Lean Left

« Previous | Next »

Monsters Working For Us
Posted by Kevin

Where did this happen?

As the second series of questioning was ending, Higazy requested that Templeton stop. He testified that he began “feeling intense pain in my arm. I remember hearing my heartbeat in my head and I just couldn’t breathe. I said, ‘Sir, sir, please, stop. It hurts. Please stop. Please take it off.’” Templeton unhooked the polygraph, and according to Higazy, called Higazy a baby and told him that a nine-year-old could tolerate this pain. Templeton left the room to get Higazy water, and upon his return, Higazy asked whether anybody else had ever suffered physical pain during the polygraph, to which Templeton replied: “[i]t never happened to anyone who told the truth.”

Higazy alleges that during the polygraph, Templeton told him that he should cooperate, and explained that if Higazy did not cooperate, the FBI would make his brother “live in scrutiny” and would “make sure that Egyptian security gives [his] family hell.” Templeton later admitted that he knew how the Egyptian security forces operated: “that they had a security service, that their laws are different than ours, that they are probably allowed to do things in that country where they don’t advise people of their rights, they don’t – yeah, probably about torture, sure.”

That’s right, it happen in the United States of America. A federal agent tortured a man (polygraphs do not cause pain. The device he used was obviously either a torture device made to look like a polygraph or a polygraph modified to cause pain) and then threatened to have that man’s entire family tortured in order to get a false confession. Monster seems an appropriate term here. So does criminal and immoral and war crimes and other such terms that are supposed to be quaint in this age of unreasoning panic.

When the President and his apologists talk about extraordinary interrogation methods, this is what they mean: physically and mentally abusing a man until he tells them exactly what they want to hear. It is wrong and more than wrong. It is monstrous. It destroys the entire rational for fighting a war on terrorism. What makes us better than the terrorists, what makes the United States worth emulation and defense by people other than Americans, is that represents an expansive notion of freedom and human dignity that applies ot everyone in the world. Or, it used to before Bush and Cheney drowned that ideal in blood and torture. This country has never lived entirely up to its ideals, but it has never so publicly and, God help us all, proudly proclaimed that its founding ideals were a lie, meant only for the special few who did not displease the United States government.

Right now, in the Muslim world, we have no defense against the propaganda of Al Qaeda. When they say follow us, we know the mind of God and thus know how to take care of you and yours” we used to be able to say “we know a better a way, a way that values you and yours as people and allows you the space and the freedom to make your way through the world as you see fit.” We cannot say that anymore. We invaded a country that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda and then we publicly proclaimed our desire to torture people, including those innocents who would inevitably be caught up in such practices. Our promises are worth nothing and our actions are those of a bully and thug. Thanks to the cowards in the White House, we have betrayed our morality and thrown away our most powerful weapon. All so that Bush and Cheney can feel proud of how well they are protecting the country as they read the false confessions of dangerous men like the completely and totally innocent Higazy.

October 23rd, 2007 General, Culture, Terrorism, Torture | 3 comments