"No one knows what their commitments are"
Paging Maryland Senators Barbara Mikulski, Paul Sarbanes, and would-be Senator Ben Cardin: say something about the detainee torture and habeas legislation known as the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that McCain and Bush are putting together.





...OK, while we wait on that -- and having rechristened the Party of Torture below -- here are some words about the apparent Party of Fearful Acquiescence:

The Coming Democratic Debacle (Mark Graber, ("Balkinization") -- Graber says that Democrats will underperform in November -- perhaps not losing seats, but not gaining as many as a better opposition party would have either:

Rather than run, as Republicans did in 1994, as a party committed to a particular program, Democrats are running as the party not as bad in vaguely specified ways as the Republicans. This leaves every Democratic candidate highly vulnerable to the dominant Republican strategy, which is to say, whatever you think of Republicans nationally, the particular Republican in your district or state is not so bad and, more importantly, the Democrat in your district or state has real weaknesses. Democrats are poorly positioned to defeat these personal attacks because the only thing they presently stand for is not being Republicans. Of course, they wink at people like me with the message that there will be less torture if they are elected, but the truth is that no one knows what their commitments are, other than to low risk political strategies.

Outrage and shame (tristero, "Hullabaloo") --

So tell me, my fellow Americans:

How does it feel knowing that your government will pass laws permitting the violation of the Geneva Conventions against torture?

How does it feel knowing the taxes you pay from money you earned are going towards the salary of legally sanctioned torturers?

How does it feel knowing that the only political party with an organization large enough to stand in opposition to the American fascists in charge of this country's legislature and executive were actually boasting that they were not going to get involved in one of the most important moral debates of our time?

And how does it feel to have George W. Bush, that paragon of moral probity, mental stability, and well-informed intelligence, granted the legal right to determine what is and isn't torture?

I'll tell you how I feel. I am outraged and ashamed.

Legal Realism 101 and the McCain Capitulation (Sandy Levinson, "Balkinization") --

This so-called "compromise" means, purely and simply, that we don't even profess to take seriously the minimal conditions for "the rule of law" with regard to those determined, often by fiat judgment, to be "the worst of the worst." What is even more dispiriting is that there is no reason to believe that the Democrats will defeat this disgrace, as they could through a filibuster that would simply delay its passage beyond the November elections, the whole point of this charade, because they are fearful of being tarred as "friends of the terrorists." There is, that is, no "opposition party" in America with regard to one of the deepest issues of our time. THAT is George W. Bush's biggest victory, helped along by Tom Daschle's (and John Kerry's and Hillary Clinton's etc.) absolutely disastrous decision in 2002 to write Bush a blank check on Iraq in order to focus the attention of the American electorate on prescription drugs for the elderly.

Punked (digby, "Hullabaloo") --

Here's how the optics look to me:

McCain, the Republican rebel maverick, showed that Republicans are moral and look out for their troops.

Bush, the Republican statesman and leader, showed that he is committed to protecting Americans but that he is willing to listen and compromise when people of good faith express reservations about tactics.

The Democrats showed they are ciphers who don't have the stones to even say a word when the most important moral issue confronting the government is being debated. [...]

I honestly think it would have been much, much better if [Democrats had] forced their way into the debate and taken a firm stand -- if only to show they give a damn. This is a turn-out election and I have a feeling many a Democrat's stomach will turn as they see this triumph of GOP "leadership" in action. Why bother to vote when the Democrats don't bother to show up? [...]

Clarification: When I wrote "why bother to vote" I meant it in a purely rhetorical sense. Of course you must vote and you must vote for Democrats. I don't believe they are playing this well in a turnout mid-term election but we simply have no choice but to try to stop the people who are actually ordering this torture and degradation.

"Democrats: They're Nowhere Near As Bad (TM)." And that does matter. But there's also working to help with turnout. Until I hear Cardin get up on his hind legs and utter something approaching a principled point of view about the detainee torture, habeas, and tribunal debates, I'm sitting out the Senate race.

I didn't make a big deal of it, but I voted for Alan Lichtman for U.S. Senator in the primary election because I got the sense that his primary concern was defending the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, and the honor of this country.

I'm sorry to say I don't sense that commitment or leadership from Cardin right now -- or from Mikulski, Sarbanes, or any other Democratic senator for that matter. Maybe Harry Reid knows how to run out the clock on this one before Congress adjourns. But it doesn't look like he cares to try, judging by this New York Times excerpt (via Glenn Greenwald):

“A handful of principled Republican Senators have forced the White House to back down from the worst elements of its extreme proposal for new interrogation rules,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader.

I suppose there's still a little wiggle room there -- just because the "worst" was supposedly avoided doesn't mean the rest is good enough. But that's clearly grasping at straws. The Democratic leadership looks set to watch this go forward with their arms crossed at best, and with their active support at worst.

So all of you, any of you, anyone out there -- Sarbanes, Mikulski, Cardin; Kerry, Durbin, Feingold, Kennedy; hell, Frank Cownie, Carrot Top, Shaquille O'Neal, anyone at all -- speak up. Lead. Say something. It's never too late for that. posted by Thomas Nephew at 4:50:00 PM -- |  

 
The Party of Torture
Sanford Levinson, at the New Republic's "Open University" blog site:

Is the Republican Party 'the party of torture?' A recent book by Ramesh Ponnuru is helpfully titled The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life. To my knowledge, no Republicans have suggested that there is anything over the top about that title. So why shouldn't we start referring to the Republican Party as 'the party of torture,' given that almost all of the party, with all too few honorable exceptions, seems to be lining up in goosestep fashion behind the administration's desire to engage in the de facto legalization of torture (whatever euphemisms they choose to call it)?"

Good idea. Pass it on. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:17:00 PM -- |  

 
Summing up the "compromise": filibuster it
Remember Abu Ghraib Guy? After hundreds of thousands of words about all this, it looks like he's still in a world of hurt, following the "Agreement on Common Article 3" of the Geneva Conventions between Republican senators and the Republican White House. That's because human rights and legal experts disagree on whether this -- a.k.a. "long time standing" -- will be OK or not*:


Elaine Massimino (Human Rights First) thinks it isn't OK under the agreement, Marty Lederman thinks it is. This gives me a bad, bad feeling that the White House thinks it is, too. So does this comment to the Washington Post, via Lederman:

Bush essentially got what he asked for in a different formulation that allows both sides to maintain their concerns were addressed. 'We kind of take the scenic route, but we get there,' the official said.

Scenic route. Whatever. It will be a moot point for fellows like this in the future, because they won't be able to complain about it to anyone:

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.

The whole thing is retroactive through 1997, when the prior code was legislated, so all the people who've been busy doing whatever nasty Yoo-designed torture loopholes this was all about will be home free, as will Yoo et al themselves, I'd guess.

Bear in mind that the fellow in that picture in the future may be as innocent of anything as, say, Maher Arar was. He'll just have a good deal more trouble being heard.

This is a pathetic joke, McCain, Warner, and Graham are a bunch of frauds, and this measure should be filibustered or otherwise delayed until dead.



=====
* As we'll all proudly recall, the guy was told he was wired so that he'd electrocute himself if he stumbled off the box into standing water below him; I believe that was a deception practiced on him, hence the hood. I don't know where that would fit in all the verbiage of this agreement, but assume it's prohibited, and one still has difficulty seeing where the fundamental part of this ordeal -- "long time standing", overnight in his case IIRC -- is specifically prohibited; it looks more like it's specifically overlooked.

UPDATE, 9/22: Publius ("Legal Fiction"), another lawyer-blogger, compares the McCain, Bush, and compromise bills and declares "Bush Wins." He suggests some of the language "arguably pushes criminal liability down the chain of command." Knock me over with a feather. He also suggests "the penalties for “cruel” punishment will not be determined by the existing penalties under the War Crimes Act, but by the President through administrative penalties."
UPDATE, 9/22: More bad reviews: A Bad Bargain (New York Times); The Abuse Can Continue (Washington Post). Slate:"the Post reports defendants will be allowed to see it in "summary or redacted form." (Of course, the extent of the redaction is critical: "We are sentencing you to death because of evidence you ?????? on ???? with ??????" isn't very helpful.)"
posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:00:00 AM -- |  

 
When Ehrlich's right, he's right: for paper ballots in November

Dear Ms. Hixson, Ms. Mizeur, Mr. Hucker, and Mr. Raskin,

First of all, congratulations again on your wins in the primary election on September 12. I’m confident you’ll all win in November as well (extremely confident in Jamie’s case!), and that you’ll all provide progressive voices of leadership in the upcoming legislative season.

In fact, I respectfully suggest you can provide that leadership right now. As you know, Governor Ehrlich has called for Maryland to return to paper ballots in the November election. Much as I am surprised to say it, when he’s right, he’s right. Science and common sense are on his side in doing away with the flawed and overly complex electronic systems this state’s Board of Elections have visited upon Maryland voters. I know that you’re each in favor of verified voting – and paper ballots are the ultimate verified voting.

I therefore hope you’ll all speak out on behalf of paper ballots for the November election. While you’re at it, you might consider speaking out for removing Linda Lamone and Gilles Burger from their posts on the state Board of Elections as soon as possible; they have been arrogant defenders of their own poor decisions at the expense of Maryland voters, and it’s long since time for them to go.

This is a chance to say early and clearly that progressive voices will not be swayed by the politics of the past – including politicians on either side of the aisle like Mike Miller who seem more interested in defending sunk costs and poor decisions than clearly assessing what’s right to ensure the integrity of our votes.

I’m mindful of the politics of the situation, and for whatever it's worth, I too have been outspoken in condemning Ehrlich’s politics and style in the past. But that’s all the more reason for Ehrlich not to gain an issue he can run with in the coming weeks. Let’s just open the door he’s trying to run through, and take this off the table as an election issue. I’d particularly urge you to speak with our Democratic candidates for governor and the Senate and ask them to join you in supporting Ehrlich’s initiative. The sooner we make this a nonpartisan issue, the better.

I’m also mindful of the difficulties in switching systems at this point in the 2006 elections process. But let’s not overestimate those difficulties on the say-so of state and county boards of elections. Frankly, it looks to me (and, I suspect, to most voters) like those guys will have trouble no matter what; let’s make it easier to spot and fix their mistakes by putting votes on hard copy and not just on bytes inside an unverifiable electronic system. It’s not as if we’ve never run paper ballot elections in Maryland before.

Meanwhile, respected Johns Hopkins computer scientist, electronic voting expert, and experienced elections judge Avi Rubin (author of Brave New Ballot) today said he agreed with Ehrlich’s call. If anything else, Democrats should not suddenly let Republicans be the ones to take sober, technical, expert advice seriously while they even appear to calculate the short-term partisan advantage of opposing that advice. I know all of you are not such Democrats, and hope that you’ll take a stand now against this state’s flawed electronic voting systems.


Sincerely and respectfully,

Thomas Nephew
[address withheld]


PS: If you haven’t already seen it, please have a look at the Princeton University video showing how to make Diebold AccuVote machines yield inaccurate results with a computer virus, and how to spread that virus to multiple machines with “infected” voting cards.

PPS: I'll be posting this e-mail to my blog later in the day. I'll also be contacting outgoing Delegates Murray and Franchot and outgoing Senator Ruben with the same message, in case the special legislative session ... occurs. [...]

I sent the above e-mail to my likely future representatives and senator in the Maryland legislature, CC'd the state and Montgomery County boards of elections, and added an invitation to respond.

I've now spoken to or corresponded with several of the recipients personally and cordially several times over the last several months. I value that greatly, and don't enjoy jeopardizing it with an arguably cheeky e-mail and public blog post. But I can't let this opportunity pass to try, with all the small means at my disposal, to help end nonverifiable electronic voting in Maryland now.

Even though they won't all be voting on it if it comes before a special legislative session -- Ms. Hixson is the only incumbent among the four -- all of these future legislators' voices matter in this question; indeed, their own elections and their supporters' votes will be affected. I hope they're considering supporting the prompt switch to a paper ballot system in November. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:19:00 PM -- |  

 
A rule of honor older than our republic
Last weekend, we visited George Washington's Mount Vernon home again, it's a favorite for all of us. There was a crafts fair, and it was great fun, in a make-believe kind of way: smoked turkey legs for lunch, a potter turning a pot on a simple foot-powered wheel, a candlemaker dipping candles. The First Virginia Regiment re-enactors showed how American Revolutionary war era soldiers formed a line, loaded, aimed, fired. Later we went out on a free boat ride and saw the historic house from the river, the same way British gunboats may have seen it during the war.

It all made me a little wistful. From an interview with human-rights lawyer Scott Horton by NewsCity's Tim McGivern:

Now, if you know the tradition of the United States Army, one thing has been consistent and that is that we are aggressive and tough on the field of battle, but when you take prisoners they are treated humanly and with respect.

That's the rule that was set by George Washington in the battle of Trenton on Dec. 25, 1776. The soldiers of the continental army took the Hessians and said these soldiers are mercenaries and we should take retribution on them. They wanted the Hessians to run the gauntlet and they would beat them with sticks.

No, we would never do that.

General Washington said we will not do this. He said these people will be treated with respect and dignity and they will suffer no abuse or torture, because to do otherwise would bring dishonor upon our sacred cause.

That's one of the first orders given to the continental army and that antedates the United States. It has been military tradition for 240 years, and it was stopped by Donald Rumsfeld.

Emphasis added.

Those quaint words "sacred" and "honor" come up elsewhere, as it happens. As any loyal watcher of Liberty's Kids knows, our very Declaration of Independence closes with the words "our sacred Honor," as in "we mutually pledge to eachother our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

So I think this whole "honor" thing might be something worth considering by conservatives, concerned as they always are with our nation's traditions and its original intent. At least, I wish it were.


=====
UPDATE, 9/21: photos added. NOTE: The reenactor didn't say what was in the caption, nor was he asked the implied question. But I'll leave the caption as it is. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:30:00 PM -- |  

 
(202) 224-4654, (202) 224-4524
Those are the phone numbers of Maryland Senators Barbara Mikulski and Paul Sarbanes. Call them as soon as you can and read them Congressman Chris Van Hollen's position on the sick torture debate disgracing this country:

Congressman Van Hollen opposes torture, opposes efforts to redefine torture, and opposes efforts to redefine our commitment to the Geneva Conventions.

It's really not so hard to say that, is it! Then ask them,

How about you?

Van Hollen's position via the estimable Stephanie Dray, who points out it's by no means too late to give your Senators a piece of your mind about plans to make it less risky to torture, and harder to complain about it or prosecute it.

For my part, I'm against all of it: the Bush administration bill, the McCain/Warner/Graham bill, all of it, and I said the senators should filibuster either of them. We were doing fine before 9/11 without these measures -- if Bush's team had taken Al Qaeda seriously, there wouldn't have been a 9/11. We'll do fine after Bush is gone without these measures. And in my opinion, we'll eventually need to be able to prosecute certain war criminals, and both bills will prevent that.

Please contact your Senators about this. Full contact information for both Maryland Senators:

Mikulski, Barbara A.- (D - MD)
503 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4654
Web Form: mikulski.senate.gov/mailform.html

Sarbanes, Paul S.- (D - MD)
309 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4524
Web Form: sarbanes.senate.gov/pages/email.html

=====
UPDATE, 9/20: a Human Rights First e-mailing this morning provides some additional or alternative talking points:

• The White House is advancing extremely troubling legislation with regard to treatment of detainees in U.S. custody, and I urge you to reject it.
• The Administration's proposal is clearly the wrong approach. It violates the Geneva Conventions and evades the recent Hamdan v. Rumsfeld Supreme Court ruling.
• I am counting on you to reject any proposal that would redefine the Geneva Conventions. We must restore our nation's reputation, as well as protect our troops. If we condone abuse of detainees in U.S. custody, we invite other nations to do the same when our own soldiers are taken captive.

...and adds, "There is too much at stake for us to remain idle while our Senators debate this dangerous proposal." Call first, then send an e-mail or five. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:30:00 PM -- |  

 
Well said
Roy Edroso ("alicublog"), on 9/11ism:

Not the honored dead, but the prospect of electoral defeat, animates these blog 'remembrances.' For them, 9/11 has the same importance that Super Bowl Sunday has for McDonalds and FedEx. We will soon see what kind of return on investment they achieved.

Steve Benen ("The Carpetbagger Report") on conservatives, even Reverend ones, discovering shades of gray in the torture debate:

The left insists that torture is wrong; the right insists it's occasionally necessary. The left sees moral absolutes; the right sees nuances and situational ethics. Perhaps the most common complaint from conservatives lately is that the left, on the issue of abusing detainees, isn't morally relativistic enough.

I'm not sure when, exactly, the right started to believe "if it feels bad, do it," but it's right around the time the conservative movement lost its soul.

Jim Macdonald ("Making Light"), on Bush's defiant threat to end all interrogations if he doesn't get his way on ignoring Geneva Conventions he doesn't like:

Yes, friends, Bush was saying, in almost so many words, “If you don’t make torture legal, I’m going to stop torturing people!”

Personally, I don’t see a down side to that.

Paul Krugman ("New York Times"), on Bush's call to those other angels of our nature:

Only now, five years after 9/11, has Mr. Bush finally found some things he wants us to sacrifice. And those things turn out to be our principles and our self-respect.

They're all so very shrill, aren't they. What do you expect: buncha lefty bloggers and a Western journalist.



=====
NOTE: Krugman item via Nell Lancaster. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:30:00 PM -- |  

 
Judgment at Nuremberg
Marty Lederman has been right about just about everything on the topic of the administration's misguided aims and policies regarding its prisoners. So it's only with great hesitation that I'll say I think Lederman is wrong when he says providing legal immunity for past misconduct is not a major point of the current legislative proposals:

To the extent officials violated the standards of Common Article 3 with respect to Al Qaeda prior to June 29, 2006 (the date of Hamdan), they could not be prosecuted for such violations of CA3 (as incorporated in the War Crimes Act), even without the Administration's amendment, because the President had determined that CA3 does not apply to the conflict with Al Qaeda, and due process would prevent any prosecutions for conduct undertaken in reasonable reliance on that presidential determination.

Lederman believes the main point is to keep options open for future cold cell/long time standing/ etc practicioners, not to shield past ones, arguing that reasonable people would assume that a presidential directive was ipso facto a legal directive.

The problem, I think, is that Lederman is thinking about the wrong war criminals. I can't argue with Lederman about the prospects of some ethically challenged waterboarder at the CIA being tried for war crimes.

No, it's the people at the OLC like John Yoo, and the people in the Pentagon like William Haynes II who need to be worried -- they gave the criminal advice, they greased the skids by suppressing the countervailing views. It's the civilian commanders who knew they ordered that advice a la carte who need to be worried -- they reflected that advice right down the chain of command. I think this debate is at least in part about the very real prospect of indicting John Yoo and David Addington and Alberto Gonzales and William Haynes and Donald Rumsfeld for war crimes.

One important precedent might be USA vs. Josef Altstötter et al, 1947 -- better known as the Judges Trial or Justice Trial, and best known as Judgment at Nuremberg. It was about whether judges and -- more to my point -- civilian justice officials could be held criminally liable for the reprehensible advice they gave and the criminal actions they took under color of law.

Back when there were still happy endings to questions like this, they could. From the verdict:

• Paragraph 13 of count two of the indictment charges in substance that the Ministry of Justice participated with the OKW and the Gestapo in the execution of the Hitler decree of Night and Fog whereby civilians of occupied countries accused of alleged crimes in resistance activities against German occupying forces were spirited away for secret trial by special courts of the Ministry of Justice within the Reich; that the victim's whereabouts, trial, and subsequent disposition were kept completely secret, thus serving the dual purpose of terrorizing the victim's relatives and associates and barring recourse to evidence, witnesses, or counsel for defense.
• Von Ammon is chargeable with actual knowledge concerning the systematic abuse of the judicial process in these cases. [...]
  We find the defendant von Ammon guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity...
• Rothenberger not only participated in securing the enactment of a discriminatory law against Jews; he enforced it when enacted and, in the meantime, before its enactment, upon his own initiative he acted without authority of any law in denying to Jewish paupers the aid of the courts. [...]
  He participated in the corruption and perversion of the judicial system. The defendant Rothenberger is guilty under counts two and three of the indictment.
• By way of summary we may say that Schlegelberger supported the pretension of Hitler in his assumption of power to deal with life and death in disregard of even the pretense of judicial process. By his exhortations and directives, Schlegelberger contributed to the destruction of judicial independence. It was his signature on the decree of 7 February 1942 which imposed upon the Ministry of Justice and the courts the burden of the prosecution, trial, and disposal of the victims of Hitler's Night and Fog. For this he must be charged with primary responsibility.
• Etcetera...
  

The charges and circumstances of the "Judges Trial" were specific to their time and place. But the principles established were broad: the legal profession could and would be held culpable for its facilitation of war crimes and crimes against humanity. I think these cases show a a real resemblance to the methods of the current administration: law twisted into an instrument of wrongdoing, via loyalty to the commander in chief and all manner of subterfuge as long as necessary, and the cover of legal Latin, memoranda, gavels, and robes.

Not only do the "Night and Fog" (Nacht und Nebel) decree, the directives it spawned, and other decrees like it look eerily familiar, but as Senator Durbin once pointed out, the outcomes of many of these "legal" efforts bear a very strong resemblance to eachother as well. Interestingly, the one charge the Nuremberg tribunal seems to have generally thrown out -- conspiracy -- may be quite appropriate as well in the current case.

In my (inexpert) opinion, it's this as much as anything else that has been, shall we say, strongly motivating Bush et al ever since the Hamdan ruling this summer. That ruling raised Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions back to its rightful status as the supreme law of this land -- and in so doing basically raised the question what to do about people like John Yoo and others who had provided patently weak legal cover for acting in definace of that supreme law.

Hence, after a lot of filing, sanding, and polishing, the latest, greatest administration -- woops, McCain/Warner/Graham bill -- has some key provisions every current and future Republican president can agree on. Jack Balkin points out :

It is still a very bad bill, eliminating judicial review and habeas corpus, and limiting criminal enforcement of Geneva Common Article 3 under the War Crimes Act (apparently Geneva CA3 is still law, but only "grave violations" of Geneva are criminally enforceable). Additionally (p. 82), the new bill says that "no foreign source of law can be used in defining or interpreting" America's obligations under title 18 of the U.S. Code-- i.e., the U.S. criminal code, which would include, presumably, the War Crimes Act and the anti-torture statute.

Thus are the Geneva Conventions to be officially rendered quaint -- a museum piece, interesting to historians, but of no legal relevance to American conduct. Thus is America's solemn word rendered forever suspect if it ever ratifies future human rights treaties -- we're Lucy with the football, the world is Charlie Brown running up to kick it.

But above all else, to the Bushies, thus are Bush loyalists to be immunized from the consequences of their devotion to their homeland and their divinely inspired leade. The administration's preferred language. Notice the date:

This Act shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act and shall apply retroactively, including to any aspect of the detention, treatment, or trial of any person detained at any time since September 11, 2001, and to any claim or cause of action pending on or after the date of the enactment of this Act.

The McCain/Warner/Graham bill is more obfuscating, but looks like it accomplishes much the same thing for acts through December 30, 2005.

Thus will 9/11 change everything after all. For if no war crimes can be charged against the physical perpetrators of torture, I'm afraid none can be charged against those who gave the order, and none can be charged against those who developed the legal cover for that order.

I call on any vertebrate Democrats and Republicans to oppose any bill that immunizes anyone from war crimes of any definition since September 11th. The Lynndie Englands of this travesty shouldn't be the only ones to have to take responsibility for what has happened to us. The John Yoos and David Addingtons should as well.


=====
NOTE: My first introduction to the USA vs. Josef Altstötter et al case was from listening to British human rights lawyer and University College London law professor Phillippe Sands' October 2005 debate with John Yoo. Sands' remarks on this score begin around 14:00 minutes into the program. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:35:00 AM -- |  

 
War crimes
It's hard to decide which development in this diminished country is worst: warrantless domestic surveillance, the open discussion and practice of torture, the "unitary executive" theory underpinning the Bush "you and what army" approach to resisting oversight and checks by other branches.

Tonight, I'm leaning towards the arrogant criminality of redefining "war crimes" to suit ourselves. And make no mistake -- this country's leadership are guilty of war crimes. Individually, among the Bush administration, and collectively, across each of the branches among those eager or willing to condone it, or apathetic in opposing them. The scale of the crimes is still less than those of regimes gone by, but the arrogance and criminality are essentially the same.

These angry thoughts are occasioned by the latest* Talking Dog (TD) interview, this time with Dr. Steven Miles, a professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota, and author of Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity and the War on Terror. Dr. Miles:

At the end of World War II, the international community concluded that no appeal to the needs of national soverignty could justify or excuse torture or genocide. The United States has undone that momentous conclusion. It has authoritatively introduced into international relations the precedent and assertion that a national executive with the assent of the national legislature may practice torture in the context of a national emergency. [...]

Breaking prisoners down became a medical specialty. Mental illness was ignored. Signs of beatings went unrecorded in medical charts. Medical interviews and records were culled for clues on prisoners' vulnerabilities. Mental health personnel monitored interrogations and reported to interrogators. When the prisoners, most of whom know nothing of terrorism, protested or despaired by refusing to eat. Clinicians strapped them into chairs and force fed them so that their indeterminate sentences could continue.

Five days before the prisoner's suicides, the Defense Department issued a document entitled, "Medical Program Support for Detainee Operations." It endorses the old abuses. It does not say that clinicians must obey the Geneva Conventions for Prisoners of War or the US War Crimes Act. It says that clinicians "shall not certify the fitness of detainees for any form of treatment or punishment that is not in accordance with applicable law." But, this wording allows doctors to certify prisoners for harsh interrogation in accord with our Orwellian interpretation of International law. [...]

We have enough evidence to conclude that grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions have occurred. A court is the proper place to determine culpability for those war crimes. Unlike Court Martials which proceed from the bottom up the chain of command, a war crimes process starts on top and proceeds downward. I think that the world community will have to look to Europe to bring the subpoenas which could begin a war crimes investigation. Sadly, the United States seems to not have the political will or cultural strength to do so. (emphasis added)

What is the real point of torture? After all, experts seem to agree that it doesn't really help get good information, it just gets babble to make the ordeal stop, if only for a while. What's more, Rumsfeld must have known this, as TD points out:

Rumsfeld was advised by experts he convened that coercive interrogation methods were likely to be ineffective (or worse, lead intelligence officers on wild goose chases), and ordered the harsher methods anyway.

TD cites the "Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism," which Miles points out Rumsfeld signed.

Secretary Rumsfeld himself appointed the DoD working group on interrogation techniques to revise a policy that he had authored the preceding November. One must assume that he both read and was briefed on a policy document that he personally signed. Pages 52-53, 56-57, 68, 69 make a number of factual claims about harsh interrogation: "interrogation experts view the use of force as an inferior technique that yields information of questionable quality" [which has] "adverse effects on future interrogations," [may] "damage the admissibility of evidence, ..."

... plus other unwelcome consequences like American soldiers getting mistreated and giving everybody good reason to hate us.

So if it's bad at getting useful information, and it has all these other strikes against it, what's it good for? I think it can only be: fear. Collective fear. That's the "idea" Bush is dead set on exporting to the Middle East: the United States of America is so bankrupt that it has no other response to terrorism than to build a dark, secret hole and torment whoever gets swept into that hole for a long time.

There's got to be a way for Karen Hughes to spin that.



=====
* Scroll to the bottom of his post for a list of other interviews, they're all good. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:34:00 AM -- |