Willothewisp

Imagine if a government – let’s say, for the sake of argument, the government of the UK – set up a prison camp on some island to which it claimed its domestic laws did not apply, something off the Scottish coast perhaps, and that it held there, without charge or trial, hundreds men of multiple nationalities, captured outside of UK, who it accused, based on classified evidence, of supporting groups that it claimed were hostile to the UK.

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Now I would like our American readers to imagine if some of these prisoners were Americans – not members of your armed forces, but a contractor the British accused of giving shelter or feeding U.S. troops, or a Dept of the Treasury worker who they accused of financing aggression. Now please imagine that the UK transferred those Americans to the custody of its intelligence agency MI6, and on that basis claimed that it could hold them in secret without any legal process for as long as it wanted. Imagine if those Americans were ultimately given a makeshift military hearing. In this hearing they try to tell the court they had been tortured by their interrogators, but that the tribunal kept this testimony secret because it didn’t want the UK’s enemies to find out how it interrogates prisoners, and thus his defense is not accepted by the tribunal.

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The methods of torture used include “water boarding” . This is where the torturer strap the prisoner to a board with his feet above his head, cover his mouth and nose with cellophane, and pour water over his face to create the sensation of drowning. They also apparently included a technique known as “long-time standing,” in which a prisoner is forced to stand motionless for 48 straight hours or more. If you think this is not torture I suggest that you try standing motionless for the next two hours. Extreme sleep deprivation for days on end, a method that can destroy a body physically just as surely as the rack can, while subjecting the prisoner to loud, constant noise and light. The use of drugs to loosen a prisoners grip on reality and force him to talk. All of these methods were employed by the KGB for decades, and which in their day were condemned by the USA as torture on many occasions.

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Imagine if the prime minister of the UK declared that his country was engaged in a global war on terror, and that anyone with any connection to any group that supported the IRA in, amongst say the Irish American communities in New York or Chicago, was a combatant in that war who could be detained or assassinated wherever he was found. Imagine if the intelligence service of the UK suspected a U.S. resident of sending money to the IRA in Northern Ireland, and on that basis, kidnapped that American off the streets of New York, Washington or Rednecksville, stripped him, bound him, blindfolded him and then strapped him to a stretcher for a long flight in which he had to lay in his own urine and excrement. Then they hold him for years in a secret facility, denied they had him prisoner, hidden even from the International Committee for the Red Cross. Would the president say “Oh, no problem, I guess the prime minister of the UK decided that our citizen was an enemy combatant, so I can’t really complain” If it happened to one of your neighbors would it matter to you ? What if some official in the U.S. intelligence community had given the UK the nod to whisk that your neighbor away, would you consider that official a traitor ?

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Please consider these questions in this scenario:

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1. 1. Do you think the UK is exercising “justice” correctly ?
2. 2. Are they observing human rights ?
3. 3. Are they torturing their prisoners?
4. 4. What would you expect the US to do to get your citizen(s) back?
5. 5. Do you think you might be inclined to take up arms against such flagrant violations of human rights, especially if one of your relatives was amongst those detained ?
6. 6. How do you think the UK’s actions would play out in churches all across America?
7. 7. If these methods were employed how long would it take before an excuse was found to extend the principles to their own citizens in a war on terror /drugs /patent infringements/ copyright infringements / petty theft /littering ?

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Torture does not work, Secretary of State Colin Powell found this out when he delivered his infamous address to the UN Security Council in February 2003, “which argued the case for a preemptive war against Iraq.” In his speech, Powell drew on the testimony of an unnamed “senior terrorist operative” who had told his interrogators that Saddam Hussein had offered to train Al-Qaeda operatives in the use of ‘chemical or biological weapons.’” After the U.S. invasion, it turned out that the terrorist, one Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, had been tortured by his CIA and Egyptian interrogators. Later, at Guantanomo, Libi recanted and admitted that he had lied. So much for evidence obtained through torture and the spin master who relied on it to justify aggression.

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America use to be a beacon of freedom and justice, a leader of democracy. It was not an easy position to have because part of the deal is that you have to take some things on the chin while you maintain the high standards that everyone else needs to aspire to if humanity is ever to lift itself up. It was perhaps unfortunate that at the time of 9/11 America had a group of politicians in power whose only moral yard stick was their own self-interest and enrichment, but in 2008 America has a chance to correct the mistakes of the recent past and remove those who have done so much harm to your fine nation and its high ideals.

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Please stop the injustice of detention without trial, go back to observing international law, stop the immorality of breaking the bodies and minds of human beings with torture, rise above your enemies once again instead of becoming them.

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Author: Judith van der Roos