The Harvard School of Government Sanctions Torture

I did not see this story anywhere in the U.S. Media. My father-in-law sent me an article about this subject from Cronica, a Mexican online news magazine. The website is all in Spanish. Naturally distrustful of this media source (I can't read Spanish) I went directly to Harvard's website which features the report.

A study by Harvard University recommends the creation of a legal framework that allows the president of the United States to order torture and cruel and degrading treatment of detainees, as well as order assassinations to preserve the security and the democratic freedom of the nation. In their November 2004 publication titled Preserving Security and Democratic Freedoms in the War on Terrorism--Final Report of the Long-Term Legal Strategy Project, Harvard professors Philip Heymann and Juliette N. Kayyem discuss the legality of torture and other coercive methods employed in the War on Terror. They carefully weasel around the descriptions of torture in mind-numbing legalese. They conclude that torture may only be practiced if it is approved by the executive branch. In other words, President Bush can sign the order to torture someone. Bush has gained some extraordinary executive powers as president lately.

Well this has been going on for three years, this report just says its okay as official policy. First Bush declares someone an enemy combatant--a person with no legal rights in an indefinite state of detention. This person is shipped off to military prison and then tortured. They are not convicted of anything and do not stand trial for their crimes; they just remain in this state of limbo. The problem is torture is simply not an effective means of garnering accurate information. Most of the prisoners tortured in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison provided false information. They said anything to strop being tortured. This led to thousands of false imprisonments. 90% of the prisoners were released because they had committed no crime. I fully admit that these enemy combatants aren't super nice people, but at least give them a trial, convict them and sentence them to life in prison. We give hardcore criminals and serial killers this right in the U.S., why not extend that right to terror suspects as well?

This Harvard report is simply more legal mumbo-jumbo justification of the Bush administration's legal changes since 9/11. It's a slippery slope when they begin to redefine our laws. First they tear down parts of international law, then they change national law and slash our civil liberties with the Patriot Act. Now Patriot Act II in close on the horizon. Civil liberties are not something to play with lightly. Legal changes made effect everyone, not just terror suspects. This report shows how the Universities are infiltrated by government shills who propagate and sanction official government policy. Biomedical research departments do the same thing for the pharmaceutical industry by hawking stupid drugs and masking the harmful side effects. As long as government and corporations can pay off professors and researchers, they will continue to spew out publications which justify destructive government actions.