I Was Tortured. I Know How Important It Is to Hold
the CIA Accountable.
By Juan E. Mendez
June 25, 2015 "Information
Clearing House" - "Politico"
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More than once, I begged my torturers to kill me. Years later, I
think about it and wonder if I really meant it. I think I did, at
the time.I was tied up, nude and
blindfolded, and electrically prodded all over my body. Twice they
pretended they were executing me by placing a gun to my head or in
my mouth and clicking the trigger.
To my abusers, who interrupted this torture with
question after question, this was merely “enhanced interrogation.”
That was decades ago, in Argentina. But today,
U.S. political figures — including presidential candidate Rick Perry
— are using this same euphemism to describe the CIA’s torture and
ill treatment during its secret detention operations from 2002 to
2008. And earlier this month, John Oliver’s HBO show “Last Week
Tonight” reported that of 14 declared U.S. presidential candidates,
only four said they would keep an executive order put in place by
President Barack Obama in his first days in office that seeks to
ensure the U.S. does not commit torture.
When U.S. media and political figures repeat the
euphemism enhanced interrogation, they reframe the debate in a way
that implicitly downplays the pain and inhumanity of torture.
Instead, torture becomes a matter of rational decision making and
calibrated legality.
Unfortunately, this linguistic ploy is working.
Torture is a crime under U.S. and international law, but enhanced
interrogation hasn’t been prosecuted in the U.S. Thus, while Obama
abandoned the flawed legal reasoning the Bush administration used to
justify torture, not one person has been charged for authorizing or
committing torture in the CIA’s secret detention program.
The U.S. government has effectively handed “get
out of jail free” cards to those who authorized torture, with
significant consequences. Many of those same individuals have
written memoirs and gone on talk shows, particularly since the
Senate’s landmark report on torture was released six months ago, to
explicitly disavow any regret or compunction for what they still
call enhanced interrogation.
“I’d do it again in a minute,” Dick Cheney said in
December. Impunity for torture has left these individuals free to
campaign for its return.
It has also emboldened torturers worldwide. The
United States is obligated under the Convention Against Torture and
other treaties to investigate and prosecute those against whom
evidence can be found. U.S. failure on these obligations is inviting
other nations to follow the U.S. example of impunity. It is
providing abusive regimes a ready-made excuse for rejecting
international community concerns about their own records of torture.
The euphemism of enhanced interrogation has also
redirected the U.S. from pursuing accountability and a process of
lessons learned. Instead, the focus is on whether torture was
“effective” at providing intelligence or preventing an imminent
attack. Even the Senate torture report, which torture defenders
malign as partisan, journeys down this rabbit hole.
This diversion is all too common in the recent
history of torture. The idea of a ticking time bomb justifying
torture was also used in Argentina by proponents of the “dirty war”
waged by the military against its proponents.
In this scenario — especially as it frequently
plays out on American television shows over the past decade —
torture is ugly but someone has to do it. Or: Torture is inevitable
and produces results whether we like it or not. These arguments
characterize torture as exceptional.
The reality is that torture is never confined to
just a few carefully calibrated “techniques.” The Senate torture
report graphically demonstrates this. It reportedly involved sexual
abuse including genital touching and forced rectal feeding without
documented medical necessity — conduct not even contemplated by the
now infamously flawed Justice Department memos justifying torture
after 9/11.
Nor is torture ever really limited to a few
individuals. The Senate report found that of 119 known detainees in
CIA custody, at least 26 did not even meet the CIA’s standard for
detention, including an “intellectually challenged” man whose
detention was used solely as leverage to get a family member to
provide information. And the Senate report’s “conservative estimate”
is that the CIA applied enhanced interrogation to at least 17
individuals without authorization from CIA headquarters.
Soon after I was tortured, in the late 1970s, I
joined a worldwide Amnesty International campaign against torture
premised on the notion that, with a consistent, determined effort by
democratic governments and international organizations supported by
common men and women across borders, torture could be abolished in
our time just as the African slave trade had been abolished a
century earlier.
We have come far. Today, laws against torture are
in place almost everywhere. The Senate last week passed an amendment
to its defense authorization bill with the express purpose of
strengthening the U.S. ban on torture.
But plainly, laws against torture are not
sufficient to eradicate it. As long as those responsible for torture
evade accountability, would-be torturers will believe that they can,
too. As long as torture goes unpunished, it will continue to be
known merely — and shamefully — as enhanced interrogation.
Juan E. Méndez is the United Nations special
rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment or punishment.