The Bush administration's two-year-old \War on Terror"" has come under significant criticism from Amnesty International, foreign governments and other human rights watchdog groups for its secrecy surrounding alleged human rights violations by the United States.
From the indefinite detention of ""enemy combatants"" and U.S. suspects without charges to rolling back civil liberties through the un-patriotic Patriot Act, the United States is doing significant damage to its already inconsistent record regarding human rights. But it gets worse.
The Washington Post recently reported that a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, has come forward accusing the United States of shipping him to Syria for 10 months of torture and interrogation under the suspicion of terrorist connections. Arar is now loudly calling for an inquiry in Canada regarding the procedures that led to his torture in order to shed light on one of America's darkest secrets.
The covert process carried out by the CIA is called ""extraordinary rendition,"" and involves turning suspected terrorists over to foreign governments like Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco all of which are known to torture their prisoners. The CIA provides a list of questions and allows foreign services to get the answers by any means necessary. One official explains it this way: ""We don't kick the shit out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the shit out of them."" The programs and facilities are under no independent oversight whatsoever. Even Congress is kept in the dark.
This practice is not new. For years the United States has tight-roped international laws regarding torture by not committing the acts themselves, but fully intending violations to occur when they hand over prisoners. Unfortunately, the tragedy of Sept. 11 has led to more renditions than ever before.
These human rights violations are continuing, despite Colin Powell's insistence on the ""steadfast commitment of the United States to advance internationally agreed human rights principles worldwide"" in its campaign against terrorism. Current policy is better reflected by one CIA official who declared, ""If you're not violating someone's rights some of the time, you're probably not doing your job."" Human rights violations simply continue the vicious cycle of violence, and do little to make anyone safer.
The most ridiculous part of this fiasco is that, besides being an unbelievably barbaric practice, torture is not an effective means of extracting reliable information. Sure, the prisoner usually does confess or divulge information, but the coerced revelations come whether the prisoner is knowledgeable or not. Virtually everyone cracks under torture-including innocents-and will say anything to make it stop.
Sacrificing freedom for questionable security is bad enough. Having our government willfully facilitate the torture of human beings is horrifying beyond description. Of the thousands of people rounded up in the United States after Sept. 11, not a single one has been charged with terrorist activities. This suggests that many of those who are chosen by the government to be tortured overseas are likely to be innocent. But whether suspects are actual terrorists or not is beside the point. As much as we despise terrorists for their hatred and violence, they are still human beings who do not deserve to be tortured. We certainly would not accept the torture of our soldiers, so we should treat others with that same decency.
For many people, the idea that the U.S. government is responsible for regularly facilitating the violation of human rights comes as a surprise. Unfortunately, it is a sad part of our history that all too often gets swept under the rug. The policy of ""extraordinary rendition"" is just one element of myriad atrocities on our hands.
Of course, we have a duty to recognize the positive accomplishments of our country as well, but we absolutely must acknowledge our hypocritical failings. We cannot turn a blind eye to the past or the present, no matter how ugly they appear. Pointing out our failure in carrying out our ideals is not un-American, rather, it represents the highest form of patriotism: reminding our great nation to live up to its lofty aims of human rights and democracy for all.
By Nathan Kalmoe
The Daily Cardinal
The Bush administration's two-year-old ""War on Terror"" has come under significant criticism from Amnesty International, foreign governments and other human rights watchdog groups for its secrecy surrounding alleged human rights violations by the United States.
From the indefinite detention of ""enemy combatants"" and U.S. suspects without charges to rolling back civil liberties through the un-patriotic Patriot Act, the United States is doing significant damage to its already inconsistent record regarding human rights. But it gets worse.
The Washington Post recently reported that a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, has come forward accusing the United States of shipping him to Syria for 10 months of torture and interrogation under the suspicion of terrorist connections. Arar is now loudly calling for an inquiry in Canada regarding the procedures that led to his torture in order to shed light on one of America's darkest secrets.
The covert process carried out by the CIA is called ""extraordinary rendition,"" and involves turning suspected terrorists over to foreign governments like Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco all of which are known to torture their prisoners. The CIA provides a list of questions and allows foreign services to get the answers by any means necessary. One official explains it this way: ""We don't kick the shit out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the shit out of them."" The programs and facilities are under no independent oversight whatsoever. Even Congress is kept in the dark.
This practice is not new. For years the United States has tight-roped international laws regarding torture by not committing the acts themselves, but fully intending violations to occur when they hand over prisoners. Unfortunately, the tragedy of Sept. 11 has led to more renditions than ever before.
These human rights violations are continuing, despite Colin Powell's insistence on the ""steadfast commitment of the United States to advance internationally agreed human rights principles worldwide"" in its campaign against terrorism. Current policy is better reflected by one CIA official who declared, ""If you're not violating someone's rights some of the time, you're probably not doing your job."" Human rights violations simply continue the vicious cycle of violence, and do little to make anyone safer.
The most ridiculous part of this fiasco is that, besides being an unbelievably barbaric practice, torture is not an effective means of extracting reliable information. Sure, the prisoner usually does confess or divulge information, but the coerced revelations come whether the prisoner is knowledgeable or not. Virtually everyone cracks under torture-including innocents-and will say anything to make it stop.
Sacrificing freedom for questionable security is bad enough. Having our government willfully facilitate the torture of human beings is horrifying beyond description. Of the thousands of people rounded up in the United States after Sept. 11, not a single one has been charged with terrorist activities. This suggests that many of those who are chosen by the government to be tortured overseas are likely to be innocent. But whether suspects are actual terrorists or not is beside the point. As much as we despise terrorists for their hatred and violence, they are still human beings who do not deserve to be tortured. We certainly would not accept the torture of our soldiers, so we should treat others with that same decency.
For many people, the idea that the U.S. government is responsible for regularly facilitating the violation of human rights comes as a surprise. Unfortunately, it is a sad part of our history that all too often gets swept under the rug. The policy of ""extraordinary rendition"" is just one element of myriad atrocities on our hands.
Of course, we have a duty to recognize the positive accomplishments of our country as well, but we absolutely must acknowledge our hypocritical failings. We cannot turn a blind eye to the past or the present, no matter how ugly they appear. Pointing out our failure in carrying out our ideals is not un-American, rather, it represents the highest form of patriotism: reminding our great nation to live up to its lofty aims of human rights and democracy for all.
Nathan Kalmoe is a junior majoring in political science.
