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Posted on Jan 30, 2008
Attorney General Michael Mukasey sipped his water nervously. It
was the first time he was testifying before the Senate Judiciary
Committee since his controversial confirmation. At issue then
and now: torture. Does he consider waterboarding torture? Sen.
Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., made it personal: “Would waterboarding
be torture if it was done to you?” “I would feel that it was,”
Mukasey responded. Though he deflected questions, before and
after Kennedy’s, his personal answer rang true.
Our attorney general should not have to be waterboarded to know
that it is torture. Likewise, Americans should not have to
suffer under a brutal dictatorship in order to know that it is
wrong to support dictators abroad.
Take, for example, the long-reigning dictator of Indonesia,
Suharto. He died this week at the age of 86, an age that most of
his more than 1 million victims never reached. Suharto ruled
Indonesia for more than 30 years, shored up by the most powerful
country on Earth, the United States. Suharto rose to power in
1965 in a coup backed by the CIA, which provided him with lists
of dissidents whom the Indonesian military then killed, one by
one. He was forced from power in 1998, in a pro-democracy
uprising.
Throughout Suharto’s reign, U.S. administrations—Democratic and
Republican—armed, trained and financed the Indonesian military.
In addition to the million Indonesians killed, hundreds of
thousands were also killed during Indonesia’s occupation of East
Timor, a small country 300 miles above Australia. It is a
country I know well, having covered it for years. On Nov. 12,
1991, when I was covering a peaceful Timorese procession in
Timor’s capital, Dili, Suharto’s occupying army opened fired on
the crowd, killing 270 Timorese. I got off easy: The soldiers
beat me with their boots and the butts of their U.S. M-16s. They
fractured the skull of my colleague Allan Nairn, who was writing
for The New Yorker magazine at the time. And that massacre was
one of the smaller ones in Timor. Nevertheless, President
George H.W. Bush, followed by Bill Clinton, continued to try
to supply Indonesia with weapons. Only a grass-roots movement in
the United States stopped the U.S. military sales.
Aside from being unimaginably brutal, Suharto was also corrupt.
Transparency International estimated Suharto’s fortune to be
between $15 billion and $35 billion. The current U.S. ambassador
to Indonesia, Cameron Hume, praised Suharto’s memory this week,
saying, “President Suharto led Indonesia for over 30 years, a
period during which Indonesia achieved remarkable economic and
social development. ... Though there may be some controversy
over his legacy, President Suharto was a historic figure who
left a lasting imprint on Indonesia and the region of Southeast
Asia.” Imprint? Yes, if he means pulling out people’s
fingernails, disappearing Indonesian dissidents, or wiping out a
third of the population of East Timor, one of the great
genocides of the 20th century. But clearly, that is not what
Hume meant.
Whether it’s waterboarding, waging an illegal war or holding
hundreds of prisoners without charge for years at Guantanamo Bay
or at
CIA black sites around the world, I am reminded of
Mahatma Gandhi, one of the world’s greatest nonviolent
leaders. “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans
and the homeless,” he asked, “whether the mad destruction is
wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of
liberty or democracy?”
The Mukasey hearing happened to take place on the 60th
anniversary of Gandhi’s assassination. Also on this day, Rudolph
Giuliani and John Edwards dropped out of the presidential race.
In his exit speech, Edwards said, “America’s hour of
transformation is upon us.” As the race narrows, it is a key
moment to reflect: One leading candidate, John McCain, was
actually tortured (unlike Mukasey, although McCain supported his
confirmation). McCain predicted we may be in Iraq for 100 years.
He is up against Mitt Romney, who said he would double the size
of Guantanamo. Neither of the remaining leading Democratic
candidates calls for the immediate withdrawal of troops from
Iraq. Yes, it is a key moment to reflect on the teachings of
Gandhi. When asked what he thought of Western civilization,
Gandhi responded, “I think it would be a good idea.”
Amy Goodman is the host of
“Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour
airing on 650 stations in North America.
© 2008 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
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