Columnist Jamala Rogers
The torture debate continues in the public domain because Americans want answers and we want retribution for those accused of carrying it out as well as those who ordered it. Former president Bush and his cronies are in the crosshairs for being made accountable for their reign of terror imported from the U.S.
In late 1996, then-State Rep. Charles Quincy Troupe began sending letters to then-Texas Governor George W. Bush, alerting him to incidents of Missouri prisoner complaints of brutality in their privately-run prison in Brazoria, Texas. About 400 inmates had been transferred to Brazoria, due to overcrowded conditions here.
Troupe headed up appropriations for the Missouri Department of Corrections and was known to be responsive and proactive when it came to prisoner concerns. His letters finally prompted a two-day investigation, but dropped through the cracks. All hell broke loose six months later when a video of the abuse surfaced and was nationally televised.
Missouri immediately cancelled its contract with all Texas prisons and brought the inmates back home. A lawsuit against Brazoria County and Capital Correctional Resources resulted in a settlement of $2.2 million to the affected prisoners. Most of us who do prison reform work or ministry know that Brazoria was not the beginning nor the end of this saga.
It was deja vu when Missourians saw the torture photos of Abu Ghraib in 2004, with then-President Bush being the connecting factor. We know definitively that it is no accident that torture tactics abroad are eerily similar to those used at home in U.S. jails, hold-over centers and prisons. Torture at home and abroad has been documented by groups such as Amnesty International, the Red Cross and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Recently Jamil Dakwar, head of ACLU’s newly created Human Rights Program, visited St. Louis to talk about their work. A focal point was the use of torture, secret and indefinite detention, unfair trials, unfettered governmental surveillance, and ethnic profiling- in other words, the total disregard of the U.S. Constitution, the Geneva Convention and the UN Convention on Torture.
The ACLU conducted a study, Enduring Abuse: Torture and Cruel Treatment by the United States at Home and Abroad, that served as a shadow report to the UN Committee Against Torture in 2006. The report can be viewed at http://tinyurl.com/d4pp2q. The ACLU is directly responsible for the petitioning of the soon-to-be released photos of abuse by U.S. personnel. The ACLU also forced the release of more than 100,000 pages of government documents in response to their lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act.
Documented cases of sexual assault, religious humiliation, sleep, food, and water deprivation, beatings, dog attacks, psychological torture and killings occur in the St. Louis Justice Center, in Missouri prisons, in Guantanamo, and so on. U.S. defense contractors like CACI International Inc. or L-3 Communications Corp. (formerly Titan Corp) make their bread and butter by perfecting torture techniques and taking the program on the road.
Torture is illegal under the Geneva Conventions, regardless of the results it produces. The U.S.’s continued torture of detainees has escalated hostility against this country that comes (and will come) in many different forms.
For those of us living here, we have an obligation to make sure the world knows that we don’t sanction this barbaric policy. Further, we must push President Obama to uphold moral and legal standards by conducting a thorough and independent investigation of all torture charges. If that means a former president is charged and prosecuted, this country will have gone a long ways to ensure that no one is above the law.