Torture is ‘Old Hat” with the U.S. Army

In the course of a lengthy discussion of the mass arrest of tens of thousands of Northern political opponents by the Lincoln administration, Mark Neely, Jr. includes a section on “Torture” in his book, The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties (an excuse-for-everything whitewash).

On page 109 of the paperback edition he writes, “[O]ne development in the system of military arrests showed an ominous possibility of degenerating into cruelty and brutality . . . : the rise of torture as a means of extracting confessions.”

“[T]he victims were not Southerners at all. They were Northerners suspected of deserting from the United States Army. . . . civilians became victims of military arrest . . . and, more so-called ‘political prisoners’ were created.”“Handcuffs and hanging by the wrists were rare, but in the summer of 1863, the army had developed a water torture that came to be used routinely.” This sometimes involved “a hose of water directed with full and powerful action against his naked person.” Sound familiar, Secretary Rumsfeld?

After the British government protested that several innocent British citizens had been subjected to such tortures and the practice was made public, “No one [in the administration] exploded in indignation or horror,” writes Neely. “No one issued a special order demanding that such practices cease. No one requested investigation or study.”

Of course not; Lincoln had suspended habeas corpus, arrested tens of thousands of political opponents, shut down over 300 opposition newspapers, deported the most outspoken member of the opposition party, Congressman Vallandigham of Ohio, issued an arrest warrant for the chief justice of the United States for questioning the constitutionality of these dictatorial acts, and essentially declared himself dictator. Why would he need to “investigate” anything?

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6:31 pm on May 6, 2004