US at Risk for Tsunami – From Use of Torture

Tsunamis are breaks in the earth that send shockwaves to lands far and wide. Thailand and Indonesia suffered a massive one a few years back. These countries are still repairing the damage. Our own country faces an imminent tsunami caused by our government’s use of torture. It will bring its own break to this nation, to our people and to our soldiers.

In order to protect the tourists and residents in the tourist sections of Thailand from another tsunami, an enormous sound system was installed so that a loud warning can call all to higher and safer ground. Others don’t need a sound system. It was discovered that there is a community of people who live on the sea in Thailand that knew instinctively the tsunami was coming and headed up to the mountains and completely avoided any personal losses. They saved themselves and their possessions. Few did know; most did not know the power of the sea.

Our country will divide in much the same way. There are those who know instinctively that a tsunami is coming – caused by the earthquake of allowing torture to the prisoners of this nation. Those of us who know victims of torture feel the destruction that is coming because we know of the immense and wide debasement of so many people for so long by so many torturers for all the so called ‘right’ reasons.

Many, many nations are still waging political and legal battles over accountability regarding torture in their past. Chile, South Africa, Peru and Argentina to name a few. ‘National security’ is used as a justification by these governments so they can send the torturer into the chambers to harm their citizens. Do we Americans think we are any different? Do we think our torturers are better people? Better than the secret agents of other countries? Or that we have a clearer right to torture because we feel somehow that we re a superior people and that we know what we are doing over here? Or if you hit us, all bets are off and we are a vicious people at the base?

As Albert Camus said, those who receive the lash and those who count the lash know that governments will always find a way to harm someone over a perceived threat to national security. History is filled with such madness. Millions have been tortured, many to death. Each violating government will tell anyone that “it was necessary because we had a serious threat.”

The American public is watching both political parties debating national security and human rights as if they are natural enemies of one another. Attorney Generals in the cabinet of the President of the USA may even approve of water boarding, clearly a torture weapon. What is the rest of the world to think of this kind of behavior? Are these civil servants who are willing to torture to be the new cardinals of the new inquisition? Should the torturers for the USA be given a medal for doing such a good job if they in fact do the torturing?

As the world views this debate among our politicians, the world is watching the darkness set in on our American dreams. If torture is approved, does it not ultimately go to harming our support for the troops? The military people will tell us every time that torture is to be avoided. Military people will all say it does hurt the soldiers if their own country is torturing. Some will argue that our soldiers will get tortured anyway. The answer is that might be true, but it is criminal and not normal and therefore accountable to courts. Criminals can be chased and caught from time to time.

We Americans need our own sound system to tell us the tsunami is coming…should not the screams of millions of torture victims be loud enough? Are not the examples over the last century by left and right governments across the globe enough? What effect can those of us who know the tsunami is coming have on the population as a whole when the media refuses to discuss this topic for ay real length of time…and refuses to interview torture victims?

The tortured and those who know their wounds know an earthquake with a tsunami is coming…..the ground has shifted and the rules have been broken. American soldiers will be the first to suffer this shift. Those who pretend to support the troops are silent. Few exceptions, including John McCain, do stand out in this effort. The powerless and the poor are in more danger than ever, for they are the usual inheritors of governmental lashings, all for the ‘right’ reason of course.

The prisoner who is a threat will say anything to get out of the torture chamber. If trained, he will lie for his cause and fool you into the wrong course of action. Do we not as a nation embarrass ourselves when some of our presidential candidates even agree that torture can be used? Think of all the people who have suffered torture when they hear this debate. Millions have been hurt by governments. Few torture victims ever get back to normal. Most never recuperate fully. Some commit suicide many years later because of the ever present memory of the debasement.

Americans will suffer the consequence of the Bush decision to torture…though he says we do not torture. We all know the Bush people tried to re-write the law to do exactly that. Torture occurred in the prisons of Iraq, in our prison in Cuba, in the prisons of Morocco, Jordan and Syria. It is called rendition instead of torture – as if euphemisms will dull the justice loving spirit of Americans. It is called ‘physical pressure or stress pressure.”

This historical moment may seem small to some. But to those who follow human events around the world, torture policy makes giant footprints in history.

A tsunami is on the way…get our nation to higher ground or suffer the consequences.

Quo vadis USA?

The United States entered the turn of the 21st century feeling like it knew what it was doing. Communism had failed in Eastern Europe with little bloodshed; apartheid in southern Africa was overcome by decency; military dictators were appropriately ousted all over Latin American. The rule of law was spreading over the globe as never before. Many dissidents who had previously suffered from breakdowns of the rule of law went from jails into executive power to restore justice before the law. Torture was more of a trait of the struggling, poorer nations than the rich western ones. The Middle East had the attention of the American President. The long war in Ireland was slowly coming to an end.

American apologies for inaction and neglect were given for Rwanda and Bosnia. Some humility, rather than hubris, was showing up in American diplomacy. We had international support. The first war in Iraq had a coalition of some merit.

Artists showed citizen power and citizen leadership regarding many of the disasters in the world. They were using their talent and money to help fight poverty, hunger and human rights abuses. Celebrities were responding to each national and international need as it arose. Americans were a confidant people. Leading the world into a higher respect for the rule of law seemed to be a shared goal with the rest of the world. Primacy of human rights was a key part of US foreign and domestic policy. The future was bright for shared values.

The wake up call
Then the Supreme Court decided an American election. Five people with long judicial backgrounds decided they would pick the US president. The Supreme Court thrashed the rule of law in our democracy, which dictates that the majority wins in an election, and the voting of the nation was thrown out. An elite stepped in. Like many historic houses in Washington DC, the house walls of the Supreme Court were separating, splitting and showing wear and tear on the Constitution of this country.

The 9/11 strikes and the war in Iraq have left our country in a much different situation. We now have few, if any, answers to the issues before us as a nation. American credibility in our own system of justice is low due to secret wire-tapping, secret meetings with energy moguls, and the inability to explain our continuation in this Iraqi civil war. Billions of people on all continents question our pro death penalty and pro torture image as a government. They join millions of Americans in asking why or how we got into secret jails, secret torture cambers, secret administrators, and secret surveillance of our own people. We move prisoners from one place to the next, allowing the torturers to go to work. We want gay soldiers to fight but not tell their orientation. In short, we have become a people without answers. And sadly, not a lot of embarrassment about that lack of answers.

ACTION: do not vote for a candidate who says yes to torture.


A people without answers
Let me list just a few of the answers we lack. We are confused on what to do next in the Middle East. What to do on home security. What to do on immigration. What to do on how to find Bin Laden, though we know what area he is in. What to do for the millions of uninsured regarding health issues, especially the children. We have no energy policy. We have presidential candidates who would torture if they felt the nation were at risk and campaign on that platform. To simply blame all of this confusion on President Bush and Cheney is not enough. But it starts there.

The Democrats believes that it is ‘those guys’. The right, primarily the televangelists, are becoming convinced of the same, but therein lay the problem.

Furthermore, both Republicans and Democrats have candidates with very high negative ratings. The free-for-all for money for the candidates is embarrassing even to donors. Our army is brave and talented but tainted by accusations of torture and gratuitous killings. Our intelligence forces are scared by secret detention centers. The mercenary army that protects the non soldiers to Iraq is not responsible to any one for their killings. Blackwater and its record in Iraq is a black hole of irresponsibility. The Supreme Court is usually five to four, thus representing this deeply divided nation on many key issues like abortion, education, and rights of the detained, death penalty and health care. Abortion is the issue of the right, but they now know that their elected national leaders for 20 years have done very little to deliver anything real approaching their stated goal of stopping any of them. They are disappointed with their party. The Democrats got elected in 06 to stop the war. The war rages on. Independents are growing due to this betrayal. We are a confused nation on most key issues. Both parties are truly elites to their supporters.

ACTION: Give only to candidates that you deeply believe


Confusion Reigns
Television often follows the life of government and people who have done little for the common good. But it surely has mirrored the government in freezing out human rights issues. Few editorials speak of human rights. Few human rights activists are on television shows. If so, they need a celebrity to reassure the channel that all is well. If one were to look at the 80’s and 90’s for human rights articles and compare those periods to now, it would prove that human rights issues are easily passed over.

The left finds itself trying to stop a war but not ready to solve the fifty years of isolated camps for the Palestinians and safety for Israel. Africa looms into our focus through its own violence and hatred but with little understanding of the decency of most of its peoples and different regions. Asia has the present day Mandela in Aung San Suu Kyi and most Americans do not know her name or even pronounce it correctly. Latin Americans have shifted to the left, fearful of their northern neighbor. China and India took millions of jobs and are growing at a rate three times our GNP. We have few engineers and these nations are blessed with thousands of candidates.

At home, we watch the movie ‘Sicko’, which proves there is no answer for the uninsured, even for the insured at times. Social security may eat the young one-day. China has intimidated businesses to avoid close association with human rights organizations and human right advocates. That is the business deal, unsigned but very real. Millions and millions are poured into large human rights groups all the while the primacy of human rights has disappeared. The clarion call of the United States Congress to have a single standard for human rights has been muffled and submerged. Maybe even forgotten. If there is no massive turnout of demonstrators re torture in the Bush period, will there ever be a public outcry re torture by the American people?

A Coke or a Pepsi or a plastic bottle of water in a gas station costs more than the petrol that comes from far away, deep places and no one notices. Take a look next time when you are refueling and get a handle on the real price of a cola or a bottle of water. We aim at oil barons but not the water and cola barons. The gallon of sugar and caffeine soda from Atlanta is more expensive than the gallon of gasoline. Salt, sugar and cigarettes are killing us but their lobbies are strong and mighty and are generous to the candidates for office. American elections are moving to European type dynasties; we have Bushs, Clintons, Kennedys, Tafts, Chaffees, Sunonos, etc. The rich certainly have done well, along with those powerful families. Billionaires are pushing out millionaires in Aspen. The poor often welcome families falling out of the middle class by the tens of thousands to the lesser life. Is any one watching? Are there answers?

We Americans are governed by confused people. Both parties. Much like the time when FDR came to power. Quiet and real fear is adrift though out the land. We know we need a leader who can move this nation from problems and fears back to solutions and courage. From torture to the rule of law. From gun pointing democracy to international strength built on coalitions and a national unity of purpose. We need leaders who will find a secure path with the like minded to insure the world that the super powers both want human and commercial progress to benefit the majority if not the entire entire world. A president who invokes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One who has actually read it and wants others to read it as well.

ACTION: ask your government to print the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in your passport.


Clearing the fog
Simply letting this administration go into a corporate sunset will not clear up the fog generated by this administration. But looking at both parties closely is important to find solutions. Is there a way to secure some assurity that the next president will guarantee a few basic results? Can we find someone who is interested in making the USA do well but also this world of ours?

Looking at the candidates for the presidency of ‘08 demands that citizens seek a person who will seek a break from the past of both parties. The reason is that both parties got us to this point and they both are responsible for the mess. The world waits with trepidation for the next American President. Rebuilding respect for American diplomacy and people will take a long time, no matter the winner of the election.

Since not much is clear re issues with either political party, maybe what we do is ask for a few clearly stated commitments from the presidential candidates. And if these few serious commitments are not completed in their first four-year term, they automatically resign and not run again. Otherwise, any other political promise may seem like the last two terms and then where are we?

ACTION: Perhaps five guarantees to ask for might be:
1. health care for all children;
2. an end of the war in Iraq;
3. statehood for Palestine and safety for Israel;
4. printing of the universal declaration of human rights in American passports;
5. guarantee no torture of anyone.