{"id":363,"date":"2007-11-06T15:54:51","date_gmt":"2007-11-06T20:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/06\/the-latest-torture-twists-turns\/"},"modified":"2007-11-06T15:54:51","modified_gmt":"2007-11-06T20:54:51","slug":"the-latest-torture-twists-turns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/06\/the-latest-torture-twists-turns\/","title":{"rendered":"The Latest Torture Twists & Turns"},"content":{"rendered":"

The American Conservative<\/em> today put online<\/strong> <\/a>my article updating the torture scandal.<\/p>\n

We Have Ways…..\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 American Conservative, November 5, 2007<\/strong><\/p>\n

by James Bovard<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Oct. 4, the New York Times blew another ten-foot hole in the Bush administration\u2019s torture cover-up. The Times revealed that the Justice Department produced a secret legal opinion in early 2005 permitting CIA interrogators to use \u201ccombined effects\u201d on detainees, including head slapping, waterboarding, frigid temperatures, manacling for many hours in stress positions, and blasting with loud music to assure sleep deprivation. The Times labeled the memo as an \u201cexpansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within hours of the paper hitting the streets, President Bush issued the same moth-eaten denial he has used many times since Abu Ghraib: \u201cThis government does not torture people. You know, we stick to U.S. law and our international obligations.\u201d But it is the \u201claw\u201d as contorted by administration lawyers who rubberstamp whatever methods Bush or Cheney demand. The same lawyers who tell Bush he has \u201cinherent authority\u201d to wiretap Americans\u2019 phone calls also tell him he has authority to redefine torture, regardless of the English-language precedents dating back to Chaucer.<\/p>\n

The Times detailed how, after 9\/11, the CIA constructed an interrogation program by \u201cconsulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture.\u201d For decades, the United States government condemned Soviet, Egyptian, and Saudi torture. But interrogation systems designed to compel victims to sign false confessions now provide the model for protecting America in the new millennium.<\/p>\n

In late 2005, Congress passed the McCain Detainee Treatment Act, which prohibited the U.S. government from using \u201ccruel, inhumane, or degrading\u201d interrogation methods. The Times revealed that the Justice Department responded to the new law with another secret memo declaring that all the techniques listed above were not \u201ccruel, inhumane or degrading.\u201d The secret torture memos, written by Steven Bradbury, the head of the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel, relied on \u201ca Supreme Court finding that only conduct that \u2018shocks the conscience\u2019\u201d would go too far.<\/p>\n

While Bush may believe he has sole discretion to define torture, CIA interrogators increasingly fear facing grand juries. The Times noted, \u201cFrom the secret sites in Afghanistan, Thailand and Eastern Europe where C.I.A. teams held al-Qaeda terrorists, questions for the lawyers at C.I.A. headquarters arrived daily. Nervous interrogators wanted to know: Are we breaking the laws against torture?\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Joanne Mariner, a lawyer with Human Rights Watch, the purpose of the secret Justice Department memos was to \u201cto immunize US officials from prosecution for abusive conduct. They were meant to facilitate abuses, not to prevent them.\u201d The fact that the Justice Department officially blessed torturous methods makes it far more difficult to prosecute CIA and other interrogators for breaking the law.<\/p>\n

As usual, the administration claimed it was doing Americans a favor by keeping them in the dark. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino declared, \u201cIt\u2019s appropriate that applications of the laws and techniques are kept secret. And I don\u2019t think that providing those to the American public would serve them well.\u201d Yale law Professor Jack Balkin summed up the administration\u2019s position: \u201cI could tell you why what I\u2019m doing is legal, but then I\u2019d have to shoot you.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of the procedure for establishing the \u201clegal\u201d limits of interrogation, last year\u2019s Military Commission Act required the president to put in writing his definition of what constitutes \u201coutrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.\u201d The executive order that Bush finally issued on July 20 decreed that everything in CIA detention and interrogation programs was legal\u2014even though the secret CIA prison sites scattered around the globe clearly violate the Geneva Conventions, which are binding under U.S. law.<\/p>\n

Bush offered a \u201cgood intention\u201d definition of non-torture. He stressed that interrogators were prohibited from \u201cintentionally causing serious bodily injury\u201d and \u201cacts intended to denigrate the religion, religious practices, or religious objects of the individual.\u201d He banned \u201cwillful and outrageous acts of personal abuse done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual in a manner so serious that any reasonable person … would deem the acts to be beyond the bounds of human decency, such as sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation…\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Marine Corps Commandant Paul X. Kelley condemned the new guidelines for encouraging abuses: \u201cAs long as the intent of the abuse is to gather intelligence or to prevent future attacks, and the abuse is not \u2018done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual\u2019\u2014even if that is an inevitable consequence\u2014the president has given the CIA carte blanche to engage in \u2018willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse.\u2019\u201d Georgetown University law Professor David Cole noted that Bush\u2019s order \u201cappears to permit cutting or bruising a suspect so long as the injury does not risk death, significant functional impairment or \u2018extreme physical pain,\u2019 an entirely subjective term.\u201d<\/p>\n

The key portion of the executive order\u2014the list of approved techniques\u2014was kept secret. Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch observed, \u201cAll the order really does is to have the president say, \u2018Everything in that other document that I\u2019m not showing you is legal \u2014 trust me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

To prevent detainees and former detainees from disclosing to their defense attorneys the specific extreme interrogation methods used against them, the Bush administration is using claims of \u201cstate secrets.\u201d A Justice Department spokeswoman asserted that letting a former Maryland resident tell his lawyer the methods he suffered would be \u201cinadequate to protect unique and potentially highly classified information that is vital to our country\u2019s ability to fight terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court appears to be swallowing this argument. On Oct. 9, the Court refused to hear the case of Khaled el-Masri, a German of Lebanese descent who was kidnapped by the CIA during a 2003 vacation in Macedonia. He was stripped, beaten, shackled, and flown to a secret interrogation center in Afghanistan, where he was tortured for four months. The CIA eventually realized that they had the wrong guy, so Masri was flown to Albania and dumped on the side of the road.<\/p>\n

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted to her that the CIA had mistakenly grabbed Masri. The European Union confirmed Masri\u2019s allegations, and the German government issued arrest warrants for 13 CIA agents earlier this year for their role in Masri\u2019s kidnapping and torture. Masri\u2019s story was all over Europe and he was interviewed by \u201c60 Minutes\u201d and other American media.<\/p>\n

Masri sued CIA chief George Tenet, three private aviation companies, and 20 unnamed employees of the CIA and the companies. The ACLU, which represented him, declared that the Supreme Court should not allow the \u201cgovernment to engage in torture, declare it a state secret and … avoid any judicial accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Court accepted the Justice Department\u2019s claims and banned Masri from American courtrooms. Apparently, as long as the U.S. government has not publicly confessed, then it is still a \u201cstate secret\u201d that U.S. officials committed heinous crimes. (A similar case, involving an innocent Canadian who was seized at JFK International Airport and flown to Syria for torturing, continues to percolate in the U.S. courts.)<\/p>\n

In his Oct. 5 statement, Bush declared, \u201cthe techniques that we use have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of the United States Congress.\u201d But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, angrily denied having been informed.<\/p>\n

Not that they are doing much about it. Bush continues to benefit from a largely spineless Congress. Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said, \u201cCongress by its actions and inactions is the handmaiden of the torture program. Despite the publicly revealed memos authorizing torture and the testimony of its widespread use, Congress, even under the Democrats, has yet to hold even one hearing regarding the responsibility of high administration officials.\u201d Congressional Democrats apparently believe that being criticized by Bush is a fate worse than torture. One exception is Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, who singlehandedly recently blocked the nomination of John Rizzo, who approved of the administration\u2019s extreme definitions of torture, to be the general counsel of the CIA.<\/p>\n

The Democrats initially indicated that they would refuse to hold confirmation hearings for Michael Mukasey, Bush\u2019s nominee for attorney general, until they received the confidential legal rationales on interrogation policy and other matters. But fearing criticism, Democratic leaders dropped the demand.<\/p>\n

There is little reason to expect that Mukasey, if confirmed, will rein in federal torture. According to Newsweek, he assured the Bush administration in private meetings that he \u201cunderstood the need for the CIA to use enhanced interrogation methods\u201d and that he did not support naming a special prosecutor for potential Bush administration crimes. In a 2004 speech, Mukasey declared, \u201cthe hidden message in the structure of the Constitution\u201d is that the government is entitled to \u201cthe benefit of the doubt.\u201d Does he believe government deserves a codified benefit of the doubt, regardless of perpetual misconduct or perfidy?<\/p>\n

Still\u2014gutless congressmen and compliant lawyers notwithstanding\u2014the administration\u2019s torture policy is under a Damocles Sword. The New York Times article caused a far greater splash than the Bush team expected. And if the memos themselves or Bush\u2019s secret order to the CIA authorizing torture-like methods leak out, the White House could find itself in far more peril.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n________________________________________________<\/p>\n

James Bovard is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy and eight other books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American Conservative today put online my article updating the torture scandal. We Have Ways…..\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 American Conservative, November 5, 2007 by James Bovard On Oct. 4, the New York Times blew another ten-foot hole in the Bush administration\u2019s torture cover-up. The Times revealed that the Justice Department produced a secret legal opinion in early 2005 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[659,22,6,12],"class_list":{"0":"post-363","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"tag-attention-deficit-democracy","8":"tag-bovard","9":"tag-torture"},"yoast_head":"\nThe Latest Torture Twists & Turns - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/06\/the-latest-torture-twists-turns\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Latest Torture Twists & Turns - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The American Conservative today put online my article updating the torture scandal. We Have Ways…..\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 American Conservative, November 5, 2007 by James Bovard On Oct. 4, the New York Times blew another ten-foot hole in the Bush administration\u2019s torture cover-up. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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