So far, the 251,287 secret State Department cables leaked by Wikileaks have been more embarrassing to the United States than particularly revealing. But one exchange between U.S. and German officials reveals a sad reality about the tangled web woven by the Bush administration when it decided to engage in torture -- and highlights how President Obama has kept the U.S. ensnared by that legacy.
According to this leaked document, the U.S. State Department in 2007 warned Germany that issuance of arrest warrants for CIA officers involved in the kidnapping of an innocent German citizen, Khalid El-Masri, imprisoned for months in Afghanistan and allegedly tortured there would "have a negative impact" on the two countries' relationship. Indeed, Deputy Chief of Mission John M. Koenig reminded German Deputy National Security Adviser Rolf Nikel that a similar move by Italy, which a year earlier had prosecuted CIA officers for their involvement in the kidnapping from Milan and rendition to Egypt of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, known as Abu Omar, had "repercussions to U.S.-Italian bilateral relations."
According to the cable, which appears to summarize the two officials' conversation, "The DCM pointed out that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German Government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S."
In other words, the U.S. was warning Germany not to enforce its own laws against kidnapping and torture, or face serious negative consequences.
Khalid El-Masri was a German citizen mistakenly detained in Macedonia in late 2003 because his name was similar to that of a suspected al Qaeda terrorist, Khalid al-Masri. The CIA, eager to interrogate an al Qaeda operative, quickly stepped in and rendered El-Masri to its secret prison in Afghanistan known as "the salt pit" for interrogation. El-Masri claims he was beaten, stripped naked, deprived of minimally decent food and water and sodomized at the CIA prison. By April 2004, the CIA realized its agents had caught the wrong man. So more than a month later, they dumped El-Masri late one night on the side of a desolate road in Albania. Starved and disheveled, he was picked up by Albanian guards and eventually reunited with his family.
In 2005, El-Masri sued the U.S. government for his ordeal. But the Justice Department, in what's become a regular tactic when confronted with torture allegations, convinced a federal judge to dismiss the case on the grounds that it would reveal sensitive "state secrets."
Given this context, it's not exactly surprising that the State Department, faced a couple of years later with the news that German authorities planned to arrest CIA agents for their role, urged (or threatened) the Germans to refrain. But what the cables highlight is what an awkward, embarrassing, hypocritical and ultimately counterproductive position the whole extraordinary rendition program has boxed the United States into. Not only did the renditions violate international law and in at least some cases lead to the torture of wholly innocent victims, but the Obama administration's refusal to acknowledge the United States' role and provide redress has left it stuck in that cramped corner. Now, in order to avoid having to explain why the U.S. government is not investigating the criminal actions of its own officials, and why the U.S. repeatedly uses the "state secrets" defense to quash individual attempts at accountability, the United States has to quietly strong-arm its allies into not enforcing their own laws.
In Italy, as the secret cable acknowledges, the U.S. tried to prevent Italian prosecutors from going after 23 CIA agents who kidnapped Abu Omar off the streets of Milan and rendered him to Egypt to be interrogated under torture there. That effort failed, and the agents were convicted in absentia. Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was apparently more successful in the case of El-Masri.
Sadly, the Obama administration has kept up the pretense that the United States knows nothing about these incidents and will not investigate further. Never mind that between the lawsuits, the news stories and now the Wikileaks cable, the entire world knows better.
When President Obama traveled to Asia recently, he called on the Indonesian government to exercise a leadership role in the G20 by "embracing transparency and accountability."
Upholding democracy and human rights is "an essential element of everything we do in U.S. foreign policy," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in her speech kicking off the Asian tour. She added that "the US administration will work within international bodies like the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian nations "to pursue accountability and bring an end to human rights abuses."
Or not. The Bush administration pursued a program of torture that Obama has said reflected "us losing our moral bearings." But until President Obama acknowledges, investigates and accounts for it, he will keep the United States in that contorted position of instructing notorious dictators to respect human rights and hold violators accountable, while informing our democratic allies that it's in their best interest not to do the same.
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Karl Giberson, Ph.D: Should Christianity Be Blamed for Torture?
Americans need to grow up and think about it honestly..
Three journalists have died in Baghdad... American troops are killing journalists in a profoundly foreign country, under cover of a war being fought for savage, greed-crazed reasons that most of them couldn't explain or even understand.
I take no pleasure in being Right in my dark predictions about the fate of our military intervention in the heart of the Muslim world. It is immensely depressing to me. Nobody likes to be betting against the Home team.
If we get chased out of Iraq with our tail between our legs, that will be the fifth consecutive Third-world country with no hint of a Navy or an Air Force to have whipped us in the past 40 years.
These horrifying digital snapshots of the American dream in action on foreign soil are worse than anything even I could have expected. I have been in this business a long time and I have seen many staggering things, but this one is over the line. Now I am really ashamed to carry an American passport.
- Hunter S. Thompson
The World needs to see exactly why Bush hid these tapes !
Now, "Obama does it" and it seems like I can hear the sounds of crickets.
After the 2008 elections, the Obama DOJ handled the appeal parroting the Bush "states secrets" argument; however the Circuit Court ruled against the DOJ.  Judge Hawkins wrote, "states secrets" as argued by the DOJ, “has no logical limit." “As the Founders of this Nation knew well, arbitrary imprisonment and torture under any circumstance is a gross and notorious act of despotism.”
Surprisingly, the Obama DOJ did not accept Hawkins' decision; instead they asked for a full panel review of the decision. Â The panel dismissed the case siding with the DOJ. Â Obama's allegiance to Bush's abuse of "states secrets," and national security rationales to cover high crimes, shows how deeply Obama has committed his administration to protecting Bush and his trademark, criminal torture policies.Â
And by revealing this documentation we can now see that EVERYONE has been lying to EVERYBODY about just about everything. It sort of levels the playing field here. All countries lie, all diplomats lie, so grading on the curve, we really aren't any worse than anyone else.
It's just an uglier curve than most of us would have believed.
The congress codified these techniques into law, nearly with unanimous approval. They are the law of the land. Obama has taken steps to ensure their strength legally. You are on the wrong side of the facts.
Also sad is that the Italians (it would seem) had more guts than the Germans. Enough at least to uphold their own ideals and laws, rather than to cave to pressure. Personally, I don't see that it has harmed relations with Italy either. Rather Italy can at least hold its head up a little after this affair. Amazing considering the government that Italy is currently saddled with!
I am too old for this.
Unless you are saying that the entire congress acted to sanction torture.
Though you may be.
This whole thing was over by 2007, 2 years before Obama became President. If you want to see Bush dragged off to the Hague, by all means have at it, but this persistent culture of holding President Obama responsible for the actions of people he had nothing to with is just nonsensical.
Are you suggesting he start arresting random CIA operatives so he can look morally superior?
Obama should end this program, or he gets tarred with the same brush.