Il divieto di tortura del Bush è pieno delle scappatoie

Il presidente ha pubblicato un ordine esecutivo per arrestare il CIA dal usando la tortura, ma il divieto è inapplicabile.

Da David Cole

Una volta, gli Stati Uniti condanna del funzionario di tortura era una dichiarazione del principio morale. Oggi, è un'occasione per confusione. Lo abbiamo imparato che quando il presidente Bush dichiara, “non torturiamo,„ siamo importanti da leggere la stampa fine. Così era ancora una volta il 20 luglio, quando Bush ha pubblicato un atteso da tempo ordine esecutivo purporting to regulate interrogation tactics used by the CIA in the “war on terror.” According to a White House press release, the order provides “clear rules” to implement the Geneva Conventions governing treatment of detainees in wartime — rules the administration insisted did not even apply to the “war on terror” until the Supreme Court ruled otherwise last summer. But while the new rules reflect a significant retreat by the administration from its initial torture policies, they are anything but “clear,” come far too late in the day, and in any event are unenforceable.

The executive order prohibits the CIA from using torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, sexual abuse, denigration of religion and serious “acts of violence” in its interrogations. While one might have thought that the impermissibility of such tactics in official U.S. interrogations would go without saying, it has not been so since 9/11. This is an administration that narrowly defined “torture” to permit the use of sexual abuse, stress positions, injecting suspects with intravenous fluids until they urinate on themselves, prolonged sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme heat and cold and “waterboarding,” i.e., simulated drowning. This is an administration that adopted as official legal policy the counterintuitive and deeply immoral position that international law’s ban on “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” did not apply to foreigners held by the U.S. outside U.S. borders. And this is an administration that opined that the president could order torture itself if he so chose as a way of “engaging the enemy,” notwithstanding a federal criminal statute and ratified treaty banning torture under all circumstances, including war.

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