Saying nothing is torture in itself: Are Americans OK with using religious humiliation as tools of war?

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Saying nothing is torture in itself: "By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | January 30, 2005

THE LATEST allegation of prisoner abuse by the US military comes from Erik Saar, a former Army sergeant and translator at the American naval base at Guantanamo. In a forthcoming book, Saar describes the use of female sexuality as a tactic against Muslim detainees, for many of whom modesty between the sexes is a deeply ingrained religious requirement.
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Are Americans OK with using religious humiliation as tools of war?

How about religious torture?

In Abu Ghraib, the cruelties inflicted on prisoners by Specialist Charles Graner and his little band of sadists weren't limited to the sexual. Inmates told investigators they were forced to swallow pork and liquor -- both are forbidden to Muslims -- and to denounce Islam.

''They stripped me naked," said a detainee named Ameen Saeed Al-Sheik. ''They asked me, 'Do you pray to Allah?' I said yes. They said, '[Expletive] you. And [expletive] him.' They ordered me to curse Islam and because they started to hit my broken leg, I cursed my religion. They ordered me to thank Jesus that I'm alive. And I did what they ordered me. This is against my belief."
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But none of that justifies the administration's apparent willingness to countenance -- under at least some circumstances -- the indecent abuse of prisoners in military custody. Something is very wrong when the Justice Department advises the president's legal adviser that a wartime president is not bound by the international Convention Against Torture or the US laws incorporating it. Or when that legal adviser tells the Senate, as Alberto Gonzales did last week, that ''there is no legal prohibition under the Convention Against Torture on cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment with respect to aliens overseas."

If this were happening on a Democratic president's watch, the criticism from Republicans and conservatives would be deafening. Why the near-silence now? Who has better reason to be outraged by this scandal than those of us who support the war? More than anyone, it is the war hawks who should be infuriated by it. It shouldn't have taken me this long to say so.