Psyche, Science, and Society

US government engaged in slavery

Isn’t the buying of human beings th definition of slavery? [Pakistan Sold al-Qaeda Suspects To CIA]

he US Central Intelligence Agency paid Pakistan millions of dollars for handing over more than 350 suspected al-Qaeda terrorists to the United States, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has reportedly said.

The assertions come in the military ruler’s upcoming memoir “In the Line of Fire,” serialized in The Times newspaper.

Musharraf does not reveal how much Pakistan was paid for the 369 Al-Qaeda suspects he ordered should be handed over to the United States, the newspaper said, noting, however, that such payments are banned by the US government.

Even US officials admit this is wrong:

In response a US Department of Justice official was quoted as saying: “We didn’t know about this. It should not happen. These bounty payments are for private individuals who help to trace terrorists on the FBI’s most wanted list, not foreign governments.”

If the US keeps those slave in bondage at Guantanamo, aren’t the responsible officials also engaging in slavery?

Will the [In]Justice Department begin a slavery investigation of the CIA? Or are laws [and indignation] only for the other guys?

Add comment September 25th, 2006

Demonstration at Senate torture hearings

As the stuffed shirts in the Senate Judiciary Committee debated whether to allow the tortured any ray of hope (habeas corpus), demonstrators stood up, sending Chairman Specter into a tizzy:

Nothing must interfere with the decorum of the Senate!

Add comment September 25th, 2006

McCain claims some torture techniques prohibited, others decline comment

Senator McCain did what Senator Frist said “No responsible person” would do. He has named some torture techniques he claims would be banned:

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) named three measures that he said would no longer be allowed under a provision barring techniques that cause serious mental or physical suffering by U.S. detainees: extreme sleep deprivation, forced hypothermia and “waterboarding,” which simulates drowning. He also said other “extreme measures” would be banned.

Trouble is, those whose opinions matter, namely the torturer-in-chief and his retinue, refuse to commit themselves:

Aides said he did not clear his remarks with the Bush administration in advance, and spokesmen for the CIA and the White House declined to say yesterday whether they accept McCain’s conclusions.
“We cannot and will not comment on specific interrogation measures,” CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said, adding that the agency will act lawfully. The CIA has asserted unofficially that its most extreme measures were used on only a handful of detainees.

The Washington Post claims:

McCain’s reading of it may carry weight in any court battle over its meaning.

But McCain made it clear that he supports moderate torture and only is opposed to “extreme” techniques:

McCain — who has previously described being beaten and painfully bound by ropes in Vietnam — said yesterday he recognizes that stress positions could be “important” and that while it “was never our intent” to stop the CIA interrogation program, he wanted to stop the “extreme application” of such techniques.

As the torture debate unfolded, President Bush said his version of the bill was necessary to “clarify” the Geneva Conventions’ Common Article 3. He seems to have accomplished just that:

As lawmakers and officials struggled to find compromise language, they consulted a dictionary Web site’s entries for the words “momentary,” “temporary,” “transitory” and “fleeting,” two congressional sources said.

Why don’t reporters ask Bush why he accepted a compromise that was the opposite of what he said he wanted? Or did they know from the beginning that, rather, than clarity, maximal ambiguity was what was really desired? Now the [In]Justice Department and White House counsel can write new dictionaries to consult. Perhaps the New American Dictionary of Ambiguous Usage.

momentary: adj: lasting for less than it takes to drown.

Add comment September 25th, 2006

Andrew Sullivan: Torture by any other name is just as vile

The Times of London contains Andrew Sullivan’s latest passionate piece on the various “alternative techniques” [aka "psychological torture"] that Congress is about to legalize.

Last week America’s political classes found themselves forced by the Supreme Court to confront the issue of whether the United States has legally authorised the torture of terror suspects in its prisons.

That has been the issue for five years now, ever since the Bush administration unilaterally evaded the Geneva conventions and, on the president’s executive authority, tortured several Al-Qaeda suspects in CIA custody.

It blew up when the Abu Ghraib photographs emerged, showing that torture and abuse had spread like a cancer through the ranks of the military, with hundreds of documented cases in every field of combat.

It was almost halted last December by the McCain Amendment, which the president subsequently declined to enforce. It came to a climax last week in a confusing blizzard of legislative verbiage. Both sides are still fighting over what exactly the Senate-Bush deal meant, which means that “the programme” will apparently continue.

Of course, the narrative I have just used is disputed by the president. He stated very recently: “I want to be absolutely clear with our people, and the world: the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws, and it’s against our values. I have not authorised it — and I will not authorise it.”

So we are reduced to fighting over a word, “torture”. President George W Bush’s preferred terminology is “alternative interrogation techniques” or “coercive interrogation” or “harsh interrogation methods”, or simply, amazingly, his comment last Thursday that a policy of waterboarding detainees is merely a policy to “question” them.

Suddenly I am reminded of George Orwell. One essay of his, Politics and the English Language, still stands out over the decades as a rebuke to all those who deploy language to muffle meaning. One passage is particularly apposite:

“A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.”

It is time to concede that in America right now the atmosphere is bad. Here is Bush defining torture in a speech he gave in June 2003: “The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, ratified by the United States and more than 130 other countries since 1984, forbids governments from deliberately inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering on those within their custody or control.”

So what is “severe physical or mental pain or suffering”? The president does not apparently believe that strapping someone to a board, tipping them upside down and pouring water repeatedly over Cellophane wrapped over their face is severe suffering.

The CIA confirms that most suspects cannot last much more than 30 seconds of the drowning sensation. But no marks are left. So that is not “torture”.

We are then informed that almost all the “coercive interrogation techniques” used by the Bush administration are not torture. One is called “long time standing”. Basically, it entails forcing a prisoner to stay standing indefinitely, by prodding him if he tries to rest, or shackling his wrists to a bolt in a low ceiling or a railing.

At first the detainees in CIA custody were required to be so restrained for a maximum of four hours without any rest. Then a memo from Donald Rumsfeld , the defence secretary, came down the chain of command: “I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to four hours?”

Why indeed? It certainly sounds mild enough.

But here is a description of what it actually means in uncorrupted English: “There is the method of simply compelling a prisoner to stand there. This can be arranged so that the accused stands only while being interrogated — because that, too, exhausts and breaks a person down.

“It can be set up in another way — so that the prisoner sits down during interrogation but is forced to stand up between interrogations. (A watch is set over him, and the guards see to it that he doesn’t lean against the wall, and if he goes to sleep and falls over he is given a kick and straightened up.) Sometimes even one day of standing is enough to deprive a person of all his strength and to force him to testify to anything at all.”

What wimp wrote that? Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who documented “long time standing” as a method used by the Soviet Union in the gulag.

“Sleep deprivation” also sounds mild enough to avoid the moniker of “torture”. Here is one account of such an alternative questioning method, in which a prisoner “is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire to sleep, to sleep just a little, not to get up, to lie, to rest, to forget . . . Anyone who has experienced the desire knows that not even hunger or thirst are comparable with it”.

Again, which whiny liberal wrote those words?

The answer is Menachem Begin, former Israeli prime minister and a former terrorist himself. He is also describing the methods used by the Soviets in Siberia, where they imprisoned him in 1939.

We know that one prisoner in Guantanamo Bay was forced to go without sleep for 48 of 55 consecutive days and nights.

He was also manacled naked to a chair in a cell that was air-conditioned to around 50F and had cold water poured on him repeatedly, until hypothermia set in. Doctors treated him when he neared permanent physical damage.

According to the president of the United States, this is not “severe mental or physical pain or suffering”. This is an “alternative interrogation method”. This is not torture. It is “the programme”.

And so Latin words fall upon the West’s moral high ground “like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details”.

If only George Orwell were still alive. If only all of this weren’t actually true.

Almost as horrifying as the fact that Congress is debating, let alone about to pass this bill, is the fact that not one Democrat has made an impassioned speech against torture. It simply is not important to them, not when compared to the prospect of a few thousand more votes from the “torture-them-back-to the-invertebrae-age” lobby.

Add comment September 24th, 2006

Help save the Tripoli Six

The Libyan government is threatening to execute six nurses (five from Belgium, one Palestinian) who are falsely accused of infecting 400 Libyan children with HIV. Nature has called attention to their plight. Now the blogosphere is uniting to protest this gross injustice. Read Mike Dunford at The Questionable Authority for background information and suggested actions. And do something.

Add comment September 24th, 2006

Another analysis of the “compromise” to torture

Marty Lederman, in his analysis of the “compromise” on the detainee legislation, agrees that the compromise will legalize the CIA’s use of their “alternative methods” that constitute psychological torture:

Perhaps most importantly for purposes of U.S. compliance with our treaty obligations, the “compromise” bill would appear to provide a unjustifiably narrow interpretation of the “cruel treatment” that is prohibited under subsection (1)(a) of Common Article 3.

To be sure, section 8 of the bill would purport to establish “cruel or inhuman treatment” as a “grave breach” of Common Article 3. So far, so good. And such treatment would be defined as “[t]he act of a person who commits, or conspires or attempts to commit, an act intended to inflict severe or serious physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions), including serious physical abuse, upon another within his custody or control.” This is contestable, but not necessarily objectionable in and of itself.

The bit about severe physical or mental pain or suffering merely tracks what is already prohibited under the U.S. torture law. And we have good reason to believe that the Administration has construed that prohibition not to foreclose the use of Long Time Standing, Cold Cell, threats, other stress positions and sleep deprivation, and even waterboarding. Therefore, that part of the definition doesn’t accomplish much, if anything.

So if this definition is going to do any independent work at all, it would have to be with respect to what it calls “serious physical or mental pain or suffering.” But do the definitions of that phrase cover any or all of the “alternative” CIA techniques? More importantly, do they cover all “cruel treatment” under Common Article 3?

I’m afraid that they won’t.

The bill would define ˜serious mental pain or suffering” to be basically coterminous with the term ˜severe mental pain or suffering” under the torture act, except that as to conduct occurring after this law is enacted, the definition would cover conduct not only intended to result in “prolonged mental harm” (as is the case under the torture statute), but also conduct intended to result in “serious and non-transitory mental harm (which need not be prolonged).” What does it mean for “serious” mental harm to be non-transitory but also non-prolonged? The bill does not say. Between transitory and prolonged falls . . . the shadow.

More important is the bill’s definition of ˜serious physical pain or suffering.” One would think that, on any reasonable understanding of ordinary language, the “alternative” CIA techniques do, indeed, result in serious physical suffering, at the very least. Indeed, such serious suffering — and the prospect of ending such suffering by telling one’s interrogators what they wish to hear — is the whole point of using such techniques in the first place. But remarkably — and not accidently — the bill’s definition would not cover all such actual “serious physical suffering.”

The definition would require, for one thing, a “bodily injury” — something that would not necessarily result from use of the CIA techniques — even though one can of course be subject to great physical suffering without any “physical injury.”

What’s worse, such physical injury would also have to “involve” at least one of the following:

(1) a substantial risk of death;

(2) extreme physical pain;

(3) a burn or physical disfigurement of a serious nature, not to include cuts, abrasions, or bruises; or

(4) significant loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty.

As you can see, this definition simply does not cover many categories of actual serious physcial suffering, including, naturally, the physical suffering that ordinarily results from the CIA techniques that have been reported.

The result, unfortunately, is a very constrained conception of what constitutes “cruel treatment” — a much narrower conception than a fair or reasonable interpretation of Geneva Article 3(1)(a) would provide. And therefore the bill would appear to exclude from the definition of “cruel treatment” many cases of actual cruel treatment prohibited by Common Article 3. And when that occurs, it is likely the Executive will construe the statute — and Common Article 3, as well — to permit some forms of cruel treatment that Geneva in fact proscribes, i.e., the “alternative” CIA techniques. Indeed, it’s happened already: The ink was hardly dry on the draft when numerous Administration spokespersons were gleefully informing the press that the bill is a green light to the CIA to reinstitute the “alternative” techniques that Hamdan had effectively interdicted. Byron York has gone so far as to relate that “both sides appear to believe that the agreement permits the CIA to continue to use sleep deprivation, cold rooms, and other such techniques,” even though such techniques do, in fact, constitue a breach of our Geneva obligations.

For a better understanding of these techniques, their development through years of CIA-sponsored research, and their propagation around much of the world, see the essential book A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror, by Alfred McCoy. [See also McCoy's summary on Democracy Now!] For information on the use of these techniques by U.S. forces and the effects of these torture techniques, see the detailed Physicians for Human Rights report: Break Them Down: The Systematic Use of Psychological Torture by US Forces:

Psychological torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment can have extremely destructive health consequences for detainees. The effects can include memory impairment, reduced capacity to concentrate, somatic complaints such as headache and back pain,
hyperarousal, avoidance, and irritability.257 Additionally, victims often experience severe depression with vegetative symptoms, nightmares, and “feelings of shame and humiliation” associated with sexual violations, among others.

Thanks to the GOP “rebels,” these techniques will now have Congressional authorization. Further, the tortured will be stripped of all rights to protest their detention or their torture in the courts. Lets hope we don’t get too many “rebels” like these. What veneer of “civilization” remains won’t survive it.

Add comment September 23rd, 2006

Pakistan and the Stone Age

As the administration lies about their “newly revealed” threats against Pakistan in the hours and days after 9/11, Juan Cole reminds us that he reported these threats at the time:

The Pakistan military and what is left of its civilian bureaucracy has therefore acquiesced in President Bush’s demands, even though Pakistan has declined to involve its own troops in fighting outside the country.

What accounts for the alacrity with which Musharraf has moved on this issue? First of all, he appears to have been bluntly threatened. Dawn quotes Pakistani officials as saying, that ” ‘Pakistan has the option to live in the 21st century or the Stone Age’ is roughly how US officials are putting their case.” It is astonishing that the US is talking like this behind the scenes, if true, though presumably the blunt language is coming from aides & lower-level bureaucrats. If Aslam Beg took umbrage at Pakistanis being ordered around like servants, what does he think of them being threatened as though by mafiosi? It shows that in some senses we are already in a war, that a Manichean lining up of assets and enemies is going on, with all countries being the one or the other, willy nilly. It also reveals what those US officials think lies in store for Afghanistan (though as many have pointed out, Afghanistan doesn’t have far to go in that direction anyway).

Cole apparently realized immediately, while others among us were still confused, after 9/11 what a thuggish government we have. He has never feared to call things as he sees them. I do not agreee with Juan Cole on all issues, but I always respect his knowledge and his reasoned opinions.

Add comment September 23rd, 2006

What the torturers agreed to

Here is the text of the agreement between Bush and the McCain-Graham-Warner bootlickers on what torture is legal. All other torture will remain under the table, or be conducted by proxy’s through the “extraordinary rendition” program. [Or view pdf.]

AGREEMENT UPON COMMON ARTICLE 3

SEC. 7. TREATY OBLIGATIONS NOT ESTABLISHING GROUNDS FOR CERTAIN CLAIMS.

(a) IN GENERAL.—No person may invoke the Geneva Conventions or any protocols thereto in any habeas or civil action or proceeding to which the United States, or a current or former officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States, is a party as a source of rights, in any court of the United States or its States or territories.

(b) GENEVA CONVENTIONS DEFINED.—In this section, the term “Geneva Conventions” means—

(1) the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, done at Geneva August 12, 1949 (6 UST 3217);

(2) the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded, Sick, and Shipwrecked Members of the Armed Forces at Sea, done at Geneva August 12, 1949 (6 UST 3217);

(3) the Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, done at Geneva August 12, 1949 (6 UST 3316); and

(4) the Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, done at Geneva August 12, 1949 (6 UST 3516).

SEC. 8. IMPLEMENTATION OF TREATY OBLIGATIONS.

(a)(1) IN GENERAL.—The acts enumerated in subsection 2441(d) of title 18,
United States Code, as amended by subsection (b) of this section, and in subsection (c) of this section, constitute violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions prohibited by United States law.

(2) PROHIBITION ON GRAVE BREACHES.—The provisions in section 2441 of title 18, United States Code, as amended by this section, fully satisfy the obligation under Article 129 of the Third Geneva Convention for the United States to provide effective penal sanctions for grave breaches which are encompassed in Common Article 3 in the context of an armed conflict not of an international character. No foreign or international sources of law shall supply a basis for a rule of decision in the courts of the United States in interpreting the prohibitions enumerated in subsection 2441(d).

(3) INTERPRETATION BY THE PRESIDENT.—(A) As provided by the Constitution and by this section, the President has the authority for the United States to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions and to promulgate higher standards and administrative regulations for violations of treaty obligations which are not grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

(B) The President shall issue such interpretations by Executive Order published in the Federal Register, and such orders shall be authoritative (as to non-grave breach provisions) as a matter of United States law, in the same manner as other administrative regulations.

(C) Nothing in this section shall affect the constitutional functions and
responsibilities of Congress and the judicial branch of the United States.

(b) REVISION TO WAR CRIMES OFFENSE UNDER FEDERAL CRIMINAL CODE.—(1)
Section 2441 of title 18, United States Code, is amended—

(A) in subsection (c), by striking paragraph (3) and inserting the following
new paragraph (3):

“(3) which constitutes a grave breach of Common Article 3 as defined in subsection (d) when committed in the context of and in association with an armed conflict not of an international character; or”;

(B) by adding at the end the following new subsection:

“(d) COMMON ARTICLE 3 VIOLATIONS.—

“(1) PROHIBITED CONDUCT.—In subsection (c)(3), the term ‘grave breach
of Common Article 3’ means any conduct (such conduct constituting a grave
breach of common Article 3 of the international conventions does at Geneva
August 12, 1949), as follows:

“(A) TORTURE.—The act of a person who commits, or conspires or attempts to commit, an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control for the purpose of obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, coercion, or any reason based on discrimination of any kind.

“(B) CRUEL OR INHUMAN TREATMENT.—The act of a person who commits, or conspires or attempts to commit, an act intended to inflict severe or serious physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions), including serious physical abuse, upon another within his custody or control.

“(C) PERFORMING BIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTS.—The act of a person who subjects, or conspires or attempts to subject, one or more persons within his custody or physical control to biological experiments without a legitimate medical or dental purpose and in so doing endangers the body or health of such person or persons.

“(D) MURDER.—The act of a person who intentionally kills, or conspires or attempts to kill, or kills whether intentionally or unintentionally in the course of committing any other offense under this section, one or more persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including those placed out of combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause.
“(E) MUTILATION OR MAIMING.—The act of a person who intentionally injures, or conspires or attempts to injure, or injures whether intentionally or unintentionally in the course of committing any other offense under this section, one or more persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including those placed out of combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, by disfiguring the person or persons by any mutilation thereof or by permanently disabling any member, limb, or organ of his body, without any legitimate medical or dental purpose.

“(F) INTENTIONALLY CAUSING SERIOUS BODILY INJURY.—The act of a person who intentionally causes, or conspires or attempts to cause, serious bodily injury to one or more persons, including lawful combatants, in violation of the law of war.

“(G) RAPE.—The act of a person who forcibly or with coercion or threat of force wrongfully invades, or conspires or attempts to invade, the body of a person by penetrating, however slightly, the anal or genital opening of the victim with any part of the body of the accused, or with any foreign object.

“(H) SEXUAL ASSAULT OR ABUSE.—The act of a person who forcibly or with coercion or threat of force engages, or conspires or attempts to engage, in sexual contact with one or more persons, or causes, or conspires or attempts to cause, one or more persons to engage in sexual contact.

“(I) TAKING HOSTAGES.—The act of a person who, having knowingly seized or detained one or more persons, threatens to kill, injure, or continue to detain such person or persons with the intent of compelling any nation, person other than the hostage, or group of persons to act or refrain from acting as an explicit or implicit condition for the safety or release of such person or persons.

“(2) DEFINITIONS.—In the case of an offense under subsection (a) by
reason of subsection (c)(3)—

“(A) the term ‘severe mental pain or suffering’ shall be applied for
purposes of paragraphs (1)(A) and (1)(B) in accordance with the meaning
given that term in section 2340(2) of this title.

“(B) the term ‘serious bodily injury’ shall be applied for purposes of paragraph (1)(F) in accordance with the meaning given that term in section 113(b)(2) of this title.

“(C) the term ‘sexual contact’ shall be applied for purposes of paragraph (1)(G) in accordance with the meaning given that term in section 2246(3) of this title.

“(D) the term ‘serious physical pain or suffering’ means bodily injury that involves—

(1) a substantial risk of death;

(2) extreme physical pain;

(3) a burn or physical disfigurement of a serious nature, not to include cuts, abrasions, or bruises; or

(4) significant loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty.

“(E) the term ‘serious mental pain or suffering’ shall have the same meaning as ‘severe mental pain or suffering’ as such term is defined in 18 U.S.C. § 2340(2), except that the term ‘serious’ shall replace the term ‘severe’ where it appears in such definition, and except that, as to conduct occurring following the date of enactment of the Military Commission Act of 2006, the term ‘serious and non-transitory mental harm (which need not be prolonged)’ shall replace the term ‘prolonged mental harm’ in such definition.”

“(3) INAPPLICABILITY OF CERTAIN PROVISIONS WITH RESPECT TO
COLLATERAL DAMAGE OR INCIDENT OF LAWFUL ATTACK.—The intent specified for the conduct stated in subparagraphs (D), (E), and (F) or paragraph (1) precludes the applicability of those subparagraphs to an offense under subsection (a) by reasons of subsection (c)(3) with respect to—“(A) collateral damage; or

“(B) death, damage, or injury incident to a lawful attack.

“(4) INAPPLICABILITY OF TAKING HOSTAGES TO PRISONER EXCHANGE.—Paragraph (1)(I) does not apply to an offense under subsection (a) by reason of subsection (c)(3) in the case of a prisoner exchange during wartime.”.

(2) RETROACTIVE APPLICABILITY.—The amendments made by this section, except as specified in paragraph 2441(d)(2)(E) of title 10, United States Code, shall take effect as of November 26, 1997, as if enacted immediately after the amendments made by section 583 of Public Law 105-118 (as amended by section 4002 of Public Law 107-273).

(c) ADDITIONAL PROHIBITION ON CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT.

(1) IN GENERAL.—No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

(2) CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT DEFINED.—
The term ‘cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment’ in this subsection shall mean the cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as defined in the United States Reservations, Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment done at New York, December 10, 1984.

(3) The President shall take action to ensure compliance with this subsection,
including through the establishment of administrative rules and procedures.

A close reading indicates a total capitulation to Bush. The President is free to define his interpretation of the Geneva Convention as he sees fit. “Cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment” continues to be defined in terms of the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution, which as has been explained by several postings here [see this and this], is a way of introducing relativism and situational morality via the “shocks the conscience” criterion.

Over the last few weeks I have debated with myself whether McCain et al were genuine in their opposition to torture. Yesterday’s “compromise” makes it clear that they were not. They settled for a transparent fig leaf that will provide, for the first time, a legalized framework allowing torture as official policy. There will be no need to hide the scars or the destroyed souls. It will all be legal. Daily Kos diarist Valtin was correct, in more ways than he anticipated in his post — Powell/McCain/Graham work to save US torture.

If this passes, the American people will have been tested and found wanting. The information is all available. Congress considered and passed a bill legalizing torture. And the public kept silent. We will have moved from being a torturing society to a society of torturers.

1 comment September 22nd, 2006

Senate to endorse torture

As the showdown on torture developed in the Senate, the question arose of whether McCain-Warner-Graham were serious. Yesterday we discovered it was all a show. They agreed to legalize torture while denying the tortured any hope of escape, by eliminating recourse to the courts. Lifetime imprisonment on a whim, with the potential of torture never ending. That’s now what the United States stands for.

How long until domestic opponents are proclaimed “enemy combatants?” Not so long ago I thought that unlikely. Today, it is hard to believe anything is unlikely.

As I can’t find words to express my horror and disgust, I will include the New York Times editorial:

A Bad Bargain

Here is a way to measure how seriously President Bush was willing to compromise on the military tribunals bill: Less than an hour after an agreement was announced yesterday with three leading Republican senators, the White House was already laying a path to wiggle out of its one real concession.

About the only thing that Senators John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham had to show for their defiance was Mr. Bush’s agreement to drop his insistence on allowing prosecutors of suspected terrorists to introduce classified evidence kept secret from the defendant. The White House agreed to abide by the rules of courts-martial, which bar secret evidence. (Although the administration’s supporters continually claim this means giving classified information to terrorists, the rules actually provide for reviewing, editing and summarizing classified material. Evidence that cannot be safely declassified cannot be introduced.)

This is a critical point. As Senator Graham keeps noting, the United States would never stand for any other country’s convicting an American citizen with undisclosed, secret evidence. So it seemed like a significant concession — until Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, briefed reporters yesterday evening. He said that while the White House wants to honor this deal, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Duncan Hunter, still wants to permit secret evidence and should certainly have his say. To accept this spin requires believing that Mr. Hunter, who railroaded Mr. Bush’s original bill through his committee, is going to take any action not blessed by the White House.

On other issues, the three rebel senators achieved only modest improvements on the White House’s original positions. They wanted to bar evidence obtained through coercion. Now, they have agreed to allow it if a judge finds it reliable (which coerced evidence hardly can be) and relevant to guilt or innocence. The way coercion is measured in the bill, even those protections would not apply to the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.

The deal does next to nothing to stop the president from reinterpreting the Geneva Conventions. While the White House agreed to a list of “grave breaches” of the conventions that could be prosecuted as war crimes, it stipulated that the president could decide on his own what actions might be a lesser breach of the Geneva Conventions and what interrogation techniques he considered permissible. It’s not clear how much the public will ultimately learn about those decisions. They will be contained in an executive order that is supposed to be made public, but Mr. Hadley reiterated that specific interrogation techniques will remain secret.
Even before the compromises began to emerge, the overall bill prepared by the three senators had fatal flaws. It allows the president to declare any foreigner, anywhere, an “illegal enemy combatant” using a dangerously broad definition, and detain him without any trial. It not only fails to deal with the fact that many of the Guantánamo detainees are not terrorists and will never be charged, but it also chokes off any judicial review.

The Democrats have largely stood silent and allowed the trio of Republicans to do the lifting. It’s time for them to either try to fix this bill or delay it until after the election. The American people expect their leaders to clean up this mess without endangering U.S. troops, eviscerating American standards of justice, or further harming the nation’s severely damaged reputation.

It is sad, but only the New York Times has any hopes that the Democrats will take this on. In pursuit of their hopes for “victory in November,” no principle will remain unbent. There will be no clear stance on the war; no stance against torture or against indefinite imprisonment without charges. No way.

The sad thing is, the country is in such bad shape that, despite knowing how useless they are, I still hope the Democrats take Congress. I expect them then to do nothing for two years. But, in certain cases, doing nothing may be better than the alternative.

Add comment September 22nd, 2006

President Clinton endorses torture

This morning on NPR, former President Clinton was on, criticizing Republican moves to legalize torture. Toward the end of the interview came a shocker: Clinton brought up the possibility that there might be circumstances where one really wanted the information held by a detainee. Then Clinton proposed, the interrogators should draw up a plan to waterboard, or whatever. The plan should then be submitted for Presidential authorization and then, after the fact, submitted to the FISA court for review.

Clinton suggested that narrowly drawn legislation could be written that would legalize torture in these circumstances, as an alternative to Bush’s proposed general rewriting of the Geneva Convention’s Common Article 3.

I was, shall we say, shocked to hear Clinton openly endorsing the Dershowitz idea of legalizing torture. Additionally shocking was to discover that the anti-Bush Pensito Review website actually cited the Clinton interview positively, ignoring that he had just endorsed torture, albeit in “limited” circumstances.

I guess the Bush-is-absolute-evil school goes along with the “if only Clinton was still President.” How quickly people forget how depressing the Clinton Presidency was, what with Clinton “triangulating” by attacking liberals and friends and cozying up to the right, with healthcare reform being destroyed for a generation, gays being blessed with “don’t ask, don’t tell” codifying hatred, welfare “reform” being passed that contained little in job training or childcare resources to help people, and missiles being sent randomly into Iraq every few days to kill a few here, a few there. If historical memory is so short, heaven help us.

Add comment September 21st, 2006