Archivo etiqueta «Tortura»
By Leonard S. Rubenstein, a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Stephen N. Xenakis, a psychiatrist and a retired Army brigadier general (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 01/03/10):
After five years of investigation, the Justice Department has released its findings regarding the government lawyers who authorized waterboarding and other forms of torture during the interrogation of suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. The report’s conclusion, that the lawyers exercised poor judgment but were not guilty of professional misconduct, is questionable at best. Still, the review reflects a commitment to a transparent investigation of professional… Seguir leyendo
By Marc Thiessen, the author of Courting Disaster (THE WASHINGTON POST, 22/02/10):
The CIA has been unsatisfied with the cooperation of Mullah Baradar, the Taliban military commander being interrogated in Pakistani custody, and has pushed for his transfer to an American-run prison in Afghanistan, the Los Angeles Times reported this past weekend. But even should that transfer occur, the United States may not have any greater success eliciting information from him — because President Obama eliminated the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program.
This raises an urgent question: Is there a reasonable middle ground that would allow the Obama administration to effectively… Seguir leyendo
Por Timothy Garton Ash, catedrático de Estudios Europeos. Ocupa la cátedra Isaiah Berlin en St. Antony’s College, Oxford, y es profesor titular de la Hoover Institution, Stanford. Traducción de María Luisa Rodríguez Tapia (EL PAÍS, 21/02/10):
Pongamos nombre y avergoncemos a esos peligrosos, endebles, complacientes e hipócritas liberales que ponen en peligro la seguridad nacional del Reino Unido, sus intereses vitales y la seguridad personal de sus ciudadanos. ¿Quiénes son? Lord Igor Judge, juez-presidente del Tribunal de Apelaciones de Inglaterra y Gales; Lord Neuberger, Master of the Rolls, que preside la Sala Civil; Sir Anthony May, presidente de Queen’s Bench,… Seguir leyendo
By Matthew Alexander, the author of How to Break a Terrorist (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 20/01/10):
Tomorrow will be one year since President Obama signed an executive order outlawing torture, yet our debate about interrogation methods continues. Though the president deserves praise for improving matters, the changes were not as drastic as most Americans think, and elements of our interrogation policy continue to be both inhumane and counterproductive.
Americans can now boast that they no longer “torture” detainees, but they cannot say that detainees are not abused, or even that their treatment meets the minimum standards of humane treatment mandated… Seguir leyendo
By Max Boot, the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (THE WASHINGTON POST, 29/12/09):
Canada, one of the largest contributors of troops to the war in Afghanistan, is embroiled in a controversy over the treatment of prisoners captured by its army. Its policy has been to turn detainees over to the Afghans, whose prisons are not exactly run according to Amnesty International standards. Now the chief of the Canadian defense staff, Gen. Walter Natynczyk, has set off a political firestorm by admitting that a detainee who had been beaten in 2006… Seguir leyendo
By Colin Horgan, a Vancouver-based freelance writer (THE GUARDIAN, 22/11/09):
One man has Canada in an uproar. Former second-in-command at the Canadian embassy in Kabul, Richard Colvin, told a parliamentary committee in Ottawa that all detainees handed over to the Afghanistan government by Canadian soldiers were abused. The opposition parties have called for a public inquiry, but the Harper government has called Colvin’s testimony into question. Now, Canada must yet again have a serious discussion about its role in Afghanistan.
Colvin sat before the parliamentary committee and flatly stated: “According to our information, the likelihood is that all the Afghans… Seguir leyendo
By Ali H. Soufan, an F.B.I. special agent from 1997 to 2005 (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 06/09/09):
Public bravado aside, the defenders of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques are fast running out of classified documents to hide behind. The three that were released recently by the C.I.A. — the 2004 report by the inspector general and two memos from 2004 and 2005 on intelligence gained from detainees — fail to show that the techniques stopped even a single imminent threat of terrorism.
The inspector general’s report distinguishes between intelligence gained from regular interrogation and from the harsher methods, which culminate… Seguir leyendo
Por Ariel Dorfman, escritor chileno (EL PAÍS, 21/07/09):
¿Qué hará Barack Obama ante el diluvio de revelaciones que, día a día, se van acumulando en torno al maltrato que las agencias de inteligencia de Estados Unidos han venido dando a una multitud de prisioneros desde los ataques terroristas del 2001? ¿Tratará de “pasar página”, mirar hacia el futuro y no el pasado, como parece ser su deseo? ¿O la dura, empecinada verdad de los crímenes que se llevaron a cabo en nombre de la seguridad nacional terminará forzando la mano del presidente norteamericano y de su fiscal general (ministro de… Seguir leyendo
By Andy Hull, senior research fellow on International Security at the ippr (THE GUARDIAN, 05/07/09):
Torture is terror. We must reject it: no ifs, no buts. In the words of General Lord Guthrie, former chief of defence staff and one of the members of Institute for Public Policy Research’s independent commission on national security, “Torture does violence to the defenceless, using their bodies against their souls. It is illegal, unethical, counter-productive and dumb”. We must recognise that its use in the ill-conceived “war on terror” is strategic folly. History reminds us that compromising our values in the hope of quick… Seguir leyendo
Por Rosa Massagué, periodista (EL PERIÓDICO, 29/05/09):
A los jueces que, en 1630, condenaron en Milán a suplicios atroces a algunos acusados de haber propagado la peste con ciertos inventos tan toscos como horribles, les pareció que habían tenido un actuación tan memorable que, en la propia sentencia, después de decretar, además de los suplicios, la demolición de la casa de uno de aquellos desventurados, mandaron que en aquel lugar se elevase una columna que debería llamarse infame, con una inscripción que transmitiese a la posteridad la noticia del delito y de la pena. Y no se engañaron: aquel juicio… Seguir leyendo
Por Emilio Menéndez del Valle, embajador de España y eurodiputado socialista (EL PAÍS, 26/05/09):
Crece en Estados Unidos el escándalo ante la desclasificación de informes secretos de la Administración de Bush sobre la tortura utilizada contra presuntos terroristas y combatientes enemigos. Métodos inadmisibles ordenados por altos cargos de dicha Administración. El escándalo radica en que todavía mucha gente creía en la versión del ex viceministro de Defensa, Wolfowitz, quien mantenía que los “abusos” habían sido obra de “unas cuantas manzanas podridas”. Sin embargo, el podrido era el propio manzano. Ya en enero de 2006, The Washington Post calificaba sin ambages… Seguir leyendo
By Philip Gourevitch, the editor of The Paris Review and the author, with Errol Morris, of The Ballad of Abu Ghraib (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 24/05/09):
In mid-October of 2003, Specialist Sabrina Harman of the 372nd Military Police Company was assigned guard duty on the military intelligence cellblock at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. That was the block where prisoners of the American occupation forces were held pending and during interrogation. The M.P.’s had no military training as prison guards, and they were told to do whatever the interrogators — a mix of military intelligence and C.I.A. officers and civilian… Seguir leyendo
Por Carlos Fuentes, escritor mexicano (EL PAÍS, 21/05/09):
Arthur Schlesinger fue un eminente historiador norteamericano: las biografías de Andrew Jackson y Robert Kennedy, su brillante análisis del poder ejecutivo, La presidencia imperial, los tres volúmenes sobre el New Deal de Roosevelt, son hitos de la historiografía norteamericana.
Durante una de mis últimas conversaciones con él, Schlesinger me comentó que el nuevo ciclo demócrata, iniciado por la presidencia de Clinton, había sido interrumpido por la elección -a mi entender, amañada- de George W. Bush sobre Al Gore, triunfador en la votación numérica popular.
Reanudado el ciclo renovador por Barack Obama, los… Seguir leyendo
Por Fawaz Gerges, de la cátedra Christian A. Johnson sobre Oriente Medio, Sarah Lawrence College, Nueva York. Autor de El viaje del yihadista: dentro de la militancia musulmana, Ed. Libros de Vanguardia. Traducción: José María Puig de la Bellacasa (LA VANGUARDIA, 21/05/09):
A la hora de justificar su espectacular anulación de la decisión de publicar las fotografías que muestran el maltrato de prisioneros a cargo de soldados de Estados Unidos en Iraq y Afganistán, el presidente Obama alegó que la publicación de las imágenes “exacerbaría aún más la corriente de opinión antiestadounidense y pondría a las tropas en mayor peligro”.… Seguir leyendo
Por Jim Hoagland, columnista de The Washington Post (EL MUNDO, 20/05/09):
Los intentos del presidente Obama por impedir la desclasificación de las fotografías de los abusos de presos estadounidenses es un error que se puede enmendar. El presidente actúa de buena fe, comprendiendo los desquiciados tiempos que atraviesa la sociedad en la que vive. Por sí solo eso supone un avance en la Casa Blanca. Los ex aliados de Obama se lanzan a acusarle de hipocresía y cobardía moral por contradecirse en el asunto de las torturas y la transparencia. El premio a la hipérbole instantánea odiosa es para Anthony… Seguir leyendo