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Category: torture

secret proceedings

secret proceedings

From a March 8, 2007 article by Andrew Buncombe in The Independent:

Campaigners have condemned the Bush administration’s plan to proceed with secret proceedings [Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT)] against 14 “high-value” terrorism suspects currently being held at Guantanamo Bay. The suspects include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused of organising the 11 September 2001 attacks.

The military tribunals, scheduled to begin tomorrow, will take place behind closed doors and away from the scrutiny of the media. Hundreds of previous hearings held to determine the formal status of the prisoners have been open to reporters. None of the suspects will be able to have a lawyer present …

Wells Dixon, a lawyer with the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, which represents one of the men due to go before a CSRT, Majid Khan, said: “This is a system designed to obtain a pre-determined result.”

Mr. Dixon said that Mr. Bush had admitted the 14 men had been subjected to “enhanced interrogation” techniques which he said was a euphemism for torture. He added that under the CSRT rules the government could use information obtained under torture. He added: “You don’t know what is true until you have given them a fair trial.”

Secret proceedings, no lawyers, “enhanced interrogation techniques” …… “High-value” suspects or not, this is no recipe for justice, and no recipe for winning the hearts and minds of the international community which is the key to winning the war on terrorism! If we want to win that war, we must show we are committted — truly committed — to justice for its own sake, and to the rule of law as a matter of principle, not just when it happens to suit our purposes or serves to protect those we choose to protect.

tough talk on torture

tough talk on torture

Listen to a Unitarian minister from New Haven debate Bill O’Reilly on the recently passed detainee bill: an intelligent, passionate, and disciplined defense of the implications of taking Jesus seriously when he says, “Love your enemy …”

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torture is a traditional value?

torture is a traditional value?

The Rev. Louis Sheldon, chaiman of the Traditional Values Coalition, said this about Senator John McCain’s challenge to the Bush administration’s position on interrogation rules:

This very definitely is going to put a chilling effect on the tremendous strides he has made in the conservative evangelical community.

Because?

Because no true advocate of traditional values, no true evangelical Christian, no true follower of Jesus would ever oppose this administration?

Because no true advocate of traditional values, no true evangelical Christian, no true follower of Jesus would ever set arbitrary limits on the interrogation techniques used to protect this country from “bad” people?

Because no true advocate of traditional values, no true evangelical Christian, no true follower of Jesus has any qualms about discarding basic human rights when it comes to “real enemies?”

What Jesus do these folks claim to follow? What traditional values are undermined by the desire to protect human rights? I don’t understand ……

Read the quote in context in the Los Angeles Time article, McCain Stand Comes at a Price.

inexcusable behavior

inexcusable behavior

When will we take responsibility for the horrors perpetrated on our behalf? When will we firmly repudiate the “anything goes when fighting the war on terrorism” mentality? When our leaders leave so much room for error — so much room for criminal and inhuman behavior — we must speak up and say, “No more!”

Today new revelations were published about prisoner abuse at Guantanamo …

By Thomas Watkins
Associated Press

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — Guards at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, Cuba, bragged about beating detainees and described it as common practice, a Marine Corps sergeant said in a sworn statement obtained by The Associated Press.

The two-page statement was sent Wednesday to the Inspector General of the Department of Defense by a high-ranking Marine Corps defense lawyer.

The lawyer sent the statement on behalf of a paralegal who said men she met on Sept. 23 at a bar on the base identified themselves to her as guards. The woman, whose name was blacked out, said she spent about an hour talking with them. No one was in uniform, she said.

A 19-year-old sailor referred to only as Bo “told the other guards and me about him beating different detainees being held in the prison,” the statement said.

“One such story Bo told involved him taking a detainee by the head and hitting the detainee’s head into the cell door. Bo said that his actions were known by others,” but that he was never punished, the statement said. The paralegal was identified in the affidavit as a sergeant working on an unidentified Guantanamo-related case.

The statement was provided to the AP on Thursday night by Lt. Col. Colby Vokey. He is the Marine Corps’ defense coordinator for the western United States and based at Camp Pendleton.

A Guantanamo Bay spokesman said the base would cooperate with any Pentagon investigation. A Pentagon spokesman declined immediate comment. A call to the inspector general’s office was not immediately returned.

Other guards “also told their own stories of abuse towards the detainees” that included hitting them, denying them water and “removing privileges for no reason.”

“About 5 others in the group admitted hitting detainees” and that included “punching in the face,” the affidavit said.

“From the whole conversation, I understood that striking detainees was a common practice,” the sergeant wrote. “Everyone in the group laughed at the others stories of beating detainees.”

Vokey called for an investigation, saying the abuse alleged in the affidavit “is offensive and violates United States and international law.”

U.S. Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand condemned abuse or harassment of detainees and said he would cooperate fully with the inspector general.

“The mission of the Joint Task Force is the safe and humane care and custody of detained enemy combatants,” he said.

Guantanamo was internationally condemned shortly after it opened more than four years ago when pictures captured prisoners kneeling, shackled and being herded into wire cages. That was followed by reports of prisoner abuse, heavy-handed interrogations, hunger strikes and suicides.

U.S. military investigators said in July 2005 they confirmed abusive and degrading treatment of a suspected terrorist at Guantanamo Bay that included forcing him to wear a bra, dance with another man and behave like a dog.

However, the chief investigator, Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt, said “no torture occurred” during the interrogation of Mohamed al-Qahtani, a Saudi who was captured in December 2001 along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Last month, U.N. human rights investigators criticized the United States for failing to take steps to close Guantanamo Bay, home to 450 detainees, including 14 terrorist suspects who had been kept in secret CIA prisons around the world.

Described as the most dangerous of America’s “war on terror” prisoners, fewer than a dozen inmates have been charged with crimes.

detainee bill passes senate

detainee bill passes senate

John Kerry (Democrat): This bill gives an administration that lobbied for torture exactly what it wanted.

No, this administration did not lobby for torture. It lobbied for a free and unfettered hand in conducting its “war on terrorism” by whatever means it deems necessary and effective … which may include means that most people would consider torture. The problem here is not leaders that advocate cruelty, but leaders that believe that they should be given “extraordinary” and unilateral latitude in getting the job done. Getting it done is more important than how it is done.

But one of the cornerstones of democracy is that how it is done is of utmost importance!

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John Warner (Republican): Enemy combatants are unlawful by all international standards in the manner in which they conduct war, and yet this great nation … is going to mete out a measure of justice.

A measure of justice? Why just a measure? Is “liberty and justice for all” mere hyberbole? Is justice to be meted out conditionally, depending on the perceived merits of the accused? Depending on the accused’s presumed political allegiances … religious allegiance … nationality … race? Is our “lawfulness” contingent on the “lawfulness” of our enemies? Of whomever we say is our enemy?

Do you see the very dangerous road down which such rhetoric — and such legislation — is leading us? A road that leads us not toward, but away, from liberty and justice?

ny times on torture compromise: a bad bargain

ny times on torture compromise: a bad bargain

It is the rule of law that protects citizens and nations from tyranny. When we agree together to adhere to a law that binds both of us/all of us then we have a standard to which both of us/all of us are held accountable, and a means to address grievances with each other. When one party holds itself above the law or redefines the law unilaterally, then there is no longer any common standard and no means of holding anyone accountable. It simply becomes a matter of who is bigger, who is stronger, who can impose their will on the other. In other words, we have opened the doors to tyranny.

That is the danger in the present adminstration’s attempts to rewrite/redefine/circumvent the common standards for treatment of detainees outlined in the Geneva Conventions. If we can convict prisoners on the basis of undisclosed evidence, if we can indefinitely detain people we deem a threat, if we can use “extraordinary” means of interrogation when we have determined the threat warrants it, then anybody can. There is no rule of law, no common standard, no mutual accountability. Even if we may be safer — which itself is a highly debatable proposition — we will certainly be sorrier.

Read the New York Times editorial addressing the compromise reached between the present administration and the Republican senators who took issue with its proposed rules for detention and interrogation.

Published: September 22, 2006

Here is a way to measure how seriously President Bush was willing to compromise on the military tribunals bill: Less than an hour after an agreement was announced yesterday with three leading Republican senators, the White House was already laying a path to wiggle out of its one real concession.

About the only thing that Senators John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham had to show for their defiance was Mr. Bush’s agreement to drop his insistence on allowing prosecutors of suspected terrorists to introduce classified evidence kept secret from the defendant. The White House agreed to abide by the rules of courts-martial, which bar secret evidence. (Although the administration’s supporters continually claim this means giving classified information to terrorists, the rules actually provide for reviewing, editing and summarizing classified material. Evidence that cannot be safely declassified cannot be introduced.)

This is a critical point. As Senator Graham keeps noting, the United States would never stand for any other country’s convicting an American citizen with undisclosed, secret evidence. So it seemed like a significant concession — until Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, briefed reporters yesterday evening. He said that while the White House wants to honor this deal, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Duncan Hunter, still wants to permit secret evidence and should certainly have his say. To accept this spin requires believing that Mr. Hunter, who railroaded Mr. Bush’s original bill through his committee, is going to take any action not blessed by the White House.

On other issues, the three rebel senators achieved only modest improvements on the White House’s original positions. They wanted to bar evidence obtained through coercion. Now, they have agreed to allow it if a judge finds it reliable (which coerced evidence hardly can be) and relevant to guilt or innocence. The way coercion is measured in the bill, even those protections would not apply to the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.

The deal does next to nothing to stop the president from reinterpreting the Geneva Conventions. While the White House agreed to a list of “grave breaches” of the conventions that could be prosecuted as war crimes, it stipulated that the president could decide on his own what actions might be a lesser breach of the Geneva Conventions and what interrogation techniques he considered permissible. It’s not clear how much the public will ultimately learn about those decisions. They will be contained in an executive order that is supposed to be made public, but Mr. Hadley reiterated that specific interrogation techniques will remain secret.

Even before the compromises began to emerge, the overall bill prepared by the three senators had fatal flaws. It allows the president to declare any foreigner, anywhere, an “illegal enemy combatant” using a dangerously broad definition, and detain him without any trial. It not only fails to deal with the fact that many of the Guantánamo detainees are not terrorists and will never be charged, but it also chokes off any judicial review.

The Democrats have largely stood silent and allowed the trio of Republicans to do the lifting. It’s time for them to either try to fix this bill or delay it until after the election. The American people expect their leaders to clean up this mess without endangering U.S. troops, eviscerating American standards of justice, or further harming the nation’s severely damaged reputation.

more debate over interrogation guidelines

more debate over interrogation guidelines

From the Boston Globe, September 18, 2006:

In the fight over rules for the interrogation and trials of terrorism suspects, there is a split — not so much between Republicans and Democrats or the White House and the Senate, but between leaders like President Bush with no combat experience and those like Colin Powell who know combat and want to maintain the Geneva Conventions as a protection for US troops. Powell prefers the bill before Congress sponsored by Republican Senators John McCain, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham, all of whom have considerable military experience. Their bill, which the Senate Armed Services Committee approved Thursday, has deep flaws of its own, but it is a better basis for legislation than Bush’s proposal to gut the Geneva Conventions.

The military has to take the long view because it knows that if the United States strays from the Geneva Conventions, other countries will, too. As McCain said yesterday on ABC-TV, “We are more exposed than any other nationality because we have more people all over the world.” The military also knows that harsh interrogations often yield false information from prisoners eager to say anything to win better treatment. One terrorism suspect, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, “confessed” knowledge of links between Al Qaeda and Iraq after the Central Intelligence Agency handed him over to Egyptian authorities. According to the recently released Senate report on prewar intelligence, Libi had made up the information to avoid cruel treatment by the Egyptians.

Neither Bush’s bill nor the Senate committee’s deserves passage as written. Each would strip the 400 or more detainees at Guantanamo of any right to appeal their cases to federal courts. Except for a handful of them, none has been charged with war crimes or terrorism. Some undoubtedly would present a threat if released and should be held longer, but others were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. All of them deserve recourse to courts to challenge their continued detention.

At his press conference Friday, Bush challenged Powell’s statement that Bush’s redefinition of the Geneva Conventions would encourage the world to “doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism.” Bush construed this to suggest a comparison between US behavior and that of “Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective.” The proper comparison, though, is not with the conduct of terrorists but with the principles the United States has maintained in every war it has fought since adoption of the Geneva Conventions.

Those are the principles the Supreme Court upheld in June. Congress should follow suit by passing an amended version of the Senate committee bill that does not subject detainees to the limbo of Guantanamo with no access to the courts.