert methods as indicated in this quote below, "A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we’re going to be successful. That’s the world these folks operate in. And so it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective." Any means at our disposal? In essence that is an open invitation to our intelligence agencies to perform any act of torture while remaining immune from prosecution of human rights violations. The president’s chief political advisor, Carl Rove added this to the discussion, “I'm proud that we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists and gave us valuable information that allowed us to foil plots such as flying airplanes into Heathrow and into London, bringing down aircraft over the Pacific, flying an airplane into the tallest building in Los Angeles and other plots.” He later was asked if he believed water boarding was torture and if he felt it was a legal means of interrogation. “They were appropriate, they're in conformity with our international requirements and with U.S. law,” Rove added. They figured that if they changed some wording and definitions around that miraculously the act of torture would amazingly become something else. How ignorant do they think the American people are? This outrage ranks up there with the magic bullet theory in the annals of government betrayals. Senator Edward Kennedy added this comment, “Shamefully we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management, U.S. management.” Senator John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, weighed in on the debate, “Our enemies didn't adhere to the Geneva Convention. Many of my comrades were subjected to very cruel, very inhumane and degrading treatment, a few of them even unto death. But every one of us -- every single one of us -- knew and took great strength from the belief that we were different from our enemies, that we were better than them, that we, if the roles were reversed, would not disgrace ourselves by committing or countenancing such mistreatment of them.” These are the words of a proud American patriot who suffered abuse under the hands of evil men, who conducted untold horrors against our service men while in their captivity. It was a common practice for the Bush regime to challenge anyone’s patriotism and allegiance to this nation if they even dared to speak out against any action the administration deemed necessary. George Bush even went as far as to say, “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists.” A noble proclamation from a fearless warrior who avoided the draft to Vietnam by joining the Texas National Guard. Russian novelist Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “Whoever fights monsters should see that in the process he does not become a monster, and when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” Words spoken truer are seldom found. In the aftermath of the attacks on our nation on September 11th, our leadership was faced with an abomination we had not encountered since Pearl Harbor; an attack on our sovereign soil. They had the opportunity to show the world that through our adversity freedom and the rule of law would prevail. Instead we succumbed to our fears, lost all reason, and in the process tarnished the reputation the United States has earned over the last 234 years as the last true beacon of hope and freedom. Alberto J. Mora, former Navy General Counsel, was quoted in The New Yorker as saying, “The debate here isn’t only how to protect the country, it’s how to protect our values. If cruelty is no longer declared unlawful, but instead is applied as a matter of policy, it alters the fundamental relationship of man to government. It destroys the whole notion of individual rights. The constitution recognizes that man has an inherent right, not bestowed by the state or laws, to personal dignity, including the right to be free of cruelty. It applies to all human beings, not just in America; even those designated as ‘unlawful enemy combatants.’ If you make this exception the whole constitution crumbles.” If not the United States, then who will carry the torch of freedom, who will stand vigilant watching over the weak and the oppressed, who will stand up for the injustices committed against those who have no voice? During a campaign visit to an Amish community in Pennsylvania in the summer of 2004, George W. Bush said, “I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.” God speaks through him? The greatest act of torture ever committed was during the crucifixion of Christ. Historians believe the torture lasted for a complete day and was so intense that if left alone he would of died from the wounds inflicted upon him. I raise this point because throughout the train wreck we call the Bush years, time and again we had this man quote biblical scripture and profess that God himself spoke to him, all along guiding his decisions, yet he is perfectly content to order the systematical torture of another human being. Our current President Barrack Obama put a stop to this barbarism by ordering the act of gathering intelligence by torture via waterboarding stopped by all military and government agencies of the United States. I applaud the courage to call waterboarding by it’s real name; torture. I feel strongly that the only way we can move forward from this atrocity and for the United States to regain it’s footing as a shining example of democracy, is for charges to be brought against the Bush administration; precisely George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. We can not afford to allow these snakes to crawl back into the woodwork; to find refuge and shelter in the vary nation they tried to destroy. During the 1990’s, Kenneth Starr and his investigation led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. The price tag was over 70 million dollars of taxpayer money. We learned of the infamous blue dress and what the definition of “is” was. Oral sex in the oval office is a far cry from torturing a man until he defecates on himself out of fear. Our elected officials must know they are not above the law and the sting of our justice system is just as painful to them as it is to us. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. summed the issue perfectly, “We prosecuted our own soldiers for using [water boarding] in Vietnam (Torture).” The case the Attorney General is speaking about involved an American soldier supervising the water boarding of a captured North Vietnamese soldier. A photograph of the incident made the front page of the Washington Post on January 21, 1968. The headline read, “A flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk.” Two months after the running of the article the soldier was court marshaled. “Cases of water boarding have occurred in the United States as well. In 1983, Texas Sherriff James Parker was charged, along with three of his deputies, for handcuffing prisoners to chairs, placing towels over their faces and pouring water over the cloth until they gave the officers what they believed to be confessions. For their crimes the Sheriff and his men were convicted and sentenced to prison. In the war crime tribunals that followed World War 2, the issue of water boarding was raised. The United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for water boarding an American civilian. The Japanese officer was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor (Weiner).” “All of these trials elicited compelling descriptions of water torture from its victims, and resulted in severe punishment of its perpetrators,” writes Evan Wallach in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. This is only the tip of the iceberg, the evidence is overwhelming and justice must be sought against anyone, regardless of their station, in order to uphold all that is decent and pure in America. The Bush administration knew water boarding was torture. They knew it then and they know it now and regardless of how hard they try to rewrite the legal definition of torture, in the end, torture will always be torture. The only consolation to this crisis is America will recover. This nation has persevered through civil war, racial intolerance and countless other tragedies that would cripple a lesser nation. We have come to the aide of humanity in two world wars and brought freedom to millions of desperate souls. I urge President Obama to open an investigation, search out the vermin, and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law all those guilty of human rights violations. Torture can not be tolerated regardless of how noble the reason may be. Our elected officials have a great responsibility before them and action must be taken. Do it because it is right. Do it because our countries honor depends on it. Do it so the world can once again call on the United States in their time of need, to bring justice and freedom to those who are oppressed.
By Joe Gallagher
By Joe Gallagher
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