Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Before addressing the legal/semantic mess we’ve built for ourselves, ponder with me an odd quote from Cuba’s Raul Castro.
Last week, Castro said he’s willing to discuss a wide range of issues with President Barack Obama — “human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners, everything.”
Maybe an interpreter put words in his mouth. But: “political prisoners”? No self-respecting dictator calls his prisoners that. Traitors. Spies. Enemies of the people. That’s what a dictator says.
This brings up the subject of what a nation posing as leader of the free world says when accused of abusing human rights. Surely it’s not: “Torture? Whatever you call it.”
Sure, some are saying that techniques including waterboarding, sleep deprivation of up to 11 days, slamming a prisoner against a wall and introducing insects into confined spaces are not torture.
Others are saying, “So what? We got the information we wanted.”
That’s no defense, says retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern. Rather, it’s the problem — bad information elicited under extreme duress.
McGovern, speaking in Waco last week, said the covert operations arm of the agency he served proudly from Kennedy through George H.W. Bush effectively gave a president “his own personal Gestapo.”
That is manifest in the Feb. 7, 2002, White House memo headed “Humane Treatment of Detainees.” It actually authorizes grossly inhumane techniques.
As McGovern spoke, the Obama administration was releasing CIA torture memos and saying it would not prosecute agents whom it believed had operated within parameters set by higher-ups.
That made big news. What didn’t get much attention was this: A judge in Spain issued warrants for six former Justice Department officials, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, for rubber-stamping the use of torture on Guantanamo Bay detainees. Spanish law gives its courts jurisdiction beyond national borders in cases of torture and war crimes based on a doctrine known as universal justice.
The judge, Baltazar Garzon, is the same one who issued an arrest warrant for former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet for killing and torturing prisoners.
Spain’s government, likely under pressure from ours, says it doesn’t support or intend to help facilitate Garzon’s warrants.
U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York this week called for the impeachment of federal Judge Jay Bybee, who while an attorney under Gonzales helped parse the legalese behind what our proxies did to prisoners.
McGovern said it is absurd to focus on the lawyers when evidence points to direct authorization by President Bush and his innermost circle.
Many months ago, I wrote that impeachment of Bush and Dick Cheney was the answer — not necessarily to remove anyone from office but to question them under oath about alleged abuses. They’re all out of office. What now?
A New York Times editorial echoed Nadler’s call for Bybee’s impeachment, but within the framework of a search for the truth “after eight years without transparency or accountability.” The Washington Post editorially called for an investigation comparable to the 9/11 Commission.
Truth and accountability. It is sadly comical to think of out-of-work Al Gonzales or one of his former lieutenants as the big fish in this operation.
For a nation that has been the world’s foremost voice on human rights now to be so mute about something so counter to its principles is an embarrassment.
Ray McGovern says he came to work at the CIA headquarters every day under the John 8:32 inscription: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
Just who was that “you”?
John Young’s column appears Thursday, Sunday and occasionally Tuesday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.
Comments
By YoungWatch
Apr 22, 2009 3:09 PM | Link to this
John, methinks you misunderestimated Anonymous's meaning. He can speak for himself, of course, but I believe he was suggesting that since those "swarthy-skinned bystanders" (YOUR terminology, not his) were so innocent and harmless that you might bring them to live with your family under a foster home program. Better yet, adopt them!
As to Tubby Nadler, all he knows about "impeachment" is that it contains the word, "peach," a food item, so he has fallen in love with it.
By RAB
Apr 22, 2009 1:55 PM | Link to this
From Obama's National Intelligence Director, Dennis Blair:
"The OLC memos make clear that senior legal officials judged the harsher methods to be legal, and that senior policymakers authorized their use. High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country. As the OLC memos demonstrate, from 2002 through 2006 when the use of these techniques ended, the leadership of the CIA repeatedly reported their activities both to Executive Branch policymakers and to members of Congress, and received permission to continue to use the techniques."
Perhaps we should have all of our policys cleared by Spanish Judges?
By John Young
Apr 22, 2009 11:29 AM | Link to this
John Young replies Sweet and astute, Anonymous. What color skin is yours? Let me guess. What treatment would you expect in detention if you were a detainee based on creamy white pigment?
By anonymous
Apr 21, 2009 9:10 PM | Link to this
Perhaps they will set up a foster home program for the swarthy-skinned bystanders and you can participate in it.
By YoungWatch
Apr 21, 2009 5:42 PM | Link to this
John, you spent the past ten years trashing George Bush and it appears you'll spend the next ten doing the same. That'll just about constitute your entire career. You'll be remembered as nothing more than a sour-grapes Bush hater. Too bad! Who at the Trib is going to hold Obama's feet to the fire during the next four years (pray God, only four!) as it surely won't be you?
By John Young
Apr 21, 2009 4:12 PM | Link to this
John Young responds Nice analogy, Anonymous. Holds no water, though. I'm curious what you think the point of the Geneva Conventions was, and why the United States historically has clarioned the conventions. You may rationalize that the evil doers in question are particularly evil, as opposed to the evil doers in other wars. I will point out that a large number of the Abu Ghraib prisoners subjected to torture turned out not to be evil doers but swarthy-skinned bystanders taken in a wartime street sweep. One of the reasons we historically have treated prisoners as we do is that until a magistrate has been convinced otherwise, they are no more guilty of evil than are you.
By BDDH
Apr 21, 2009 9:41 AM | Link to this
I agree that there should have been an impeachment trial before the end of the Bush/Cheney administration -- not necessarily to remove them from office but to clear the air and to hold them responsible for their decisions. Many people seemed to think that "impeachment" meant removal. A public hearing under oath would have provided recognition that the Bush/Cheney decisions were not supported by the people. I don't know what we can do now, but I still think those who made those terrible, un-American decisions should be held responsible.
By anonymous
Apr 21, 2009 6:58 AM | Link to this
And we should also have a Congressional hearing on the deaths of the Somali pirates.
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