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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (photo: marcn)Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who should be investigated and tried for war crimes that include but are not limited to torture and abuse of detainees, has mounted a tour to publicize his memoir In My Time. Waterboarding has historically been considered torture and a war crime yet he is able to go on Dateline on NBC News and tell Jamie Gangel that he would strongly support using it again. He is also able to go on and express support for wiretapping and secret prisons, which seem to be mechanisms an authoritarian and not a democratic society would use.
The Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama administration have awarded those culpable for war crimes and crimes against humanity impunity and, in effect, immunity. They have given culpable individuals like Cheney the space to do media tours and promote memoirs that offer “their side” of the story—a story that celebrates actions and conduct that, in a society that respected the rule of law and actually took seriously the idea of equal protection under the law, would be subject to a criminal investigation.
As a response to UN special rapporteurs sent by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and published by WikiLeaks indicates, the Obama administration has taken up a policy of concealing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The cable notes a study on the “practice or permission of secret detentions to operate on the territories of States from various geographical regions” had been initiated. UN special rapporteurs had sent a letter April 16, 2009, asking for information for the study.
In the official response, Clinton outlines measures the Obama administration had take to “reaffirm the importance of compliance with the rule of law in US detention practices.” Clinton claimed actions were being taken to “ensure international legal obligations” were adhered to and even suggested “accountability and transparency” on national security policy had been promoted.
Clinton then illustrated the administration’s approach to counterterrorism, presumably aiming to show how it was better than under Bush:
One illustration of the approach the Obama Administration has taken to counterterrorism efforts is the case of Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri. Mr. Al-Marri entered the United States on September 10, 2001. He was detained as a material witness in the investigation of the September 11, 2001 attacks and subsequently was indicted on criminal charges. However, on June 23, 2003, al-Marri was designated by President Bush as an enemy combatant and transported to the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina, where he was detained until 2009. After taking office, President Obama ordered a review of al-Marri’s case, and the Department of Justice brought charges against Mr. al-Marri in federal court on two counts of providing and conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda. Mr. al-Marri pled guilty in April and was later sentenced.
A number of detainee cases were available for Clinton to choose to make the argument the Obama administration had turned a corner and was taking steps to uphold the rule of law. So, it is deplorable that the Secretary of State of the United States would sign off on a response to UN special rapporteurs that used a case that involved torture in order to argue Obama is taking a new and better approach to terrorism.
There’s only one problem: Al-Marri was tortured.
The Brennan Center for Justice defended Al-Marri and argued he had been tortured and treated inhumanely in the Navy Brig in South Carolina. From a legal brief filed by the Brennan Center:
For the first sixteen months of his military confinement, the government held al-Marri incommunicado. His attorneys (who had been allowed to meet with him until his arraignment in Peoria), his wife and five children, and the International Committee for the Red Cross (“ICRC”) were all denied access. The government ignored al Marri’s counsel’s many requests to communicate with him. During that time, al-Marri was repeatedly interrogated in ways that bordered on, and sometimes amounted to, torture: sleep deprivation, painful stress positions, extreme sensory deprivation, and threats of violence and death. Those interrogations continued even after this Court stated that indefinite detention for purposes of interrogation is unlawful [Hamdi v. Rumsfeld]
According to the Brennan Center, Former Attorney General John Ashcroft contended al-Marri had to be designated an “enemy combatant” because he was a “hard case,” who had “reject[ed] numerous offers to improve his lot by…providing information.” But, the Brennan Center notes Judge Motz concluded “detention for the purpose of interrogation cannot be a ‘necessary’ or “appropriate” use of military force.”
What Clinton’s response to the special rapporteurs essentially codifies and legitimizes the practice of executive detention that was used against al-Marri. More significantly, it legitimizes the use of torture and abuse to obtain information from a detainee.
In July 2008, the New York Times published an editorial on the “disturbing victory” the Bush administration had won when a federal appeals court ruled the administration could “continue to detain Ali Al-Marri,” who had “been held for more than five years as an enemy combatant.” They noted the “sweeping power” could deprive citizens as well as noncitizens of freedom. Al-Marri, a Qatar citizen, was legally residing in the US. He was arrested in Peoria, Illinois, on “ordinary criminal charges” and seized and imprisoned by the military. The evidence in support of his secret detention was based on “thin hearsay evidence” and also based on the fact that he had been in an army and carried arms on a battlefield, which makes it even more difficult to celebrate al-Marri as a case that is an example of the Obama administration’s efforts to renew respect for the rule of law.
What the letter plainly shows is the contempt the State Department and Obama administration has for addressing the lawlessness of the Bush administration. With Cheney’s book tour to defend torture underway, the letter takes on even more significance. He is someone, who is culpable for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yet, it is next to impossible to mount a prosecution when the Obama administration has decriminalized the Bush administration torture regime by arguing steps have been taken to leave behind that unsavory past.
How many other cases where individuals were finally granted due process but had been tortured and abused has the State Department or Obama administration used to argue it is rekindling its dedication and commitment to human rights and the law? For how many cases has the Obama administration sought conviction so it didn’t have to give credence to further allegations of torture and abuse?
Cheney is not the only culpable individual, who has been allowed to go on tour. Former president George W. Bush had his Decision Points tour. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (who actually faces a civil lawsuit right now for his role in authorizing torture of a whistleblower) had his Known and Unknown tour. And, Bush torture memo author John Yoo had his Crisis & Command tour.
US State Embassy cables, the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, the Guantanamo Files and other document releases published by WikiLeaks provide the true history of the Bush administration. But this is a history the power elite in America cannot accept, for it would force them to question military actions and the regime of national security procedures taken and implemented since the September 11th attacks. So, the Obama administration maintains that history should continue to be treated as “classified” and they allow suspected war criminals to normalize what they did when they were in power.
The absence of condemnation and criticism from the Washington establishment as they defend torture on television just shows how Bush, Rumsfeld, Yoo and Cheney are on the cutting edge of a disturbing development in American society that has bipartisan political support. And, though there may be people who work in Washington, who are opposed to torture and support full investigations, those individuals are mute because they have been made powerless.
Ten years after 9/11, the United States is a country that accepts torture and lawlessness as necessary for security. At any moment, if the government found it necessary, it could turn the tools, which the government claims the so-called war on terrorism justify, against US citizens. The government has all the legal justification and programs it needs to do so in place.
Platitudes on support for human rights are increasingly vacuous. It is hard to believe that any UN special rapporteur tasked with putting together a study would not be skeptical of any argument the State Department or Obama administration made on detentions or torture.
27 Comments
“Platitudes” by their very nature are “commonplace” remarks intended to raise neither objection nor interest … especailly when uttered solemnly as if they were something new and different.
This administration is especially “good” at such utterances and Hillary Clinton has a long and distinguished history of such.
“Looking forward” to seeing Cass Sunstein at SCOTUS where, doubtless, we shall be regaled with such nostrums on a regular and triflingly irrelevant
basis.
A la mode.
Thank you, Kevin, the support and sanctuary which Obama Inc. have provided Bush/Cheney Inc. is criminal, complicit, and evidence that nothing has really, fundamentally, changed. And the people, the citizens of the United Statwes of America, ought well heed your clear and unmistakable warning.
Yours is some of the best and most forceful truth which I have had the privilege of encountering as regards the foul and evil, the inhumane deeds of this nation … done in the names of all of us … who may well be victims of the same, any time it suits the craven, the despotic and the tyrannical.
DW
Torture
Murder
Treason
Need I say more than book um, Danno !
No one can decriminalize torture in the U.S. It has never been a crime. Oh there may be some words written on paper and given the legislative stamp by a bunch of rich white men, but then the same have used those words only against their enemies; they have never paid any attention to behaving according to those words.
what about the 8th amendment? that counts.
When the government does it, that means it’s not a crime.
You mean like the 4th?
Except it is not enforced.
SO, Buck Fillary, TOO!
I would stand first in line supporting impeachment of president obama for his complicity in these same crimes
I think we’re all being too hard on Dick (if you’ll pardon the expression). He looks tired. In fact, I’m thinking we should take up a collection to buy him an airline ticket to Europe. (Pretty sure it doesn’t have to be a round-trip ticket, so there’s some savings, right there.) He could visit England, France, Spain… Well, maybe not all of them, but still…
Really think Dick needs to take his book tour to The Netherlands.
To me the obvious question is why the Obama administration has failed to take the obvious measures needed to criminalize torture and go after the most egregious perpetrators. They could have done so early on. What held them back? Where was the pushback? Who was doing the pushing and to what effect? What arguments were used? Since the whole world already knew that the United States was engaging in torture, what non-public relations case was being made? Who is behind this?
Whichever. Those are just words on paper. Who was the person (general?) who told the court (SCOTUS?), where are your troops to enforce your decision.
Do you seriously think that if Obama had tried to bring war criminals like Cheyney, Rumsfeld, Bush and Rice to justice in the first few months of his Admin. that he and his family would be alive now? You can get away with a lot as POTUS, but you don’t buck the national security state. JFK learned the hard way.
Thanks very much for this article, Kevin. The U.S. State Dept cable response to the UN rapporteur deserves more detailed analysis and rebuttal, as it is a not too artful apologia for procedures currently in place by the Obama administration that are either abusive, or amount to torture, miscarriages of justice, and in any case, in narrative form, amount to a giant lie.
As far as current detention practice goes, there is of course the indefinite detention practiced at Guantanamo and to some extent at Bagram. Appendix M interrogations, which various human rights groups have condemned, are still inflicted on detainees.
Most recently, both Jeremy Scahill and I have published articles that show both the CIA and FBI still involved in renditions, and the use of foreign detention centers as proxy torture jails for rendition victims — and torture still occurs there, often apparently done not only by foreign officers but by U.S. interrogators themselves.
See Allegations FBI and British Intelligence Tortured Kenyan Rendition Victim and The CIA’s Secret Sites in Somalia.
While the Wikileaks documents have offered an expanded look into the torture issue, the primary documents have come from ACLU and CCR FOIAs, from Congressional investigations and/or DoD investigations (as limited or self-serving as the latter have been), and from investigations conducted by reporters (and thanks to some whistleblowers who have come forward, not just with documents, but as witnesses, as few of them as there have been).
See ACLU’s FOIA page on the torture issue.
The people doing the crimes are also the elites (including O) who own the legislative (a term that now sounds rather dated) and judicial (ditto) branches. They operate with impunity, to the orchestrated applause of idiot teaparty types and centrally directed “news” outlets. Given this, is the lack of law-abiding and accountability at the top a surprise?
You mean they shut down Siberia?
If the Bush administration was properly investigated and prosecuted for war crimes, the Congress that sanctioned these actions, tacitly or not, would be liable as accessories. Obama and company not only refuse to look back, they actively lobbied the Spanish government to undermine the war crimes investigator and prosecutor who indicted Pinochet.
Where have I heard something like that before??????
Obama would have never been selected for the job as First Puppet if he hadn’t pledged undying fealty to the oligarchy.
I think his failure to do anything on this issue will likely cost him votes in the upcoming election.
IMO, Obama had several options not including prosecuting members of the Bush administration and/or military officials on these flagrant violations. He chose to do nothing and say nothing and leave most of the protocols in place totally violating his promises to the people of the USA. As for the rest of the world, we casn no longer claim the high ground when we talk the talk but DON’T walk the walk.
Kevin,
I think it would be more useful to define “crime” as something you get punished for. And totally useless to define it as something against the “law.”
If you use my definition, then torture is a crime only for those who lose wars decisively, and not even all of them.
If you define crime as I suggest, then being poor is a crime, being female is a crime (unequal pay is the punishment). You get the idea.
The alternative definition gets more into the meaning of justice, which most often bears little relation to laws or courts, which are just one of the many arms of the powerful. And gets at justice without all the messy philosophical arguments.
Lest we forget, Obama also authorized the extension of taxpayer-funded Secret Service protection for Cheney long after he left office well equipped to finance such protection from his own capacious accounts. For my money, Obama can now be certified as a national disgrace, providing an unbroken line from 2001-2011. I don’t know if at this point Obama harbors some type of delusion that he’ll go all FDR in his second term to redeem the bucket of slop that has been his first term, but if that’s the case, he’ll do it without any help from me, no matter who he runs against. It’s Greens and Independents for me from now on, and a vote on principle, and the outcome be damned. When Obama chooses Dick Cheney over his base, that should tell you all you need to know about him—and all you need to know about how rotten this system has grown. It’s perfectly legitimate to feel sickened and betrayed by an Obama administration totally at odds with the Obama campaign, without endorsing a Perry/Bachmann ticket. It may be that the toxic shock of a Perry/Bachmann ticket would be preferable to the long slow boiled frog syndrome of being gradually delivered to the same outcome by corrupt, cynical, and completely co-opted “Democrats.”
Of course he made unfulfilled campaign promises. He’s a politician, a professional liar.
I was wondering about this. So this means taxpayers are footing the bill for the proselytization of torture. Nice.
It’s useful to define crimes according to the books, even if a given criminal statute is not enforced at a given time. You can still say that X is a crime, and the law not enforced. Enforcing such a law may or may not be just. You can lobby for enforcement, or for a change in the law. Or, of course, you can subvert the law by continuing the failure to enforce.
But you raise a useful point about conditions that carry punishments, even though nothing on the books makes them crimes, and justice. We lack a term for this. It is certainly not just that women typically make substantially less than men with the same qualifications who are doing the same work. Been there. Done that. There was no T-shirt.