To access the Sunday strip, click on this link to Slate/Doonesbury and scroll down:
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20090621
But not being one to assume all representations are credible, I've done a little research of my own. I found presidential statements and actions against torture from revolutionary times through the 20th century confirmed and discussed all over the web. As I also noted in my earlier post on the subject (see below), that doesn't mean that torture has never happened, or that there were no ambiguous circumstances or statements, or inconsistent actions. There were. But our ideals and policies on the subject as expressed by many of our greatest presidents have been consistent and unambiguous in condemning cruelty and torture of enemy prisoners. And that includes methods used long ago that are very close in type and practice to what we today call waterboarding. I found the following presidential quotes and accounts reported by several credible publications and their web sites.
George Washington
I offer this quote by Washington, although there were others on the subject. Another, longer one which I have omitted has been more often quoted, but appears also to have been over-edited for effect, even though in full quote it also generally supports the same policies and sentiments. After the battle of Trenton, about 1,000 Hessians (Britain's German mercenaries) had been captured. Washington, it is reported, ordered that enemy prisoners be treated humanely. After the Battle of Princeton, some of Washington's troops were apparently preparing to run some of the German mercenaries through what they called the "gauntlet," impliedly a form of extreme punishment. General Washington discovered this, intervened, and gave the following order to his troops regarding prisoners of war:
Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren who have fallen into their hands.
It is recorded that through this approach, he and John Adams, among others, hoped to shame their British adversaries, and demonstrate to the world the moral superiority of the American people and their cause.
Abraham Lincoln
In order to address the legal issues resulting from the Civil War's large number of Union and Confederate prisoners, Lincoln turned to legal Scholar Francis Lieber of Columbia College. Lieber's work resulted in Lincoln's General Orders 100, "Instructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field" on April 24, 1863. Article 16 stated:
Military necessity does not admit of cruelty--that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions.
President Lincoln's pronouncement was likely the first formal code of conduct for the humane treatment of prisoners, and it is said to have been a model for the 1929 Geneva Convention.
Theodore Roosevelt
Teddy Roosevelt is reported to have issued this urgent cable after receiving information about the use of a close variation of waterboarding by American soldiers in the Philippines:
THE PRESIDENT DESIRES TO KNOW IN THE FULLEST AND MOST CIRCUMSTANTIAL MANNER ALL THE FACTS . . . FOR THE VERY REASON THAT THE PRESIDENT INTENDS TO BACK UP THE ARMY IN THE HEARTIEST FASHION IN EVERY LAWFUL AND LEGITIMATE METHOD OF DOING ITS WORK. HE ALSO INTENDS TO SEE THAT THE MOST VIGOROUS CARE IS EXERCISED TO DETECT AND PREVENT ANY CRUELTY OR BRUTALITY AND THAT MEN WHO ARE GUILTY THEREOF ARE PUNISHED. GREAT AS THE PROVOCATION HAS BEEN . . . NOTHING CAN JUSTIFY . . . THE USE OF TORTURE OR INHUMAN CONDUCT OF ANY KIND ON THE PART OF THE AMERICAN ARMY.
Other Presidents, Generals
As I noted above, John Adams also argued that humane treatment of prisoners not only reflected the American Revolution's highest ideals, it was also a moral and strategic imperative. His thoughts on the subject were set out in a 1777 letter to his wife, Abigail:
I know of no policy, God is my witness, but this — Piety, Humanity and Honesty are the best Policy. Blasphemy, Cruelty and Villainy have prevailed and may again. But they won't prevail against America, in this Contest, because I find the more of them are employed, the less they succeed.
It is reported that even British military leaders involved in atrocities and torture of American troops finally recognized the negative effects on their campaign against the new American democracy. In 1778, a Colonel Charles Stuart wrote to his father, the Earl of Bute:
Wherever our armies have marched, wherever they have encamped, every species of barbarity has been executed. We planted an irrevocable hatred wherever we went, which neither time nor measure will be able to eradicate.
Later, John Adam's son, John Quincy Adams, would formally express similar views to those of Washington and his father. Dwight Eisenhower guaranteed humane treatment to German POWs in World War II, and General Douglas McArthur ordered observance of an updated Geneva Convention during the Korean War, even when the U.S. had yet to sign it. In the Vietnam War, the United States applied the convention's rules and protections to Viet Cong prisoners even though the law, technically, may not have required it.
So, then, how well has America supported and protected the higher ground of these ideals and policies, how true to them have we been, in the 21st century?
For my treatment of the subject, see my earlier post to Hyde Park's Corner, Torture, Our Slide From Grace (5.30.09)
No comments:
Post a Comment