Denounce Torture

The Washington Times' Douglas MacKinnon writes that the media's criticism of American interrogation techniques emboldens al Queda and other Islamic terrorist organizations against the According to MacKinnon, former press secretary to former Sen. Bob Dole, reporters criticize U.S. military officials for crimes that hardly qualify as abuse compared to the violence of terrorist organizations. He stated:

Do an online search and compare how many words the New York Times and Washington Post use to condemn our nation and "waterboarding," as opposed to the unthinkable torture these young Iraqi policemen endure.

MacKinnon also insisted that controversial U.S. military interrogation tactics may save thousands of lives of troops and civilians. However, the current U.S. Army Field Manual recognizes that torture and inhuman treatment is ineffective, stating that "Use of torture and other illegal methods is a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and induce the source to say what he thinks the interrogator wants to hear." A report by Amnesty International states:

High-level US officials have frequently stated that the “war on terror” is a new war that requires new thinking. In fact, these officials seek to justify old methods that have long been de-legitimized. Suspending habeas corpus, “disappearing” detainees, incommunicado detention and the legalization of torture have been used in the name of national security and do not represent “new thinking.” These policies merely recycle old, ineffective practices that violate human rights and undermine the rule of law.

Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith denounces torture as a procedure of war, from Guantanamo detainees to victims of religious torture four centuries ago:

...it would seem that for the most part torture does not work, either because it extracts inaccurate information, or information that is not subject to verification. The prisoners in Guantánamo Bay have confessed to outlandish things when tortured and abused. The young British Muslims held there who came to be known as the “Tipton Three” admitted to being the shadowy figures on the edge of a video of Osama bin Laden, taped in Afghanistan in 2000. The problem for the prosecution was that they were working in an electronics store in Birmingham at the time.

See "Torture as defined by the media"

Tags: Al Queda | amnesty international | Clive Stafford-Smith | Guantanamo | Tipton Three | torture

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