++The release of the Feinstein Report psychologically marked the end of the Obama era. Obama may have some victories ahead but we have been thrust back into the dark times post 9-11, which we hoped we have gone beyond.
++I support Andrew Sullivan, Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch, and all those arguing that the culprits for the torture policy must be held responsible. But political reality tells me they will not.
++All the things I talk about concerning torture appeared in this circumstance. I always try to persuade foreign governments it doesn't produce "good intelligence". I say that torture corrupts every institution it touches.
++In this case, you can see this in John Brennen's pained support of those involved and the torture lawyers self-defense. The APA had to come out and condemn torture as against everything psychologists stand for and they had to note the two psychologists who created the program weren't members. We have yet to hear from the medical doctors about why they participated in the war crime.The international community had to protect their own institutions by condemning the United States.
++But let's go back to my axiom it doesn't produce "good intelligence". Clearly, recent books about the Nazi occupation of France document that Hans Barbie's torture did assist in rolling up the cells of the French resistance and discover where French Jews were hiding. We forget that the international humanitarian law pioneered by the United States made torture a "crime against humanity" after WWII to prevent the klaus Barbie's of the future.
++But let's go to the word "good". In this case, it was so-called "actionable intelligence". Sam Husseini of the Institute for Public Integrity sats "Both Sides are wrong: Torture did work-to produce lies for War (see Footnote 857 of the Report)" Printed in Huffington Post ,Husseini refers to a footnote that describes the torture of al-Libi by the Egyptians which produced the misinformation that Colin Powell used before the United Nations to justify the Iraq War.
++Husseini goes into depth that one of the reasons the CIA destroyed the torture tapes because they exposed the whole program. CIA personnel directed by characters in Washington were torturing detainees to find out about connections of bin Laden with Saddam Hussein (there were none) and if these ever saw the light of the day the torture program would be shown to be elaborate manipulation of American and world public opinion.
++This makes sense when we saw the curious release by Senator Levin of the CIA letter informing him that Al Atta, the so-called Al Qaeda agent never met and Iraqi in Prague--one of Dick Cheney's old saws to support Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. I thought Senator Levin was doing a Chuck Schumer for the media coverage but rather he was signaling that he knew what lay behind the torture program.
++The Torture program was a raving success. Dick Cheney and other apologists just don't tell you the reason. It was to fabricate intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. And it succeeded. We even have a newly elected Senator Joni Ernst from Iowa who campaigned saying Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11.
++Despite all the evidence the torture program did not prevent a single terrorist plot,the entire Republican Party with the exception of John McCain and Lindsey Graham, supported it then and supports it now. But I am sure they don't know it's real purpose.
++The Defense appropriation bill set to President Obama represents over 60% of our government spending. In it is authorization for his fight against ISIS. The administration objected that the authorization was too limited in scope and time. John Brennen was right in saying at his press conference policy-makers may use the torture program again.
++Remember how quickly the CIA dissolved its bin Laden office after the invasion of Iraq? Remember George W. Bush's jokes at the National Press Club about not finding bin Laden. The pathetic attempt in the lost week by former CIA chiefs to claim intelligence obtained under torture led to Bin Laden's demise just hides the fact the program produced the results it was designed for--The Invasion of Iraq.
++The monkey is still on our back and will haunt the remaining days of the Obama Administration as they try to grapple with the aftermath in Iraq and Syria brought forth by the last administration.
Showing posts with label Torture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Torture. Show all posts
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Truth Commission, Please!
We have been treated to around the clock defenses and rebuttals about the Bush-Cheney torture policy and claims and counter-claims about who was informed about what when and who lied. The Obama Administration hasn't done anyone favors by trying to keep this issue narrowly defined to the ethics of a small bunch of Bush-era lawyers. We know torture occurred prior to the legal memos. We know the torture time-line implies that these techniques were used to produce false intelligence to legitimize a war we chose to fight. And we also know that Cheney apologists have tried to keep the debate focused on three detainees instead of the abuse and torture of the many. The reversal by President Obama on the release of the abuse photos has only led to more confusion. Are these the photos and videos that showed young men being sodomized and women raped? Now we are treated to a bewildering set of claims and counter-claims about the nature of these photos. And,finally,in another post 9/11 moment, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman are sponsoring a law to prohibit the release of all these photos.
Dick Cheney claims two memos will vindicate his assessment that thousands if not millions of lives were saved by torturing detainees. Senators Levin and Feingold, who claim to have read the same memos, categorically deny they say any such thing. Who's right? And it really does matter.
If we are going to escalate the war in Afghanistan, I don't believe it is enough for the Obama Administration to pledge not to do it again. Before the Republicans start their campaign about the war in Afghanistan being Obama's war alone (and they will--remember Bob Dole speaking about Democratic wars), it's important for the American public to know the whys and wherefores of the policy debacles of the last eight years. This is certainly not Washington's way because while the Bush Administration executed, the Democratic leadership acquiesced. It's important for the country to know that.
We have heard calls for such an investigation from Generals Sanchez, Karpinski and Taguba, Col. Wilkinson and a host of military, FBI and CIA interrogators. Torture activists such as Dick and Liz Cheney demand the infamous memos be declassified as others call for the declassification of the CIA's 2004 report by the Inspector General saying the torture policy did not yield the appreciable results claimed by Cheney and company. And why have we not heard from George "It's a Slam Dunk" Tenet, who is constantly quoted as saying,"This program yielded more intelligence than the CIA,NSA and FBI had all together."
Since the United States willfully abandoned its treaty obligations, its own domestic law and its military traditions, it's extremely important to establish why, how and what were the results. Washington simply doesn't have the guts to do this type of things. Just look at the Chamber of Cowardice, the U.S. Senate in its overwhelming vote not to approve the funding to close Gitmo, despite the fact the American system holds about a equivalent number of terrorists in super-max prisons. The Senate has become the worlds' most deliberative retirement home and has abandoned all pretence of leadership.
Scholars like Jonathan Turley of George Washington University claim we are too advanced a democracy for a Truth Commission and that our age-old commitment to the rule of law will be better served if an Independent Prosecutor is appointed. I don't believe this. With the media echo chamber allowing people like Dick Cheney ample time to argue for torture without the rebuttal of his errors, there is an impression that somehow his position and that of the Bush Administration was legitimate. Since Washington fears prosecution of anyone for fear of people losing their dinner guests to prolonged periods of jail time, it's important a non-partisan Commission be established with the remains of people with any credibility left in this country. Call it a Danforth-Hamilton Commission if you will. But, it is more important in my opinion to have public education about this policy than even prosecutions.
The Bush-Cheney crowd argue that Al Qaeda represented a unique enemy in our history and for that reason they abandoned out strategic doctrine and launched pre-emptive wars. While waging these elective wars, the same Administration embarked on the largest warrantless wiretap campaign in our history, argued for unheard of powers for the presidency, and overrode the Constitution to embrace a policy of torture, hidden prisons and disappearances. It is vital for our health as a democracy and our alleged role as the standard bearer of the values of freedom to come clean and produce the real and false of the countless accusations floating around.
Dick Cheney claims two memos will vindicate his assessment that thousands if not millions of lives were saved by torturing detainees. Senators Levin and Feingold, who claim to have read the same memos, categorically deny they say any such thing. Who's right? And it really does matter.
If we are going to escalate the war in Afghanistan, I don't believe it is enough for the Obama Administration to pledge not to do it again. Before the Republicans start their campaign about the war in Afghanistan being Obama's war alone (and they will--remember Bob Dole speaking about Democratic wars), it's important for the American public to know the whys and wherefores of the policy debacles of the last eight years. This is certainly not Washington's way because while the Bush Administration executed, the Democratic leadership acquiesced. It's important for the country to know that.
We have heard calls for such an investigation from Generals Sanchez, Karpinski and Taguba, Col. Wilkinson and a host of military, FBI and CIA interrogators. Torture activists such as Dick and Liz Cheney demand the infamous memos be declassified as others call for the declassification of the CIA's 2004 report by the Inspector General saying the torture policy did not yield the appreciable results claimed by Cheney and company. And why have we not heard from George "It's a Slam Dunk" Tenet, who is constantly quoted as saying,"This program yielded more intelligence than the CIA,NSA and FBI had all together."
Since the United States willfully abandoned its treaty obligations, its own domestic law and its military traditions, it's extremely important to establish why, how and what were the results. Washington simply doesn't have the guts to do this type of things. Just look at the Chamber of Cowardice, the U.S. Senate in its overwhelming vote not to approve the funding to close Gitmo, despite the fact the American system holds about a equivalent number of terrorists in super-max prisons. The Senate has become the worlds' most deliberative retirement home and has abandoned all pretence of leadership.
Scholars like Jonathan Turley of George Washington University claim we are too advanced a democracy for a Truth Commission and that our age-old commitment to the rule of law will be better served if an Independent Prosecutor is appointed. I don't believe this. With the media echo chamber allowing people like Dick Cheney ample time to argue for torture without the rebuttal of his errors, there is an impression that somehow his position and that of the Bush Administration was legitimate. Since Washington fears prosecution of anyone for fear of people losing their dinner guests to prolonged periods of jail time, it's important a non-partisan Commission be established with the remains of people with any credibility left in this country. Call it a Danforth-Hamilton Commission if you will. But, it is more important in my opinion to have public education about this policy than even prosecutions.
The Bush-Cheney crowd argue that Al Qaeda represented a unique enemy in our history and for that reason they abandoned out strategic doctrine and launched pre-emptive wars. While waging these elective wars, the same Administration embarked on the largest warrantless wiretap campaign in our history, argued for unheard of powers for the presidency, and overrode the Constitution to embrace a policy of torture, hidden prisons and disappearances. It is vital for our health as a democracy and our alleged role as the standard bearer of the values of freedom to come clean and produce the real and false of the countless accusations floating around.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Torture in Stoogeland--a Recap
The Obama Administration has tried to limit the torture issue to the handful of lawyers who wrote the DOJ memos authorizing the policy. Barack Obama himself pulled back from releasing more photos of detainee abuse ostensibly because he feared the reaction in the Middle East would endanger our troops. Likewise, Eric Holder assured the Senate the Administration will not release terrorists into your neighborhood.
However, the Obama Administration's strategy of a "modified limited hangout" is simply DOA. And thanks goes to Dick Cheney for pushing the envelope on this issue during public appearances that probably number more than he gave when he was in an undisclosed location. Kudos also go to Karl "Turdblossom" Rove, who thought it was a dandy idea to try and put the monkey on the Democrats' backs by writing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal asking the Nixonian question,"What did Nancy Pelosi know and when did she know it?" To which Nancy Pelosi responded that the CIA lied to Congress and she was backed up on this by former Senator Bob Graham, who is notorious for his large ego that he keeps minute minute-by-minute diaries of his whole life, something Boy Genius Rove happen to forget in his rush to judgment.
The torture debate has gone where official Washington fears to tread. We can check off the boxes that it was amoral, illegal, unconstitutional, against all our treaty obligations. But torture enthusiasts still hung on to its effectiveness. This week hasn't been a good one for them. On the torture side is Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Liz Cheney,Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Charles Krauthammer, Mary Matalin and now Lindsey Graham, who touted the 500-year old history of torture as if he just read Danniel Mannix's History of Torture.
On the anti-torture side were interrogators from the FBI, Air Force, U.S. Marines and the CIA. Also former Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former Chief of Staff, weighed in to drop the bomb that the torture policy was not aimed at discovering imminent plots of Al Qaeda against the United States but rather for intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. Kaboom!
The other little details dropped by Col. Wilkerson include the fact that the CIA and others were so scared about prosecutions because of the Abu Ghraib scandal that they stopped the torture policy by 2004, not 2005 as I believed. He asserts that the second Bush Administration was torture free. Previously, he claimed that there were over 100 homicides created by this policy. The same day Wilkerson claimed the second-term had been free of torture, the International Red Cross requested from the CIA notification about 100 people they had listed in the agency's custody but who were missing.
So if torture is such an effective policy, why suspend it? And also why are the Republicans stepping up the pressure on President Obama, who has been desparately trying to limit the areas of investigation, when the question about the policy became moot in 2004? Also, why would you pick a fight with an adversary who can release new information at his own time and pace?
Let's take the Stoogeland Smell test. If you are the intelligence community and you have been embarrassed by the largest intelligence failure since the Trojan horse (WMDs in Iraq), would you not have leaked the amazing successes you had in breaking up the Al Qaeda plots against the United States because of your "enhanced interrogation" program? Former CIA special agent Robert Baer claims this would have been out in a minute. The old saw," You know of our failures but never our successes", has never been true for a Washington bureaucracy in the mass media age.
By walking back the dog, one finds oneself in Cheneyland as he asserts that intelligence confirmed the links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda and that 9/11 had some relationship with Iraq. Waterboarding of Abu Zabaidah and Khalid Sheik Mohammed and the torture in Egypt of Ibn al-Shayk al-Libi had everything to do with producing intelligence to rationalize the invasion of Iraq and to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, and nothing to do with actual Al Qaeda plots. Lawrence Wilkerson's recent statements reflect Secretary of State Colin Powell's mortification of using the erroneous information received from al-Libi in his address to the United Nations justifying the invasion of Iraq. This is payback time.
Another man with mud on his face is the respected former Governor of New Jersey, Tom Kean. Tom always was squeamish about using information from detainees who he knew had been tortured in the final 9/11 Commission Report. What he didn 't know until it was inadvertantly revealed in congressional hearings yesterday that the detainees were tortured specifically for testimony to the 9/11 Commission.
Ironically, the torture program modelled after the SERE training did what SERE training was meant to do--create false confessions. By trying to put the monkey on the back of Democrats, the Republicans have created a situation where there will be no alternative for the political world but either appoint a Special Prosecutor and/or a Truth Commission of distinguished personalities. Also, the accusations by the Democrats that the CIA lied in their briefings to Congress compel the declassfication and release of all the documents on these Hill meetings.
Will the American people support people like Dick Cheney when it comes out that the torture program was not meant to protect the country but to create false intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq? Yesterday, also produced the evidence that the Vice President's office itself directly ordered CIA agent Dilfer, the weapons inspector, to waterboard an Iraqi intelligence officer because the Vice President thought Dilfer's interrogation had been too "soft".
And speaking of Karl Rove, since he participated in NSC meetings and possessed top secret clearances, should we not investigate his role in this sordid affair? Historically, Rove had a longer relationship with Dick Cheney than George W.,contrary to the public perception.
So far, we have all the armed forces being on the record that the torture policy was against the rules of war, against our treaty obligations and the constitution. We also have experienced, seasoned interrogators, who actually broke up plots against the United States, state torture was ineffective and too cumbersome to produce worthwhile intelligence. The ticking-time bomb scenario, much beloved by Republicans and Fox news, has been rendered absurd over the past two weeks. And so we are left with no one with operational or military experience supporting the effectiveness or even the worth of torture.
This all leads us far from the moral and legal prohibitions against torture , past the "it works" assertions, past the stage where it was used to protect Americans, into the realm of pure politics. America tortured for a political agenda. Ironically, that has been my experience with torturers and the tortured in the developing world for three decades. Torture is never used to procure intelligence; it's to make a political point. The point can be the sadistic punishment or revenge against someone who dared to resist an oppressive regime or force false confessions to support the ideological agenda and ambitions of the State.
Stoogeland will try to play out of this mess without coming clean. But the odd thing is that it may be prevented from sweeping this under the rug as the political players keep mud-wrestling in ways that only provoke more information, not less. Dick Cheney's impulsive burst on to the scene after years in the bunker only puts him in the frame--it was his program and he owns it. Whether our political system has any courage, will or wit to deal with this is, in my opinion, dubious.
Next time, the U.S .might want to try drugs if it were serious about intelligence.
However, the Obama Administration's strategy of a "modified limited hangout" is simply DOA. And thanks goes to Dick Cheney for pushing the envelope on this issue during public appearances that probably number more than he gave when he was in an undisclosed location. Kudos also go to Karl "Turdblossom" Rove, who thought it was a dandy idea to try and put the monkey on the Democrats' backs by writing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal asking the Nixonian question,"What did Nancy Pelosi know and when did she know it?" To which Nancy Pelosi responded that the CIA lied to Congress and she was backed up on this by former Senator Bob Graham, who is notorious for his large ego that he keeps minute minute-by-minute diaries of his whole life, something Boy Genius Rove happen to forget in his rush to judgment.
The torture debate has gone where official Washington fears to tread. We can check off the boxes that it was amoral, illegal, unconstitutional, against all our treaty obligations. But torture enthusiasts still hung on to its effectiveness. This week hasn't been a good one for them. On the torture side is Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Liz Cheney,Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Charles Krauthammer, Mary Matalin and now Lindsey Graham, who touted the 500-year old history of torture as if he just read Danniel Mannix's History of Torture.
On the anti-torture side were interrogators from the FBI, Air Force, U.S. Marines and the CIA. Also former Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former Chief of Staff, weighed in to drop the bomb that the torture policy was not aimed at discovering imminent plots of Al Qaeda against the United States but rather for intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. Kaboom!
The other little details dropped by Col. Wilkerson include the fact that the CIA and others were so scared about prosecutions because of the Abu Ghraib scandal that they stopped the torture policy by 2004, not 2005 as I believed. He asserts that the second Bush Administration was torture free. Previously, he claimed that there were over 100 homicides created by this policy. The same day Wilkerson claimed the second-term had been free of torture, the International Red Cross requested from the CIA notification about 100 people they had listed in the agency's custody but who were missing.
So if torture is such an effective policy, why suspend it? And also why are the Republicans stepping up the pressure on President Obama, who has been desparately trying to limit the areas of investigation, when the question about the policy became moot in 2004? Also, why would you pick a fight with an adversary who can release new information at his own time and pace?
Let's take the Stoogeland Smell test. If you are the intelligence community and you have been embarrassed by the largest intelligence failure since the Trojan horse (WMDs in Iraq), would you not have leaked the amazing successes you had in breaking up the Al Qaeda plots against the United States because of your "enhanced interrogation" program? Former CIA special agent Robert Baer claims this would have been out in a minute. The old saw," You know of our failures but never our successes", has never been true for a Washington bureaucracy in the mass media age.
By walking back the dog, one finds oneself in Cheneyland as he asserts that intelligence confirmed the links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda and that 9/11 had some relationship with Iraq. Waterboarding of Abu Zabaidah and Khalid Sheik Mohammed and the torture in Egypt of Ibn al-Shayk al-Libi had everything to do with producing intelligence to rationalize the invasion of Iraq and to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, and nothing to do with actual Al Qaeda plots. Lawrence Wilkerson's recent statements reflect Secretary of State Colin Powell's mortification of using the erroneous information received from al-Libi in his address to the United Nations justifying the invasion of Iraq. This is payback time.
Another man with mud on his face is the respected former Governor of New Jersey, Tom Kean. Tom always was squeamish about using information from detainees who he knew had been tortured in the final 9/11 Commission Report. What he didn 't know until it was inadvertantly revealed in congressional hearings yesterday that the detainees were tortured specifically for testimony to the 9/11 Commission.
Ironically, the torture program modelled after the SERE training did what SERE training was meant to do--create false confessions. By trying to put the monkey on the back of Democrats, the Republicans have created a situation where there will be no alternative for the political world but either appoint a Special Prosecutor and/or a Truth Commission of distinguished personalities. Also, the accusations by the Democrats that the CIA lied in their briefings to Congress compel the declassfication and release of all the documents on these Hill meetings.
Will the American people support people like Dick Cheney when it comes out that the torture program was not meant to protect the country but to create false intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq? Yesterday, also produced the evidence that the Vice President's office itself directly ordered CIA agent Dilfer, the weapons inspector, to waterboard an Iraqi intelligence officer because the Vice President thought Dilfer's interrogation had been too "soft".
And speaking of Karl Rove, since he participated in NSC meetings and possessed top secret clearances, should we not investigate his role in this sordid affair? Historically, Rove had a longer relationship with Dick Cheney than George W.,contrary to the public perception.
So far, we have all the armed forces being on the record that the torture policy was against the rules of war, against our treaty obligations and the constitution. We also have experienced, seasoned interrogators, who actually broke up plots against the United States, state torture was ineffective and too cumbersome to produce worthwhile intelligence. The ticking-time bomb scenario, much beloved by Republicans and Fox news, has been rendered absurd over the past two weeks. And so we are left with no one with operational or military experience supporting the effectiveness or even the worth of torture.
This all leads us far from the moral and legal prohibitions against torture , past the "it works" assertions, past the stage where it was used to protect Americans, into the realm of pure politics. America tortured for a political agenda. Ironically, that has been my experience with torturers and the tortured in the developing world for three decades. Torture is never used to procure intelligence; it's to make a political point. The point can be the sadistic punishment or revenge against someone who dared to resist an oppressive regime or force false confessions to support the ideological agenda and ambitions of the State.
Stoogeland will try to play out of this mess without coming clean. But the odd thing is that it may be prevented from sweeping this under the rug as the political players keep mud-wrestling in ways that only provoke more information, not less. Dick Cheney's impulsive burst on to the scene after years in the bunker only puts him in the frame--it was his program and he owns it. Whether our political system has any courage, will or wit to deal with this is, in my opinion, dubious.
Next time, the U.S .might want to try drugs if it were serious about intelligence.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Cheney's magical mystery tour to Crazy Town
Without the unitary theory of the executive to protect him anymore from the vagaries of public opinion, Dick Cheney's incessant tour to sell the virtues of the Bush torture policy baffles the mind. So far, no mature adult has stood up among Republicans and cried,"Silencio!" More troubling is to see Liz Cheney reappear as an apologist for the torture policy and prisoner abuse. Our corporate media loves the show but haven't asked Liz what she knows about torture, water-boarding or even interrogation. The answer is "Nothing." Treating Cheney's appearances as if they are serious, the media neglect to discuss that this may be a man who cried "Wolf" once too often. He assured the American public that Saddam Hussein was partners with Al Qaeda, had restarted his nuclear program and was certain to possess weapons of mass destruction. Almost as looney, Cheney offered his opinions on the Employee Free Choice Act during a Fox news program with Neil Cavuto.
The Hill reports that Republicans believe they can gain traction on national security issues by exploiting Obama's commitment to close Guatanamo within a year. The RNC surfaced an ad that Obama will be releasing detainees into your neighborhood, neglecting to mention our max prisons hold 150 or more Muslim terrorists already convicted in courts of law. Perhaps, this will pan out for the Republican Party, who have been banking on fear as their ticket to ride back into political power.
The Republican embrace of torture and secret prisons is curious in light of the fact that Cheney lost the bureaucratic fight during the Bush Administration. George W. Bush and Condi Rice planned on closing Gitmo in 2006 over Cheney's objections. The process was started then by the release of detainees and repatriation of some to European and Arab countries. Republican candidate John McCain agreed with President Obama that Gitmo should be closed because almost all informed sources agreed that the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo were the primary recruiting tools for foreign insurgents in Iraq.
The pathological appearances of Dick Cheney on all the networks and even obscure radio shows in North Dakota defending torture counter the Bush Administration's own policies in the second term, a period when Cheney's star was diminished. The CIA Inspecter General's report of 2004 ,which reviewed the torture program was blunt in calling it what it was and suggested that no impending attacks on the United States were broken up as a result. So-called enhanced interrogation techniques were at least overtly suspended in 2005 and the Bush Justice Department ended up revoking the original legal opinions justifying the program as legally sloppy--to say the least. Dick Cheney is in effect re-arguing a bureaucratic battle which he ingloriously lost.
The Republican full metal embrace of the torture policy is reckless. Dick Cheney's serial interviews reveal a series of moving benchmarks in his defense of the program. First, he asserted that it prevented the planned attack on Library Tower in Los Angeles. Within 24 hours of the remark, this was refuted by a timeline that showed the alleged sources for this plot had not been detained for six months the plot was disrupted. Secondly, he suggested within the last two days that a dirty bomb plot by Al Qaeda was disrupted using these methods. The known plot so far is the shoe-bomber who was picked up when the FBI received information from a detainees without any "enhanced interrogation". Four other alleged plots uncovered by these methods were analyzed in a December issue of Vanity Fair. The former head of British counter-intelligence said one plot was a complete fabrication and the other three were uncovered through local police work. Finally, Dick Cheney claims that Al Qaeda was basically unknown prior to 9-11 and that torture produced a detailed view of the Al Qaeda operations.
These assertions by Cheney and his demands for the declassification of documents are now triggering events which the Obama Administration wanted to avoid, the Democrats are cringing because of their own compliance in acknowledging these programs and Republicans should run for the hills from. The Obama Administration is now declassifying the "Holy Grail" document, the CIA's Inspector General's report on the torture program. As the Cheney deadenders keep hollering, more documents will be declassified. There is nothing coming down the pike which will make the torture program more appealing to the public. In fact, Republicans are just shooting themselves in the foot. As long as attention was focused on three Al Qaeda terrorists, the public has shown a frightening tolerance of the use of torture. But further documents show hundreds of homicides occurred because of the abuse of these methods.
Strangely, no Republican is aware at the degree to which Obama has been protecting them and the various intelligence agencies from exposure and prosecution. From a legal point of view, it is a not all that clear that Obama can in fact guarantee impunity as the CIA Inspector General report states clearly that the interrogators violated the Torture Convention and all federal laws covering war crimes. The latest Republican gambit of blaming the Democrats Nancy Pelosi in going along with this program is going to backfire as House Democrats agreed to investigate this. By trying to portray this as a partisan struggle, Republicans are only pushing the torture issue into the realm of the special prosecutor so that the Obama Administration "de-politicizes" it.
If I were Eric Holder, I would appoint Republican Patrick Fitzgerald as the special prosecutor so that Cheney-ites heads explode.
The Hill reports that Republicans believe they can gain traction on national security issues by exploiting Obama's commitment to close Guatanamo within a year. The RNC surfaced an ad that Obama will be releasing detainees into your neighborhood, neglecting to mention our max prisons hold 150 or more Muslim terrorists already convicted in courts of law. Perhaps, this will pan out for the Republican Party, who have been banking on fear as their ticket to ride back into political power.
The Republican embrace of torture and secret prisons is curious in light of the fact that Cheney lost the bureaucratic fight during the Bush Administration. George W. Bush and Condi Rice planned on closing Gitmo in 2006 over Cheney's objections. The process was started then by the release of detainees and repatriation of some to European and Arab countries. Republican candidate John McCain agreed with President Obama that Gitmo should be closed because almost all informed sources agreed that the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo were the primary recruiting tools for foreign insurgents in Iraq.
The pathological appearances of Dick Cheney on all the networks and even obscure radio shows in North Dakota defending torture counter the Bush Administration's own policies in the second term, a period when Cheney's star was diminished. The CIA Inspecter General's report of 2004 ,which reviewed the torture program was blunt in calling it what it was and suggested that no impending attacks on the United States were broken up as a result. So-called enhanced interrogation techniques were at least overtly suspended in 2005 and the Bush Justice Department ended up revoking the original legal opinions justifying the program as legally sloppy--to say the least. Dick Cheney is in effect re-arguing a bureaucratic battle which he ingloriously lost.
The Republican full metal embrace of the torture policy is reckless. Dick Cheney's serial interviews reveal a series of moving benchmarks in his defense of the program. First, he asserted that it prevented the planned attack on Library Tower in Los Angeles. Within 24 hours of the remark, this was refuted by a timeline that showed the alleged sources for this plot had not been detained for six months the plot was disrupted. Secondly, he suggested within the last two days that a dirty bomb plot by Al Qaeda was disrupted using these methods. The known plot so far is the shoe-bomber who was picked up when the FBI received information from a detainees without any "enhanced interrogation". Four other alleged plots uncovered by these methods were analyzed in a December issue of Vanity Fair. The former head of British counter-intelligence said one plot was a complete fabrication and the other three were uncovered through local police work. Finally, Dick Cheney claims that Al Qaeda was basically unknown prior to 9-11 and that torture produced a detailed view of the Al Qaeda operations.
These assertions by Cheney and his demands for the declassification of documents are now triggering events which the Obama Administration wanted to avoid, the Democrats are cringing because of their own compliance in acknowledging these programs and Republicans should run for the hills from. The Obama Administration is now declassifying the "Holy Grail" document, the CIA's Inspector General's report on the torture program. As the Cheney deadenders keep hollering, more documents will be declassified. There is nothing coming down the pike which will make the torture program more appealing to the public. In fact, Republicans are just shooting themselves in the foot. As long as attention was focused on three Al Qaeda terrorists, the public has shown a frightening tolerance of the use of torture. But further documents show hundreds of homicides occurred because of the abuse of these methods.
Strangely, no Republican is aware at the degree to which Obama has been protecting them and the various intelligence agencies from exposure and prosecution. From a legal point of view, it is a not all that clear that Obama can in fact guarantee impunity as the CIA Inspector General report states clearly that the interrogators violated the Torture Convention and all federal laws covering war crimes. The latest Republican gambit of blaming the Democrats Nancy Pelosi in going along with this program is going to backfire as House Democrats agreed to investigate this. By trying to portray this as a partisan struggle, Republicans are only pushing the torture issue into the realm of the special prosecutor so that the Obama Administration "de-politicizes" it.
If I were Eric Holder, I would appoint Republican Patrick Fitzgerald as the special prosecutor so that Cheney-ites heads explode.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
A Bad Night in Tortureland
Chris Matthews ,sympathetic to the ticking timebomb argument, pressed CIA veteran Robert Baer on whether waterboarding didn't work in such emergency cases. Three times asked, three times he refused to take the bait, saying that the tortured person would tell you anything you wanted to hear. Baer, a 21-year former covert agent, advocated a blue-ribbon Presidential Commission to investigate the issue. Senator Ensign of Nevada pressed about the Senate Armed Forces Committee report simply charged it was a Democrat report (as opposed to Democratic as is the Republican coinage for the last few years) and that it was not endorsed by any Republicans. He claimed the mention of techniques imported from North K0rea and the Chinese Communists were simply devices used by the Democrats who had a political agenda.
Bill O'Reilly had guests from the Cato Institute and Strafor on to discuss torture and asked the usual question, "Wasn't it worth it, if it saved American lives?" Neither men would take the bait either questioning the whole premise of the question. When O'Reilly mentioned the assertions of former Vice President Cheney, the Cato guest, a former Green Beret, just commented,"I would have to see how he cherry-picked the information."
Not to be upstaged by Senator Levin, the Senate Intelligence Committee forwarded to Attorney General Eric Holder information that at least ten Bush officials reviewed and approved the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002.
From the military side, General Barry McCaffrey, a four-star general who commanded the 24th Infantry Division during the Gulf War, called for an investigation of the Bush White House. His views were echoed recently by General Taquba, who has detailed the abuse of detainees by the United States, and called for an investigation. It seems General Baccus had been removed early on as superintendent for Gitmo because of his resistance to the new manner of interrogation.
Making a television blitz from Al Jezeera to MSNBC was former Brig. General Janis Karpinski, who had been removed from her command ,which included Abu Ghraib. She told MSNBC that it was now clear that the interrogation techniques that were imposed on Abu Ghraib came from General Miller and the Tiger Team of 24 persons who flew from Gitmo to Abu Ghrain to tighten up control over detainees. Karpinski said that the so-called "bad apples", the 7 soldiers court-martialled for the Abu Ghraib photos had been given orders by contractors to abuse detainees as they did. In the Senate Report, Col. Woods ,who took charge of interrogators in Abu Ghraib, claimed that she saw power point slides prepared on techniques approved by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Gen. Karpinski said that "9-11 gave America an excuse to do all these things." She argued that since the Iraq War had an international coalition that an international tribunal be constituted to investigate these accusations, a position sure to win the hearts and minds of the Republicans.
Senators McCain, Lieberman and Graham sent an open letter to President Obama urging him not to prosecute the authors of the torture memos, arguing that this would criminalize differences of opinions, a recent position taken by Yoo, one of the prime authors. Former Florida Senator Bob Graham urged for an investigation and prosecution of Bush Administration officials.
Torture enthusiasts pointed out that the water-boarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed yielded information that prevented the bombing of the Library Tower in Los Angeles. This was trumpeted by Fox News and sundry conservative commenators--except there is a problem. He was apprehended after the Bush Administration claimed they had thwarted the second wave of bombings from Asia that included the Library Tower. Tomorrow may yield more aborted plots. But overall, a long day for fans of Dick Cheney.
Bill O'Reilly had guests from the Cato Institute and Strafor on to discuss torture and asked the usual question, "Wasn't it worth it, if it saved American lives?" Neither men would take the bait either questioning the whole premise of the question. When O'Reilly mentioned the assertions of former Vice President Cheney, the Cato guest, a former Green Beret, just commented,"I would have to see how he cherry-picked the information."
Not to be upstaged by Senator Levin, the Senate Intelligence Committee forwarded to Attorney General Eric Holder information that at least ten Bush officials reviewed and approved the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002.
From the military side, General Barry McCaffrey, a four-star general who commanded the 24th Infantry Division during the Gulf War, called for an investigation of the Bush White House. His views were echoed recently by General Taquba, who has detailed the abuse of detainees by the United States, and called for an investigation. It seems General Baccus had been removed early on as superintendent for Gitmo because of his resistance to the new manner of interrogation.
Making a television blitz from Al Jezeera to MSNBC was former Brig. General Janis Karpinski, who had been removed from her command ,which included Abu Ghraib. She told MSNBC that it was now clear that the interrogation techniques that were imposed on Abu Ghraib came from General Miller and the Tiger Team of 24 persons who flew from Gitmo to Abu Ghrain to tighten up control over detainees. Karpinski said that the so-called "bad apples", the 7 soldiers court-martialled for the Abu Ghraib photos had been given orders by contractors to abuse detainees as they did. In the Senate Report, Col. Woods ,who took charge of interrogators in Abu Ghraib, claimed that she saw power point slides prepared on techniques approved by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Gen. Karpinski said that "9-11 gave America an excuse to do all these things." She argued that since the Iraq War had an international coalition that an international tribunal be constituted to investigate these accusations, a position sure to win the hearts and minds of the Republicans.
Senators McCain, Lieberman and Graham sent an open letter to President Obama urging him not to prosecute the authors of the torture memos, arguing that this would criminalize differences of opinions, a recent position taken by Yoo, one of the prime authors. Former Florida Senator Bob Graham urged for an investigation and prosecution of Bush Administration officials.
Torture enthusiasts pointed out that the water-boarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed yielded information that prevented the bombing of the Library Tower in Los Angeles. This was trumpeted by Fox News and sundry conservative commenators--except there is a problem. He was apprehended after the Bush Administration claimed they had thwarted the second wave of bombings from Asia that included the Library Tower. Tomorrow may yield more aborted plots. But overall, a long day for fans of Dick Cheney.
Walk On By
Freedom House board member Peggy Noonan, speaking on television, said that sometimes a great nation such as ours should just walk on by the revelations contained in the CIA torture memos. Here in Washington, there was more tsk-tsking about President Obama's release of the memos than the facts contained in them.
The conservatives fiercely defended the torture tactics to the point Karl Rove looked like he was going to cry to say "now these techniques won't be effective any more". The usual suspects argued that the release of the memos would weaken the CIA, despite the rousing welcome President Obama recived at Langley after the memo's release. Marc Thiessen defended the techniques in the Washington Post and Cheney's biographer Stephen Hayes did the same in the neo-conservative Weekly Standard. Chuck Todd started to spin that President Obama was under pressure from leftists to prosecute those involved in the torture program.
We were treated to the ever-shrinking Dick Cheney giving an impassioned defense of the program to Sean Hannity. He claimed we knew very little about Al Qaeda at the time of the 9/11 attacks and feared they were making contact with Dr. A.Q. Khan to acquire a nuclear capability.
The problem with his whole discussion was that the CIA during Clinton and Bush had a very active Al Qaeda office led by Michael Scheuer and was incredibly active in tracking Bin Laden. In fact, one of the first involved in the torture program was Cofer Black, who followed Bin Laden's activities in the Sudan. One wonders what Cheney meant by the Administration had little information on Al Qaeda.
One also wonders how small Dick Cheney's world has become by appearing on Sean Hannity as if this were a major interview forum. Cheney claimed to formally request that the CIA memos listing the benefits of torture be declassified. He actually did this through the National Archive and not the CIA. It would actually beneficial for them to be released.
As if to confuse matters, Admiral Blair, President Obama's intelligence chief, sent a memo to his staff where he said that the torture program produced some high quality intelligence such as a plot to bomb an office building in Los Angeles, a target that keeps surfacing in Al Qaeda's dream list.
Rush Limbaugh weighed in by saying the Left persuaded the Obama Administration that mild pressure on the detainees constituted torture.
The problem with the torture apologists is that it is not just the Left who want the allegations investigated and the personnel involved prosecuted, it is the Law. Conservatives have recently been a little lax when it comes to legal matters recently--from their bonehead suits against Obama's eligibility to the recent suit complaining about the Homeland Security report on the rise of extreme-right extremism. The United States ratified the Convention against Torture under Peggy Noonan's hero and boss, President Ronald Reagan, and passed the War Crimes Act in the late 1990s.
In addition, as one of the prime authors of the Geneva Conventions, the United States has a responsible to uphold them. One can argue about torture until the cows come home but the United States has had a policy since the revolutionary period of George Washington not to torture, "even under necessity" in the words of Abraham Lincoln. For its history, this policy has been a justifiable point of pride for the United States military.
In Washington, the river isn't the Potomac,it's Denial as pundits try to debate whether we practiced torture or "enhanced interrogation techniques". According to the Geneva Convention as ratified in the mid-1980s, the accepted arbiter of defining torture is the International Red Cross, which in its report on Guatanamo stated quite clearly detainees were subjected to torture. The chief of prosecutions at Gitmo herself dropped charges because she maintained the defendents had been tortured. She had been appointed the lawyer for the Pentagon under President Ronald Reagan and is a conservative Republican. Military defense attorney after defense attorney reported their clients had been tortured. So let's stop the pretend:detainees were tortured and it was a matter of policy.
Never one to avoid publicity for his work, Senator Levin released the Senate Armed Forces Committees lengthy and probably definitive report on the whole sorry history of the interrigation program as it went from Bagram Air Force Base to Gitmo and then to Abu Ghraib. In part, the extensive report puts added pressure on the Department of Justice to investigate the major players who were the architects of the policy. What the report raises is that these techniques were used prior to actually procuring legal justification from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the Department of Justice. The report also outlines the major services' reservations about this program's constitutionality and legality as well as raising the specter of prosecutions for all those involved. Instead of "a few rotten apples" as Donald Rumsfeld claimed when the abuses of Abu Ghraib became apparent, we discover that the whole project was a highly developed re-engineering of the SERE program to condition American soldiers to resist torture under capture.
The whole SERE program itself was developed from techniques used by the Communist Chinese and the North Koreans during the Korean conflict. As SERE trainers pointed out in the report, even they disagreed that this was a fruitful way to conduct interrogations. The FBI soon headed to the hills after attending the first such sessions, saying they were torture.
The worst is still to come. Federal courts have already ordered the release of the uncensored Abu Ghairb photos and videotapes as well as the nearly 3,000 pages of the CIA interrogations. The Abu Ghraib disclosures will provoke probably the greatest public backlash. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham claims the materials reveal rapes and murders. Speaking to the ACLU in 2004, investigative reporter Sy Hersh said that there were videos of boys being sodomized and women pleading to be killed after they had been raped. We also get to look forward to the DOJ report from the Office of Professional Responsibility, which will document the e-mail exchanges from the White House,including the Vice President's office to the lawyers responsible for drafting the torture memos.
Most media attention has been paid to water-boarding and walling as the techniques approved and the almost clinical, dispassionate discussions of them in the legal memos. But, for me the most horrifying memos contained the description and dismissal of sleep deprivation as a harmless technique for the treatment of detainees. As Alexandr Solzhenitzyn described in the Gulag "Sleeplessness was the worst form of torture because it left no marks." European sleep researchers, whose works were used to justify the torture regimen, have publicly rebelled at the Bradbury's memo that allowed for 180 consecutive hours of sleeplessness, saying their research was done on healthy humans without any additional pressure or deprivations and should never be used in an interrogtaion program.
The Senate Armed Forces Committee report documents the participation of both doctors and psychologists in both the design and implementation of the interrogation programs. For years, the human rights community has sought sanctions against those of the medical professions who participate in torture programs, the most dramatic recent case was Pinochet's Chile. The Physicians for Human Rights is again raising this issue with the revelations of its professions involvement in the Pentagon program. Several years ago, the American Bar Association passed denunciations of lawyers who argued for torture and other human abuses being conducted by the United States.
One early victim of the release of the Torture memos is the Ticking Time bomb scenario, whcih justifies the use of torture if there is an impending disaster unfolding. The man, who may be Khalid Sheik Mohammed, was waterboarded 183 times until he cooperated. As Cenk at the Young Turks quipped," after 90 times, don't you think he would know he wouldn't drown." By that time, the ticking timebomb would have exploded.
Most mysterious to me so far is that Abu Zubaida, once purported to be an Al Qaeda leader but later downgraded to being its tourist agent, was tortured after he talked. It was when he started talking about his contacts with the Saudi Royal family, even giving his interrogators their cellphone numbers for reference, that he was waterboarded.
And is Khalid Sheik Mohammed really the real man? Awhile back, Pakistani news agencies reported a joint American-ISI operation where Khalid Sheik Mohammed was allegedly killed, his body held at the local mortuary, and his family buried him. The story even gave quotes from his family about his character. Is this some spy novel twist or some intelligence gambit?
For years, Hannah Arendt was ridiculed for using the phrase "banality of evil" to refer to Adolf Eichman. But here, reading the memos one is struck by the rather ordinary cataloguing of possible abuses to be tolerated, with quaint directions for their proper administration, and rather fatuous musings on the degree of pain they will inflict. She was right all along, evil can be very banal and ordinary indeed.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Thursday Morning Coffee--Mocha Java
The Obama Administration is trying to do the Bush people a favor--and they are getting no thanks. The new Solicitor General claims that we can hold "terrorists" for a sustained period of time without bringing charges because we are "at war". The Administration uses the state secrets defense in the trial brought by ACLU on behalf of those people who had been renditioned. Democrats are bringing a bill on the House floor to prevent civil litigation on these activities. The force-feeding of Gitmo detainees is upheld by a federal judge. And Leon Panetta says he will not prosecute CIA agents who engaged in the waterboarding and retention programs.
For reasons that escape me, conservatives who want desparately to defend Gitmo refuse to see how the Obama Administration just wants to move on and is actually protecting Bush operatives. Instead, Senators Inhofe and others are conducting political tours of Gitmo to try and save the facility.
Senator Leahy's suggestion of forming a bipartisan Truth Commission has met resistance from Republicans. But there are other reasons to oppose such a Commission. As Jonathan Turley of George Washington University argued on television, truth commissions are used in developing democracies that have a weak legal structure and are meant more to establish an historical record. The problem with creating one in the United States is that you are in fact arguing the Bush case that these episodes are unique and separate and that the United States can and will violate its treaty commitments. He has been the most forceful in arguing that if there is no legal investigation or prosecution then the Obama Administration owns the crimes. A ironic note on that is that the force feeding case in Miami became v.the Obama Administration, instead of the Bush Administration which did the deed.
Yesterday,Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada said he did not intend to raise the Omar Khadr case with Barack Obama next week. Canada's three opposition leaders called for Khadr's immediate release from detention in Gitmo. Khadr was wounded and captured by American soldiers in a July 2002 firefight in Afghanistan. The opposition has maintained that Khadr was unlawfully recruited and used as child soldier. The Canadian authorities have planned a rather elaborate repatriation project that would include placing him in a foster home since his parents were close to bin Laden.
The Mohammed case even gets murkier. The Janitor, who was renditioned on the basis of satirical article on how to build an H-Bomb, has ,according to official documents, had his genitals sliced by a scalpel and subjected to more than waterboarding. What's strange is that the U.S. dropped all claims he was a terrorist last year and continue to hold him.
These cases will proliferate as bilateral issues in the months ahead. They are not only embarassing but it is rather doubtful the Obama Administration can avoid the onslaught of legal cases. One of the key issues of the Torture Convention, which we ratified under Ronald Reagan,was the responsibility of other countries to bring violators to justice. With the U.N. Special Rapporteur Mr. Nowak on record saying he had the documents on file approved by Donald Rumsfeld authorizing torture, I can't see a European prosecutor or government avoiding the opportunity to pursue this.
For reasons that escape me, conservatives who want desparately to defend Gitmo refuse to see how the Obama Administration just wants to move on and is actually protecting Bush operatives. Instead, Senators Inhofe and others are conducting political tours of Gitmo to try and save the facility.
Senator Leahy's suggestion of forming a bipartisan Truth Commission has met resistance from Republicans. But there are other reasons to oppose such a Commission. As Jonathan Turley of George Washington University argued on television, truth commissions are used in developing democracies that have a weak legal structure and are meant more to establish an historical record. The problem with creating one in the United States is that you are in fact arguing the Bush case that these episodes are unique and separate and that the United States can and will violate its treaty commitments. He has been the most forceful in arguing that if there is no legal investigation or prosecution then the Obama Administration owns the crimes. A ironic note on that is that the force feeding case in Miami became v.the Obama Administration, instead of the Bush Administration which did the deed.
Yesterday,Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada said he did not intend to raise the Omar Khadr case with Barack Obama next week. Canada's three opposition leaders called for Khadr's immediate release from detention in Gitmo. Khadr was wounded and captured by American soldiers in a July 2002 firefight in Afghanistan. The opposition has maintained that Khadr was unlawfully recruited and used as child soldier. The Canadian authorities have planned a rather elaborate repatriation project that would include placing him in a foster home since his parents were close to bin Laden.
The Mohammed case even gets murkier. The Janitor, who was renditioned on the basis of satirical article on how to build an H-Bomb, has ,according to official documents, had his genitals sliced by a scalpel and subjected to more than waterboarding. What's strange is that the U.S. dropped all claims he was a terrorist last year and continue to hold him.
These cases will proliferate as bilateral issues in the months ahead. They are not only embarassing but it is rather doubtful the Obama Administration can avoid the onslaught of legal cases. One of the key issues of the Torture Convention, which we ratified under Ronald Reagan,was the responsibility of other countries to bring violators to justice. With the U.N. Special Rapporteur Mr. Nowak on record saying he had the documents on file approved by Donald Rumsfeld authorizing torture, I can't see a European prosecutor or government avoiding the opportunity to pursue this.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Club Gitmo on Strike
The London Guardian reports today on an unusual visitor to the Foreign and Commonwealth office. Lt.Col Yvonne Bradley, an American military lawyer, is going to demand the release of her client Binyam Mohammed, age 31, a British resident who claims he was repeatedly tortured at the behest of US intelligence officials at Guantanamo. Yvonne Bradley, a US military attorney for 20 years, is requesting the disclosure of 42 secret documents that chronicle how he was tortured.
According to Lt.Col Bradley, conditions at Gitmo have deteriorated badly since Barack Obama took office. Fifty of the 260 detainees are on a hunger strike and, witnesses claim, they are being strapped to chairs and force-fed. At least 20 are described as being so unhealthy there are on a critical list.
Bradley claims Mohammed told of witnessing a savage beating of a detainee who refused to be strapped down and having a feeding tube forced into his mouth. Bradley said that the Joint Task Force are not commenting because they do not want the public to know what is going on.
For Britain, the questions concerning its support of American techniques have just begun and they will become a transatlantic issue. This Tuesday High Court judges Lord Justice Thomas and Mr justice Lloyd Jones will decide whether to reopen the case that claims Foreign Secretary David Miliband is suppressing evidence of torture by Americans.
Curiously, in San Francisco, ACLU lawyers are suing a firm that carried out renditions for the CIA. Jeppesen Dataplan, a Boeing subsidiary, helped carry people like Mohammed to nations where they claimed they were tortured. The case had been suppressed by the Bush Administration when it asserted the "state secrets privilege". If the Obama Administration asserts the same, then it could indicate it also wants to suppress the evidence of torture.
While Washington fights about immunity and moving on, the courts are moving to a place where Attorney general Eric Holder and the President won't be able to hide anymore and they may have to take steps to investigate all the allegations of torture at Gitmo, the CIA 'secret sites" and Bagram Air Base.
According to Lt.Col Bradley, conditions at Gitmo have deteriorated badly since Barack Obama took office. Fifty of the 260 detainees are on a hunger strike and, witnesses claim, they are being strapped to chairs and force-fed. At least 20 are described as being so unhealthy there are on a critical list.
Bradley claims Mohammed told of witnessing a savage beating of a detainee who refused to be strapped down and having a feeding tube forced into his mouth. Bradley said that the Joint Task Force are not commenting because they do not want the public to know what is going on.
For Britain, the questions concerning its support of American techniques have just begun and they will become a transatlantic issue. This Tuesday High Court judges Lord Justice Thomas and Mr justice Lloyd Jones will decide whether to reopen the case that claims Foreign Secretary David Miliband is suppressing evidence of torture by Americans.
Curiously, in San Francisco, ACLU lawyers are suing a firm that carried out renditions for the CIA. Jeppesen Dataplan, a Boeing subsidiary, helped carry people like Mohammed to nations where they claimed they were tortured. The case had been suppressed by the Bush Administration when it asserted the "state secrets privilege". If the Obama Administration asserts the same, then it could indicate it also wants to suppress the evidence of torture.
While Washington fights about immunity and moving on, the courts are moving to a place where Attorney general Eric Holder and the President won't be able to hide anymore and they may have to take steps to investigate all the allegations of torture at Gitmo, the CIA 'secret sites" and Bagram Air Base.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Saturday Morning Coffee
Barack Obama is entering Washington by train this morning sporting a 69% approval rating, while George Bush leaves town with a 22% approval rating, the lowest of any outgoing president. The Bush Magical Mystery tour ended this morning with his Saturday morning radio address, which suspiciously sounded like his farewell speech. The Karl Rove designed legacy tour complete with more interviews than in the whole previous eight years of both Bush and Cheney hasn't panned out very well. 57% of Americans believe George W to be one of the five worst Presidents of the United States. We will have more about how history will judge George later in the week. But even if he halves that number in a few years, it might not be enough to rehabilitate him.
When Barack Obama takes the oath of office, we will finally be rid of the Baby Boomers and that's just terrific with me. I think my generation should retire and debate Nixon and Vietnam in nursing homes and leave governing to another generation--the one we stuck with the bills.
Speaking of a younger generation, kudos go to Cenk at Young Turks for getting the real importance of Bin Laden's tape challenging Obama. The CIA has been focusing on the Bin Laden's wheezing to determine his health. Can you imagine being the guy who does that? Cenk cut to the chase by pointing out that this was the first tape where Bin Laden's asked for money--it was a fund-raising tape, which means the guy is broke. Sorry Osama. But don't worry the Spooks will take another few years to figure it out.
Neil Young, the greatest Canadian, sings "A Fork In The Road" with the relevant line,"There's a bailout comin'.....but it's not for me."
Susan J. Crawford, who is the Pentagon's Commanding Authority in charge of proscuting the prisoners at Gitmo, used the T-word (Torture) in describing the reasons why she was not going to try the 20th Highjacker. She said that because of the treatment the evidence was a "mess".
We will have more on the torture issue this week. The past 14 days have produced the strangest debate in America in a longtime. Both Dick Cheney and George Bush proudly defended and even went on to explain the glories of "enhanced interrogation" as a "tool" to fight terrorism. Even your run-of-the-mill dictator and caudillo never overtly claimed, let alone bragged about practicing torture. This all puts the Obama Administration between a rock and a hard place over whether to pursue charges against Bush officials or to just move on. While Eric Holder denounced waterboarding as torture, the first of the past four attorney generals asked that question to say so, he tried to cloud whether anything would be done about the past actions.
Among the commentariat, there was heated debate pro and anti-torture. Fred Barnes ranked "enhanced interrogation" techniques the second greatest achievement of the Bush Administration. Charles Krauthammer urged Obama to take Cheney's sage advice and not close Gitmo and preserve the current regimen. Conservative TV talking heads seemed to confuse Jack Bauer of 24 as a real life person, who shows torture is great, even heroic. On the left, Bush was likened to Pinochet with these strings of confessions at the end of his term and Paul Krugman urged an investigation of all the Bush misdeeds, a sentiment shared by a number of experts in international law.
When Barack Obama takes the oath of office, we will finally be rid of the Baby Boomers and that's just terrific with me. I think my generation should retire and debate Nixon and Vietnam in nursing homes and leave governing to another generation--the one we stuck with the bills.
Speaking of a younger generation, kudos go to Cenk at Young Turks for getting the real importance of Bin Laden's tape challenging Obama. The CIA has been focusing on the Bin Laden's wheezing to determine his health. Can you imagine being the guy who does that? Cenk cut to the chase by pointing out that this was the first tape where Bin Laden's asked for money--it was a fund-raising tape, which means the guy is broke. Sorry Osama. But don't worry the Spooks will take another few years to figure it out.
Neil Young, the greatest Canadian, sings "A Fork In The Road" with the relevant line,"There's a bailout comin'.....but it's not for me."
Susan J. Crawford, who is the Pentagon's Commanding Authority in charge of proscuting the prisoners at Gitmo, used the T-word (Torture) in describing the reasons why she was not going to try the 20th Highjacker. She said that because of the treatment the evidence was a "mess".
We will have more on the torture issue this week. The past 14 days have produced the strangest debate in America in a longtime. Both Dick Cheney and George Bush proudly defended and even went on to explain the glories of "enhanced interrogation" as a "tool" to fight terrorism. Even your run-of-the-mill dictator and caudillo never overtly claimed, let alone bragged about practicing torture. This all puts the Obama Administration between a rock and a hard place over whether to pursue charges against Bush officials or to just move on. While Eric Holder denounced waterboarding as torture, the first of the past four attorney generals asked that question to say so, he tried to cloud whether anything would be done about the past actions.
Among the commentariat, there was heated debate pro and anti-torture. Fred Barnes ranked "enhanced interrogation" techniques the second greatest achievement of the Bush Administration. Charles Krauthammer urged Obama to take Cheney's sage advice and not close Gitmo and preserve the current regimen. Conservative TV talking heads seemed to confuse Jack Bauer of 24 as a real life person, who shows torture is great, even heroic. On the left, Bush was likened to Pinochet with these strings of confessions at the end of his term and Paul Krugman urged an investigation of all the Bush misdeeds, a sentiment shared by a number of experts in international law.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)