Funding Torture

Dear Mr. President,

“U.S. Military Stops Sending Detainees to Some Afghan Prisons on Rights Fears” (The New York Times, January 17), raises questions in my mind. I remember some months ago we stopped transferring prisoners because the Afghans were planning to put them on trial rather than hold them indefinitely. Now, accusations of torture and human rights abuses have stopped the transfers again. I suspect it’s not that our folks didn’t know their folks were torturing and abusing prisoners; it’s that the UN report makes it public and there’s a pesky law called the Leahy law “which prohibits Defense and State Department financing to foreign government agencies that practice torture or other human rights abuses and take no action to punish those responsible.” I guess the Leahy Law doesn’t apply to us, otherwise we’d have to stop funding the Pentagon and the CIA, what with our history of torture, rendition, Guantanamo, drone strikes, kill lists and targeted assassinations. I don’t want to be too cynical here, Mr. President, but doesn’t this sound like it applies to us too: “It is known that the Afghan security forces have committed abuses, including extrajudicial killings of civilians and the mistreatment of prisoners,” said Tim Rieser, foreign policy aide to Senator Leahy. “They have not been accountable in ways Senator Leahy believes they should be.” No American’s been held accountable either—Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Obama–and Bradley Manning, who tried to expose war crimes has been held 965 days without trial, much of that time under conditions of torture. The article continues: “At stake are billions of dollars in direct American aid that will essentially pay the salaries of every member of Afghanistan’s security forces for years to come — but which would legally not be payable under the Leahy provision if torture and other abuse continues.” Now, I know the Afghans aren’t about to change their ways just because of some silly U.S. law and I also know your folks will find a loophole so we can give the Afghans all those “billions of dollars” while here at home we go on an austerity budget, cut pensions, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and other services a government should provide its citizens for the good of the country. Something’s seriously wrong here, Mr. President. We cannot kill our way to peace and security. We cannot spend trillions on war and nothing on peace and expect a better world. We are a nation of barbarians and you are our Attila the Hun.