"I think if anyone takes the time to read the report, they will be overwhelmed by the volume of episodes where representatives of our government, our military, have brutally, brutally, tortured many, many people. Not just people who were among 'the worst of the worst' as they have been characterized, but often people who were guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time." - U.S. Army, Brig. Gen. David Irvine (Ret.)
Watch Report Finds Proof That U.S. Tortured Detainees After 9/11 on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.
"Never before in U.S. history had there been the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occured after 9/11 directly involving a president and his top advisors on the wisdom, propriety, and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody."
- Constitution Project Report
"We found that U.S. personnel in many instances, used interrogation techniques on detainees that constitute torture. American personnel conducted an even larger number of interrogations that involved cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. Both categories of actions violate U.S. laws and international treaty obligations. This conclusion is not based upon our own personal impressions, but rather, is grounded in a thorough and detailed examination of what constitutes torture from a historical and legal context."
- Task Force Co-Chair, Asa Hutchinson
- Task Force Co-Chair, Asa Hutchinson
(Fmr. Congressman & Undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush)
Hutchinson added, "The State Department has characterized the same treatment as torture, abuse, or cruel treatment when those techniques were employed by foreign governments. The C.I.A. recognized this in an internal review and acknowledged that many of the interrogation techniques it employed were inconsistent with the public policy positions the United States has taken regarding Human Rights."
Over 100 Guantanamo Bay detainees are currently hunger striking and forcing yet another broken 2008 Obama promise to return to the light. Many have long ago been cleared for release putting the U.S. in a quagmire of turning loose innocent people who have been held against their will and tortured for over 10 years. Rather than choosing to make right its brutal wrongs against Human Rights, the current administration is instead attempting to continue its brutality by force-feeding the protesting detainees in order to avoid the greater embarrassment of these long abused, yet untried subjects to die all at once before ever finding their freedom (as many have been cleared for) or fair trial (as the rule of law demands).
The desperate measure of dying in custody through starvation seems to have no affect as of yet on the detainee's brutalizers within the U.S. government. The American Medical Association's president, Dr. Jeremy Lazarus wrote to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel stating that, “force feeding of detainees violates core ethical values of the medical profession” according to the Miami Herald, who attained a copy of the letter. The process of force-feeding involves the painful insertion of a feeding tube through the nose, which is literally shoved down the throat and into the stomach.
The highest elected officials mentioned by the Constitution Project's "independent, bipartisan, blue-ribbon" Task Force on Detainee Treatment as being responsible for breaking U.S. and international laws and treaty obligations are former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and current president Barack Obama.
The highest elected officials mentioned by the Constitution Project's "independent, bipartisan, blue-ribbon" Task Force on Detainee Treatment as being responsible for breaking U.S. and international laws and treaty obligations are former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and current president Barack Obama.
