Since Von at Obsidian Wings appears to be more outraged by a metaphor than by the activity that led to the creation of that metaphor, I thought I should reprint in its entirety a post I wrote a year ago about some of the aftereffects of Abu Ghraib. Here it is:
Collateral Damage
I hope that you all got a chance to read this article in Saturday's New York Times about how shaken some survivors of torture who live in the New York City Metropolitan area are reacting to what happened at Abu Ghraib:
There are an estimated 400,000 survivors of foreign torture living in the United States, and those who work with survivors say about a quarter of them live in the New York area. While others may debate the fine points of interrogation and the reach of international law, these survivors are now encountering a new dimension of fear, according to doctors and counselors in the network of specialized torture treatment centers across the country.
"There was a sense of horror and disbelief," said Dr. Allen S. Keller, the director of the program at Bellevue Hospital Center, which treated more than 600 people from 70 countries last year, and gets 5 to 10 new referrals a week. "These are individuals who came to this country seeking safety. We owe it to the torture survivors living in our country not to condone or practice it."
Rachel Tschida, a spokeswoman for the Center for the Victims of Torture in Minneapolis, the first such center in the world when it opened in 1985, said the assumptions of torture victims about America have suddenly been thrown into question. "The overwhelming feeling, frankly, is heartbreak," she said.
The same day that article came out, Mércia and I went to a barbeque at the home of a couple of friends. One of them, Karl, had fled East Germany for the West and had finally made it after several attempts in which he had been caught, imprisoned, tortured and spent months in solitary confinement. Despite knowing my interest and my work on human rights issues when I was involved in Amnesty International, he was discussing this with me for the first time. What motivated him was his anger and his feelings of betrayal about what had happened at Abu Ghraib. I cannot help but imagine that there are countless others who are feeling betrayed as well.
Don't miss Tim's post about an experience from his childhood.
Thank God this mendacious jackass didn't get confirmed as a Federal Judge:
GONZALES SAYS ADMINISTRATION IS A 'STRONG SUPPORTER OF GENEVA CONVENTIONS: "At the same time, President Bush recognized that our nation will continue to be a strong supporter of the Geneva treaties. The president also reaffirmed our policy in the United States armed forces to treat Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at Guantánamo Bay humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in keeping with the principles of the Third Geneva Convention."
- Alberto Gonzales, 5/15/04 (NYT Op-Ed)
VERSUS
GONZALES SAYS GENEVA RESTRICTIONS ARE OBSOLETE: "The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians...In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."
- Alberto Gonzales, 1/25/02 (Memorandum to the President, as reported in Newsweek 5/16/04)
Hat tip to the Center for American Progress.
By the way, funny how the president isn't saying "No President has ever done more for human rights than I have" these days.
Comments