Ben Greenberg
Manager of Online Communications
Physicians for Human Rights

To “cuty_1000″ I say two things. First, torture is wrong, no matter who does it. Second, even if we discard our principals as al-Qaeda and others wish, purely practical considerations argue against using torture. It doesn’t yield useful information, and it tends to deepen whatever conflict inspired its use.

The proof of the second statement can be found by looking at U.S. policy and behavior in World War II. The Japanese military was exceptionally brutal, but the United States adhered to the Geneva Conventions and followed a policy of humane treatment toward enemy combatants captured on the battlefield.

There are numerous accounts from by U.S. military personnel attesting to the effectiveness of humane treatment in producing useful, life-saving battlefield information. In short, it is not the winners who torture, it is the losers who do it.

The abuse of captives has eroded public safety.

We have limited resources to devote to counter-terrorism. There are always going to be potential threats we can not find enough resources to counter. So, we have to decide which potential threats are the most important to try to counter.

Abuse of the captives has very seriously polluted the pool of intelligence we rely upon when making decisions about which threats to counter. Guantanamo analysts wrung the captives so severely they would say anything to get the abuse to stop. They did say anything.

We allocated our limited counter-terrorism resources badly, improperly, because we placed credit on the bad intelligence wrung from the captives through abuse.

I am sympathetic to GIs who committed violations of the UCMJ, or other laws, who THOUGHT they were obeying lawful orders. So, hold their officers responsible, or hold Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft responsible, if the chain of responsibilty goes that high.