The California legislature has become the first government body to officially oppose the Bush Administration policy of torture.
 
Senate Joint Resolution 19: Health Professionals and Torture (SJR 19), authored by Senator Mark Ridley Thomas, directs state medical boards to inform health professionals of their obligations regarding treatment of prisoners under both domestic and international law. Health professionals will be warned that if they participate in interrogations that violate these standards, they risk future prosecution. Finally, SJR 19 will request the U.S. government and CIA to remove California doctors and psychologist from settings that fail to meet international standards of treatment.
 
Americans can no longer ignore the U.S. government’s involvement in torture. Reports from the International Red Cross, the United Nations, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet (a leading British medical journal), and Physicians for Human Rights reports all confirm this disturbing phenomenon.
 
Ongoing revelations of misconduct belie the claim that “a few bad apples” are the problem.   The truth is that more horrific:  U.S. government policy condones and promotes the use of techniques clearly recognized as torture by the overwhelming weight of international law.  This short-sighted and reckless policy has damaged the lives of countless prisoners in the “war on terror,” attacked the emotional and spiritual well being of American soldiers and undermined the moral authority of America in the world community.
 
The  “coercive,” “enhanced” and “aggressive” interrogations, approved and protected by the highest levels of government, betray the values and the vision upon which this country was founded.  The ethical, legal and moral dilemma  is most stark when doctors and psychologists become complicit in torture and the cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners.
 
From previously classified government reports, we now know that psychologists were involved in “reverse engineering” the SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) techniques used to break down prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan. We know that health professionals were present when the CIA used the internationally condemned practice of waterboarding on detainees.  We know that doctors have been complicit in torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo.
 
The licensing of health professionals comes under the purview of the state legislature, along with responsibility for oversight of professional ethics.   Where the Executive branch and the Congress have failed to clearly inform or protect our health professionals, the California Legislature has emphatically reaffirmed the Hippocratic standards of conduct for the medical profession that date back to the 4th century B.C.
 
Torture will not make us safer.  Senior interrogators and military officials have testified that torture does not work to elicit information. More than a decade of CIA research, as well as research conducted by Nazi Germany, China, North Vietnam and Israel, all concludes that torture does not produce reliable information.
 
Most importantly, by whatever name, torture is immoral.  It is illegal, and it is un-American.  The American Friends Service Committee, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Program for Torture Victims recognized this as the most compelling reason to work with Senator Ridley Thomas’s office to pass SJR 19.
 
Torture not only threatens the wellbeing of its intended victim, it also poisons the torturer and threatens the spiritual foundation of our democracy and the ideals that are codified in the U.S. Constitution.
 
The election of a new president and a new Congress is imminent.  Whoever is elected to serve in the White House and  in Congress has the moral obligation to immediately end the use of torture. We, the people, demand of our government the principled, humane treatment of all people.  Our nation must restore the Bill of Rights, habeus corpus, along with transparency, oversight and accountability in the treatment of prisoners in the “war on terror.”
 
SJR 19 breaks the silence on this grave issue.  In upholding the ethics of our health professions, the California legislature has taken a first step toward ending a policy of prisoner abuse and restoring American moral integrity and ideals. We celebrate the state of New York that is moving a similar bill through its state legislature, and we challenge other states to do the same.
 
 
Eisha Mason is associate regional director of the American Friends Service Committee – Pacific Southwest Region. Martha Dina Argüello is executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles. Dr. Jose Quiroga is medical director and a founder of Program for Torture Victims. All three organizations were sponsors of California’s anti-torture resolution, which was introduced by State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas.

For more information on SJR:19 – www.afsc.org/stoptorture

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