Torturous Silence on Torture

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Tuesday, September 27, 2005 1:51 PM

Ray McGovern; Torturous Silence on Torture

 

 

 

 

 

Torturous Silence on Torture

By Ray McGovern

t r u t h o u t | Perspective

 

Tuesday 27 September 2005

 

Where do American religious leaders stand on torture? Their

deafening silence evokes memories of the unconscionable behavior of

German church leaders in the 1930s and early 1940s.

 

Despite the hate whipped up by administration propagandists

against those it brands " terrorists, " most Americans agree that

torture should not be permitted. Few seem aware, though, that although

President George W. Bush says he is against torture, he has openly

declared that our military and other interrogators may engage in

torture " consistent with military necessity. "

 

For far too long we have been acting like " obedient Germans. "

Shall we continue to avert our eyes - even as our mainstream media

begin to expose the " routine " torture conducted by US forces in Iraq,

Afghanistan, and Guantánamo?

 

Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman John Warner took a strong

rhetorical stand against torture early last year after seeing the

photos from Abu Ghraib. Then he succumbed to strong political pressure

to postpone Senate hearings on the subject until after the November

2004 election. Those of us who live in Virginia might probe our

consciences on this. Shall we citizens of the once-proud Old Dominion

simply acquiesce while Sen. Warner shirks his constitutional duty?

 

We have come a long way since Virginia patriot Patrick Henry

loudly insisted that the rack and the screw were barbaric practices

that must be left behind in the Old World, " or we are lost and

undone. " Can Americans from other states consult their own consciences

with respect to what Justice may require of them in denouncing torture

as passionately as the patriots who founded our nation?

 

On September 24, The New York Times ran a detailed report

regarding the kinds of " routine " torture that US servicemen and women

have been ordered to carry out. This week's Time also has an article

on the use of torture by US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo.

 

Those two articles are based on a new report from Human Rights

Watch, a report that relies heavily on the testimony of a West Point

graduate, an Army Captain who has had the courage to speak out. A

Pentagon spokesman has dismissed the report as " another predictable

report by an organization trying to advance an agenda through the use

of distortion and errors of fact. " Judge for yourselves; the report

can be found here. Grim but required reading.

 

Inhuman

 

History, even recent history, demonstrates once again that total

power corrupts totally. See if you can guess the author of the following:

 

In this land that has inherited through our forebears the noblest

understandings of the rule of law, our government has deliberately

chosen the way of barbarism ...

 

There is a price to be paid for the right to be called a civilized

nation. That price can be paid in only one currency - the currency of

human rights ... When this currency is devalued a nation chooses the

company of the world's dictatorships and banana republics. I indict

this government for the crime of taking us into that shady fellowship.

 

The rule of law says that cruel and inhuman punishment is beneath

the dignity of a civilized state. But to prisoners we say, " We will

hold you where no one can hear your screams. " When I used the word

" barbarism, " this is what I meant. The entire policy stands condemned

by the methods used to pursue it.

 

We send a message to the jailers, interrogators, and those who

make such practices possible and permissible: " Power is a fleeting

thing. One day your souls will be required of you. "

 

--Bishop Peter Storey, Central Methodist Mission, Johannesburg,

June 1981

 

I asked a Muslim friend recently what the Koran says about

torture. After consulting an imam, she reported that the Koran does

not address the subject because the Koran deals only " with human

behavior. " Do not we of the Judeo-Christian tradition also reject

torture as inhuman and never morally permissible?

 

The various rationalizations for torture do not bear close

scrutiny. Intelligence specialists concede that the information

acquired by torture cannot be considered reliable. Our own troops are

brutalized when they follow orders to brutalize. And they are exposed

to much greater risk when captured. Our country becomes a pariah among

nations. Above all, torture is simply wrong. It falls into the same

category of evil as slavery and rape. Torture is inhuman and immoral,

whether or not our bishops and rabbis can summon the courage to name

it so.

 

It Is up to Us

 

By keeping their tongue-tied heads way down, our religious leaders

have forfeited the moral authority with which they otherwise could

speak. They end up playing the role of Hitler's Reichsbishops, who

supported - or at least acquiesced in - the policies and methods of

the Third Reich.

 

Many American men and women - Jews, Christians, Muslims of

Abrahamic tradition - have learned not to depend on clergy leaders who

bless the Empire. The inescapable conclusion is, as popular theologian

Annie Dillard reminds us, " There is only us; there never has been any

other. "

 

The question is this: Are we are up to the challenge of

confronting the evil of torture, or shall we prove Patrick Henry

right? Is our country about to be " lost and undone? "

 

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Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the

ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He is co-founder

of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and lives in Virginia.