Torture—a U.S. standard

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee were joined by Democrats Charles E. Schumer and Dianne Feinstein on Nov. 6 in approving President Bush’s nomination of Michael Mukasey to be the new attorney general. It is expected that Mukasey’s confirmation is now assured when the vote moves to the full Senate.

Mukasey had refused to say in the hearings whether waterboarding is torture and illegal. According to the Washington Post: “Waterboarding generally involves strapping a prisoner to a board, covering his face or mouth with a cloth, and pouring water over [the prisoner’s] face to create the sensation of drowning. ... The practice dates at least to the Spanish Inquisition and has been prosecuted as torture in U.S. military courts since the Spanish-American war. The State Department has condemned its use in other countries.” (Oct. 31)

Now liberals have joined conservatives in implying that torture is OK if it’s being used by the United States—which it is, according to many published accounts.

The New York Times says that “other Democrats portrayed their opposition as a defining moment for Congress in standing up to the Bush administration in upholding basic human rights and constitutional values in battling terrorism.” (Nov. 7) How convenient during an election season, when they have yet to take a real stand against the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. The real “defining moment,” however, came with the votes of Schumer and Feinstein, which represent a further capitulation by leading Democrats on an issue that is clear to the world—that despite all its “human rights” rhetoric, the U.S. government uses torture against Third World people.

In a statement, Democratic Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, the Judiciary panel’s chair, remarked that waterboarding is “below the standards and values of the United States.” That avoids being truthful about the history of this imperialist country. Torture has long been a practice here, especially against oppressed people.

Let’s not forget Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant who was tortured and raped by officers of the New York Police Department.

When the Abu Ghraib torture was exposed, political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal—locked up on death row at the SCI-Greene “correctional facility”—wrote, “I [wasn’t] even remotely surprised when a former guard from SCI-Greene just happened to be at the forefront of the vile and violent assaults at Abu Ghraib. He just took what he learned here, over there.” (Workers World, Sept. 23, 2004)