In the wake of the release of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report on C.I.A treatment of detainees in secret prisons following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Political Science Associate Professor Jeffrey Davis wrote a letter to the editor in response to the December 10 New York Times article, “Panel Faults C.I.A. Over Brutality and Deceit in Terrorism Interrogations.” The complete text of the published letter is below:
Prosecuting those who commit torture is not optional. Article 7 of the Convention Against Torture, signed by President Reagan in 1988 and approved by the Senate in 1994, requires the United States to prosecute those found within our borders who commit torture. The foundation of our democratic system is one of laws. If we regard those laws — be they the laws prohibiting torture or the laws mandating prosecution — as optional, that foundation is eviscerated. The Senate report released this week paints a clear picture of the depravity that thrives when our basic laws are ignored.
To read Davis’s letter, along with other responses to the New York Times article, click here.
Tags: CAHSS, PoliticalScience
