Should America Torture Its Prisoners?

Broken Trust: Why America disgraced itself in the Torturing of Detainee’s

 

 

 

If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

                                                   Psalm 11:3


by Lee Edward Enochs
Executive Director
Conservatives for California

 

Today I would like to focus on the recent stunning revelation that just six days after the September 11, 2001 attacks orchestrated by Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda operatives, President George W. Bush signed a secret order to capture and imprison terrorists, and many of these alleged operatives were tortured by the C.I.A.

New York Times writers James Risen and Matt Apuzzo reported on the front page  of their newspaper yesterday that these detainees were “chained to walls and forgotten, froze to death on concrete floors and were “water-boarded” until they were rendered unconscious.” (See NYT article, "C.I.A. First Planned Jails Abiding by U.S. Standards, 12-11-14).

I am very disturbed about this and have a great deal of passion about this matter, for I believe this is no way for America to act.

I believe these actions clearly violate the US Constitution that guarantees in the fifth and eighth amendments that those tried by the US government will be rendered “due process of the law,” and that they will not experience “cruel and unusual punishment.”

The fact that the American government was involved in torturing people is unconscionable to me because our nation is predicated upon civil liberties and the rule of law.

I know that these alleged Al Qaeda operatives are not American citizens, but I believe that every person that is treated by the long arms of America’s justice system should be afforded the same constitutional rights as anyone else that is being rendered adjudication by our judicial process.

 I do not care if these alleged criminals were Al Qaeda operatives or not, since each person under the Constitution is innocent until proven guilty.

This “presumption of innocence” is the very bedrock foundation of American justice and should be afforded to all who is judged by it. I believe in the principle of Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat (the burden of proof is on he who declares, not on he who denies).

Irrespective of how reprehensible these alleged operatives acted, they deserved and deserve their day in court and should be afforded the same rights of a fair trial anyone else is who is being adjudicated by the American judicial system.

I believe there should be no exceptions to this since America is supposed to be government of the people and by the people and guided by the highest moral principles and the supposed rule of law.