Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
The Spanish’s Judge vs. Bush’s Architects of Torture
Hallelujah, finally someone in authority is going after at least some of the Bushies who were the architects of the torture policies.
Tellingly, it's not President Barack Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder.
In fact, it's not anyone in the United States.
No, it's the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, the same man who took down General Augusto Pinochet.
He's drawn up a 98-page complaint (here's a crude, computerized translation) against six former Bush Administration officials and has handed the complaint over to Spanish prosecutors.
The officials under investigation are:
Alberto Gonzales, who was White House counsel, and then Attorney General.
David Addington, Cheney's chief of staff.
John Yoo, the Justice Department lawyer who wrote up some of the most infamous memos on torture.
Jay Bybee, who also drafted Justice Department policy on torture and amazingly is now an appellate court judge.
And William Haynes and Douglas Feith, who were high up in the Defense Department.
I've looked at the complaint, in rough translation as well as in its original Spanish, and it lays out, in detail, how these six individuals tried to "justify the unjustifiable" and legalize war crimes.
For instance, it cites a visit by Addington and Haynes to Guantanamo on September 25, 2002, where Addington ordered a lieutenant colonel to "do what needs to be done" in direct reference to obtaining information from a prisoners there.
It says that a memo Haynes drew up, and Rumsfeld approved, a list of "18 forms of torture."
It says that the six people named were all lawyers and, malevolently used their legal skills "actively and decisively in the development, approval, and launching" of a dubious legal framework.
This framework denied "basic rights to a number of important prisoners," it protected "people who participate in illegal activities and torture, and it was designed, "above all, to establish the absolute impunity for all officials, soldiers, doctors, and other staff" in Guantanamo.
Congratulations to Judge Garzón for refusing to accept impunity.
My only wish is that Judge Garzón would expand his list of targets to include not only the six mentioned above, but also Rumsfeld, Cheney, and yes, Bush, too.
Because they all were in on it.
- Posted in
15 Comments so far
Show AllIf Frank Capra were still alive and making movies, he'd make a film about Judge Garzon.
Hey, UC Berkeley . . . get rid of a certain law professor named Phuck Yoo.
'My only wish is that Judge Garzón would expand his list of targets to include not only the six mentioned above, but also Rumsfeld, Cheney, and yes, Bush, too.'
And what will it take to have Mr. Mathew at the Progressive add on Barack Obama to his nice little list? A drone attack on Madisonstan?
Softly, softly, catchee monkey
I don't think that going after the Dungeon Masters - Bush, Cheney etc - themselves has any realistic chance of success. But gunning for those who empowered them, by providing legal opinion to justify their torture policy, is a far better idea, for two reasons.
First (if successful), it would strip away the buffer zone of underlings which protects them, and removes the legal immunity from retrogressive prosecution for war crimes. Then what would the Dungeon Masters do, say that they were only following a discredited legal opinion? I think that line of defence disappeared at Nuremburg.
Second, what would these cowardly little pussies do when they're facing some serious jail? Would they keep their mouths shut out of loyalty to their former masters, or start singing like canaries to save their own miserable skins? Now that would be interesting.
It comes to something though, when it takes a Spanish judge to initiate legal proceedings against American war criminals, because the American government has no intention of doing so.
Then what will Barack do, stand alone against the rest of the world as a protector of torturers and war criminals? Or throw them to the wolves, safe in the knowledge that the matter would no longer be in his bipartisan hands. He might even be able to save a little bit of 'Change we can believe in' face for not obstructing Judge Garzón, while maintaining that "Nobody is above the law".
We shall see. In the meantime, I take my wig off to Judge Garzón, for having the spine and the balls which Barack so obviously lacks.
I agree, EnemyofEmpire - going after the enablers will hopefully give future enablers pause for thought. And of course given the tendency of these scumbags to have no loyalty except to power, you can expect them to eat their own the moment the heat is on.
That's the key to the thing: the machinery of tyranny can be undermined by providing strong negative incentives for minions - from clerks who requisition ammunition through to government assassins like Lon Horiuchi, through to judges, and all the way down the morass to people like Yoo and Feith (who are just above the BOTTOM of the pit of parasitic filth - just above Cheney and the rest of the soi-disant aristocrats).
However I don't favour pursuing them through silly pieces of political machinery like courts: I don't believe that governments have a right to make laws that bind people, except in the event that each individual signs a contract agreeing to be bound by each law - and then only those who sign such contracts are bound.
That is to say that I believe that individuals have certain unalienable rights, and that no mob has the right to compel compliance by dint of numerical superiority: furthermore, if they use a coercive machinery to force compliance, individuals have the right to take all actions necessary to make them stop.
That's why I prefer not to try and resolve things using courts: using State machinery gives a false sense of legitimacy to State predations.
No, I favour a market solution - 'Liberty Pools' (my new name for Jim Bell's "Assassination Politics"... Bell's name was goofy and attracted unwanted attention).
Liberty Pools are betting pools where individuals submit double-encrypted pseudonymous wagers on the death date (or the date of some other debilitating event) for some named enabler-of-tyranny... and he who gets the date right wins the pot (again, pseudonymously). It enables diffuse participation in the elimination of tyranny's helpmeets.
Once they know they can appear in the lists, sociopathic parasites that prey on humanity would think twice (or three times) before turning up for work... the 'chilling effect' would affect the ability of the State to recruit and retain its enabling machines... ATF sniper-assassins, for example, but also corrupt officials like the two judges recently indicted for falsely imprisoning teens in exchange for kickbacks from a private penal company.
If people thought that their actions might result in them appearing on an 'OrgA' list with a suitably-attractive pool attached, they would modify their behaviour ... which, interestingly, would mean that the number of deaths of functionaries would be low (only enough to send the appropriate message), whereas the death toll from the State in the 20th century was 200 million or so.
It seems a reasonably extreme solution, but it is efficient (the residual inefficiencies exist solely as countermeasures to prevent State persecution of those who participate).
It will seize the gears of all but the most benign aspects of the State (and without its machinery of terror, the State would have to downsize to a size consistent with voluntary participation).
Note I am very specific in supporting only 'OrgA' pools - valid objects of betting are only those who play a significant role in the perpetration of State violence... that is, Liberty Pooling is a is a DEFENSIVE strategem. ('OrgB' permits targets who have 'done no wrong' - pseudonymous contract hits with no questions asked).
Those who think it's a theoretical construct with no real world application are encouraged to continue in that belief: I certainly can't point you to the lists.
Doubtless the 'terror scare' laws will be thrown at this structure (the State arrogates to itself the right to deprive you of your liberty or even your life, but should you THINK about retaliating, you're a terrrrist).
All 'terrorism' laws are designed to make housewives scared of the latest incarnation of Emmanuel Goldstein.
It is funny, given that "Emmanuel Goldstein" could easily be the name of a neocon (fifth) columnist, that the latest incarnation of the boogeyman has an Arabic name... 'Al Qaeda'.
As I have said before - the prima facie evidence that proves categorically that al Qaeda is a media fiction, is the fact that despite the absence of SS bodyguards, nobody has iced Addington, Yoo, Bybee, Feith, Wurmser, Abrams, Wolfowitz, Perle, Libby, or even Kristol.
In other words, not a single person among the 'philosophical storm-troopers' of the US Empire has been targeted for assassination - and yet any mid-level HAMAS or Hizbullah functionary lives life knowing he is a target. Are we to believe that al Qaeda is less 'hard core' than Mossad or Shin Bet?
Cheers
GT
GT's Market Rant
There is a certain appeal to this lottery. The tickets sold I presume would include a certain number of 'free spins' to enable the games continuation. Or is it that the ticket buys buys both the lottery amount and the legal means of effect. Since most people would not participate in the legal means of effect, the remainder would be inclined to group for survival against the defensive forces at play. This would in turn lead to a game of loss. A lottery of ignoramuses against trained killers hired privately to protect the tyranny stand no chance of success. Fear, and the lack of training to respond with fear, causes the lottery to group rather than thin proximity. This is the death knell of groups. Unless they are trained. What this means is there needs to be some training involved for the masses. Since you favor the individual over the mob, evidently no matter how stupid, perhaps a corporate security firm like Blackwater could be hired by the government to train these lottery winners. In fact, hire these firms to train the mob, since corporates owe no allegiance to petty national ideologues.
:)
By the way, The Constitution proscribes "inalienable rights" not 'unalienable.' But then being articulate was never an indicator of intelligence with depth.
"....what would these cowardly little pussies do when they're facing some serious jail? Would they keep their mouths shut out of loyalty to their former masters, or start singing like canaries to save their own miserable skins? Now that would be interesting."
Not really that interesting. We all know they would sing like canaries. They are lawyers, after all.
It's more than that he lacks 'balls', EofE. It's that he sees his job as protecting those before him and continuing to use much of the same criminality of Evil Empire that they engaged in.
I think that is just what E of E is saying...
Yes, I know. I was just being kind to him, and trying not to shatter the illusions of those on here who still believe that the party political beast has two heads, not one.
But perhaps the latter is a little too much to hope for.
You certainly didn't shatter anything that I know. Yet I doubt your veracity, your pretension of what constitutes an 'illusion.' That you perceive a single head on a defined two-headed snake does appear prima facia a lack of depth perception, even as I might agree with you. Since the truth is shattered illusions do nothing but confuse the poor person as to what reality consists of until education catches that person up on what lies fools tell.
With that little rejoinder for you to muse upon, remember that illusion is a matter of perception. And the universe has multiple panes of existence. The fact you are communicating here I know you are only here.
Your problem is you can't know where I am.
I presume the Spanish prosecutors now need to approve the complaint and then send it to the Spanish foreign service to file an extradition request with the USA. Let's hope it all goes forward.
There was a more informative article on HuffPo answering your question.
Thank you Judge Garzon. Hopefully you will inspire some American legal professionals to follow suit.
The Spanish investigation, if permitted to proceed, could generate enough adverse publicity to force state bars into taking action against these psychopathic, sycophantic shysters. It could force Boalt Hall to finally fire Yoo and Congress to impeach and remove Bybee. Finally, the trail would inevitably lead to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Ashcroft, Tenet, Goss, McConnell and the rest of the rogue's gallery that constituted the highest ranks of our government.
Unless they leave the US there's little risk of incarceration, but we could finally be shamed into doing the right thing.