Tag Archives: torture

Cheney culture redux

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Cheney is trying, in short, to draw us back into the same tiresome debate over the efficacy of torture, which is about as compelling as a debate about the efficacy of slavery or Jim Crow laws. Only fools debate whether patently illegal programs “work”—only fools or those who have been legally implicated in designing the programs in the first place. … Cheney gets away with saying torture is “legal” even though it isn’t because if it were truly illegal, he and those who devised the torture regime would have faced legal consequences—somewhere, somehow. That’s the meaning of the “rule of law.”

– Dahlia Lithwick, via The Daily Dish

If Dick Cheney really believes that authorizing torture is legal, let’s see him travel to Europe, or virtually anywhere else in the world. It won’t happen because he almost certainly would be immediately arrested.

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Why Dick Cheney is hated

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Conor Friedersdorf, writing in The Atlantic, describes, in great detail and with ample citations exactly why Dick Cheney is loathed by so many.  Lies about WMD, lies about an Iraq/Al-Qaeda connection, impassioned support for torture, and on and on.

Well worth a full read to remind yourself just how bad he was.

Excerpt:

Despite these questions and uncertainties, and having full awareness of them, the vice president nevertheless proceeded to misrepresent the facts in his public statements [leading up to the Iraq War], claiming that there was no doubt about the existence of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq and that a full-scale nuclear program was known to exist, including: (a) March 17, 2002: “We know they have biological and chemical weapons.” (b) March 19, 2002: “We know they are pursuing nuclear weapons.” (c) March 24, 2002: “He is actively pursuing nuclear weapons.” (d) May 19, 2002: “We know he’s got chemical and biological…we know he’s working on nuclear.” (e) August 26, 2002: “We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons… Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” (f) March 16, 2003: “We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

– quotation from article quoting Wil S. Hylton

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Torture quote of the day

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Most importantly, we should be talking about the morality of torture, not its efficacy. When the U.S. infantry becomes bogged down in a tough battle, they don’t turn to chemical weapons even though they are extremely effective. The reason they don’t is because such weapons are illegal and immoral.

– Matthew Alexander, former senior U.S. military interrogator, on why justifying torture of terrorism suspects on the grounds of results is indefensible.

Splitting the baby

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The Obama Justice Department will investigate the deaths of two prisoners under the control of the CIA for possible criminal violations. Good step.

But what the DOJ gives with one hand, they more than take away with the other. The cases of approximately 100 other detainees are now closed.

This is unfortunate. The only way to get past the past torture committed by the United States is a full and honest accounting of such practices so as to reduce the chances of the abuses occurring again. Whether it is via a criminal investigation or an independent review not resulting in criminal charges, such an accounting is critical.

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Torture quote of the day

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Mistreatment of enemy prisoners endangers our own troops, who might someday be held captive. While some enemies, and al-Qaeda surely, will never be bound by the principle of reciprocity, we should have concern for those Americans captured by more conventional enemies, if not in this war then in the next.

Though it took a decade to find bin Laden, there is one consolation for his long evasion of justice: He lived long enough to witness what some are calling the Arab Spring, the complete repudiation of his violent ideology.

As we debate how the United States can best influence the course of the Arab Spring, can’t we all agree that the most obvious thing we can do is stand as an example of a nation that holds an individual’s human rights as superior to the will of the majority or the wishes of government? Individuals might forfeit their life as punishment for breaking laws, but even then, as recognized in our Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, they are still entitled to respect for their basic human dignity, even if they have denied that respect to others.

All of these arguments have the force of right, but they are beside the most important point. Ultimately, this is more than a utilitarian debate. This is a moral debate. It is about who we are.

– Senator John McCain, in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post yesterday.

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Torture quote of the day

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This is a subject I know something about. I was a student at the DIA interrogation school i[n] 1969. I worked as an interrogator/debriefer for three years after that working for the DIA. One of the first things we discussed was torture – and yes water boarding is torture. We were reminded that torture is against both US and international law. We were reminded that we executed Japanese who had water boarded Americans. More importantly we were instructed that torture is ineffective. When you torture people they tell you what they think you want to hear – anything they think you want to hear. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. You may get some good intelligence from torture but you are going to get a lot more bad intelligence which will both send us down the wrong road and endanger US troops and agents. Torture has historically been used to get false confessions – you can ask John McCain about that.

There has been lots of talk but no evidence that torture contributed to the death of Osama bin Laden. There is no evidence that torture has contributed to any worth while intelligence.

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Was the bin Laden killing legal?

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The short answer is yes.

For purposes of international law, Article 51 of the United Nations Charter clearly provides states with a right of self-defense:

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

bin Laden claimed credit for the attack on 9/11, the largest loss of life on American soil caused by foreign attack. His killing was a legitimate response to the attack. As Lindsey Graham said this week:

“From a Navy SEAL perspective, you had to believe that this guy [Osama bin Laden] was a walking IED,” an improvised explosive device, said Graham.

“I think the SEALS had to believe that the moment they encountered [bin Laden] that they were well within their right. Shooting him as soon as possible probably protected everyone, including the SEALS, women and children,” he said. “The moment they saw bin Laden they had to consider him a threat. “

As for US law, there are several bases for the action’s legality. First,  Section 2(a) of Public Law 107-40, Authorization for Use of Military Force, authorizes the President to “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.” bin Laden, having admitted responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, certainly qualifies as a person who planned or authorized the attack. And he repeatedly stated he would plan future attacks.

Second, bin Laden was essentially a war general. As such, he was subject to military targeting.

Ilya Somin, a professor at George Mason University’s School of Law, echoed Greenberg’s argument that “targeting individual enemy combatants in war is perfectly legal and moral”.

Somin points at US targeting of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander of the Japanese fleet during World War II, and the British and the Czechs’ killing of German SS General Reinhard Heydrick in 1942, as precedents.

“Surely international law does not give terrorist leaders greater protection than that enjoyed by uniformed soldiers such as Admiral Yamamoto.”

“And if it is legal to individually target the commander of a uniformed military force, it is surely equally legal to target the leader of a terrorist organisation, including Osama bin Laden,” he told Al Jazeera.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, torture is never legal under either US domestic and treaty law. When an alleged combatant is captured it is not lawful to subject the prisoner to torture. There are no exceptions.

The United States has always prohibited the use of torture in our Constitution, laws executive statements and judicial decisions. We have ratified three treaties that all outlaw torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. When the United States ratifies a treaty, it becomes part of the Supreme Law of the Land under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, says, “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture.”

Whether someone is a POW or not, he must always be treated humanely; there are no gaps in the Geneva Conventions. He must be protected against torture, mutilation, cruel treatment, and outrages upon personal dignity, particularly humiliating and degrading treatment under, Common Article 3.

The Common Article III of Geneva Convention, of which the US is a signatory, provides, in part, as follows with respect to prisoners of war defined as individuals who have “fallen under the power of the enemy”:

Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.

Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.

Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited.

***

No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.

In other words, torture of a prisoner already under a government’s total control is never a legal form of self-defense.

John McCain: torture didn’t work

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So far I know of no information that was obtained, that would have been useful, by ‘advanced interrogation.’ In fact, according to published reports … some of the key people who knew about this courrier denied it.

Where there is published information in the various newspapers and media that the information about this courier was intercepted conversation between two individuals — that’s as far as I know. I stand on the side of the United States and by the Geneva conventions, of which we are signatories, which we were in violation of by waterboarding.

– US Senator John McCain

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Torture is torture

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Several Bush administration officials, including the despicable John Yoo who authored legal memoranda authorizing torture, are claiming that the “enhanced interrogation techniques” aka torture implemented by the Bush administration is responsible for the killing of bin Laden. This is not true.

As reported in today’s New York Times:

… a closer look at prisoner interrogations suggests that the harsh techniques played a small role at most in identifying Bin Laden’s trusted courier and exposing his hide-out. One detainee who apparently was subjected to some tough treatment provided a crucial description of the courier, according to current and former officials briefed on the interrogations. But two prisoners who underwent some of the harshest treatment — including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times — repeatedly misled their interrogators about the courier’s identity.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, John Yoo claims:

Sunday’s success also vindicates the Bush administration, whose intelligence architecture marked the path to bin Laden’s door. According to current and former administration officials, CIA interrogators gathered the initial information that ultimately led to bin Laden’s death. The United States located al Qaeda’s leader by learning the identity of a trusted courier from the tough interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks, and his successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi.

It is really a bit sad that some Republicans believe that they will take credit for torture in order to get a bit of credit for bin Laden’s slaying. Keep in mind that career prosecutors in the Department of Justice concluded that, in drafting the memos supporting terrorism, Yoo used flawed legal reasoning. And whatever small value torture may have produced is not the worth the cost of the erosion of our traditional values of decency and humanity. And note, below, that even Donald Rumsfeld confirms that waterboarding did not lead to bin Laden.

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Did bin Laden win?

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Osama bin Laden is now dead. Good.

But is it possible that he lost the battle but won the war? I think so. The changes that this country has put itself through since 9/11 are awesome and negative.

Radley Belko has a list of the self-imposed damage the US has done in reaction to bin Laden. An excerpt:

We have also fundamentally altered who we are. A partial, off-the-top-of-my-head list of how we’ve changed since September 11 . . .

  • We’ve sent terrorist suspects to “black sites” to be detained without trial and tortured.
  • We’ve turned terrorist suspects over to other regimes, knowing that they’d be tortured.
  • In those cases when our government later learned it got the wrong guy, federal officials not only refused to apologize or compensate him, they went to court to argue he should be barred from using our courts to seek justice, and that the details of his abduction, torture, and detainment should be kept secret.
  • We’ve abducted and imprisoned dozens, perhaps hundreds of men in Guantanamo who turned out to have been innocent. Again, the government felt no obligation to do right by them.
  • The government launched a multimillion dollar ad campaign implying that people who smoke marijuana are complicit in the murder of nearly 3,000 of their fellow citizens.
  • The government illegally spied and eavesdropped on thousands of American citizens.
  • Presidents from both of the two major political parties have claimed the power to detain suspected terrorists and hold them indefinitely without trial, based solely on the president’s designation of them as an “enemy combatant,” essentially making the president prosecutor, judge, and jury. (I’d also argue that the treatment of someone like Bradley Manning wouldn’t have been tolerated before September 11.)

The New York Times finally wakes up

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The New York Times building in New York, NY ac...

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For a supposedly intelligent and responsible newspaper, the New York Times is sometimes scandalously slow in getting the point. I have written about the abuse of Private Manning before.

Yesterday, finally, the Times catches on and decides to call out the Obama administration for its abuse of Private Manning.

Pfc. Bradley Manning, who has been imprisoned for nine months on charges of handing government files to WikiLeaks, has not even been tried let alone convicted. Yet the military has been treating him abusively, in a way that conjures creepy memories of how the Bush administration used to treat terror suspects. Inexplicably, it appears to have President Obama’s support to do so.

Private Manning is in solitary confinement at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va. For one hour a day, he is allowed to walk around a room in shackles. He is forced to remove all his clothes every night. And every morning he is required to stand outside his cell, naked, until he passes inspection and is given his clothes back.

Military officials say, without explanation, that these precautions are necessary to prevent Private Manning from injuring himself. They have put him on “prevention of injury” watch, yet his lawyers say there is no indication that he is suicidal and the military has not placed him on a suicide watch. (He apparently made a sarcastic comment about suicide.)

 

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Yet again, Obama = Bush (updated)

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Free Bradley Manning Rally

Image by mar is sea Y via Flickr

Private Bradley Manning is accused of leaking secret documents to Wikileaks. He is being held in a brig in solitary confinement for months. Now his jailers have started requiring the his clothing be removed at night and other unusual and humiliating actions. Here is a short summary of the latest coverage of these events by Glenn Greenwald:

In late January, Amnesty International wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates denouncing the conditions of Bradley Manning’s detention as “unnecessarily harsh and punitive” and in “breach the USA’s obligations under international standards and treaties.”  In the wake of the prolonged forced nudity to which Manning is now being subjected, Amnesty has escalated its denunciations: as the Associated Press put it today, the group is now “urging people to complain to the Obama administration about the confinement.”

Our President however says he is fine with all this.

With respect to Private Manning, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards.  They assure me that they are.  I can’t go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning’s safety as well.

Well, I guess that handles the issue. There is no doubt that asking the Pentagon whether the Pentagon is violating the rights of an American citizen in their custody is the best way to know whether the claims are true. The Pentagon has, for the last decade, an impeccable record of appropriate treatment of its detainees.

By the way, PJ Crowley, chief spokesman for the US State Department, has publicly stated that “What is being done to Bradley Manning is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid on the part of the department of defense.”

Update: And today, PJ Crowley has been fired by the Obama White House. It is a sad day when opposition to prisoner abuse is a firing office.

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