Home > It’s not who they are — it’s who we are
Justice Attack-Terrorism Governments USA
WASHINGTON - There is a quiet struggle going on in the nation’s capital, and the stakes are the very soul of the Republican Party and this administration.
Three senior Republican senators wrote a small amendment into the defense appropriations bill this summer that outlaws cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of all detainees in American custody.
No one can call Sens. John Warner, R-Va., Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., soft on anything, much less terrorism. They constitute the Republican leadership of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
All three have worn the uniform of our country. McCain spent long years in the hands of America’s enemies as a prisoner of war in the Hanoi Hilton.
The Bush White House is doing all that it can to stop this legislation from passing. Vice President Dick Cheney took the three senators to the woodshed and told them that their law would tie President Bush’s hands in the war against terrorism. His bombast carried no weight with the three senators.
On the floor of the Senate, before everyone left on vacation, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., sounded the administration line: There is no need for this legislation because we are not dealing with prisoners of war but "terrorists."
McCain stood up and responded that the debate was not "about who they are. It’s about who we are."
We are Americans, the senator said, and we hold ourselves to a higher standard than those who slaughter the innocent in Iraq or Afghanistan, or in London or on 9-11 here at home.
This debate has a special resonance as investigation after investigation into the outrages against prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and others into the mistreatment of detainees held in American custody at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, continue to focus all blame at the lowest possible level — this in spite of new testimony that strongly suggests that the blame, like cream, settles much nearer the top.
A few days ago, the former warden of Abu Ghraib was offering testimony in the case of two of those low-level American military guards accused of using military dogs to terrorize Iraqi detainees.
Maj. David DiNenna testified that this illegal use of dogs was suggested by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, then-commander of Guantanamo, who was sent to Iraq in August 2003 on an urgent mission to review and revise prisoner interrogation methods there.
In sworn testimony before Congress on May 19, 2004, Miller denied that he had ever recommended the use of dogs for interrogation at Abu Ghraib, or that they were ever used at Guantanamo.
Army investigators reported last month that in fact while Miller commanded at Gitmo, an al Qaeda suspect named Mohamed Qahtani was faced with snarling military dogs, forced to wear women’s underwear on his head and was led around by a dog leash attached to his chains.
Sound familiar? Remember those nasty soldier photos that started all the ruckus early in 2004 at Abu Ghraib?
And lest it escape anyone’s notice: Miller was not acting on his own initiative. The investigators found that the interrogation of Qahtani was conducted under rules approved by Secretary of Defense Donald L. Rumsfeld on Dec. 2, 2002.
Under protests from military lawyers, the Rumsfeld standard was revised in the spring of 2003. Yet the same practices would later be used at Abu Ghraib.
DiNenna, in his testimony, hit a raw nerve: "We understood that [Miller] was sent over by the secretary of defense."
The administration has stonewalled, bobbed and weaved and hidden from the truth with the acquiescence, at least until now, of a Republican-controlled Congress that has failed to follow up even when there is evidence that people have been lying right to their faces.
The senators — Warner, McCain and Graham — have taken the first step toward shedding some light in the darker corners of the dungeon. Don’t be surprised if that light finds a lot of people who rank much higher than specialist 4 or staff sergeant cowering in the corners.
Please repeat after the good senator who knows about prisons and the torture of helpless human beings:
This is not about who they are. This is about who we are. We are Americans, and we hold ourselves to a higher standard of conduct. And, no, the end does not justify the means. Not now. Not ever, when the means include torturing prisoners.
Joseph L. Galloway is senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers.
Forum posts
10 August 2005, 01:16
Common it is not just you got caught red handed. But America was never a good example for human rights. Segration until 1965? Beating up of black voters during the last elections!
Learn about the history of your country!
They might be just bad - but you are evil and not willing to apologize for your crime America!