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Prisoner abuse harmful to all, students told Thursday, Apr 26, 2007 By Doug Thompson Arkansas News Bureau FAYETTEVILLE - Cruelty to prisoners undermines the core principles of democracy, antagonizes needed allies in the war on terror and doesn't work, a panel of legal and government experts told University of Arkansas students on Wednesday. "We've given you a lot of high-flown reasons against torture tonight, but remember this: It doesn't work," said Lord Robin Butler, master of University College, Oxford, and former cabinet secretary for the United Kingdom. "If you torture someone, he's going to tell you whatever it takes to get the pain to stop. If you blackmail him, he's going to talk whether he tells you the truth or not. If you offer him money, he'll tell you what you want to hear." The panel of Butler, former general counsel of the U.S. Navy Alberto Mora and former chief legal adviser at the U.S. State Department William Howard Taft IV were featured speakers at a symposium sponsored by the university's School of Law and the Fulbright College of Arts and Science, through the financial assistance of the Hartman Hotz trust. The symposium was scheduled to include professor Jeremy Waldron of the New York University School of Law, but Waldron's flight was delayed by weather, said symposium host and university law professor Stephen Sheppard. As cabinet secretary from 1988 to 1998, Butler served on the government committee overseeing British intelligence operations. He also was chairman of a 2004 committee that reviewed the intelligence analysis mistakes over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Mora won a 2006 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for his opposition to the U.S. Justice Department's memo stating that harsh interrogation techniques were justified in some circumstances. He is now the chief international legal counsel for Wal-Mart. Taft also opposed that Justice Department position and argued as legal adviser to the State Department that the president could not suspend U.S. obligations to respect the Geneva Convention and that the argument to do so was "legally flawed and procedurally impossible." He resigned in 2005 and was recently named to the Warren Christopher Professorship of the Practice of International Law and Diplomacy at Stanford University. "The threat is real," Mora told an audience of about 100 students and professors gathered in the E.J. Ball Courtroom. The reason terrorists killed 3,000 victims on Sept. 11, 2001, "is because they couldn't figure out how to kill 3 million," he said. "I don't want to be seen as downplaying the threat. We are in danger, and interrogation is absolutely vital." Abusive interrogation, however, is worse than counterproductive, he said. Objective policy analysis would show that the use of abusive interrogations has weakened international support for the United States, particularly since the policy of the United States has been to strengthen individual rights and encourage other countries to follow suit, he said. "We are asking our allies to aid and abet the commission of illegal acts," acts that are illegal in those countries largely because the United States has encouraged stronger protection for civil liberties for decades, he said: "We'll never build and sustain a war on terror this way. If Iraq shows us anything, it's that to 'go it alone' is not a viable strategy." Allowing abuse "will ultimately lead to the destruction of our legal system," Mora said. "Our rule of law is built around the protection of individual rights." Taft agreed with Mora's principles, he said, but added that the issue of harsh interrogation methods should be no issue at all, as far as the law's concerned: "We have resolved this issue as a matter of law." The Geneva Conventions which protect prisoners still stand, Taft said. |
