Irfan Yusuf: Uncle Sam remains down in the dungeon over the use of torture

Opinion

An earnest, innocent-looking Uncle Sam stands at the top of a flight of stairs, gazing down at the windowless dungeon below. Its sparse furnishings include a lamp, a wooden bench and a closet shaped roughly to the contours of a human body, spikes emerging from its rear wall.

A man hangs from the roof, his ankles bound. Below the prisoner stand a Caucasian man dressed in a Nazi uniform, a hooded Spanish inquisitor brandishing a sword and a third man in military fatigues and an Arab headdress.

All three are looking up towards Uncle Sam, imploring him to join them. One says: "C'mon down. Once you take the first step, it's easy."

This cartoon is by Philadelphia Inquirer cartoonist Tony Auth. It's only now, with debate over the use of torture in the so-called "War on Terror", that we're discovering just how many steps the Leader of the Free World had descended into Auth's dungeon.

The frequent mantra of Western political masters was that we were in a war against terrorists who hated us because of who we are, because of our values.

Terrorists despised us for being civilised. They wanted to replace notions such as democracy and the rule of law, which we stood for, with terror and lawlessness. This was a war for civilisation, a fight to defend freedom.

Yet within a mere six months of the 9/11 attacks, top officials of the Central Intelligence Agency were happy to flout the rule of law and to breach the very values they claimed to protect.

To use the words of North Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, the Bush Administration "saw the law as a nicety we could not afford".

This new lawlessness incorporated the use of "harsh interrogation techniques" (torture) such as water boarding - where a prisoner is bound to an inclined board, his feet raised and his head slightly below the feet. Cloth is wrapped over his face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the prisoner's gag reflex is activated and he feels he is drowning.

One CIA prisoner, Ibn al Shaykh al-Libbi, is said to have been subjected to water boarding that proved so effective he provided false evidence of a link between al Qaeda and the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein which led to the 2003 invasion. Al-Libbi made these fabricated claims as he was terrified of further harsh treatment.

Even if we accept US lawmakers' claims that torture was used to protect Americans, al-Libbi's torture was clearly used for political purposes to justify a war the Bush Administration was determined to fight even before the first planes hit the World Trade Centre. Once evil means are adopted, even for seemingly noble ends, the lines between good and evil soon become blurred.

Al-Libbi's treatment is just the tip of the iceberg.

Thousands of people have been detained in US detention facilities, both known and secret, from Indonesia to Eastern Europe to Africa and the Middle East to Guantanamo Bay. Among them were two Australian citizens - David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib. And yet now the United States is reluctant to settle Guantanamo detainees on its own territory.

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama is reluctant to release further documents and photos of torture conducted by the CIA for fear it will further inflame tensions. It is this very secrecy which provides a perfect cover for even more abuse.

Indeed, the Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan is fast becoming Obama's own Guantanamo.

The BBC recently reported allegations of former detainees at Bagram being beaten, kicked, repeatedly pushed against walls, deprived of sleep, forced to undress, having pistols placed to their heads and threatened with dogs.

American torture is a threat to American and coalition (including Australian and New Zealand) troops in Afghanistan.

Recently the 11th Australian soldier was killed in action.

Australian Defence Force Chief Angus Houston recently told the Melbourne Age that Taleban and other insurgents were "increasingly using allegations of civilian casualties to damage our reputation, reduce local support, weaken our resolve, tie up our resources and add to the complexity of the operational environment". No doubt they are also using allegations of torture.

Regardless of how painful the process may be, America must take responsibility for the consequences of its inquisition.

Yet all we seem to be hearing from Obama is empty rhetoric about how the United States does not torture, the same rhetoric used by his predecessor.

During his Cairo address to an audience from Muslim-majority states, Obama admitted the United States had acted contrary to its ideals by instituting torture.

Yet among Governments represented there were those who will continue to implement the US policy of extraordinary rendition or the secret abduction and transfer of prisoners to countries that will carry out torture on behalf of the United States.

America will now effectively outsource Guantanamo-type operations to the generals, colonels, dictators and presidents-for-life who will no doubt torture not just those deemed terror suspects by the US but also domestic political opponents.

Terrorists may hate us for our values. And if countries like Australia and New Zealand don't speak out against torture, it will be clear that we aren't too fond of our values either.

* Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer and associate editor of AltMuslim.com.