U.S. torture: it isn't over. And Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) knows it. Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Judiciary and the Senate Intelligence committees, believes the Obama administration should fully investigate and seek accountability. That's why he just told 400 health professional students from 75 schools who gathered today at the Physicians for Human Rights national student conference in Providence, Rhode Island, that he backs a call to investigate U.S. torture and hold the Bush administration accountable.
Philip Marcelo writes in The Providence Journal:
"We need to follow this thing into those dense weeds and shine a bright light into what was done," said the state’s junior senator. "We can paper it over if we choose, but the blueprint is still lying there for others to do it all over again. ... It’s important that we not let this moment pass."...
Challenging the former administration’s use of torture has been one of the key areas of advocacy for the D.C.-based organization, and its leaders passed on to Whitehouse a petition signed by conference goers calling for Congress to form a committee to investigate the federal government’s use of torture and other coercive methods of interrogation.
U.S. torture: it isn't over.
Under Bush, "the U.S. government took part in inhumane, brutal interrogation techniques that were torture," [Sen. Whitehouse] said. "The question is, what does it mean when a country as a whole heads down a road like this? It is an important story to tell to understand the way democracy works."
Closing Guantanamo Bay is a good start, but it's only a start. More work needs to be done by the Obama adminstration to prohibit torture, investigate what went wrong, and hold those who ordered torture accountable.
William Fisher of the Inter Press Service -- UN Bureau writes:
While applauding President Barack Obama's recent executive orders banning torture and other harsh interrogation practices, medical authorities are calling attention to a little-reported section of the Army's Field Manual on Interrogation that they say still allows the use of tactics that can constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under U.S. and international law.
The suspect section of the Manual is known as Annex M, which allows the use of sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, and isolation, termed "separation" in the Manual. Obama's executive orders directed all government agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to follow the manual for interrogations.
But Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a Nobel laureate not-for-profit organisation, is calling on the task force appointed by the president to review U.S. interrogation and transfer policies to revoke the Appendix and consult with human rights organisations as part of the review process.
John Bradshaw, director of PHR's office in Washington, told IPS, "The technique of separation allowed by Appendix M sounds innocuous, but in reality it allows the use of sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and isolation."
"Particularly when used in combination, these techniques amount to psychological torture. The Obama administration must close this loophole in the Army Field Manual by eliminating Appendix M, which leaves the door open to torture," he said.
We're a nation of laws. Torture is illegal, immoral, and ineffective. And sadly, U.S. torture is not yet over. Much work remains to be done. For example, PHR calls on President Obama and Congress to immediately authorize a non-partisan commission to investigate the authorization, legal justification, and implementation of the Bush Administration's regime of psychological and physical torture. Any accountability mechanism must include a subgroup tasked with investigating the participation of health professionals in detainee abuse. Additionally, any evidence that U.S. officials violated anti-torture law should be turned over to the Department of Justice.
PHR urges the Obama Administration to end the use of Behavioral Science Consultants (BSCs) in interrogations. The continued use of BSCs violates medical ethics and subverts the traditions of the healing professions. Any procedures currently in place involving health professionals in interrogations which violate medical ethics should be prohibited.
"The desire to turn the page on the past seven years of detainee abuse and torture by US forces is understandable," PHR CEO Donaghue said. "However, President Obama, Congress and the health professions will not have fulfilled their obligation to the Constitution and medical ethics if we settle only for reform without accountability."
Disclosure: I am PHR's Chief Communications Officer.