Reverendo Doctor

The Reverend William L. Wipfler, Ph.D., D.D.

August 17, 2009
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL ON THE NEED
FOR ACCOUNTABILITY FOR TORTURE

The Honorable Eric Holder
Attorney General of the U.S.
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.Washington, DC 20530-0001

Dear Mr. Attorney General,

On September 26, 2005, I had the honor of testifying on behalf of the Campaign to Stop Torture at a special hearing in the Capitol sponsored by Senators Patrick Leahy and Christopher Dodd. At that time, while the administration sought to assure the public that the horrors of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo were the work of a few bad apples, througha flood of memos and public declarations it was also justifying the use of torture as legal, necessary and effective. I stated in the hearing that it was the contention of the Campaign to Stop Torture that "these grim abuses are not isolated incidents but rather constitute official policy."

The French author and philosopher Voltaire, confronted by the travesties and inhumanities of late 18thcentury France, stated: "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." It has been true through out history and it is true of the United States during the past six decades. We have used torture consistently under the rubric of patriotism, security, or some other sacred mantel.

When I presented the 2005 testimony, my years of work, (first from 1955 to 1963 as anEpiscopal priest and missionary in the Dominican Republic and Central America, and then from 1967 to 1988 as Director of the Latin America Office and then the Human Rights Office of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA,) had convinced me that the use of torture had become a common occurrence at the hands of US military and intelligence personnel. It had begun long before theso-called "War Against Terror"; it was taught by US personnel to our most tyrannical allies; it was and is a gross violation of international and domestic law and a crime against humanity; and it has continued to be utilized because few persons have ever been held accountable for its commission. That claim is supported by history, solid documentary evidence, the testimonies of victims, and theadmissions of numerous perpetrators of these crimes.

I speak of sixty years because it was during the period immediately following the Second World War that an almost chronic US schizophrenia regarding principals and practice emerged. On one hand the government expended an enormous amount of energy to assure the establishment and success of the United Nations and its goals. The presence andleadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, widow of the former president, afforded significant prestige to the effort to approve and ratify the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That was accomplished on December 10, 1948, with the express support of the US President Harry S. Truman, the State Department and the US delegation to the United Nations.

Nevertheless, during exactly the same period in which theUniversal Declaration was confected and adopted, another perspective was being developed and proposed by George Kennan, one of the most influential voices in the State Department, and chief of the State Department Planning Staff. In Policy Planning Study #23 / 1948, a top secret document only recently declassified, Kennan stated:

" ... we have about 50% of the world(s wealth but only 6.3%of its population. ... In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity ... To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national...