Why the War Crimes?
Sunday's Washington Post article, recapitulating much of Ron Suskind's earlier reporting, that Abu Zubaydah wasn't the feared number 3 of Al-Qaeda, and that the intelligence he spilled after being waterboarded was all junk, was--or should be--the last step in removing the scales from the eyes of all but the Cheney retainers. Along with the outing of the International Red Cross report, which clearly and unequivocally called "enhanced interrogation" what it is--torture, the Post piece and Dan Froomkin's accompanying blog post make the case a slam dunk that our previous administration committed war crimes.
But why? Why persist in a policy that, according to the Post, wasted the time of FBI and CIA officers chasing down false leads, wasting millions, and didn't make us any safer, all the while proudly boasting the opposite? Col. Larry Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, offered a partial answer in a blog post three weeks ago. In it, Wilkerson asserts that high officials at State knew early on that most Guantanamo inmates were guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong zip code, people who were rounded up and delivered to Americans because we were paying cash money for bodies in and around Afghanistan, and warlords and their friends were more than eager to settle some scores while replenishing the old coffers.
More importantly, he suggests why the knowledge that "the worst of the worst" were really innocent was no impediment to the continued incarceration and interrogation of these people: an intelligence program called Mosaic, in which even innocents could contribute useful shreds of information--where were the mailboxes on their street?--that could combine with actual intel to paint a broader picture.
That doesn't explain, however, the case of Abu Zubaydah, known to higher-ups to be wasting time and resources with bogus intel just to stop the horror. Why persist with the charade? Froomkin cites one possible reason:
But according to (author Ron) Suskind, even as Bush was publicly proclaiming Zubaida's malevolence, he was privately being briefed about doubts within the intelligence community regarding Zubaida's significance -- and mental stability. Suskind quotes the following exchange between Bush and then-CIA director George Tenet:
"'I said he was important,' Bush said to Tenet at one of their daily meetings. 'You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?'"'No Sir, Mr. President.'"
Well, he does have a nice face, shame to lose any of it. More substantively, the Bush administration had one clear, unambiguous message after 9/11. You may remember the mantra. It was, "everything has changed". It was specious, of course, most of our lives are resolutely the same as before the attack, except for the necessity of putting up with bad security theater at the airport while cargo whizzes through our seaports uninspected. But the underlying message of that mantra was that 9/11 didn't represent a failure of the government to connect the dots, to be alert to, and correlate the fusillade of warnings that was famously setting terrorism advisor Richard Clarke's "hair on fire" in the summer of 2001, that John Ashcroft's reported statement to the interim head of the FBI that he didn't want to hear any more warnings about terrorism didn't reflect a systemic failure.
In the post-9/11 world, the gloves had to come off. The fault was in the silly restrictions that prevented tough-minded people from doing what had to be done. If the criticism from the 9/11 commission and other critics was that the dots hadn't been connected, in the new world we would connect anything that even looked like dots, and where there weren't dots, we'd create some. You want dots? We got 'em.
So, an administration that showed a public face that professed a belief that every human life was sacred was prepared to treat innumerable humans as nothing more than fodder for the dot machine, merely to prove that the horrific attack in its eighth month in office couldn't possibly have been its fault.
So the mantra from Bush supporters the past year has been "he kept us safe for seven and a half years," as if the first half year doesn't count, because "everything has changed."
That's a credible defense in a war-crimes trial, right?
The Raw Story | Cheney admits authorizing detainee's torture
Think Progress » Cheney Defends Torture: It ‘Would Have Been ...
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The high imperialists are desperate and will stop at nothing to preserve the world system that rewards them so handsomely. The Empire is all that matters to them. This war isn't about America, it is about the Empire and its structure of domination.
It's funny how the term "safer" has become so ambiguous as a result of the complete absence of both domestic terror attacks and those abroad. Insisting under Bush/Cheney we were "no safer" gave me a creepy feeling that those protesting were eagerly awaiting the proof of this assertion. Well, a new sheriff's in town so, I guess, we're about to find out which approach is the "safest." If his approach keeps us “safer,” tell me how we will know. In the meantime, I have absolutely no doubt that Obama will keep his promise and respond with the utmost speed and fortitude when we are attacked again.
Our biggest threat is immigration: illegal and legal.
Brave post, Harry, but you're preaching to the choir with legions of us that have known of these crimes (War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity (per Geneva Accords, Nuremburg precedent and United Nations Convention on Torture treaty, and violation of the Rome Statute (vis a vis I.C.C.))).
We're just waiting for the rest of America to catch up. I suggest people push Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor because if Spain and Britain have more sack than our own President, that's not going to look good in world opinion. Barack is already using signing statements, state secrets privilege (to block torture evidence) and blocking any attempts to convict Bush/Cheney (et alia) and he will become complicit if he thinks he can stonewall forever. We're not going anywhere and we're not forgetting (or forgiving) the great harm to our country and the lives lost on a war (Iraq) prosecuted on lies and cooked CIA intelligence. We're still waiting!
"Yermammy": Bravo. I hope you've passed on your sentiments to Obama, Holder & Co.
I think that if Dawn Johnson survives the vetting we may see some serious action on these matters.... Obama's willingness to have her in place is a good sign that he is not averse to prosecutions....
It seems to me that writing secret legal opinions to sanction torture and undermine the US Constitution and keeping those opinions from Congressional oversight is simply treason......
lungfish, it might be treason. There is a lot of that going around in both parties. Like our treasonous immigration policy. Both parties, especially the democrats, support that treason.
We prosecuted the Japanese for waterboarding (torturing) American soldiers. Though I was a republican (who voted for Bush twice), I never approved of waterboarding or any torture. I left the GOP several years ago because I could not tolerate it any more.
Of course, the democrats are worse in this regard; Bush was simply following the Truman Doctrine. That doctrine led to the slaughter of civilians all over Europe. Dems get all happy about their bloody FDR.
Over 30,000 American soldiers were dead before Nixon took office. Yes, I know, the anti-war movement dissented. They were right to do so.
Obama is escalating the war and dems are silent. Typical.
May God save our soldiers, a democrat president is in office. Don't expect Obama to be a man of peace. What can you expect from a man who could not vote to give medical care to a baby born alive after a botched abortion?
Civilians, including children, were rounded up and tortured. Many in Iraq and around the world were tortured to death. Even female employees of a large no bid contractor was raped and held captive by male employees. This was torture from the beginning. You could see the presumptive, arrogant expressions on their face as it all went down. Sometimes their expressions and demeanor seemed as bad as their actions.
Old news, but like the one about you-know-who, it deserves a retelling because it remains relevant.
http://civilliberty.about.com/od/waronterror/p/manadelaljamadi.htm
Look, the argument that torture is OK because the bad guys do really, really bad stuff doesn't wash. We either have principles and things that we stand for, or we don't. We can get into a debate about what torture is, but some of this stuff is just common sense - Standard Operating Procedure a documentary by Errol Morris sheds a lot of light on this subject and it's not that we want to see terrorists succeed, it's that we don't want to become what we abhor.
If someone killed one of my kids, I would want to torture and murder that person and I'd bet a lot of people would forgive me that act, but it wouldn't change the fact that it would be wrong. Unambiguously wrong. I would need society, the courts, the system to protect me from those base desires and emotions, to keep me from doing that - it's how I look at the people railing against torture now - we need those voices. We need that side of it to be heard and to balance out what we might think as justifiable viewed against a 9/11 backdrop, but what is unambiguously immoral.
We do not torture!!!!!! Why don't we ever hear about what the terrorists do?? How about the fact that now Hamas has made legal crucifixions? Bet you didn't think you would see that in your life time. Oh boy, oh boy we don't want to talk about that do we. Best not mention that we just gave Hamas 900 million dollars. Oh wait, we are such a bad country...
Let me tie you down, and stuff a rag in your mouth, then start pouring water into your mouth and nose until you start inhaling the water. As you slowly drown, you fight harder and swallow even more water. Eventually the lack of oxygen causes you to black out, and if continued long enough, you die. We know that America did it to Abu Zubaida. They bragged about all the BS intelligence they were getting from it.
99% of the world agrees that this as a war crime, and we are signatories to that agreement. America's word is worth something or its not. We're either the example for others to follow, or a bunch of dead-beat, lying, crooks whose word means nothing.
"Why don't we ever hear about what the terrorists do??" Bro, you don't own a TV do you?
We have heard about the "terrorists" do. We have seen the beheadings, people shot execution style in soccer stadiums and the bodies laying in Iraqi cities. We have also had those images scrubbed from the news media because they weren't supportive of the "war" effort.
Time and time again, we have seen how interrogating people by building relationships with them works much, much more effectively. Next you will be saying the Surge didn't work and that was one of the prime methods employed.
Our torture only recruits new fighters against us and puts our troops in danger. The Bush administration's need to save face is what's killing our people as much as the enemy. We cannot kill our way out of this situation.
The surge did work! Our military is awesome! Can it continue to work? Should we be sending even more troops to the middle east? I don't know. Best guess no.
Still not sure I can call what we have done torture when I compare it to the monsters over there. Maybe I will change my mind. What I do know is our enemy hates the living hell out of us and we as Americans seem to be clueless, broke and media slaves!
yeah, dude, it is so we have some separation from people like that. Being just as bad as them is not the answer. Otherwise we deserve having someone walk in and occupy us and depose our leaders.
Yes we did torture! Many in the bush administration have even admitted it now.
And yes, we do hear about what the terrorists do. And the fact that there are those committing worse atrocities, does not change what we've done.
You're like the kid who gets a parking ticket and tells your parents ... "But my friend Joe totaled his mom's car" ... and expects that to absolve you of your responsibility.
"We do not torture!!!!!!"
Please support this statement with some evidence. The article here gives reference to a report from the International Red Cross that says we do torture (since we are said to use "enhanced interrogation techniques").
Obama is just a prettier face on the same old con job.
He's arguing in court that he has the right to detain anybody (including you) without a warrant.
He's arguing in court that he has the right to spy on anybody (including you) without a warrant.
He's protecting the previous administration from prosecution for their myriad of crimes.
He went to G20 to argue against regulating banks.
He went to G20 to get $1T for the IMF, so US corporations could continue raping the rest of the world.
His solution for the economic crisis is exactly the same as Bush's: hire the folks who created the crisis, and let them fork over your money to the filthy rich, accountability be damned.
And the Left is willfully blind to all of this, because they believed Hannity, O'Reilly and Limbaugh when they lied that Obama was a Leftie, too.
I disagree only with your last sentence. Many of us on the Left knew Obama was not a true progressive, and so we voted for third party candidates such as Cynthia McKinney. And now, more and more progressives are beginning to wake up to Obama's actual positions.
Although your comments have validity in them, there is nothing I hate worse than a Monday morning braggart. Where the he// were you during November, 2008? It is as some posting here on Huffpo said; better to elect a democrat than vote for a favorite, though sure to lose, candidate. We have accomplished our main agenda and that was to stop the conservative, pro-corporate Republican machine that put this country in the hole it is in now. NEXT, we can start to slowly turn this behemoth of a corporate supported Democratic party around by voting in Green Party members (http://www.gp.org/index.php) during the next election cycles so that we, the people and not the corporations, can get some representation in Congress.
Yes, I mainly voted for Obama as the surest way to stop the Republicans, but now we need to be thinking about putting in someone who will help us, like Dennis K or John
Could it be that the Administration was more interested in finding enough photos to fill out their Terroritst Card Deck?
Torture was illegal. Torture was wrong. Torture destroyed the US' reputation. Torture was a premeditated crime. Torture was counter-productive. And torture was done, not out of a misplaced desire to do what was necessary, but because George Bush was the kind of weak insecure coward who wanted to abuse helpless prisoners to make up for his own failure.
Unfortunately, we will see no real investigation into the war crimes committed by the Bush Administration. As you may have noticed, our beloved President Obama, has himself, taken to invoking 911 in his Bush-like attempt to raise fear and support for "his" new never-ending war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That's right, we have all fallen victim to the ultimate con-man. Instead of peace, we have war. Instead of economic equality, we have trillions upon trillions being funneled to the super rich on Wall Street. Our unions are being busted under a double standard that allows the honoring of AIG bonus contracts but not of union contracts. A generation has been robbed of their savings, retirements, and futures while we talk about Michelle Obama's sweaters. Yes, it is true that our president did inherit some of these problems but it is also true that he has perpetuated most of them through his arrogance and bumbling that continues to go unreported by our corporate press. As long as we continue to be fooled by Obama's media blitz we will never see justice for Bush or for the American people.
This is probably the most important comment anywhere in today's site. We've elected a friendler, kinder, more politically aware representative of the same people who owned Bush! And they continue to own the only game in town, because they pay for all the candidates to run. Thus, money is used to perpetuate control, while the American public focused upon who is on american Idol, what Michelle Obama is wearing, or horrific bonuses for a few hundred greedy execs.
Meanwhile, our president is going to try to re-win a war that we won seven years ago, and then frittered away. And we're going to take this war and expand it into Pakistan, without understanding anything basic about that country.
So, the fundamental question is are things going to get better for average Americans? And the answer probably is: NOT until they wake up and begin educating themselves in the reality of their own situations. Of course, understanding will be followed by action requiring sacrifice & guts. Are our people ready for that? Probably not!
I'm a diehard and proud LIberal and Barack Obama is about to make the same sh#t list that the other War Criminals are on if he don't wake up and start arresting people. The secret that Geithner isn't telling people is there's only about five banks that are in trouble and five hedge fund moguls that wrecked them through naked short selling. We have a press that sucks up to power and main stream media that is outright lying to our face. Welcome to the new Amerika. It's only a shock if your old enough to know what it was like when it was free. DEMAND Eric Holder start investigations or we're doomed! If the country (and the world) see what we do to criminals; the rest of the crooks on Wall St. and the Press and the MIC will fall like a house of cards. We're running out of time people. Act.
It's time for Americans to admit that we didn't resort to torture to "get tough" on terrorism or to make ourselves more secure. We tortured because Osama won. He won because we let him win by showing the world we were a nation of cowards. And because we were a panicked nation of cowards we tortured people and abandoned many of our principles in a stampede towards security.
Until we face up to our behavior and the true national character it revealed we're silently acknowledging that we plan to do the exact same thing the NEXT time someone scares us.
The US waterboarded 3 people. And luckily, Obama has reserved the right to those same harsh interrogation techniques if needed.
All the other stuff that went on (underpants on head, all the prisoners getting naked) were low-level soldiers and contractors run amok.
They could do the same thing tomorrow.
See Harry Shearer's Profile
Three that we know of.....
See Harry Shearer's Profile
And, by the way, stress positions and temperature extremes and sleep deprivation--forget about underpants--are prohibited as torture.
So I am wondering how you would feel if you had been one of those swept up from various countries and subjected to what you say is no big deal?
How would you feel after 3-7 years with no trial or any way whatsoever to contest why you are there. Believe me being locked up is no fun, but imagine the not even knowing why you are there, when you might possibly get out.
The hallmark of our judicial system is innocent until proven guilty. When we add torture to the indefinite detenton of people, we have become as bad as what we purport to abhor. What's next? Beheading our captives? Why don't we just kill them all and save ourselves a whole lot of trouble? Heck, maybe we should just nuke the Middle East and save the world from this ongoing violence?
Where does the slippery slope end?
Nationalism and related structures of power define how recognized crimes against humanity are prosecuted. Volumes have been written, and could still be written, on the subject with little or no functional resolution. In short, however, it is most likely that any prosecution of those responsible would be seen as a threat to current realist thought on the relationships of US political power within and outside of its borders.
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