Torture

She was snatched from a motel Sunday and taken to an abandoned East Baltimore rowhouse strewn with toys and garbage, where she was duct-taped and tortured. They shot her in the face, stabbed her and tossed her in a dark, dank basement flooded with a foot of water. But police say Deyonna N. Charles, 19, managed to escape. A passer-by saw her in the street and took her to Johns Hopkins Hospital. Charles survived. According to court records and law enforcement sources, the ordeal stemmed from a drug dispute.

Four people pleaded guilty Monday for their role in the abduction and torture of a 19-year-old woman left for dead in a vacant home in East Baltimore in 2010, prosecutors said.  The woman was snatched from a motel in March 2010, and taken to the abandoned home where she was duct-taped, shot in the face, stabbed, and tossed into a dark basement flooded with a foot of water. It all stemmed from a drug dispute, police said. "They were taking turns torturing me," she told police at the time.  After multiple postponements, the trial was set to begin Monday.

I am thankful that Sen. John McCain has remained steadfast in his belief that torture is wrong, as reported in the Leonard Pitts' column ("Benefits of torture come at too high a price," May 22). I appreciate also that Mr. Pitts highlighted Senator McCain's emphasis that a discussion on the use of torture hinges on whether the end justifies the means, misses the point entirely. Though the senator indicated that the abuse of prisoners sometimes produces good intelligence but that the information provided to stop torture is often misleading, he also said the following: "All of these arguments have the force of right, but they are beside the most important point.

I am shocked by your editorial stating the death of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi at the hands of the rebels who deposed him was the best possible outcome and that "had he been captured alive, the nation's fledgling leaders would have been forced to choose between trying him themselves or acquiescing to a war crimes trial in international court, either of which would have given a madman the attention he craved to the detriment of efforts at reconciliation...

Thank you for your extensive coverage of recent animal cruelty cases in Baltimore — I hope it raises awareness of the problem and convinces those with the power to do so to make sure more animals do not suffer at the hands of these barbarians. I am 91 years old, a life-long Baltimore resident, and I am sickened and heartbroken to think that anyone — especially children — would treat an animal the way Phoenix, Mittens, Rainbow and so many others have been tortured, maimed or killed.

There's a significant connection between two articles in The Sun on Dec. 30. "Museum will put Chile's tortured past on display" describes that nation's struggle to come to terms with the Pinochet regime's assault on both persons and the rule of law decades ago. Susan Goering's "'Gitmo North'? No thanks" points to the Obama administration's disappointingly feeble, evasive and very tardy attempts to put into practice the inaugural promise of January 2009 - the crucial promise to restore the rule of law in the U.S. As far as I can tell, the only nation thus far that has dealt decisively with a reign of torture was Greece, which promptly put on trial and convicted both the highest-level military and political leaders of the 1967-1974 junta regime and some of the most cruel torturers.

Four people pleaded guilty Monday for their role in the abduction and torture of a 19-year-old woman left for dead in a vacant home in East Baltimore in 2010, prosecutors said.  The woman was snatched from a motel in March 2010, and taken to the abandoned home where she was duct-taped, shot in the face, stabbed, and tossed into a dark basement flooded with a foot of water. It all stemmed from a drug dispute, police said. "They were taking turns torturing me," she told police at the time.  After multiple postponements, the trial was set to begin Monday.

For those who don't know, U.S. Senator John McCain was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five years, where he saw up close the terrible, ineffective nature of torture. McCain has since spoken out against torture (aka "enhanced interrogation techniques") for these very reasons.  "In my personal experience, the abuse of prisoners sometimes produces good intelligence, but often produces bad intelligence," McCain said on the floor of the Senate recently. "Under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear -- whether it is true or false -- if he believes it will relieve his suffering.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip through Europe last week may have put the last nail in the coffin holding the administration's hopes to stave off new anti-torture legislation. If so, it was money well-spent - Americans need the reassurance of law that their government does not condone and will not practice "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," as the measure puts it. Ms. Rice might have eased the minds of European leaders with her lawyerly dancing around the definitions of torture, interrogations, secret prisons, rendition and other potentially cruel and unusual tactics, but she did not convince the populace.

RECENTLY, the popular TV show 24 showed a wrongfully accused American counterterrorism expert being tortured with a stun gun by her American employer. It was a cruel spectacle heightened by the reality that the viewer knew the victim was innocent. But as unpleasant as 24's characterization of American torture was, it is only a small window into the disturbing nature of America's torture policy. Even the horrific pictures smuggled out of Abu Ghraib prison gave Americans only a glimpse of U.S. torture policy.

The use of monkeys at Aberdeen Proving Ground in a training session amounts to institutionalized torture ("APG shouldn't needlessly harm monkeys," Sept. 27). In their recent opinion article, physicians Barbara and Martin Wasserman pointed out the reasons why monkeys are particularly inappropriate in chemical casualty training. These monkeys are the tip of the iceberg. Sadly, it is not just monkeys. There are around 500 chimpanzees left over from the space program that are being warehoused by the U.S. Air Force.

The images of the burning towers on Sept. 11 are seared into our collective memory. It seemed unthinkable that we could be attacked on our native soil. During our nation's founding, we were also attacked on our soil. And though the British who captured our fighters treated their prisoners brutally, Gen. George Washington instructed his troops to act with integrity. "Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren who have fallen into their hands," he told the Northern Expeditionary Force in September 1775.

The successful raid on Osama bin Laden's safe house in Pakistan has reinvigorated debate over the role that "enhanced interrogation techniques" have played in fighting al-Qaida. No one is switching sides, which has turned the argument into a theological one between two sets of true believers. Each views the other as heretics. Get over it. The whole debate is pointless posturing. There is no way to prove or disprove the real worth of America's experiment with waterboarding and coercive techniques.

I am thankful that Sen. John McCain has remained steadfast in his belief that torture is wrong, as reported in the Leonard Pitts' column ("Benefits of torture come at too high a price," May 22). I appreciate also that Mr. Pitts highlighted Senator McCain's emphasis that a discussion on the use of torture hinges on whether the end justifies the means, misses the point entirely. Though the senator indicated that the abuse of prisoners sometimes produces good intelligence but that the information provided to stop torture is often misleading, he also said the following: "All of these arguments have the force of right, but they are beside the most important point.

"I would find myself trussed up and left for hours in ropes, my biceps bound tightly with several loops to cut off my circulation and the end of the rope cinched behind my back, pulling my shoulders and elbows unnaturally close together. It was incredibly painful. " — Sen. John McCain from his book, "Faith of My Fathers" "[John McCain] doesn't understand how enhanced interrogation works. " — former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum For the record, John McCain was learning "how enhanced interrogation works" when Rick Santorum was still trying to find a good acne cream.

For those who don't know, U.S. Senator John McCain was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five years, where he saw up close the terrible, ineffective nature of torture. McCain has since spoken out against torture (aka "enhanced interrogation techniques") for these very reasons.  "In my personal experience, the abuse of prisoners sometimes produces good intelligence, but often produces bad intelligence," McCain said on the floor of the Senate recently. "Under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear -- whether it is true or false -- if he believes it will relieve his suffering.

THE HOSPITAL was a torture chamber. Doctors were the torturers.My mother, age 94, entered the hospital on Dec. 10 after severe internal bleeding. A large, malignant tumor in the colon was found. Although we had serious reservations about an operation at her age, we were told that the alternative would be the horror of bleeding to death. We had no choice. We did, however, sign papers requesting no resuscitation and impressed on the doctors my mother's and our wish that they make no heroic efforts to prolong her life.

"I would find myself trussed up and left for hours in ropes, my biceps bound tightly with several loops to cut off my circulation and the end of the rope cinched behind my back, pulling my shoulders and elbows unnaturally close together. It was incredibly painful. " — Sen. John McCain from his book, "Faith of My Fathers" "[John McCain] doesn't understand how enhanced interrogation works. " — former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum For the record, John McCain was learning "how enhanced interrogation works" when Rick Santorum was still trying to find a good acne cream.

As America assumes its self-congratulatory posture at the sneak attack murder of an unarmed man in his own home surrounded by family, consideration of who we are as a nation and what we are becoming might be in order. First, whatever claims the United States may have had to moral superiority are now shredded. Our own elected leaders openly refer to the murder of Osama bin Laden as an assassination, without a hint of shame. Historically, neither democracies nor moral nations openly engaged in assassinations, let alone took vulgar pride in them.

Archbishop Spalding junior first baseman Nick Freeberger sits on a dugout bench. The evening sun is shining on his boyish face, and he smiles. It has been a good day. He helped his No. 2 Cavaliers to victory with a three-run home run. That would be enough to make most high school baseball players grin, but there is more behind this display of happiness than a single game. To look at him now, no one would suspect that a little more than a month ago, screws were ground into his head for a halo to support a broken neck, and that the chances of his playing baseball this season or perhaps ever were in doubt.