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Obama Plays Hamlet; Shredders Hum
Well, well. The New York Times has finally put a story together on the key role played by two faux psychologists in helping the Bush administration devise ways to torture people. We should, I suppose, be thankful for small favors.
Apparently, a NY Times exposé requires a 21-month gestation
period. The substance of the Wednesday's lead story on torture had
already appeared in an article in the July 2007 issue of Vanity Fair. http://www.vanityfair.com/
Katherine Eban, a Brooklyn-based journalist who writes about public health, authored that article and titled it "Rorschach and Awe." It was the result of a careful effort to understand the role of psychologists in the torture of detainees in Guantanamo.
She identified the two psychologists as James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who she reported were inexperienced in interrogations and "had no proof of their tactics' effectiveness" but nevertheless sold the Bush administration on a plan to subject detainees to "psychic demolition"-essentially severing them from their personalities and scaring them "almost to death."
| "The aim of torture is to destroy a person as a human being, to destroy their identity and soul. It is more evil than murder... " -- Inge Genefke - (1938-) Danish Doctor & Human Rights Activist |
In Wednesday's Times, reporters Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti plow much of the same ground. Please don't misunderstand. They deserve considerable praise for finally pushing their article past the Times' timorous censors, but let's not pretend the startling revelations are new.
The Times ought to allow the likes of Shane and Mazzetti to publish these stories when they are fresh. Alternatively, the once-known-as "newspaper of record" might at least report the findings of the likes of Eban, rather than ignoring them for nearly two years.
It's pretty much all out there now, isn't it? Not only the Times' better-late-than-never exposé, but also:
- The (leaked) text of the report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on the torture of "high-value" detainees;
- The too-slick-by-half "legal opinions" under Department of Justice letterhead;
- The findings of the 18-month investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee highlighting that it was President George W. Bush's dismissal of Geneva (in his executive order of February 7, 2002) that "opened the door" to abuse of detainees.
The North/Gonzales Memorial Shredder
One issue of some urgency has been overlooked in the media, but probably not by those complicit in torture by the CIA and other parts of the government. That issue is the need to protect evidence from being shredded. There has been no sign that either Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair or CIA Director Leon Panetta has proscribed the destruction of documents/tapes/etc. relating to torture, while decisions on if and how to proceed are being worked out.
Many will remember how Oliver North (when the crimes of Iran-Contra were being uncovered) and Alberto Gonzales (when White House involvement in the Valerie Plame affair was becoming clearer) made such good use of the days of hiatus between the announced decision to investigate and the belated order to safeguard all evidence from destruction.
One would think that Attorney General Eric Holder, or President Barack Obama himself, would have long since issued such an order. Indeed, the absence of such an order would suggest they would just as soon avoid as many of the painful truths about torture as they can. The issue would seem particularly urgent in the wake of Obama's gratuitous get-out-of-jail free card issued to CIA personnel complicit in torture. They might well draw the (erroneous) conclusion that they have been, in effect, pardoned by the president and thus are within the law in destroying relevant evidence-to the degree that being within the law matters any more.
Better Shred Than Dead
And what about the president's decision not to prosecute those in CIA who engaged in torture? What is going on here?
Retired U.S. Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, told Frontline on December 13, 2005 that "up to 100 detainees had died while in detention. Of that 100, some 27 have been declared officially homicides." Those running Bush administration interrogations are no doubt aware by now that the War Crimes Act (18 U.S. Code 2441) passed by a Republican-controlled Congress in 1996 provides that the death penalty can be given to those responsible for the deaths of detainees.
And yet, the President Obama struck not an angry, but rather a defensive tone on the recent release of the four torture documents issued by the Mafia-style lawyers of the Justice Department. This seems rather odd coming from a professor of constitutional law. The president and his advisers have appeared almost apologetic in explaining/justifying the release.
In the face of Rush Limbaugh/Dick Cheney-type charges that the revelations endanger national security, the White House explains that most of the information was already in the public domain (in the recently leaked report of the International Committee of the Red Cross, for example). Hey, Mr. constitutional law professor and now president, how about the fact that the Freedom of Information Act requires your administration to release such information. How about acknowledging that you are just doing your sworn duty to enforce the law-or is that notion quaint, obsolete, or somehow passé these days?
Misplaced Loyalty or Fear?
It is highly unusual for the president to feel it necessary to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Vivid in my memory is the visit by President George W. Bush on September 26, 2001, just two weeks after intelligence/defense/policy failures permitted the attacks of September 11.
For some time it remained something of a puzzle why the president felt it prudent to appear at CIA with his arm around then-CIA Director George Tenet, endorsing his leadership without reservation and bragging about having the best intelligence service in the world. In retrospect, it was a Faustian bargain.
Former CIA Director and Medal of Freedom winner, George Tenet, can be forgiven for being somewhat apprehensive these days-especially in the wake of the article by Shane and Mazzetti. But let's leave aside for now the obviously heinous misdeeds-like running George W. Bush's global Gestapo complete with secret prisons and torture chambers, a criminal enterprise that Tenet shoe-horned into the operations directorate of the CIA.
Let's pick a case of simpler, more familiar white-collar crime-Scooter Libby-style perjury and obstruction of justice. Those who remember Watergate and other crimes will be aware that the cover-up constitutes an additional-and often more provable-crime, especially when it involves perjury and obstruction of justice.
Until now, Bush has managed to escape blame for his outrageous inactivity before 9/11 because his subordinates-first and foremost, Tenet-have covered up for him. Faustian bargain? Call it mutual blackmail, if you prefer the vernacular.
Tenet gave the president enough warning to warrant, to compel some sort of action on his part. But Tenet's lackadaisical management of the CIA and intelligence community was at least as important a factor in the success of the attacks of 9/11.
Tenet should have been fired after 9/11. But President Bush needed Tenet, or at least Tenet's silence, as much as Tenet needed Bush, or at least Bush's forgiveness.
What developed might be described as a case of mutual blackmail disguised as bonhomie. Bush was keenly aware that Tenet had the wherewithal to let the world know how many warnings he had given the president and that this could reduce Bush to a criminally negligent, blundering fool.
George W. Bush would have had to kiss goodbye the role of cheerleader/war president-and so much else. Thus, Tenet had become critical to Bush's political survival. And Tenet? All he needed was not to be blamed - not to be fired.
The bargain: I, George Bush, will keep you on and even praise your performance; you, George Tenet, will keep your mouth shut about all the warnings you gave me during the spring and summer of 2001. Tenet, it is clear, agreed.
On Sept. 26, 2001, the president motored out to CIA headquarters, puts his arm around Tenet and told the cameras, "We've got the best intelligence we can possibly have thanks to the men and women of the CIA."
Tenet Goes Bush One Better
In his sworn testimony of April 14, 2004, before the 9/11 Commission, Tenet outdid himself trying to honor his bargain with Bush. The commissioners were interested in what the president had been told during the critical month of August 2001.
Answering a question from Commissioner Timothy Roemer, Tenet referred to the president's long vacation (July 29-Aug. 30, 2001) in Crawford and insisted that he did not see the president at all in August.
"You never talked with him?" Roemer asked.
"No," Tenet replied, explaining that for much of August he, too, was "on leave."
That evening, a CIA spokesman called reporters to say that Tenet had misspoken, and that he had briefed Bush on Aug. 17 and 31, 2001. The spokesman played down the Aug. 17 briefing as uneventful and indicated that the second briefing took place after Bush had returned to Washington.
Funny how Tenet could have forgotten his first visit to Crawford. In his memoir, "At the Center of the Storm," Tenet waxed eloquent about the "president graciously driving me around the spread in his pickup and me trying to make small talk about the flora and the fauna."
But the visit was not limited to small talk. In his book Tenet writes: "A few weeks after the August 6 PDB was delivered, I followed it to Crawford to make sure the president stayed current on events."
The Aug. 6, 2001 President's Daily Brief contained the article "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US." According to Ron Suskind's The One-Percent Doctrine, the president reacted by telling the CIA briefer, "All right, you've covered your ass now."
Clearly, Tenet needed to follow up on that. Was Tenet again in Crawford just one week later? According to a White House press release, President Bush on Aug. 25 told visitors to Crawford, "George Tenet and I" drove up the canyon "yesterday."
If, as Tenet says in his memoir, it was the Aug. 6, 2001, PDB that prompted his visit on Aug. 17, what might have brought him back on Aug. 24? That was the day after Tenet had been briefed on Zacarias Moussaoui training to fly a 747 and other suspicion-arousing information.
The evidence is very strong that Tenet told Bush chapter and verse. The extraordinary lengths to which Tenet has gone to disguise that has the former CIA director skating very close to perjury - if not over the line.
Real Terrorists: Moussaoui and Reid
A note on Moussaoui: despite strong encouragement from FBI special agent/attorney Coleen Rowley at the time, the government never interviewed Moussaoui for information on a possible "second wave" of 9/11-type attacks.
Moussaoui knew Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber who almost downed an airliner on its way from London to the U.S., and might have provided forewarning, if he were asked in the three months between 9/11 and Reid's attempt in December 2001. Given what amounted to a don't-ask-don't-tell policy, there is no telling, so to speak, what intelligence might have been elicited from Moussaoui.
It gets worse: it appears Reid was not effectively interviewed either. The nonchalant handling of Moussaoui and Reid greatly diminishes the credibility of arguments that torture was felt to be necessary because of the overweening fear of follow-up attacks. The administration claims it had to pull out all the stops-while in reality it failed to take rudimentary steps to acquire information from known terrorists already in U.S. custody.
Obama's Faustian Bargain?
In a recent article on torture, http://www.consortiumnews.com/
A reader replied in an email offering this answer to what is holding the administration back: "John D. Rockefeller, IV, and the Democrats who knew [about the torture] and did nothing." The sender signed the email: "Kathleen M. Rockefeller Uncowardly Cousin."
The disclosures in the Shane/Mazzetti article, and plenty of other evidence suggest that this may not be far off the mark. The fact that so many Democratic leaders had complicit knowledge of the torture is no doubt one of the powerful forces working on our president.
Maybe, just maybe, the president insisted on releasing the torture memos with a view toward determining whether Americans really care, whether we would be appropriately outraged-so outraged that we would put inexorable pressure on him to hold everyone, repeat everyone, accountable.
- Posted in
60 Comments so far
Show AllRe-investigate 9/11. No ifs, ands or buts...THIS is at the heart of it all.
A b s o l u t e l y _ I n d i s p e n s a b l y _ M a n d a t e d
Evidence of thermite in the ashes of 9/11 have been found. Eyewitness testimony of explosions was never investigated. The videos from the Pentagon were never released and the one video released does not show a 757 going into the Pentagon.
An Independent Investigation headed by Andreas Von Bulow, an ex German Foreign Minister, would be most appropriate and probably quiet the Rush Limbaughs.
Napolitano might have it right after one more suicide of someone with too much knowledge......
I would like to straighten the record out a little, when you state"Evidence of thermite in the ashes of 9/11 have been found," which is completely true although not specific enough to explain how significant this really is.
What was scientifically found, researched, and then published in peer reviewed Journal, is the existence of many active unexploded nano-thermite pieces, from several mm and smaller size -- that are nanoscopically constructed on the scale of 1/millionth of 1 mm [ 10 ^ (-9) m ].
Explosive tests of energy released demonstrate ~ 8 years later, that this extremely complex fabricated material, is even today stronger than high explosive dynamite ( this novel material is only loosely similar to the long familiar macroscopic thermite, that only burns ).
Beside the active nano-thermite particles, the paper's authors also found ( in the same WTC dust samples ) nearly pure iron spheracles that were verified and validated to be created when the lab tested nano-thermite was ignited.
This is not just a smoking gun, this is the loaded and aimed gun.
Namaste
Good article. Important to stop shredding, obviously Obama does not care about evidenceor he is in fear for his carreer/life or he would stop shredding.
Fear among Demo's probably exists but how releastic can it be if still at this point in time not even one Bushite has been indicted for heinous and obvious War and Constitutional crimes?
Did you watch the video of Rachel Maddow posted on the right of the website yesterday? She was interviewing a Democratic Rep., who said there are still investigations going on to collect more evidence on the torture orders and such...the government is still collecting evidence, it is not destroying it. And this is one prosecution where everything of relevance to the issue should be collected and used, for sure.
Lets not forget that the NSA phone taps anyone they want, and traces all internet activity.
And that the wiretapping began SEVEN MONTHS BEFORE 9/11 --
In fact, wiretapping meetings with communications companies began
immediately upon Bush taking office.
* * * * * * * * *
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
I can recall Bush's sudden month long vacation at the beginning of his term and I saw him being interviewed down at the ranch and thought it was fishy. He was acting defensive and frightened and I recall saying to the person I was watching it with, "Something is up"
Oh shoot--they want the evidence to be shredded because they want this little problem to go away. It is common knowledge that Pelosi and Reid were in on it. Those drums of war were pounding and they jumped on board. The lot of them should go.
Obama achieved his ambition to be the first African American president--but what if he fails? What if in serving his MIC masters and political partisans he fails the people? What if he is the first African American president who turns out to be a dismal failure by being servile to the ruling class? Maybe he should think about that.
It appears to me that President "Yes We Can, But I Won't" has already dismally failed.
Mitchell and Jessen should lose their licenses to practice and be prosecuted. As a mental health professional I am disgusted that members of our profession, a profession which is dedicated to helping, participated in such inhumane acts. They should be tried for crimes against humanity. Their "patriotism," reminiscent of the Nazis, has no place in a civilized society.
The quote:
"The aim of torture is to destroy a person as a human being, to destroy their identity and soul. It is more evil than murder... "
-- Inge Genefke - (1938-) Danish Doctor & Human Rights Activist
...should be on every billboard in America
but then again, these politicians would pardon Hitler if they thought procecuting him would make them look like Liberals.
Hamlet was a psychotic, repressed coward who got killed. So don't wait for Barak Hamlet Obama to fix anything in this rotten kingdom.
It always comes back to you and me. Protest. Become a freeway blogger, paint signs and hang them on overpasses. Write your Congressional whore, hand deliver it. Write letters to the editor of your local fish wrap. Follow up with a personal call when they don't publish it. Email the pundits in the shitstream media. Sometimes they'll publish your email or play your phone message just for the controversy. If any group plans a march or to occupy a government office or building, join them.
No justice will ever be achieved that is not pushed by the indignation of you and me.
"Write your Congressional whore, hand deliver it."
I both can and can't do that, living in DC. I can easily visit Congress, but I don't have a real representative anymore.
Edit: My last Rep. wasn't a whore, she was a pretty progressive Democrat who voted against the bailout both times, I was so glad I called her office to thank her for it last year.
Hamlet was also a slacker who wanted to be a tough guy, an avenging angel, not unlike George Wanker Bush. Too bad Bush didn't go the way of Hamlet.
"This above all ... to thine own self be true, and it shall follow like the night the day thou then canst not be false to any man."
"Hamlet," - Polonius to his son, Laerties
How refreshing if doing the right thing in terms of helping, not hurting, people and telling the truth were the foundational precepts of all nations.
All the religions teach these things, and all those holier than thou, folks, swear up and down that God is most important to the quality of their lives and they take their guidance from God. NOT!
I'm rooting for the polar bears, the whales, the chimpanzees, the Blue Fin Tunafish and Dolphins, the coral reefs, honey bees, panthers, lions, tigers and elephants, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
It's so obvious that we are a corrupted species and there are too many of us now and multiplying. Those things and total nitwits, with brains and sensibilities like ingrown toenails, in leadership positions leads one to a simple logic that easily foretells the future.
In the meantime, ENJOY YOURSELF! ... ; - )
/cm
I don't know about the whales or chimpanzee. Like Arthur C. Clarke used to say, the naked killer ape species is the chief danger to the planet. We will, of course, try to take down every other species with us when we go down. That said, the roaches and flies will probably have the best shot; Roaches have a microbe in their gut that enables them to digest cellulose (wood, cardboard, etc.) and flies can live on shit.
Sioux Rose
CEE MIRACLES: Good post. I am reading Robert Jensen's book on Pornography, "Getting Off" and recommend it to persons in this forum. Our society's depravity goes deeper than I would have believed; and the links between pornography's celebration of the desecration of the female body and the desecretion of the earth (the Great Mother Nature) in celebrations of waste, carnage, toxic plundering & pillaging are profound. Basic human needs and desires have departed so far from a healthy state and it's seen in the casual dismissal of torture on the part of our "leaders," in the way a war was engineered on false pretenses, but it's another one of those "let's not look back and hold persons accountable when it will only spoil the party" scenarios. Love and healthy sexuality are becoming rarer. (Did fellow CD posters realize that Porn is estimated at a 10 billion a year "industry" and so much of it involves really SICK and humiliating acts. VERY depressing!) When enough people reach these base levels of utter inhuman disregard for other human beings, nature, and the very PRINCIPLE OF LIFE, those forces that would obliterate life as we know it come into play. I think we are witnessing the final acts of an epoch, and what emerges from the ashes is anyone's guess. Much of American society is as sick as the psychologists who spend their time figuring out ways to break other peoples' minds down, persons PRESUMED innocent, especially when this whole shindig in Iraq was dreamt up. That places the very concept of "enemy" into a highly suspect light. I see links between the homo-erotic aspect of torture (holding people against their wills, having ABSOLUTE control over all aspects of what lives they are allowed to live) and much of what Jensen relates in his research into POPULAR porn. It saddens me that for all the Masters and Sages that came to this earth to teach a better way, every disgusting part of human nature has been given the space to express; while the impulses that are TRULY life-affirmative, LOVING and caring are thwarted at just about every juncture.
I can see these same "psychologists" in corporate backrooms and ad agencies thinking up ways to get us to buy things we don't need and consume things that aren't good for us. We're encouraged to take advantage of loopholes that we're "entitled to" and follow orders that are wrong to keep our jobs. Natural acts and substances are illegal. We've been ever-so-subtly turned into the criminal co-conspirators of the raping class.
We might want to ask a few questions about the U.S. military operated School of the Americas TORTURE SCHOOL. All this brouhaha about whether or not the US tortured people while at the same time it runs a TORTURE SCHOOL. That would be state sponsored terrorism.
All investigations have to be done out in the light - do not settle for a "secret prosecutor" where all will be shred!
Obama made a big mistake in immunzing the CIA operatives. Everyone knows that following orders is not a valid defense and he has no right to give immunity any way to anyone. This makes it difficult to prosecute others up in the chain of command.
Another matter is that proponents of torutre agrue that releasing the memo's provides the enemy with information about interrogation techniques. This a totally false argument. What is the value of revealing technieques that have already been abandoned?
-What is the value of revealing technieques that have already been abandoned?
I understand what you mean rhetorically, but is there any evidence that torture by the US government has been abandoned?
Just last week an inmate (imprisoned since he was a young teenager in Guantanamo) was on the phone with Al Jazeera complaining that the "beatings" (yes, present tense, for you grammer fans) have gotten worse.
And of course. there are still those who were on lists of CIA prisoners, who are now "disappeared" as in either still in secret prisons or possibly murdered.
Plus, new abductees are being flown from around the world, Africa, South America, Europe, to Bagram Afghanistan. Are we to believe that this is now being done for some other reason than to torture and/or kill them?
If the US government has paused its abduction/torture/murder as Obama claims, what is to stop him or his successor from restarting it?
The problem with the argument that releasing the memo's helps the enemy is that the republicans are repeating it all the time and although it is not logical -since those method are supposed to have been discontinued- many people, mostly republicans I think, will end up believing it although it has no backing in logic or common sense.
He has no right, so his claiming to have done it would be empty words. I think only prosecutors with the agreement of a judge can grant immunity in criminal cases. And there has to be a case; you can't just say Joe Doe is immune to whatever the DOJ throws at him for ever and ever.
Rainborowe
Why are you puzzled? This guy has a Caesar Complex as large as Mount Everest.
Unfortunately for you ans me Caesar Complexes never achieve anything other than spouting hot air.
This is what gets me about obama, he just wants to 'move forward' or 'keep moving on' or whatever. What this supposedly intelligent young man doesn't realize, unless his is willfully complicit, it that by NOT investigating NOT prosecuting and NOT punishing those responsible for anything that has brought this country and this world this disaster, will just keep on 'moving forward' along with him and this country and this world. Same as saying, 'that to forget or forgive the past leaves the future to repeat the samo crap. It is still early in his term but I have seen little that gives me encouragement.
I am disappointed to see the argument for or against torture deteriorating to whether torture is useful or not rather than whether it is moral and self-respecting to toruture. Is the question now: how useful is torture in producing information, and if poroven useful should be approved?
It seems that there are many Dick Cheney's out there who are not bound by any consideration other that the usefulness of torture therwise the question wouldn't have been so dominant in the media.
Wisconsin Public Radio featured an hour entitled "How To Break a Terrorist".
It would seem there are dignified, productive alternatives to waterboarding.
Wednesday,
Dec 10, 2008
10:00 PM Kathleen Dunn: After ten, Kathleen Dunn is joined by a former interrogator whose work helped locate the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. He says it was subtle technique... that made his team successful.
http://www.wpr.org/search/index.cfm
It's a continuation of the conservative quest to turn every single thing into a political question/issue, where there is no absolute right or wrong, just differences of opinion. We must demand better from the media.
Great article. We need the reminders that the August 2001 Presidential memos clearly spelled out the coming attacks.
We need reminders that Bush did nothing- was "on vacation" his entire eight years as President and that he HAD the information about what was being planned for 9/11.
The MSM has twisted the truth for so long and so effectively that it's a challenge to get a real, factual, conversation going about this.
Now that more memos have come to light about the torture, let's hope that there's enough to prosecute and yes, I agree that the latest release of memos is a test for progressives and the American public.
DO we care enough to agitate and protest this outrageous criminal behavior?
Do we CARE that people were tortured? Or not.
angryoldman is 110% correct. A REAL 9-11 investigation needs to be re-opened, one without the obvious conflicts of interest on the part of the panel members, and with full subpoena and immunity powers, with all participants sworn under oath - INCLUDING and ESPECIALLY G. Bush and D. Cheney this time, with ALL testimony and evidential documents in full public view.
The blatant farce that was the 9-11 Commission was an insult to America. The truth about 9-11 would make this whole torture issue pale in comparison.
I would say that were this ever to come about, it would nearly destroy the American political system as we know it, since BOTH political parties must have been complicit in the event itself and the subsequent cover-up - not to mention the mainstream media. That's why I doubt there will ever be an honest, thorough investigation. The tentacles simply reach too far and deep.
Who could have carried out the 9-11 attacks? Certainly not the 19 patsys, they did not have the skills to do so. But the CIA could easily have done so, just like the CIA is suspected to be behind the Kennedy assassination.
If you remember, after the Kennedy assassination, they sealed the records (and then later destroyed them). If a lone assassin, who was immediately assassinated himself, had really done it, why seal the records?
If the truth were be released about either of these events, you are correct, it would shake the USA to its foundation.
September 11, 2001:
Never Forget.
Never Investigate.
Answering a question from Commissioner Timothy Roemer, Tenet referred to the president's long vacation (July 29-Aug. 30, 2001) in Crawford and insisted that he did not see the president at all in August.
"You never talked with him?" Roemer asked.
"No," Tenet replied, explaining that for much of August he, too, was "on leave."
George Wanker Bush has been "on leave" since the day he was born. His entire miserable, rotten life has been a vacation in the land of failure and death. Too bad he didn't fall victim to SIDS; look at all the people whose lives would've been saved.
Obama cannot legally "excuse" the acts of the CIA--unless he issues a pardon. He is duty-bound through his oath of office to prosecute. His refusaal to do so makes him an accomplice to the crimes, and renders him unfit to be president. In this regard, he is no different from Bush or Cheney.
It seems very clear to me: Either Obama prosecutes--does his job--or resigns because he is incapable of/unfit for being president.
And pardons are only in effect if and when the "pardoned" accepts the pardon thereby admitting his/her crime.
Maybe this is part of his plan: remember when he said "make me"? Maybe it will work.
Lest we Forget
-----------------------------------------------
The Nuremberg Principles
Principle I. Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.
Principle II. The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.
Principle III. The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.
Principle IV. The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.
Principle V. Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.
Principle VI. The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
(b) War Crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation of slave-labour or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(c) Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.
Principle VII. Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.
--------------------------------------------------
There you have it, short and sweet. A blueprint for living on a humane planet. We had the UN as a forum to mediate disputes and the Nuremberg Principles to clearly delineate what illegal and aggressive behavior was.
Is there anything in the above that our alleged leaders do not or cannot understand? Does might override all international ideas of justice? Are the only people to make the rules henceforth to be the overgrown schoolyard bullies that seem to infest our government, and other of the more powerful governments in the world?
We the People of the United States and We the People of the World should be hammering our alleged representatives with the Nuremberg Principles and demanding that justice be done!
Hopefully that will be recognized about our rogue government. They are not above the law, nor are they above the Constitution which they are trying to supersede. They must be deposed and tried for their acts. Impeachment is one avenue, a reconvened Nuremberg Tribunal is another, but one way or the other, it is way overdue.
An Answer!
I've been asking who Obama is protecting, besides the obvious Bushite criminals. There's the answer: the obvious Democrat criminals. Might have known it would come from Ray McGovern. Apparently a career spent in compulsive secrecy makes for compulsive candor once retired.
He left out a name: O. himself was in the Senate part of that time, as were his mentors, like Daschle.
Who would have thought American politics would turn into "The Story of O"?
Maybe we should have elected an outsider of proven, reckless integrity, like McKinney or Nader.
Oregoncharles
-Why is ANYTHING by a (former?) CIA agent and promoter of Christian nonsense being published on this supposedly progressive site?
This a progressive site, articles about destruction of evidence of war crimes are of interest to progressives, or at leat to me.
If, especially if, an article is specious, it gives us an opportunity to test it and ascertain the well foundedness of our own world views and, moving forward, be better able to respond effectively to competing naratives the next time a similar opportunity presents itself.
The distraction point is a good one, I've been thinking the same thing. Historically, there has always been a bigger picture than what we see in the present, and I am sure it is no coincidence that the memos were released now. It's pretty disturbing how the American public seems to be able to focus on only one media frenzy at a time, and especially how we drag it out to the point of being redundant. I'm not discounting the analyses by lawyers and former CIA analysts, etc, I'm just saying that it is ... trite in comparison to honesty from our government. Also, in context -- I mean, what exactly are they arguing about in the White House? It's terrible that instead of defending basic human rights, lawyers and politicians alike are looking for legal loopholes. Lawyers are SUPPOSED to defend justice, not special interest or TORTURE, otherwise - why have them at all? But I suppose that's a much bigger argument, although I mean it in all seriousness - if these professions which have such great sway in our own and others' lives are reduced to defending anyone and anything with $, then justice is an oxymoron.
So it's sad that we have to resort to asking people who do not have all the information, instead of being able to rely on those we have elected. And it's even more sad that most people are not surprised or appalled by this anymore.
Okay, so it's official. The United States of America maintains a global secret police force. We kidnap and torture people, just like the Argentine secret police and the Cambodian Santebal and the Shaw's SAVAK and the Israeli's MOSSAD and the Russians' KGB. We have joined the community of nations. Can we now put to rest the absurd idea of American exceptionalism? We are no more or less treacherous and aggressive and brutal and cruel and self serving than any other pack of yayhoos on our unhappy planet. The difference between ourselves and our "enemies" is no longer a moral one. So if it only boils down to ideological distinctions, we can turn those over to peaceful scholars to resolve and concentrate on celebrating the things we share in common with other cultures.
Now that our dirty little secret is out in the open, maybe we can relax about it. It strikes me that the Taliban don't get out much. We ought to have them over for our lethal injections. Maybe we'd get invited to their beheadings. Hands across the border kind of thing.
The author writes: "... so that as a nation we could hold to account any proven guilty and put this shameful chapter of American history behind us once and for all." This guy isn't grasping the scope of the problem. If we threw the whole Bush administration into jail it would still amount to painting over spots to cure measles. Torture and thievery and mayhem have been a part of American history since Jamestown, and a part of human history since the invention of agriculture. I'm all in favor of amending our corrupted nature, but we aren't going to solve the problem unless we can state it correctly, as Freud attempted to do. The belly of the beast loves it when we think, as Bush did after Abu Ghraib, that we can just round up a few bad apples and make everything nice again. The bad apples r us.
Good post.
But still, the difference is that the US has built itself up as a moral compass and the people believe it. So you have a whole nation of "God Bless the USA" that believes this is an isolated issue. The other difference is that the US is by far the most militarily equipped, the wealthiest, and the largest consumer of the world's resources, to a point that has never existed before in history - therefore able to enact and conceal corruption, violence, and deceit on unprecedented levels.
"Maybe, just maybe, the president insisted on releasing the torture memos with a view toward determining whether Americans really care, whether we would be appropriately outraged-so outraged that we would put inexorable pressure on him to hold everyone, repeat everyone, accountable."
I think you hit the nail on the head.
None of those guilty will ever be tried unless some country gets balls and starts abducting and torturing the torturers.
As far as our politicians are concerned, this is nothing but a piece of comedy
Not a good description of Hamlet.
Right on ! Obama will be able to reform the national-security state that he inherited from W and the demoblicans, only if both republicans and democrats ask for drastic changes to it, or if there is a massive popular outrage demanding such changes.
By releasing the memos he started this process, but now it's up to us to stoke public outrage.
Obama simply cannot risk dismantling W's national-security state cold turkey just by himself to please some fringe bleeding hearts. If he did it alone he would expose himself and his longterm plans for the nation to a devastating PR catastrophe were an out-of-the-blue terrorist attack to take place after the dismantling.
Similarly, we should never forget how much money fat-cat investors, health-care sharks, and other leeches are fighting for these days.
Obama cannot go against these masters of the universe cold turkey and take away the cake from them.
If he did, this neo-feudal class of parasites would cough up in a sec more than enough savings to hire full time and for several years every one of the many mercenary armies of the USA plus the whole of organized crime, just to get have him killed.
Obama must proceed carefully so he can change things when it is possible. Time is on his side since the several trillion dollars of financial vaporware that need to be "saved" cannot possibly be "ameliorated" without ruining the USA or ruining the fat cats.
So we must be patient and careful about what we ask for else we may end up having to whine about "the friend of the usurer" aka Joseph Biden...
the whining and hoping for the great leader's redemption must stop. What is needed urgently from the left now is
i) that it pressures lazy left-wing economists, historians, and political scientists so they finally make the effort to find out in detail --and then publicize loudly and non-stop-- which are the great fortunes that demoblicans are trying to save when they cry wolf about "saving the financial system" --including useful idiot Krugman initially ; and denounce with names (but no addresses) the owners of these fortunes as members of a neo-feudal class that has bribed for decades mainstream demoblicans, journalists, pundits, and economists and is mobilizing them now to scare us into saving this class of parasites from its apocalyptic exposure to wrecked financial vaporware, i.e., to save this class' political and economic power (no, nobody wants to save "the banks" or "WS", how can anybody be so naive and fall for such an obfuscation!);
ii) that it convince the public that the bailout money should be used to jump-start the economy directly with or w/o the co-operation of WS and private banks; and+
iii) that it mobilize the whole nation to confront Obama and the demoblicans at every stop with questions about who are the specific *individuals* who would benefit personally most if the financial system is "saved" and why exactly these *individuals* deserve so badly to be saved at a price of billions of dollars each.
iv) that it mobilize everybody to demand from Obama and the demoblicans that they prosecute the torturers and restore the rule of law to the USA.
Changing the public's mood, informational sophistication, and state of readiness will give Obama the freedom to move in the right direction. He is smart, he does not want to be a martyr and go down in flames.
So let's stop complaining about WS, the banks, and the great leader's lack of leadership, courage, vision, blah, blah, blah.
Let's make sure the citizenry understands where Obama should go and why and that it starts demanding it and loudly so.
Ask the citizenry, e.g., if it really wants that the Randolphs' billions in derivatives be purchased at face value from them by the taxpayers "to save the financial system".
Makes sense! Obama cannot do it by himself. There are people out there who are shamelessly touting the merits of torture, some are trying to make Obama seem like he is helpting the terrorists, and there is also the very powerful CIA to rekon with.
erplus,
Not so fast. Read this first. Then you may start to understand why Obama and congress seem so impotent.
"Are Members of Congress Being Blackmailed?"
http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff04232009.html