CIA Torture and Other War Crimes
Personal accountability has all but disappeared from the American political system. Bill Clinton lied to his entire cabinet about Monica Lewinsky and not a single cabinet member resigned in protest after he was forced to recant. When Alberto Gonzales lied repeatedly during testimony before Congress everyone knew exactly what he was doing but no leading Democrat was willing to impeach him. The hopelessly incompetent Michael Brown was able to resign from FEMA without sanction to “avoid further distraction from the ongoing mission” and later even blamed everyone else for his shortcomings. Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Tommy Franks, George Tenet, and Paul Bremer were all rewarded for their incompetence, some with medals and some with promotions. Recent resignations from the Bush administration stemming from the massive policy failures of the past seven years have frequently been couched in terms of “wanting to spend more time with my family” though sometimes a bit of candor creeps in a la Trent Lott, who believes it is time to step down and follow the money as a lobbyist. Public Diplomacy Tsarina Karen Hughes arguably plans to do both, returning to Texas to rejoin her family while also cashing in through lucrative speaking engagements. During her two and a half years of Texas-style soccer mom diplomacy at State Department and in spite of a large budget, Hughes only succeeded in increasing the number of foreigners who actively dislike the United States. Never is a resignation from government service framed in terms of “Hey, I screwed up.”
The embrace of illegal detentions and torture are among the truly horrific decisions that can be attributed to the Bush White House. It is ironic to read the media accounts surrounding the recent discovery by shocked U.S. Marines of an alleged al-Qaeda torture center in Iraq’s Diyala province because the Marines work for a government that itself publicly embraces torture as an interrogation technique. And it is not just the White House. Torture is bipartisan. The recent House of Representatives intelligence appropriations bill included a clause that requires CIA to abide by the Geneva Conventions in its interrogation and detention policies. One hundred and ninety-nine Congressmen from both parties voted “no.” Even if some of the Congressmen voted against the bill for other reasons, there is a strong sense that many politicians consider torture to be perfectly okay. Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson have all jumped on that bandwagon, endorsing “enhanced interrogation” as a counter-terrorism tool. Mitt Romney, who might bolster his claims to be a Christian by occasionally perusing the compassionate message of the Sermon on the Mount instead of the Book of Mormon, even wants to make Guantanamo prison bigger. Giuliani appears to want to jail and torture lots of people all the time, but he is, admittedly, a pagan.
If senior managers at the Central Intelligence Agency actually worried about committing war crimes more than they cared about getting revenge on ragheads and advancing their careers, they wouldn’t have tortured anyone in the first place back in 2002. Shortly after 9/11, the redoubtable armchair warrior Vice President Dick Cheney, who famously had other priorities and avoided military service by virtue of five deferments during Vietnam, announced that the “gloves are off” in reference to America’s enemies. Those comments set the tone and ushered in the exciting days of “anything goes” when Cofer Black, chief of the Agency’s Counter Terrorism Center, sent out his myrmidons with orders to come back with Usama bin Laden’s head in a box. Somehow, that head turned out to be Saddam Hussein’s.
Ethically, torture degrades the country that permits it, the organization that carries it out and the individuals who perform it. Doctors are not present during torture as it would violate the Hippocratic Oath, so it is up to the torturer to decide how far to go. If a victim dies while being interrogated by torture, as has happened a number of times in both Afghanistan and Iraq, it is both a war crime and murder.
Most intelligence and law enforcement officers reject torture as an interrogation tool, knowing that it more often than not produces false information. The FBI claims that the CIA waterboarding of terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah was unnecessary, that he was already cooperating. Waterboarding, which was used extensively both by the Gestapo and by the Spanish Inquisition, is a particularly heinous form of torture as it simulates death. With U.S. troops deployed all over the world at the present time, sanctioning torture lowers the bar for terrorists who might happen to capture an American soldier or diplomat to do likewise. Even in 2002 someone with a bit of foresight might have anticipated the possible consequences arising from the CIA’s use of torture and its more general bull in the china shop approach. Someone with a bit of backbone and an intact moral compass might even have even resigned in protest, but, alas, there were few of those types around.
What has made CIA’s so-called leaders really nervous in the current political environment is not the ethical or moral issue of torture per se. It is the thought of getting sued by the victims and victim advocacy groups, which means hiring expensive lawyers. Donald Rumsfeld’s flight from Paris in late November to avoid war crimes charges also raises the possibility that an otherwise pleasant trip to Provence or Tuscany might have to be curtailed if some Euro-version of a pasty-face peace creep tries to file a lawsuit. Fortunately for all the torturers at CIA, there is now a government reimbursed private insurance program designed to cover contingencies. When former Chief of Clandestine Operations Jose Rodriguez was subpoenaed to appear before a Congressional committee last week, he was able to afford representation by the redoubtable Robert Bennett.
The latest CIA scandal began in 2002 when at least two terrorist suspects were videotaped while they were being subjected to the waterboarding version of “enhanced interrogation.” The questioning took place somewhere in Asia, possibly in a Pakistani or Thai prison but more likely at either Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan or at Diego Garcia Island, in the Indian Ocean, where the CIA maintains “off-sites.” In May 2003, CIA told Federal Judge Leonie Brinkema that there were no recordings or other records of the interrogations. That was a lie. In 2003 and 2004, the Congressional 9/11 Commission made “repeated and detailed inquiries relating to interrogations.” The CIA said there was no additional material, another lie. In June 2005, Director of Operations Jose Rodriguez ordered the tapes destroyed. The order came, perhaps not coincidentally, just as the Italian authorities were entering into the investigative phase of a major inquiry into CIA renditions in Italy.
CIA now claims that the tapes were destroyed to protect the identity of the agency interrogators involved. That argument is complete nonsense. Unless the cameraman was suffering from delirium tremens and shaking uncontrollably, the camera would have been focused on the victim of the torture, not on those administering it. In any event, terrorists would hardly be able to identify and gain access to an otherwise unremarkable and nameless CIA employee from what they might see on a tape, even if they could get hold of a copy.
The real reason for the cover-up on the tapes is because torture is universally acknowledged to be a war crime and everyone in the CIA and White House hierarchy knows that to be true. The denial that the tapes existed in 2003 and 2004 could not have taken place without the concurrence of Director George Tenet, Deputy Director John McLaughlin, and General Counsel Scott Muller. Probably then-Director of Operations James Pavitt would have also been involved. When Rodriguez destroyed the tapes in 2005, he was not acting alone. Director Porter Goss almost certainly would have been part of the decision making process as well as acting General Counsel John Rizzo and it is tempting to speculate that White House aides like Dick Cheney’s David Addington and President Bush’s Harriet Miers might also have been in the loop.
Looking for war crimes committed by members of the Bush administration is a complicated exercise because there are so many to go around. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo come immediately to mind. The Nuremburg Tribunals at the end of the Second World War defined an aggressive war against another country if that country has not attacked you first or threatened to do so as “essentially an evil thing…to initiate a war of aggression…is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” A number of leading Nazis were executed for their unprovoked attack on Poland. The Bush administration has its own Poland in Iraq, and if there is an American attack on Iran it would also fit the Nuremberg definition. Unlike at Nuremberg, however, no one will be held accountable.
Philip Giraldi is a recognized authority on international security and counterterrorism issues. He is a regular contributor to www.antiwar.com in a column titled “Smoke and Mirrors” and is a Contributing Editor who writes a column called “Deep Background” on terrorism, intelligence, and security issues for The American Conservative magazine.
© 2007 Huffington Post
They’re pimples on the oligarchy’s butt. It needs jail, not Clearasil.
“impeach,now” or _” forever lose your peace!” i believe that might be the actual truth…. (and when you have time..watch and enjoy’how to create an angry american’,on youtube…)
And they say there’s no such thing as conspiracy.. anytime some “high ranking official” f*cks up and then gets promoted that’s how you know the true mark of conspiracy. Only those who are complicit and have the power can create such an environment. Obviously those f*ck ups were intentional and/or valuable to someone somewhere even higher up.
the c.i.a. was fascist at its conception-and only got worse….edgar/george and even ronnie fueled that dragon…
War crimes? How about the “supreme international crime” of initiating wars of aggression? As was declared at Nuremberg in a proclamation now regarded, no doubt, as quaint and obsolete, it differs from other war crimes “in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” The rest are, in other words, mere subsidiaries by comparison.
As for the alleged US exportation of its much-vaunted “freedom and democracy”, you can’t export what you don’t have. As an Iraqi put it, “the United States got rid of one Saddam only to replace him with 50″. More on that subject here for those who can stand it.
This is how it works, see - the Loonitary Decider got his orders directly from some God so he says. Which means said orders are ORDERS, beyond the scope of mere laws and treaties and crap. Any minion who helps to carry out said ORDERS is rewarded, whether they did a heckuva job or not because they all were working for HIM, who is always right (except for the 3 or 4 times HE had to wipe out humanity because HE was so ashamed of what HE created.)
We may perceive a minion as “failing,” but to those of the Godtalkers, their failing is obviously part of HIS plan, and, hence, not a failing at all. Get it? If Gonzo lies, he’s lying for God, and, hence, he’s not lying at all. If God wants a million innocent Iraqis dead, who are We The People to argue? God wants certain members of his flock tortured, there is only one proper response:
“Yes, sir. Can I have another… suspect to interrogate with enhancement?!!!”
Videos of torture will be showing up soon. Quite intact. They will show (an) American serviceman being “waterboarded”
The United States of Aggression.
Great article.
The veils & cloaks, the layers of secrecy, lie between bush/dick and prison or please God, being strapped to a gurney for capital crimes against humanity/genocide & torture.
We need another Daniel Ellsberg.
CIA: From what I “gather” they aren’t too good at gathering intelligence (9-11?) maybe it stands for Coerced Interrogations & Assassination.
They need jackboots & riding crops to go with their chrome tools, drugs and lies. real heroes.
yes,i linked that the first time mentioned,mcpete..good one..especially the chapter about the saudi’s……………..john fitzgerald kennedy was only human,but he was a human that had the ability to recognize evil and where it was going…..he said he was gonna scatter the c.i.a. to the winds,the c.i.a.,bad for our country,bad to jfk…when are his killers gonna be brought to justice ??
We do not want to think about the fact our country has lost the principles it always stood for in just a few years time. There are post-Christmas sales to get to and New Years parties to plan, and that is just this week. Then there is the Super Bowl and thousands more sports events to watch and attend, to name a few activities. Obviously there is no time to worry about why America is now despised by the rest of the world because of the inhuman and unnessary tactics we are using against others.
1,000 lawyers have signed a petition to restore the United States Constitution and to follow up on accusing the Bush Administration of war crimes. Judge Andrew Napolitano gives a forty minute lecture on the destruction of the Constitution and how George W. Bush has done more damage to it since Abraham Lincoln (I disagree with Napolitano on this point - I think W has done more and deeper damage to it than any President in United States History). If you go to Antiwar.Com you will see where to click on his presentation. It is about 40 minutes in length, with solid commentary and legal insight. We ought to present this to the public, clearly spelling out the numerous violations the Administration has committed. I know that Napolitano is a commentator on Faux TV, but he presents a very truthful and compelling argument. We ought to pressure the Congress as an INFORMED constituency to bring charges of treason and war crimes against this Administration if we ever hope to regain our country, rights, and Constitution.
Not only Bush and his coterie, but also the Democratic Party leadership, and the majority of US Congress are complicit in war crimes, ans as such they are WAR CRIMINALS.
Impeachment, followed by prosecution in court would be the proper remedy. However, our Congress is complicit, so nothing is going to happen. Our entire government should be recalled,
No it is not just torture. What was the deliberate killing of Saddam Hussein’s two poorly armed sons and the grandchild? What dictator, what monster, what aberration of power can order the Special Forces of the American Armed Forces, which have become the Emperor’s own special death squad, to go half way around the world to kill two plump middle age men and a child who have done nothing to the Empire - by any stretch of imagination. What court ordered these murders and subsequent desecrations of their bodies - displayed like the trophies of a blood thirsty Roman Emperor? It is so like the French colonial torturers who tortured to death the young wife of General Giap in Vietnam. And what was the final consequence - Dien Bien Phu and thousands of French colonial mercenaries bloated and floating down the Mekong. It is more than revolting. For this crime alone - the ordering of the killing of, not just Saddam Hussein, but members of his family - including grandchildren…this monster-prince in the White House deserves to be hounded to the end of his days by a People’s World Court. And there are so many more crime, so many more outrages. And all those complicit, those profiteers, those sadists and the propagandists of genocide - must not be absolved. What Bush and his sick cronies would do to Saddam Hussein’s grandchild - they would do to your children - if they thought it would advance their agenda and their grip on power.
We live in the middle of a conspiracy, a conspiracy so vast that it’s difficult to see where it begins and ends, much like how when you look at the horizon the earth appears to be flat, even though it isn’t.
What’s happened here, IMO, is that although our military has always used torture to a limited extent, it was always hidden from us and the torturers knew they would be in big trouble if they were ever found out; now, however, it’s so out in the open that our political leaders can’t bring themselves to say it’s wrong. Why is this? Well, the only reason I can think of is that perhaps they want us to know they’re torturing people so that we continue to feel that we’re in such extreme danger from terrorists that something as vile as torture must be used to protect us.
Perhaps they want us to think, “Yes, torture is a terrible thing, but the terrorist threat is so immediate that our government has been forced to resort to it in order to protect us, so we should be grateful to them.”
This is a good piece, but did not focus on the complicity and connivance of congressional leaders such as Nancy Pelosi and Jay Rockefeller. It’s odd that David Vitter and Larry Craig have been singled out as hypocrites for personally engaging in misdemeanor activities with other consenting adults they have publicly condemned, but still did the jobs they were elected to do: chip away at abortion and civil liberties, reward the rich, make war, make profits for oil companies and war industries, and prevent action on global warming. It’s what their constituencise wanted. Pelosi and Rockefeller, on the other hand, were elected by people who do not favor war crimes, which are felonies, and have increased anti-American sentiment among both our allies and among potential enemies.
Torture is essential part of war and occupation strategies. Invading military will torture the powerless opponents to death. That’s the truth.
In America, however, politicians do not criticize invasion and occupation as war crimes or crimes against humanity; but, only and constantly talk about “torture”, because that gives them lots of public attention.
American military agents are not saints. They are brutes. Brutes will torture their captives ad infinitum. That’s the fact of life. There’s nothing unusual about that.
The numero uno and the strongest organization in the world today, in terms of manpower and money, is the organized terrorist group called the CIA, supported and funded by the number one rogue regime in the world. Its budget is secret, its gulags are secret, but its torture and ill fame is known worldwide. It’s behind almost every plot and coup in the world. The ‘I’ in the CIA should change to a ‘T’, and read: the Central Terrorist Agency—of the who?—the American Government.
robinea -
You hit it right on the head. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 gave Bush more power than anything Joseph Stalin and Adlof Hitler could dream of getting.
We live in a Facist country, the Bush family was part of trying to get us in with Hitler’s bunch in the late 30’s and it looks now like they have finally had success. We are going to need a lot of luck to wiggle out of this one, assuming enough Americans have the sense to start wiggling.
Veteran ‘66-68
When did we start talking about “homeland” security. Even the lingo is nazi crap. Do these fascist assholes think nobody remembers? Well, we remember Nuremburg, baby, and it won’t be too long before Bush,Cheney, Rice, Gonzalez, Tenet, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Abrahams, and others of that neo-con ilk are put on trial. The supreme international crime indeed. I have a feeling we’re only seeing the tip of this iceberg.
war murder corruption lying greed torture and endless delusions–all normal human nature, sometimes mankind can rise above its predator nature, but not with out a good strung shove by a few good people.
not hardly any goodness at all, in evidence in usa politics or religion
lots of greed corruption and lying though
In case you haven’t noticed there is a war going on: a war between the wealthiest 0.1% and the rest of mankind
by definition americans can’t be be guilty of war crimes since we didn’t sign the treaty
The White House Press Secretary today stated the use of the rack would not constitute torture, we don’t do it and it’s more like going to the chiropractor than an actual torture technique. A prominent Republican Presidential Candidate said the increased height and reduced lumbar pressure resulting from a session on the rack more than made up for any temporary physical discomfort a person on the rack might feel. He went on to compare the ‘Iron Maiden’, a hinged, man sized case studded with spikes that impale whoever is in the device to “early acupuncture” and boiling in oil to “a well heated Jacuzzi. These terrorists are enjoying things people have to pay for at Club Med.”