"This is a time for reflection, not retribution." - President Barack Obama
"Justice deferred is justice denied." - Congresswoman Diane Watson, at the 50th Anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education, a ruling that allowed blacks like Watson and Obama to get a quality education that would allow them to one day run for public office.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090417/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_torture_memos_reaction
http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R904170900 (first 10 minutes of the interview on this subject)
So Obama and Holder have decided to declassify the CIA memos that describe the torture techniques used during the interrogations of the Bush years. Some have praised that move. This shows that they are all about decency, change, and transparency, right? Well, the CIA has been fighting the release of these documents to the public for years, and ostensibly, Obama has only decided to finally do it because the ACLU lawsuit on the matter looks surely to prevail.
But even worse, he has declared immunity for the CIA personnel who participated in the tortures. He said that those people were patriots who were trying to protect America, and were given assurances by Bush's Justice Dept. that what they were doing was legal. But the same can be said of Nazi concentration camp guards. Did the Nuremberg Commission buy that excuse? They were following orders, they were assured it was ok, they did it for their country.
But the rules of war (and US military rules) state that soldiers have a DUTY to disobey unlawful orders. I don't know about CIA regulations, but many of the jailers and torturers were soldiers borrowed by the CIA for unofficial duties. If someone waves a paper in front of your face saying it's ok to execute the prisoners in your care, what will you do? Hopefully you will disobey because you know that it's wrong and others will punish you when the dust settles, even if at the moment your superiors reassure you that it's legal. But torture is different than execution, right? Is it? Detainees have died in US custody due to "harsh interrogation" that was supposed to be non-life-threatening. Sleep deprivation, stress positions, exposure to severe cold, and beatings with blunt objects don't leave visible damage, but the trauma killed several detainees with health ailments. They could even kill healthy people. At least 3 Gitmo detainees committed suicide, either out of desperation for their predicament, ideological conviction, or a coverup for murder. So when a jailer is ordered to do certain things to a detainee that he is assured are legal, and the physical reaction by the detainee is urination, screaming, vomiting, and even unconsciousness - do you continue as if everything is kosher? Not once do you feel that as a US serviceperson and conscientious citizen, you have the obligation to question whether it is right? Not once as a human do you stop and wonder why you have to cause so much pain to a defenseless stranger (who hasn't even been charged with a crime and has not seen any evidence against them), and whether such brutality is even helping national security? People who didn't stop to ponder those questions are criminals; there's no way around it Obama.
http://www.laprensa-sandiego.org/archieve/may21-04/disobey.htm
http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/677.html?task=view
http://www.truthout.org/article/three-guantanamo-detainees-die-suicides-army-says
The world still looks up to us for moral leadership and social justice (I have no idea why). What kind of message does this send? How can we protest Darfur atrocities, or journalists detained and tortured in Iran? How can we mend fences with the skeptical, angry Muslim world? And beyond that, how do we encourage them to reform politically and respect the rule of law, when we are exonerating the criminals among us? At least jail a couple of Company slackers who had poor performance records anyway, and force some spooks to resign as early retirement with a nice pension. Do something superficial at least, but don't just try to sweep it under the rug as if nothing is wrong. Obama said he would respect the opinion of his AG on the matter, but that is a cop-out. Obviously prosecuting CIA torturers is a legal nightmare. It's probably a tougher challenge than prosecuting terror suspects. Most of these crimes happened years ago overseas, and evidence is shaky at best (remember how the CIA admitted to destroying hours of interrogation and torture videos?). The chain of command is not evident. Well, I'm not expecting convictions and speedy justice, but at least do a little digging around. If the DoJ went after allegedly corrupt US legislators with so much zeal (and made plenty of stupid errors along the way), then I think we can at least try to build some cases against petty CIA torturers, if not the ex-leaders who deployed them. But politics win the day again, and Obama doesn't want to appear that he is on a "partisan witch-hunt", fearing that the GOP may circle the wagons and further impede his ambitious economic recovery efforts.
Obama on the campaign trail, April. 4, 2008:
What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that's already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can't prejudge that because we don't have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve.
So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important-- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing betyween really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity... I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Barack_on_torture.html
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/08/04/obama/
I think it should be obvious to a law professor that you don't know if a crime has been committed unless you investigate first. So investigate instead of sweeping it under the rug! Both Obama and Holder have been quoted proclaiming unequivocally that waterboarding is torture. Warterboarding was a sanctioned technique in the declassified CIA memos. Torture is illegal according the US Army Field Manual, Geneva Conventions, and many other codes. "No one is above the law". "Genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies?" Well torture is a really bad policy as well as a genuine crime, and no one is above the law, right? Even the CIA. But I am sure Obama and Co. don't want to piss off the spooks, whom they will need to help defend America, assist our allies, and win our overseas wars. Obama already nominated an outsider to head the CIA, probably insulting the senior staff who were looking for a promotion. He doesn't want to hurt morale any further, even at the cost of justice.
No comments:
Post a Comment