That our government runs programs which use these techniques is shocking. That our president still considers the definition of torture and whether or not the government participates in it to be state secrets is horrifying.

The debate about torture within our country has finally begun, but it has been nebulous at best, and has mainly centered on the definition of the word ‘torture.’ The debate itself has made clear that fundamental facts about reality have failed to permeate into the national consciousness.

The first fact is that there is no doubt that our government has used interrogation techniques unequivocally considered to be torture. On Oct. 30, New York Times reporter Scott Shane reported that Mike McConnell, the former Director of National Intelligence, has acknowledged the use of extreme temperatures within interrogation practices. The Times also has sources within the CIA attesting to water boarding and other techniques. We also know that the CIA has used a network of secret prisons all over the world for ‘harsh interrogation’ with the approval of President Bush, who admitted to this program’s existence earlier this year.

That our government runs programs which use these techniques is shocking. That our president still considers the definition of torture and whether or not the government participates in it to be state secrets is horrifying.

On July 20 of this year, President Bush signed an executive order stating that, “members of Al Queda, the Taliban, and associated forces” are not protected under the Geneva Convention’s rules concerning detention and treatment of prisoners. It goes on to declare the President’s power to interpret the Geneva Convention as ‘affirmed’ by congress through the Military Commission Act, the 2006 law concerning the treatment of detainees. The order also declares the CIA’s ‘detention and interrogation programs’ fully comply with US law and our treaties. Of course, it does not specify which treatments count as torture, and the contradicting fact that the detainees in these programs had been stripped of all rights only a few paragraphs earlier seems to have been ignored.

When asked last month, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino refused to comment on whether the CIA’s interrogation prisons still existed. She refused to comment on definition of either ‘torture’ or ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ or on whether specific techniques such as water boarding, head slapping, or extreme temperatures fall under one or the other. When informed by a reporter that the Geneva Convention reserves interpretation to the International Crimes Court, the White House refused to acknowledge the court’s authority over the President. The White House even refused to reveal whether these programs are ‘signed off on’ by the President or Attorney General, claiming not to know the ‘chain of command’ at the Justice Department. Ms. Perino did, however, remind us continually that these things are kept from us for our own protection and the nation’s security. Condoleezza Rice and Gen. Hayden, director of the CIA, have also refused to comment, claiming threats to national security.

To further compound the evidence that our government has participated – and continues to participate – in these programs, two cases of citizens of other nations being tortured have received recent media attention. Scott Shane’s article details the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen ‘mistakenly seized’ by the US government and sent to Syria. Suspected of terrorism, Mr. Arar was beaten at least once and almost without doubt endured worse.

In one of the more disturbing developments, Linda Greenhouse, also of the New York Times, reported on Oct. 9 that the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen abducted by US agents while on vacation in Macedonia in late 2003. El-Masri, of Lebanese decent, was taken to a prison in Afghanistan where he was tortured for five months before being released in Albania. The case had been dismissed by the Federal District Court in Alexandria, Virginia after the Bush Administration intervened in December of 2005, claiming that the case revealed state secrets that threatened national security.

We know that our government has used torture on foreign citizens in secret prisons abroad. We know that the use of these techniques, who they are used on, and even who is ultimately in charge of these programs is an acknowledged secret. Our government has even gone so far as to declare which treatments can be classified as torture is a state secret! Most disturbingly, our courts have refused to challenge this assertion, which is a clear violation of the spirit of our constitution, if not a violation to the letter. Indeed, they have so far refused to even hear such cases.

What if these individual cases were American citizens? Would these rules apply? A government that considers how it treats its citizens to be a state secret is no longer answerable to them. Our constitution asserts at its most fundamental and core level the principle of an executive who is answerable directly to the people. The consequences of such a reality are almost unimaginable. The ultimate end of such policies, however, is anything but ambiguous. The power to torture its own citizens is one of the most fundamental hallmarks of a despotic state.

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