[P2P-F] Fwd: Why does America Torture?

31 Dec 2014

      ---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tikkun <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 12:57 AM
Subject: Why does America Torture?
To: [email protected]

          *Editor's Note: *
...
The article below by Prof. Alan Gilbert raises important ethical issues
that must concern everyone on the planet. It reminds us that the most
important criminal justice legacy of the Obama Administration may be its
willingness to let the torturers go free, without any attempt to hold them
responsible for their actions--thus signaling to future generations of
torturers that the worst they might expect is to have their acts (but not
their names) revealed in public by a Congressional investigation, and that
they are free to defend their acts of torture as "necessary" or "justified"
without fear of prosecution. That, of course, is an open invitation for the
next generation of torturers to continue or even broaden the range of
people they torture and the techniques they use, knowing that even a
supposedly liberal Administration will avoid confronting, much less
prosecuting, them. Please read this article carefully and you'll see why my
reaction is to say: Shame on Obama and jail the torturers!  If you
appreciate this article, and want to see Tikkun continue to publish, this
is one more reason to make a tax-deductible contribution to Tikkun NOW at
www.tikkun.org
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 --Rabbi Michael Lerner              [email protected]
  *Why Does America Torture?*
by Prof. Alan Gilbert  John Evans Professor at the Josef Korbel School of
International Studies of the University of Denver
On December 21, the *New York Time*s called editorially for the
prosecution of torturers, based on the Senate Intelligence Committee's 600
page Executive Summary on torture.  The *Times* says rightly that the US
government will only be considered a defender of human rights if it acts
against these powerful torturers under the law.  And beyond the Senate
report, it names Cheney and his minions as those who need to be prosecuted,
though interestingly not President George W. Bush who is plainly guilty of
ordering torture.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2014
 Why does America torture?
         On December 21, the *New York Time*s called editorially for the
prosecution of torturers, based on the Senate Intelligence Committee's 600
page Executive Summary on torture.  The *Times* says rightly that the US
government will only be considered a defender of human rights if it acts
against these powerful torturers under the law.  And beyond the Senate
report, it names Cheney and his minions as those who need to be prosecuted,
though interestingly not President George W. Bush who is plainly guilty of
ordering torture.
        For the *Times*, in its effort to restore the law, criminal
Presidents must apparently, no matter what their crimes, must go
scot-free.  But if the President need pay no attention, so much for the
rule of law.
 ***
      The *Times* and others need to shed their surviving obsequiousness
to torture and murder... See here
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=o2vhllXdGzo7VbtspAfLtpp74C%2B7b0x9>
.
 ***
      As intelligence professionals like Ray  McGovern have long
insisted, torture never gets useful information.  Why then is it done?
        In an article from *Veterans Today*, a journal of the
"Clandestine Community," Jim W. Dean underlines the likely planting of
false information which leads to repulsive foreign policy decisions - the
second Iraq aggression, the disgrace of black sites, the corrupting of the
European community  (the carefully blacking out of names of allies in the
Senate Report by the solicitous CIA\Obama administration), and most
importantly, the trashing of the law against torture as the centerpiece of
international law and of American law. (h/t Darrol)  It is this last point
on which the *Times*' editorial finally touches.
 ***
     *Habeas corpus* - the right of each prisoner to a day in court and
not to be tortured - is, as Philip Soper argues, the central feature of a
system of law as opposed to despotism.  It is what
had distinguished (somewhat, if one does not disregard genocide against
indigenous people, the ordinary practice of slavery, Jim Crow and the like,
which mark American history...) the US or English system of law from, say,
the Chinese.
 ***
      The Chinese Communists were modern revolutionaries, but their view
and practice of law were from the Emperors.  To be just now in Dharamsala,
to hear from Ama Adhe about her torture - see here
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=NhgRvozQ%2BOPD3%2FFAG%2Fg%2FfsOdEbZdmYvZ>
 and here
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=tu7AY9yAgT0ESgSYr%2FiCKpp74C%2B7b0x9> -
where she ended up eating the leather off boots, and was one of three
women, out of 400, who survived 3 years in a Chinese prison in the late
1950s (she went on to be brutalized for another 27 years; she has no
hearing in her right ear so Yeshi, the translator had to sit to her left
for the questions; she has the Dalai Lama's spirit of compassion, wanting a
happy life for the Chinese so long as Tibet is independent, and is a kind
of angel...) is to understand how barbaric the Chinese rulers  were and
are.
 ***
       The Chinese have but to point to American practices in the black
sites and Guantanamo underlined in the 600 page Executive Summary of the
Senate Torture Report - published against the will of Obama and the CIA
under tremendous pressure from below and from some determined Senators -
and there is no difference in kind...
 ***
      But the clash between* habeas corpus,* enshrined in the Magna Carta
in 1215 and then fought over for 400 years or the international agreements
making an absolute ban on torture and which are also centerpieces of
American law (and for which the Nuremburg and Tokyo tribunals, under
American prosecutorial leadership, executed Nazi and Japanese war criminals
after World War II), and these Chinese/ Bush-Cheney enacted/Obama-protected
practices is noisome.
 ***
       Writing for intelligence professionals, Jim Dean says that Israeli
intelligence could plant false stories, and these would gain high currency
in the US through torture.  Here is the core of his account:
      “'Here is why torture is a horrible problem, because corrupt
interrogators can lead a person while they are interrogating them, telling
them what they really want them to tell them and they will stop torturing
them,'” he continued [no, ripping human bodies apart is horrible and not
because of the bad information it elicits].
       “'And then what will happen is that someone would submit a false
report like the Israelis, and the US intelligence... will end up torturing
two people to confirm it, and then the government actually gets hustled in
doing something based on a completely false report,'” he explained.
         “'And this actually makes it a threat to the national security,
because corrupt insiders inside the government can rig events, like they
had done for the Iraq war,... to initiate a war,'” the journalist noted."
 ***
       There is a large element of truth here: once a government goes in
for torture, it does not get the truth *and* is extremely easy to
manipulate, plant false information on from on high (most likely) and below.
 ***
      Dean's argument is the  theory of disillusioned CIA critics of why
the US invaded Iraq yet again (now we are on the third round with
Obama...).  For there is no plausible "national interest" in these elite
aggressions.  They have forfeited American strength and revealed the
rottenness of American power, including its harms to most Americans.
 ***
      But Dean's explanation is too convenient, blaming Israel (however
reactionary its apparent ethnic cleansing in Palestine) for what are
plainly crimes executed in accordance with (fantasies about) American
"interests"....
 ***
       For the CIA, not Israel, under the urging of Bush and Cheney,
enacted torture; the decent people both there (such as Ray McGovern) and in
the FBI - Ali Soufan - have criticized these crimes relentlessly.  McGovern
even rightly calls for the abolition of the CIA.  See here
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2F2EP29uT7ofnOMc7RKO%2FGpp74C%2B7b0x9>
.
 ***
       I conjoin with Dean's comments a post I put up in 2009 on Mr.
Cheney "What the Torturer Knew."  What is most clear about the barbarity of
American torture is that the CIA torturers were even
repulsed themselves by water boarding Abu Zubaydah 82 times, asking in the
middle to stop.  For this was the practice, as the Senate Report makes
clear, of "ensuring" the prisoner knew nothing beyond what he had confessed
not under torture, a criminal policy that took torture on many individuals,
without any justifiable suspicion, to the max....  David Addington,
Cheney's "man," stilled them: "Be Men!"  But torture did not - ever, once -
get any useful information (see the Torture Report and Andrew Sullivan
here
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=F9Wc8zbuV5RqeMU66stjoZp74C%2B7b0x9> and
the*New York Times* editorial below).
 ***
      What it did do was seek for ties between Saddam and Al-Qaida.  The
US plan was to invade Iraq from the first day of the Bush administration -
see the Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's memoir, *The Price of Loyalty*.
O'Neill who had been in the Ford and Reagan administrations, was rightly
confused by a cabinet discussion at the first meeting in January 2001 which
assumed the administration would invade Iraq, making tactical plans...but
failed to discuss: why?
 ***
           Bush and his minions fixed on this policy without any clear
justification.  Cheney looked for any "prop" for his assertion of ties
between Al-Qaida and Saddam; the "dark side" was his means.
***
But no such ties between Saddam and Al-Qaida existed...
 ***
         Torture is also, as Elaine Scarry underlines in her remarkable
book, *The Body in Pain*, a way of asserting domination, of threatening
or trying to scare people widely.
 ***
        But Richard Cheney is more frightening to Americans than to
others.  And in fact, his policy also yields justified hatred among many -
recall the* Count of Monte Christo *and then ask: how many Monte Christos
has the US minted at Guantanamo...
 ***
       It was Cheney's desire -  underlined in  his loathsome  "Meet the
Press" interview last Sundayhere
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=5Ktd18yHYd%2BCV3LzmTChd5p74C%2B7b0x9>,
a former Secretary of Defense, Ford Chief of Staff, V-P Mafioso, strutting
and screaming - to get the information he *already knew* by torture.
 ***
     So "What the Torturer Knew" - see below - is the primary and obvious
aspect of torture.  That the neocons, including Israelis or certain
influential Straussians, ran Cheney is not obvious.  That Cheney bought
much of their lies/fantasies and sought to carry them out is clear.
        That Israel is becoming, in its Occupation of Palestine, more and
more of a depraved racist regime, murdering 426 children in Gaza last
summer for one Israeli child murdered by Hamas rockets, is clear.
        That Israel and the United States, its endless supplier of
weapons like the named for genocide "Apache" helicopter, need to be stopped
is clear.
***
    But that the tail wags the dog, that the US, across administrations,
does not benefit from its relation with Israel, is not clear.  For a long
time, the US played divide and rule in the Middle East to control the oil
and establish military bases.
***
       Now, with the arrival of nonviolent Palestinian resistance (BDS,
in the villages and the like), with the increasing knowledge of Americans
(AIPAC has given up on the campuses now; there is too much evidence about
what Israel does, and “hasbara” – Israeli public relations – will not cover
forced transfer, lies about negotiations, and  wanton murders…).
         Israel is becoming increasingly isolated even in America...
 ***
      The American invasions of the Middle East starting with the first
Gulf War reveal 25 years of decline, the latest with no boots on the ground
except some mercenary “invisibles,”  are signs of an unpromising, decadent,
militarist addiction.
 ***
    Better the US clean up its torture act; read the Senate Report and
ask yourself  – are “we” better, in kind, than the hideous IS – and the
difficulty in the answer  may startle you.  For as Cheney said on *Meet
the Press*, torturing innocents to death, hung up when their legs were
broken, in stress positions, and anal rape, no biggie.  The *only* criminals
are those who did 9/11…See here
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=2mskGSWoGTAbnQqOJJI8VMOdEbZdmYvZ>
.
Defending the Bill of Rights and human rights promise something
different...
 ***
         Nonetheless, Dean's commentary does suggest one route by which
those determined to plant false information can gull credulous CIA
torturers (the latter are sometimes breathed on by Mr. Cheney to spread
lies; one self-described "Troglodyte"/reactionary on the second floor of
Langley described how frightened he was when Cheney came down and
"breathed" on him).
***
But the Iraqi engineer "curveball" made up for German intelligence
a story about mobile bioweapons laboratories.  Germany, a comparatively
civilized nation, did not use torture. though they "interrogated" him for a
year and a half.  The engineer wanted and got asylum in Germany.  Yet both
German and British intelligence warned the US about his "information."  See
here
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=D8ctFsAlY3F7Qm4Z0Jqujpp74C%2B7b0x9>
.
Nonetheless, Bush and Powell also picked up and used this
"information" in speeches pushing for aggression (as Cheney planted front
page stories in the*New York Times* through access to Judith Miller - via
his minion Scooter Libby - and then cited those*Times*'s stories as
"evidence" for Iraqi wmds).
***
It is mainly the danger of winds blowing from the top - the
thuggish Cheney, the hapless and easily incited Bush - and the pressures of
American militarism or war complex dominated politics funded at a trillion
dollars a year (the official Pentagon and "intelligence" budgets) - pushing
things ever to the Right.  The latter is what I call the "right wing two
step" in which one oligarchic party calls out for craziness hoping to win
elections given a compliant mainstream press, coupled with the other
oligarchic party putting up little fight - Obama's bombing of Syria is the
latest illustration.
Now Senator Mark Udall on the torture report, Obama on recognizing
Cuba are counterexamples, which in their difficulty/exceptionalism  - Udall
and Obama no longer face elections - underline the point.
 ***
    The Senate Report misleadingly concentrates on the CIA, leaves aside
the criminal Bush administration.  And the *Times* editorial restricts
the matter too much.  So I also include a piece by William Boardman on 12
top war criminals, CIA director George Tenet and Mitchell and Jesson, the
“psychologist” novice interrogator/torture enthusiasts being but numbers 11
and 12 – see also here
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=9sN9idGBVD1Ijy1PpNnmBZp74C%2B7b0x9>.
It is worth taking in how extensive this program was (only Colin Powell
objected to it, was apparently out of the loop...).
 ***
     But while it is surely true, for example, that Jay Bybee or John Yoo
should be disbarred, the act of rationalizing torture in a position of
legal responsibility, if Americans still value the rule of law and the
physical and moral security of citizens, is a war crime for which they
should be tried….
***
     Even Boardman thus adjusts somewhat to the “politics” of the
powerful.  But Obama, who represented some hope when he came into office,
has become an accomplice to torture, and the next election (unless Rand
Paul is nominated and holds onto some principle) will be, without a
movement from below, between abettors of neo-cons/friends of torturers
(Hillary supports Obama's initial renunciation of water boarding, yet
opposes bringing war criminals to justice...see here
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=F5HEHKQSWQMnNf8dok0XS8OdEbZdmYvZ>
).
 ***
       But enough pressure from below on Obama and the appointment of an
independent prosector who does his job (unlike the one who, as the *Times* pointed
out, was charged with finding acts of torture beyond those permitted by the
Bush administration and scandalously brought no charges) may become
possible.
 ***
     I also link here
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=4e3%2FFM1rwknvtPf2tK%2F275p74C%2B7b0x9> to
an article on the edits from the Senate Report by the CIA/Obama of
names/places of allied torturers (Poland, for example, where one notorious
black site was). This corrupt editing underlines the wreckage of
 international law, of which the absolute ban on torture is the
centerpiece, brought about by the Bush administration.  But there will be a
fight in Europe to restore these things.  And the UN special rapporteur on
torture again called, with the Senate report, for trials of the Bush\Cheney
administration under the Convention against Torture.  Further, as the
*Times'* editorial insists, the US needs to repudiate these actions
across the board – Cheney and Bush and the others need to be confronted
with trials and jail time (capital punishment is a barbaric American thing
so probably, despite US legal precedent, they haven’t quite earned
that…)...
 ***
        Even Senator Feinstein, a collaborator with torturers, spoke up.
See here
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=8pBvahSt3lYWnuFDvLgNf5p74C%2B7b0x9>.
Even the *Times*, which under Bill Keller, propagated the euphemism "very
harsh interrogations" and refused to look at torture, has now spoken out
strongly against it.
 ***
        It is only being a decent society, having law at all, which hangs
in the balance…
  New York Times
The Opinion Pages
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=olzlErHomzlDBvG5wZaEypp74C%2B7b0x9>
 | EDITORIAL
Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses
*By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Y1TNU46ewwNI6upXid6b9MOdEbZdmYvZ> *DEC.
21, 2014
Photo
Dick Cheney. CreditWin McNamee/Getty Images
 Since the day President Obama took office, he has failed to bring to
justice anyone responsible for the torture of terrorism suspects — an
official government program conceived and carried out in the years after
the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
He did allow his Justice Department to investigate the C.I.A.'s
destruction of videotapes of torture sessions and those who may have gone
beyond the torture techniques authorized by President George W. Bush. But
the investigation did not lead
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=CXLWO1uDA40ZRK2OcJGVOpp74C%2B7b0x9> to
any charges being filed, or even any accounting of why they were not filed.
Mr. Obama has said
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=EWG66Y96MdxKeXy6JD00Rpp74C%2B7b0x9> multiple
times that “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards,” as
though the two were incompatible. They are not. The nation cannot move
forward in any meaningful way without coming to terms, legally and morally,
with the abhorrent acts that were authorized, given a false patina of
legality, and committed by American men and women from the highest levels
of government on down.
Americans have known about many of these acts for years, but the 524-page executive
summary
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=nV0ydkBVVkJRTIbidCZG2pp74C%2B7b0x9> of
the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report erases any lingering doubt about their
depravity and illegality
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ANIO1ulds%2BrhGUFl5mKmppp74C%2B7b0x9>:
In addition to new revelations of sadistic tactics like “rectal feeding
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Ysqx8cgoQQt7kAXqTmQmCZp74C%2B7b0x9>,”
scores of detainees were waterboarded, hung by their wrists, confined in
coffins, sleep-deprived, threatened with death or brutally beaten. In
November 2002, one detainee who was chained to a concrete floor died of
“suspected hypothermia.”
These are, simply, crimes. They are prohibited by federal law
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Y4MUI%2FxXrRowCGsdpXj8%2BZp74C%2B7b0x9>,
which defines
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=c%2BxWZ%2FH6P%2Fp2wUFy1sKD%2FZp74C%2B7b0x9> torture
as the intentional infliction of “severe physical or mental pain or
suffering.” They are also banned by theConvention Against Torture
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2FrEh5ztyzDBOOOvH2O9RBcOdEbZdmYvZ>,
the international treaty that the United States ratified in 1994 and that
requires prosecution of any acts of torture.
So it is no wonder that today’sblinkered apologists
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=BPeSvlGZxaTZ6N%2FEdKdi1pp74C%2B7b0x9> are
desperate to call these acts anything but torture, which they clearly were.
As the report reveals, these claims fail for a simple reason: C.I.A.
officials admitted
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Hq8xJT9Ca32ZmuLhUWHPnZp74C%2B7b0x9> at
the time that what they intended to do was illegal.
In July 2002, C.I.A. lawyers told the Justice Department that the agency
needed to use “more aggressive methods” of interrogation that would
“otherwise be prohibited by the torture statute.” They asked the department
to promise not to prosecute those who used these methods. When the
department refused, they shopped around for the answer they wanted. They
got it from the ideologically driven lawyers in the Office of Legal
Counsel, who wrote memos fabricating a legal foundation for the methods.
Government officials now rely on the memos as proof that they sought and
received legal clearance for their actions. But the report changes the
game: We now know that this reliance was not made in good faith.
 No amount of legal pretzel logic can justify the behavior detailed in
the report. Indeed, it is impossible to read it and conclude that no one
can be held accountable. At the very least, Mr. Obama needs to authorize a
full and independent criminal investigation.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch are to give
Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. a letter Monday calling for appointment of
a special prosecutor to investigate what appears increasingly to be “a vast
criminal conspiracy, under color of law, to commit torture and other
serious crimes.”
 The question everyone will want answered, of course, is: Who should be
held accountable? That will depend on what an investigation finds, and as
hard as it is to imagine Mr. Obama having the political courage to order a
new investigation, it is harder to imagine a criminal probe of the actions
of a former president.
But any credible investigation should include former Vice President Dick
Cheney; Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington; the former C.I.A.
director George Tenet; and John Yoo and Jay Bybee, the Office of Legal
Counsel lawyers who drafted what became known as the torture memos
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=uJ%2Bh4CaGNg%2B611CfR44viJp74C%2B7b0x9>.
There are many more names that could be considered, including Jose
Rodriguez Jr., the C.I.A. official who ordered
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=IpVWsnNkn%2FSYvL6rwvSb15p74C%2B7b0x9> the
destruction of the videotapes; the psychologists who devised
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=k8x6mVLNu%2Bz9gg7EKZ8fjZp74C%2B7b0x9>the
torture regimen; and the C.I.A. employees who carried out that regimen.
One would expect Republicans who have gone hoarse braying about Mr.
Obama’s executive overreach to be the first to demand accountability, but
with one notable exception
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=0kkEPZl9%2F7wWjtCW%2BacYm5p74C%2B7b0x9>,
Senator John McCain, they have either fallen silent oractively
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=MShVXCZc01u6C52OuyWLApp74C%2B7b0x9>
 defended
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ANIO1ulds%2BpGqYs8Q0uDpZp74C%2B7b0x9>
 theindefensible
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=sJkkCY9Dog249KfzAnFYZJp74C%2B7b0x9>.
They cannot even point to any results
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=84nXpQ5X0X%2FyyYdM3XuVbZp74C%2B7b0x9>:
Contrary to repeated claims by the C.I.A., the report concluded that “at no
time” did any of these techniques yield intelligence that averted a terror
attack. And at least 26 detainees were later determined to have been “wrongfully
held
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=2fGS%2B%2F8FjsviM9au%2Bz%2FrkZp74C%2B7b0x9>
.”
 ***
 "Veterans Today, Military Affairs Journal of the Clandestine Community
*Insiders mislead US based on false CIA interrogation reports: Analyst*
 US Senate Intelligence Committee released a report last week detailing
CIA torture techniques.
 Sun Dec 21, 2014 7:43AM GMT
             *A political commentator says “insiders” mislead the US
government to make crucial decisions based on false information they
receive from terror suspects under harsh tactics.*
 Speaking to Press TV on Thursday, Jim W. Dean, managing editor of
Veterans Today from Atlanta, said the CIA uses very skilful interrogators
who lead suspects into telling them what they want to hear.
 “It has tremendous potential for abuse because if you get somebody like
the Dick Cheney crowd looking for some kind of a justification for
launching an attack or about an incoming threat, they can put out the word
that they need confirmation on this or that and that they need to have the
interrogators bring in people to confirm things,” Dean said.
 “Here is what torture is a horrible problem, because corrupt
interrogators can lead a person while they are interrogating them, telling
them what they really want them to tell them and they will stop torturing
them,” he continued.
 “And then what will happen is that someone would submit a false report
like the Israelis, and the US intelligence... will end up torturing two
people to confirm it, and then the government actually gets hustled in
doing something based on a completely false report,” he explained.
 “And this actually makes it a threat to the national security, because
corrupt insiders inside the government can rig events, like they had done
for the Iraq war,... to initiate a war,” the journalist noted.
 Dean said this is “one of the biggest threats that we face and they are
always done by insider people.”
 The US Senate Intelligence Committee released a report last week
detailing torture techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency during
the presidency of George W. Bush.
 The report confirmed that the CIA used extreme methods such as
waterboarding, sleep deprivation, mock executions and threats that the
relatives of the prisoners would be sexually abused.
 An analysis of the report by the Nation Magazine showed that human
experimentation was a “core feature” of the spy agency’s torture program.
***
  "WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2009
Democratic-Individuality.Blogspot.com
What the Torturer Knew
      The FBI interrogator Ali Soufan recently reported in testimony to
the Senate that he connected with  Abu Zubaydah by treating his wounds and
talking to him.  Abu Zubaydah gave him information which led to the capture
of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.  As Soufan testified in answer to Senator
Lindsay Graham from South Carolina who tried to defend Vice President
Cheney, outsmarting people for information is tougher than beating them to
a pulp. Graham used to know this – he once opposed torture.  But now he
said “these techniques have been used since the Middle Ages”; there must
be, he tried to suggest, a reason. Thuggery – scaring the life out of many
people by randomly brutalizing whomever one can lay one’s hands on – is, I
am afraid, the ordinary reason of corrupt kings and
princes.   Waterboarding has been used since the Inquisition, as was
burning Jewish teenagers at the stake (see Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws,
book 26).  Thus, the mark of law and civilization at all – as opposed to
tyranny – is the absolute ban on waterboarding and torture.  The rump
elements of the Republican Party have zealously become the partisans of
Torquemada.
       In one of now “Judge” Jay Bybee’s torture memos released recently
by Obama, it reports that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times
in a month.  This was plainly crazy even for torturers and the CIA men who
did the job apparently complained about it.  Zubaydah was waterboarded over
80 times.  But Soufan had procured the only information Zubaydah had.  What
the torturer wanted wasn’t information from Zubaydah; what the torturer
wanted was what the torturer already knew.
      Vice President Cheney wanted Zubaydah or anybody else (didn’t
matter who) to give up the information that Al-Qaida had ties with
Saddam.  The fact that this claim was untrue and bizarre – Al Qaida is a
fanatical offshoot of the Sunnis and Saddam was secular and locked up and
killed fanatical and other Sunnis and Shia – did not interfere.  Cheney is
way smart compared to most bureaucrats and politicians, but he works best
through silence and intimidation. His own ignorance was not obstacle.  If
he forced enough torture, he could get a “justification” for aggressing
against Iraq.  And Cheney knew with a passion that this must be right.  He
even went down into the lower floors of the CIA to breathe on  lower level
CIA officers and get the information he wanted.  He would break his
subordinates in order to break the prisoners.
       Cheney, Rice and Bush are all still quick to summon up 9/11.  But
not only did they give up the search for Osama Bin Laden; they used
“enhanced interrogation,” that is torture, to try to force what they
already knew out of the tortured.  That is the only thing torture is good
for. Note the particular criminality of the torture – it was not a bizarre
response to 9/11; it was an obsessively calculated action to justify a long
planned aggression against Saddam.  All the excuses for the criminals
cannot hide the fact that what they did was not an attempt to gain
information about 9/11.  That was not what Cheney knew, and Ali Soufan had
already done this. Note: even the threadbare rationalizations for torture
of the American establishment and the Democratic Party (these people were
desperate and had lost their bearings because of 9/11) do not justify this
policy. Gaining information to prevent an attack from Al-Qaida had nothing
to do with the torture.  Instead, it was designed to confirm a war which
the “Cheney-Rumsfeld” cabal had determined on long before 9/11.  Secretary
of Commerce Paul O’Neill in his book with Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty
tells the fascinating story that he walked into his first cabinet meeting
with Bush and the others were discussing the tactics of going to war with
Iraq. Weren’t you supposed, he wondered, to discuss whether and why to go
to war first?  He had been in the Ford and Reagan administrations and also
wondered what happened to cabinet discussions of policy.  Under the
influence of Rove and Cheney, cabinet discussions under George W. Bush only
focused on politics.  Perhaps that is a reason for the singular disasters
in every aspect of public policy which the Bush-Cheney regime achieved.  In
any case, what the torturer did to these “high value detainees in secret
prisons” later became the American way at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and
Bagram.  The torturer used  naked power to enact his own fantasies, which
had nothing to do with protecting the United States against another 9/11.
        In addition,  the use by the CIA of the techniques of the
psychologists Mitchell and Jesson, who advised the SERE (Survival, Evasion,
Resistance, Escape) program for American soldiers who might be captured was
also an offshoot of Cheney’s move to “dark side.” But as sloppy as Cheney
(instilling fear substitutes for finding out anything) or perhaps a
blowhard intimidated by Cheney, CIA chief George Tenet could not be
bothered to find out whether either of these “psychologists” had ever done
an interrogation.  They hadn’t.  The FBI agent Ali Soufan knew how to get
information.  In contrast, the torturer knew already what he would elicit
from prisoners.  Questioning suspects had nothing to do with it.  He would
see to it that the screws were applied to them until they gave up what he
knew.
        The CIA did not succeed with Zubaydah (though apparently they
made him quite crazy) or Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.  It did succeed with
Al-Libi, who recently died in a prison in Syria under mysterious
circumstances.   Under torture, Al-Libi told the CIA what Cheney wanted to
hear.  Colin Powell then prepared his February 16, 2003  UN speech, trying
to weed out some believable claim among the Cheney/neocon fantasies by
going to CIA headquarters for four days and throwing away papers in
disgust.  Powell tried to resist the craziness, but his obsequiousness to
the President meant that he had ultimately to choose something that the
torturer knew.  He settled on Al-Libi’s words under torture (he may or may
not have known that Al-Libi was tortured).  He gave a speech in which the
only true things he said were his name and that he was Secretary of State
of the United States.  As his assistant in the State Department, Richard
Haas (one of many decent civil servants who resigned from the Bush
administration) later said, “It was the most embarrassing speech he gave in
his life.”
         The torturer knew what he wanted.  But there was a huge anti-war
movement of which I was a part, largely unaddressed in the mainstream
press.  The invasion of Iraq – an act of aggression, without even a UN
Security Council sanction – was never a popular war.  Even the initial
blitzkrieg and careful close-up photographing of the toppling of a statue
of Saddam deeply impressed only the mainstream or access media, the talking
heads who all say what will get the President and Vice-President to give
them access.  The New York times via Judith Miller printed the words of
Ahmed Chalabi (the corrupt Iraqi exile the neocons, especially Cheney
relied on) on the front page.  Cheney then invoked the New York Times on
Meet the Press the same day: “Even the Times agrees.”  Everyone needs to
say what the Vice President already knew.
         There is something deeply dishonorable about a war waged at all
costs, with threadbare stories justifying it.  The administration could not
find weapons of mass destruction.  It could not find ties to
Al-Qaeda.  Still what the torturer knew possessed others even prestigious
Democratic Senators like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden who feared to be
thought weak on "national security."  What the torturer knew passed for
American wisdom even in the mainstream news downplaying and distorting
 protests.   Months and months passed, and later there was a stolen
election (exit polling which has never been wrong in Presidential elections
indicated that Kerry had won).  For another four years, the torturer sailed
on.
      What the torturer knew was a lie that served the torturer.  What
the torturer knew betrayed what had been decent in American policy (at
least the CIA tortured in the dark, though foreign minions) and had made
America comparatively respected in the world.  What torture obtains is the
fantasy that the torturer knew. That is the only truth in the show “24.”
which is television for the torturer.  That torture elicits only the
torturer's fantasies is the truth about torture. That it reveals only the
degradation of the torturer - Cheney strove long to remain silent and
hidden -  is also the truth about torture. Unless President Obama appoints
a bipartisan commission to gather the facts or Attorney General Holder
appoints a special prosecutor, torture will remain the truth about the
United States of America.  Barack Obama is decent and knows better than
this. He courageously released the 4 torture memos unredacted over the
yelps of four former CIA heads.  The legal side of the case – that American
officials plainly tortured and that the legal advice on which they
supposedly authorized the torture was thrown together after the torture had
already been ordered and occurred, and would not, if a student had thrown
it together hastily late at night, have passed a beginning law school class
- is now clear internationally and even here at home.  It remains to be
seen whether Obama  will reveal more information about torture, or whether
the Democrats will slide back into acquiescence.  Will what the torturer
knew be enshrined in an American police state in which citizens can be
indefinitely detained and tortured at the whim of a President – as Jose
Padilla was turned “into a chair” according to his lawyers in his three and
a half years under torture in a West Virginia brig?  Or will we the people,
finally, demand that the law to take its course?
  William Boardman
Reader Supported News
*Obviously guilty: two presidents and much of two administrations*
 According to recent polling, something like half of all Americans who
were asked questions weighted to support torture answered that the torture
was "justified." The good news here is that something like half of all
Americans, responding to push-poll type questions, still aren't willing to
say the government is justified in torturing in their name.
 The more serious question is why "respected" polling organizations
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=GZktKJX4j8l1C10xxchMZJp74C%2B7b0x9> use
biased questions and why "respected" news organizations report the results
uncritically. ABC News/Washington Post asks about "treatment of suspected
terrorists" (no hint that innocents were tortured). Pew frames the question
with "the September 11th terrorist attacks" (no hint the torture went on
for years after). CBS News uses a false choice, "sometimes justified"
versus "never justified," as well as calling the victims "suspected
terrorists." HuffPost also uses "suspected terrorists" and adds "details
about future terrorist attacks" to load the question further (no hint that
no such person with such details has yet been identified).
 In other words, we have dishonest polling organizations asking dishonest
questions that dishonest media report as if they were not dishonest. And
still something like half of the manipulated poll-takers are unwilling to
endorse torture. That is a source of hope. Especially if some pollster
would ask people if they think torture is legal anywhere?
 Or maybe some pollster could ask people if they know how many times Bush
and members of his administration have been convicted as war criminals for
committing torture and other cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of
people. The answer is: once. In 2012, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes
Commission
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=lcyLxlGjTZnA0m7AovZPx5p74C%2B7b0x9> tried
Bush and seven others in absentia. Bush and the others refused to
participate. Kuala Lumpur's attempts to arrest Bush in Canada were blocked
by the Canadian government.
 George Bush and Dick Cheney knew perfectly well that what they wanted
others to do in their name was both torture and illegal; that's why they
went to such lengths to get compliant lawyers to call it something else and
say that other thing was legitimate. So the list has to begin with them.
Where it ends is a long way beyond 10. Everyone on the list is almost
surely a participant or accomplice in years of torture. Each, at a minimum,
needs to be publicly examined under oath, subject to all relevant law,
including perjury.
 *Top 10 Government Torturers, 2001-2014*
 *1.* George Bush
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=XjYA03hGsN1XCOaNZKjNWZp74C%2B7b0x9>.
As president, he's accountable for all the acts of his administration,
especially the ones he ordered and/or approved. An anonymous CIA spokesman
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=FlR4RPm1XvyFP72r57OV45p74C%2B7b0x9> says
Bush "fully authorized torture."Karl Rove
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=GhvG4H8xVR%2FlvQS93VPIHsOdEbZdmYvZ> says
Bush knew about and approved of torture, and participated in it, as did
Rove. Dick Cheney
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Kb9O6oJEiSVjuHLktdah2Zp74C%2B7b0x9> says
Bush knew and approved. In early 2008, Bush vetoed legislation
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=XXh9EgP60BYBrjc%2BT4VVipp74C%2B7b0x9> designed
to control the CIA, including a ban on waterboarding. Congress failed to
over-ride
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2FfUBZoRuPj48BZ2dwoP97Zp74C%2B7b0x9> the
veto. Bush was convicted in Kuala Lumpur in 2012.
 *2.* Dick Cheney
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=oSremm7CtEEM3ccgIEG7kZp74C%2B7b0x9>.
The vice president says he knew, he approved, and he would "do it again in
a minute." He has famously promoted "the dark side
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=YQRqUzHQTuOyo7kSZoMdLJp74C%2B7b0x9>."
He was convicted in Kuala Lumpur in 2012.
 *3.* Condoleezza Rice
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=BWdHugdqA4Ayqs9OuakJJJp74C%2B7b0x9>,
National Security Advisor, knew, approved, and participated. She has pleaded
bad memory
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=1SjGbt5QXP90ORrs%2BKdfhJp74C%2B7b0x9> to
Congress, but still publicly defends torture now. Her assistant and
successor, Stephen J. Hadley
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=7RL6z3Fihh%2B2EO9NKohC8wrdXAnThDyH>,
was either in the loop or unbelievably feckless, as were an unknown number
of staffers and members of the National Security Council
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ZvwVZewcCRbZNzDT0%2FRbVpp74C%2B7b0x9>
.
 *4.* Andrew Card
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=XzoNeqa9ALb3UPOqu4TSdZp74C%2B7b0x9>,
White House chief of staff, knew, approved, and participated
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=UJ5208Lv5UcgK0pJKLTLzZp74C%2B7b0x9>,
even though he's a Life Boy Scout. Why should Card, who accuses Barack
Obama of misleading the American people
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=lyDR%2FtmYgsmtBVjqujiwoJp74C%2B7b0x9>,
continue as president of Franklin Pierce University? Card's successor, Joshua
Bolten
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=C2PKq1sda8MObK1S9PM8V5p74C%2B7b0x9>,
and an unknown number of other White House staffers are almost surely
accomplices. The son of a CIA father, Bolten is a lawyer who teaches at
Princeton despite his ties to torture as well as a contempt of Congress
citation for stonewalling in another matter. Bolten is also co-chair of the Clinton
Bush Haiti Fund
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=HcIfG0HZBEfdNZRbb7zbyJp74C%2B7b0x9>,
a non-profit organization that's supposedly helping a country the U.S. has
tortured for the better part of two centuries.
 *5.* Alberto Gonzales
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=HIOMw0yzCh90uzJmOQEPVZp74C%2B7b0x9>.
As White House Counsel, and later as Attorney General, he not only knew,
approved, and participated, he was one of the main legal apologists
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=vfKzrs93cl4m4nwu%2FJ3gGJp74C%2B7b0x9> for
the torture regime. His successors, Harriet Miers
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=mik1EvCrsil6ZbpH%2BaVN%2Bpp74C%2B7b0x9>,
an especially close Bush aide, and Fred Fielding
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=StgOyNf9d0Y14ZTHvv2WvJp74C%2B7b0x9>,
a Watergate survivor thought by some to be Deep Throat, both likely knew
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=n2UAMGIvBUh4IiZUuQBxjZp74C%2B7b0x9>
 and remained silent
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=RAo30Byxn3TNNByVElKmypp74C%2B7b0x9> about
official torture. Fielding stonewalled
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=0MqzThBgTO083NneFSLAswrdXAnThDyH> Senate
requests for documents relating to torture. Gonzales was convicted in Kuala
Lumpur in 2012. Why should they not be disbarred?
 *6.* Jay Bybee
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=GIgINoOzQuuMyDvKGKuA6Zp74C%2B7b0x9>.
As an Assistant Attorney General under the late (but guilty) John Ashcroft,
Bybee was in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel, the office that decides
what's legal, subject to reversal only by the attorney general or the
president. Bybee was the midwife of Bush torture policy justifications, a
number of legal memoranda that allowed the Bush administration to claim
that torture and other crimes were legal. These are generally known as the "Torture
Memos
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=sSX2J1ppLR8sqCDojIPXTsOdEbZdmYvZ>"
and illustrate the workings of a fine legal mind operating without
conscience
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=GjHgpw5SeWlBcDv1mkG8F5p74C%2B7b0x9>.
Before some of his torture memos became public, Bybee was confirmed to a
lifetime appointment as a federal judge. In 2013, Judge Bybee ruled, in an
apparently gross conflict of interest
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=cOzVWpypF1ExBxtLL%2BvKIMOdEbZdmYvZ>,
that government personnel should be immune from any liability for torture.
Why should he not be disbarred? Or impeached? Bybee was convicted in Kuala
Lumpur in 2012.
 *7.* John Yoo
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=WCGEIazJM4Vm1tYQbEQoiJp74C%2B7b0x9>.
Working in the Office of Legal Counsel under Bybee, Yoo was the prime
author of several of the torture memos, built on the philosophical premise
that there are no constraints on the president's power as
commander-in-chief (a legal coup d'etat effectively rendering the
Constitution irrelevant and the president omnipotent, all done in secret).
In 2005, Yoo publicly affirmed
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=czEIQh2SJo7LJkKwMyNizJp74C%2B7b0x9> the
authority of the president to order the crushing of an innocent child's
testicles. In 2009, Barack Obama revoked Yoo's torture memos, but in 2010 a secret
proceeding
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=vDHFo5L4Zp6AJxs2uJSSGZp74C%2B7b0x9> in
the Justice Department "cleared" Yoo of wrongdoing. These days, Yoo
continues to protect torturers
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=NnEqjDdpJJGoTsXljBwiS5p74C%2B7b0x9> in
the White House, while shifting any blame to the CIA. He continues to teach
lat at the University of California, Berkeley. Why should he not be
disbarred? He was convicted in Kuala Lumpur in 2012.
 *8.* David Addington
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=UIyPvizWOSp0XsBhEDShJpp74C%2B7b0x9>.
Legal counsel (and later chief of staff) to Dick Cheney, Addington was by many
accounts
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=TGDIY4w6%2BNU1y7oh4r9zp5p74C%2B7b0x9> among
the hardest of the hardliners driving to the dark side, backed by Cheney's
full authority. He knew, he approved, and he participated in U.S. torture
program and their legal fig leaves
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=jW3LEL7aQWvU%2BhyLsRSQ65p74C%2B7b0x9>.
His predecessor as chief of staff, lawyer Scooter Libby
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=qvFEDuFYKiiS%2B2R5bRmOHpp74C%2B7b0x9>,
also knew, approved, and participated in torture. He was convicted of
perjury about other government crimes and disbarred (temporarily).
Addington is now a vice president at the Heritage Foundation. He was
convicted in Kuala Lumpur in 2012. Why should he not be disbarred?
 *9. Donald Rumsfeld
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=nWLte%2BtONdxDIv0iMJnHapp74C%2B7b0x9>*.
As Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld knew, approved and participated in torture
programs
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=4bRyfFjGoKQTxB2F2IhCXZp74C%2B7b0x9>wherever
the military went. Abu Ghraib
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=4aRzBF6%2FjININTSI87cAN5p74C%2B7b0x9>
. Bagram
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=FcggDJRGbdSuUXyMNTS%2Fy5p74C%2B7b0x9>
. Guantanamo
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=dNQBM5OPlCIOAKbklCXE85p74C%2B7b0x9>.
And other places, some unknown
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=0kkEPZl9%2F7xBdl9hiN6%2FoZp74C%2B7b0x9>.
Rumsfeld expresses no remorse, least of all in the documentary "The
Unknown Known
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=JEPX%2B75URiwdhwijSj0p4Jp74C%2B7b0x9>."
Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=CtlN0jc%2FP%2Bc%2F0yG%2B6hKGeJp74C%2B7b0x9>,
knew, approved, and participated in torture programs
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=0q26ejNgt1%2FogSV7JZzZx5p74C%2B7b0x9>,
seeking information to justify the war
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=oSremm7CtEHczGWib6r435p74C%2B7b0x9> on
Iraq. He is now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. William
Haynes
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=k1o1A2qSwyn8sGIFcy7elpp74C%2B7b0x9>,
general counsel for the Defense Department, knew, approved, and
participated in torture programs. For trying Guantanamo prisoners, Haynes
designed the military commissions that were later ruled unconstitutional.
In a 2002 memo
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=klJzJYsXmqDdx0l004uEe5p74C%2B7b0x9>,
Haynes blocked further waterboarding of Guantanamo prisoners
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=x%2B8y7i5bueaKjRzXxAKNzpp74C%2B7b0x9>,
citing the Armed Forces "tradition of restraint." Rumsfeld and Haynes were
convicted in Kuala Lumpur. Why should Haynes not be disbarred?
 *10.* James Mitchell
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=WXhDzSFcBQmT3ZgaAAtZhJp74C%2B7b0x9>
 and Bruce Jessen
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=VZ5sAcjWKlcLePf1Hlq7rJp74C%2B7b0x9>
. Private contractors
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=A9sgn4ItfHXOsYfifMbxopp74C%2B7b0x9> and
PhD psychologists who call themselves Dr., Mitchell and Jessen were paid
$81 million
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Ha8O78eDrAonf38cK92x75p74C%2B7b0x9> (on
a $180 million contract) to torture people
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=uJglPjVMVRXUGBGKETc1wZp74C%2B7b0x9>.
Both are retired Air Force officers on government pension. Reportedly the
CIA has indemnified them against liability for any crimes they've
committed. They were hands-on torturers and know, literally, where at least
some of the bodies are buried. CIA general counsel John Rizzo
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=TjxzknzCcmCKsKMNqK7KIJp74C%2B7b0x9> (who
also knew, approved, and participated in torture) called Mitchell and
Jessen's techniques "sadistic and terrifying
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=GhSSAfyGR62R3ZVaGiOWO5p74C%2B7b0x9>."
No one knows how many private contractors, like Blackwater and others,
tortured, disappeared, or murdered people, but they should be brought to
account.
 *11.* George Tenet
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=F%2FKN3yyJ96Nln%2Fh9KoKV75p74C%2B7b0x9>.
The Clinton-appointed head of the CIA is awash in torture-guilt, but that
pales compared to his role in lying the U.S. into an aggressive war in
Iraq, one of the highest war crimes. In 2004, Bush gave him the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he should give back. In 2007 he was
still saying, "We don't torture people
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=3pewae%2FbwwHuXUVje8SbkJp74C%2B7b0x9>."
His successors, especially Porter Goss
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=GXIcH2v5D1AMfmBMMNBsy5p74C%2B7b0x9>
 and Michael Hayden
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Ct3lvssIfhAxsJv4Y73za5p74C%2B7b0x9>,
may have tidied up the CIA a bit, but they held no one accountable for the
crimes they continued to deny
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=YQRqUzHQTuNmKV80obhQ%2FJp74C%2B7b0x9>.
The new Director of National Intelligence
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=2fGS%2B%2F8FjstNsURwr%2FpT0Zp74C%2B7b0x9>
, John Negroponte
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=9EF4K5%2Fbv6PgMEwpOwOBgMOdEbZdmYvZ>,
forced Goss out at the CIA in favor of Negroponte's deputy Hayden
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=7Xzgayvk7NST73JJV%2F6xlJp74C%2B7b0x9>,
then still a four-star Air Force general. As ambassador to Honduras,
Negroponte wasimmersed in the dirty wars
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=e8T6oLOSbmM0kouSRIOk%2Bpp74C%2B7b0x9> of
Central America and all the unaddressed crimes the U.S. sponsored there. In
2004, when the CIA inspector general reported that the CIA was violating
the Convention Against Torture, assistant attorney general Steven Bradbury
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=QgK4Lx3B%2BXMSM14kJ4TStZp74C%2B7b0x9> in
the Office of Legal Counsel wrote three more "torture memos" to quash the
inspector general's concern. The new CIA head, John Brennan
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=W5tj9kMsYowavzsc5SKuSZp74C%2B7b0x9>,
remains in denial and cover-up
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=osIVgLm0I6aw5%2F2ws1NOB5p74C%2B7b0x9>
 mode.
 *How does any nation recover from being a rogue state?*
 Even though this top 10 list includes way more than 10
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=WCGEIazJM4VnYE%2F1W8w8EZp74C%2B7b0x9> people
guilty of participating in torture, it's by no means an exhaustive list of
all the government workers with greater or lesser culpability for crimes
against humanity over the past three presidencies. Kidnapping,
euphemistically called extraordinary rendition
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=70bE5CJ7i7venlONYiBYeZp74C%2B7b0x9>,
grew popular in the Clinton administration and there's no reason to believe
our government has abandoned the practice, any more than the government has
given up torture, illegal detention, or assassination. The U.S. may be less
of a rogue state now than it was a decade ago, but it's still far from an
honorable member of the international community that accepts accountability
under international law.
 To be clear, torture has long been a chronic, low level vein of
criminality by U.S. government operatives, with bipartisan collusion at
least since the beginning of the Cold War. Torture (and murder) was endemic
to the American Indian Wars of the 19th century and to U.S. military predation
in the Philippines
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=cZZ975Pi62wYdehtbchWBJp74C%2B7b0x9> (1899-1913),
where Mark Twain described the troops as "our uniformed assassins
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=FcggDJRGbdQwdtrYNPsKIZp74C%2B7b0x9>
."
 The U.S. Defense Department, formerly the War Department, has considered
torture one of its options during its entire existence, used sparingly
perhaps by the U.S. government but encouraged among our proxies around the
world. Starting in 1946, the School of the Americas
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=J5cO%2BKswFj5%2BZGx3vbkCbJp74C%2B7b0x9> (now
known euphemistically as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation) has periodically trained the military officers of Latin
American dictatorships in the uses of torture in peacetime.
 The CIA and its proxies have used torture on an as-needed basis since
the CIA was created in 1947. The CIA's Phoenix Program
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=cyIBUYbOzCydj0tNys41npp74C%2B7b0x9> in
Viet-Nam combined torture and assassination in a years-long terror campaign
against the Viet Cong (also terrorists). What the CIA did in Laos,
Cambodia, and elsewhere is less well known (if known at all) but not less
ugly and criminal. Some sense of official atrocity can be inferred from the CIA
torture manuals
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=JzGS3GjwlaKb6fD4XVyLfJp74C%2B7b0x9> supplied
to Central American dictatorships during the Reagan administration.
 Even in the context of longstanding, institutionalized official torture
-- Torturers 'R' US, in effect -- the Bush administration took American
government crime to a new level not seen in official circles since a
similar panic produced the Salem witch killings. What George Bush, Dick
Cheney, and their accomplices did out of blind fear was to embrace torture
as right and just. Previously, even the structure of torture programs
reflected guilty knowledge that the practice is abhorrent, hence better
done by others on our behalf whether in Iran or Argentina, Iraq or
Guatemala, wherever perceived witches threatened supposed American
interests.
 The United Nations Special Rapporteur
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=sNGjMtSKPu5%2BHFiUqKeDK5p74C%2B7b0x9> on
counterterrorism and human rights is a British lawyer named Ben Emmerson
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ZvwVZewcCRY2j0LB69mIBpp74C%2B7b0x9>.
Regarding the CIA torture report, he issued a statement saying
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=kGHRixcmNWLVs4NuHyfmMcOdEbZdmYvZ>,
in part:
 "The individuals responsible for the criminal conspiracy revealed in
today's report must be brought to justice, and must face criminal penalties
commensurate with the gravity of their crimes.
 The fact that the policies revealed in this report were *authorised at a
high level within the US Government provides no excuse whatsoever*.
Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability.
 "International law prohibits the granting of immunities to public
officials who have engaged in acts of torture. This applies not only to the
actual perpetrators but also to those senior officials within the US
Government who devised, planned and authorised these crimes.
 "*As a matter of international law, the US is legally obliged to bring
those responsible to justice*... States are not free to maintain or
permit impunity for these grave crimes.
 "It is no defence for a public official to claim that they were acting
on superior orders...
 "However, *the heaviest penalties should be reserved for those most
seriously implicated in the planning and purported authorisation of these
crimes*... There is therefore no excuse for shielding the perpetrators
from justice any longer.
The US Attorney General is under a legal duty to bring criminal charges
against those responsible.
 "Torture is a crime of universal jurisdiction. The perpetrators may be
prosecuted by any other country they may travel to. However, the primary
responsibility for bringing them to justice rests with the US Department of
Justice and the Attorney General." [emphasis added]
The Obama administration has a moral and legal duty to bring American
war criminals of three administrations to justice. Not to do so is to
continue to use American exceptionalism as a justification for the worst
crimes against humanity. The national precedent is to honor those most
responsible for government crimes, but what honor is there in that?"
************************************************************************************
Alan Gilbert is John Evans Professor at the Josef Korbel School of
International Studies of the University of Denver.  He is the author of the
books Marx’s Politics, Democratic Individuality, Must Global Politics
Constrain Democracy? and Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for
Emancipation in the War of Independence.   Gilbert is a democratic theorist
and also writes poetry.   He has recently been one of the authors of the
University of Denver’s Report on John Evans’ role in the 1864 Sand Creek
Massacre, central to Colorado’s and the University’s founding.
...
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#82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

[P2P-F] Fwd: Why does America Torture?

Michel Bauwens