http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20080423/pl_usnw/cia_acknowledges_it_has_more_than7000_documents_relating_to_secret_detention_program__rendition__and_torture
Of course this speaks to the larger issue of the land of the free authorizing the use of torture on it's own citizens and the citizens of other countries. People who have been declared "enemy combatants" but many of whom have been found to have been erroneously captured.
How did we get here?
Here's is a great summary. Essentially this started with Bush's decision that the Geneva Conventions didn't apply to "enemy combatants" and was followed by several memos sent to and from members at the highest levels of our government.
http://lawofwar.org/Torture_Memos_analysis.htm (with links to the memos).
Gonzalez Memo (doesn't work in above link):
http://kbonline.typepad.com/random/files/gonzales_memo_on_gen_conv_january_25_2002_pt_1.pdf
A great summary from Talking Points Memo using sources from the Associated Press and ABC News:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_315.php
There are some heroes in all of this horrible mess.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/04/hbc-90002819 (text below).
"Matthew Diaz served his country as a staff judge advocate at Guantánamo. He watched a shameless assault on America's Constitution and commitment to the rule of law carried out by the Bush Administration. He watched the introduction of a system of cruel torture and abuse. He watched the shaming of the nation's uniformed services, with their proud traditions that formed the very basis of the standards of humanitarian law, now torn asunder through the lawless acts of the Executive. Matthew Diaz found himself in a precarious position—as a uniformed officer, he was bound to follow his command. As a licensed and qualified attorney, he was bound to uphold the law. And these things were indubitably at odds.
Diaz resolved to do something about it. He knew the Supreme Court twice ruled the Guantánamo regime, which he was under orders to uphold, was unlawful. In the Hamdan decision, the Court went a step further. In powerful and extraordinary words, Justice Kennedy reminded the Administration that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions was binding upon them, and that a violation could constitute a criminal act. One senior member of the Bush legal team, informed of the decision over lunch, was reported to have turned "white as a sheet" and to have immediately excused himself. For the following months, Bush Administration lawyers entered into a frenzied discussion of how to protect themselves from criminal prosecution.
One of the crimes the Administration committed was withholding from the Red Cross a list of the detainees at Guantánamo, effectively making them into secret detainees. Before the arrival of the Bush Administration, the United States had taken the axiomatic position that holding persons in secret detention for prolonged periods outside the rule of law (a practice known as "disappearing") was not merely unlawful, but in fact a rarefied "crime against humanity." Now the United States was engaged in the active practice of this crime.
The decision to withhold the information had been taken, in defiance of law, by senior political figures in the Bush Administration. Diaz was aware of it, and he knew it was unlawful. He printed out a copy of the names and sent them to a civil rights lawyer who had requested them in federal court proceedings.
Diaz was aware when he did this that he was violating regulations and that he could and would, if caught, be subjected to severe sanction. What he did was a violation of law, even as it was an effort to cure a more severe act of lawlessness by the Government. Diaz violated the law in precisely the same sense as Martin Luther King reminds us, in the Letter from Birmingham Jail, that his arrest was based on a violation of law. That everything the Nazis did in Germany was lawful. And that every act of the Hungarian freedom fighters was a crime. In terms of the moral law, however, Diaz was on the side of right, and the Bush Administration and the Pentagon had, by engaging in the conduct that the Supreme Court condemned, placed themselves on the side of lawlessness, corruption and dishonor.
Diaz was charged, tried and convicted for disclosing "secrets." For the Bush Administration, any information which would be politically embarrassing or harmful to it is routinely classified "secret." In this fashion the Administration believes it can use criminal sanctions against those who disclose information it believes will be politically damaging. The list of detainees at Guantánamo, which by law was required to be disclosed, was classified as "secret." Diaz spent six months in prison and left it bankrupt and without a job. In addition to his sentence, the Pentagon is working aggressively to have Diaz stripped of his law license so he will not be able to practice his profession. The Bush Administration has sought to criminalize, humiliate and destroy Diaz. Its motivation could not be clearer: Diaz struck a blow for the rule of law. And nothing could be more threatening to the Bush Administration than this.
In the week in which Diaz received the Ridenhour Prize, another Pentagon "secret" was disclosed. This "secret" was a memorandum made to order for William J. Haynes II, Rumsfeld's General Counsel, and the man at the apex of the Pentagon's military justice system that tried, convicted and sentenced Diaz. The memo was authored by John Yoo. This memorandum was designed to authorize the introduction of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading interrogation techniques to be used upon prisoners held at Guantánamo, and ultimately also used in Afghanistan and Iraq. The memorandum authorized waterboarding, long-time standing, hypothermia, the administration of psychotropic drugs and sleep deprivation in excess of two days in addition to a number of other techniques. Each of these techniques is long established as torture as a matter of American and international law. The application and implementation of these techniques was and is a crime.
The exact circumstances surrounding the dealings between Haynes and Yoo that led to the development of this memorandum are unclear. However, it is clear that Haynes had previously authorized the use of the torture techniques, and had secured an order from Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld authorizing them.
Following the implementation of these techniques, more than 108 detainees died in detention. In a large number of these cases, the deaths have been ruled a homicide and connected to torture. These homicides were a foreseeable consequence of the advice that Haynes and Yoo gave. The introduction of torture techniques destroyed America's reputation around the world, dramatically eroded a system of alliances that generations of Americans fought and labored to sustain and build, and provided the basis for a dramatic recruitment campaign for terrorist groups who are the nation's principal adversaries in the war on terror. Yoo's and Haynes's conduct dramatically undercut the security and safety of every American. And equally, Yoo and Haynes demonstrated by their conduct contempt for the rule of law and the principles for which hundreds of thousands of Americans shed their blood in prior conflicts.
Yoo is currently a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, the author of a number of widely featured books, and a widely followed media figure whose works are routinely published in the Wall Street Journal and other publications. He remains a member of the bar in Pennsylvania and California.
Haynes recently left the position of General Counsel at the Department of Defense to become General Counsel–Corporate at Chevron Inc. He remains a member of the bar in North Carolina, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
A system that punishes and shames Matthew Diaz, yet obstructs any investigation into the misconduct of John Yoo and Jim Haynes, and particularly their focal rule in the introduction of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, is corrupt. Indeed, it persecutes the innocent and rewards the guilty. A bar association that disbars Matthew Diaz and leaves Yoo and Haynes free to practice is fundamentally corrupt. In essence, this choice reflects a legal profession that puts upholding the will of the Executive, even when it commands the most egregious and unlawful conduct, over the Rule of Law. It reflects the abnegation of the bedrock principles of the profession and the principles of the American Constitution and the Revolution which gave rise to it.
Lieutenant Commander Diaz reminds us of the powerful words of Justice Brandeis:
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole of the people by its example. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law and invites every man to become a law unto itself. It breeds anarchy. To declare that the end justifies the means would bring terrible retribution.
In a day when the legal profession is disgraced repeatedly by the performance of lawyers in the service of their government, Matthew Diaz is emerging as a hero to many, and as a symbol that for some lawyers devotion to truth, integrity and justice still matters. Indeed, that dedication and willingness to shoulder the burden it can bring, is and will likely be seen by future generations of Americans as the higher form of patriotism."
108 detainees killed! If that isn't torture, I don't know what is.
We are "disappearing" our own citizens and the citizens of other countries. Disturbing, reminds me of (from Wikipedia):
Operation Condor and Argentina's Dirty War
The phrase was infamously recognized by Argentinian de facto President, General Videla, who said in a press conference during the Military Government he commanded in Argentina: "They are neither dead nor alive, they disappeared".
It is thought that in Argentina between 1976 and 1983 up to 30,000 people (9,000 verified named cases according to the official report by the CONADEP)[7] were subject to forced disappearance under the military junta that was in power. From information collected from military officers involved in the so-called "Dirty War" it is known that many victims were sedated and dumped from airplanes into the Río de la Plata (today these are called vuelos de la muerte, death flights). Other people were held in torture and detention centres, the most notorious one being the Navy's Mechanics Training School (ESMA) in the Núñez district of Buenos Aires.
Detention centers that torture. Sounds like Guantanamo Bay. Do we as a nation really want ourselves to be compared to a military junta's torturing of their own citzens in a "dirty war". I am not alone in this comparison. Is the "war on terrorism" just another "dirty war" on this front?
What's next in the war on terrorism? Death flights? Oh, wait it's crushing children's testicles....
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11488.htm
Also, please consider that even the Nazis did not believe in torturing high-value prisoners of war. I am not saying they didn't torture. Obviously, they did. The crimes the committed against the Jewish communities of Europe are inexcusable. However, they did not find torture to be an effective way of getting reliable information.
Take this, from Wikipedia:
Hanns-Joachim Gottlob Scharff (December 16, 1907 – September 10, 1992) was a German Luftwaffe interrogator during the Second World War. He has been called the "Master Interrogator" of the Luftwaffe and possibly all of Nazi Germany; he has also been praised for his contribution in shaping U.S. interrogation techniques after the war. Merely an Obergefreiter (the equivalent of a senior lance corporal), he was charged with interrogating every German-captured American fighter pilot during the war after his becoming an interrogation officer in 1943. He is highly praised for the success of his techniques, especially considering he never used physical means to obtain the required information. No evidence exists he even raised his voice in the presence of a prisoner of war (POW). Scharff's interrogation techniques were so effective that he was often called upon to assist other German interrogators in their questioning of bomber pilots and aircrews, including those crews and fighter pilots from countries other than the United States. Additionally, Scharff was charged with questioning V.I.P.s (Very Important Prisoners) that funneled through the interrogation center, namely senior officers and world-famous fighter aces.
And I can't help myself (from ThinkProgress):
FEB. 13, 2008: Today, the Senate brought the Intelligence Authorization Bill to the floor, containing a provision from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) that establishes one interrogation standard, requiring the intelligence community to abide by the same standards as articulated in the Army Field Manual and banning waterboarding. Just hours ago, the Senate voted in favor of the bill, 51-45.
Earlier today, ThinkProgress noted that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a former prisoner of war, has spoken strongly in favor of implementing the Army Field Manual standard. When confronted today with the decision of whether to stick with his conscience or cave to the right wing, McCain chose to ditch his principles and instead vote to preserve waterboarding: Mr. McCain, a former prisoner of war, has consistently voiced opposition to waterboarding and other methods that critics say is a form torture. But the Republicans, confident of a White House veto, did not mount the challenge. Mr. McCain voted "no" on Wednesday afternoon.
Naturally, the result:
Bush Vetoes Bill Banning Torture- March 8, 2008
However, the story does not end there. Anyone who is following this story knows that the Judiciary Committee wants to hear from John Yoo:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/08/politics/politico/thecrypt/main4002602.shtml
Not that it is being covered by any major news outlets. In fact his article from CBS is the only mention I've found from a major news source. The liberal blogs are on top of the story however.
Oh, wait I found one article on this recent news from one major media outlet. One, this time ABC. John Yoo refused to testify to the House Judiciary Committee on torture.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/legalities/2008/04/former-doj-offi.html
Of course, he was very willing to speak to several magazines and reporters for money.
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/qa/john-yoo-responds
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/interviews/yoo.html
Why the problem with going in front of our elected officials and testifying under oath?
Finally, it has also been revealed that top members of Bush's cabinet met in the White House to discuss torture on a case by case basis. The group included Vice President Dick Cheney, then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then-secretary of state Colin Powell, then-CIA director George Tenet and then-attorney general John Ashcroft. Nice, the leader's of the free world are meeting to discuss how they are going to torture prisoners in all it's disgusting details.
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4622610&affil=wjla
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/04/10/BL2008041002069_pf.html
"Should we waterboard 'em, Condi?"
From ABC:
Conyers wants to speak to these cabinet members as well.Then-National Security Advisor Rice, sources said, was decisive. Despite growing policy concerns - shared by Powell - that the program was harming the image of the United States abroad, sources say she did not back down, telling the CIA: "This is your baby. Go do it."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/11/politics/politico/thecrypt/main4010254.shtml
Two for CBS! Ya know I've always liked Olberman on MSNBC, but I think CBS may be my new major network news outlet. ABC sure isn't after that last miserable debate in Pennsylvania. Guess I'll have to warm up to Katie Couric (who a New Yorker friend tells me is actually quite personable).
Also, may I add that I heart John Conyers!
I digress. Now, most of the torturing seems to have been performed by the CIA, or in the very least authorized for CIA use in "special cases" that some would argue are not so "special" by the Pentagon, it also seems the FBI has been incapable of prosecuting, and perhaps investigating, this potential unconstitutional abuse of power by the CIA and Pentagon.
http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=7126
I heart Wexler, also!
Opinion: Personally, it sounds to me like the Department of Justice is interfering and not allowing the FBI to continue with it's "protocols".
This would not surprise me, as the DOJ has been very tight lipped on, well, just about everything lately.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Mukaseys_non_responsive_explanation_of_pre911_0418.html
This story is developing, more and more so every week. Yet one would hardly know it given our media's total lack of coverage on this major issue. I guess flag pins and mistatements by presidential nominees are more important.
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