US declares itself arbiter of humanity
The military JAGs secretly had debated some of the allowable torture techniques, but told the Senate Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee on Thursday that “juvenile” pranks involving use of dogs and sexual humiliation constituted “humane” treatment of detainees.
Over the last several months, some former officials of the US military’s Judge Advocate General (JAG) services — the military lawyers — and other retired high-ranking soldiers have expressed concerns about Terror War information-gathering techniques employed on detainees. Deep Blade Journal carried some references to these concerns here and here.
On Thursday, current JAG leaders appeared before the Senate Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee. The Washington Post on Friday had a Page A01 story on this hearing headlined “Military Lawyers Fought Policy on Interrogations”. Okay, they fought some things — often on the clearly valid basis that it is not a good idea to allow tortures be committed against enemies that we would not want used on our own troops. Note however, that the memos containing these discussions remain secret, including from members of Congress.
But I watched a good chunk of this thing on C-SPAN 2. I was very troubled by what I heard. For the most part, the JAGs have accepted the notion that the President of the United States has the “Commander-in-Chief” authority to declare a whole new classification of persons detained in territory under US invasion called “enemy combatant”, to declare on this personal authority that international law does not apply to this class, to then deport these persons to a facility half-way around the world (this act itself a grave breach of the intent of international law), and to declare by unsubstantiated fiat — indeed what a reasonable person easily could find to be precisely the opposite — what constitutes “humane” treatment of such detainees. Terror War or not, it should be easy to see how a reasonable person could interpret such declarations as dictatorial, despotic policies.
The Post story alludes to this last point, but does not convey properly the consensus amongst the JAGs and the Senators that these are accepted as proper classifications of human beings, and in the case of detention at Guantánamo, proper suspension of international law. In fact, most in the room appeared to be quite anxious to get the military tribunals underway. These tribunals of course will be staffed and adjudicated by the US military’s own house puppies — in secret — under conditions where the enemy combatants will not have the normal rights to confront the evidence against them — rights afforded defendants in all decent societies.
I suppose Kennedy and McCain seemed a little grumpy about all this, McCain for obvious reasons. Carl Levin appeared to be offended that the memos discussing the “techniques” have been withheld from even the senators. But Lindsey Graham was mostly a disappointment, being apparently the most eager to get to the tribunals.
Meanwhile, on Friday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was busy paving the road to legal approval of the “enemy combatant” process. They overturned a ruling from last November that stopped the military trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen.
This capped an ominous flood of news this week on the Guantánamo torture front. Earlier, according to a posting on antiwar.com,
The U.S. Army general widely considered the architect of abusive prisoner interrogation techniques at Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and detention centers in Afghanistan used “creative” and “aggressive” tactics, but did not practice torture or violate law or Pentagon policy, the head of the U.S. Southern Command has determined.Despite the recommendations of military investigators, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey C. Miller will not be reprimanded, thus bringing to a close what could be the last of 12 separate investigations into detainee abuse.
The Center for Constitutional Rights elucidated these “tactics”:
• Canadian O.K., a juvenile who was approximately 15 years old when he was taken into custody by U.S. forces in 2001, was threatened by interrogators who, on several occasions, told O.K. he would be sent to Egypt, Israel, Jordan, or Syria–to be tortured. Interrogators also told the 15-year old O.K. that Egyptians would send “Soldier No. 9” to rape him. On one occasion, O.K. was short shackled in various painful positions over an extended period of time; he urinated on himself. Military Police (MP) poured pine oil on the floor and dragged O.K.–still shackled–on his stomach through the mixture.
• Before he was taken to Guantánamo, German resident Murat Kurnaz was tortured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan who applied electric shocks to his feet, hung him by his hands for days at a time, and repeatedly subjected him to waterboarding. Mr. Kurnaz witnessed the brutal beating by soldiers of another prisoner who was left bleeding severely from his head wounds. Mr. Kurnaz believes the prisoner died as a result of the beating.
• When Bosnian Lakhdar Boumediene went on a hunger strike to protest his brutal treatment, a nurse administering intravenous (IV) fluid to him threatened to have a soldier administer the IV the next day if Mr. Boumediene did not eat. The following day, she made good on her threat, and a soldier was directed to administer the IV. Mr. Boumediene’s arm was in extreme pain and bleeding as the soldier attempted to administer the IV. On another occasion, interrogators threatened to shave Mr. Boumediene and apply lipstick to him to make him look like a woman.
• Abd Al Malik Al Wahab of Yemen was told by interrogators that he would be taken “underground” and never again allowed to see the sun; that if taken to the U.S. he would be “put . . . in a jail with all blacks” who “will do whatever they please to you” and “nobody will help you”; that he would be taken to “Egypt and Jordan, and they will torture you”; and that he would be raped by a male at Guantánamo. Interrogators also threatened Mr. Al Wahab’s family, telling him the military could “reach them if it wanted.”
• On approximately April 27 or 28, 2002, Juma Al Dossari was choked and beaten in his cell by MPs and lost consciousness. He was carried from his bloodied cell on a stretcher. The military videotaped the incident. When Mr. Al Dossari later asked the MP who had beaten him why he had done so, the MP replied, “because I’m a Christian.”
• During an interrogation of Abdullah Al Noaimi, Mr. Al Noaimi was injected with an unknown substance that caused him to lose the ability to control his thoughts. Interrogators then asked if he wanted to hurt himself, and if he wanted to be shot.
• Guantánamo prisoners routinely have been subject to beatings, extreme sleep deprivation, humiliation, short shackling, intimidation by dogs, extended periods of solitary confinement, withholding of medical care, and temperature extremes in connection with interrogation.
• As confirmed in findings released yesterday in the Schmidt Report, military officials impersonated FBI agents and State Department officials. Prisoners also have reported that interrogators impersonated lawyers, in an effort to gain information.
And why not throw in that the US military itself confirmed this week that at least one male detainee at Guantánamo was while dressed in women’s underwear “forced to dance with a male interrogator, was subject to strip searches for control measures, not for security, and he was forced to perform dog tricks — all this to lower his personal sense of worth”. All well and good, purposeful, they claimed.
And they better damn well make these claims that international law does not apply in these cases. The puzzle of the “humane” treatment language charged through the administration’s justification for its torture practices was unravelled in an excellent article by former US Representative Elizabeth Holtzman appearing in The Nation for July 18, 2005. Holtzman cites the 1996 War Crimes Act, a Clinton-era domestic statute:
This relatively obscure statute makes it a federal crime to violate certain provisions of the Geneva Conventions. The Act punishes any US national, military or civilian, who commits a “grave breach” of the Geneva Conventions. A grave breach, as defined by the Geneva Conventions, includes the deliberate “killing, torture or inhuman treatment” of detainees. Violations of the War Crimes Act that result in death carry the death penalty.In a memo to President Bush, dated January 25, 2002, Gonzales urged that the United States opt out of the Geneva Conventions for the Afghanistan war–despite Secretary of State Colin Powell’s objections. One of the two reasons he gave the President was that opting out “substantially reduces the likelihood of prosecution under the War Crimes Act”.
It seems likely that numerous high officials, up to and including the President, could be liable under this statute if their outlandish re-definition of the word “humane” and opt-out of international law does not stick. Unfortunately, the power relationships within the US government suggest that the Republican investigative apparatus will never allow such a formulation of charges to occur.
Jingoistic Americans may be impressed with the power the president appears to wield against perceived enemies. The humanity of persons finding themselves in US detention systematically has been attacked in both the personal and public spheres, breaking down 790 years of foundation of criminal law resting on the Magna Carta. This reflects the ultra-radical nature and drunkeness with power of the Bush regime. It is not a criminal regime only because it has usurped the power necessary for it to declare itself legal, but only through outrageous re-definition of the terms that define the crimes of which otherwise they would be guilty.
The baleful signs in this enterprise point to a future nobody would accept until the Bush regime’s noose is tight around our necks, at which point we have no choice. The regime’s purpose? Could it be domination of a sort a thousandfold more powerful than the threat posed by the terrorist enemy, 500 of whose members supposedly are incarcerated at Guantánamo?
I say supposedly because a high percentage of Guantánamo detainees are completely innocent of any wrongdoing, or if they are guilty, the deserve a fair, public trial. The verdict of a US tribunal, where the detainee has been tortured in any reasonable eyes, will hardly hold water or give anyone apart from emotionally immature Americans true satisfaction that justice for terror has been accomplished.
In these conditions, terror will breed like a wildfire. People around the world will begin to see themselves forced into desperate measures to avenge the injustice, settle the score, and protect their homelands from the invaders who deport their countrymen.
On the other hand, once the Bush regime establishes it’s ability to define terms and overturn law by its own fiat, every person on this planet with contrary political views is at risk for detention and mistreatment under any theory the regime will choose to apply. That would be a world gulag by any definition.
Election engineering
Tuesday, July 19th, 2005Is covert manipulation America’s gift to democracy?
But Bush’s man in Iraq, Allawi, could not win despite US efforts
In the previous post about Haiti, I proposed a hypothesis that America packages elections so that its undemocratic policies can be ratified in a vote that makes possible only the narrowest choice. That process is in full swing in Haiti now, as the UN attacks the poor majority Lavalas party of democratically-elected and US-ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
In the case of Iraq, America’s purpose all along has been taking of the country followed by installation of stooges who could administer it for the benefit of long-term US military basing, US foreign policy goals, and US strategic energy interests. It only requires perusal of the former Coalition Provisional Authority’s Orders, and realization that the US seeks to preserve their effect in the writing and implementation of the country’s new constitution to see what the US plan is all about.
Though the outcome was nowhere near ideal from the US administration’s point of view, Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker for July 25, illuminates the little-understood back-room machinations that preceded Iraq’s January 30, 2005 parliamentary election. We all recall the purple fingers that saturated our televisions and newspapers the week of February 1, especially during the State of the Union message delivered by President Bush on February 2.
In that speech, the President told us,
Hersh puts Bush’s support for Allawi in a whole different light:
The main advocate for channeling aid to preferred parties was Thomas Warrick, a senior adviser on Iraq for the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, who was backed, in this debate, by his superiors and by the National Security Council. Warrick’s plan involved using forty million dollars that had been appropriated for the election to covertly provide cell phones, vehicles, radios, security, administrative help, and cash to the parties the Administration favored. [emphasis added]
Hersh goes on to explain the even after some of the organinzations involved along with members of Congress balked at providing direct support for Allawi in order to influence the election, the Administration continued with, according to Hersh, “activities [that] were kept, in part, “off the books” — they were conducted by retired C.I.A. officers and other non-government personnel, and used funds that were not necessarily appropriated by Congress.”
Hersh’s piece tends to confirm the suspicions of former weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who wrote in a March 23 piece,
Ritter discusses the irregularity of the vote counting, where final tallies were delayed for two weeks. As Deep Blade Journal reported on Sunday February 13, the initial tallies were: Unified Shiite list…48%; Kurdish list…26%; Allawi’s Iraqi list…14%. Ritter explains the depressed vote for the Unified list.
The lowering of the Shi’a vote re-engineered the post-election political landscape in Iraq dramatically. The goal of the U.S., in doing this, is either to guarantee the adoption of the U.S.-drafted interim constitution, or make sure that there are not enough votes to adopt any Shi’a re-write. If the U.S.-drafted Iraqi constitution prevails, the Bush administration would be comfortable with the secular nature of any Iraqi government it produces. If it fails, then the Bush administration would much rather continue to occupy Iraq under the current U.S.-written laws, than allow for the creation of a pro-Iranian theocracy. In any event, the Shi’a stand to lose.
Deep Blade Journal carried several posts last winter that speculated about how the campaign was being run and how US goals were being served. Two examples…
Tuesday, January 18, 2005: “I will make a prediction. Somehow, Allawi will keep power after the January 30 election date. I’m not basing this on any specific knowledge, just a hunch. As Chomsky would say, democracy is fine as long as the correct choices are made and as long as the resulting government takes orders from its master. And recent reports of secret telephone conferences between the White House, Allawi, and Jordan’s King Abdullah portend that something is up…. [The US-funded campaign is] selling Allawi on TV as the tough hand against the violence. For Allawi, more violence is better. No one else can run a campaign, the candidates are too scared to be in public. Allawi dominates on television. It’s only the Shiite UIA left standing in the way of Bush/Allawi domination. Is it so hard to believe — with Bush in charge and all potential voters living in a climate of deep-seated fear — that some sort of chicanery, perhaps including suppressing votes (violence is perfect for that), stuffing the ballot boxes, and gathering votes from the diaspora would come into play?”
Sunday, February 13, 2005: “Iraq election results reinforce Bush win…. Failure to achieve absolute majority will dilute Shiite power… Yes, Allawi is beaten, but it’s not as huge a defeat for Bush, …. In fact, Allawi, from the third-place position, will hold significant influence in the formation of a new government because the Shiites are 20% short of the 2/3 coalition that is required….”
So, how has it all turned out? First off, I want to make crystal clear that I believe the Iraqis who voted on January 30 voted with great courage and voted with their hearts. Those hearts have made takeover of the country that much more difficult for the US military machine. Iraqi voters overwhelmingly were acting with a desire to see the end of the US occupation.
Iraqi government seems marginal
What has followed since January is a weak government, formed after months of internal struggle. It is not the government the US desired, so it is kept marginal. Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and other Shiite officials have been rebuffed by the US in their desire to remove Baathist operatives from the Interior and Defense Ministries, and also disband brutal militias composed of former Saddam loyalists that were developed during the puppet regime of Allawi. And both President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have not been too shy about issuing orders to the Iraqis and making clear that there will be no timetable for a pullout of US troops. Perhaps al-Jaafari’s recent visit to Iran is an attempt to strike some kind of independent posture, I don’t know….
Meanwhile, violence has reached an astonishing level, as can be followed in bitter detail every day through reading Juan Cole’s Informed Comment. That link goes to a piece indicating worry amongst the most important clerics in Iraq about what appears to be an out-of-control civil war.
Everybody is a loser after the administration’s election engineering effort. The US taxpayer is forced to foot the bill for what could be an endless quagmire. US troops have been betrayed by President Bush and eventually will be almost entirely alone as the effort to Iraqi-ize the occupation fails. But the biggest losers will be the Iraqi people, who are caught in the middle of the superpower’s desire to hold its spoils of war and the terrible violence in which the resistance to the occupation has decided to engage. The January 30 vote, I suspect, was not a call for this unfortunate outcome. Change of these conditions would require that the US president change course — something he has steadfastly refused to do.
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