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Today's Top News
Time To Call It Torture
The New York Times is finally calling it torture—when someone else has admitted to it.
“At least someone is owning up to the awful legacy of Mr. Bush’s illegal detention policies,” their editorial concludes, after discussing the decision from the British government to compensate former detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The settlement payments could run over a million pounds in one case.
But the Times shouldn't be so quick with the finger-pointing or the congratulations. The British settlement, for one thing, comes with “no concession of liability” for torture. Instead, Cameron's government is paying taxpayer dollars out in order to avoid going to trial and facing liability. There's video available of the treatment of UK prisoners, which the Guardian published and you can see on our Facebook page, but the US news? Not so much.
Our own torture tapes erased in 2005, earned nary a peep from the big media outlets last week, when the statute of limitations on filing charges against the erasers expired. That means that the investigation into who destroyed videotapes of CIA interrogations is effectively over and no one will be held accountable.
Where were the strongly worded condemnations from the Times then? About where the coverage of those tapes, as opposed to the preemptive settlement is now.
Our friends at FireDogLake kept the pressure on while the clock ran out on our torture tapes, but it is ironic to see the Times wagging its finger at the government when it missed an excellent opportunity to hold them accountable itself.
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Show AllAt least someone is owning up to the awful legacy of Mr. Bush’s illegal detention policies,” their editorial concludes,
How nice. Perhaps the New York Times would advocate a complete justice department investigation with subpoenas and under oath testimonies on their role in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. Somehow, I don't think so.
Ms. Flanders:
I believe you are mistaken.
Anyone filming the torture would be complicit as a conspirator, in a War Crime. Anyone destroying the tapes, likewise. Conspirators are prosecuted for every crime committed by the conspiracy.
These are federal capital crimes, ie, potentially punishable by death, if anyone dies, or life, if they merely maimed or raped them. (deadpan sarcasm intended)
[See 18 U.S.C., PART I, CHAPTER 118, § 2441. Link: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00002441----000-.html ]
Capital crimes don't have statutes of limitations.
This isn't over. The "Justice" Dept. merely needs to charge the tape-destroyers with a War Crime.
We don't need the tapes to prosecute W., but that's damn well why they were destroyed, to guard against the public outcry for his head that would surely follow their disclosure...
By saying "the SOL has expired" you omit the fact that the underlying torture is a war crime That Never Goes Away.
I humbly suggest that despite your numerous and worthy efforts, you do a disservice here.
In other words, write an article that says: We Can Still Get Them, ALL of Them, On War Crimes, and point out that Bush's own public statements amount to what lawyers call "an admission against interest". Prosecution with this type of evidence...even without the waterboarding tapes, is assistant DA simple.
Cheers.
puff -
The videotapes of the waterboarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed were destroyed by a top level CIA official while they were already subject to a Congressional Committee subpoena. This act was contempt of Congress, and the federal felony crime of obstruction of justice.
Congress gave a bipartisan blink, and let the spooks get away with thumbing their noses at Congressional investigation into the Bush/Cheney torture policies which both Bush and Cheney now public boast helped keep America safe ("damn right!"). The ordinary statute of limitations on the obstruction of justice charge just ran out, as Laura Flanders correctly notes.
KSM was driven crazy, but he did not die. Therefore, there is no viable theory under the War Crimes Act, 18 USC 2441, which would carry the death penalty. Okay, let's go for life or any term of years.
How is the guy with the videocamera a co-conspirator of the interrogator? If the audio/video system in your local police station films an interrogation session in which the suspect is beaten with the proverbial rubber hose into confessing, how does that make the equipment operator, the shift commander, or the Chief of Police part of a criminal conspiracy?
It doesn't, any more than Mr. Zapruder was criminally complicit in the assassination of JFK. It doesn't, any more than the US soldiers who recorded, retrieved, and reviewed the infamous Apache helicopter machine gunning of Iraqi civilians and a victim evacuation vehicle (later leaking the damning footage to Wikileaks) could be charged criminally with a war crime along side the pilot, the machine gunner, and the ground control officer who authorized opening fire.
It is my understanding the CIA records custodian who eventually destroyed the incriminating CIA waterboarding videotapes was nowhere near the interrogation site or the command heirarchy while the torture was taking place. He was like the guy who took no part in the homicide, but who later helped dispose of the murder weapon as a favor for a friend in need. As an after-the-fact accomplice, yes, he has committed a crime - but he's not guilty of aiding and abetting or conspiring to commit murder.
I agree with you that the federal War Crimes Act is very broad in scope as written. But in my opinion, applying it now is by no means assistant DA simple.
Bill from Saginaw
Well, no one was charged with being an accessory to a War Crime. I suspect that such a charge would not have a SoL.
Regarding the video operator, Zapruder was literally an innocent bystander, so I don't see the connection there. The torture was taped by somebody whom we can safely assume was assigned to do so at worst, and maybe volunteered. We know that somebody in the command chain thought taping was important.
There is already ample reason to believe the video was made to enhance the torture itself. Check Sy Hersh on this vis a vis the rape of Iraqi children. Or it might have been made as a training tool, or for analysis on effectiveness at a later date. That the videographer didn't lacerate any penises with a scalpel or pour any water or rape any kids himself is as beside the point as the lookout who doesn't shoot anyone in the robbery.
But I grant that getting the tape-destroyer might no be "Assistant DA-simple." But it wouldn't take much prosecutorial creativity to nail the scum for something, agreed?
My sentence on "simple" was poorly written--I had switched to W, who has now admitted he ordered it in his book, and he and Cheney have previously admitted this. So it's the ol' confession, and it doesn't get much easier than that.
Anyway, thanks for your response. I get frustrated when even the "liberal" media writes anything on this issue that DOESN'T contain, as a primary, driving, over-riding theme: INVESTIGATE. PROSECUTE. IMPRISON.
Cheers.
=Four Hours in My Lai= by Bilton and Sim.
Embedded in Rusty Calley's platoon were military photographers. To stay out of the way of the shooting at the trench, the photographers took pictures of the women being raped before being shot (why waste good pussy?, asked the Boy Next Door).
I have no recollection of these photographers blowing the whistle on Lt. Calley. What was their obligation under the Military Code of Justice?
Trylon
When will we admit that tasers are torture? We accept the routine torture of our own innocent citizens, sometimes even killing them, and yet no one seems to care. Why should we care about some brown-skinned foreigner?
you know someone who is not browning own skin in the summer? don't spread the non-issue -edweg
99% of tortures performed by ambitious psycho-sadists are never recorded, and done with the full knowledge of innocence of the victims / the system rewords obtaining confessions witch in turn pile up fabricated evidence
edweg