Bill Moyers/Michael Winship: On Memorial Day Weekend, America Reckons with Torture
Published on Friday, May 25, 2012 by
Common Dreams
On Memorial Day Weekend, America Reckons with Torture
by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
Facing the truth is hard to do, especially the truth about ourselves. So Americans have been sorely pressed to come to terms with the fact that after 9/11 our government began to torture people, and did so in defiance of domestic and international law. Most of us havent come to terms with what that meant, or means today, but we must reckon with torture, the torture done in our name, allegedly for our safety.
Its no secret such cruelty occurred; its just the truth wed rather not think about. But Memorial Day is a good time to make the effort. Because if we really want to honor the Americans in uniform who gave their lives fighting for their country, well redouble our efforts to make sure were worthy of their sacrifice; well renew our commitment to the rule of law, for the rule of law is essential to any civilization worth dying for.
After 9/11, our government turned to torture, seeking information about the terrorists who committed the atrocity and others who might follow after them. Senior officials ordered the torture of men at military bases and detention facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq, in secret CIA prisons set up across the globe, and in other countries including Libya and Egypt where abusive regimes were asked to do Washingtons dirty work.
The best known of all the prisons remains Guantanamo on the southeast coast of Cuba. For years, the United States naval base there seemed like an isolated vestige of the Cold War defying the occasional threat from Fidel Castro to shut it down. But since 9/11, Guantanamo Gitmo has been a detention center, an extraterritorial island jail considered outside the jurisdiction of U.S. civilian courts and rules of evidence. Like the notorious Room 101 of George Orwells 1984, the chamber that contains the thing each victim fears the most to make them confess, Guantanamos name has become synonymous with torture. Nearly 800 people have been held there. George W. Bush eventually released 500 of them, sometimes after years of confinement and cruelty. Barack Obama has freed 67, but 169 remain, even though the president pledged to close the Guantanamo prison within a year of his inauguration. Now, forty-six are so dangerous, our government says, they will be held indefinitely, without trial. .............(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/25