Beginning in 2001, lawyers at the Department of Justice sought to make torture part of the American arsenal in the war on terror. To overcome legal barriers to the use of torture, they simply redefined words whose meaning had heretofore been plain to permit American interrogators to torture people in their custody. (The memos are available here, courtesy of the New York Times.)
The decision to permit torture marked a rupture. For decades, the American consensus had been clear: torture was wrong. And it was illegal, not only because torture violated Constitutional protections, but because the United States accepted and even helped craft international treaties forbidding torture. The United States, represented by Eleanor Roosevelt, was a driving force behind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose Article 5 reads, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
The rejection of torture was not limited to soft-on-crime liberals, wishy-washy lefties, or pot-smoking university professors; even Ronald Reagan, icon of the resurgent right in 1980s America, supported the prohibition against torture. In fact, his administration voted for the Convention at the United Nations in December 1984, signed the Convention in April 1988, and presented the Convention to the United States Senate for ratification in May 1988. In his message to the Senate asking for ratification, Reagan declared,
By giving its advice and consent to ratification of this Convention, the Senate of the United States will demonstrate unequivocally our desire to bring an end to the abhorrent practice of torture. [Emphasis added.]
The Convention (which the Senate finally ratified in October 1994, albeit with reservations) is unambiguous:
For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
The question for us is whether the Bush administration’s justification for torture marked the end of an era of American concern for human rights, or whether it will be a temporary deviation.
We can shape the answer in several ways and at several different levels. One is to insist that people acting in our name not engage in torture. We can demand that our elected officials live up to the principles enshrined in the United States Constitution, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in the various conventions and treaties on torture to which the United States is signatory. (The Obama administration has taken steps to alleviate the worst excesses of the Bush administration, but it has not gone far enough.)
Another way to engage with (or contribute financially to) organizations dedicated to the prevention of torture. These include Amnesty International, the Association for the Prevention of Torture, Human Rights Watch, the International Committee of the Red Cross or the World Organisation Against Torture.
A third way is to help those who help victims of torture. There are a number of excellent organizations dedicated to helping people who have survived torture. The International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, based in Denmark, is an umbrella organization for torture rehabilitation organizations; a link on their site will help you find an organization near you. (One of our favorites is the Center for Victims of Torture, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.) These organizations make it possible for people who have suffered to begin to rebuild their lives.
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