The Obama administration official memo containing Changes to the Manual for Military Commissions, dated April 13, 2009 is now available.. I have uploaded it here.
It contains this summary of the changes:
In brief, the changes are:
1. Remove references to the Combatant Status Review Tribunal within Rule for Military Commission 202 and specify that a commission is a “competent tribunal” for purposes of determining the jurisdictional predicate;
2. Remove the discussion section within Military Commission Rule of Evidence 301, which directs the military judge to instruct commission members to consider that the accused did not subject himself to cross-examination if the accused introduces his own hearsay statements at trial but does not testify;
3. Modify Military Commission Ru1e of Evidence 304 to render inadmissible all evidence the judge deems to have been secured as a result of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment within the meaning of the Detainee Treatment Act;
4. Provide for a right of individual military counsel in Rule for Military Commissions 506, permitting a right to counsel of choice within the office of the Chief Defense Counsel;
5. Modify Military Commission Rule of Evidence 803(c) to reverse the burden of proof regarding hearsay statements from a requirement that the opponent establish unreliability to a requirement that the proponent establish reliability.
While these changes are improvements to the former military commissions rules, the reconstitution of the commissions still constitute the creation of a new court system by the prosecution in order to guarantee convictions. In other words, the very antithesis of the rule of law. This way lies tyranny.
May 16th, 2009
Now that the question of the relationship of US torture to false evidence of an Iraq-Al Qaeda link has come to the fore, Salon reporter Mark Benjamin reminds us that Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, the “torture general” of Guantanamo, recomemended getting tough to the Iraq Survey Group who were valliantly hunting the non-existent WMD in Iraq. Gen. Miller, you may recall, was on his way at the time to Abu Ghraib, where he successfully recomended “Gitmoizing” the prion, thus contributing to one of trhe greatest strategic defeats in US history. As Benjamin tells the story:
In August and early September of 2003, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the man in charge of the Pentagon’s torture laboratory at Guantanamo Bay, was dispatched to Iraq, allegedly to Gitmoize operations there.
It seems to have worked, at least in one place. Soon after Miller visited with officials in charge of Abu Ghraib, guards there began to use working dogs, stress positions, extremely lengthy interrogations, isolation, yelling and nudity in order to try to wring information from prisoners — all techniques that had been used at Guantanamo and that the world would later see in photos released from an investigation in to what had gone on at the prison.
But according to the Senate committee’s report, before Miller met with the Abu Ghraib officials, he first made a little-known visit to the Iraq Survey Group, which was in charge of the hunt for WMDs in Iraq after the invasion.
Miller told the ISG they were “running a country club” by not getting tough on detainees, Chief Warrant Officer Brian Searcy, the ISG interrogation chief, told the Senate committee. Searcy said Miller suggested shackling detainees and forcing them to walk on gravel. Mike Kamin, another ISG official, told committee investigators that Miller recommended temperature manipulation and sleep deprivation.
Miller also told the ISG’s Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton that Dayton’s unit was “not getting much out of these people,” and complained that the ISG had not “broken” their detainees psychologically. Miller offered to send along suggested techniques, Dayton recalled, that would “actually break” the prisoners.
Dayton demurred, saying his unit wasn’t changing anything and that lawyers would have to carefully vet anything Miller suggested. The ISG generally balked. One of its debriefers threatened to resign if Miller got his way. After the cool reception, Miller appears to have dropped the effort with respect to the ISG.
On his return from Iraq, Miller was sent directly to the Pentagon to personally brief then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Steven Cambone. [emphasis added.]
Followers of this blog may recall that Col. Larry James, a BSCT at Guantanamo under Gen. Miller, is full of wonderful words on the humane tretment of detainees under Miller’s command:
Col. James has a long and honorable association with Behavioral Science Consultation Teams and Guantanamo. “In 2003, my commander made it very clear that he wanted the BSCT to work with interrogators on how to develop rapport-building strategies and techniques with detainees,” said James.
That commander, of course, was Miller. And we know the nature of those “rapport-building” techniques Miller encouraged: isolation, sleep deprivation, hypothermia, nudity, sexual humiliation by females, and visious “stress positions.” And the goal, as Miller reminds us, was to “break” the detainees. We should remember that the torture of Al-Qahtani begins, according to p. 1 of the interrogation log, with a “rapport-builing session.”
May 16th, 2009
Rachel Maddow skewered President Bush Obama last night: “If its Friday, the Obama administration must be announcing another jaw-dropping decision on civil liberties.”
Her guest was Major David Frakt, defense counsel for Mohammed Jawad, in his kangaroo court “military commission” war crimes trial. President Obama has now decided that these “trials” may resume, channeling President Bush.
Maj. Frakt:
“When President Obama promised changes in policies, we thought he was going to change President Bush’s policies, not change his own policies.”
May 16th, 2009