Sen. Durbin’s amendment to prohibit torture

I’ve been really happy to see that Senator Dick Durbin (Democrat from Illinois) has taken the lead in seeking to attach to this year’s Defense Appropriations Bill an Amendment to enact a PROHIBITION ON TORTURE OR CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT.
Moveon.org has a good little email campaign urging people to call their Senators to urge them to support the Durbin Amendment. I think the Amerndment will be voted on today.
I just called both my Senators– one of them is the powerful Sen. John Warner. The people I spoke to in Warner’s and George Allen’s offices both said their bosses “had not yet decided which way to vote” on the Durbin Amendment.
Let’s hope that (a) they get a large number of very persuasive calls urging support of Durbin, and (b) they are open to persuasion on this.
I looked quickly through the text of the Durbin Amendment as provided by Moveon. It is drafted in a pretty compelling way.
In the operative part, it states:

No person in the custody or under the physical control of the United States shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment that is prohibited by the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.

It also requires the Secretary of Defense to report back to the congressional defense committees regarding what he has done to implement this, and to continue sending,

on a timely basis and not less than twice each year, a report to Congress on the circumstances surrounding any investigation of a possible violation of the prohibition … by a member of the Armed Forces or by a person providing services to the Department of Defense on a contract basis.

The Amendment prefaces all that operational language with references to a number of the existing laws against torture and other abuse that are already in both in the Uniform Code of Military Justice and other portions of domestic law and in international treaties that have been ratified by the Senate.
It also highlights the following very significant quote from George W. Bush, that I confess I hadn’t seen before:

The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment.
~ President George W. Bush, June 26, 2003, the International Day in
Support of Victims of Torture

Wow… If only there weren’t so many long words there I might be tempted to start needlepointing that onto a plaque to hang in my home…
The text of the Amednment also notes that:

the Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation of the Department of the Army states that “acts of violence or intimidation, including physical or mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to inhumane treatment as a means of or an aid to interrogation” are “illegal”. Such Manual defines “infliction of pain through . . . bondage (other than legitimate use of restraints to prevent escape)”, “forcing an individual to stand, sit, or kneel in abnormal positions for prolonged periods of time”, “food deprivation”, and “any form of beating” as “physical torture”, defines “abnormal sleep deprivation” as “mental torture”, and prohibits the use of such tactics under any circumstances. [Emphasis there by HC]
(8) The Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation of the Department of the Army states that “Use of torture and other illegal methods is a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the interrogator wants to hear. Revelation of use of torture by U.S. personnel will bring discredit upon the U.S. and its armed forces while undermining domestic and international support for the war effort. It may also place U.S. and allied personnel in enemy hands at a greater risk of abuse by their captors.”

Well, I couldn’t have expressed that better myself. Good for the Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation. (Does anyone know how to get hold of a copy of its full text?)
But specially, kudos to Senator Durbin for showing great leadership on this issue.
Incidentally, when I was in DC Monday, I was at meetings at an organization called Churches for Middle East Peace. I talked a little with folks there about the need for a clear governmental stand of Zero Tolerance for Torture.
Someone came up with the excellent idea that it would be good to attach to the Defense Appropriations Bill some funding to establish a series of treatment centers inside Iraq for survivors of torture there— survivors of all the tortures there, both under the US occupation and under Saddam.
That is another really good proposal… Senator Durbin? Senator Warner? Anyone else want to take this one on?