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Who Did Give the Green Light to Torture?
When they behave disgracefully, the military are imitating a contempt for human rights found higher up the chain of command
There has been something artificially over-heated about the international reaction to the video of four American soldiers urinating on the bodies of their dead Taliban enemies in Afghanistan. It was, of course, a fairly disgusting thing to do. But all the breastbeating about how the men's "egregious inhumanity" had brought "disgrace to their armed forces" and "dishonor to their nation" had something of bluster about it. How could anybody do such a thing, asked people who had never been to war, heard their wounded friends scream or seen them die, blown to pieces, before their very eyes.
There may yet be demonstrations and deadly riots around the world in protest. But I suspect not. This is no Abu Ghraib, for the scenes of degraded torture in that Iraqi prison were inflicted upon the living rather than the dead. But what the two have in common is that both have exposed a systematic pattern of abuse in a culture which had been nurtured or authorized at higher levels.
The Taliban, for all their perfunctory condemnation, have announced that the video will not affect the process of political negotiating that has begun in Afghanistan. As part of a deal to bring a modicum of stability in that country ahead of the withdrawal of US combat troops in 2014, Washington has offered to allow them to open a political office in Qatar. The Taliban are far more concerned about that than the desecration of three dead bodies. They and their al-Qa'ida allies are, after all, happy enough to desecrate living bodies, stoning to death young women who have had the ill fortune to be raped, or cutting the throats of hostages and filming it for the internet.
Bad things happen in war. When men have been under extreme fire, or seen their best friend die, anger and hatred flow freely. Enemies are dehumanized. Contempt for the other is a battlefield weapon. Young soldiers – and nearly 40 per cent of the US Marine Corps are below the age of 22 – are prone to callow as well as gallows humor. Some of them do stupid things. With a total of 90,000 American troops on the ground in Afghanistan, the real wonder is that there haven't been more videos like this. British soldiers did worse things in the Second World War. They just weren't able to video it and stick it on YouTube.
There is something far more disturbing at work here. It was at play, too, last week at the end of the two 30-month long investigations into reports that members of MI5 and MI6 were complicit in the torture of terrorist suspects in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Scotland Yard and the Crown Prosecution Service decided that there was not enough evidence against any named individual to bring charges. But they have decided to pursue two cases involving other allegations that the British secret services handed Libyan dissidents over to Gaddafi's torturers when the maverick Libyan was persuaded by Tony Blair to switch sides in the "war on terror". Among those now to be investigated is a woman interrogator from MI6 and two other female agents.
The urination and rendition debacles share another common factor. Both serve to draw public attention to the little men, and women, involved at the sharp end of these dirty situations. And that draws attention away from the real culprits who make the polices or set the culture in which such dubious practices thrive.
All the charges made by suspected terrorists about our intelligence and security services cannot be accepted at face value. Even so, the documents that were discovered when Gaddafi fled from Tripoli suggested that a cozy conspiracy over rendition had been authorized at a pretty senior British level. Already the top spooks and politicians are squaring up each to blame the other.
Sources in the security services are briefing that rendition operations were "ministerially authorized government policy", hinting that they must have been signed off by Jack Straw, foreign secretary between 2001-06, under section seven of the Intelligence Services Act, the clause the popular press likes to describe as a "license to kill". The politicians of the day are countering by pointing out that the Tripoli documents could be interpreted as suggesting that MI6's then head of counter-terrorism, Sir Mark Allen, could have been the authorizer. It might have been neither of them. It is all very opaque.
The same is true in the United States where it is unclear what are the forces which are preventing President Obama from keeping his election promise to close the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay where 171 prisoners have now been held without trial for 10 years. They are deemed "too dangerous to transfer but not feasible for prosecution" in an Alice-in-Wonderland world of punishment first, trial later – or never. Indeed, far from closing the camp as he pledged, Obama this month signed into law a bill which prevents the transfer of the prisoners to the US mainland or to other countries. Hopes for the closure of the camp are now dead.
The focus on individual wrong-doers obscures this bigger picture. But if we cannot pin down who is to blame, what is clear is that something is being eroded in the West's idea of what should be the ethical norms by which a civilized country acts. There is a new tolerance of acts outside the law.
No intelligence service can do its job without dealing with unsavory regimes. And no soldiering unit can build the comradeship needed on the frontline without engendering a sense of animus against the enemy. But when in court the Master of the Rolls criticizes the behavior of a British interrogator accused of collusion with torture as "dubious" – and brands him as less than "frank" about what happened – it is disturbing to hear the head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, describe the same agent as a "courageous individual" who would now be able to continue his work in support of national security.
Perhaps the man is blameless. But someone here is not. If that agent was not acting on his own initiative, who authorized his activities? The guidelines under which he and his fellows in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya were operating should be published so that the public can trace responsibility for his actions up the security service's chain of command, and perhaps beyond.
It is easier, of course, to find a few little men, or women, to blame. But it is not our ordinary soldiers, or even spies, who are pissing from the greatest height on the values which are supposed to be what separate us from our enemies.
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34 Comments so far
Show AllWho gave the green light for torture? It doesn't really matter, the fact it was given at all is the shocking aspect of this sad, sorry spectacle.
The short answer to the headline question: Voters who support Democrats and Republicans who do the bidding of the 1%.
Vopte for a 3rd party.
Which third party? Any old one?
These are the unintended consequences of voting for the "lesser evil."
We need to move the huge liberal voting bloc together -- away from GOP
and Dems -- AND TO THE LEFT.
Those two coup masters, Bush and Cheney, gave the Green Light to Torture.
After that it's all been Monkey see, Monkey do for our illigetimate government..
We have military laws against torture which are still standing, but
ignore.
Much as our Constitution has been reduced to "just a piece of paper"
by the RW which gained control by political violence and stolen elections
and which holds control by the same means.
TORTURE will inevitably be used to control Americans.
Wasn't me. They didn't ask me. If they had asked if I would approve of the use of torture to stop dangerous terrorist infiltrators with murderous schemes, I would have said no, that I would not sign off on that for both moral and tactical reasons.
I personally don't think those who voted for the pols in there now are to blame. The elections are put up jobs and only candidates who are acceptable to the powers that be will be given enough money to run an effective campaign. I'll never vote for anybody again until a real Third Party, like, say, a Labor Party representing working people and with offices in all the states and candidates for congress and the senate, all with a platform that they pretty much agree upon. My belief is that a candidate like that would be quickly taken out -- his run assassinated with a scandal.
Oh yes it matters! The leadership of this nation must be condemned, including the President of these United States, past and present. It was Bush 43, Cheney and Rumsfeld who share responsibility, and who should be prosecuted for it. It is also our current President, who has continued rendition for the purpose of torture, whose hands are bloody as well.
For all his fine speeches, Obama is a war mongering corporate stooge, no different from his predecessor. That Congress blocked his feeble attempt to close Guantanamo is true enough. That he has failed abysmally to stand up for justice, not only in this case but in many others, is equally true.
When great principles are involved Obama makes pretty speeches and turns his back on the issue. Every damn time.
RMG: Who did it _does_, indeed, matter! And the perpetrator must needs be brought to punishment and ridicule. We cannot have the brainwashing media produce weekly torture shows for entertainment and the public at large believing in expediency as the highest moral value. The excusing of the unconscionable acts against fellow human beings by saying we had no choice is itself an evil stance.
"Who Did Give the Green Light to Torture?"
___________________
Um... Jack Bauer, I think.
Of course it matters. Don't be so complicated. Expose the silly bastards. Make the difference between them and decent persons more apparent. Then elect the decent.
Unfortunately, "decent" people have a hard time getting elected because the election systems run on money and they won't give money to people who aren't with their program.
That's why electing an alternative candidate as president wouldn't save the day. Unless the president is part of an organized political party and electing members of congress and state legislators and governors who are all pretty much on the same page, all the president would have is the bully pulpit -- and mainstream media money controls that.
Why do Americans ignore 50 and more years of RW political violence
which took not only our president but our people's government --- and
liberal leadership?
The only way the RW can rise is via political violence and stolen elections.
But as we've seen, historically, simply buying elections wasn't enough -
they still needed Citizens' United.
There is deep and universal resistance to the rise of the right -- that's why
all of this is necessary -- including complete corporate control of our press.
"Who Did Give the Green Light to Torture?"
We all did. Through the mass mental illness called 'civilization'.
'Civilized' war has always had it's atrocities. In fact, 'Civilized' war is nothing but mass atrocity masquerading as tactics and victory celebration. I would argue that the single greatest atrocity was the dropping of the atomic bombs on civilians at the end of WW II.
And the US population in general still thinks that was a good and celebratory idea.
Do you need any more proof your country has been insane for a very, Very long time?
80% of Americans want and end to the wars --
Huge majorities of Americans opposed Vietnam which was lie from
beginning to end.
Agree re the dropping of bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki with more
than 200,000 civilian victims.
The American public is never given the \opportunity to really discuss issues
like war and atomic weapons. "Ban the bomb" was met with "I Love Lucy"
and the McCarthy Era and the Black List. The Rosenbergs. Richard Nixon
and the Pumpkin Papers. There is total RW/MIC/CIA control over our press.
But, inevitably, just as coups/assassinations were brought home to Americans
so will TORTURE be applied to controlling American citizens.
From the book we refer to as the Holy Bible.
>>Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill
every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls
who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."
(Moses - Numbers 31:17)
>>"And the LORD said unto me, 'Fear him not: for I will deliver him, and all
his people, and his land, into thy hand; and thou shalt do unto him as
thou didst unto Sihon king of the Amorites, which dwelt at Heshbon'.......
And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon,
utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city."
(Deuteronomy 3:2-6)
The Green light to commit atrocities has been around a long time. We should be concerned less with "who gives it" and much more with why the people are still willing to perfrom such acts.
Unless we think we can bring "Jehovah Himself" to Justice?
Can we not see that transferring the blame for such acts to some other entity that "Gave the order" only serves to Justify the crime and absolve those that pull the trigger of responsibilty?
Great point --- the one all male god of the Old Testament --
followed by the Crusades with which the Vatican set new precedents
of violence/torture.
Male-supremacy isn't about affirming life -- it's about destroying life and
all nature.
DEAR LADY
Ye exist from the mists of time ever with thy scales to render a just apportionment of things among mortals, the protection of the one mayhap against the many or the state.
Thy beginnings bespeak of the sword and was this the justice of might being where this would be called the right?
How the words and symbols did advance to the lady Astraea; the goddess of purity and innocence: didest ye take thy scales with thee to Virgo?
What of a visage when seen rendered in stone where justice stands on trial that tells a lie and that there is no life to the words spoken in thy name, lady justice? How thy name has been used for avarice, prejudice, favor and hate!
Canst a land that proclaims in its writing and speaking that “with liberty and justice for all”, they, ever without shame or irony, didst drag these words out that ring so hollow and trite?
Dear Lady, dear lady; from the beginnings to these latter days; from just a sword to sword, scales, blindfolds, and robes there has been a continuum of words and symbols of justice for all and yet, dear lady, there have not been the deeds to match and, thus, never a chance for them to grow.
Tony
the question, as it stands, implies that torture is now legit.
better question: who ran the red light?
I think the answer of who gave consent is a legitimate and not impossible question to ask and answer. There is credible evidence that from Cheney's statement of "we are going to need to work on the dark side" to John Yoo statements to simply the non-reaction when Abu Ghrahib was revealed (no big heads rolled), we have a short list of who said yes to torture, who normed it, who perpetuated. It was the point at which I realized the Obama presidency was a non-starter--when _NOTHING_ was done about it. As many have written, they in fact codified it. Obama said no reason to look back; and we squiggled in a little signing statement on the NDAA 2012. Full steam ahead. It's law now.
Some will say that I'm mixing issues here; pure "torture" and indefinite detention. but they are both immense erosions of the foundations of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution and they signify a signing on from the left and the right that the rights of the individual are no longer important.
The relative silence of the American people on these issues has been part of the "great silence" that ultimately gives consent to all. And I'm enraged by that and stymied. Yeah sure, write your Congressman. I'm from KS. There's no point. Bradley Manning is being detained in my state.
What will be the spark that ignites this issue?
I dread and welcome to see it. Dread it because of the instability. But when a self-balancing system no longer works, instability and its cousins violence and repression are sure to follow.
The worst of war is the big boys using the little boys to fight for their toys and riches. In the process, they manipulate them through loss of jobs- directing them towards military as an only option. At the same time they pump the masses full of lies and hatred using their controlled media, video games, educational system and on infinitum to fulfill their agenda.
Great comment bu I'd substitute "Rich men using poor men to fight for their toys and riches." Referring to men as "boys' is problematic and the ones being forced to fight are poorer bu t maybe "bigger" morally.
I thought it was well established fact that torture was legal ‘because the lawyer said it was’ according to the Shrub. And who could ever argue with such powerful and flawless logic?
In the United States, the question about who authorized torture is clear: George W. Bush via henchmen such as Dick Cheney, John Woo and Jay Bybee. More broadly, the judicial branch has responded weakly to major crimes, including violations of domestic laws and international treaties prohibiting torture, as well as violations of due process and the habeas corpus legal tradition established since the 14th century. The legislative branch (Congress) has shown itself to be collaborators in this criminal behavior or, at best, incompetent in checking major crimes.
With the Obama administration, the same criminal acts continue under the color of reform, which is largely a PR effort. The Obama administration has rubber stamped Bush administration policies, essentially overthrowing long-held legal protections and rewriting the laws. While the Obama administration has put up some thin excuses, such as Congressional resistance to bringing Guantanamo detainees to the United States and claims that countries abroad would not take the detainees, those pretences no longer need to be maintained since Congress passed a law to make illegal detention practices normal, even for U.S. citizens.
At least in the United States, the "nation of laws" concept no longer applies. The stupid Bush proclamation that the Constitution is "just a piece of paper" has been accepted by all three branches of government. Laws are just made up ex post facto all of the time nowdays. These actions don't reflect the popular will, but under the two-party system, the popular will isn't represented.
In a word, the rise of torture as official U.S. policy reflects larger systemic failings. It may take some time for people to react, but it looks like the only effective response would be something akin to a revolution. I don't think the U.S. public mindset is there yet to carry it out, though. Time will tell.
"They and their al-Qa'ida allies are, after all, happy enough to desecrate living bodies, stoning to death young women who have had the ill fortune to be raped, or cutting the throats of hostages and filming it for the internet."
A westerner, especially a Brit or Brit-Merkan, has no mandate to criticize Islamic radicals. Islamic radicalization has been inflamed most by Brit-Merkan imperialism, particularly over the past century. The forces of moderation and democracy in the Middle East and worldwide, by/for the people, have been stifled by British/Merkan imperialism, for centuries by the British. Further, Islam is an offshoot of Judaism and Christianity, both of which continue to feature prominently, along with petro-gluttony, in the priorities of western ambition.
In stark contrast to these familiar conflicts of interest, the agenda of the far left is clean. There are no conflicts between ethics and ambitions on the far left. We don't have a legacy of religious/imperial warz. We don't have an agenda to steal the natural resources out from under people in their ancestral lands. The agenda of the far left is universal enlightenment, equity and justice, which leaves no space for mythical deities or ignorant greed/hubris. There is such a thing as progress after all, despite the progressive limbo decreed by liberalism. The author needs to focus his attention on the failings of his own society. Until then, he won't win any hearts/minds abroad.
I was put off by that sentence also. It seemed like some kind of propagandistic attemp to appear even-handed.
Cut the crap.
President Obama COULD close Gitmo.
Period.
The fact that he doesn't, says a huge amount about him as a decent, good, human.
He isn't. Nor is anyone who doesn't HATE the idea of Gitmo holding prisoners without a trial and/or treating prisoners badly.
For example, if I were President, Gitmo would be shut down almost immediately and the prisoners would be given a FAIR trial.
All those who did not have evidence of their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt would be set free.
Isn't that what any PATRIOTIC American should believe in and ACT toward??
NR16020...you say, "President Obama COULD close Gitmo.
Period.
The fact that he doesn't, says a huge amount about him as a decent, good, human.
He isn't." You'll get no argument from me on his not being a decent, good human.
But then you claim, "For example, if I were President, Gitmo would be shut down almost immediately and the prisoners would be given a FAIR trial." Whoever you are and whatever your party affiliation or lack of one is...if you were running for president I imagine that some voters would be swayed to your camp on that point alone.
However.... it seems people need to realize it's not Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan or any future 'selected' president that is single-handedly corrupting/bankrupting the government and country...and they need to look beyond this president, or any other, to find the source of our ills.
Obama, along with many past and likely all future presidents (unless US politics is completely re-created), is nothing but a predetermined role-player, putty in the hands of the corporate script writers, produces, directors and power players who are actually calling the shots from behind the smokescreen of televangelist-style political theater...compliments of the most greedy of the greedy sociopaths who live and die (less of that dying part) for profit (their own), and who love nothing more than to sit back in their tax-payer funded luxury watching all the finger-pointing and blame-laying regular folks are lavishly heaping on each other and on the front-line political players/puppets whose television presence and scripted voices are MEANT to cause division and confusion amongst the masses.
The president of the United States, like most of our so-called representatives, is simply one of many insignificant actors eager for his or her reward of wealth, notoriety, and a (as long as always mindful of the corporate sponsors' wishes) more powerful and authoritative voice....a voice used less and less convincingly, as the present parade of pathetic presidential hopefuls (including Obama) would indicate, to perpetuate the illusion of democracy and electoral politics in this country.
To lay all the blame on our ineffective president seems a naive trust that a very powerful and manipulative corporate structure would allow the puppet they paid for to actually have any real power. However, it does make for a good show when it can be made to seem like one individual could have the power to close Gitmo or stop wars...if they would just decide to. A show that conveniently, intentionally leads our eyes and ears away from the evil wizard(s) behind the curtain.
Fed up, Obama is a lawyer with aspirations to be a teacher of constitutional law. Educated, though "trained" seems more apt, at some of America's finest institutions. And he had the bully pulpit, which he never, NEVER used for anything that I can see.
IF on EVERY SATURDAY address he had addressed how America had strayed from the path of freedom, justice and liberty for all laid out by the constituion; how Guantanamo was a fundamental betrayal of our principals, and that, one term or not, he was going to change that, he could have changed the conversation radically.
HE has governed in a tentative, "Whaddya you guys think?" way from the beginning and seems to have CONVICTIONS about nothing. No convictions about economic fairness, No convictions about the need for essential health care for all. No convictions about the need to uphold the constitution. He's been a compliant tool for the big money interests and they are _interested_ in war.
To do what I suggest would take tremendous courage. I understand that. You'd be a permanent outsider like McGovern, or Carter or others but you could look your children in the eye and say, "even though it was costly, I tried to act based on my CONVICTIONS."
Chris Hedges uses the word "craven" to describe Obama. M-W says: lacking the least bit of courage : contemptibly fainthearted.
Yep. That's right.
I agree with the main thrust of the article to look up the chain of command for the real villians, but would like to point out a false premise in the first paragraph: ",,,four American soldiers urinating on the bodies of their dead Taliban enemies in Afghanistan.,, "
First of all -- not that the soldiers should be peeing on ANYONE -- I don't believe that it has been established that the dead men in the video were actually Taliban. One account on CD speculated that, owing to the presence of a wheelbarrow in the video, they may have been farmers. Secondly, assuming that the men were Taliban, I would challenge the assertion that they should be considered "enemies" of the peeing soldiers or any other citizen of the United States. The Taliban were not playing ball with Unocal, which is why the country was criminally invaded in the first place. That makes them foes of Unocal, not the brainwashed army grunts.
I'd place the CEOs right up there with Obama, Bush, Cheney, the banksters and the PNAC boys when it comes to taking responsibility for torture.
Who dun it? The system.
In any organization promotions do not go to those who are the noblest, or the brightest, or the best. Those who draw attention to themselves because of their loyalty and devotion to the system (whatever the organization stands for) are the most likely candidates to be given more responsibility. Any who dare question the wisdom of a person higher up in the system will be identified as malcontents and, probably barred from advancement. The ladder to the top is made up of many rungs, but not one of them is "dares to be different".
A Ghandi, a King, a John XXIII, come along rarely. Each did it by being different. The surprise is that any one of them got the opportunity. Today we recognized M.L. King, but we should be saddened that the very qualities in our system that he condemned (loyalty without moral judgement, cruelty in the name of society) have been the guiding principles for the men who create the atmosphere in which our young "patriots" are formed.
Are Al Qaida the allies of the Taliban? I have never seen any proof of that.
When the US asked the Taliban to turn over bin Ladin they offered to do so if proof of his guilt were provided. The US not only didn't provided it (to this day) they refused to do so.
If Al Qaida are fighting with the Taliban, I expect it's similar to what happened in Iraq.
Iraq had no Al Qaida before the US invasion. They were accepted not on ideological grounds but because they were willing to fight against the invaders.
It is well documented the Taliban were hosting al Qaida, there is ample proof bin Laden and his minions were in Afghanistan under the protection of the government of the day, which was the Taliban. The Taliban and al Qaida are on the same ideological ground, both groups are extreme Sunni Islamists, as is the ultimate snake in this nest of vipers - the ISI, otherwise known as Pakistani Intelligence.