{"id":7830,"date":"2014-12-09T16:40:50","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T21:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=7830"},"modified":"2014-12-09T16:40:50","modified_gmt":"2014-12-09T21:40:50","slug":"torture-deja-vu-congress-covered-torture-8-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/09\/torture-deja-vu-congress-covered-torture-8-years-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Torture Deja Vu: Congress Covered up Torture 8 Years Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"great<\/a>It is good that Americans are finally learning some of the details of the CIA torture regime thanks to the Senate Intelligence Committee report.\u00a0 But were the most shocking details redacted? Will we ever know?\u00a0 Following is a piece I wrote 8 years ago after Congress enacted the Military Commissions Act which effectively retroactively legalized torture. (The Tom Toles’ cartoon perfectly captured the effect of that legislation.)\u00a0 The article wrapped up with a burst of positive thinking: “President Bush has been able to seize nearly boundless power because his administration has been able to control what Americans know. But this control is crumbling. Democratic congressional investigations, court cases, and the military tribunals themselves could unearth far more damaging documents and photographs than anything seen thus far.”\u00a0 It took far too long\u00a0 for much of that evidence to finally come out….<\/p>\n

December 18, 2006 issue of the American Conservative<\/span><\/strong>.<\/span><\/a><\/h5>\n
\n

Bush\u2019s Torture Ticking Time Bomb: Sins of Commission<\/strong><\/h2>\n

By James Bovard<\/p>\n

Have Republicans become the party of torture, secret prisons, and indefinite detention? In his speech last month on signing the Military Commissions Act, President Bush declared that the bill \u201csends a clear message\u2026 We will never back down from the threats to our freedom.\u201d \u201cRough interrogation\u201d (a.k.a. torture) in the name of freedom may be Bush\u2019s clearest ideological legacy.<\/p>\n

Bush endlessly reminds listeners that \u201cthe U.S. does not torture\u201d and that \u201ctorture is not an American value.\u201d But \u201cWhat is torture?\u201d is the Bush version of the Pontius Pilate question. Bush appears to be using the definition of torture crafted by Justice Department official John Yoo: if detainees weren\u2019t maimed or killed, they weren\u2019t tortured. And the Justice Department acts as if, even if detainees are killed during interrogations, it is best to treat the deaths as harmless errors.<\/p>\n

The MCA was rushed through Congress in September to overturn a Supreme Court decision that struck down Bush\u2019s military tribunals and scorning of the Geneva Conventions. The new law -far more dangerous than the more controversial Patriot Act- is perhaps the biggest disgrace Congress has enacted since the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Stephen Grey, the author of Ghost Plane, notes, \u201cThe act grants fewer rights to defendants than the Nazis got at Nuremberg.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The MCA awarded Bush the power to label anyone on earth an enemy combatant and lock then up in perpetuity, nullifying the habeas corpus provision of the Constitution and \u201cturning back the clock 800 years,\u201d as Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) said. While only foreigners can be tried before military tribunals, Americans accused of being enemy combatants can be detained indefinitely without charges and without appeal. Even though the Pentagon has effectively admitted that many of the people detained at Guantanamo were wrongfully seized and held, the MCA presumes that the president of the United States is both omniscient and always fair.<\/p>\n

Instead of clear standards established by the legislature, the president decrees what methods of brutalizing detainees are allowed, regardless of the Geneva Convention or the U.S. Anti-Torture Act. As Yale law professor Jack Balkin notes, \u201cThe President has created a new regime in which he is a law unto himself on issues of prisoner interrogations. He decides whether he has violated the laws, and he decides whether to prosecute the people he in turn urges to break the law.\u201d White House press spokesman Tony Snow agreed that the law made Bush the \u201cfinal arbiter on torture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though U.S. government interrogation methods have been intensely controversial around the world, most congressmen looked the other way and rubber-stamped Bush\u2019s legislative wish list. The Boston Globe reported in September that \u201cbecause of the Bush administration\u2019s restrictive policy on sharing classified information with Congress, very few of the people engaged in the debate will know what they\u2019re talking about.\u201d Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Al.) epitomized the prevailing righteous ignorance when he declared, \u201cI don\u2019t know what the CIA has been doing, nor should I know.\u201d The less they know, the easier it is for Republican congressmen to deny U.S. government wrongdoing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since the end of the Middle Ages, civilized nations have frowned on relying on brute force to determine facts in judicial proceedings. But Monty Python appears to be the patron saint of the MCA<\/strong>. \u201cEvidence\u201d gained via coercion is admissible as long as a military judge deigns that the methods used did not rise to torture. Military commissions can accept \u201cevidence\u201d produced by interrogations that violated \u201ccruel, unusual or inhumane treatment\u201d standardsas long as such abuses occurred before Dec. 30, 2005, when Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act. (Bush effectively vetoed this law with a signing statement.) It was nice that Congress formally picked a date for the rebirth of decency, but it doesn\u2019t have sticking power.<\/p>\n

The Bush team is exploiting fears on national security to practically guarantee the use of tortured confessions. The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to prohibit defendant Majid Khan, a former Catonsville, Md. resident who was nabbed in Pakistan, from revealing to anyone -even his defense attorney -the interrogation methods he endured. A Justice Department spokeswoman claimed that letting Khan discuss his interrogation with his lawyer \u201cis inadequate to protect unique and potentially highly classified information that is vital to our country\u2019s ability to fight terrorism.\u201d Thus, the feds can use whatever Khan said against him while hiding the methods that made him squeal.<\/p>\n

The MCA creates procedural biases akin to a 1938 Moscow show trial. Defense attorneys can \u201cchallenge the use of hearsay information obtained through coercive interrogations in distant countries only if they can prove it is unreliable,\u201d the Washington Post noted.\u00a0 But it will be almost impossible to disprove an accusation when a defense lawyer is not allowed to question or perhaps even know who made the charge.<\/p>\n

From early 2002, some high-ranking Bush administration officials have apparently feared that they could face prosecution for their interrogation policies. But the MCA retroactively decriminalized tortureat least such actions committed before the end of 2005. The act will make it almost impossible for victims of torture (or their survivors) to bring cases against perpetrators. The closest precedent for this blanket pardon comes not from American justice but from the amnesty laws Latin American regimes enacted to immunize military officials who carried out bloody crackdowns against leftists in the 1970s and 1980s.<\/p>\n

Like an old-time southern segregationist campaign, the Republican Party has proceeded to portray any congressmen who failed to vote for the MCA as a \u201cterrorist lover.\u201d House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill) claimed that Democrats had \u201cvoted in favor of new rights for terrorists,\u201d and House Majority Leader John Boehner declared that Democrats \u201cvoted against bringing the most dangerous terrorists to justice.\u201d The National Republican Senatorial Committee denounced incumbent Democrats who voted against suspending habeas corpus for having \u201csided with trial lawyers and terrorists.\u201d After Bush signed the bill, a Republican National Committee press release was headlined, \u201cDemocrats would let terrorists free.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the fall campaign, the GOP used the MCA to flaunt its \u201ctough on terrorism\u201d message. At a \u201cTexas Victory Rally\u201d on Oct. 30, Bush declared, \u201cWhen it came time to vote on whether or not to allow the CIA to continue its program to detain and question captured terrorists, more than 80 percent of House Democrats voted against it.\u201d Bush coached the audience to respond to his questions as if the event were a giant DARE rally. The president asked, \u201cWhen it comes to questioning terrorists, what\u2019s the Democrat\u2019s answer?\u201d The audience roared, \u201cJust say no!\u201d<\/p>\n

Aside from Bush and other Republicans\u2019 dishonest taunts of Democrats, torture was a non-issue in congressional campaigns. The New York Times noted, \u201cIn a season of shameless attack ads, torture is still too shameful to be debated.\u201d Few, if any, Democratic candidates had enough confidence in themselves or the voters to highlight the Bush administration\u2019s worst abuse of power.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean, however, that they won\u2019t use the investigative powers their new majority affords. For though Bush rhetorically takes the high ground on the torture issue, it now appears that the president may personally have blood on his hands. On Nov. 14, the ACLU released a CIA letter confirming the existence of \u201ca directive signed by President Bush granting the CIA the authority to set up detention facilities outside the United States and outlining interrogation methods that may be used against detainees.\u201d This confirms a May 2004 e-mail from the FBI\u2019s \u201cOn Scene Commander\u201d in Baghdad stating that U.S. military officials in Iraq assured him that a secret presidential Executive Order permitted using extreme interrogation techniques considered illegal by the FBI including \u201csensory deprivation through the use of hoods,\u201d stress positions, and military dogs.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department has so far blocked release of the actual document, but a federal judge may force the feds to cough it up. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is also demanding to see the document. If this Bush letter does hit the streets, it may be akin to a 1972 memo from Richard Nixon specifying the exact methods of lock-picking the Watergate burglars should use. Bush\u2019s involvement in the torture scandal may be far deeper than Nixon\u2019s involvement in Watergate.<\/p>\n

The Bush secret ruling on interrogation methods may explain the Justice Department\u2019s passivity on torture cases. The CIA Inspector General recommended that the Justice Department prosecute a CIA agent involved in the demise of an Iraqi detainee at Abu Ghraib. As the New Yorker reported, Manadel al-Jamadi died during an interrogation during which his head was covered in a plastic bag and he was \u201cshackled in a crucifixion-like pose that inhibited his ability to breathe.\u201d This was one of at least eight cases the CIA referred for prosecution, including cases of homicides during CIA interrogations in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the Justice Department refuses to prosecute any of the alleged torturers. The feds cannot prosecute CIA agents without risking public disclosure of the presidential order authorizing the torture of detainees.<\/p>\n

As long as the Justice Department doesn\u2019t prosecute federal torturers, Bush can continue denying U.S. torture. People killed during interrogations thus remain the exceptions that prove the rule that the U.S. never tortures. The military classified the deaths of at least 34 detainees as suspected or confirmed homicides; the CIA has released no tally of its morgue entries.<\/p>\n

The New Yorker noted, \u201cunder the Bush Administration\u2019s secret interrogation guidelines, the killing of Jamadi might not have broken any laws.\u201d Unfortunately, there is no reason to assume that Bush has not given interrogators a license to kill. Steven Bradbury, head of the Justice Department\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel, told a closed session of the Senate Intelligence Committee early this year that Bush could order killings of suspected terrorists within the United States. When Newsweek contacted the Justice Department to verify this novel legal doctrine, spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos stressed that Bradbury\u2019s comments occurred during an \u201coff-the-record briefing.\u201d Any Bush-ordered killings within the United States would also presumably be off-the-record.<\/p>\n

President Bush has been able to seize nearly boundless power because his administration has been able to control what Americans know. But this control is crumbling. Democratic congressional investigations, court cases, and the military tribunals themselves could unearth far more damaging documents and photographs than anything seen thus far.<\/p>\n

The MCA is \u201cenabling act\u201d legislation that preserves the appearance of law while empowering the commander in chief to do as he pleases.<\/strong> Bush\u2019s torture policies may signal that he accepts the dicta of Richard Nixon: \u201cWhen the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.\u201d But the firewall of high approval ratings that buttressed Bush when the first Abu Ghraib photos leaked is gone. The media is exasperated with the administration\u2019s penchant for secrecy. Much of Bush\u2019s conservative intellectual bodyguard has given up the fight. It remains to be seen how much dunking, thumping, and cold water the Bush team can survive.<\/p>\n

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

It is good that Americans are finally learning some of the details of the CIA torture regime thanks to the Senate Intelligence Committee report.\u00a0 But were the most shocking details redacted? Will we ever know?\u00a0 Following is a piece I wrote 8 years ago after Congress enacted the Military Commissions Act which effectively retroactively legalized […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[471,22,169,347,15,451,184,45,137,198,27,520,38,14,55,170,26,12,162,279],"class_list":["post-7830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-atrocities-2","tag-attention-deficit-democracy","tag-cartoon-2","tag-cia","tag-congress","tag-constitution","tag-elective-dictatorship-2","tag-freedom","tag-george-w-bush","tag-george-w-bush-2","tag-lying","tag-military-commissions-act","tag-obama","tag-rule-of-law","tag-secrecy","tag-sovereign-immunity","tag-terrorism","tag-torture","tag-torture-2","tag-tyranny-2"],"yoast_head":"\nTorture Deja Vu: Congress Covered up Torture 8 Years Ago - 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\/2014\/12\/09\/torture-deja-vu-congress-covered-torture-8-years-ago\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Torture Deja Vu: Congress Covered up Torture 8 Years Ago - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is good that Americans are finally learning some of the details of the CIA torture regime thanks to the Senate Intelligence Committee report.\u00a0 But were the most shocking details redacted? 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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. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/www.jimbovard.com\",\"https:\\\/\\\/www.facebook.com\\\/jim.bovard\",\"https:\\\/\\\/x.com\\\/jimbovard\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/author\\\/admin\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Torture Deja Vu: Congress Covered up Torture 8 Years Ago - James Bovard","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/09\/torture-deja-vu-congress-covered-torture-8-years-ago\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Torture Deja Vu: Congress Covered up Torture 8 Years Ago - James Bovard","og_description":"It is good that Americans are finally learning some of the details of the CIA torture regime thanks to the Senate Intelligence Committee report.\u00a0 But were the most shocking details redacted? Will we ever know?\u00a0 Following is a piece I wrote 8 years ago after Congress enacted the Military Commissions Act which effectively retroactively legalized […]","og_url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/09\/torture-deja-vu-congress-covered-torture-8-years-ago\/","og_site_name":"James Bovard","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","article_published_time":"2014-12-09T21:40:50+00:00","og_image":[{"width":520,"height":444,"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/great-caretoon-om-toles.gif","type":"image\/gif"}],"author":"Jim","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@jimbovard","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jim","Est. reading time":"10 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/09\/torture-deja-vu-congress-covered-torture-8-years-ago\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/09\/torture-deja-vu-congress-covered-torture-8-years-ago\/"},"author":{"name":"Jim","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f"},"headline":"Torture Deja Vu: Congress Covered up Torture 8 Years Ago","datePublished":"2014-12-09T21:40:50+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/09\/torture-deja-vu-congress-covered-torture-8-years-ago\/"},"wordCount":2022,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/09\/torture-deja-vu-congress-covered-torture-8-years-ago\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/great-caretoon-om-toles.gif","keywords":["Atrocities","Attention Deficit Democracy","Cartoon","CIA","Congress","Constitution","elective dictatorship","Freedom","George W. 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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. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7830"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7836,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7830\/revisions\/7836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}