Remember when?

Remember when President Bush said the "enhanced interrogations" would result in so lasting physical or mental harm to detainees.

We've had several journalists who have been waterboarded and afterword report nightmares for many months there after. Even though they were only waterboarded once, not 80+ times. That's long term mental harm.

When we went into Iraq one embedded reporter David Bloom died of a a pulmonary embolism. It was caused by deep vein thrombosis from the many hours sitting in a humvee not moving around. And the problem became something most people became aware of.

Advisories went out that on long car, plane, bus or train trips one should get up every hour or so (or stop at a gas station) and walk around a bit.

The more we learn about deep vein thrombosis and the problems caused by immobility the more claims of larger death toll than previously thought, of Africans being crammed into ships and brought to the new world as slaves takes hold.

But beyond that is that 18 hours of immobility was proscribed for detainees (most of them innocent) under "enhanced interrogation." The hours of being, hung, tied, shackled, put into a confinement box, etc. in immobile positions/poses was later revised down to 8. But that's still too long.

In nursing homes immobile bedridden patients are supposed to be turned every hour to keep the skin from breaking down (due to lack of oxygen on pressure points) and infection setting in. That's what a bedsore is, and it takes a lot of time, patients and work to heal. But the subject matter here is pulmonary embolism caused by immobilization.

Other risk factors [for Deep Vein Thrombosis] include advanced age, obesity, infection, immobilization, use of combined (estrogen-containing) forms of hormonal contraception, tobacco usage and air travel ("economy class syndrome", a combination of immobility and relative dehydration) are some of the better-known causes.

Today there are many discussions about torture. Creating a situation where someone is placed in long term immobility (when not medically necessary such a cast for a broken bone) IS torture.

It creates the conditions for a pulimary embolism and since we know this it violates the Geneva Conventions and President Bush and Gonzles' often statement of causing "no permanent physical or mental harm."

At the June 22, 2004, news conference, Gonzales said the White House defined torture as a "a specific intent to inflict severe physical or mental harm or suffering. That's the definition that Congress has given us and that's the definition that we use."

Since we know what long hours of immobility can do, those that died in our custody from a pulmonary embolism were murdered. And that what those who authorized the policies should be charged with. There may not have been the intent to cause death but there was the knowledge that it very well likely would.

Rules of conduct and laws are there to guide us through the toughest times, when it's easy to stumble and fall into behavior that removes our humanity and causes us to act immorally and drives us out of the "city on the hill."

We have known for a long time that torture doesn't work, it makes people give false information or hardens their resolve not to talk. It wastes time and reinforces the idea that we are a cruel people, despite our words.

Information was gained faster when interrogators showed that we as a people are what we claim to be, that we have lines that we will not cross, that we are not the cruel dictators they have come to know.

You are always in a better position when you have and hold the high ground, not when you sink into the abyss.

must read . . .
Torture Autopsy Reveals Death by Enhanced Interrogation

US intelligence officer brags about torturing in call to talk show

Way back, in what seems like a long time ago, I remember my grade school teachers telling my class with pride that we as a nation “didn’t do” torture. This was during the Vietnam War, this is what the commies did, not us.

We were above this. We were a civilized nation, besides any information gathered under torture is dubious at best. This is what happened in far flung places like Turkey (Billy Hayes), the USSR, or Uganda. Or closer to home like Chile, Haiti, Guatemala and Argentina. We were the beacon of hope, the island of light in all this darkness. This was NOT what “WE” did.

I was told this by conservative, Bible believing, Republican, red white and blue, support the President and the war in Vietnam, teachers.

Of course there was torture in America, places such as Arkansas State Prisons. But that, we were told, was aberrant and something to be removed from the American landscape. Dr. King was in, the KKK was bad, freedom was strong and the commies would not be allowed to take another country.

Then we had 9-11 and our moral compass changed. Some of us reasoned that torture would be okay, they forgot or chose to ignore that when you do this, you loose something vital from yourself, or from your nation as a whole. This is especially true of a nation of high ideals, that the forefathers articulated in several documents.

We used the excuse, or "reason" that if you caught a person who had kidnapped many people and they would all die if you didn’t find out where they were, torture should be an option. What if they were children?! Wouldn’t you use torture to compel the answer? But we had faced exactly that scenario in Chowchilla, CA. The people, children no less, were rescued before they died. Interestingly enough a year before I had checked out a book from my school library which had this very same plot. The crime followed the book in almost every detail. (I guess we should have had the Patriot Act back then so the government would have known about everyone who had read it. Someone may have gotten the idea from this book).

But now we are through the looking glass when it comes to torture. We do it (Abu Graib) or we “out source” it to other countries (rendition). And we even have intelligence officers calling into talk shows bragging about what they do and what they’ve done And talk show hosts applauding and supporting it. (don’t listen to this if you’ve just eaten or get sick easily).

While we have no way of knowing if this person actually did these things or is even with the government, what was once hard to believe about us, is now not so hard to believe. What if the people in question are innocent or really know nothing? Impossible you say? And no innocent person has been sent to prison here for a crime they didn’t commit. We have already "renderd" some proven to be innocent to be tortured.

We then we wonder why the rest of the world feels they way they do about us and does not trust us. "What?" we say, "even with this we are no where near as bad as those we replaced." But when you go in under the banner of "moral imperative" or reframe the reasons that you invaded a country under that banner, then you have an obligation to be hold yourself, your government, your officers and your troops strictly to that standard.

We have not and what we’ve lost to our collective American soul, and in our standing in the world as a whole is immeasurable. We fell down the slippery slope, and it may well be impossible for us to climb back up.

See also:
Bush Administration Trying to Act Like USSR