Comment

 

I have to admit that there are MANY views held by the ACLU that I do NOT agree with.  Torture, however, is something I don’t think our country should condone or practice.  Please don’t hesitate to take action just because you dislike the ACLU.  Please take a moment to read the information and send a message to Congress.  Please disregard this only if you believe we should torture people.

Bush’s top-down torture policies

On Friday night, in a national television interview on ABC News, President Bush directly admitted that the White House was deeply involved in decisions about the CIA’s use of torture.

Recent reports indicate that members of the Bush administration including Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and George Tenet met regularly and approved the CIA’s use of “combined” “enhanced” interrogation techniques -- tactics that amount to torture.

I just demanded that my members of Congress support strenuous efforts, including the appointment of an independent prosecutor, to hold President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and other high-ranking officials accountable for their role in crafting torture policy.

I thought you would like to know about this and would also want to do something about it. To email your members of Congress, just follow the link below.

http://action.aclu.org/topdowntorture

04/17/08 Update:

I received the following in reply to my email to Senator Durbin regarding our country’s use of torture.

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April 17, 2008


Mr. Michael Legel
22023 Allentown Rd.
Tremont, IL 61568

Dear Mr. Legel:

Thank you for your message regarding the United States’ policy on torture. I appreciate hearing from you and share your concerns.

In its detention and interrogation policies, the United States should not compromise the moral standards that have defined our nation for more than two centuries. As a signatory to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which govern the treatment of detainees in an armed conflict, the United States has an obligation to treat any person it detains in a humane manner.

When it violates these principles, the United States does not act in the best interest of the American people. The Bush Administration’s failure to provide a clear and steadfast rule banning torture has increased the risk of harm to our men and women in uniform. This failure has lowered our moral standing in the world and has made it increasingly difficult to win the war of ideas in our fight against terrorism.

A secret memo issued by the Justice Department in 2002 fundamentally changed U.S. policy regarding torture. This memo narrowed the definition of torture to include only abuse that causes pain equivalent to organ failure or death. After being leaked to the public, the memo was withdrawn in 2004 under strong public protest. Nonetheless, it had provided the legal foundation for two years of official Administration policy.

We saw the result of this policy most clearly at Abu Ghraib prison. Like so many Americans, I was appalled by the widespread mistreatment, documented in graphic photographs, of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib. These shameful acts violated our nation’s most sacred ideals and have overshadowed the countless acts of kindness, good will, and bravery performed by American troops abroad.

Instead of heeding the lessons learned at Abu Ghraib, however, the Bush Administration has continued to engage in underhanded legal techniques intended to allow the use of interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, that historically have been considered torture.

In July 2007, the President issued an executive order interpreting the humane treatment provision of the Geneva Conventions. I asked then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales whether the President’s interpretation could allow other countries to legally subject U.S. forces to painful stress positions, threatening with dogs, forced nudity, waterboarding, or mock execution. He replied that the answer to my question “would depend on the circumstances.” It was a shameful reply. The policy of the United States should not condone such treatment.

In November 2007 we learned that two years earlier the Justice Department issued additional secret memos that endorse the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency, despite serious questions about these techniques’ legality and effectiveness. The author of these secret opinions has been nominated for a high-level position in the Justice Department. I have publicly called for the White House to withdraw his nomination.

Our interrogation policies should reflect a concern for the safety of our troops and our country and compliance with our laws. I will continue to support legislation to achieve these ends and will pursue continued oversight of the treatment of detained individuals.

Thank you again for contacting me on this serious issue. Please feel free to stay in touch.

Sincerely,



Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator
 

RJD/tf

P.S. If you are ever visiting Washington, please feel free to join Senator Obama and me at our weekly constituent coffee. When the Senate is in session, we provide coffee and donuts every Thursday at 8:30 a.m. as we hear what is on the minds of Illinoisans and respond to your questions. We would welcome your participation. Please call my D.C. office for more details.

04/18/08 Update:

I received the following in reply to my email to Senator Obama regarding our country’s use of torture.

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Dear Michael:

Thank you for contacting me regarding this Administration’s use of inhumane interrogation practices.  I appreciate knowing of your concerns. 

This issue has been the subject of heated legal debate for quite some time now.  The United States is a nation born out of a struggle against tyranny, and our Constitution asserts that the rule of law applies to all men and women, and all branches and agencies of government.  Time and again, America has triumphed because of the sharp contrast we draw to tyranny.  In those battles, our allegiance to our values and the rule of law has been our greatest weapon.

Today, we are engaged in a new kind of battle.  And the debate in which we have engaged since September 11, 2001, is how we are going to respond to the shadowy, stateless, terrorist enemies of the 21st century. Tragically, the Bush Administration has too often chosen to respond to this enemy by abandoning our greatest weapon, by ignoring the values and laws that it deems inconvenient.  Violating international treaties we ratified and U.S. laws that protect us, the Bush Administration has used excessive secrecy, indefinite detention, warrantless wiretapping, and “enhanced interrogation techniques”  like simulated drowning that qualify as torture under any reasonable reading of the law.  For a nation with a history marked by the torture of hundreds of American soldiers in Vietnamese prisons, it is troubling to think that any lawmaker views the practice of torture as effective or justified.

When the Senate conducted debate on the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for FY 2006, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who endured years of torture as a POW during the Vietnam War, offered an amendment to the bill that requires all military interrogations to abide by the U.S. Army Field Manual’s standards for humane treatment and prohibits “cruel, inhuman or degrading” treatment of any prisoner detained by the U.S. You may be interested to know that the Army Field Manual 34-52, Chapter 1, explicitly states:

The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any kind is prohibited by law and is neither authorized nor condoned by the U.S. Government. Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation . . . as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear. . . . it also may place U.S. and allied personnel in enemy hands at greater risk.

We know that torture does not work.  We know that torture violates our laws.  And we know that when we detain suspects without trial or ship them off in the dead of night to countries where we know they’ll be tortured, we compromise our own security and weaken our ability to press for human rights and the rule of law in despotic regimes.  On this issue, former Secretary of State Colin Powell concluded: “Torture is torture is torture.  It is unacceptable.  It is not the way you treat human beings.”

I was proud to vote for Senator McCain’s amendment, which passed by a vote of 90-9 with clear support from both political parties.  I am also a proud co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill to restore habeas corpus rights, the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007 (S. 185).  In light of the CIA’s confirmation that videotapes depicting brutal interrogation techniques were destroyed, I was heartened that the House and Senate passed the FY 2008 Intelligence Authorization bill and included a requirement that subjects CIA interrogators to the same guidelines included in the Army Field Manual. However, the President vetoed this legislation on March 8, and unfortunately the House failed to gather enough votes for a two-thirds majority to override the veto.

Michael, you may rest assured that I will continue to advocate for congressional oversight and inquiry into the Administration’s interrogation to ensure that our greatest weapon is a guiding force in this first great struggle of the 21st century.  I hope you will stay in touch.


Sincerely,



Barack Obama
United States Senator


P.S. Our system does not allow direct response to this email. However, if you would like to contact me again, please use the form on the website: [Link is Broken]

http://obama.senate.gov/contact/