Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

What could Rev. Wallis have said in response to O'Reilly's question? Simple.

Shoving a bound Iraqi detainee head first into a sleeping bag, then tying his body up with an electric cord, and then kicking him and holding a hand over his face, smothering him, is certainly torture. That prisoner died. Placing a wet towel over a prisoner's face and dripping water on it, simulating drowning, is torture. And until a short while ago, that tactic known as "water-boarding" was a permitted interrogation technique, approved by the Pentagon. Stripping prisoners naked and chaining them in excruciatingly painful stress positions for hours at a time is torture. Sleep deprivation is torture. Mock executions are torture. Allowing Iraqi guards to rape a young boy in front of a prisoner is torture - both for the boy and the prisoner. Forcing a prisoner to watch while it appears that a woman is being raped, and told that only by talking can he stop that rape, is torture. Keeping a naked, bound, and hooded prisoner in a tiny cell on a bare floor for days at a time is torture. Sexually humiliating a prisoner by parading him around naked and forcing him to pretend to orally service another prisoner while other prisoners are forced to watch is torture. Allowing snarling and snapping dogs to lunge at a prisoner's face until he loses his bladder out of fear is torture. Forcing a prisoner to run through a phalanx of guards, each beating him severely with a stick, until he is finally kicked into a cell, is torture. Forcing prisoners to drink urine is torture. Grabbing a Canadian citizen at an American airport, sending him to Syria, where he is stripped naked and forced to lie on his back with his feet in the air while Syrian interrogators beat the bottoms of his feet with steel cables is torture.

Need I really go on? Why didn't Rev. Wallis have a single one of these examples at hand? Everyone in the world has seen the horrible pictures from Abu Ghraib, countless examples of torture, that could have answered O'Reilly's glib and deceitful question.

The American Civil Liberties Union has made 90,000 pages of documentation available on the web, for anyone to read, which contain countless allegations of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. And again, it is important to point out that many members of the military have faced courts martial and have been convicted for acts of torture and murder. While I believe they should be held accountable, it is truly disturbing that no senior-level officers (stars on the bars), civilian contractors, or administration / Pentagon staffers have faced any charges. These brutal acts were carried out, not simply by a few so-called "bad apples" but either under orders from or vague direction from, people at a higher pay grade than the grunts who are now in the brig.

To my mind, confusing messages are exactly what the White House and the Pentagon intended to send. And, that attitude is still in play. For example, with the imminent release of a new military field manual intended to clarify what behaviors are allowed when handling detainees, isn't it suspicious that the drafters want to leave out the Geneva Convention's 3rd article, prohibiting cruel and degrading treatment? Isn't it also suspicious that the President of the United States issued a "signing statement" when the McCain amendment against torture passed both houses of Congress and landed on Bush's desk. Instead of simply signing the bill, he qualified his signature by basically saying that it didn't bind him as Commander in Chief. No one in the White House has disputed that we are, in fact, sending detainees to countries like Syria, where we know for a fact that torture is used. Of course we ask the Syrians for a letter promising that they won't torture the detainee. Given how much we trust Syrians in other matters, does it really make sense that we would believe their promise not to torture someone we hand them for interrogation?

Another blatant O'Reilly lie during Rev. Wallis' interview was about the European Union's investigation of "extraordinary renditions," sending detainees to countries where they might be tortured. O'Reilly claimed that the EU had not found any evidence of any such program.

Why didn't Rev. Wallis counter that lie? On June 7th, a week before this interview, the EU reported that "14 European countries had colluded with the United States in the covert transfer of terror suspects, while two may have harbored secret CIA prisons." See this link for more details.

While it took me about an hour to write all of this, it could easily have filled up the five minute segment that O'Reilly gave Rev. Wallis in the no-spin zone. While O'Reilly might have used other tactics to keep all of these facts from being exposed on his program, or he might have disputed each and every one of them, at least they would have been aired. Instead, millions of viewers were left with the impression that we don't, in fact, have any evidence of torture anywhere.

People who oppose torture, extraordinary rendition, this war in Iraq, or the many other misdeeds by the Bush Administration need to be better prepared when squaring off against folks like O'Reilly. Or, they should not grace his program with their presence. O'Reilly is a liar and his lies gain credence when the person sitting opposite him can't properly expose that.

LINKS:

Human Rights Watch, the ACLU, Amnesty International, and other organizations have gathered and made public documents which substantiate U.S. government approval of certain interrogation techniques. A comprehensive list of these techniques and records of government review and approval can be found at the Human Rights Watch web site at:

http://hrw.org/backgrounder /usa/0819interrogation.htm

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has a comprehensive database of all documents it has received under a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. These documents can be searched by key words.

http://www.aclu.org/safefre e/torture/torturefoia.html

President Bush's signing statement on the McCain amendment can be found at:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/n ews/releases/2005/12/200512 30-8.html

Specifically, in regard to the McCain amendment, the President said: "The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

About the Writer:

Craig Wiesner is a veteran of the United States Air Force where he served as a Korean Linguist from 1979-1987. He received two Air Force Achievement medals and the Joint Service Achievement medal during his career and was the John Levitow honor graduate from the Air Force Leadership School in 1986. Craig is the co-founder of Reach And Teach, an education company dedicated to peace and social justice. He is on the board of Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice, an interfaith peace organization based in Palo Alto California. Craig is a frequent contributor to the KQED (National Public Radio) perspective series.