Bush Denial of Barbarism

Beginning when recently resigned Attorney General Alberto Gonzales stated that the Geneva Convention was “quaint”, to the torture committed at Abu Ghraib, to our new Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, who refused to acknowledge water boarding is torture, I believe all Americans need to speak out loudly.

Fortunately we do have a few legislators who do speak out against torture, but our President insists, “We do not do torture” since with enemy combatant prisoners rather than bona-fide military enemies he’s not required to honor the Geneva Convention nor the Army Field Manual.  Another dichotomy on the “We do not do torture” issue has been the practice of U.S. agents seizing certain suspected (no attorney access) terrorists and sending them to torture practicing allied countries for interrogation.

It is certainly understandable for those who say that when you are in conflict with evil adversaries you have no option but to move to their level to survive.  If those in power have accepted that premise and the majority of Americans either by agreement or acquiescence go along, what is the statement we have made?  For me at least, it says our uniquely American values have become “quaint”, no longer relevant in this mad world.

At the close of World War 11 in the South Pacific we had thousands of Japanese prisoners on our hands.  The first thing that came to my mind were the stories of brutality wreaked upon American prisoners by the Japanese in despicable violation of the Geneva Convention.  Have you not heard of the Bataan Death March where hundreds of American soldiers were marched for days in the blistering heat and died without water from dehydration, exhaustion, and beatings?  But one example only.

As a U.S. soldier, when I was given the task of supervising a work detail of Japanese prisoners, you might imagine what was on my mind, and it wasn’t pretty.  While I did not torture, I was not kind.  It wasn’t long before the word came down from the officer in charge of prisoners affairs; humane treatment was the order of the day.  I needed to admit a notable degree of resentment, but it became a great lesson at a young age,19, in American values.

Again, there is certainly an adamant argument that inhumane treatment for the sake of revenge is not the same as torture to gain vital information; terrorists certainly use it--if that’s who we want to identify with.  Above all, I would hope each of us would contact our respective U.S. Representative or Senator on the torture issue, give our opinion , and ask for their stand.

Buz Cormany
Medina, OH