Task Force on Detainee Treatment - National Religious Campaign Against Torture

Task Force on Detainee Treatment of The Consitution Project

LINKS:

Videos:

"Exposing the Truth of U.S. Torture: Restoring Human Dignity and the Rule of Law" TalkingStickTV on YouTube, June 6, 2014.

News Coverage & Op-eds:

"U.S. Practiced Torture After 9/11, Nonpartisan Review Concludes" by Scott Shane, New York Times
"Torture runs counter to America's values" by Thomas R. Pickering, Washington Post
"Toward Ensuring an End to U.S.-Sponsored Torture" by Rev. Richard L. Killmer, Huffington Post

On April 16, 2013, the bipartisan Task Force on Detainee Treatment sponsored by The Constitution Project issued its 500 page report on the interrogation and treatment of 9/11 detainees. Based on its work over a two year period, the Task Force concluded that the United States indisputably engaged in torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment (CID) of 9/11 detainees in violation of U.S. and international law and for which there was no justification. The torture “occurred in many instances and across a wide range of theaters.” The Task Force also concluded that the decision to use torture and CID came from our top political leaders, including President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. The Task Force found that “the arguments that the nation did not engage in torture and that much of what occurred should be defined as something less than torture are not credible.”

The 11 member bipartisan Task Force was chaired by Asa Hutchinson, former Under Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security for President George W. Bush and a former Republican member of Congress from Arkansas, and James Jones, former Democratic member of Congress from Oklahoma, who was Ambassador to Mexico.

The Task Force report describes how government lawyers manipulated the law in order to claim that torture was legal when everyone knew it was illegal. It describes admirable attempts made by individuals in the armed forces and civilian agencies to stand up for U.S. law and American morality, and it shows how our political leaders and their handpicked lawyers found ways around them. Read more in NRCAT's two-page summary of the report.

Task Force member Dr. David Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics and Director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University, spoke at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on April 21. Watch the video:

For more information about Dr. David Gushee's "The Sacredness of Life and U.S.-Sponsored Torture" go here.