Henry Giroux Quotes
The alternative position to whether torture is acceptable - that's not an alternative position, that's barbarism. The question here is not whether torture is acceptable or whether it works. It should be simply seen as a war crime. There's no other position on torture.
Giroux, Henry A. "Henry Giroux on Zombie Politics." Interview by Bill Moyers. Moyers & Company, 22 Nov. 2013.
Chelsea Elizabeth Manning
He was arguing that even if torture might provide useful intelligence not otherwise obtainable, it is not necessary in order for us to succeed in our objectives. Ironically, the military interrogation rules prohibited torture in conformity with US law and treaties but the CIA ignored those restrictions and secretly tortured a number of victims in the War on Terror until their actions became public and they too were required, by executive order to follow the military interrogation guidelines.
In the midst of the Argentine Dirty War where the right wing government was murdering and torturing their political enemies of the left, most of the Catholic Church Priests and other Church Authorities had sided with the government and morally overlooked their atrocities and crimes against humanity. Others were fearful as Bishop Enrique Angelelli had been murdered by the military death squads in 1976. Bishop Hesayne was one of the few members of the Church hierarchy who criticized church officials for their silence.
It is surprising that these ideas would come from one of the most autocratic powerful monarch in the world at the time. However there were many very liberal influences on her from Europe. This set of proposals she even sent to Voltaire to get his feedback and criticism. As late as 2006 the American President was reluctant to outlaw torture for terroristsand the Vice President actually argued for its retention as an interrogation technique. Over 300 years earlier the autocrat of Russia argued against it.
He was referring to the police interrogation methods that Turkey had used in the past but was in the process of reforming.
The Senate was debating a law to make torture of foreigners and captives illegal under all circumstances. Vice President Cheney was very strongly opposed wanting an exception made for the CIA.
When TR came to office, the U. S. was in the midst of war with Philippine insurgents who were fighting an asymmetric , guerrilla war against the U. S. Army. The war had become very brutal with the insurgents using terror and atrocities and some Army units executing prisoners and torturing captives. Roosevelt, actually fired the General who was in charge of the field troops rather than just discipline lower level officers as usually has happened.
This was a precursor of the total war views of William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant during the American Civil War half a century later.
See {642427} for a case where the United States was accused of not living up to this treaty.
Henry Armand Giroux is an American and Canadian scholar and cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media studies, and critical theory. In 2002 Routledge named Giroux as one of the top fifty educational thinkers of the modern period.
