2008 Woodie Awards
Bush, Justice Dept.sending wrong message on torture
Dan O'Gara
Issue date: 10/12/07 Section: OpEd Page
I guess that I should not have been shocked this week when I read a report in "The New York Times" that detailed how former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department issued a secret memorandum that, in effect, justified torture of terror suspects by the CIA. Does anything this administration does or fails to do shock anyone anymore? Sadly, incompetence has reached a new low.
The story goes that in late 2005, Congress was about to pass the Detainee Treatment Act, which outlawed "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment of prisoners in American custody anywhere in the world, including the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison. In his infinite loyalty to President George W. Bush and more importantly to Vice President Dick Cheney and his counsel David Addington, the newly appointed Gonzales approved a memo (written by the future head of the Office of Legal Counsel Steven Bradbury over the objections of Deputy Attorney General James Comey) that said the CIA's current practices did violate this new standard. The problem with this memo is that the interrogation tactics being used by the CIA hardly conformed to this standard.
They were using tactics such as waterboarding, which, according to "The New York Times," involves "pouring water over a bound prisoner's cloth-covered face to induce fear of suffocation."
I would love to hear Bush explain how this could possibly not be considered "cruel": "Now look here, ya see, we were just tryin' to get those boys some water!" Has it really come to the point in this country that our "Justice" Department is drafting memos approving torture?
What's more, experts say that these type of tactics are usually equally or less effective than softer methods. I know that it is hard for some to get worked up about this torture issue; I mean so what if the "bad guys" are being treated rough, right? Wrong. This is just further evidence that despite Bush's claim to be a "compassionate" conservative, America has drifted so far astray from our goal of being the world's moral beacon that we actually condone things that Jack Bauer dreams about. The real problem is that this sort of activity is only symptomatic of deeper problems. Cheney and Addington have so much influence at the Justice Department that the man who originally drafted the narrow definition of torture for the Department, Dr. John Yoo, was privately called "Dr. Yes" by former AG Ashcroft.
The story goes that in late 2005, Congress was about to pass the Detainee Treatment Act, which outlawed "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment of prisoners in American custody anywhere in the world, including the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison. In his infinite loyalty to President George W. Bush and more importantly to Vice President Dick Cheney and his counsel David Addington, the newly appointed Gonzales approved a memo (written by the future head of the Office of Legal Counsel Steven Bradbury over the objections of Deputy Attorney General James Comey) that said the CIA's current practices did violate this new standard. The problem with this memo is that the interrogation tactics being used by the CIA hardly conformed to this standard.
They were using tactics such as waterboarding, which, according to "The New York Times," involves "pouring water over a bound prisoner's cloth-covered face to induce fear of suffocation."
I would love to hear Bush explain how this could possibly not be considered "cruel": "Now look here, ya see, we were just tryin' to get those boys some water!" Has it really come to the point in this country that our "Justice" Department is drafting memos approving torture?
What's more, experts say that these type of tactics are usually equally or less effective than softer methods. I know that it is hard for some to get worked up about this torture issue; I mean so what if the "bad guys" are being treated rough, right? Wrong. This is just further evidence that despite Bush's claim to be a "compassionate" conservative, America has drifted so far astray from our goal of being the world's moral beacon that we actually condone things that Jack Bauer dreams about. The real problem is that this sort of activity is only symptomatic of deeper problems. Cheney and Addington have so much influence at the Justice Department that the man who originally drafted the narrow definition of torture for the Department, Dr. John Yoo, was privately called "Dr. Yes" by former AG Ashcroft.
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