Red Cross Report article.

"The Red Cross Torture Report: What it Means" by Mark Danner . 4-30-2009.

The Red Cross  report on torture, by Mark Danner presents two sides on the issue of torturing "political" detainees in order to protect the USA from terrorist attacks.  On one side, we have the people from the Republican party that defends the practice of torture on detainees as a way of finding information that will help them protect the country, thus avoiding another terrorist attack like 9/11. "The war on terror" justifies the fact that US torturers violate the Geneva convention, which prohibits the practice of torture and certain methods as a violation of human rights.  The government under Bush and Cheney approved the practice of torture on detainees in secret places around the World. A set of vocabulary was created to address the issue of torture. "An alternative set of procedures" was used by ex-president Bush to describe torture, "high value detainees" to describe political prisoners, which the majority were innocent people! This euphemistic way of addressing the issue of torture by Bush and Cheney guarantees that the public won't be shock by what is going on and at the same time support what the Republican admistration does in the name of "protecting" the country. 

On the other hand, we have the position of the Obama administration on torture, which states that his gorvenment won't tolarate torture, and ordered  to close down the prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. Obama's administration states that previous practices on handling political detainees and torturing them in the name of the "war on terror" has caused more damage than anything else. Thus intesifying the anti-US sentiment around the World.  Therefore,  leaving the country more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Danner concluded  by posting the question "what should we do", and yet advised us to look back "at the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years". Finally, after reflecting what we have seen during these five years we can perhaps come up with an answer.