LETTERS

To the Editor:

“Tales From Torture’s Dark World,” by Mark Danner (Op-Ed, March 15), reminds us in great detail that the fundamental human rights of detainees were indeed violated consistently over a period of years.

The “alternative set of procedures” used by American personnel included slamming detainees repeatedly into a wall using a neck collar for leverage, confining detainees in a coffinlike sensory-deprivation tank, forcing detainees to urinate and defecate on themselves, and waterboarding. These amount to war crimes.

Permission to use these tactics was sought and given by some of the most senior figures in the Bush administration. It is a national scandal that the highest-ranking American held criminally accountable for the systemic abuses committed in American-run detention facilities in Abu Ghraib, Bagram Air Base and the various “black sites” operated by the C.I.A. is a junior noncommissioned officer.

Mr. Danner’s article is a timely reminder of why there must be a nonpartisan and independent inquiry into detainee treatment and policies. Accountability is the cornerstone of justice. We will not be able to restore America’s reputation in the world until we can demonstrate that we hold our own leaders to the same standard that we hold those in other nations.

Tom Parker 
Washington, March 16, 2009

The writer is policy director for terrorism, counterterrorism and human rights at Amnesty International USA.

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To the Editor:

Among the revelations included in the secret International Committee of the Red Cross report obtained by Mark Danner is new, concrete evidence of supervision by health professionals of torture at C.I.A. “black sites.” While shocking, these accounts are not surprising.

Over the last seven years, the Bush administration engaged in an unprecedented assault on the core foundations of medical ethics. The statements of former senior officials and government reports reveal how physicians, psychologists and other members of the healing professions were used to break the bodies and minds of detainees in American custody.

Restoring our nation’s commitment to the rule of law, human rights and medical ethics can be accomplished only through holding perpetrators of these crimes to account.

Any commission of inquiry established by Congress or the White House must address the role of health professionals in detainee abuse. State ethics boards must investigate and sanction practitioners who were involved. And the Department of Justice must follow the evidence of torture wherever it leads.

Frank Donaghue
Chief Executive
Physicians for Human Rights
Cambridge, Mass., March 15, 2009

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To the Editor:

Mark Danner’s recounting of the repulsive, inhumane techniques used on suspected terrorist leaders at “black sites” — techniques that President George W. Bush proudly and openly labeled “an alternative set of procedures” — makes one almost physically ill.

But much worse than this physically nauseating feeling is the spirit-numbing, immutable image of our president assuring us time and time again, “The United States does not torture.”

Dorian de Wind 
Austin, Tex., March 15, 2009

The writer is a retired Air Force major.

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To the Editor:

If any American citizens retain any doubt that our country has participated in torture, they need only read Mark Danner’s description of the report from the International Committee of the Red Cross and reflect on how they would feel if a loved one in the service of our country were captured and subjected to this treatment.

The tragedy is that it will happen, and we will not occupy the moral high ground when we object — to our everlasting shame!

Jim Colquhoun 
Southwest Harbor, Me., March 15, 2009

Tom Parker, et al.