One Nation Under Tourture?

February 15, 2008

by Alexandra Seigel

In President Bush’s first public address after September 11, he proclaimed that Americans would not live in an “age of terror,” but rather in an “age of liberty.” It was compelling rhetoric, but most Bill of Rights aficionados (which should of course be everyone in America who cares for their rights) haven’t found the past seven years to be particularly liberating. In fact, civil liberties violations like the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, and those occurring in Guantanamo Bay have made the Bush Administration’s “age of liberty” a very real and insidious brand of terror: the mass dread that occurs when people mortally fear an enemy we are told wants personally to murder us.


Contrary to elementary school portrayals of American history, the trampling of the Constitution in the name of security is not a new phenomenon. In 1798, during the so-called quasi war with France, John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which forbade “scandalous and malicious writing” against the government or its officials — a blatant violation of free press and free speech. Centuries later, Joseph McCarthy used the Cold War as an excuse to persecute leftists. There was a secret faction, McCarthy said, and they hated everything Americans stood for and were devoted to destroying the American way of life. Playing on fear, lesser men accrue greater power.

But even great leaders like Abraham Lincoln and F.D.R. dappled in unconstitutionality as seen by Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and Roosevelt’s authorization of Japanese internment. In some ways, the Bush Administration’s policies are simply a continuation of this historical precedent of leaders consolidating their power under difficult circumstances. After September 11, Bush promised to fight for “freedom and security.” This was a noble aim, but unfortunately protecting freedoms and maintaining national security have proven to be mutually exclusive goals for the Bush Administration.

On February 5, 2008, the CIA admitted to using waterboard torture as an interrogation method. “Waterboarding” dates back to the Spanish Inquisition and involves strapping a prisoner to a board, covering his or her face in cloth or cellophane, and pouring water over his or her mouth in order to simulate feelings of drowning. Not only has this tactic proven to be a woefully ineffective intelligence gathering tool, but according to Human Rights Watch, it occasionally results in permanent brain damage. Waterboarding has also been explicitly illegal in the United States since 1901, when American soldiers were convicted of war crimes for subjecting Filipino insurgents to waterboarding during the Spanish-American war. Furthermore, in the aftermath of both World War II and the Vietnam War, more soldiers were punished for the use of waterboarding. Recently, in April of 2006, more than 100 law professors sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, stating that “waterboarding is torture, and is a criminal felony punishable under the U.S. federal criminal code.” In case there was still any doubt of its illegality, on September 6 of the same year the Pentagon issued a new Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation that explicitly forbade the use of waterboarding in any interrogation.

What is striking about the current waterboarding scandal is not that the CIA was using an illegal torture method, but rather that the Bush Administration has been completely unapologetic. In a nation so founded on lofty ideals, one must ask how the most important man in the world can simply flaunt the laws he is there to protect and pay no price nor experience any repercussion.

The Bush Administration first authorized waterboarding in 2006 when Vice President Dick Cheney asserted that it would be a “no brainer…[to] dunk someone’s head in water” if it meant “saving lives.” Causing permanent brain damage and suffering to another human being should never be a “no brainer.” Tom Malinowski, Human Rights Watch’s advocacy director in Washington, responded by asserting, “If Iran or Syria detained an American, Cheney is saying that it would be perfectly fine for them to hold that American’s head under water until he nearly drowns.” If adages like “treat others as you’d like to be treated” and “what goes around comes around” still have any veracity, perhaps the Bush Administration should consider how loudly they are speaking lest the enemy take note of their big stick and hit them, and us, back.

The trampling of civil liberties may be a recurring pattern in U.S. history, but the Bush Administration’s use of waterboarding seems pretty medieval, even for a “crusader” president. When John Adams censored speech, he did so when the American democracy was still young and unstable; Lincoln may have suspended habeas corpus, but many historians argue that this prevented the Border States from seceding and thus played a key role in the Union’s victory. However, in the same way that history has sided against Japanese internment and McCarthyism as barbaric and irrational, it seems unlikely that any future historian will defend the current string of civil rights abuses as a truly necessary evil. And just because the Bush Administration’s tactics have not yet reached the abominable extremes of past atrocities does not mean that they are justified, or that we should wait 20 years to deplore their illegality as a thing we never knew at the time.

Unfortunately, as Bush’s last term and his seven-year “age of liberty” come to an end, the future does not look particularly promising. Civil liberties have played a strikingly small role in Election 2008 politics. One might think Senator John McCain’s experience in a Viet Cong prison may make him less likely to trample the 8th Amendment, but he nevertheless voted, along with Senators Clinton and Obama, to renew the Patriot Act. As Americans flock to the polls to choose the course of their nation’s economy and foreign policy, their civil liberties are quietly disappearing.





Alexandra Seigel is a freshman who has not yet declared a major.