TERRORISM: the systematic use of terror as a means
of coercion,
an atmosphere of threat or violence (Webster's ).
Given the developments in Iraq, and documents which establish the use of torture as a tool used by the U.S. military, we as rational human beings must by necessity reach an unavoidable conclusion; as the United States utilizes instruments of fear and torture, it essentially becomes an entity that can be classified as terrorist in nature...
Within nations there are laws that must be observed by the citizens of those nations, as well as non citizens. In the international arena, there are conventions, or agreements between nations that essentially lay the foundation for international law. It is a quasi realm that States choose to follow or ignore at whim. Although there are international courts, their decisions are rarely enforced, unless by international agreement through the use of economic sanctions. On occasion force is used, as in the case in Iraq.
The agreements that exist regarding human rights are pretty well acclaimed by all democratic nations without reservation. Some of these agreements are for example;
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
The Convention on Civil and Political Rights,
The American Convention of Human Rights,
The UN Convention Against Torture,
Minimum Rules for Treatment of Prisoners,
Despite the fact that 105 nations have ratified the Convention Against Torture, a report by Redress Trust in 1995, found that 151 nations have been implicated in the torture, inhuman, or degrading treatment of human beings. In any bureaucracy of repression, there are personnel schooled in the idealogical attitudes necessary to keep such systems of suppression in operation. In some cases this schooling takes place literally, for example at the infamous School of the Americas based at Ft. Benning Georgia, otherwise known as the ‘School of the Assassins’ or ‘La Escuela del Golpe’ (the coup school). It has been implicated in the training of death squads in Guatemala and Honduras. Indeed the former commander of Batallion 3-16, the Honduran death Squads, today lives in retirement in Miami, Florida.
Unknown to most American citizens, the military and intelligence services of the United States have for many decades utilized methods of torture. After WWII at the behest of John Foster Dulles, the United States undertook considerable research in the use of drugs for use in interrogations; there was Project Chatter, and Artichoke, MKULTRA and MKDELTA. It was long believed by human rights activists that training in methods of torture were codified in training manuals. In 1997 those suspicions were verified, when a copy of a CIA training manual was released under freedom of information. The manual entitled, ‘Human Resource Exploitation Manual’ detailed torture methods used against suspected subversives in the 1980’s in Central America. The methods described are similar to those being alleged in Iraq. Of particular concern, is the use of technologies that emulate natural disease processes, that cause death or significant impairment after a subject has been released from custody. For this reason, ‘natural disease’ afflictions such as strokes, heart attacks, bladder or prostate cancer must be viewed with suspicion. Recent reports regarding Saddam Hussein’s health status must be re-appraised by competent medical personnel independent from coalition forces.
No nation, no political State has the right to use torture or such methods as we have described, even against former torturers. To do so is a violation of democratic principles, it is a violation of the conventions and international agreements which we list above, but much more fundamentally—they are an unacceptable barbarity.
When a State condones torture, uses instruments of fear and terror, or condones acts that are alien to human decency, which are absent of the legitimacy of lawful conduct; then the state becomes an harbinger of violence, fear and terror-- hence terrorist in nature.
It becomes essentially the enemy that it tried to conquer !
V.S. Editor
P.S. On August 9th, 2004, the American Bar Association passed a resolution condemning "a widespread pattern of abusive detention methods", those abuses, "feed terrorism by painting the United States as an arrogant nation above the law."
Posted August 9, 2004
URL: www.thecitizenfsr.org SM 2000-2004