Category Archives: torture

Proud of War Crimes?

14 Sunday Mar 2010

Posted by in Politics, terrorism, torture, war on terror

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Proud to be war criminals—the sad, and sadly enduring, legacy of the Bush administration, which the so-called “brain” of that dark period in our history continued to attempt to rationalize and justify in a recent interview with the BBC:

“A senior adviser to former US President George W Bush has defended tough interrogation techniques, saying their use helped prevent terrorist attacks…In a BBC interview, Karl Rove, who was known as “Bush’s brain”, said he “was proud we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists”…He said waterboarding, which simulates drowning, should not be considered torture.”

…Mr Rove said US soldiers were subjected to waterboarding as a regular part of their training…A less severe form of the technique was used on the three suspects interrogated at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, he added.”

“Simulates drowning” and a “less severe from of the technique?” Not so says someone who has been there, Malcolm Nance (emphasis added) :

“As a former master instructor and chief of training at the U.S. Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, I know the waterboard personally and intimately. Our staff was required to undergo the waterboard at its fullest. I was no exception.

Having been subjected to this technique, I can say: It is risky but not entirely dangerous when applied in training for a very short period. However, when performed on an unsuspecting prisoner, waterboarding is a torture technique – without a doubt. There is no way to sugarcoat it.

In the media, waterboarding is called “simulated drowning,” but that’s a misnomer. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning.”

I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school’s interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques employed by the Army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What is less frequently reported is that our training was designed to show how an evil totalitarian enemy would use torture at the slightest whim.

Rove reiterated his pride later in the interview:

“Yes, I’m proud that we kept the world safer than it was, by the use of these techniques. They’re appropriate, they’re in conformity with our international requirements and with US law.”

No they aren’t. Our “international requirements” [the Convention Against Torture] and U.S. law [U.S. Code, Title 18, Chapter 113 C]  both forbid and prescribe punishment for torture.

“Mr Rove has just written a memoir, Courage and Consequence, in which he defends the two terms of the Bush administration as “impressive, durable and significant.”

BJ Bjornson at Newshoggers:

“Well, I’ll go with significant, at least. Significant in that Bush’s two terms took the US from the acknowledged leader of the Free World, respected if not loved, to just another world hegemony that most people won’t mind seeing pass into history at this point. While Obama has repaired a bit of the damage Bush has done, the lack of any prosecutions over the war crimes that people like Rove and Cheney now flaunt to the world has left most of us rather less than impressed.”

Waterboarding Just “A Dunk in the Water?” New Documents Say Otherwise

10 Wednesday Mar 2010

Posted by in Dick Cheney, Obama, Politics, terrorism, torture, war on terror

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

See if this sounds like what the Marquis de Cheney referred to as “ a dunk in the water,” and a “well done” technique that if he “had it to do all over again,..would do exactly the same thing.” Judge for yourself if those whose memos authorized and legitimized the following methods are guilty of nothing more than using “poor judgment.” I have a question for President Obama as well. Still think we need to “look forward, not back?” From Mark Benjamin at Salon:

…[R]ecently released internal documents reveal the controversial “enhanced interrogation” practice was far more brutal on detainees than Cheney’s description sounds, and was administered with meticulous cruelty.

…The documents also lay out, in chilling detail, exactly what should occur in each two-hour waterboarding “session.” Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to “dam the runoff” and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee’s mouth.

They were allowed six separate 40-second “applications” of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee’s nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day. Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus.”

And for those defenders of waterboarding who say it can’t be torture because our soldiers go through it in SERE training:

“…the documents show that the agency’s methods went far beyond anything ever done to a soldier during training. U.S. soldiers, for example, were generally waterboarded with a cloth over their face one time, never more than twice, for about 20 seconds, the CIA admits in its own documents.

“The difference was in the manner in which the detainee’s breathing was obstructed,” the document notes. In soldier training, “The interrogator applies a small amount of water to the cloth (on a soldier’s face) in a controlled manner,” DOJ wrote. “By contrast, the agency interrogator … continuously applied large volumes of water to a cloth that covered the detainee’s mouth and nose.”

These memos show the CIA went much further than that with terror suspects, using huge and dangerous quantities of liquid over long periods of time. The CIA’s waterboarding was “different” from training for elite soldiers, according to the Justice Department document released last month.

But, the defenders also say, no matter the tactics, waterboarding worked.  It provided intelligence which “kept us safe” from future attacks, right? Wrong.

“When torture supporters would tout the value of the information Abu Zubaydah provided, they somehow failed to mention that the actionable intelligence he provided was admitted prior to his waterboarding.  After President Bush bragged about the information obtained by torturing Abu Zubaydah, the Washington Post, after reviewing case files, concluded that absolutely no credible intelligence came from Zubaydah’s interrogations that utilized torture.”

But despite all the gruesome and sadistic details contained in the documents, this is perhaps the most disturbing:

“NOTE: In order to best inform future medical judgments and recommendations, it is important that every application of the waterboard be thoroughly documented: how long each application (and the entire procedure) lasted, how much water was used in the process (realizing that much splashes off), how exactly the water was applied, if a seal was achieved, if the naso- or oropharynx was filled, what sort of volume was expelled, how long was the break between applications, and how the subject looked between each treatment.”

Paging Dr. Mengele, Dr. Josef Mengele.

The Case of the Vanishing Justice Department E-Mail

27 Saturday Feb 2010

Posted by in Justice Department, Obama, Politics, torture

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

The legacy of Rose Mary Woods is alive and well at the Justice Department:

“Large batches of e-mail records from the Justice Department lawyers who worked on the 2002 legal opinions justifying the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation techniques are missing, and the Justice Department told lawmakers Friday that it would try to trace the disappearance.”

And in a stroke of what I’m sure is pure coincidence, what’s missing just happens to be from a crucial time period:

“The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility…pushed to get access to a range of e-mail records and other internal documents from the Justice Department to aid in its investigation.

But it discovered that many e-mail messages to and from John Yoo, who wrote the bulk of the legal opinions for the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, were missing…Also deleted were a month’s worth of e-mail files from the summer of 2002 for Patrick Philbin, another Justice Department lawyer who worked on the interrogation opinions. Those missing e-mail messages came during a period when two of the critical interrogation memos were being prepared.”

But never fear, the Obama DoJ is on the case. Kinda, sorta, maybe:

“Gary Grindler, the acting deputy attorney general who represented the Justice Department at Friday’s hearing, said he did not think there was “anything nefarious” about the deletion of the e-mail messages, but he could not explain what happened to them.

He said he had directed administrative personnel at the Justice Department to review the situation and determine whether there were problems in the department’s system for automatically archiving internal documents. He said the review would also seek to recover the missing e-mail messages if possible.”

Why do I get the feeling that in the spirit of the cover-up looking forward, not back, recovering the missing messages will be found impossible. Just a hunch.

Democrats Cave on Torture Amendment: So What Else Is New?

26 Friday Feb 2010

Posted by in Constitution, Democrats, Dick Cheney, Justice Department, Obama, Politics, Republicans, terrorism, torture, Uncategorized, war on terror

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

While all the attention in Washington yesterday was focused on the posturing and pontificating over health care reform, there was something else going on. Democratic Congressman Sylvestre Reyes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, proposed an amendment to the 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act. The amendment is called the Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Interrogation Prohibition Act of 2010 which, in essence, does nothing more than codify what already exists in Articles 1 and 16 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture. You know that treaty which under Article VI of the Constitution is supposed to be the “supreme Law of the Land,” but was signed and ratified pre-9/11 so is no longer applicable, apparently.

The amendment prohibits such acts as waterboarding, beatings, sleep deprivation, and mock executions among others. In other words, pretty much the chart toppers on the Cheney/Ashcroft/Rumsfeld/Yoo/Bybee hit parade. It applies to any “U.S. national, or any officer, employee, contractor, or subcontractor of the Federal government,” with punishment for violation being “fine or imprisonment for not more than 15 years, or both,” unless death results. Then the imprisonment is “any term of years or for life.”

And right on cue, here came the torture defenders, led by Liz Cheney, playing the predictable “keeping us safe” card:

“Late last night, Democrats in the House of Representatives inserted a provision dubbed “The Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Interrogation Act of 2010” into the intelligence authorization bill. This new language targets the US intelligence community with criminal penalties for using methods they have deemed necessary for keeping America safe. These methods have further been found by the Department of Justice to be both legal and in keeping with our international obligations.”

Sorry Liz, but just because they were found legal by the pretzel logic of Daddy’s Justice Department (and sadly, found to be merely “poor judgment” by the current Justice Department) doesn’t mean they are legal. It just means that laws and treaties have become an a la carte menu in post 9/11 America. We now pick and choose which ones to enforce and which ones to ignore. Again, sadly.

According to Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic, the amendment is also not popular at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (sigh):

“The White House isn’t happy; they’ve already threatened to veto the bill because it, in their mind, it infringes upon the rights of the executive branch by forcing the administration to disclose more about intelligence operations to more members of Congress.”

That sounds a lot like a previous administration to me. (Double sigh).

And speaking of right on cue, all House Republicans had to do was give the insinuation that they would accuse Democrats of being ‘soft on terror’ and ‘coddling terrorists’ and the gutless, spineless, Democratic leadership pulled the bill.

Yoo: The President Could Order the Massacre of a Village

22 Monday Feb 2010

Posted by in Dick Cheney, Justice Department, Politics, torture, Uncategorized, war on terror

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Michael Isikoff at Newsweek.com has more on the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report in which David Margolis, senior lawyer in the Obstruction of Justice Department, found John Yoo and Jay Bybee guilty of nothing more than “poor judgement” in authoring the torture memos.

The report also contains an excerpt of an investigator’s interview with Yoo on the subject of the expanded powers of the president:

“At the core of the legal arguments were the views of Yoo, strongly backed by David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s legal counsel, that the president’s wartime powers were essentially unlimited and included the authority to override laws passed by Congress, such as a statute banning the use of torture. Pressed on his views in an interview with OPR investigators, Yoo was asked:

“Sure,” said Yoo.”

“What about ordering a village of resistants to be massacred? … Is that a power that the president could legally—”

“Yeah,” Yoo replied, according to a partial transcript included in the report. “Although, let me say this: So, certainly, that would fall within the commander-in-chief’s power over tactical decisions.”

“To order a village of civilians to be [exterminated]?” the OPR investigator asked again.

CarolynC at The Seminal comments on the fallout from Margolis’ decision:

“Because of the actions of men like John Yoo, our country’s moral standing in the world has been eroded. The country of Washington, Lincoln has become a country where legal justifications of torture are now viewed as a matter of “poor judgment,” as the OPR report concluded in its findings.”

One can only conclude that the extermination of an entire village would also fall under the “poor judgment” umbrella as well.

“… But far from being condemned and disgraced, our domestic war criminals live in comfort and ease, their opinions are eagerly sought by our slavish media, and they are treated with the utmost respect in the corridors of power.

…thanks to John Yoo, the President can now commit everything up to and including genocide. Nothing seems to have changed, but everything has changed. Most of us were brought up to consider ourselves citizens of a democratic country; now we are dangerously close to being mere subjects of a monarchical leader, whose powers know no bounds.”

Dick Cheney is so confident that he is in no danger of being held accountable that he triumphantly broadcast his guilt on national television; he admitted last Sunday that he personally ordered the CIA to waterboard detainees. No matter. He will still be treated with deference as an elder statesmen by the Beltway Elite. And John Yoo will continue to practice law, teach, give interviews and write books on the virtues of unlimited executive power, and the books will be greeted with glowing reviews.

Spencer Ackerman’s Open Letter to Liz Cheney

22 Monday Feb 2010

Posted by in Constitution, Dick Cheney, Justice Department, Obama, Politics, torture, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Spencer Ackerman at the Washington Independent has an “Open Letter to Liz Cheney on Torture”:

Dear Ms. Cheney,

I don’t know if you saw ‘Meet The Press’ this morning, but a general you may have heard of named David Petraeus — he’s the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia and is the most distinguished Army general since Colin Powell — graced your television. He was asked about whether the U.S. ought to torture Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the deputy commander of the Taliban, recently captured in Pakistan. “I have always been on record, in fact since 2003, with the concept of living our values,” Petraeus replied. Every time the U.S. took what he called “expedient measures” around the Geneva Conventions, those deviations just “turned around and bitten us on our backside.” The effect of torture at Abu Ghraib is “non-biodegradable,” he continued, and boasted that as commander of the 101st Airborne in Iraq, he ordered his men to ignore any instruction to use techniques outside the Army Field Manual on Interrogations. Besides, the non-torture techniques that manual has long instructed? “That works,” he said. “That is our experience.”

But hey. You’re a former deputy assistant secretary of state! You obviously know better than the man who implemented the surge in Iraq. Why don’t you enlighten Gen. Petraeus about all the glories of torture? And since you consider “enhanced interrogation” so necessary to secure the country, perhaps there’s a full page ad you’ll take out in a major newspaper?

Cordially,
Spencer

Would that Ackerman’s letter might get Ms. Cheney’s mind right. But I think the only means to that end would be Papa Dick in his rightful place before a war crimes tribunal. But sadly, the Obama Obstruction of Justice Department and the Look Forward, Not Back Doctrine of the Constitutional Scholar-in-Chief isn’t going to allow that to happen.

Sadly, we will continue to be subjected to the former VP, and by extension his daughter, proudly extolling the virtues of torture, undeterred by any thoughts of being held accountable.

Sadly indeed.

Why Is This Man Not Facing a War Crimes Tribunal?

16 Tuesday Feb 2010

Posted by in Dick Cheney, Justice Department, Obama, Politics, torture, war on terror

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Every time I see former Vice-President Dick Cheney interviewed on any news program, national or otherwise, I think to myself, ‘Why is this man here and not facing a war crimes tribunal?’ Cheney made a remark during an interview with Jonathan Karl Sunday on ABC’s This Week, a remark made almost in passing, that once again brought that question to mind:

KARL: Did you more often win or lose those battles, especially as you got to the second term?

CHENEY: Well, I suppose it depends on which battle you’re talking about. I won some; I lost some. I can’t…

KARL: … waterboarding, clearly, what was your…

CHENEY: I was a big supporter of waterboarding. I was a big supporter of the enhanced interrogation techniques that…

KARL: And you opposed the administration’s actions of doing away with waterboarding?

CHENEY: Yes.

It never ceases to amaze me, although it’s not the first time it has happened and undoubtedly won’t be the last, that a former vice-president of the United States of America can openly and brazenly confess to something which the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Convention Against Torture recognize as torture, something for which members of the Japanese military were punished after World War II. Torture, a punishable offense under U.S. Code 2340A by imprisonment or death. And he can do so without any fear of reprisal, thanks to the ‘look forward, not back’ policy of the Obama administration.

Shameful.

Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish calls on Attorney General Eric Holder to take action or be considered an accessory, also a punishable offense:

“…the attorney general of the United States is legally obliged to prosecute someone who has openly admitted such a war crime or be in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention on Torture. For Eric Holder to ignore this duty subjects him too to prosecution. If the US government fails to enforce the provision against torture, the UN or a foreign court can initiate an investigation and prosecution.

Cheney himself just set in motion a chain of events that the civilized world must see to its conclusion or cease to be the civilized world. For such a high official to escape the clear letter of these treaties and conventions, and to openly brag of it, renders such treaties and conventions meaningless.”

These are not my opinions and they are not hyperbole. They are legal facts. Either this country is governed by the rule of law or it isn’t. Cheney’s clear admission of his central role in authorizing waterboarding and the clear evidence that such waterboarding did indeed take place means that prosecution must proceed.

Specter: Miranda? Wasn’t She the Actress Who Wore the Crazy Hats?

10 Wednesday Feb 2010

Posted by in Politics, terrorism, torture, war on terror

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

One would think that a former prosecutor and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee would have some rudimentary knowledge of the American criminal justice system. One would think so, but one would be wrong:

“The suspect accused of trying to blow up a flight on Christmas Day should not have been read his Miranda rights, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) said Tuesday…”I do not believe he should have been read his rights,” Specter said during an appearance on MSNBC. “I think the most important thing is to find out what information he has to prevent future terrorist acts.

“The most important thing is to get what information he has,” Specter said. “More important than conviction.”

And apparently in Specter’s mind, more important than whether or not that information is factual.

“Specter said that while it would be preferable to try suspects like Abdulmutallab in regular criminal court, if confessions are made inadmissible in those courts, then defendants should be tried in military tribunals.”

Pick a court, any court. Whichever one allows coerced confessions and illegally obtained evidence. There are certainly courts like that to be found, Sen. Specter—in China, Cuba, and Iran. Evidently you prefer their system of justice to ours.

Our System of Justice Works–If We Let It

03 Wednesday Feb 2010

Posted by in terrorism, torture

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Despite this bi-partisan group of senators with their moistened fingers in the air during an election year, our system of justice works, if we just let it:

“Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a jetliner bound for Detroit on Dec. 25, started talking to investigators after two of his family members arrived in the United States and helped earn his cooperation, a senior administration official said Tuesday evening.

…[F.B.I.] agents and the two family members flew back to the United States on Jan. 17. They met with the F.B.I. to discuss a way forward. After meeting with Mr. Abdulmutallab for several days, the official said, the family members persuaded him to talk to investigators.

Mr. Abdulmutallab, 23, began speaking to F.B.I. agents last week in Detroit and has not stopped, two government officials said. The officials declined to disclose what information was obtained from him, but said it was aiding in the investigation of the attempted terrorist attack.

“With the family, the F.B.I. approached the suspect,” the senior administration official said, speaking to reporters at the White House on the condition of anonymity because of the pending legal case. “He has been cooperating for days.”

Note the key phrases; “earned his cooperation,” not tortured him until he talked. “Approached the suspect,” not made him fear for his life. “Persuaded him to talk to investigators,” again, no “enhanced interrogation techniques” required. And what do you know, it was all done with Abdulmutallab’s lawyer present.

Score one for the rule of law and the American criminal justice system.

Continuing the Bush / Cheney "War on Terror" Policies

01 Monday Feb 2010

Posted by in Justice Department, Obama, terrorism, torture, war on terror

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As someone who voted for Barack Obama in 2008,  I’ve been disappointed in many of the actions of the Obama administration. None more so than their continuation of the Bush/Cheney policies of dealing with those accused of terrorist activities. I expected much better from a president who professed to be something of a Constitutional scholar, and the administration bowing to pressure over the weekend from those who are against trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 4 others in New York City has only renewed that disappointment.

It also didn’t help that, in a Newsweek article on Friday, the Obama Justice Department has, what Newsweek called “downgraded” but a better term would be “whitewashed,” a Bush DOJ recommendation that Jay Bybee and John Yoo should be investigated for committing ethical violations in connection with authoring the 2002 torture memos. The Obama DOJ now calls their actions simply “poor judgment.”

In light of that, Glenn Greenwald has an excellent piece in Salon which is a must-read for anyone who shares my concerns, and which compares the Bush/Cheney policies with those of the current administration. The sad fact being that there isn’t much difference. Greenwald writes:

“From indefinite detention and renditions to denial of habeas rights, from military commissions and secrecy obsessions to state secrets abuses, many of the defining Bush/Cheney policies continue unabated under its successor administration.

...it’s now crystal clear that the country, especially its ruling elite, is either too petrified of Terrorism and/or too enamored of the powers which that fear enables to accept any real changes from the policies that were supposedly such a profound violation “of our values.”  One can only marvel at the consensus outrage generated by the mere notion that we charge people with crimes and give them trials if we want to lock them in a cage for life. Indeed, what was once the most basic and defining American principle — the State must charge someone with a crime and give them a fair trial in order to imprison them — has been magically transformed into Leftist extremism.”

…there is clearly a bipartisan and institutional craving for a revival (more accurately:  ongoing preservation)  of the core premise of Bush/Cheney radicalism:  that because we’re “at war” with Terrorists, our standard precepts of justice and due process do not apply and, indeed, must be violated.

That “Leftist extremism” would by today’s standards include that noted leftist, Ronald Reagan, whose policy on dealing with terrorists, as stated by L. Paul Bremer, the top Reagan State Department official in charge of  Terrorism policies, was this:

“Another important measure we have developed in our overall strategy is applying the rule of law to terrorists. Terrorists are criminals. They commit criminal actions like murder, kidnapping, and arson, and countries have laws to punish criminals. So a major element of our strategy has been to delegitimize terrorists, to get society to see them for what they are — criminals — and to use democracy’s most potent tool, the rule of law against them.”

Greenwald also has the just-released policy of another country in dealing with al-Qaeda, along with some quotes from that country’s leader. See who this sounds like:

“_____ will hold up to 300 al Qaeda members in jail indefinitely after they have completed their prison terms to stop them staging fresh attacks.

“These people are heretics. They are followers of (Osama) Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri. They killed a number of civilians and police…It is a necessity to keep them in prison. They are very dangerous as they are ready to resume killing people in our streets here or travel…elsewhere to stage attacks…These people constitute a danger even when the court had pronounced its verdict. Security authorities are the ones who are responsible for this matter to say whether they are dangerous or not. The court verdict is void of reason in such cases.”

The country is Libya. The speaker is Muammar Gaddafi.