Time is running out. Sometime in 2010, we will officially become a nation that sanctions torture.

At the time the United States ratified the Convention Against Torture (1994), we also passed a federal statute criminalizing torture and conspiracy to torture (18 U.S.C. Secs. 2340 and 2340A-B). That statute has a statute-of-limitations period of eight years, meaning no charges can be brought against an alleged perpetrator if eight years has passed since the act of torture or conspiracy to torture.
 
Make no mistake about it, we have tortured people. As an official policy, that began in 2002. It was a policy that "legalized," authorized, ordered and committed torture. The evidence is overwhelming. This has been confirmed even by our own officials, let alone by several respected international human-rights organizations.

For example, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, the man selected by the Pentagon to compile its report on Abu Ghraib, wrote more generally in a 2008 preface to a Physicians for Human Rights report that "the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture." FBI interrogator Ali Soufan reported "borderline torture" to his superiors in Washington. Judge Susan Crawford, the convening authority for the Guantanamo military commissions, said early last year, "We tortured Qahtani. His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case [for prosecution]." (The Washington Post, Jan. 14, 2009).

Alberto Mora's complaints
Well before Abu Ghraib, then-Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora complained of effects reaching the level of torture at Guantanamo. In accepting the 2006 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, speaking of treatment of detainees at "Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and other locations," Mora said: "We know the treatment may have reached the level of torture in some instances. And there are still questions as to whether these policies were related, if at all, to the deaths of several dozen detainees in custody."
 
As the statute of limitations begins to expire on these acts that began in 2002, we will officially become a nation that sanctions torture. That is how our actions during this period will correctly be seen in the eyes of the world for time immemorial.
 
Not only Bush administration officials will be so labeled. Under the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT), President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have an affirmative responsibility to investigate allegations where there is a "reasonable ground to believe an act of torture has been committed." (CAT, Article 12). So far, with respect to this issue, neither of them seems to recognize that we are a nation of laws. President Barack Obama is not even interested in those who tortured, let alone those who instituted, authorized and implemented this policy. His only interest is in those who committed "torture-plus," the so-called "rogue" elements who exceeded the prescribed torture limitations.
 
No willingness in Minnesota either
Our own U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, B. Todd Jones, also has jurisdiction to bring charges under the Federal Torture Statute. Unfortunately, no U.S. Attorney appointed by President Obama has shown the willingness to uphold their oaths of office, as some U.S. Attorneys in the Bush Administration had the courage and integrity to do, when they rejected orders from on high.
 
Congress is implicated as well. Members who had knowledge of the torturing at the time it was occurring may well be responsible. Clearly, Democrats as well as Republicans had such knowledge, and this may explain the bipartisan lack of enthusiasm in pursuing this issue. The current Congress has shown virtually no interest in holding accountable the formulators and the perpetrators of our policy of torture. The Senate Judiciary Committee, on which both of Minnesota's senators sit, and which oversees the Justice Department, has put no pressure on the attorney general to make such prosecutions a priority. No one other than Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has even suggested extending the statute of limitations period. Minnesota Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken won't even say they support the prosecution of torturers. Neither of their websites even mentions the word "torture."

Regrettably, on the issue of accountability for torture, those in power are united. This conspiracy of silence will soon make it official. If you torture or conspire to torture in the name of the United States, no consequences will follow.

This situation is so sad. And time is of the essence.

Chuck Turchick is a retired Minneapolis resident who is concerned about torture and torture accountability issues.