A Shining Testimony Against Torture

See more on the author and Quaker House at end of this post.

Here's an Op-Ed column I submitted to the Fayetteville Observer. It was published there on February 18, 2009. Chuck Fager

Anti-torture stand deserves recognition - By Chuck Fager - Fayetteville, NC USA

OK, so the Observer won a bunch of awards recently, from the North Carolina Press Association. Mostly seconds and thirds. Congratulations, I guess. But, if you ask me, the NCPA dropped the ball. They missed one at their rubber chicken confab. And it was a biggie. A real biggie. They forgot to hand the Observer the Special Citation for Editorial Courage and Excellence in the Fight to End Torture.

That’s one award the editors earned, in spades. It should be hanging on the office wall right now, in a big shiny frame, in front of God and everybody. Why? Do the math: Since 2005, this newspaper has published 10 — count ’em — editorials denouncing torture in the now obsolete “war on terror.” They have also printed a batch of anti-torture op-ed pieces, including two very powerful columns by Vietnam vet and military writer Joe Galloway, who knows what he’s talking about. That makes a dozen, and there were more. (Full disclosure: I wrote a couple of the other op-ed pieces, so we won’t include them in the tally.)

How could the NCPA have missed out on recognizing this amazing record? Not only were the Observer’s editorials consistent, they were eloquent as heck. Recall just a few of these headlines:

“Our View: The only good policy regarding torture is zero tolerance” (Sept. 29,2005).
“Our View: Americans can win wars without becoming what they despise”(Sept. 17,2006).
“Our View: It’s water torture, not an ‘enhanced technique’” (Feb. 12, 2008).
“Our View: ‘Abstinence only’ is the sole honorable torture policy” (April 18, 2008).

There’s lots more, but you get the idea.

This stunning achievement required more than mere eloquence and clear moral vision. In the America of working “the dark side, if you will,” sneering at the Geneva Convention, and “All Hail Jack Bauer, Superstar,” it took guts. How lonely a stand was it? Well, for three years now, I’ve been making jaws drop on all my anti-torture activist buddies from the Triangle and other big cities, as I’ve shown them these clearly reasoned cris de couer, one after another, after another, after another.

You see, in those bigger, supposedly more sophisticated, cultured, and, well, “progressive” N.C. towns, the editorial voices against torture in their bigger, supposedly more sophisticated, etc., dailies have been mighty few and far between. One would think that for them, challenging torture was right up there with dissing NASCAR, basketball, barbecue and other timeless Tar Heel taboos.

So, maybe I can understand the NCPA’s reluctance to honor the Observer’s principled consistency; to do so would show up too many of their colleagues around the state as the moral midgets they’ve been on this issue. For years.

And besides, that’s all behind us now anyway, right? The New Order in Washington has declared torture off-limits, thank goodness. Let’s move on, folks — nothing to see here. Especially not that pesky “accountability” aspect that Joe Galloway wrote about so forcefully in these pages just weeks back.

So no citation for the Observer. Oh, well. Yet, there is one consolation: If their fellow editors haven’t been listening, maybe someone else has.

Come to think of it, those ringing declarations from the new White House resident about how America will no longer tolerate torture sound ed like they were cribbed from the editorial columns of a small-city daily in the Sandhills. If they weren’t, they sure could have been.

These echoes from the White House of what our paper has been saying for years ought to make local folks swell with pride. And make a lot of other editors hang their heads in shame. For that matter, maybe the NCPA isn’t the Observer’s last chance to get its props. Hello, Pulitzer Prize jury? Take note.
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To see more from Chuck Fager and The Quaker House on "The Torture Accountability Spectrum – A Summary of Current Views" - Go here After listing the "do nothing" folk, Fager offers this: The third position is more forceful; these are the “Investigate and Then Prosecute” proposals. Rep. John Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is the most visible champion of such an effort. He argues that official investigations should not rule out in advance the prosecution of those responsible for what are very serious offences. If we prosecute “petty” crimes, it would be hypocritical to fail to prosecute war crimes and torture. Scott Horton, a well-known human rights attorney, has also strongly supported this approach.

The fourth and most assertive position on the current spectrum is the call to “Prosecute Now.” One way to do this would be for the US Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor, right away, regardless of what happens on the investigation/commission front.

This is the demand of Michal Ratner, Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is representing some Guantanamo prisoners. It has also been advanced by David Swanson, formerly an impeachment activist, who has a petition at Democrats .com calling for the new US Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor immediately. (The petition had almost 43000 signatures as of February 21)(For more info on this effort Go here
And here

A variation of this approach is that of former prosecutor and author Vincent Bugliosi author and former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi has made a case for prosecuting George W. Bush for murder based on taking the US into the Iraq War under false pretenses. The murder victims would be any US soldier killed in Iraq; and as murder is mainly a state offense, the charges would be brought by a local District Attorney.

Bugliosi has sent his book, “The Prosecution of George W. Bush For Murder,” to all 2200 local district attorneys around the country, hoping to find one or more to bring a case. More information about this effort is at the website: here

That’s the current accountability spectrum as I see it. The outcome of this debate is impossible to predict, but it does seem that momentum is building for some kind of accountability effort, and the “Do Nothing” stance is, at this point at least, losing ground. (End of "spectrum" post)

For the earlier post: The New President vs. Torture: Great Start, Much More To Do -
Go here

Here's a startling excerpt:
...Working next door to Fort Bragg NC, we’re smack in the middle of what can be called the “Torture Industrial Complex.” Two reputed CIA front companies, Centurion Aviation Services in Fayetteville, and Aero Contractors in nearby Smithfield, have been linked to many, if not most of the “torture taxi” flights - Over the past year, local anti-torture activists have watched both these companies expand their facilities, with more growth on the boards. So while most other sectors of the economy here are collapsing, the rendition flight industry’s outlook seems quite sunny, thank you very much; new executive orders or no...

And for Chuck Fager's general blogsite Go here

See info on Fager's new book "YES to the Troops, NO to the War" and a short history of the amazingly long and faithful PEACE WORK of Quaker House, Fayetteville here

Here are a few more items related to the above topics:
Deaths-and-Torture-in-Us-Custody-Commands-Responsibility
here

Scholars’ Statement of Principles for a New President on U.S. Detention Policy PDF
here

See also the work of NC Stop Torture Now:
here
and their admirably active chronology:
here

Look for more related items in Comments section of this post as they come up in the coming days and weeks.