My newest article, Why Mary Pipher Returned Her APA Award, is now available on CounterPunch. Its an expanded version of Author Mary Pipher returns award to American Psychological Association, posted her yesterday.
2 comments August 25th, 2007
The New York Times reports that there are almost 25,000 Iraqis in US detention today, a 50% increase over a year ago:
The number of detainees held by the American-led military forces in Iraq has swelled by 50 percent under the troop increase ordered by President Bush, with the inmate population growing to 24,500 today from 16,000 in February, according to American military officers in Iraq.
The detainee increase comes, they said, because American forces are operating in areas where they had not been present for some time, and because more units are able to maintain a round-the-clock presence in some areas. They also said more Iraqis were cooperating with military forces.
Nearly 85 percent of the detainees in custody are Sunni Arabs, the minority faction in Iraq that ruled the country under the government of Saddam Hussein; the other detainees are Shiites, the officers say.
The New York Times doesn’t do the calculations, but this means roughly 1.5% of the Sunni male population, children included, is imprisoned. This is more like 3% of the Sunni adult male population. add on thousands of Sunnis held by the Shiite dominated government and we have the definition of a population under occupation.
August 25th, 2007
The top military JAG lawyers from all three services have expressed concerns to Congress about the President’s order authorizing the CIA’s “enhanced techniques” [aka, "torture"], the Boston Globe reports:
Top military lawyers have told senators that President Bush’s new rules for CIA interrogations of suspected terrorists could allow abuses that violate the Geneva Conventions, according to Senate and military officials.
The Judge Advocates General of all branches of the military told the senators that a July 20 executive order establishing rules for the treatment of CIA prisoners appeared to be carefully worded to allow humiliating or degrading interrogation techniques when the interrogators’ objective is to protect national security rather than to satisfy sadistic impulses.
The JAGs expressed their concerns at a meeting late last month with Senators John Warner of Virginia, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and an aide representing John McCain of Arizona, who could not attend because he was campaigning for president. All three senators are Republicans who have been key proponents of laws banning the abuse of detainees, and have vowed to monitor the Bush administration’s treatment of prisoners.
The top JAG for the US Army, Major General Scott C. Black, followed up on the meeting this month by sending a memo to lower-ranking soldiers reminding them that Bush’s executive order applies only to the CIA, not to military interrogations. Black told soldiers they must follow Army regulations, which “make clear that [the Geneva Conventions are] the minimum humane treatment standard” for prisoners.
“This Executive Order does not change the standard for the Army. . . . I want to ensure that there is no confusion concerning the Executive Order’s lack of applicability to the Army,” Black wrote in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by the Globe. “As a Corps, we must be diligent to ensure that all interrogation and detention operations comply with the Army standard.”
In an e-mail yesterday, a Justice Department spokesman defended Bush’s order as “consistent” with the minimum standards of humane treatment required by the Geneva Conventions.
But the JAGs told the senators that a key part of the order opens the door to violations of the section of the Geneva Conventions that outlaws “cruel treatment and torture” and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment,” officials familiar with the discussion said.
The JAGs cited language in the executive order in which Bush said CIA interrogators may not use “willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual.” As an example, it lists “sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation.”
Among lawyers, “for the purpose” language is often used to mean that a person must specifically intend to do something, such as causing humiliation, in order to violate a statute. The JAGs said Bush’s wording appears to make it legal for interrogators to undertake that same abusive action if they had some other motive, such as gaining information.
Other law-of-war specialists agreed that this part of Bush’s executive order creates an escape clause allowing abusive treatment….
The Bush administration legal team had previously invoked a similar “intent” loophole to give legal cover to harsh interrogations. In a once-secret Aug. 1, 2002, Justice Department memo about an antitorture law, the administration legal team said interrogators could avoid violating anti-torture laws if they said their motivation was protecting national security.
“Even if the [interrogator] knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent,” the 2002 memo read.
The memo was leaked after the Abu Ghraib torture scandal in 2004 and sparked an outcry over its permissive attitude toward torture.
It was subsequently withdrawn by the Justice Department.
August 25th, 2007
I am scheduled to be on WBAI radio Monday at 7:25 AM (thankfully moved from 6:25) to discuss the issue of psychologists and abusive interrogations. Evidently, if you are not in New York, you can listen live at http://wbai.org/. Apparently, the shows are also archived for 90 days and available for download.
August 25th, 2007
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