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YAHNIAN: No place for torture in America

The recent push by Republican candidates to bring back torture is disturbing

At the Republican debate this last Saturday, leading Republican candidate and quintessential Disney villain Donald Trump expressed his support for reinstituting so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, even suggesting he would “bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” In a shocking twist, he was not alone in this viewpoint. Sen. Ted Cruz flexed his attorney muscles from his days as a Supreme Court clerk and later on as Solicitor General of Texas to affirm his conviction that waterboarding “does not meet the generally recognized definition of torture.” Torture using enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding is ineffective, is in direct violation of U.S. law and is a morally reprehensible policy which runs contrary to the universal values of mankind.

To be clear, this critique is not an attack on Republicans or a support piece for Democrats but rather a correction on misleading information perpetrated by individuals in the public eye, who just so happen to be Republicans in this case. Furthermore, it doesn’t matter whether these influential people truly believe in these enhanced techniques, because they are reflecting a true vein in America that sincerely believes in the effectiveness of torture to hypothetically stop future terrorist attacks. According to a Rasmussen Reports survey in 2014, 47 percent of voters support the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” — an obfuscated way to say torture. A mere 33 percent did not support it while 20 percent were unsure. These numbers reflect a staggering affirmation by the populace that security is far more important than justice. Built on an artificial pedestal of fear and misinformation, Americans have been sucked into an endorsement of a savage, archaic and ethically disgraceful institution.

Over an exhaustive five-year investigation, the Senate released a scathing report in 2014 which concluded “that harsh interrogation measures. . . did not work” and dismissed prominent claims made about their effectiveness — especially in the hunt for Osama Bin Laden — as “exaggerated if not utterly false.” The report described the techniques as “brutal and far worse than the CIA represented” while dismissing such tactics as “not an effective means of acquiring intelligence.” One prisoner in the review was waterboarded 83 separate times and spent 300 hours inside a cramped box. Others were subject to “rectal hydration” including one prisoner who had a “lunch tray of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts and raisins ‘pureed’ and rectally infused” in order to elicit pain. How savage have we become? The annals of history are not kind to those who deny to their common man a sense of decency and justice, even and especially when they might deny it to us.

Engaging in torture at secret facilities and in prisons constructed for the sole purpose of denying captured prisoners a fair trial betrays our values and the moral injustice we have fought and continue to fight against around the world. Despite a prisoner’s past transgressions and potentially clear guilt, stooping to the level of terrorist behavior allows the enemy to win. We play into the enemy’s hands when we get caught up in fear’s staggering power, reject our values and devolve into an evil only they can understand. We can’t let them win. President Barack Obama rightfully did away with the use of brutal tactics in 2009, yet forms of psychological torture still remain permissible.

Supporters of these techniques including loquacious demagogues and former CIA operatives continue to dispute conclusions drawn on torture. While the U.N. Convention against Torture defines it as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person in order to get information,” some contend enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding that we use do not meet this definition. Really? A rational look at what we have done and what some are threatening to do in the future reveals just how absurd these denials are. For others, the very mention of 9/11 is enough justification. While admittedly a difficult topic to discuss even now, the despicable day which defined a presidency happened 15 years ago, forcing us to truly reflect on the kind of nation we want to be in the face of seemingly overwhelmingly evil. We must hold ourselves to a higher standard. Wisdom and justice must outweigh fear and revenge.

Our enemies are organized, brutal and numerous. However, the thought that torturing a prisoner repeatedly through savage and inhumane acts in order to obtain dubious information about a possible attack on the homeland — which the other institutions in our vast national security apparatus fail to catch — is a skeptical proposition at best. Torture gives fodder to our adversaries and emboldens hostile retaliations in return. For those in the public eye who support it, I sincerely hope you never experience the hopelessness, suffering and insanity that the policy you support inflicts on your fellow human beings.

Ben Yahnian is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at b.yahnian@cavalierdaily.com.

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