Column: Some things are hard to forget

By Dan Ehl
DAILY IOWEGIAN (AND AD EXPRESS) (CENTERVILLE, Iowa)

CENTERVILLE, Iowa — George W. Bush isn’t waiting for some Gerald Ford to pardon him down the road if things go awry. He’s getting official amnesia — amnesty, which I’ve read means “from the Greek stem amnestia, meaning to forget, is an act of the legislature whose aim is to erase an accomplished fact which would otherwise be punishable, and so either to prevent or to stop legal action, or, as the case may be, to erase any sentence.”

Congress is following the lead of such "dirty war" nations as Argentina and Chile by passing an amnesty law protecting U.S. government operatives, up to the president, who have committed or are responsible for human rights crimes.

Though George W. says he is in a fight for civilization, it appears to be a civilization favored by Attila the Hun or Hermann Goering. There is more than enough documentation and physical evidence to prove a large number of suspected terrorists have died or suffered permanent injuries at the hands of U.S. agents.

Under international law, other governments can prosecute violations of the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture. Amnesty International has asked foreign governments to uphold these obligations by investigating all senior U.S. officials involved in our torture scandals.

Among those officials targeted for investigation are Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director George Tenet and senior officers at U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Abu Ghraib, Iraq.

Bush convinced Congress to re-define the government’s interpretation of Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Article 3 bans "outrages upon personal dignity" and "humiliating and degrading treatment."

Those rules sound pretty good when one thinks they would also apply to our own young men and women if they fell into the hands of an enemy.

Bush said such re-defining would provide U.S. officers more leeway in the methods they could use to interrogate “enemy combatants.”

And in the true spirit of a civilized and free democracy, Bush asked for the right to withhold evidence from suspects, as well as being able to hold defendants in custody without telling them why it is necessary (denying habeas corpus protection).

All this is pretty surreal. Here is the president of the United States wanting permission to torture prisoners and be forgiven later if he has to pay the piper. No wonder the rest of the world thinks we’ve gone bonkers.

One method of interrogation approved for CIA use in 2002 is water boarding. According to ABC News, “The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

“According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.”



"The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," says John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.

It reminds me of those old gangster movies where One-Ear Louie is shoving an opposing gang’s member’s head in a toilet stool to learn where the money is hidden, accept now instead of One-Ear Louie, we have Agent Smith.

Experienced CIA officials say such confessions are notoriously unreliable. One would admit to anything under such frightening pressure.

Also, according to ABC News, “Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi, after two weeks of enhanced interrogation, made statements that were designed to tell the interrogators what they wanted to hear. Sources say Al Libbi had been subjected to each of the progressively harsher techniques in turn and finally broke after being water boarded and then left to stand naked in his cold cell overnight where he was doused with cold water at regular intervals.

“His statements became part of the basis for the Bush administration claims that Iraq trained al Qaeda members to use biochemical weapons. Sources tell ABC that it was later established that al Libbi had no knowledge of such training or weapons and fabricated the statements because he was terrified of further harsh treatment.”

The House and Senate both passed the bill and it should be on George W.’s desk by the time this column sees print.

The votes pretty much went along party lines. I’m wondering if Amnesty International is going to add those senators and representatives voting yes to its list of possible war criminals. Maybe that’s half the reason they’re including the amnesty legislation.

Dan Ehl writes for the Daily Iowegian in Centerville.


“We live in a world where amnesia is the most wished-for state. When did history become a bad word?”

John Guare