The Disgrace of Dick Durbin

Congressional Record--Senate

June 14, 2005

Durbin: Abusive detention and interrogation policies make it much more difficult to win the support of people around theworld, particularly those in the Muslim
world. The war on terrorism is not a popularity contest, but anti-American sentiment breeds sympathy for anti-American terrorist organizations and makes it far easier for them to recruit young terrorists.

Polls show that Muslims have positive attitudes toward the American people and our values. However, overall, favorable ratings toward the United States and its Government are very low. This is driven largely by the negative attitudes toward the policies of this administration.

Muslims respect our values, but we must convince them that our actions reflect these values. That’s why the 9/11 Commission recommended:

We should offer an example of moral leadership in the world, committed to treat people humanely, abide by the rule of law, and be generous and caring to our neighbors.

What should we do? Imagine if the President had followed Colin Powell’s advice and respected our treaty obligations. How would things have been different?

We still would have the ability to hold detainees and to interrogate them
aggressively. Members of al-Qaida would not be prisoners of war. Wewould be able to do everything we need to do to keep our country safe. The difference is, we would not have damaged our reputation in the international community in the process.

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here—I almost hesitate to put them in the RECORD, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18–24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand
and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime—Pol Pot or others —that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

This must mean that Durbin has no knowledge of history. He has absolutely no clue about what Nazis, Soviets, and Pol Pot did.

OR--

If he does understand what he said on the floor of the Senate yesterday, he is even more of a disgrace, not only as a Democrat but as an American.