Lawyers savage White House torture policy

[Bernie Gunther]

I've recently come across several years worth of very powerful blogging by some extremely angry US lawyers on White House sanctioned torture. Here's their master list of relevant stuff. source

I can't recommend it highly enough. What the fuck is that little shit Blair doing getting our country into bed with these drooling sadists and lying bastard war criminals?

Here's a little taste.

Donald Rumsfeld gave a direction to “gitmoize” the intelligence gathering process in Iraq. He dispatched MG Geoffrey Miller, who introduced the new brutal intelligence gather techniques to Guantánamo, to Iraq, and to Abu Ghraib, to introduce the Guantanamo procedures there. Classified, since disclosed portions of the Fay/Jones report record that within twenty-four hours of LTG Sanchez’s exit interview with MG Miller, the first of a series of orders was issued opening the door to abusive and unlawful interrogation practices. The Fay/Jones report fully and responsibly accepts that these acts led to serious war crimes. This included procedures which had been designed in conscious evasion of the rules of the Geneva Conventions. The evidence ties these fateful decisions inextricably to the abuses that occurred in Abu Ghraib and other locations across Iraq.

With the conviction of Lynndie England, we have indeed gotten to the bottom of the abuse scandal. However, as Joseph Galloway says, now it is time to get to the top.

 

[rich!]

What the fuck is that little shit Blair doing getting our country into bed with these drooling sadists and lying bastard war criminals?

Playing his masters voice?

Seriously, why are you *surprised* by Blair?

 

[fela fan]

What the fuck is that little shit Blair doing getting our country into bed with these drooling sadists and lying bastard war criminals?

Because he's one himself bernie. Perhaps not drooling, but definitely a war criminal, and i think it's fair to say too that he's (become) a sadist.

 

[oi2002]

Just posted something related.

Dubya has delivered a series of near fatal insults to American dignity. I suspect the failure to treat prisoners decently is one of the biggest blows. When you've got a weasly, morally weak administration that is very publically seeking to avoid the existing legal restraints on torture that moral failure is liable to become systemic.

Most Yanks have no experience of the military let alone combat and do think of their soldiers as heavily armed pious missionaries. Old soldiers like McCain or Zinni know that the flesh is weak; it takes enforced rulebooks, iron discipline and most importantly drummed in codes of dignity to stop soldiers using captives for bayonet practice.

The Contra era CIA interogation manual warned that torture unless done discretely and very strictly controlled lead to poor intelligence products and rapidly became routine and recreational. If, like Pinochet or Saddam, your goal is terrifying a population into submission this may be no bad thing but if you are a delusional liberator like Dubya it is truly disastarous.

Muddle headed as always Dubya fails to see that his essentially punative attitudes to POWs helped to undermine the whole Iraqi project.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Perhaps though, their goal in encouraging the use of torture is no different to that of Saddam or Pinochet?

 

[oi2002]

Perhaps though, their goal in encouraging the use of torture is no different to that of Saddam or Pinochet?

Well you'd have to ignore the main thrust of policy in the occupation to reach that conclusion.

If that was the case they'd have simply replaced Saddam with an Iraqi general and allowed the Mukhabarat to stoke the torture chambers, the rebellion would never have happened, they'd have their basing by the oil fields and the M1A's would be in Tehran. Instead they completely neglected security concentrated on installing a flat rate of tax, privatisation, a free market economy and within 12 months will begin the humiliating process of fleeing the resulting mess. At which point the Iraqis desperate for some security will turn every basement in the country into a torture chamber with a good deal of expert advice from Tehran.

Nah, their goal was looking tough to the US voter and their policies aren't a coherrent thought out strategy.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I did a bit of reading up on how state torture complexes arise, and often they seem to arise in response to acts of violence against the state, but then tend to escalate and find other uses for torture, primarily as a means of terrorising subject populations.

There is also a strong correlation between state terror and a minority group trying to maintain priviledged access to exploit the resources of a country.

I'm sure that at the Bush/Cheney/Rice/Gonzales/Rumsfeld level the policy was justified as a combination of looking tough and improved human intelligence.

In its execution however, it rapidly started to look like state terrorism, of the sort routinely employed by many colonial and ethnic minority governments to maintain power in the face of large numbers of people who want their share.

 

[oi2002]

...I'm sure that at the Bush/Cheney/Rice/Gonzales/Rumsfeld level the policy was justified as a combination of looking tough and improved human intelligence.

In its execution however, it rapidly started to look like state terrorism, of the sort routinely employed by many colonial and ethnic minority governments to maintain power in the face of large numbers of people who want their share.

Well the very poor state of US HUMINT is a factor, the very punative mentality of the Bush team is another.

Before Abu G when the Pentagon defended NKVD favored torture techniques like waterboarding and stupidly put out this image

it was largerly to show the bad guys being punished.

It was disturbing how few Yanks found this disturbing or realised what a gift it was to the enemy. It's the same sort of mindset that supports the horrendous. gulag like, US prison system despite its criminal failure. I've got intelligent Yank friends who think that such images and the threat of torture-lite actually deter Jihadis. Men who've mostly grown up in societies where medieval torture is routine and eagerly seek martydom are not so easily swayed.

Looking at the "fuck a PUC" story and Abu G I think there's a background of DC sanctioned stealthy torture by Special Forces trying to gain HUMINT overlaid by a much wider failure to stop prisoners being abused for sport by demoralised soldiers and it's the latter that truly shocks the pollyanna Yank in the street.

While death squads are operating in Iraq what we don't have is the sort of systematic mass blowtorching of the population that the Gestapo hardened French military practiced in Algeria in the early 60s. This is surprising as the Iraqi security forces are full of men trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard or Saddam who fully understand the practical utility of these sort of techiques far better than the US military.

I don't think there is a colonial dynamic in torture. The two most famous proponents of torture in the 20th century the Gestapo and the NKVD both operated within a cowed but supportive population in their own countries. A paranoid state demanding ultimate authority over and not loyalty but unquestioning obedience from it's people is more what I'd see.

The debate over torture in the States is informed by lawerly Yank legalism but also an instinctive fear that America is becoming the sort of state that sanctions the cruelest and most unusual punishment; it happens by stealth and all to easily.

 

[TAE]

If that was the case they'd have simply replaced Saddam with an Iraqi general

Mind you, the leader of "our good friend" Pakistan is a general.

 

[oi2002]

Mind you, the leader of "our good friend" Pakistan is a general.

and a rather unpopular chap with DC until the recent his recent appeasment un the name of the GWOT.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Horrifying stuff here about the use Bush-approved Iraqi paramilitaries in interrogations.

Josh White and Dana Priest have two remarkable stories in the Washington Post this morning. The first recounts how, in February or March of 2002, the President authorized the CIA to recruit and train an Iraqi paramilitary group, code-named the Scorpions, to foment rebellion, conduct sabotage, and help CIA paramilitaries who entered Baghdad and other cities "target buildings and individuals." Priest and White report an Army investigator's testimony that "at some point, and it's not really clear how this happened, [the Scorpions] started being used in interrogations . . . because they spoke the local dialect." Priest and White also quote an intelligence official as saying that the Scorpions were tasked "from time to time, to do 'the dirty work.'"

The second article, about a CIA/Army/Scorpions murder, must be read in its entirety.<snip>

When Army efforts produced nothing useful, detainees would be handed over to members of Operational Detachment Alpha 531, soldiers with the 5th Special Forces Group, the CIA or a combination of the three. . . . If they did not get what they wanted, the interrogators would deliver the detainees to a small team of the CIA-sponsored Iraqi paramilitary squads, code-named Scorpions, according to a military source familiar with the operation. . . .

On Nov. 24, the CIA and one of its four-man Scorpion units interrogated Mowhoush, according to investigative records.

"OGA Brian and the four indig were interrogating an unknown detainee," according to a classified memo, using the slang "other government agency" for the CIA and "indig" for indigenous Iraqis.

"When he didn't answer or provided an answer that they didn't like, at first [redacted] would slap Mowhoush, and then after a few slaps, it turned into punches," Ryan testified. "And then from punches, it turned into [redacted] using a piece of hose."

"The indig were hitting the detainee with fists, a club and a length of rubber hose," according to classified investigative records. [UPDATE: Testimony from the preliminary hearing suggests that the CIA and/or the Scorpions beat detainees with the handle of a sledgehammer. <snip>

An Army memo dated May 10, 2004 found that although the death was directly related to the "non-standard interrogation methods" employed by the Army in this third stage, "the circumstances surrounding the death are further complicated due to Mowhoush being interrogated and reportedly beaten by members of a Special Forces team and other government agency (OGA) employees two days earlier."

source

 

[Bernie Gunther]

More on the above murder.

1. The fact of Mowhoush's murder has been publicly acknowledged for some time. But what these stories show is that it was not the result of an isolated, unauthorized incident of brutality: From all that appears, this was a concerted, planned, systematic and extended series of brutal interrogations, carried out by numerous persons and entities, within the military and the CIA, in a manner that they all considered to be authorized. No rotten apples. No nightshift. Official U.S. policy and practice.

2. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Al Qaeda or the Taliban. The Scorpions were employed, and Mowhoush was murdered, in Iraq. The Administration has repeatedly insisted that detainees in Iraq—in contrast to the suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at GTMO—remain fully protected by the Geneva Conventions. With respect to POWs, Article 17 of the Third Geneva Convention provides that "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind." And Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention requires that civilian detainees "shall at all times be humanely treated, and shall be protected especially against all acts of violence or threats thereof and against insults and public curiosity."

Quite obviously, what occurred in Iraq in 2003 was not even close to being in compliance with Geneva (not to mention the violations of federal criminal laws). And yet we still see military officials testifying that stuffing a detainee in a sleeping bag and putting detainees in a wall locker and banging on it were "appropriate," effective and approved techniques. How can this be?

source

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Going back to the suggestion I made earlier that torture is primarily serviceable for instilling terror in subject populations.

They cut off my clothes with some kind of doctor’s scalpel. I was naked. I tried to put on a brave face. But maybe I was going to be raped. Maybe they’d electrocute me. Maybe castrate me.

They took the scalpel to my right chest. It was only a small cut. Maybe an inch. At first I just screamed … I was just shocked, I wasn’t expecting … Then they cut my left chest. This time I didn’t want to scream because I knew it was coming.

One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute, watching my reaction. I was in agony. They must have done this 20 to 30 times, in maybe two hours. There was blood all over. “I told you I was going to teach you who’s the man,” [one] eventually said. […]

I was in Morocco for 18 months. Once they began this, they would do it to me about once a month. One time I asked a guard: “What’s the point of this? I’ve got nothing I can say to them. I’ve told them everything I possibly could.”

“As far as I know, it’s just to degrade you. So when you leave here, you’ll have these scars and you’ll never forget. So you’ll always fear doing anything but what the US wants.”

source

 

[oi2002]

Stygius reckons the Cheney team is trying to poke a hole in the McCain ammendment that would permit CIA enhanced interrogation.

States are at least controlled by bureaucratic norms, even Beria's NKVD limited it's methods. We perhaps should not forget that non-state actors often use torture to terrify a population into submission and that ethnic conflicts are typified by reprisal torture killings. Finally seizing power is often achieved by becoming the most feared.

John Robb considers the Salvador Option as perhaps the only exit strategy:

If an open-source counterinsurgency is the only strategic option left, it is a depressing one. The militias will probably create a situation of controlled chaos that will allow the administration to claim victory and exit the country. They will, however, exact a horrible toll on Iraq and may persist for decades. This is a far cry from spreading democracy in the Middle East. Advocates of refashioning the American military for top-down nation-building, the current flavor of the month, should recognize it as a fatal test of the concept.

I'd say that's not so much a strategy as accepting the inevitable.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The use of militias (aka death squads) for counter-insurgency is something of a trademark of John Negroponte, who I seem to recall was in charge of Iraq for most of last year. So I think that seems highly likely. The "Scorpions" mentioned in the torture-murder example above seem to be some sort of classic CIA paramiliary group, recruited even before the invasion and used for all kinds of horrible shit since.

We all know how well that works eh?

http://www.usip.org/library/truth.html

'course if it's militias doing the torture rather than govt employees, then they can claim their hands are clean, in much the same way as the US/UK governments can make the same claim about people they've "rendered" to countries where dick-slicing is considered perfectly acceptable police work.

Much better than being held accountable eh?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Looks like the White House wants to make sure that their spooks and assorted counter-insurgency goons can carry on torturing people whenever they want to, in violation of all kinds of international and US laws (see the Prof. Jack Balkin stuff linked at the top of this thread)

The Bush administration has proposed exempting employees of the Central Intelligence Agency from a legislative measure endorsed earlier this month by 90 members of the Senate that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoners in U.S. custody.

The proposal, which two sources said Vice President Cheney handed last Thursday to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the company of CIA Director Porter J. Goss, states that the measure barring inhumane treatment shall not apply to counterterrorism operations conducted abroad or to operations conducted by "an element of the United States government" other than the Defense Department.

source

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The chickenhawks are coming under fire from more and more senior US military figures over their nasty little perversions.

More military men join the McCain bandwagon<snip>. Doubtless they are, to the man, America haters, no? Or so the gaggles of cheap pro-torture apologists will argue. Pity there is not an unimpeachable, above the fray wise man to finally take Dubya aside and wake him up to the dishonor his detainee policies have brought on the nation. 10 years ago, it might even have been Dick Cheney--reining in the excesses, say, of a Don Rumsfeld. Today, alas, Cheney is one of the architects of the morally bankrupt, failed detention policies of this administration.<snip>

More and more people are starting to feel this way in establishment Republican ranks, one detects of late. Cheney did catch the 'fever' after 9/11, as Powell memorably put it, and it's high time he got his temperature back down a few degrees. A good start would be ceasing to oppose the McCain Amendment. I don't have high hopes, however. Cheney appears to be adopting something of a bunker mentality, and apparently finds it impossible to admit any mistakes. Thus talk of 'dictionary meanings' to explain away the 'last throes' crapola (half a year old now), or breezy descriptions of Guantanamo as a splendid little enclave in the 'tropics' (migrating Gitmo tactics more or less directly led to the outrages of Abu Ghraib). And now the Libby fiasco. Rather than a sense of distinguished solemnity from Cheney (after all, why couldn't they just have gone after charlatan like Joe Wilson and left his wife out of it?), instead surreally bogus video of him giving a speech at a 'friendly' military base--during the very moments Fitz is skewering his loyal, long-serving aide before the world. Can we not be spared such farcical theater? No, all this is simply not a record to be proud of. <snip>

Anyway, for now, Libby has fallen on his sword and Cheney soldiers on. He'll tap a Libby replacement and keep plowing along just fine, doubtless, though it is possible the Fitzerald going-ons may yet prove increasingly awkward for him going forward (especially if there is a trial, or (unthinkable!) Libby squeals some to reach a plea bargain that avoids jail time). At very least, however, the veneer of the indomitable, Hercules-like Veep is no more. Cheney is a diminished figure. And so, of course, is the man he serves.

source

 

[newharper]

"Rumsfeld Denies UN Rights Experts Access to Guantanamo Detainees


US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused UN experts access to detainees at a military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, dismissing a hunger strike there as a publicity stunt. "

Cunt.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1102-08.htm

Another angle on US policy on the ICC.

"If Washington follows through on threats to slash aid to Mexico as punishment for its accession to the International Criminal Court (ICC), it risks further alienating key U.S. allies and drawing attention to its own increasingly shaky human rights record, say activists.

"There will be a price to be paid by the U.S. government in terms of its credibility," Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Programme, told IPS. "

True but,

"Criticism of the administration's hard line has also come from unlikely quarters.

Testifying before Congress in March, Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, the commander of U.S. military forces in Latin America, complained that the sanctions had excluded Latin American officers from U.S. training programmes and could allow China, which has been seeking military ties with Latin America, to fill the void. "

Sounds stupid enough to be Bush policy.

"Its closest allies are firm supporters, and those states that are not supporters are ones that this administration would locate along the 'axis of evil'," he said. "I don't know if (Washington will pursue economic sanctions), but they would do so at the risk of alienating another U.S. ally and damaging whatever credibility they might have in championing support for rule of law initiatives in the future." "

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1102-03.htm

Love the whatever.

 

[newharper]

Rendition plus;

"The CIA has been holding and interrogating al Qaeda captives at a secret facility in Eastern Europe, part of a covert prison system established after the September 11, 2001, attacks, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
The Soviet-era compound is part of a network that has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand and Afghanistan, the newspaper reported, citing U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement"


"About 30 major terrorism suspects have been held at black sites while more than 70 other detainees, considered less important, were delivered to foreign intelligence services under a process known as "rendition," the paper said, citing U.S. and foreign intelligence sources.

The top 30 al Qaeda prisoners are isolated from the outside world, they have no recognized legal rights and no one outside the CIA is allowed to talk with or see them, the sources told the newspaper"

"The secret detention system was conceived shortly after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, when the working assumption was that another strike was imminent, the report said."

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1102-07.htm

 

[newharper]

"White House Pressured Over Allegations of Torture, Secret Prisons "

"Former president Jimmy Carter denounced what he said was "a profound and radical change in the basic policies or moral values of our country" in reaction to the Post report."

Grist for the lawyers;

"On Thursday Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, told National Public Radio he had traced a trail of memos and directives authorizing detainee abuse directly to Cheney's staff.

"There was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of defense, down to the commanders in the field," authorizing practices that led directly to US soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, Wilkerson said."

real cheery finish

"Rather than embrace the law, however, Bush has threatened to veto it. And at the same time, Cheney has said that the law should exclude the CIA.

Doing so, said a human rights lawyer, would create a situation where people seized by one agency could be "rendered" to the CIA where they could disappear along with their rights.

"You have the opportunity for internal renditions", said Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice."

 

[Wess]

The reasons for the invasion of Iraq in the first place put them in in the same category as any any other scumbag as far as I'm concerned ... I always thought that if the US didn't even have the vague decency of getting UN approval for invading Iraq, then they are no better than any other bunch of corrupt officials.
Regime change by force is against international law but incredibly that seems to be the reason that is being thrown out after the first round of bullshit.

Whenever I hear people spout "America bashing" I immediately think of how Bush and his crony's were elected for a 2nd term... They should have been thrown out on their fucken arse.

The sooner the American Public take back their nation the better.

 

[newharper]

One view from close to the agency ;

"Americans do not join the CIA to commit torture. Yet that could be the result if a proposal advanced by Vice President Cheney becomes law."

"On Monday the president weighed in, saying that "we do not torture." Regrettably, because his administration has endorsed interrogation techniques that border on torture (anything short of "organ failure"), we cannot be certain of what the president means by torture."

"There may be an argument for exempting the CIA from the McCain amendment. If so, the president and vice president should publicly make the case. They should say why they believe treatment of prisoners outside the Geneva Conventions would provide vital intelligence to protect us. They should give examples of how such treatment has produced valuable intelligence. If the choice is between the McCain amendment as modified by Cheney and nothing, we are better off with doing nothing and leaving the law where it is. Sooner or later this nation will come to its senses and remember how important international law and the Geneva Conventions are to our standing in the world and the protection of our citizens.

The Post reported on Oct. 27 that John Negroponte, director of national intelligence, has directed intelligence agencies to "bolster the growth of democracy" and support the rule of law in other nations. Those are noble causes that will be embraced by all intelligence officers. But if the vice president's proposal is adopted, the CIA will presumably be free to bolster democracy by torturing anyone who does not embrace it with sufficient enthusiasm. Some democracy.

The writer is a former general counsel of the CIA."

Commie, no doubt.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The Rude Pundit on Bush, Cheney and their nasty little torture thing.

When the President of the United States said today in Panama that "We do not torture," he prefaced it by saying, "We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do to that effort, to that end, in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law." In other words, by definition, as long as we are trying to find out shit about terrorists, it doesn't constitute torture. Is that not a vast narrowing of the definition of torture? Is that not an invocation of Alberto Gonzales's memo about the President saying what is and is not legally torture?

But it all cycles back to Cheney, not to Bush the Stupider. "Cheney's camp says the United States does not torture captives, but believes the president needs nearly unfettered power to deal with terrorists to protect Americans. To preserve the president's flexibility, any measure that might impose constraints should be resisted," says the Post, or, in other words, we don't torture but we torture, but if we say we don't torture, then we must not torture, even though we don't want any laws that would prevent us from torturing, although we don't torture. See? Get it?

Ahh, the viscous goo that hulks like a human, Dick Cheney, and his staff of gorgons and demons, giggling madly as they wipe their asses with the Geneva Conventions and toss the feces-smeared documents around the room. They will try anything to ensure that they can disappear who they like when they like. For if they cannot, who knows what truths might be spoken out loud? If you let the damned out of hell, who knows what horrors they may speak of?

source

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Oh look. Another torture freak Bush crony, this time his choice as US ambassador to Italy. This one made his money torturing children in the name of God and the American way source

What is it with these sick fuckers? They'd make Caligua puke, but claim that God wants them to do this stuff.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Former CIA Director calls Cheney "Our Vice President for Torture"

http://www.itv.com/news/index_1447362.html

 

[oi2002]

Oh dear:

The survey, involving 2 006 people from the general public, found that 46% felt that torturing terrorist suspects to gain important information was sometimes (31%) or often (15%) justified while 17% thought it was rarely justified and 32% were opposed.

So only a minority of Yanks oppose cruel and unusual punishment and Cheney is therefore being a good democrat.

If you look at the survey millitary and security people are a great deal less entusiastic about torture than the sadist in the street. There are a few reasons for this: as Shin Bet learnt from years of practice torture is much less effective than conventional interogation methods but also that its not Joe Public that gets the messy job of weilding the cattle prod.

Pat Lang is blunt:

With the conversation having progressed to this point, a look of dramatic, and cynical world-weariness comes over some members of the audience and someone (often a woman) asks me what I would do if the "authorities" had captured "Fulaan Abu Shuismuh" (so and so, the father of what's his name) and this creep has the secret information needed to prevent a terrorist outrage, and won't talk. "Isn't it right to do whatever it takes....." That is the question that is always asked, often with a kind of dreamy, far off look in the eyes. I have gotten tired of this Sado-Masochistic day-dreaming, so, in response I ask them how far they would go in "whatever it takes?"

"All the way," is what these usually liberal, often academic, middle class Americans normally say. "OK," says I. "Let's say he is really obdurate and the clock is ticking on said 'terrorist outrage,' so we bring him in here and you and you will hold him down while I take his fingers and toes off one at a time with garden shears until he talks? Are you "in" for that?" Shocked silence follows. "Ah, I get it," says I. " You mean that it would be 'all right' for people like me to do these things." At that point it can be seen from the faces that this is the case.

I'm not squeamish myself but I'd hesitate to help Pat with his pruning even if I was in uniform and the Colonel ordered me to assist. What does Peebs think?