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Torture is of course endemic in Turkey, especially in police stations but increasingly in jails since the transfer to cell-type prisons, but the state rarely acknowledges that it tortures. Steve K. ____________________________________ >From: mart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >To: Undisclosed-Recipient:; >Subject: Fw: Should the US use Torture? Already does, >[WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] >Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 02:09:13 -0500 > >HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK >--------------------------- > > >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: Should the US Use Torture - It Already Does (Cockburn) > > >Should the US Use Torture - It Already Does (Cockburn) >Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit > >WorkingForChange - (Creators Syndicate) Nov 15, 2001 >http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemId=12340 > >Shock to the system: >Should torture be used in the U.S.? It already is. >by Alexander Cockburn > >Remember the "third degree"? It used to be the standard way many >police departments in this country extracted confessions from >criminal suspects. The practice was sharply diminished after the 1931 >Wickersham Report prepared by the National Commission on Law >Observance and Enforcement, which found that the "'third degree' -- >the infliction of physical or mental pain to extract confessions or >statements -- was 'widespread throughout the country' and was >'thoroughly at home in Chicago.'" > >The methods identified in the Report "range from beating to harsher >forms of torture. The commoner forms are beating with the fists or >some implement, especially the rubber hose, that inflicts pain, but >is not likely to leave permanent visible scars ... authorities often >threaten bodily injury ... and have gone to the extreme of procuring >a confession at the point of a pistol.'" It further found that the >practice of police torture in the United States was "shocking in its >character and extent, violative of American traditions and >institutions, and not to be tolerated." > >So the third degree gave way to the jailhouse snitch and other >resources developed by the police to clinch their cases. > >The torture issue has been hanging around now for a month or so, as >noisome as a nineteenth century London fog. Open the Nov. 5 edition >of Newsweek, and there is Jonathan Alter, munching on the week's hot >topic, namely: Should the FBI torture obdurate Sept. 11 suspects in >the Bureau's custody here in the United States? Alter's tone was >lightly facetious, as in "Couldn't we at least subject them to >psychological torture, like tapes of dying rabbits or high-decibel >rap?" > >As so often with unappealing labor, Alter arrived at the usual >-- American solution outsource the job: "We'll have to think about >-- transferring some >suspects to our less squeamish allies." > >What's striking about Alter's commentary and others writing in the >same idiom is the abstraction from reality, as if torture is so >indisputably a dirty business that all painful data had best be >avoided. One would have thought it hard to be frivolous about the >subject of torture, but Alter manages it. > >Would one know from his commentary that under international covenants >torture is illegal? One would not, and one assumes that Alter regards >the issue as entirely immaterial. Would one know that in recent years >the United States has been charged by the UN, and also by human >rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, as tolerating >torture in prisons in many states, by methods ranging from solitary, >23-hour-a-day confinement in concrete boxes for years on end, to >activating 50,000 volt shocks through a mandatory belt worn by a >prisoner? > >Alter expresses a partiality for "truth drugs," an enthusiasm shared >by the U.S. Navy after the war against Hitler, when its intelligence >officers got on the trail of Dr. Kurt Plotner's research into "truth >serums" at Dachau. Plotner gave Jewish and Russian prisoners high >doses of mescaline and then observed their behavior, in which they >expressed hatred for their guards and made confessional statements >about their own psychological makeup. The Navy's interest was >anticipated by the OSS, which developed a THC-based truth serum of >its own in its labs in St. Elizabeth's Hospital. The serum was tried >without any success on scientists working on the Manhattan Project. > >Start torturing, and it's easy to get carried away. Torture destroys >the tortured and corrupts the society that sanctions it. What about >Israel, which called an official halt to torture in 1999? They're >still torturing. In July, AP and the Baltimore Sun relayed charges >from the Israeli human rights organization Beth T'selem of "severe >torture" by police of Palestinian youths as young as 14, who were >badly beaten, their heads shoved into toilet bowls and so forth. > >But Israel subcontracted, too. When Israel finally retreated from its >"security strip" in southern Lebanon, run by its puppet South >Lebanese Army, the journalist Robert Fisk visited Khiam prison. His >report for The Independent, May 25, 2000, began thus: "The torturers >had just left, but the horror remained. There was the whipping pole >and the window grilles where prisoners were tied naked for days, >freezing water thrown over them at night. Then there were the >electric leads for the little dynamo -- the machine mercifully taken >off to Israel by the interrogators -- which had the inmates shrieking >with pain when the electrodes touched their fingers or penises. And >there were the handcuffs, which an ex-prisoner handed to me yesterday >afternoon. Engraved into the steel were the words: 'The Peerless >Handcuff Co. Springfield, Mass. Made in USA.' And I wondered, in >Israel's most shameful prison, if the executives over in Springfield >knew what they were doing when they sold these manacles." > >If those handcuffs are sold these days to the FBI's subcontractor of >choice, at least the executives will know they have Jonathan Alter to >explain the patriotic morality of their bottom line. But at least >Alter is only a pundit. For now, the line from the U.S. Justice >Department is superior in moral fiber. U.S. Attorney General John >Ashcroft told Ted Koppel recently: "We don't want anyone to be >subjected to interrogation that would violate their rights. And I >mean by that, we don't want to extort any kind of confession. We >don't believe extorted confessions are reliable ... We don't engage >in those kinds of practices. As a matter of fact, if I were to learn >that so -- those kinds of practices had been undertaken -- and I have >had no report of that -- I would be very distressed, and I would take >action." > >================================================================= > NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems > Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us > 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 > http://www.blythe.org e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >================================================================= > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
