Return of the Torture Monsters: Here We Go Again Commentary
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Return of the Torture Monsters: Here We Go Again
Edited by: JURIST Staff

Pete Hegseth, confirmed by the Senate on January 24 as US President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense, gave noncommittal answers to two key questions at his confirmation hearing: 1) if the president ordered him to use the military to shoot protesters domestically would he do it? 2) Would he comply with the Geneva Conventions?

This brought back to mind the efforts for naught of Colin Powell and William Taft IV to block the torture memos in early 2002, the 54 country torture regime put in place by the George W. Bush Administration (including sending detainees to Syria for interrogation), and the glaring lack of criminal prosecution of high level civilians or military leaders for the torture in the administrations of both Bush and Barack Obama.

But now, with the presidential immunity decision of the Supreme Court things are even worse. 

Now, a presidential order to torture asserted on the basis it was an official act under the Commander in Chief power immunizes the president. In addition, the untethered use of the pardon power assures those following such orders that they will face no legal consequence. Finally, the adherence to two self-serving Office of Legal Counsel opinions, drafted when the then sitting presidents were facing the risk of criminal prosecution, rewards delay but not justice and accountability.

In the current environment, one could think that it is meaningless to dissent to this degradation of standards.

But, there are those of us who remember.

So let us remember Kent State, Jackson State, and South Carolina State College Orangeburg Massacre with the murder of student protesters by forces of order either as National Guard or police.

Let us remember the Salt Pit, Abu Ghraib, Stare Kiejkuty in Poland, Thailand, Mauritania, Romania, Syria, and the other black sites around the world where persons were tortured in our name. Let us remember the psychologists who were eager enablers of the torture and who besmirched the reputation of the American Psychological Association. Let us remember the tapes destroyed of torture in Thailand..

Let us look backward as we deal with what is coming toward us and remain ever vigilant against those who rejoice in or comply with this depravity.

Let us not forget the foreigners in our midst who are preparing to be treated like animals in mass deportations out of a complete indifference to their humanity. Let us remember the late Ben Ferencz, the last Nuremberg prosecutor, referring to the family separation policies of Trump and Obama as crimes against humanity in terms of the definitions in the Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Let us remember the sadness even in old age of the late Senator Daniel Inouye over the stripping of his Japanese born mother of her U.S. citizenship under the 1924 immigration act. 

Let us stare into the darkness and neither fear the abyss nor succumb to it. Instead, might we remember to never forget and see clearly just who are the monsters among us.

Benjamin G. Davis is an Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Toledo College of Law in Ohio.

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