CIA Torture and other War Crimes

Personal accountability has all but disappeared from the American political system. Bill Clinton lied to his entire cabinet about Monica Lewinsky and not a single cabinet member resigned in protest after he was forced to recant. When Alberto Gonzales lied repeatedly during testimony before Congress everyone knew exactly what he was doing but no leading Democrat was willing to impeach him. The hopelessly incompetent Michael Brown was able to resign from FEMA without sanction to "avoid further distraction from the ongoing mission" and later even blamed everyone else for his shortcomings. Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Tommy Franks, George Tenet, and Paul Bremer were all rewarded for their incompetence, some with medals and some with promotions. Recent resignations from the Bush administration stemming from the massive policy failures of the past seven years have frequently been couched in terms of "wanting to spend more time with my family" though sometimes a bit of candor creeps in a la Trent Lott, who believes it is time to step down and follow the money as a lobbyist. Public Diplomacy Tsarina Karen Hughes arguably plans to do both, returning to Texas to rejoin her family while also cashing in through lucrative speaking engagements. During her two and a half years of Texas-style soccer mom diplomacy at State Department and in spite of a large budget, Hughes only succeeded in increasing the number of foreigners who actively dislike the United States. Never is a resignation from government service framed in terms of "Hey, I screwed up."

The embrace of illegal detentions and torture are among the truly horrific decisions that can be attributed to the Bush White House. It is ironic to read the media accounts surrounding the recent discovery by shocked U.S. Marines of an alleged al-Qaeda torture center in Iraq's Diyala province because the Marines work for a government that itself publicly embraces torture as an interrogation technique. And it is not just the White House. Torture is bipartisan. The recent House of Representatives intelligence appropriations bill included a clause that requires CIA to abide by the Geneva Conventions in its interrogation and detention policies. One hundred and ninety-nine Congressmen from both parties voted "no." Even if some of the Congressmen voted against the bill for other reasons, there is a strong sense that many politicians consider torture to be perfectly okay. Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson have all jumped on that bandwagon, endorsing "enhanced interrogation" as a counter-terrorism tool. Mitt Romney, who might bolster his claims to be a Christian by occasionally perusing the compassionate message of the Sermon on the Mount instead of the Book of Mormon, even wants to make Guantanamo prison bigger. Giuliani appears to want to jail and torture lots of people all the time, but he is, admittedly, a pagan.

If senior managers at the Central Intelligence Agency actually worried about committing war crimes more than they cared about getting revenge on ragheads and advancing their careers, they wouldn't have tortured anyone in the first place back in 2002. Shortly after 9/11, the redoubtable armchair warrior Vice President Dick Cheney, who famously had other priorities and avoided military service by virtue of five deferments during Vietnam, announced that the "gloves are off" in reference to America's enemies. Those comments set the tone and ushered in the exciting days of "anything goes" when Cofer Black, chief of the Agency's Counter Terrorism Center, sent out his myrmidons with orders to come back with Usama bin Laden's head in a box. Somehow, that head turned out to be Saddam Hussein's.

Ethically, torture degrades the country that permits it, the organization that carries it out and the individuals who perform it. Doctors are not present during torture as it would violate the Hippocratic Oath, so it is up to the torturer to decide how far to go. If a victim dies while being interrogated by torture, as has happened a number of times in both Afghanistan and Iraq, it is both a war crime and murder.

Most intelligence and law enforcement officers reject torture as an interrogation tool, knowing that it more often than not produces false information. The FBI claims that the CIA waterboarding of terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah was unnecessary, that he was already cooperating. Waterboarding, which was used extensively both by the Gestapo and by the Spanish Inquisition, is a particularly heinous form of torture as it simulates death. With U.S. troops deployed all over the world at the present time, sanctioning torture lowers the bar for terrorists who might happen to capture an American soldier or diplomat to do likewise. Even in 2002 someone with a bit of foresight might have anticipated the possible consequences arising from the CIA's use of torture and its more general bull in the china shop approach. Someone with a bit of backbone and an intact moral compass might even have even resigned in protest, but, alas, there were few of those types around.

What has made CIA's so-called leaders really nervous in the current political environment is not the ethical or moral issue of torture per se. It is the thought of getting sued by the victims and victim advocacy groups, which means hiring expensive lawyers. Donald Rumsfeld's flight from Paris in late November to avoid war crimes charges also raises the possibility that an otherwise pleasant trip to Provence or Tuscany might have to be curtailed if some Euro-version of a pasty-face peace creep tries to file a lawsuit. Fortunately for all the torturers at CIA, there is now a government reimbursed private insurance program designed to cover contingencies. When former Chief of Clandestine Operations Jose Rodriguez was subpoenaed to appear before a Congressional committee last week, he was able to afford representation by the redoubtable Robert Bennett.

The latest CIA scandal began in 2002 when at least two terrorist suspects were videotaped while they were being subjected to the waterboarding version of "enhanced interrogation." The questioning took place somewhere in Asia, possibly in a Pakistani or Thai prison but more likely at either Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan or at Diego Garcia Island, in the Indian Ocean, where the CIA maintains "off-sites." In May 2003, CIA told Federal Judge Leonie Brinkema that there were no recordings or other records of the interrogations. That was a lie. In 2003 and 2004, the Congressional 9/11 Commission made "repeated and detailed inquiries relating to interrogations." The CIA said there was no additional material, another lie. In June 2005, Director of Operations Jose Rodriguez ordered the tapes destroyed. The order came, perhaps not coincidentally, just as the Italian authorities were entering into the investigative phase of a major inquiry into CIA renditions in Italy.

CIA now claims that the tapes were destroyed to protect the identity of the agency interrogators involved. That argument is complete nonsense. Unless the cameraman was suffering from delirium tremens and shaking uncontrollably, the camera would have been focused on the victim of the torture, not on those administering it. In any event, terrorists would hardly be able to identify and gain access to an otherwise unremarkable and nameless CIA employee from what they might see on a tape, even if they could get hold of a copy.

The real reason for the cover-up on the tapes is because torture is universally acknowledged to be a war crime and everyone in the CIA and White House hierarchy knows that to be true. The denial that the tapes existed in 2003 and 2004 could not have taken place without the concurrence of Director George Tenet, Deputy Director John McLaughlin, and General Counsel Scott Muller. Probably then-Director of Operations James Pavitt would have also been involved. When Rodriguez destroyed the tapes in 2005, he was not acting alone. Director Porter Goss almost certainly would have been part of the decision making process as well as acting General Counsel John Rizzo and it is tempting to speculate that White House aides like Dick Cheney's David Addington and President Bush's Harriet Miers might also have been in the loop.

Looking for war crimes committed by members of the Bush administration is a complicated exercise because there are so many to go around. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo come immediately to mind. The Nuremburg Tribunals at the end of the Second World War defined an aggressive war against another country if that country has not attacked you first or threatened to do so as "essentially an evil thing...to initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." A number of leading Nazis were executed for their unprovoked attack on Poland. The Bush administration has its own Poland in Iraq, and if there is an American attack on Iran it would also fit the Nuremberg definition. Unlike at Nuremberg, however, no one will be held accountable.

Comments

[RecalitrantReactionary]

A good article though Mr. Giraldi's attack on Romney's religion is inexcusable. I can only guess this statement:
"Mitt Romney, who might bolster his claims to be a Christian by occasionally perusing the compassionate message of the Sermon on the Mount instead of the Book of Mormon.." is stating that the Book of Mormon does not have a compassionate message perhaps due to the many wars that it records, culminating in the genocide of the white descendants of Jewish settlers in the Americas. The hilarious part of this ignorant attack is that the Book of Mormon contains a passage that very closely parallels the Sermon on the Mount. (See 3 Nephi 12.) Giraldi's comments imply that Mr. Romney's religion, not his just his proposed policy, is dangerous. Those who want to bring this country back to some sort of sanity in the foreign policy arena can ill afford to alienate millions of Americans who believe the Book of Mormon to be authentic when they very well may be brought to agree with the thrust of Giraldi's argument. It is particularly dangerous when that voting block is concentrated in several states with electoral votes that can sway a close election.

[PatriotAct]

The destruction of the CIA tapes that documented the interrogation of two of the highest level and highest value terrorism suspects in the 'War on Terror' is a FELONY VIOLATION of the USA Patriot Act.

FELONY VIOLATION of the USA Patriot Act.

Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism

That's what the Acronym Patriot Act stands for.

DESTROYING Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism is a :

FELONY VIOLATION of the USA Patriot Act.

The law to prosecute those persons responsible for the destruction of the CIA tapes is HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT.

The government wields INCREDIBLE power with the Patriot Act, but this is YOUR LAW.

Use the Patriot Act to prosecute bush and his administration and cast an UNAMERICAN palor over all of them, I mean ! THEY DESTROYED evidence in a terror investigation, they with-held evidence in a terror investigation !

FELONY VIOLATION of the USA Patriot Act, right in front of everyone's nose.

Prosecute with the Patriot Act for FREEDOM !

[ljsfolly]

Why are we powerless to stop these criminals in our administration? Why can we not dig into the whole of what has been done while bush jr has been in charge? Why is it we have not been told/shown the truth about so many things that have been/ are being done? Why is the congress so impotent, inadequate failing to do the job of investigation of this administration? Voting in new people is not the answer as far as what we can do as individual citizens. We have sat back denied and ignored all of the horror being done while we knew it was being done but we were kept in the dark by the media for years as well as those in the administration? Why did the media as a whole fail us? So many questions and so little I feel for me to do. I have written/called my congress people with responses I am ashamed of getting to justify votes and inaction. One of mine is Diane Feinstein and we all know her stance and little done for us in her recent voting. Will we come together as a country and do something or will the division promoted by politicians?

[weslenforever]

"It is ironic to read the media accounts surrounding the recent discovery by shocked U.S. Marines of an alleged al-Qaeda torture center in Iraq's Diyala province"

I would be willing to bet all I have that this was actually run by Blackwater Thugs sanctioned by the Bush Administration.

[Sundialsvc4]

First and foremost, leave "republican" and "democrat" entirely out of the picture.

There is no meaningful difference between them. However, there IS great harm in pointing to any sort of "distinction" as though it were real.

"Oh it wasn't 'Us,' it was the bad ol' 'Them.'"

It WAS "Us."

There are 320 million people in this country who are allowing this government of about 700 people (give or take) to utterly trounce them, and who are allowing those same people to cross-ruff the game in order to aid-and-abet those crimes, giving aid and comfort to those who continue to commit them. Those same people also accept literally millions of dollars in bribes, apiece, each year.

At no point will these 700-odd men and women ever change, not as long as they can continue to get away with presenting themselves as "divided." Not as long as they can continue to persuade the country to be divided against itself.

When I divide 700 by 320 million, I get a number so small (2.1875e-06) that my calculator resorts to scientific notation to express it. A tiny fraction of one percent. Can such a small number of people steal so much of a nation's treasure? Yes, if they're in the right high places and working together on the same high crimes (instead of "checking and balancing" one another as-intended). Could such a small percentage of people actually cause the entire nation to fall? Absolutely.

Until... and unless... the people of that nation and the people of the world community finally have had enough.

No, no, I don't mean "start World War Three." How twentieth-century; besides, that's exactly what these people DO want. Think rather in these terms: they are outnumbered, approximately 457,143-to-one.

[GenXer]

Our country's tolerence for these crimes is much higher than I thought possible. There really is little difference between us and them. Well, except for consumerism, we do love to shop.

[realpolitic]

We need another Nuremberg Tribunal to uncover the crimes of this administration: Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, torture, black site prisons, illegal wiretapping, rendition, denial of habeas corpus, assistant Attorney General firings scandal, and the sheer incompetence of George Bush and company.

[Sariade]

Quote:
"Someone with a bit of backbone and an intact moral compass might even have even resigned in protest, but, alas, there were few of those types around."

Alas, as the ponerzation of American society is nearly complete (see Political Ponerology by Dr. Andrew Lobaczewski http://ponerology.com ), the chances of finding such people are just about zero. Psychopaths have an incredible nose for those like them. Witness the composition of the Bush administration. They have an equally precise nose for those who moral and ethical fibre can expose and bring them down, as attested by the long list of "resignations" and "accidents" that have marked the fate of those opposing the administration.

As many have commented, this pattern did not magically start with the Bush reich. As with an earlier reich, the groundwork has been laid over decades. Dr. L. discusses the societal patterns the eventually allows society to sink to its current nadir. Anyone who is wondering how humanity has come *yet again* to this awful place should read this book.

[NATIONALSECURITY4US]

LET THE TRUTH BE TOLD OR BECOME COMPLACENT IN
THE COVER-UP / CONSPIRACY.

ONLY I CAN TELL THIS STORY UNTIL SOMEONE ELSE IN THE KNOW COMES FORWARD & HAS ENOUGH BALLS 2 TELL THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THE TRUTH.

THE TRUTH IS THE TRUTH = PLEASE POST IT...

[outnow]

Howard Zinn, in his speech, "The Problem Is Civil Obedience" says civil disobedience is not our problem...Our problem is civil obedience," people taking orders and not questioning.

Obedience and subordination to power are the major problems, not just here but everywhere. It's much more important here because the state is so powerful.

The candidates in 2004 were both rich guys who went to Yale and joined the Skull and Bones Society and ran on much the same program because they are supported by the same corporations.

When Martin Luther King turned to problems of poverty and war, he was condemned. Opposing racist sheriffs in Alabama was something he was honored for but supporting a strike of sanitation workers in Memphis and planning a Poor People's March on Washington was going too far.

The Washington consensus says that the neoliberal agenda rules. The Chicago Boys helped Pinochet set up Chile after the coup in 1973 when Salvador Allende was removed and the torture began.

The population of the US doesn't want all of their tax dollars going into military activities. There is a huge gap in public opinion between the People and their representatives that Congress won't bridge even as spending climbs with all the wars.

The intelligence agencies have grown enormously with the defense department, borrowing money, running deficits, and reducing taxes for the wealthy.

Bush is the very worst offender of all times but what amazes me is that the "good Americans," like the "good Germans" just go along with it.

[research]

The tapes may show that torture doesn't work. How disgusting would it be to suffer watching the torture, get some names, kill some "terrorist" only to find the tortured info was bad?
Let's say torture gets a list of names. They go get these people. Some have weapons, and anti American literature. Did torture work? NO. You get people you asked the about.

Or perhaps "disrupted" just means they forced false confessions out of a bunch of people. The falsely convicted are now no longer able to "attack" us, as the were tortured into falsely professing, thus in BushCo fascist think, The attacks these tortured people "would" have committed were "disrupted.

Torture works great to TERRORIZE, not to get information, to create FALSE "INTELLIGENCE" to JUSTIFY BUSHCO NEXT WAR, for getting FALSE CONFESSIONS for cover BushCo ass, for "COMPROMISING" THE CIA AND MILITARY, so you can blackmail them later, DOES NOT GET INFORMATION USEFUL to stop a terrorist attack.

If "24" were accurate: Only minutes till the bomb goes off. They torture the deactivation code out of the suspect. The type it in....Boom!
Tortured people tell you what you want to hear.
We got the top Nazi's to confess without laying a hand on them. Intelligent clever TALKING got the the Nazi's to confess.
Nations that torture are no long worthy of the community of nations.
Torture recruits folks to our enemies, thus Torture is treasonous aid and comfort to the enemy.
Torture is a war crime: even propagandizing for torture is a war crime:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Streicher
Impeach!

[wadenelson1]

Just had to start with a shot at Bill Clinton, didn't ya.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Maybe as their final corporate act, Halliburton
can build another wing onto the side of Ft.
Leavenworth, then they can all close the cell
doors from the inside?


http://www.impeachbush.org

[campaignman]

I support Barack because he is willing to bring real change.

He says he doesn't want to re-fight the old ideological arguments but investigating crimes against the Constitution are another matter.

I can only hope that Barack will push his Justice department to go after Bush Co for its crimes. Hillary won't do it. She and Bill have grown too close to Bush 41 to go after Bush 43. They'll let him go.

Edwards wants to fight the major corporations. That will take all his capital and he may not want to spend any of it on going after Bush.

The truth is, though, that Barack may not want to spend his capital on that either. Still, allowing investigations to go forward agaisnt Bush Co and Halliburton and the other Iraq contractors given sweetheart deals will independently lay the blame where it belongs for the record. That will help Democrats for years to come!

Finally, demockracy is absolutely right about our leaders' many past sins. The Dems won't investigate them for obvious reasons. They share some blame for many of them.

We really need an organization devoted to exploring our past, with a multi-partisan commission leading the way. They could invite historians to lay out the ten worst foreign policy actions by our nation and the ten best so the public will listen - and then offer in depth support for those decisions.

At this point, for many of those decisions, the best we can hope for is that people learn enough about them that they never want them repeated again.

[SamThornton]

One of the interesting pieces of inverse blowback from the Administration's excesses are the number of countries that are following the Bush example in curtailing civil liberties and passing laws and instituting measures that suppress and punish dissent in the name of anti-terrorism.

Evidently, America is still serving as a role model, only now for torture, secret arrests, and secret trials of opponents of repressive regimes such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and on and on.

The GWOT has become a world-wide excuse for a resurgence of tyranny and state-sponsored terror against nations' own citizens.

Heckuva job, Dubya.