Posted by Jack Healey

in The Huffington Post

Back in the late 1970′s, many governments in Latin America waged coordinated campaigns of major criminality within their respective borders and against their own citizens. People would just go missing and their government was responsible. Families were left with a hole where their father, mother, brother or sister had once been and there was no means of filling that hole. The human rights movement gave this phenomenon a name… “disappearance.” Naming this phenomenon helped human rights organizations mobilize against this evil practice. It gave this human rights abuse a face, a title, a handle and a short way to explain this government sponsored criminality.

Today, my sense is that we need another name for a phenomenon growing in our own government here in the United States. It is criminal as well. Since the attacks of 9/11, the U.S. government has tortured people captured in the course of the war on terrorism. It’s always called something else, like “enhanced interrogation;” but, make no mistake, it is torture. Obama has said that the U.S. government does not torture, but substantial evidence refutes this assertion. There are government memos detailing the allowable physical and psychological abuse that can be inflicted upon people held prisoner by U.S. forces. There is the testimony of those held in places like Guantanamo Bay and Bagram, and later released by the U.S. military. And then there are those horrifying photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners held at the Iraqi prison in Abu Ghraib.  The Obama administration is not interested in pursuing either the lawyers who actually approved of torture and wrote memos in support of it or the doctors who participated in monitoring the effects and prolonging the torture of detainees. This is very unlike the formerly repressive regimes in Chile, Argentina and Peru, where government abuses were investigated by succeeding administrations and human rights abusers were prosecuted.

People forget that, in Nazi Germany, the first two classes of professionals who went over to support Hitler were the doctors and lawyers. It is the same now for this new phenomenon. Before 9/11, the American government hated torture, enacted laws against it and pressured other governments to prevent it. The United States would cut off international aid to “human rights abusing nations.” We were the angels of democracy and condemned the devils of torture. No longer. Not after 9/11, when lawyers acting under the authority of the United States military effort decided that they could redefine torture. One of these lawyers ended up as a professor and the other is… hold on, a U.S. federal judge. Members of the medical profession, too, are guilty of enabling the U.S. military by offering questionable medical opinions regarding what type of treatment a prisoner can endure and then monitoring the abuse during the course of interrogations.

Somehow, the U.S. government would have the world believe that it knows who the bad guys are, even without any discernible due process. And so it only hurts those detainees who have already hurt us or could hurt us in the future. Few American soldiers went to jail after being photographed torturing prisoners in their custody. No generals were held accountable; no CIA agents; no Blackwater contractors. General Petraeus knows this and has spoken to the issue. More troubling, there is a double standard which hurts U.S. military efforts. The fact is that the generals and enlisted troops know that they can go to jail if they have been found to have mistreated prisoners, but military contractors performing the same function are more likely to avoid prosecution.

I propose using the word “shadows” to represent all of the people held without bail, judge and lawyer. “Enemy combatants” is the new word because the U.S. military would like to avoid using more traditional terms that suggest detainees have rights, even while in custody. The term is a sanitized form designed to suggest that the people in custody are somehow already guilty of acts against the United States. The United States should conform to some standard of transparency and publish the names of those held in its custody. The world’s greatest democracy should not be in the business of spiriting people out of sight and outside of a legal system with built-in safeguards. The United States should not create shadows while it pursues its security objectives.

If, in fact, American legal power can create a class of people who cannot avail themselves of the protections of an impartial judge and an attorney to represent them, then the United States will be stripped of its righteousness and be reduced to a military force in the world that operates off of old standards and old military habits. We will thus strip the Constitution and the Bill of Rights of their majesty and turn the U.S. into the policemen of the world, on every corner of the earth, mighty but not moral.

Posted by Jack Healey

in The Huffington Post

Governments need to lead the nation the way good drivers operate a vehicle (you may not talk on your cell phone while driving). To avoid trouble, one must look ahead as well as in the rear-view mirror. To neglect either direction will invite serious trouble.

Eric Holder has called for a limited review of the past regarding torture accusations of the CIA. A good decision but not a great decision. Let me try to tell you why.

Governments that torture will inevitably inherit the hatred of people everywhere, and appropriately so. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention is clear in its statement of No Torture. Any government that does not keep that standard before their soldiers, intelligence people and prison guards risks the friendships that decency brings.

Not looking in the mirror when there has been a pattern of torture, or even the torture of one person, is immature denial of a dark past that should not occur again. There needs to be a review, a probe, and a study.

Violators must be chased in each case. I have met more victims of torture and heard more stories than one man should hear. And what I see time and again is this:

First, victims of torture want the torture to stop and second, they want to know who gave the orders.

Who gives the orders to torture? Failing to provide that answer is not an option. Human progress demands answers for Human Rights violations. If you are the father or the mother of a victim, you want and deserve an answer. Democratic governments were made for the good of its citizens. Thus, once torture is alleged, the government must act and dig into the facts of all the violations, not just some.

If you want a moment of despair from which you can escape, ask a survivor of torture what happened to him or her (two separate issues usually). Ask the person when, how did it feel, how long did it last, where did they hurt you, was it once or twice or weeks and months? How did you survive? How did you recuperate? As you ask, watch the eyes, the body reactions, help wipe the tears and the sweat, be prepared to catch one if they fall, watch the fear come and sweep over the room like a tsunami. Suicide often becomes an unseen but real visitor.

Then remember this: Almost all torturers go free. That is the history. A few brave nations are recently trying to turn this fact around: Peru, Argentina, Chile, Rwanda, Bosnia. But the damage torture brings onto the citizens is immense and there is little interest in a real and wide pursuit of justice for the offended. Sixty-three years after the founding of the United Nations the wickedness of torture is alive and well, and spreading. Will this tide of abuse continue?

If you feel torture should be allowed to protect our national interests and therefore we are exempt as a nation, at least do this one thing: read or meet a story of a survivor of torture. Women in particular need to look closely at these stories, for their gender is usually abused for weeks and months by many. 300,000 rapes in the Congo, 30,000 in Bosnia, I could go on, but why?

When the dogs of war are let into the jails, into intelligence meetings and into hidden rooms in hidden countries, cold sweat should come to the back of your neck for any one inside that chamber. If that is your sister, cousin, friend, you will pray and beg God for help. Little relief will come but you will demand the standard of No Torture should be kept and all violators prosecuted, no matter what the President says.

When governments torture, the car is crashing. And, whether you like it or not, the citizens of the U.S. will be implicated in the post-crash police report. It is now time to remove ourselves from this list. By chasing all the violators of people, we begin a process of saying ‘no more’ once again. Maybe this time we might mean it. The world’s decent are looking to see how the U.S. will act. After preaching for years that we are the greatest nation on Earth, isn’t it time to prove it?

Posted by Jack Healey

in The Huffington Post

As in horseshoes, basketball and love, “almost” does not count. It is either a score, or not, in sports. It is in love, or not in love. It is the same with torture. A government that almost tortures does torture. The act debases the individual suffering torture and breaks the law as well. The torture victim spends the rest of their lives trying to make their shame into their glory. Many do not make it. Many never really come back. Many victims do come back but never is the horror forgotten for long.

Looking into one’s own military for criminal violations of abusing prisoners is hard to do. Here in America, the new administration is not hastening to do that for understandable reasons. It is hard. Harder yet, but necessary, is to avoid looking like they are just chasing and embarrassing the predecessors. But looking back is necessary for two reasons; crimes must be researched and pursued (nature of the law) and we must help victims receive justice.

Looking into the daily use of torture around the world will certainly terrify the toughest of us. The abusing governments on every continent always and forever say, “it is necessary for the safety of the nation.” All nations have “good” reasons to torture until the human rights groups show up– probing, asking, looking at wounds, checking with families, speaking with guards and lawyers looking for patterns of torture.

Today in Burma, the military junta is torturing its people. Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy, won 82% of the votes in the 1990 election. This means she should be Prime Minister of her country. The military placed her under house arrest shortly after this election to prevent her from assuming her role. She is an “almost leader.” There was almost a democracy. But as in horseshoes and basketball and love and torture, almost is not good enough. And the small difference between what should be and what is, has resulted in a human rights crisis. The almost government of Burma is still not representing its people.

Accountability goes with the rule of law, or there eventually is none. If we do believe that torture is necessary in some cases, why not make that a national discussion? Nations have found many ways to handle a human rights crisis. Truth commissions. Presidential pardons. Amnesty after truth. Many nations have found a way to expose the truth and then unite the country around the truth of the past.

A worldwide dialogue with torture victims will bring a tsunami of tears that would wash our shore and embarrass the supporters of torture to no end. Millions are tortured. Some governments call it “physical pressure.” Some call it “getting the truth.” Some know the data gotten from the victim is useless and they know torture is a warning to others, not a device to get correct data. But one must also accept the reality of the victim. The victim always wants the truth to be told. Exceptions are few. When a nation does torture, it joins other nations doing the same. If we eliminate torture and find another way to deal with the offenders, we can join the courageous nations of Chile, Argentina, Rwanda and South Africa who have risen above their horrific pasts to set an example, and finally rid the world of this routine state practice.

Leaders in our country are beginning to wrestle with whether we should prosecute the people of our past. We can find a way to resolve our past and heal our wounds. As we move into the new year, with a new administration and a new outlook on the world, let us work toward “no on torture” both at home and around the world. No more almosts. Almost is not good enough.