Torturers must not go scot-free

Imagine this! One day, you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time. You are kidnapped by a foreign intelligence agency, strip-searched, hooded, blindfolded, handcuffed and shackled before being flown to an incarceration centre. Once there, you are interrogated about subjects and individuals you know nothing about. You loudly proclaim your innocence but your interrogators become angry.

Before long, you suffer the indignity of enforced nudity, which may painfully violate your religious or cultural beliefs. Perhaps you are stuffed into a tiny dark space in which you cannot stand. All you want to do is sleep but every time you close your eyes you are dowsed with cold water. This goes on for up to 120 hours.

If you are still unable to tell them what they want to know, you are deprived of food, slapped, made to hold painful stress positions for hours on end, such as kneeling while leaning back at a 45 degree angle, and if you have a phobia concerning insects you will be placed into a box with one. You might be prevented from visiting the bathroom and made to wear nappies.

Lastly, you will be subjected to a process that simulates drowning, whereby you feel your very life is ebbing away - water-boarding. Imagine that you endure this suffering for eight years and all the while you are being told that you will never ever be free or free of it.

All the above was authorised by the Bush administration's Justice Department. In reality, detainees endured far worse under George W. Bush's watch with the White House's full knowledge.

In many cases, the lives of their wives and children were threatened.

There are even reports that children were imprisoned, interrogated and tortured with insects to force them to disclose the whereabouts of their fathers. Remember, too, that the vast majority of prisoners were - and are being - locked up without a shred of evidence against them.

Let me ask you something. If, God forbid, you were in their place and were lucky enough to be eventually released, do you think your life would ever return to normal? Or do you anticipate that your mental, emotional, perhaps even physical existence would be scarred forever?

Having read through the so-called 'torture memos' it seems that Justice Department officials did not consider any of the above-mentioned practices 'torture' because, according to them, any harm derived from their use was transient rather than prolonged. Who are they trying to kid?

Kudos to the US President Barack Obama for authorising the release of the memos, which was his way of admitting what most people around the world already knew: during the preceding eight years, the superpower has made severe mistakes.

Acknowledgment is the first step to recovery but is this enough? Obama is against prosecuting those responsible for breaching the spirit of the United Nations Convention against Torture or other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as well as the United States Code and the US Constitution. "Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past," he says.

Obama simply wants to close this ugly chapter and move on. But he's wrong.

Anyone who commits a crime whether he or she be a shoplifter, a rapist, a paedophile, a murderer, a war criminal or a torturer should be made to face repercussions. Nobody should be exempt in the name of 'moving on'. Based on that principle, what is the Simon Wiesenthal Centre doing chasing after an 89-year-old former Nazi camp guard as well as attempting to locate the body of Aribert Heim dubbed 'Dr Death' so as to dig it up?

In this case, not only have innocents and their families been irreparably harmed and America's standing in the world along with them, it sets a precedent for future administrations. At the very least, those responsible should be made to make a public apology so that this kind of thing can never happen again.

Obama wants to ensure that CIA operatives who followed orders are immune from prosecution and while I can sympathise with their plight the same did not apply to those SS officers who followed orders during the Second World War, and rightly so.

It's not that I am comparing the severity of Nazi atrocities to the actions of Western intelligence services or contractors but, if you think about it, you'll find that the principle is the same.

There is no excuse for the torturing and degradation of human beings, which harms not only the victim but also the soul of the torturer. It also opens the door for our enemies to torture us. Besides, it doesn't work because anyone who is tortured will say just about anything to stop the pain. Moreover, evidence gleaned from torture is not accepted by most courts of law.

President Obama, thanks for the truth but where's the accountability? For without that, there's little hope of forgiveness or reconciliation.

Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com Some comments may be considered for publication.

unfortunately very few have the courage to point fingers at powerful nations or persons like linda. this double standard is destroying world peace and making life difficult for the underpriviliged.The false allegations blasted through powerful media convince common man in the street at the start but with passage of time every body starts feeling sorry for being convinced and being with the propagator. One feels ashamed on how these so called experts towed the bush line. Were they not having sense to reach the truth. was the history not in their memory.
Sher Afzal
Dubai,UAE
Posted: April 21, 2009, 19:11

As usual a thought provoking piece from Ms. Heard and as usual she has hit the proverbial nail right on the head!! The, 'do as I say,' attitude powerful nations should stop. Lets stop the hypocricy and apply the law equally to everyone.
Paul Sherlock
Dubai,UAE
Posted: April 21, 2009, 16:09

Comparing US officers to Nazis without much explaination, Making allegations like the US torturs children without any evidence, implying that all prisoners were "at the wrong place at the wrong time." All in the name of justice. What a weird world we live in.
Gonzologer
,UAE
Posted: April 21, 2009, 13:29

What Linda says here makes absolute sense and logic. If we preach, we must practice the same as these apply to all and no body is above the law. There are the so called world bodies, as stated by Linda, chasing the former Nazi personnel for crimes committed decades ago, and the so called World Court in Hague issuing warrants for the arrest of heads of African countries ( Sudan) etc. How about applying the same principals to Mr Bush - A War Lord no different to the Somali War Lords, who is responsible in principal for this torture and deaths of hundreds of thousands by waging wars across the world in the name of "War against Terror" or " Axis of Evil" etc. Where are these so called World Courts or bodies preaching the rest of the world how to behave and what how to live?
C. S. Sagoo
Dubai,UAE
Posted: April 21, 2009, 09:40