Mr. Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld, I ask you to cease the use of torture

[This has also been posted on the Colby College Digest of Civil Discourse]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture

New pictures of the torture at Abu Ghraib were released today by an Australian newspaper. By this time, other things have happened, too--Col. Janice Karpinsky wrote her memoirs. She testifies that Iraqi women were raped by American soldiers as part of an "Atmosphere of Humiliation" called for by extra-governmental intelligence contractors, who were in turn called for by D. Rumsfeld. Many reporters have made reports of the cruel and unusual punishments inflicted upon ambiguously guilty prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, notably Jane ___ of the New Yorker (I've forgotten her last name). Additionally, reporters traveling with U.S. troops in Afghanistan reports soldiers casually forcing confessions from children, women, and men by beating them. (I read that in the New York times, sometime in May 2004 or so).

This all needs to stop.
Torture is completely against the spirit of the United States, and the U.N. list of human rights.

Moreover, it is counter productive in fighting insurgencies:
-France used torture in Algeria to stop the uprising. They lost the war.
-Israel regularly uses torture against Palestinian suspects (Forget about a fair trial). Palestinian opposition has hardened. Palestine is now led by the militant group Hamas.

Rape and torture do not produce victory, they just injure the victims' body and mind, breaking the victim completely and doubling the resolve of his/her friends.

Also, compared with standard police interrogation methods, torture is slower and produces less reliable information (I read this testimony from an FBI official in a New Yorker article).

Moreover, there is no debate over the definition of torture. If you are inflicting severe pain and/or humiliation on a prisoner for the sake of inflicting severe pain and/or humiliation, that is torture, and that is what happened (and is probably happening right now) in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq, among other more secret U.S. prisons (in Poland or Romania?).


Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, and all of their subordinates need to stop sidestepping the question, stop trying to redefine torture, and most of all stop torturing people. It ensures Muslim hatred for the U.S., endangers our mission in Iraq, and is a cruel and unnecessary measure. It is a barbaric practice and is beneath the military of the United States in this modern age.

I've contacted George Bush, asking him to stop.
I've contacted my senators and my representatives, asking them to stop this.
I'm still thinking of what else I can do. If you have any ideas, please comment.
--Chad