Former President Jimmy Carter has taken strong notice of the use of torture as a means to interrogate prisoners of war by the Bush Administration. Mr. Carter said the treatment meted out to these prisoners is not only inhuman but also un-American and a violation of the Geneva Convention. Historically, no former American president has ever used such a harsh language against an incumbent president.
But no one can deny the fact either that the methods of extreme torture adopted by the current administration to interrogate those arrested on terrorism charges, to get at the so-called truth, are absolutely inhumane. These torture techniques range from keeping the suspect stripped in a refrigerated room, to denial of sleep, and to fake drowning by keeping the suspect’s face under water. These are techniques that the police and military in the Third World countries use against criminals.
People arrested on terrorism charges are prisoners of war under the terms of Geneva Convention and the use of torture against them is a violation of this convention.
The U.S. presidential election year is in 2008. The irony is that not a single U.S. political party is willing to raise its voice against the excesses perpetrated in the name of war against terrorism; to do so would give the rival party a chance to accuse it of maintaining a weak position on war against terrorism. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration is taking undue advantage of the political limitations of others and is violating the U.S. Constitution and international law.
But people of Jimmy Carter’s stature, however, don’t face such political dilemmas.
Only a few days back, CBS’s famous “60 Minutes” program showed a 10-minute segment on the treatment of most dangerous criminals held in the U.S. prisons. It showed the prison where terrorist Ramzi Yousuf, shoe bomber Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui – the alleged twelfth attacker on 9/11 – are being held. Terrorist Ramzi Yousuf, accused of being the mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center attack, was arrested in Pakistan and handed over to the United States.
For the past eight years, Yousuf has been living in a nine-by-seven foot cell, in complete isolation. Yousuf does not go for physical exercise, and those who do are strip-searched every time they leave their cells. A former doctor of the prison says that such kind of isolation leaves the mind of a person virtually paralyzed and promotes insane behavior in a person. It’s interesting to note that it’s being said about an extremist like Ramzi Yousuf that he has converted to Christianity and that now he is being allowed to go for exercise in prison. The former doctor at the prison said that Yousuf might say or do anything to save himself from the process of gradual death, and opined that Yousuf is playing with the prison staff with his conversion.
Coming back to our topic of discussion, the Bush Administration’s inhumane treatment of prisoners of war, let’s not forget the intelligence agencies’ oft-repeated statements. Both the CIA and FBI have disclosed on many occasions that many of these terrorists are being held in foreign lands so that the U.S. law does not apply on them. However, after the disclosure of the mistreatment of terrorists in U.S. prisons, it’s clear how much the Bush Administration respects international law. President Bush himself has said that the treatment meted out to terrorists during interrogation is useful and appropriate.
It was after this statement by President Bush that former President Jimmy Carter came forward to say how the United States is violating international law and warned that this practice will put the country in serious trouble in the future.
There are only one-and-a-half years left the Bush Administration; however, the laws and practices adopted by the Bush Administration have set a precedent that could be repeated in the future. When punishment in the name of national security or the war on terrorism is made tough, crimes become more serious and probably encourage more suicide bombers.
