Torture’s Political Invisibility

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via CommonDreams:



Published on Tuesday, August 19, 2008 by the Bangor Daily News (Maine)
Torture’s Political Invisibility
by John Buell


That U.S. military personnel — and their superiors — supported the torture of enemy combatants elicits disturbingly little outrage among most voters. Human beings seldom torture those they regard as like themselves. Humans need and crave community, but throughout history narrow definitions of community and exaggerated claims on its behalf have occasioned grave injustices.

The most widely accepted defense of torture is a limited one: a nation possesses a sovereign right to torture a terrorist who purportedly knows the whereabouts of a ticking time bomb. If authorities had solid reason to know that an individual possessed such knowledge, it would present a serious moral dilemma.

Torture, however, has been employed well beyond those extreme parameters. Jane Mayer argues in her new book “The Dark Side” that after 9-11 the government emphasized “interrogation over due process to pre-empt future attacks” even before any ticking bombs were even being made.

In Portland Phoenix articles, Lance Tapley points out that about 35,000 U.S. citizens are held in solitary confinement at “Supermaxes” (including Maine’s). Many are subjected to torture in the form of beating, sleep deprivation and mental abuse that rival practices at Guantanamo, according to Tapley.

Torture’s political invisibility is remarkable given its counterproductive consequences. Tapley points out that the torture of Supermax prisoners, most of whom are mentally ill, leads to high rates of recidivism and poses great public risk. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/08/19/11067/