Obfuscating torture is no real defense

Baltimore Sun Letter to the Editor October 24, 2007.

Neither President Bush nor his nominee to be U.S. attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey, nor anyone else in the Bush administration is willing to publicly answer the simple question: Is waterboarding (an interrogation method that simulates drowning) a form of torture?

The excuses they have given for their reticence are themselves tortuous: Mr. Bush has argued that terrorists would get an advantage if he answered the question, and Mr. Mukasey cited his concern that to answer would put interrogators’ “careers or freedom at risk” (“Mukasey hearing turns testy,” Oct. 19).
In truth, terrorists know that the U.S. “outsources” (through the program known as “extraordinary rendition”) harsh detainee interrogation to countries where waterboarding is employed.

Thus terrorists determined to steel themselves against this widely documented technique are not waiting for a definitive answer from Mr. Bush.

As for Mr. Mukasey’s alleged concern for protecting the interrogators – well, in fact, nothing could put them more at risk than not knowing whether the methods they employ are legal under international conventions.

In a just world, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, other members of the Bush administration and some Republican and Democratic members of Congress would find themselves facing war crime charges at The Hague, where they would have to publicly and explicitly defend their torture and pre-emptive war policies.

Dave Goldsmith
Woodstock
The writer is coordinator of the Baltimore County Green Party.