America is at a turning point. How we will come to terms with the government abuses unleashed in the aftermath of 9/11 is a historic test of our highest principles. Are we a nation of laws? Will we stand by our commitment to the rule of law over the tyranny of state-sanctioned brutality?
Maryland's particularly powerful congressional delegation in Washington can be pivotal as the nation chooses how to proceed. And, of course, members of Congress will more likely rise to the occasion if they hear from the public they represent.
In May, at a point when congressional Republicans and their amen corner in the media were attempting to defend the Bush-Cheney administration's torture regime, their primary defense was: Pelosi knew.
The spin held that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, had in 2002 been secretly briefed about the use of of harsh interrogation techniques on terror suspects.
Over the past two days, Ian Cobain
has continued his excellent expose of British complicity in torture in
the Guardian. By now, few can doubt that in the eight years since 9/11
the British government has taken some steps that were illegal, others
that were indubitably immoral and many more that were unwise.
Editor’s Note: Prior to giving a series of talks in Texas later this
week, the author offered the following op-ed to the Dallas Morning
News and the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram. Both newspapers in George W.
Bush’s home state turned it down.
Seldom does a crime scene have so clear a smoking gun. A two-page
presidential memorandum of Feb. 7, 2002, leaves no room for
uncertainty regarding the “decider” on torture. His broad-stroke
signature made torture official policy.
Former Guantánamo detainee Binyam Mohamed has launched an urgent legal attempt to prevent the US courts from destroying crucial evidence that he says proves he was abused while being held at the detention camp, the Guardian has learned. The evidence is said to consist of a photograph of Mohamed, a British resident, taken after he was severely beaten by guards at the US navy base in Cuba.
The image, now held by the Pentagon, had been put on his cell door, he says.
Today was supposed to be the day that the Justice Department --
after two delays -- released an unclassified version of the CIA
Inspector General's 2004 Report into the interrogations of "high-value
detainees" in the "War on Terror," which Democrat Congressional
staffers described as the "holy grail," according to Greg Sargent of
the Plum Line,
writing in May, "because it is expected to detail torture in
unprecedent
There are several noteworthy developments since I wrote on Tuesday
about the refusal of NPR's Ombdusman, Alica Shepard, to be interviewed
by me about NPR's ban on using the word "torture" to describe the Bush
administration's interrogation tactics. Given the utter vapidity of her rationale ("there
are two sides to the issue.
When a U.S. federal court sentenced Chuckie Taylor, Jr., in 2009 for the crime of torture of his fellow Liberians, the Department of Justice proclaimed,
"Our message to human rights violators, no matter where they are,
remains the same: We will use the full reach of U.S. law, and every
lawful resource at the disposal of our investigators and prosecutors,
to hold you fully accountable for your crimes. ...[T]orture will not be
tolerated here at home or by U.S. nationals abroad."
Eleven years ago, the United Nations designated June 26 as the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
Then-Secretary General Kofi Annan explained, "This is a day on which we
pay our respects to those who have endured the unimaginable. This is an
occasion for the world to speak up against the unspeakable.
Will former US Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales and other senior Bush administration officials end up
in jail for crafting the policies that led to the torture of prisoners
at Guantánamo? As of yet, no government prosecutor is targeting them in
the United States. But thousands of miles away, Spanish attorney
Gonzalo Boyé is chasing after Gonzales and five other lawyers, and he
has a chance-perhaps not a large one-of convincing his country's legal
system to charge these former Bush aides with human rights violations.
