Horton and Ackerman on Jay Bybee
Law professors Scott Horton and Bruce Ackerman discuss Jay Bybee, the torture lawyer who is currently a federal judge:
April 27th, 2009
Archive for April 27th, 2009
Maddow disambiguates torture
Rachel Maddow shows yet again that she’s one of the smartest voices in the media:
April 27th, 2009
Sen. Levin: DoJ, investigate torture, make accountability recommendations
Senator Carl Levin, Chair of the Armed Services Committee [SASC] has called for a high-level Justice Department investigation into US torture and to make recommendations for accountability:
Detainee abuses and American values
By Sen. Carl Levin
Washington D.C. —
Recently the Senate Armed Services Committee released the declassified report of its investigation into the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. The bipartisan report, which was approved by the committee on Nov. 20, 2008, has been under review for declassification by the Department of Defense.
The committee’s report represents a condemnation of both the Bush administration’s interrogation policies and of senior administration officials who attempted to shift the blame for abuse, which occurred at places such as Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and in Afghanistan, to low ranking soldiers. Claims, such as the one made by former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz that detainee abuses could be chalked up to the unauthorized acts of a “few bad apples,” were simply false.
The truth is that, early on, it was senior civilian leaders who set the tone. Vice President Dick Cheney suggested that the United States turn to the “dark side” in our response to 9/11, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales called parts of the Geneva Conventions “quaint,” and President Bush determined that provisions of the Geneva Conventions did not apply to certain detainees. Other senior officials followed the President and Vice President’s lead, authorizing policies that included harsh and abusive interrogation techniques.The record established by the Committee’s investigation shows that senior officials sought out information on, were aware of training in, and authorized the use of abusive interrogation techniques. Those senior officials bear significant responsibility for creating the legal and operational framework for the abuses. As the Committee report concluded, authorizations of aggressive interrogation techniques by senior officials resulted in abuse and conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody.
With the recent release of the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel memoranda, it is now widely known that Bush administration officials distorted Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) training, a legitimate program used by the military to train our troops to resist abusive enemy interrogations, by authorizing techniques from SERE for use in detainee interrogations.
In SERE training, U.S. troops are briefly exposed, in a highly controlled setting, to abusive interrogation techniques used by enemies that refuse to follow the Geneva Conventions. The techniques are based on tactics used by Chinese Communists against American soldiers during the Korean War for the purpose of eliciting false confessions for propaganda purposes. Techniques used in SERE training include stripping trainees of their clothing, placing them in stress positions, depriving them of sleep, throwing them up against a wall, confining them in a small box, treating them like animals, and exposing them to extreme temperatures. Until recently, the Navy SERE school also used waterboarding.
The purpose of the SERE program is to provide U.S. troops who might be captured a taste of the treatment they might face so that they might have a better chance of surviving captivity and resisting abusive interrogations. SERE training techniques were never intended to be used in the interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody.
In a May 10, 2007, letter to his troops, General David Petraeus said that “what sets us apart from our enemies in this fight… is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human beings.”
If we are to retain our status as the world’s leader, and live up to the values that General Petraeus articulated, we must acknowledge and confront the abuse of detainees in our custody. The committee’s report and investigation make significant progress toward that goal. There is still the question, however, of whether high level officials who approved and authorized those policies should be held accountable.
I have recommended to Attorney General Holder that he select a distinguished individual or individuals — either inside or outside the Justice Department, such as retired federal judges, to look at the volumes of evidence relating to treatment of detainees, including evidence in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s report, and to recommend what steps, if any, should be taken to establish accountability of high-level officials, including lawyers.
April 27th, 2009
Bioethicist Steven Miles joins call for investigation of American Psychological Association ties to military
Bioethicist Steven Miles joins the call — first issued by Psychologists for Social Responsibility last week — for an investigation of the American Psychological Association’s ties to the military-intelligence establishment that led to its continuing to support psychologist participation in US national security interrogations long past the point where it was obvious that psychologists had designed, conducted, standardized, and legitimated US torture. Miles’ call takes the form of an open letter to Drs. Stephen Behnke, APA Ethics Director, and Gerald Koocher, 2006 APA President, two of the fiercest defenders of the APA’s “policy of engagement” in interrogations:
Dear Dr. Koocher and Dr. Behnke,
The collapse of the rationalizations and denials and secrecy that obscured the previous Administration’s program of abusive interrogation is accelerating. The UN, European Parliament, and ICRC long ago named these practices for what they were: torture. Today, even senior Republican party officials and former Bush officials also refer to the documents as torture memos. The pretense that some form of accountability can be avoided is gone.
Psychologists and physicians were central to the implementation of these human rights abuses. As a physician, I am working to secure the accountability of physicians. As a health professional, the APA must hold its own Truth Commission.
You had leadership roles in the APA’s relationship to these interrogations. You gave an APA platform, the PENS Task Force, to the control of senior Department of Defense officials who were intimately involved in the support, protection, and implementation of corrupted interrogation standards. As the scandal unfolded you continued to allow those officials to speak through the public voice of the APA.
I am asking you to lend your voices to publically urging the APA to conduct a transparent review of how the APA got into this position.
What were the formative contacts between DoD and APA that led to the creation of the PENS Task Force?
Who nominated and selected the members of the PENS Task Force?
What were the back channel communications between APA and DoD officials as the PENS Task Force Report was drafted and modified?
The answers to these questions cannot undo the damage but they are needed for those who can work to prevent such recruitment of a health professional organization in the future.
Sincerely,
Steven Miles, MD
N504 Boynton, 410 Church St SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455-0346
612-624-9440
I would go beyond the call of Dr. Miles and say that any investigation has to examine the entire nexus of ties between the APA and the military-intelligence establishment that created the environment for the current crisis. Why, for example, is the APA’s tiny division of Military Psychology often given veto power over any APA initiatives in the national security arena, a power never granted to the far larger Divisions for Social Justice or any other human rights advocates? Why does the APA Board usually have several members with close military ties? Why did the Defense Department interfere in last summer’s APA referendum on participation in interrogations? ? And why for so long did the APA maintain the fiction that the psychologists in interrogations were primarily there to protect, rather than to break down detainees?
We need answers if psychology is to survive as a profession with a commitment to human betterment.
1 comment April 27th, 2009