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One of the now-iconic images of torture from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq
A Santa Fe woman is among 33 religious leaders meeting in Washington this week to urge President Obama to establish an independent, non-partisan commission to investigate U.S.-sponsored torture of detainees since 9/11.
The Rev. Holly Beaumont, the Santa Fe-based legislative advocate for the New Mexico Conference of Churches, traveled to the capital on Wednesday as part of a delegation from the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. Rev. Beaumont spoke with NMI from Washington, D.C. Here is an excerpt from the conversation:
NMI: President Obama has waffled on whether to release photos documenting the abuse of foreign detainees. Would you like to see those pictures made public?
HB: [Some of] those pictures have been leaked on the Internet already, and basically the rest of the world has access to them, but we haven’t seen them. As we saw in Cairo, President Obama is an eloquent speaker. Now the whole world is waiting to see if he will back up his statements with substance.
But do you think they should be released? Do you think that releasing the photos would, as some argue, increase anger and hatred of the U.S. in the Muslim world?
There will be extremists who will use that to fuel their venom against us. But what will happen is what we saw when Obama traveled to Egypt. When we begin to behave in a manner that is consistent with the values we profess, we will neutralize the claims that we are hypocrites, that we are an evil empire that seeks to dominate the Muslim world, and we will, in fact, regain support from the larger Islamic community to support us in working against the fringe groups. [Releasing the photos] will say, ‘We know you know what we’ve done and we’re willing to be honest about it.’
Rev. Holly Beaumont
Do you think our reputation is irreparably harmed because of these photos?
Never. I’m a person of faith. I think that confession and repentance is one of the most powerful steps toward forgiveness and reconciliation. What happened in our name was done in secret, it was illegal and we are going to take responsibility for it and correct it. We can’t just say it’s never going to happen again, because it happened in Vietnam and no one has been held accountable for that. So [by not investigating what happened] the message is that as long as you’re in office you’re above the rule of law and once you leave you’re not going to be held accountable.
Former Vice President Cheney says torture has provided us with important information that has helped us fight terrorists. Do you think that information is worth it?
It is a false claim. There is absolutely no one coming forward to substantiate that. Countless people have come forward to say that’s absolutely false, that we got bad information and that the use of torture inflamed the Muslim world and became a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda.
The Bush administration worked very hard to make the case that “harsh interrogation techniques” were legal and that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to prisoners from Afghanistan and Iraq. Given that these guidelines came from the president, is it fair to expect the troops to not obey authority, to say, ‘No, I don’t agree with that and I’m not going to do it.’
We saw at Nuremberg that the “I was just following orders” defense just didn’t stand up… [President Bush’s] legal counselors — who were told, “Give me something that I can use,” and cooperated — they need to be held accountable. This is why we need to have an investigation of what happened. Because we’re speculating. There is much that we’ve learned but we need to learn more. So that’s why we’re pushing for a commission and a special prosecutor. A big part of this is simply to make it public. And in some cases, that may be enough in terms of holding people accountable. We’re not asking for firing squads, but we do want people to be held accountable. Their claims that this has protected us, we need to debunk that. That’s just not true.
What do you think would be an ideal outcome of your visit with Obama administration officials in Washington?
Well, for [Attorney General] Eric Holder to — and this is just my personal opinion — to be released by the executive branch and told to have at it with no regard for the political fallout. He needs to be empowered to investigate this down to every detail. And to go public with it.
