The Foreign Service Journal, September 2004

activities before 2001. What about the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, the slaughter of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, or the activities of the Bader Meinhof, Red Army and Shining Path, to name just a few groups? The response to such savage people and events was, and must remain, to bolster our democratic, constitutional principles during war, not to take away rights. Each time our citizens lose rights in the struggle against terrorism or in any conflict, the terrorists win. But when we stand on the side of justice, even when attacked, we make a mockery of the evil that is al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. One Pentagon adviser recently called the Geneva Conventions “quaint,” and went on to challenge the whole concept of observing basic human rights in wartime. It is hard to imagine an attitude more short-sight- ed and destructive to our nation’s image than dismissing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as irrelevant. Both treaties provide that no one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment — period, no exceptions. You don’t have to be a lawyer to understand that. It has been said that the Defense Department tried another tack to defuse criticism by refusing to use the word “torture,” saying that term doesn’t apply to what went on in Abu Ghraib. Yet the Convention against Torture says: “‘Torture’ means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purpos- es as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating 18 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 4 S P E A K I N G O U T