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A Memo on Torture to John Yoo
The former Bush administration official continues to defend the indefensible: his authorization of a disastrous policy of abuse
Whether torture helped lead to the killing of Osama bin Laden or not, the beating of John Yoo's tell-tale heart has compelled him to speak. His preemptive rush, in a recent op-ed article for the Wall Street Journal, to vindicate the Bush administration's torture policies that he and Jay Bybee created betrays his guilt for approving one of the most reprehensible policies in US history – a policy of systematic torture that not only failed to provide actionable intelligence, but undermined the security of the United States.
In the infamous torture memos of 2002, Yoo and Bybee, authorized "enhanced interrogation" techniques (EITs), acts previously recognized by the US as torture – and the same torture methods used on US soldiers to obtain false confessions during the Korean war. In 131 pages of memos, the two justice department legal counsels redefined torture in a manner that required medical monitoring of all EITs, but failed to provide any meaningful provisions to detect medical evidence of torture as defined by them. Moreover, their "good faith" defence against criminal liability for torture rested on two presumptions, that interrogators would not exceed the severe physical and severe and prolonged mental pain thresholds for torture as defined by Yoo and Bybee, and, even if they did, that it would not constitute torture unless these physical and psychological harms were the precise objectives of the interrogators.
For more than 20 years, I have been documenting medical evidence of torture and testifying as a medical expert in courts of law. As the principle author of the UN Manual on the Effective Investigation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (the Istanbul Protocol), I am well aware of the international standards of assessing medical evidence of torture. I have served as a public member of US human rights delegations and criticized other governments for the very practices that John Yoo authorized and continues to defend. Over the past several years, I have been called upon to serve as a medical expert in a number of Guantánamo cases and have evaluated, at first hand, the physical and psychological evidence of torture alleged by detainees.
In each of the cases that I have evaluated, the physical and psychological evidence of torture is consistent with the UN Convention Against Torture's definition of torture – as well as Yoo and Bybee's definition of torture. In some cases, Yoo's condition of "specific intent" to commit acts of torture is clear from declassified interrogation logs, which reveal systematic and prolonged efforts to induce psychological states of debility, dependence and dread, euphemistically referred to as ''ego down", ''futility'' and ''fear up harsh.". The fact that Yoo and Bybee raised the thresholds for physical and mental pain of torture without any provisions to assess possible evidence of torture suggests criminal negligence and possibly the intent to commit and conceal a systematic policy of torture.
Former assistant attorney general Yoo not only wants to conceal the evidence of the torture that he authorized; he wants us to believe that his torture policy was useful in fighting terrorism. Unfortunately, he fails to mention any of the negative consequences of the policies. For starters, the US invasion of Iraq was justified, in part, on the basis of the false confession of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi who, under pain of torture, confessed to knowledge of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Torture not only aided in the justification of the Iraq war, which resulted in more than 4,000 US casualties, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties, and costs in excess of $1tn; the subsequent occupation served as the primary recruiting tool for al-Qaida in Iraq.
US torture practices have also jeopardized the effective legal prosecutions of suspected terrorists, which has led, in part, to the Obama administration being forced to revert to holding the trials of the alleged 9/11 conspirators in military tribunals rather than civilian courts; torture has also placed US soldiers at greater risk of harm, and undermined the capacity for the US to hold other countries accountable for human rights abuses.
The reason why torture is universally prohibited in international and domestic law the world over, however, is not because it is ineffective or counterproductive (though it is). Torture has been universally prohibited because in the aftermath of the second world war, the nations of the world agreed, under the leadership of the United States, that respect for basic human dignity required the absolute prohibition of torture under any circumstance.
The acts of torture that John Yoo and other Bush administration officials so proudly defend are nothing less than war crimes that, in the absence of accountability, continue to undermine the United States' claim to respect the rule of law.
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24 Comments so far
Show AllAnd since Obama has declined to investigate or prosecute these war crimes, he also has become a war criminal through his aiding and abetting torturers.
"Rule of law" is a pretty, antiquated, quaint phrase rolled out by those who see themselves as above the law. Law is an impediment to results, and results are the only things that matter. What we desire most is ruthless efficiency (and the multitudinous sheep desire a security maintained by ruthless efficiency). So, in our fear, we embrace lawlessness as an efficient replacement to those quaint impediments, and thus embrace tyranny.
yes, but the US only tortures suspects.
it would never torture the innocent.
Brilliant! As there are no innocents, the US can torture EVERYONE!
I think J Yoo needs to travel more. To the Hague preferably, but if not I wish him a bon voyage to the streets of Bagdad. (with an Arabic sign saying 'I support torture and everything the US government has done to all of you')
Is one to understand that, according to you, it's ok to torture a suspect ?Because a suspect can only be guilty ?People like you are not only both silly and dangerous.
you must be new here.
welcome.
(silly? definitely; and free agents are always dangerous)
By GOD, I'd love to see Yoo, Bush, Cheney, Bybee, and the whole war criminal lot of 'em waterboarded and subjected to the exact same "enhanced" techniques they engineered and approved and now brag about.
Satan is shivering with anticipation for the day all these twisted sick FUCKS finally die and descend to hell for eternity.Their eternal rewards will be well-earned.
The assassination of an unarmed man, in his own bedroom, in front of his family might be the ultimate form of torture....... and in the USA there was dancing in the streets to celebrate torture. Blaming Yoo and Bush is a cop out. Obama and all who voted for him are complicit now.
I agree. Sometimes I feel like an alien in the land of my birth.
The fact that a thousand students don't keep a shoe handy to throw at Yoo on sight on the U of C Berkeley campus tells us how far we've come. The fact that he hasn't been blown up shows how ridiculous the claims that terrorists have infiltrated this Great Land.
Hi, Elizabeth--
I'm old enough to remember the days when Berkeley was the center of the universe for radical activists called "The New Left" in the 1960s. Amerika's universities formerly were places of experimentation and expansion of progressive knowledge. Now they are home to the likes of Yoo, the horrid symbol of repression and fear the nation has devolved into.
Thank you, Mr. Iacopino, for you principled work on behalf of justice everywhere, and your brave, humanitarian efforts to retain humanity's essential decency, in spite of U.S lawless leaders' efforts to sabotage both.
June is Torture Awareness Month
Quaker Initiative to End Torture
http://www.quit-torture-now.org/
The US under Bush and now Obama has become a post legal society. The elites are able to commit crime after crime and not be prosecuted. The parties that they commit the crimes against are denied their day in court. The US is no longer a true democratic country ruled by law. How unfortunate for all Americans and how unfortunate for the world.
The torture crimes are just the tip of the iceberg.
Yoo, Bush, Obama, and Congress are all serving the corporate imperial interests of Big Oil that seeks hegemony over the hydrocarbon resources of Iraq and Central Asia via Afghanistan.
And the Bush family has both oil and "defense" investments. Dick "Halliburton" Cheney conspired to invade Iraq and has seen his investments grow.
And then we have John Kerry with over $32 Million in "defense" industry investments. As of 2008, about a quarter of senators and congressmen have invested at least $196 million of their own money in companies doing business with the Department of Defense thus profiting from the death and destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Engaging in war crimes can be very profitable.
Oil CEO's should also be tried in the Hague. It is often forgotten that German corporations backed Hitler's regime.
many USer corporations did as well.
Wow. Can you say "conflict of interest?" Absolutely appalling.
It is pure torture to know that these things happen.
Vincent: from the bottom of my heart - thank you for so clearly speaking the obvious. If it weren't for golden moments of truth that you so eloquently provide - life would be a whole lot more trying.
Thank you.
I wish I had written what Siouxrose has answered. Mr. Iacopino deserves all the praise for his efforts, unlike those of us who do little in spite of our horror...
Thank you, Mr. Iacopino.
"The acts of torture that John Yoo and other Bush administration officials so proudly defend are nothing less than war crimes that, in the absence of accountability, continue to undermine the United States' claim to respect the rule of law."
I'm tired of statements like this, at least on CD. We all know this. The problem is that those with the power to prosecute the criminals don't have the guts to start prosecuting. Every city, town, and village in the country has prosecutors with fires in their bellies, jumping at the opportunity put away crooks, drug addicts, and sexual offenders. In this sense, we're anything but "post-legal." The nation is inflamed by the cases of Casey Anthony and Phillip Garrido. But when it comes to blatant trashing of the national and international laws against torture, there's ice in the bellies. There's no respect for law. There's no advocacy for the torture victims, even those who have been proven totally innocent of whatever the government thinks they might have done.
Let's talk about how to get some of those bellies fired up. Let's work toward getting at least one person with the power to do so to step forward to defend our nation's honor.
Sean Hanrady, Thanks for the comment. There seem to be quite a few prosecutors and prosecuting bodies overseas that would take on the challenge. I think the problem here is that prosecutors, grand juries, investigative committees, etc., don't think they have public backing for these crimes, as they do for rapes and murders.
A third party effort would certainly be a vehicle for changing the perception of those with the power to prosecute that prosecutions are a lost cause. But we need only a single U.S. attorney to get something started. I know one who is sympathetic, but when presented opportunities to do something, and encouragement from me -- to confront Alberto Gonzalez with a bar complaint -- didn't step up to the plate for even that minimal effort.