After a closed-door trial, American journalist Roxana Saberi was found guilty in an Iranian court on charges of espionage. An Iranian-American, Saberi had been living in Iran and working as a reporter although the Iranian government claimed it had withdrawn her press credentials. She was sentenced to eight years in prison.
The harsh sentence handed down to this native of North Dakota has generated a global outcry. President Obama and other national leaders as well as a plethora of media outlets have called for the release of this lovely young woman, once a finalist in the Miss American contest.
The Iranian government has not released any evidence against Saberi. Clearly, she has become a pawn in Iran’s relations with the United States. In the political maneuvering, Iran may wish to accuse the U. S. and Israel of planning an attack.
A confession of a plot by this lovely American would fit the strategy of Iran. And it might even be true, but still no excuse for torture. The United Nations Convention Against Torture is absolute in its prohibition of torture: ‘No exceptional circumstances whatever, whether a state of war or threat of war, internal political instability, or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.’
How to force the confession? Simply follow the tortures used by the C.I.A. as described by the experts on the International Committee of the Red Cross from their 43 page report on the treatment of fourteen “high-value” detainees in C.I.A. custody, published February 2007 on www.nybooks.com for more gory detail.
- Suffocation by water
- Prolonged stress in standing position
- Beatings by use of a collar
- Prolonged beating, kicking, slapping
- Confinement in a box severely restricting movement
- Prolonged nudity
- Sleep deprivation
- Exposure to cold temperature
- Prolonged Shackling
- Threats of ill-treatment to family
- Deprivation/restricted provision of solid food
Questions: If Roxana Saberi confesses, will the world believe it was not forced? Do the confessions forced by the C.I.A. on the grounds of national security set a precedent and valid excuse for using the same methods on Saberi and perhaps other Americans?
How reliable and credible would Saberi’s tortured answers be? Enough for the Iranians to be sure of the confessed information? And how would the use of torture diminish the reputation of the government of Iran as it has diminished the U.S. government?
12 comments ↓
My opinion is pretty simple. Even if the information was reliable, the use of torture would be wrong. It’s morally repugnant to the ideals of a free society. Period.
This torture thing is spreading like the plague. Will the people ever resist?
It is so difficult to tell who the players are: whether Iranian Americans or Iranian expatriots are working/support regime change to re-establish the Peacock throne (SAVAK), support the neocon globalist Israeli ”axis of evil” agenda; or just Iranians who legitimately want democracy for their country and for the United States and Israel to just leave them alone.
Many times reporters and their news agency are fronts for intelligence organizations. And, of course, now that the United States tortures, it has no higher moral ground. If this woman is innocent, how are we to tell?
I say stop torture, stop screwing around in the internal affairs of other countries, and stop conflating United States’ foreign policy goals with Israel’s.
#3, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Only when the US stops engaging in all those acts can it ever claim the high ground again. But, I really doubt that will happen in my lifetime. I do hope, though.
Jerome is right. That is if she was tortured. But I didn’t read that she was. I didn’t read that she had confessed to anything.
I would like to read a transcript and find out what evidence the Iran Court was charging. Since we have a history of doing evil to Iran such as the overthrow of Mossideq and installing the Shah, and since we have been involved with subterfuge in Iran as I write this ( trying to gin up a reason for a war ), the question should be, was she or wasn’t she.
Are we going to start a new war and if so what are the facts?
I think the point of the article was mostly to attack the use of torture. How could anyone believe a confession from a torture session? And, even if it was useful, torture would still be a disgusting practice. It should never be used.
Yes Spooner you are correct, but I really do wonder what the whole story is behind this event. Is this going to be the next Gulf of Tonkin or 9/11? A lot of people think that Bush started his warrntless wiretapping after 9/11. That would be incorrect. It was one of the first things he began to do after assuming office. And on 9/12 Bush had a group formed to gather data that could be used to justify a war with Iraq.
For those not familiar look up the Office of Special Plans and Douglas Feith. Cheney and Rumsfeld were also involved with it.
Torture does not work
hubpages.com/profile/bernie1936
bernie1936.wordpress.com
Bernie – you’re absolutely right. But the important question for you is this – if it somehow did work, would you then support its use?
Above I mentioned the 9/12 plan to make Iraq complicit and I talked of the OSP. The group started on 9/12 was what later became the OSP. It was initially just Bush, Clarke and later that day Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeldt, and Feith. The following is an excerpt of a Clark recollection of the first meeting that took place on 9/12. It is from an article fom the Washington Post.
“US President George Bush speaks privately with White House counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke in the White House Situation Room. According to Clarke, Bush tells him to investigate the possibility that Iraq was involved in the attacks. “I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything,” Bush says. “See if Saddam did this.” When Clarke responds, “But Mr. President, al-Qaeda did this,” Bush replies, “I know, I know, but… see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred.” Clarke insists that the CIA, FBI, and White House already concluded that there were no such links. As he exits the room, Bush “testily” says again, “Look into Iraq, Saddam.” [Washington Post, 3/22/2004 Sources: Richard A. Clarke]
The point is that these people lied the U S into war with Iraq and they were already practicing “torture” on people around the Mid-East. The group formed that day were to “cherry pick intelligence” to make it look like Saddam had a hand in it. Pepole who would gin up a war, knowing that the basis was a lie, need to face the World Court for War Crimes. Torture is just one of them.
I’ve read over the years that the whole rendition program wasn’t a bush program, but just an expanded one that started under clinton. Anyone know about this? Is it true or not?
Kelvin. I’m not sure, but there is a difference in “extraordinary rendition” , what Bush practiced, and rendition, a legal form of moving a suspect back to a country ( a type of extradition), when the suspect’s presence is requested from a country seeking the person for crimes against the requesting country. I believe that the extraordinary rendition ( moving a person to a country for the purpose of torture – questioning ) is against both American law and International Law. Torture certainly is.
Anyway I went looking and didn’t find any extraordinary renditions prior to Bush although I did find renditions where the United States had suspects moved from a country to the United States for trial ( during Clinton’s time, and before for that matter).
Basically the difference between the two is that what Bush did was have a suspect of a crime against the United States moved to a country for questioning so that he (Bush) wouldn’t be violating the U S laws against torture. Remember this is why the Gitmo detention center was set up – to escape jurisdiction of U S Law.
Leave a Comment