{"id":451,"date":"2009-02-26T22:37:18","date_gmt":"2009-02-26T22:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/ending-us-torture-a-time-for-h.html"},"modified":"2009-02-26T22:37:18","modified_gmt":"2009-02-26T22:37:18","slug":"ending-us-torture-a-time-for-h","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/ending-us-torture-a-time-for-h.html","title":{"rendered":"Ending US Torture: A Time for Hope and Healthy Skepticism"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

George Hunsinger is the McCord Professor of Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the<\/i> <\/span>founder of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture<\/a>. <\/i>Among his recent<\/i> <\/span>books is Torture Is a Moral Issue: Christians, Jews, Muslims and People of Conscience Speak Out<\/i> <\/span>(Eerdmans, 2008).<\/i> <\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

The Executive Orders by President Obama on January 22 — to close Guantanamo, to end harsh<\/span> <\/span>interrogations, and to abolish secret prisons — represent a huge step forward and are truly cause for<\/span> <\/span>rejoicing. They go a long way toward putting an end to the lawlessness of the past and to restoring our<\/span> <\/span>country to decency. Torture is not just one issue among others. It is archetypal. It poses a fundamental<\/span> <\/span>threat to constitutional government and the rule of law. Regimes that authorize torture send a terrifying<\/span> <\/span>message that they operate in a law-free zone. (High-ranking officials from the outgoing administration<\/span> <\/span>openly acknowledged before they left that a policy of torture had been implemented in the so-called war<\/span> <\/span>on terror.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, although the new Executive Orders are encouraging, they still leave room for concern.<\/span> <\/span>The decision to shut down Guantanamo is most welcome, yet it is not only lacking in detail but also<\/span> <\/span>allows too much time for its implementation. Guantanamo should be closed in less than a year. The<\/span> <\/span>many men who can go home should be immediately repatriated. Safe havens must be found for the<\/span> <\/span>others who would face torture or persecution if sent back. A handful will need to be tried in domestic<\/span> <\/span>courts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Closing the CIA black sites is also enormously important. Secret prisons have no place in a democratic<\/span> <\/span>society. Their only purpose is to get around the Geneva conventions and other laws so that torture and<\/span> <\/span>abuse can be carried out. No option should be left open for reviving those sites.<\/span> <\/span>Establishing a single standard for interrogation, also promulgated in principle, is essential if torture is to<\/span> <\/span>be flushed out of our system. One of the executive orders proposes to do this on the basis of the Army<\/span> <\/span>Field Manual. Nevertheless, serious ambiguities remain. First, a disturbing loophole is left by establishing<\/span> <\/span>a Task Force mandated to review this single standard in order determine whether exceptions should still<\/span> <\/span>be made for the CIA.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Second, the Field Manual itself contains a notorious “Appendix M” in which interrogation techniques are<\/span> <\/span>permitted that would qualify as “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” under the Geneva conventions.<\/span> <\/span>Future efforts must be aimed either at eliminating this Appendix or simply letting the Geneva conventions<\/span> <\/span>stand as the sole standard to which all US interrogations, whether by military or intelligence agencies,<\/span> <\/span>must conform.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, it is noteworthy that no explicit mention was made of extraordinary rendition, a policy that needs<\/span> <\/span>to be firmly disavowed. Rendition has been the practice of apprehending suspects and sending them to<\/span> <\/span>countries where it is known that they will be tortured and abused. The US needs to apologize for this<\/span> <\/span>horrendous practice and to offer reparations, especially in those cases where it has been shown that the<\/span> <\/span>suspect was actually innocent (as Canada did for Maher Arar). While the tone of the president’s remarks<\/span> <\/span>at the signing was heartening, his silence on rendition left a glaring hole. <\/span><\/p>\n

Strong pressures, both openly and behind the scenes, to circumvent these new measures at their best<\/span> <\/span>are to be expected. They will come from right-wing sources and agencies like the CIA. For the past 50<\/span> <\/span>years, the history of US involvement in torture has been the history of loopholes for the CIA.<\/span><\/p>\n

In short, the new executive orders are full of promise, They overturn illegal and immoral tactics in the<\/span> <\/span>defense of national security. But they do not mean that the struggle is over.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Hunsinger is the McCord Professor of Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the founder of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. Among his recent books is Torture Is a Moral Issue: Christians, Jews, Muslims and People of Conscience Speak Out (Eerdmans, 2008).  The Executive Orders by President Obama on January 22 — to close Guantanamo, to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[370,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-torture","category-u-s-constitution"],"yoast_head":"\nEnding US Torture: A Time for Hope and Healthy Skepticism - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/ending-us-torture-a-time-for-h.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ending US Torture: A Time for Hope and Healthy Skepticism - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"George Hunsinger is the McCord Professor of Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. 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Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}