A little less kidnapping and torture!

[LadyJeanne]

White House, McCain in deal on torture measure

Dec 15, 2005 — By Adam Entous and Vicki Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bowing to bipartisan pressure after months of resistance, President George W. Bush agreed on Thursday to back legislation proposed by Sen. John McCain to ban inhumane treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody.

With McCain, an Arizona Republican, at his side in the Oval Office, Bush said his goal was to "make it clear to the world that this government does not torture" after a string of detainee abuse scandals damaged Washington's image.

The White House accepted the amendment by McCain — who endured torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam — after initially threatening to veto it and after Vice President Dick Cheney led an unsuccessful bid to exempt the CIA from the torture ban, saying it would hinder the war on terrorism.

But California Republican Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, threatened to block the legislation unless he got White House assurance in writing the amendment would allow "the same high level of effective intelligence-gathering capability that we presently have."

The administration has been hammered by a scandal over the sexual and physical abuse of detainees by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, harsh interrogations at U.S. facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and reports the CIA has run secret prisons abroad to hold terrorism suspects.

McCain's proposal would ban cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners and set standards for interrogations.

The White House had sought protections for interrogators from prosecution under the law, which McCain said would undermine his amendment.

Bush finally settled for language similar to the Uniform Code of Military Justice to allow CIA interrogators to defend themselves based on whether a reasonable person could have found they were following a lawful order about the treatment of prisoners.

"People need to understand what the limits are. And if people don't meet those limits, they're going to be investigated and they're going to be held accountable," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on CNN.

...

full story

 

[BlackShanglan]

I'm pleased that the bill seems to have legs, but appalled that it needed to be passed.

 

[LadyJeanne]

I'm pleased that the bill seems to have legs, but appalled that it needed to be passed.

I'm glad there is so much support for it in Congress. The people have spoken!

 

[shereads]

"People need to understand what the limits are. And if people don't meet those limits, they're going to be investigated and they're going to be held accountable," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on CNN.

Is "being held accountable" anything like "accepting responsibility?" Or does it have actual repercussions?

 

[shereads]

I'm pleased that the bill seems to have legs, but appalled that it needed to be passed.

You seem to have legs, too, Shanglan. Two extra.

 

[shereads]

I wonder whether the presence of "black prisons" in Thailand, etc., will be used as a loophole? Why else would they exist? It shouldn't be difficult for an administration as brazen as this one to make a case that a prisoner tortured in a foreign prison was in that country's custody.

 

[Lord DragonsWing]

being held unaccountable and acting responsibliy are two different terms in court.
Excellent read of the article. It will be interesting to see how it all translates out.

 

[LadyJeanne]

Is "being held accountable" anything like "accepting responsibility?" Or does it have actual repercussions?

It's hard to say, being such a new thing for the administration and all.

 

[oggbashan]

...

Bush finally settled for language similar to the Uniform Code of Military Justice to allow CIA interrogators to defend themselves based on whether a reasonable person could have found they were following a lawful order about the treatment of prisoners.


full story

That has been known as the Nuremburg Defence - I was obeying legitimate orders.

The prosecutors at Nuremburg didn't allow it.

I, and many others, cannot understand why the US does not abide by the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.

If any other state was behaving in such a way, it would be classed as a war crime.

It is no way to win the war on terror. That can only be won by removing the so-called justification and separating the 'terrorists' from the general population. While the US and its allies are behaving in a way that would not be allowed within their own judical systems they are prolonging the war, not winning it.

Og

 

[rgraham666]

I just finished a book Future: Tense by an authour I quite respect, Gwynne Dyer.

Very interesting piece of work. It covers the history of both driving forces in The War on Terror, the Islamists and the neo-conservatives.

Mr. Dyer come to the conclusion is that the invasion of Iraq was not about oil or any strategic consideration. It was a message to the world, "We're not playing by the rules any more."

Since WWI and especially since WWII, the world has, haltingly, tried to replace the rule of the jungle with the rule of law. The neo-cons want to end that. They wish to return to pre-WWI days where a country could do pretty much anything it wanted and all actions were perfectly within a country's rights.

In this context, torture makes sense as the people who currently run the US do not regard themselves as limited by the rules.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

That has been known as the Nuremburg Defence - I was obeying legitimate orders.

The prosecutors at Nuremburg didn't allow it.

I, and many others, cannot understand why the US does not abide by the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.

If any other state was behaving in such a way, it would be classed as a war crime.

It is no way to win the war on terror. That can only be won by removing the so-called justification and separating the 'terrorists' from the general population. While the US and its allies are behaving in a way that would not be allowed within their own judical systems they are prolonging the war, not winning it.

Og

The whole point of Nuremberg was that some orders are NOT lawful.

 

[LadyJeanne]

That has been known as the Nuremburg Defence - I was obeying legitimate orders.

The prosecutors at Nuremburg didn't allow it.

I, and many others, cannot understand why the US does not abide by the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.

If any other state was behaving in such a way, it would be classed as a war crime.

It is no way to win the war on terror. That can only be won by removing the so-called justification and separating the 'terrorists' from the general population. While the US and its allies are behaving in a way that would not be allowed within their own judical systems they are prolonging the war, not winning it.

Og

I believe the war against terror is a "new kind of war" that rendered the Geneva Convention rules "quaint" according to Mr. Gonzalez:

"By Jan. 25, 2002, according to a memo obtained by NEWSWEEK, it was clear that Bush had already decided that the Geneva Conventions did not apply at all, either to the Taliban or Al Qaeda. In the memo, which was written to Bush by Gonzales, the White House legal counsel told the president that Powell had "requested that you reconsider that decision." Gonzales then laid out startlingly broad arguments that anticipated any objections to the conduct of U.S. soldiers or CIA interrogators in the future. "As you have said, the war against terrorism is a new kind of war," Gonzales wrote to Bush. "The nature of the new war places a —high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians." Gonzales concluded in stark terms: "In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

Gonzales also argued that dropping Geneva would allow the president to "preserve his flexibility" in the war on terror. His reasoning? That U.S. officials might otherwise be subject to war-crimes prosecutions under the Geneva Conventions. Gonzales said he feared "prosecutors and independent counsels who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted charges" based on a 1996 U.S. law that bars "war crimes," which were defined to include "any grave breach" of the Geneva Conventions. As to arguments that U.S. soldiers might suffer abuses themselves if Washington did not observe the conventions, Gonzales argued wishfully to Bush that "your policy of providing humane treatment to enemy detainees gives us the credibility to insist on like treatment for our soldiers."

When Powell read the Gonzales memo, he "hit the roof," says a State source. Desperately seeking to change Bush's mind, Powell fired off his own blistering response the next day, Jan. 26, and sought an immediate meeting with the president. The proposed anti-Geneva Convention declaration, he warned, "will reverse over a century of U.S. policy and practice" and have "a high cost in terms of negative international reaction." Powell won a partial victory: On Feb. 7, 2002, the White House announced that the United States would indeed apply the Geneva Conventions to the Afghan war—but that Taliban and Qaeda detainees would still not be afforded prisoner-of-war status. The White House's halfway retreat was, in the eyes of State Department lawyers, a "hollow" victory for Powell that did not fundamentally change the administration's position. It also set the stage for the new interrogation procedures ungoverned by international law.

What Bush seemed to have in mind was applying his broad doctrine of pre-emption to interrogations: to get information that could help stop terrorist acts before they could be carried out. This was justified by what is known in counterterror circles as the "ticking time bomb" theory—the idea that when faced with an imminent threat by a terrorist, almost any method is justified, even torture.

With the legal groundwork laid, Bush began to act. First, he signed a secret order granting new powers to the CIA. According to knowledgeable sources, the president's directive authorized the CIA to set up a series of secret detention facilities outside the United States, and to question those held in them with unprecedented harshness. Washington then negotiated novel "status of forces agreements" with foreign governments for the secret sites. These agreements gave immunity not merely to U.S. government personnel but also to private contractors. (Asked about the directive last week, a senior administration official said, "We cannot comment on purported intelligence activities.")

The administration also began "rendering"—or delivering terror suspects to foreign governments for interrogation. Why? At a classified briefing for senators not long after 9/11, CIA Director George Tenet was asked whether Washington was going to get governments known for their brutality to turn over Qaeda suspects to the United States. Congressional sources told NEWSWEEK that Tenet suggested it might be better sometimes for such suspects to remain in the hands of foreign authorities, who might be able to use more aggressive interrogation methods. By 2004, the United States was running a covert charter airline moving CIA prisoners from one secret facility to another, sources say. The reason? It was judged impolitic (and too traceable) to use the U.S. Air Force.

...

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4989481/

 

[BlackShanglan]

I, and many others, cannot understand why the US does not abide by the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.

My personal theory is that they are still short-sighted enough to believe that it's a convention on how *we* treat *them* rather than what it is: an agreement on how everyone treats everyone. They persist in trying to convince themselves that the rules shouldn't apply to some people, forgetting that the chief reason we follow them is not that we like the people that we're dealing with, but that we want our own people treated in the same fashion.

This, to me, is the most disturbing element of the situation. It's an open invitation to torture our servicemen and servicewomen should they be captured. And this business of female contractors in Guantanamo allegedly using the suggestion of menstrual blood to torment captives - if we encourage our troops use their sex as a weapon, can we possibly hope that it will not be used brutally against them if they are captured?

This is a very dangerous thing, in my opinion - not just for our morals and ethics, which suffer terribly when we excuse inhuman practices, but for the practical safety of our troops. How can we hope for mercy when we show none?

Shanglan

 

[BlackShanglan]

You seem to have legs, too, Shanglan. Two extra.

I believe I possess the most aesthetically pleasing and practical configuration, but am willing to overlook the vagaries of others.

Shanglan

 

[rgraham666]

This is a very dangerous thing, in my opinion - not just for our morals and ethics, which suffer terribly when we excuse inhuman practices, but for the practical safety of our troops. How can we hope for mercy when we show none?

Shanglan

Just so, Shang. As the saying states, "What goes around, comes around."

 

[Wildcard Ky]

I wonder whether the presence of "black prisons" in Thailand, etc., will be used as a loophole? Why else would they exist? It shouldn't be difficult for an administration as brazen as this one to make a case that a prisoner tortured in a foreign prison was in that country's custody.

The loophole is in the wording. No American personnel will commit torture. It doesn't say anything about standing by and letting non americans do it while information is gathered.

 

[LadyJeanne]

My personal theory is that they are still short-sighted enough to believe that it's a convention on how *we* treat *them* rather than what it is: an agreement on how everyone treats everyone. They persist in trying to convince themselves that the rules shouldn't apply to some people, forgetting that the chief reason we follow them is not that we like the people that we're dealing with, but that we want our own people treated in the same fashion.

This, to me, is the most disturbing element of the situation. It's an open invitation to torture our servicemen and servicewomen should they be captured. And this business of female contractors in Guantanamo allegedly using the suggestion of menstrual blood to torment captives - if we encourage our troops use their sex as a weapon, can we possibly hope that it will not be used brutally against them if they are captured?

This is a very dangerous thing, in my opinion - not just for our morals and ethics, which suffer terribly when we excuse inhuman practices, but for the practical safety of our troops. How can we hope for mercy when we show none?

Shanglan

I agree with this, Shang. If we act like barbarians, we will be treated as such.

I am also vehemently opposed to any nation utilizing torture tactics because it perpetuates the practice. If we want to create a more civilized world, we have to stop throwing people to the lions.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Gee, I thought that torture was already banned- by the 8th Amendment to the Constitution (see Bill of Rights). Shows how much I know. Bush is a disgrace to his office. I can't seriously think of too much of the Constitution that he HASN'T flouted since coming to office.

 

[zeb1094]

Gee, I thought that torture was already banned- by the 8th Amendment to the Constitution (see Bill of Rights). Shows how much I know. Bush is a disgrace to his office. I can't seriously think of too much of the Constitution that he HASN'T flouted since coming to office.

I think that only applies within the states and territories of the United States. The last time I looked Cuba was not a territory. But it should apply to all US citizens where ever they may happen to be torturing someone.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

I think that only applies within the states and territories of the United States. The last time I looked Cuba was not a territory. But it should apply to all US citizens where ever they may happen to be torturing someone.

By treaty, Gitmo is a de facto US territory. And we have no plans to give it to Castro. So, it's pretty much permanent. That should mean that the Constitution (including the 8th Amendment) applies.