Jim Cohen
Staff Writer
In April, a young woman living in the Palestinian territory of Gaza was having a picnic on a beach with a young man. While driving home from her picnic, Yusra al-Azzam was forced to the side of the road and killed at gunpoint by the self-appointed Hamas religious police members, according to the Sept. 16 Times Online.
Hamas is an acknowledged terrorist organization by the U.S. government and has recently won control of the Palestinian government through democratic measures. The woman’s crime according to the religious police: having a picnic with a man unescorted by a family member. Under strict Islamic law, women unescorted by a family member in public can be sentenced to jail, severely beaten, mutilated and even killed.
After the bloodshed had subsided, Hamas acknowledged the woman did not commit a religious crime and apologized for the mistake. The woman was, in fact, having a picnic with her fiancée and future brother-in-law who were subsequently beaten and tortured by the religious police.
Although Yusra’s death was a mistake, the tarnish of her murder and torture of her fiancée is a crime against humanity and should be condemned. It is a kind of crime based on a set of morals the United States should disavow. Unfortunately, some of our leaders want the United States to disavow 60 years of banning torture and take the United States down a path that leads to a moral mistake.
It is this kind of moral mistake and skewed view of human life that has propelled a group of Republican senators to confront President Bush and his recent plea for the U.S. government to change its support for specific provisions in the Geneva Convention banning torture.
President Bush said he believes some of the language in the Geneva Convention is “too vague” and wants Congress to form rules and regulations for military tribunals to hold trial for suspected terrorists apprehended by the United States.
As reported by The New York Times on Sep. 16, “The dispute centers on whether to pass legislation reinterpreting a provision of the Geneva Conventions known as Common Article 3 that bars ‘outrages upon personal dignity — the Supreme Court ruled that the provision applies to terrorism suspects.” This language refers to the treatment of prisoners and what types of interrogation measures can be used to get vital information regarding our nation’s security.
Bush said he believes more severe interrogation tactics should be allowed.
Three senators said they believe enhanced methods of interrogation are tantamount to torture and severely oppose it.
It is important to note that the three Republican senators confronting Bush are conservative Republicans and all have served in the military. Sen. John Warner (R-VA) is leading a counter-proposal with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) and Sen. John McCain, R-(Ariz.) McCain, a Vietnam veteran and former POW who was tortured while being held captive by the Viet Cong, responded to Bush’s view of the laws.
“Weakening the Geneva protections is not only unnecessary, but would set an example to other countries, with less respect for basic human rights, that they could issue their own legislative reinterpretations,” McCain said.
The senators’ fight was propelled to the nation’s attention last week when former Secretary of State Colin Powell stated his support for their task saying a reinterpretation of torture laws would encourage the world to “doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism.”
Bush was asked about this recent comment and said people like Powell and the senators represent an argument of “flawed logic.”
The “flawed logic” is coming from people who have never experienced the harsh realities of combat and refuse to listen to the sage advice, wisdom and experience from those who have.
Most Americans do not have an absolute understanding of all of our nation’s international agreements and acknowledgement of world laws and treaties.
However, most Americans understand the difference between our nation’s laws and the kinds of laws enforced in countries where women are literally murdered for speaking to someone in public and need permission to leave their homes. The difference is supporting a moral high ground that values life versus a belief that innocent life is expendable. Americans understand that our military and intelligence officers need every tool necessary to get the bad guys before they get us.
Americans also understand that if we change our laws to admittedly allow torture, it means we will have become no better than the people who murdered an innocent woman for going on a picnic.
It means we will have lost the fight for the moral clarity that freedom is founded upon. The only “flawed logic” is the U.S. losing its moral compass in the face of fear.
And we cannot afford to make that mistake.
09-21-2006