No Torture, No Exceptions

Washington Monthly | March 2008

orture—the word evokes images of dark, damp dungeons and outlandish punishments and pain. But torture can take many forms, and it lives today. Incredibly, Americans are part of it. And we must put a stop to it.

Torture is illegal, ineffective, and morally wrong. The United States has signed numerous treaties condemning torture and abjuring its practice. Those treaties are the law of the land. And, yes, waterboarding is torture: in the past, we convicted and punished foreign nationals for torture by waterboarding. There are no legal loopholes permitting torture in "exceptional cases." After all, those were the same excuses used by the torturers we once condemned.

The honor of the American man-at-arms is one of our most potent weapons. It is enshrined in the Geneva Conventions. It encourages our enemies to surrender to us on the battlefield. It protects any of our own soldiers who may have been captured. It encourages noncombatants and civilians to trust us and cooperate willingly. And it does not countenance the abuse of captives in our care.

Clark Speaks Out on New Torture Rules

October 3, 2006
By James Ricci | Times Staff Writer | Los Angeles Times

In an address at UCLA, the retired general lambastes the Bush administration for challenging the Geneva Convention.

Retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, speaking to UCLA faculty and students Monday, said that observing the Geneva Convention is crucial to America's interests and its ability to mobilize other countries for collective efforts.

Clark — who was supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization under President Clinton and led a coalition of nearly a score of countries to successfully end Serbian oppression of Kosovo's Albanians in 1999 — said the Bush administration's insistence on more leeway in applying Geneva Convention standards to the interrogation of terrorism detainees runs counter to America's history of observing international law.

"We were anti-colonial," he said. "We did not support the French re-conquest of Indochina. We helped force the Dutch out of the East Indies. We did not support the invasion of Suez by Britain and France in 1956. We were a nation that operated selflessly. People saw us as different because we followed international law."

Making his debut as a senior fellow at the Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations at the university's International Institute, Clark called law "the ultimate human construct — more important than bridges, more important than [micro]chips…. Law is sacred in the American system."

Reprinted with permission.

"Hardball with Chris Matthews" transcript
MSNBC
January 4, 2005

Guest: C. Boyden Gray, Ralph Neas, Tony Blankley, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Frank Gaffney, Wesley Clark

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Tsunami politics. The Bush administration is spending millions of tax dollars and a pair of big American faces to fuel the effort in Southern Asia. Will this turned-on campaign jack up our image in Islamic countries? We‘ll talk to former presidential candidate General Wesley Clark.

Plus, Thursday‘s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings to consider President Bush‘s nomination of Alberto Gonzales to be attorney general promises to be punishing, as his critics jab at his role in setting U.S. policy on torture.

Let‘s play HARDBALL.

Good evening. I‘m Chris Matthews.