Mary Henry (Independent)

I thank Senator Quinn for sharing time with me. Like the Senator I too would consider myself a friend of the American people and like him I was there a few months ago and was staggered — one does not get this impression from the American television media — at how many people are so alarmed by the situation into which they have got regarding Guantanamo Bay, regarding the possibility of people being sent for extraordinary rendition, the fact that there have been such abuses carried out by American and other personnel in the prisons in Iraq and the fact the Iraqis seem to be running a regime for the thousands in their prisons far worse than that which was run by the former regime of Saddam Hussein. They are worried about the infiltration of Iranian militia into the south of the country and the fact that there are now so few journalists on location to report on it. I was there at a time when one of the last American journalists working in that part of Iraq was shot dead. No wonder we do not hear about Basra because there are no journalists there anymore to tell us about it.

We must take on some responsibility for telling our friends that we think they are making a serious mistake. It is clear they have already lost the battle in promoting human rights and democracy. When one now goes anywhere in that part of the world one finds Americans who say they pretend they are Canadians. I have never known of Americans in the past being anything other than enormously proud of the fact that they were Americans. I understand what people are saying about our significant economic dependence on America but it will not do to let them go to hell in a hand-cart, because this is what is happening at present.

When we speak of torture I sometimes wonder if people really take in what we are speaking about. The other day I read the forms of torture to which people who have been sent for extraordinary rendition said they were subjected. One of course is hanging up by the arms, which does not sound too uncomfortable until one realises that people are frequently hung by their arms tied behind their back. If one wonders why Senator John McCain, although a member of the Republican Party, speaks out repeatedly against extraordinary rendition and Guantanamo Bay, it is because that is how he was treated when he was in Vietnam — one may notice he is no longer able to raise his arms above a certain level. This is someone who has stated that when he was tortured by the Vietnamese and they would ask him for the names of his platoon and battalion, he used recite the names of various baseball teams because it was all he could remember. His objection to torture is that he thinks it is useless. I am sure he has humanitarian reasons as well.

There are people who are subjected to water-boarding. This is where they are held on a board, submerged, head backwards, into vats of water so that they think they are drowning and pulled out at the last moment. The following occur in the countries to which people are sent for extraordinary rendition: the pulling out of finger-nails, which has been going on for years; electric shocks to genitalia and lips; beating of the soles of the feet; beating of the back; beating of the soft parts of the body so that internal tissues are damaged, which is serious because it can cause internal bleeding, etc.; and keeping people in uncomfortable positions, not for ten minutes but for months, where they can neither stand up nor stretch out, in dank, cold conditions without sanitation, and frequently naked. When we ask that we want to be sure nothing like this with which we could in any way be involved could happen to people, many of us want to speak out as well on the entire practice.

While of course I understand the extent to which the economic situation troubles Senators on the other side of the House, those in America to whom I spoke are desperately worried about what happened, for example, to the young Syrian computer engineer from Canada who was taken off an airplane in Boston and held for ten months in such conditions in Syria. He now cannot work, cannot go on airplanes and says that while he is grateful when people tell him — his case was all over the Canadian and international newspapers — in supermarkets how sorry they are for what happened to him, all he can do is cry. He says his life is over, and he is in his thirties.