The Moral Imperative of Activism
Exclusive:
Today’s crises endless war, environmental catastrophe, desperate
poverty and more can seem so daunting that they paralyze action rather than
inspire activism. But the imperative to do something in the face of injustice
defines one’s moral place in the universe, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern
explains.
By Ray McGovern
That America is in deep moral and legal trouble was pretty much obvious to
everyone before Edward Snowden released official documents showing the extent to
which the U.S. government has been playing fast and loose with the Fourth
Amendment rights of Americans to be protected against unreasonable searches and
seizures.
Snowden’s revelations as explosive as they are were, in one sense, merely the
latest challenge to those of us who took a solemn oath to support and defend the
Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. That
has been a commitment tested repeatedly in recent years, especially since the
9/11 attacks.
After all the many troubling disclosures — from torture to “extraordinary
renditions” to aggressive war under false pretenses to warrantless wiretaps
to lethal drone strikes to whistleblowers prosecutions to the expanded
“surveillance state” — it might be time to take a moment for what the Germans
call “eine Denkpause,” a “thinking break.” And it is high time to heed and honor
the Noah Principle: “No more awards for predicting rain; awards only for
building arks.”
This is our summer of discontent. The question we need to ask ourselves is
whether that discontent will move us to action. Never in my lifetime have there
been such serious challenges to whether the Republic established by the Founders
will survive. Immediately after the Constitutional Convention, Ben Franklin told
a questioner that the new structure created “a Republic, if you can keep it.” He
was right, of course; it is up to us.
So let’s face it. The Obama White House and its co-conspirators in Congress and
the Judiciary have thrown the gauntlet down at our feet. It turned out that we
are the ones we’ve been waiting for. As Annie Dillard, one of my favorite
theologians, has put it, “There is only us; there never has been any other.” And
as one of my favorite activists/prophets continued to insist, “Do not say there
are not enough of us. There ARE enough of us!”
Besides threats to basic constitutional rights and gross violations of
international law, there are other pressing issues for Americans, especially the
obscene, growing chasm between the very rich and the jobless (and often
homeless) poor. There is widespread reluctance, even so, to ask the key
questions?
Is it right to fire teachers, police and firefighters; to close libraries; leave
students in permanent debt; gut safety-net programs all by feigning lack of
money? Yet, simultaneously, is it moral to squander on the Pentagon and military
contractors half of the country’s discretionary income from taxes an outlay
equivalent to what the whole rest of the world put together spends for defense?
It seems we are guided far more by profits than by prophets. And without
prophetic vision, the people perish.
Profit Margin
America’s lucrative war-making industry operates within a fiendishly selfperpetuating business model: U.S. military interventions around the world
(including security arrangements to prop up unpopular allies and thus to thwart
the will of large segments of national populations) guarantee an inexhaustible
supply of “militants, insurgents, terrorists or simply ‘bad guys’” a list that
sometimes comes to include American citizens.
These troublemakers must be hunted down and vaporized by our remote killing
machines, which inflict enough destruction and stir up enough outrage to
generate even more “militants, insurgents, terrorists or simply ‘bad guys.’”
And, in turn, the blowback toward the United States — the occasional terrorist
attack — creates enough fear at home to “justify” the introduction of draconian
Third Reich-style “Enabling Act” legislation not very different from the
unconstitutional laws ushering in the abuses in Germany 80 years ago.
With only muted murmur from “progressive” supporters, the Obama administration
has continued much of the post-9/11 assault on constitutional rights begun by
George W. Bush and in regard to Barack Obama’s aggressive prosecutorial campaign
against “leakers,” Obama has taken these transgressions even further.
Are we to look on, like the proverbial “obedient Germans,” as Establishment
Washington validates the truth of James Madison’s warning: “If Tyranny and
Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign
enemy.”
Yet, while countless billions of dollars are spent on “security” against
“terrorism,” little attention is devoted to the truly existential threat from
global warming. Can we adults in good conscience continue to shun the dire
implications of climate change?
This question was again brought home to me personally on Aug. 6, as our ninth
grandchild pushed her way out into a world with challenges undreamed of just
decades ago. When she is my age, will she rue joining us last Tuesday? I can
only hope she will forgive me and my generation for not having the guts to face
down those whose unconscionable greed continues to rape what seemed to be a
rather pure and pleasant planet when I made my appearance seven short decades
ago.
Prophets on the Margin
And, then there is the worship of “free market” idolatry which has savaged
America’s Great Middle Class and expanded the ranks of the desperate poor. The
late Rabbi Abraham Heschel had challenging words for us: Decrying the agony of
the “plundered poor,” Heschel insisted that wherever injustice takes place, “few
are guilty, but all are responsible.” He added that, “Indifference to evil is
more insidious than evil itself.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., warned: “A time comes when silence is betrayal … We
must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but
we must speak…. There is such a thing as being too late…. Life often leaves us
standing bare, naked, and dejected with lost opportunity…. Over the bleached
bones of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: ‘Too late.’”
Amid these daunting challenges endless war, encroachment on liberties,
environmental devastation and economic disparity there is also the question: Are
our churches riding shotgun for the System.
As truly historic events unfold in our country and abroad, I often think of
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor who founded the Confessing Church as an
alternative to the overwhelming number of Catholics and Lutherans who gave
priority to protecting themselves by going along with Hitler. How deeply
disappointed Bonhoeffer was at the failure of the institutional church in
Germany to put itself “where the battle rages.”
This is the phrase Martin Luther himself used centuries before: “If, I profess
with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God
except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the
moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing
him. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved and to
be steady on all the battlefield, except there, is mere flight and disgrace if
one flinches at that point.”
No one has put it better than a precious new friend I met on a “cruise” in
June/July 2011 hoping to reach Gaza author and poet Alice Walker who said:
“Activism is my rent for living on this planet.”
As some of you know, that attitude found her a passenger on “The Audacity of
Hope”, the U.S. Boat to Gaza. On July 1, 2011, we made an activist break for the
open sea and Gaza but were able to sail only nine nautical miles out of Athens
before the Greek government, under strong pressure from the White House, ordered
its Coast Guard to intercept us, bring us back to port, and impound our boat.
Okay to be Angry?
Recalling the anger I felt at the time, I was reminded that, all too often,
people are conflicted about whether or not to allow themselves to be angry at
such injustice whether it be in Gaza, on the Aegean, or elsewhere. I had been in
that category of doubt, until I remembered learning that none other than Thomas
Aquinas had something very useful to say about anger.
In the Thirteenth Century, Aquinas wrote a lot about virtue and got quite angry
when he realized there was no word in Latin for just the right amount of anger,
for the virtue of anger. He had to go back to what Fourth-Century Doctor of the
Church John Chrysostom said on the subject: “He or she who is not angry, when
there is just cause for anger, sins.”
Why? Because as John Chrysostom put it, “Anger respicit bonum justitiae, anger
looks to the good of Justice, and if you can live amid injustice without anger
you are unjust.”
Aquinas added his own corollary; he railed against what he called “unreasoned
patience,” which, he said, “sows the seeds of vice, nourishes negligence, and
persuades not only evil people but good people to do evil.”
Frankly, I have not thought of us activists being virtuous, but maybe we are, at
least in our willingness to channel our anger into challenging and changing the
many injustices here and around the world. There should be no room these days
for “unreasoned patience.”
One saving grace peculiar not only to the ancient prophets and theologians but
to the Alice Walkers and Medea Benjamins of today is that they did not get hung
up on the all-too-familiar drive for success. That drive, I think, is a
distinctly American trait. We generally do not want to embark on some
significant course of action without there being a reasonable prospect of
success, do we? Who enjoys becoming the object of ridicule?
The felt imperative to be “successful” can be a real impediment to acting for
Justice. One prophet/activist from whom I have drawn inspiration is Dan
Berrigan. I’d like to share some of the wisdom that seeps through his
autobiography, To Dwell in Peace.
Berrigan writes that after he, his brother Phil, and a small group of others had
used homemade napalm to burn draft cards in Catonsville, Maryland, in May 1968
at the height of the Vietnam War, Dan mused about why he took such a risk:
“I came upon a precious insight. Something like this: presupposing integrity and
discipline, one is justified in entering upon a large risk; not indeed because
the outcome is assured, but because the integrity and value of the act have
spoken aloud.
“Success or efficiency are placed where they belong: in the background. They are
not irrelevant, but they are far from central. I was in need of such reflections
as we faced the public after our crime. All sides agreed, we were fools or
renegades or plain crazy.
“One had very little to go on; and one went ahead nonetheless. … The act was let
go, its truth and goodness were entrusted to the four winds. Indeed, good
consequences were of small matter to me, compared with the integrity of the
action, the need responded to, the spirits lifted.”
The more recent prophets and activists I have known have generally been able to
do this, to release the truth of the act to the four winds. And I am sure that
helps them avoid taking themselves too seriously.
Anticipate the Jut-Jaw
Here’s how Dan Berrigan recounts the immediate aftermath of the action at
Catonsville:
“We sat in custody in the back room of the Catonsville Post Office, weak with
relief.
Three or four FBI honchos entered portentously. Their leader, a jut-
jawed paradigm, surveyed us from the doorway. His eagle-eye lit on Philip. He
roared out: ‘Him again! Good God, I’m changing my religion!’
“I could think of no greater tribute to my brother.”
The Berrigans help affirm for me that this God of ours is a God of laughter, and
we are the entertainment. And that’s just one reason a light touch seems to be
required. Will we be successful? Wrong question. The right one is will we be
faithful? Will we dare to go with the Berrigans to where the battle rages.
I am very much looking forward to being able to refresh my spirit, and also my
sense of humor, with some later-day prophets at the upcoming Conference on the
Moral Imperative of Activism, Aug. 16-17, at the National Kateri Tekakwitha
Shrine in Fonda, New York.
Let me close with a poem written by the German writer Peter Gan in 1935 during
the Third Reich. I think it summons us in a thoughtful way to contemplate who we
are and what we are called to do today.
But first the most important thing:
“What are you doing in these great times?
“Great, I say, for times seem great
to me, when each man driven
half to death by the era’s hate,
and standing in the place he’s given,
“Must willy-nilly contemplate
no less a thing than his own BEING!
A little breath, a second’s wait
May well suffice you catch my meaning?”
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical church
of the Saviour in inner-city Washington, and teaches and learns at its Servant
Leadership School. McGovern was an Army officer and a CIA analyst for 30 years,
and is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
His
Web site is raymcgovern.com.
Manning’s Upside-Down Punishment
The cruel irony of how the United States has addressed post-9/11 war crimes,
including President Bush’s invasion of Iraq and his use of torture, is that no
major government official has been held accountable, yet whistleblowers have
faced harsh reprisals, most notably Pvt. Bradley Manning, as Marjorie Cohn
explains.
By Marjorie Cohn
In a historic verdict, Judge Denise Lind correctly found Bradley Manning not
guilty of aiding the enemy because the evidence failed to establish that Manning
knew information he provided to WikiLeaks would reach al-Qaida. A conviction of
aiding the enemy would have sent a chilling message to the news media that if
they publish leaked classified information, their officers could face life in
prison. That would deprive the public of crucial information.
The verdict finding Manning guilty of Espionage Act offenses, however, sends an
ominous warning that could deter future whistleblowers from exposing government
wrongdoing. It’s important to keep in mind that Manning provided information
indicating the U.S. had committed war crimes.
Traditionally the Espionage Act has been used only against spies and traitors,
not whistleblowers. Yet President Barack Obama has used the Espionage Act to
prosecute more whistle-blowers than all prior administrations combined.
Manning’s revelations actually saved lives. After WikiLeaks published his
documentation of Iraqi torture centers established by the United States, the
Iraqi government refused Obama’s request to extend immunity to U.S. soldiers who
commit criminal and civil offenses there. As a result, Obama had to withdraw
U.S. troops from Iraq.
The American public needed to know the information Manning provided. He revealed
evidence of war crimes in the “Collateral Murder” video, which depicts a U.S.
Apache attack helicopter crew killing 12 unarmed civilians and wounding two
children in Baghdad in 2007. The crew then killed people attempting to rescue
the wounded. A U.S. tank drove over one of the bodies, cutting it in half. Those
actions constitute war crimes under the Geneva Conventions.
The Bush administration waged an illegal war in Iraq in which thousands of
people were killed. It also established an interrogation program that led to the
torture and abuse of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and the CIA black
sites. Yet it is Bradley Manning, not the Bush officials, who is being
prosecuted.
Judge Lind has already reduced any sentence Manning may receive by 112 days
because of his mistreatment during the first 11 months of his custody, when he
was kept in solitary confinement and humiliated by being forced to stand naked
for inspection. Hopefully the judge will take into account how Manning’s
revelations benefit our society when she passes sentence. Manning is still
facing 90 years in prison for his convictions on 19 of the 21 counts with which
he was charged.
Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and co-author
(with Kathleen Gilberd) of
Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of
Military Dissent. [This article first appeared on Debate Club, US News & World
Report, http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/was-the-bradley-manning-verdict-fair/b
radley-mannings-revelations-saved-lives.]
What to Do with G.W. Bush?
Exclusive: A major bipartisan study confirms that George W. Bush’s
administration tortured detainees behind of a facade of legal excuses. The
report recommends truth-telling and reforms. But the failure to hold Bush and
his advisers accountable invites a replay of their criminal acts, writes Robert
Parry.
By Robert Parry
Now that a bipartisan blue-ribbon panel has reached the conclusion that
President George W. Bush and his top advisers bear “ultimate responsibility” for
authorizing torture in violation of domestic and international law, the question
becomes what should the American people and their government do.
The logical answer would seem to be: prosecute Bush and his cronies (or turn
them over to an international tribunal if the U.S. legal system can’t do the
job). After all, everyone, including President Barack Obama and possibly even
Bush himself, would agree with the principle that “no man is above the law.”
At least that is what they profess in public, but they then apply this principle
selectively, proving that they don’t really mean it at all. The real-world
standard seems to be: you are above the law if you have the political or
economic clout to make prosecution difficult or painful. Then, more flexible
rules apply.
For instance, we’re told that Pvt. Bradley Manning may have had good intentions
in exposing U.S. government wrongdoing to WikiLeaks, but he still must be
punished for taking the law into his own hands. The only question seems to be
whether he should be imprisoned for 20 years or life.
Even the U.S. soldiers at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison who imitated the abusive
techniques that Bush and his advisers authorized in more limited situations had
to face justice. Eleven were convicted at court martial, and two enlisted
personnel Charles Graner and Lynndie England were sentenced to ten and three
years in prison, respectively. A few higher-level officers had their military
careers derailed.
But the buck pretty much stopped there. It surely didn’t extend up to Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, White
House counsel Alberto Gonzales, Vice President Dick Cheney and President Bush.
They simply engaged in a game of circular excuse-making, claiming that they had
relied on Justice Department legal guidance and thus their own criminal actions
really weren’t criminal at all.
Yet, along with its judgments about torture, the 577-page report from the
Constitution Project obliterated that line of defense by detailing how the Bush
administration’s lawyers offered up “acrobatic” legal opinions to justify the
brutal interrogations, which included waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress
position, forced nudity and other acts constituting torture.
Lawyers from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, particularly John
Yoo and Jay Bybee, collaborated closely with senior administration officials in
choreographing these legal gymnastics. Then, when other government lawyers later
challenged the Yoo-Bybee rationalizations, those lawyers faced career reprisals
from the White House. They were essentially forced out of government, the report
found.
In other words, Bush’s team had arranged its own legal opinions
that empowered the President do whatever he wanted. Indeed, the Yoo-Bybee legal
opinions gave the President carte blanche by citing his supposed “plenary
powers,” meaning that he could do literally anything he wished during “wartime,”
even a war as nebulously defined as the “war on terror.”
Establishment Blessing
While the new torture report mostly covers old ground about how the Bush
administration moved into the “dark side,” the report’s primary significance is
that its 11-member panel represents a bipartisan mix of Establishment figures.
The task force was headed by two former members of Congress who have worked in
the Executive Branch James R. Jones, D-Oklahoma, an ex-ambassador to Mexico, and
Asa Hutchinson, R-Arkansas, who served as an under-secretary of Homeland
Security during the Bush administration. Other members were prominent Americans
from the fields of military, academia, law, ethics and diplomacy including
former FBI Director William Sessions and longtime senior diplomat Thomas
Pickering.
The report didn’t mince words in its principal conclusions: “Perhaps the most
important or notable finding of this panel is that it is indisputable that the
United States engaged in the practice of torture. This finding, offered without
reservation, is not based on any impressionistic approach to the issue.
“Instead, this conclusion is grounded in a thorough and detailed examination of
what constitutes torture in many contexts, notably historical and legal
[including] instances in which the United States has leveled the charge of
torture against other governments. The United States may not declare a nation
guilty of engaging in torture and then exempt itself from being so labeled for
similar if not identical conduct.”
The report also noted that the behavior of the Bush administration deviated from
the most honorable traditions of U.S. history, dating back to the Revolutionary
War and General George Washington’s instructions to his troops not to respond to
British cruelty in kind but to treat prisoners of war humanely.
In contrast to those traditions, after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration
approved specific techniques of torture while formulating legal rationalizations
for these violations of law. Never before, the report found, had there been “the
kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after 9/11 directly
involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality
of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody.”
Beyond the illegality and immorality of torture, the report found “no firm or
persuasive evidence” that the harsh interrogations extracted information that
could not have been obtained by legal means. The report also challenged the
legality of “enforced disappearances,” renditions and secret detentions.
No Accountability
Yet, the panel demanded no meaningful accountability from Bush and his top
aides, as former Ambassador Pickering made clear in a Washington Post op-ed on
Friday.
In underscoring the report’s findings, Pickering lamented how the Bush
administration’s use of torture had imperiled efforts to persuade other
countries not to resort to cruel and inhuman treatment of prisoners. “Democracy
and torture cannot peacefully coexist in the same body politic,” Pickering
wrote.
He proposed several steps “to mitigate the damage and set this country on a
better course.” This list included finally confronting the harsh truth about
torture; releasing relevant evidence that the Obama administration is still
keeping secret; enacting new legislation to close “loopholes” that were
exploited to justify torture; and insisting on verifiable protections of
prisoners transferred to other countries (rather than relying on “diplomatic
assurances”).
However, neither the report nor Pickering’s op-ed addressed the significant
point that laws against torture and mistreatment of prisoners already existed
and that Bush and his team simply had ignored or evaded them. If Bush and Yoo
could concoct an excuse giving the President the “plenary” power to do whatever
he wants in wartime, why couldn’t some future President and legal adviser do the
same?
What good does it do to tighten “loopholes” if a President and his aides can
flout the law and escape accountability? The only rational (and legal) response
to Bush’s use of torture is to arrest him and his key advisers and put them on
trial.
Yet, in this case, the rational and legal remedy is considered unthinkable. If
President Obama’s Justice Department were to move against Bush and other exofficials, the Washington Establishment from the Republican Party to the
mainstream news media to much of the Democratic Party would react in apoplexy
and outrage.
There would be fears about Washington’s intense partisanship growing even worse.
There would be warnings about the terrible precedent being set that could mean
that each time the White House changes hands the new administration would then
“go after” the former occupants. There would howls about the United States
taking on the appearance of a “banana republic.”
However, there also are profound dangers for a democratic Republic when it
doesn’t hold public officials accountable for serious crimes, like torture and
aggressive war. Indeed, one could argue that such a country is no longer a
democratic Republic, if one person can operate with complete impunity amid
declarations of “plenary powers” which is what the Bush administration claimed
in its memos justifying torture.
The report from the Constitution Project can declare that torture is
incompatible with democracy, but it is equally true that if the President can
torture anyone he chooses and then walk away free to attend baseball games,
celebrate his presidential library and pose for the cover of “Parade” magazine
then you are not living in a real democracy.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for
The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new
book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book
(from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
Russia Bars Bush-Era Torture Lawyers
Exclusive: Washington and Moscow exchanged lists imposing sanctions on each
other’s officials accused of human rights crimes. But America’s benefit of the
doubt no longer applies, as the Russians named John Yoo and David Addington,
Bush-era legal advisers who twisted the law on torture, Robert Parry reports.
By Robert Parry
The U.S. government views itself as the global arbiter of human rights,
righteously throwing stones at other nations for their misbehavior and most
recently imposing sanctions on a group of Russians accused of human rights
crimes. That move prompted a tit-for-tat response from Moscow, barring 18
current and former U.S. officials from entering Russia.
The predictable responsefrom the U.S. news media to the Russian retaliation was
to liken it to the Cold War days when the United States would catch a Soviet spy
and Moscow would retaliate by grabbing an American and arranging a swap.
But several of the Americans targeted by Moscow this time were clearly guilty of
human rights crimes. John Yoo and David Addington were former legal advisers to
President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, respectively. The two
lawyers were famous for inventing new excuses for torture. Two other Americans
on Moscow’s list Major General Geoffrey D. Miller and Rear Admiral Jeffrey
Harbeson commanded the extralegal detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In particular, Yoo and Addington stand out as smug apologists for torture who
twisted law and logic to justify waterboarding, painful stress positions, forced
nudity, sleep deprivation and other techniques that have been historically
defined as torture. In a society that truly respected human rights, they would
have been held accountable along with other practitioners of the “dark side” but
instead have been allowed to walk free and carry on their professional lives
almost as if nothing had happened.
The Russians were polite enough only to include on the list these mid-level
torture advocates and enablers (as well as some prosecutors who have led legal
cases against Russian nationals). They left off the list many culpable former
senior officials, such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, National Security
Advisor Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director George Tenet, Cheney and Bush. Obviously,
the Russian government didn’t want an escalation.
It’s also undeniably true that Moscow does not come to the human rights issue
with clean hands. But neither does the United States, a country that for
generations has taken pride in its role as the supposed beacon of human rights,
the rule of law, and democratic principles.
Acting as a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunals after World War II, Supreme
Court Justice Robert Jackson famously denied that punishing the Nazi leaders as
war criminals was simply victor’s justice. He insisted that the same principles
would apply to the nations sitting in judgment, including the United States and
the Soviet Union. However, that has turned out not to be the case.
The real principles of today’s international law could be described as dragging
petty warlords from Africa or Eastern Europe off to The Hague for prosecution by
the International Criminal Court, while letting leaders of the Big Powers with
far more blood on their hands off the hook.
Jackson’s “universal principles” of
human rights now only apply to the relatively weak.
A History of Double Standards
Of course, one could argue that double and triple standards have always been the
way of the world. What often seems to really matter is who has the most powerful
friends, the best P.R. team, and the greatest number of “news” organizations in
their pocket. Plus, lots of cognitive dissonance helps, too.
For instance, you must forget the role of the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman,
the Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt and other mainstream media stars in rallying
the American people to get behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2002-2003 — when
the same pundits now fold their arms in disgust at some other nation’s violation
of international law.
It’s also handy if you can forget much of American history. You can fondly
recall the stirring words about liberty from the Founding Fathers, but it’s best
to forget that many owned African-Americans as slaves and that their lust for
territorial expansion led them and their descendants to wage a cruel
genocide against Native Americans.
There also were the repeated military interventions in Latin America and the
brutal counterinsurgency campaign in the Philippines (which applied some of the
same tactics that the U.S. military had perfected in crushing uprisings by
Native Americans). Then, there were the militarily unnecessary atomic bomb
attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the mass slaughters in Indochina in the 1960s
and 1970s; and the “death squad” operations in South and Central America in the
1970s and 1980s.
One can trace a direct correlation from American sayings like “the only good
Indian is a dead Indian” in the 19th Century to “kill them all and let God sort
them out” in the 20th Century. And U.S. respect for human rights hasn’t improved
much in the new century with George W. Bush’s “war on terror” and his invasions
of Afghanistan and Iraq and with Barack Obama’s extrajudicial killings by drone
attacks.
So, when the United States strides from its glass house to hurl stones at
Russians over repression in Chechnya, it’s not at all surprising that the
Russians would return the volley by singling out some of the Americans clearly
implicated in war crimes under George W. Bush. The only real question is why did
the Russians stop with a handful of apparatchiks? Probably they didn’t want to
escalate this exchange of Big Power hypocrisies.
The hard truth is that if the United States had a functioning criminal justice
system for the powerful not just for run-of-the-mill offenders former Vice
President Cheney and ex-President Bush would have convicted themselves with
their own public comments defending their use of torture.
For instance, in February 2010, on ABC’s “This Week,” Cheney pronounced himself
“a big supporter of waterboarding,” a near-drowning technique that has been
regarded as torture back to the Spanish Inquisition and that has long been
treated by U.S. authorities as a serious war crime, such as when Japanese
commanders were prosecuted for using it on American prisoners during World War
II.
Cheney was unrepentant about his support for the technique. He answered with an
emphatic “yes” when asked if he had opposed the Bush administration’s decision
to suspend the use of waterboarding. He added that waterboarding should still be
“on the table” today.
Admitting the Sham
But Cheney went further. Speaking with a sense of legal impunity, he casually
negated a key line of defense that senior Bush officials had hidden behind for
years that the brutal interrogations were okayed by independent Justice
Department legal experts who gave the administration a legitimate reason to
believe the actions were within the law.
However, in the interview, Cheney acknowledged that the White House had told the
Justice Department lawyers what legal opinions to render. In other words, the
opinions amounted to ordered-up lawyering to permit the administration to do
whatever it wanted.
In responding to a question about why he had so harshly attacked President
Obama’s counterterrorism policies, Cheney explained that he was concerned about
the new administration prosecuting some CIA operatives who had handled the
interrogations and “disbarring lawyers with the Justice Department who had
helped us put those policies together. I thought it was important for some
senior person in the administration to stand up and defend those people who’d
done what we asked them to do.”
Cheney’s comment about the Justice lawyers who had “done what we asked them to
do” was an apparent reference to John Yoo and his boss, Jay Bybee, at the Office
of Legal Counsel (OLC), a powerful Justice Department agency that advises the
President on the limits of his power.
In 2002, Yoo while working closely with White House officials drafted legal
memos that permitted waterboarding and other brutal techniques by narrowly
defining torture. He also authored legal opinions that asserted virtual
dictatorial powers for a President during war, even one as vaguely defined as
the “war on terror.” Yoo’s key memos were then signed by Bybee.
In 2003, after Yoo left to be a law professor at the University of California at
Berkeley and Bybee was elevated to a federal appeals court judgeship in San
Francisco, their successors withdrew the memos because of the sloppy
scholarship. However, in 2005, President George W. Bush appointed a new acting
chief of the OLC, Steven Bradbury, who restored many of the Yoo-Bybee opinions.
In the years that followed, Bush administration officials repeatedly cited the
Yoo-Bybee-Bradbury legal guidance when insisting that the “enhanced
interrogation” of “war on terror” detainees as well as prisoners from the Iraq
and Afghan wars did not cross the line into torture.
In essence, the Bush-Cheney defense was that the OLC lawyers offered honest
opinions and that everyone from the President and Vice President, who approved
use of the interrogation techniques, down to the CIA interrogators, who
conducted the torture, operated in good faith.
If, however, that narrative is indeed false if the lawyers had colluded with the
policymakers to create legal excuses for criminal acts then the Bush-Cheney
defense would collapse. Rather than diligent lawyers providing professional
advice, the picture would be of Mob consiglieres counseling crime bosses how to
skirt the law.
Hand in Glove
Though Bush administration defenders have long denied that the legal opinions
were cooked, the evidence has long supported the conspiratorial interpretation.
For instance, in his 2006 book War by Other Means, Yoo himself described his
involvement in frequent White House meetings regarding what “other means” should
receive a legal stamp of approval. Yoo wrote:
“As the White House held its procession of Christmas parties and receptions in
December 2001, senior lawyers from the Attorney General’s office, the White
House counsel’s office, the Departments of State and Defense and the NSC
[National Security Council] met a few floors away to discuss the work on our
opinion. This group of lawyers would meet repeatedly over the next months to
develop policy on the war on terrorism.”
Yoo said meetings were usually chaired by Alberto Gonzales, who was then White
House counsel and later became Bush’s second Attorney General. Yoo identified
other key players as Timothy Flanigan, Gonzales’s deputy; William Howard Taft IV
from State; John Bellinger from the NSC; William “Jim” Haynes from the Pentagon;
and David Addington, counsel to Cheney.
In his book, Yoo described his work swatting down objections from the State
Department’s lawyer and the Pentagon’s judge advocate generals who feared that
waiving the Geneva Conventions in the “war on terror” would endanger U.S.
soldiers Yoo stressed policy concerns, not legal logic.
“It was far from obvious that following the Geneva Conventions in the war
against al-Qaeda would be wise,” Yoo wrote. “Our policy makers had to ask
whether [compliance] would yield any benefit or act as a hindrance.”
What Yoo’s book and other evidence make clear is that the lawyers from the
Justice Department’s OLC weren’t just legal scholars handing down opinions from
an ivory tower; they were participants in how to make Bush’s desired actions
“legal.” They were the lawyerly equivalents of those U.S. intelligence
officials, who in the words of the British “Downing Street Memo” “fixed” the
facts around Bush’s desire to invade Iraq.
Redefining Torture
In the case of waterboarding and other abusive interrogation tactics, Yoo and
Bybee generated a memo, dated Aug. 1, 2002, that came up with a novel and narrow
definition of torture, essentially lifting the language from an unrelated law
regarding health benefits.
The Yoo-Bybee legal opinion stated that unless the amount of pain administered
to a detainee led to injuries that might result in “death, organ failure, or
serious impairment of body functions” then the interrogation technique could not
be defined as torture. Since waterboarding is not intended to cause death or
organ failure only the panicked gag reflex associated with drowning it was
deemed not to be torture.
The “torture memo” and related legal opinions were considered so unprofessional
that Bybee’s replacement to head the OLC, Jack Goldsmith, himself a conservative
Republican, took the extraordinary step of withdrawing them after he was
appointed in October 2003. However, Goldsmith was pushed out of his job after a
confrontation with Cheney’s counsel Addington. Bradbury then enabled the Bush
White House to reinstate many of the Yoo-Bybee opinions.
Cheney’s frank comments on “This Week” in 2010 corroborating that Yoo and Bybee
“had done what we asked them to do” reflected the confidence that former Bush
administration officials felt by then that they would face no accountability
from the Obama administration for war crimes.
Surely, if a leader of another country had called himself “a big supporter of
waterboarding,” there would have been a clamor for his immediate arrest and
trial at The Hague. That Cheney felt he could speak so openly and with such
impunity was a damning commentary on the rule of law in the United States, at
least when it comes to the nation’s elites.
John Yoo apparently shares Cheney’s nonchalance about facing accountability.
This weekend, when Yoo was asked about the Russians banning him as a human
rights violator, he joked about the athletic skills of Russian President
Vladimir Putin. “Darn,” Yoo wrote in an e-mail, “there goes my judo match with
Putin.”
Perhaps the ultimate measure of America’s current standing as a promoter of
human rights is that it’s difficult to judge which government is the bigger
hypocrite: the one in Moscow or the one in Washington.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for
The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new
book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book
(from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
George W. Bush’s Lie-bury
As minor African despots are dragged before the International Criminal Court,
ex-President George W. Bush remains free, despite having committed major war
crimes like torture and aggressive war. With the blood of hundreds of thousands
on his hands, he will now celebrate his presidential library, Coleen Rowley
notes.
By Coleen Rowley
A recent news report asking “Where is Dubya?” found the former president totally
unengaged, spending his time painting strange portraits of himself in the bath.
In what seems to be a weird personal attempt to emulate Winston Churchill (but
more reminiscent of Marie Antoinette playing shepherdess in her last days), the
former president calmly ignores the sickening truth that slowly but surely
emerges about his administration’s crimes as well as recent UN demands that U.S.
leaders be charged with war crimes.
Ben Emmerson, the lead special investigator, recently described to gathered UN
dignitaries a setting of self-approved legal immunity among U.S. and UK national
leaders. He called the two governments’ standing policy, “A policy of de facto
immunity for public officials who engaged in acts of torture, rendition and
secret detention, and their superiors and political masters who authorized these
acts.”
So the hard task will clearly fall to George W. Bush’s soon-to-open Presidential
Center to re-fashion history and create the legacy of the great “Decider” who,
with neo-con help, so longed to be a “war president” that he decided to
illegally and recklessly launch a “war of choice” (otherwise known as the
illegal and catastrophic war of aggression upon Iraq based on false premises).
The new Bush Library will undoubtedly also credit their namesake with the idea
of initiating the “global war on a tactic (GWOT)” that, despite a recent
bipartisan congressional bill to end it, teeters on the verge of being made
permanent. Bush’s successor having cleverly re-named it, then stretched and
expanded GWOT to so many new countries that it now has come full circle under
rhetoric of “keeping us safe” from foreign enemies that it now targets U.S.
citizens for what could possibly be indefinite detention and assassination and
includes the U.S. as part of its ever-widening global battlefield.
(Though to be fair, Bush already had established those principles with his
military detention of alleged terrorist and U.S. citizen Jose Padilla, arrested
and imprisoned on U.S. soil as an “enemy combatant.”)
Whoever said we can’t look back must not have reckoned with the fact and force
of such a Presidential Lie-Bury! Luckily some Dallasresidents have sprung to the
task of putting forward an honest “People’s Response” to the deceptive
refashioning of this unethical and illegal history. Here’s an excerpt from their
press release:
“When the George W. Bush Library and Policy Institute is dedicated on April 25,
2013, at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, protestors will
be there to demand the ex-president be held accountable for war crimes, crimes
against humanity, and violations of U.S. and international law. President Barack
Obama, formerU.S.presidents and many heads of state are expected to attend the
dedication ceremony. “
A coalition of local, state and national peace and justice groups organizing the
protest is inviting people from across the country to participate in an event
called “The People’s Response.” According to Leslie Harris of CODEPINK Greater
Dallas, “The illegal invasion of a sovereign nation was declared a ‘supreme
crime’ at theNurembergtrials. That Bush and his advisors walk free today is
unconscionable; there must be accountability so history won’t repeat itself.”
Reverend Bill McElvaney, professor emeritus, Perkins School of Theology at SMU,
an early opponent of locating the George W. Bush Institute on campus, said, “The
invasion of Iraq, and the approval of torture are violations of the United
Methodist Social Principles, thus placing Southern Methodist University in
contradiction to its own heritage as an institution of The United Methodist
Church.”
I plan to participate for a lot of reasons but most fundamentally, from having
spent 24 years as an FBI agent working in the criminal justice system always and
inherently focused on looking backward to solve the worst crimes, I understand
the true purpose of Obama’s ridiculous “only look forward” cover-up was to
continue, make worse and even expand upon Bush’s illegal wars, war crimes and
war profiteering.
It’s hard to put this into words better than author and researcher, “War Is A
Crime” and “Let’s Try Democracy” activist David Swanson as he explains “Why I’m
Attending the Dedication of the Bush Lie Bury:”
“On April 25th the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum and General
Rehabilitation Project will be dedicated in Dallas, Texas. It takes up 23 acres
at Southern Methodist University, 23 acres that neither humanity nor any other
species may ever reclaim for anything decent or good. I’ll be there, joining in
the people’s response (http://ThePeoplesResponse.org) with those who fear that
this library will amount to a Lie Bury.
” ‘The BushCenter’s surrounding native Texaslandscape,’ the center’s PR office
says, ‘including trees from the Bush family’s Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford,
Texas, continues President and Mrs. Bush’s longstanding commitment to land and
water conservation and energy efficiency.’ Does it, now? Is that what you
recall? Bush the environmentalist?
“Well, maybe you and I remember things differently, but do we have a major
educational institution that will effectively repeat our corrections of the Lie
Bury’s claims for decades to come? According to the Lie Bury, Bush was and is an
education leader, saving our schools by turning them into test-taking factories
and getting unqualified military officers to run them. This is something to be
proud of, we’re told.
“The Lie Bury’s annual report shows Bush with the Dalai Lama. No blood is
anywhere to be seen. The Lie Bury’s website has a photo of a smiling George W.
golfing for war. ‘The Warrior Open,’ it explains, ‘is a competitive 36-hole golf
tournament that takes place over two days every fall in theDallasarea. The event
honorsU.S.service members wounded in the global war on terror.’
“Now, I actually know of some soldiers wounded in what they call by that name
who don’t feel honored by Bush’s golfing, just as millions of Iraqis living as
refugees within or outside of the nation he destroyed find Bush’s liberty to
walk outdoors, much less golf for the glory of war, offensive. But none of them
has a quarter-billion dollar ‘center’ from which to spread the gospel of history
as it actually happened — as it happened to its losers, to those water-boarded,
shot in the face, or otherwise liberated by Bush and his subordinates.
“When Bush lied about excuses to start a war onIraq– as with everything else he
did — he did so incompetently. As a result, a majority of Americans in the most
recent polls, still say he lied to start the war. But few grasp the lesson as it
should be applied to wars launched by more competent liars. And memory of Bush’s
lies is fading, buried under forgetfulness, avoidance, misdirection,
revisionism, a mythical ‘surge’ success, and a radically inaccurate
understanding of what our government did toIraq.
“I won’t be attending the Lie Bury ceremony for vengeance, but in hopes of
ridding our culture of the vengeance promoted by Bush. He based a foreign policy
and a domestic stripping away of rights on the thirst for vengeance — even if
misdirected vengeance. We have a responsibility to establish that we will not
support that approach going forward.
“Bush himself is relevant only as his treatment can deter future crimes and
abuses. No one should wish Bush or any other human being ill. In fact, we should
strive to understand him, as it will help us understand others who behave as he
has. Bush, of course, knew what he was doing when he tried to launch a war while
pretending a war would be his last resort, suggesting harebrained schemes to get
the war going to Tony Blair. Bush knew the basic facts. He knew he was killing a
lot of people for no good reason. He was not so much factually clueless as
morally clueless.
“For Bush, as for many other people, killing human beings in wars exists outside
the realm of morality. Morality is the area of abortions, gay marriage,
shoplifting, fornicating, or discriminating. Remember when Bush said that a
singer’s suggestion that he didn’t care about black people was the worst moment
in his presidency? Racism may be understood by Bush as a question of morality.
Mass murder not so much. Bush’s mother remarked that war deaths were not worthy
of troubling her beautiful mind. Asked why he’d lied about Iraqi weapons, George
W. Bush asked what difference it made. Well, 1.4 million dead bodies, but who’s
counting?
“I won’t be attending the Lie Bury because Bush’s successor is an improvement.
On the contrary, our failure to hold Bush accountable has predictably led to his
successor being significantly worse in matters of abusing presidential power.
And not just predictably, but predicted. When we used to demand Bush’s
impeachment, people would accuse us of disliking him or his political party. No,
we’d say, if he isn’t held accountable, future presidents will be worse, and it
won’t matter from which party they come.
“I helped draft about 70 articles of impeachment against Bush, from which
Congressman Dennis Kucinich selected 35 and introduced them. I later looked
through those 35 and found 27 that applied to President Barack Obama, even
though his own innovations in abusive behavior weren’t on the list. Bush’s lying
Congress into war (not that Congress wasn’t eager to play along) is actually a
standard to aspire to now. When Obama went to war inLibya, against the will of
Congress, he avoided even bothering to involve the first branch of our
government.
“When Bush locked people up or tortured them to death, he kept it as secret as
he could. Obama — despite radically expanding secrecy powers and persecuting
whistleblowers — does most of his wrongdoing wide out in the open. Warrantless
spying is openly acknowledged policy. Imprisonment without trial is ‘law.’
Torture is a policy choice, and the choice these days is to outsource it. Murder
is, however, the new torture. The CIA calls it ‘cleaner.’ I picture Bush’s
recent paintings of himself washing off whatever filth his mind is aware he
carries.
“Obama runs through a list of men, women, and children to murder on Tuesdays,
picks some, and has them murdered. We don’t know this because of a whistleblower
or a journalist. We know this because the White House wanted us to know it, and
to know it before the election. Think about that. We moved from the pre-insanity
state we were in circa 1999 to an age in which presidents want us to know they
murder people.
“That was primarily the work of George W. Bush, and every single person who
yawned, who looked away, who cheered, who was too busy, who said ‘it’s more
important to elect a new president than to keep presidential powers in check,’
or who said ‘impeachment would be traumatic’ — as if this isn’t.
“InGuatemalaa prosecutor has charged a former dictator with genocide, remarking,
‘It’s sending the most important message of the rule of law — that nobody is
above the law.’ It’s not so many years ago that theUnited Stateshad the decency
at least to hypocritically propose that standard to the world. Now, we advance
the standard of lawlessness, of ‘looking forward, not backward.’
“That’s why the people need to respond to the lie bury. Ann Wright is going to
be there. And Diane Wilson. Robert Jensen and Ray McGovern are coming. So are
Lon Burnam and Bill McElvaney and Debra Sweet. Hadi Jawad and Leah Bolger and
Marjorie Cohn and Kathy Kelly are coming. As are Coleen Rowley and Bill Moyer
and Jacob David George and Medea Benjamin and Chas Jacquier and Drums Not Guns.
“Also coming will be many familiar faces from the days when we used to protest
in Crawford. When we’d go into that one restaurant at the intersection in
Crawford, there’d be a cardboard cut-out Dubya standing there. We picked him up
and stood him in the corner, facing the corner. We said he needed to stay there
until he understood what he’d done wrong. In reality, of course, he was
cardboard. The lesson was for everyone else in the restaurant. It’s a lesson
that still needs to be taught.”
Please join us inDallas!
Coleen Rowley, a former FBI special agent and legal counsel in the Minneapolis
field office, wrote a “whistleblower” memo in May 2002 and testified to the
Senate Judiciary Committee about some of the FBI’s pre-9 / 11 failures. She
retired in 2004 and is now a writer and speaker.
John Brennan’s Heavy Baggage
Exclusive: After a messy confirmation — which asked new questions about drone
assassinations and old questions about enhanced interrogations — John Brennan
has taken over at CIA. But his past may not be so easily forgotten in a world
looking for accountability, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
By Ray McGovern
John Brennan brings heavy baggage to his new job as CIA Director legal as well
as moral arguably making it risky for him to travel to more than 150 countries
that are party to the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
It must be hard for Brennan to recognize that he cannot land in Europe, for
example, without fear of being arrested and arraigned for kidnapping (also known
as “extraordinary rendition”) and torture (now antiseptically called “EIT” for
“enhanced interrogation techniques,” which, by the way, is a direct translation
of verschaerfte Vernehmungright out of the Gestapo handbook).
For a freshly confirmed CIA Director it is de rigueur to pay an early call on
European counterparts. I remember preparing a briefing book for that purpose
just before a new CIA Director named George H. W. Bush took off for the UK,
Germany and France in the early spring of 1976. Unfortunately for Brennan, there
may be complications to enjoying April in Paris like a possible knock on the
door from a French prosecutor and the gendarmes.
Given Brennan’s role as a senior CIA official during President George W. Bush’s
“dark side” days of waterboarding detainees, renditioning suspects to Mideast
torture centers and making up intelligence to invade Iraq, Brennan’s advisers
are sure to remind him that he may be in as much jeopardy of being arrested as
former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
After leaving the Pentagon in late 2006, Rumsfeld had his own close call with
Lady Justice. In October 2007, Rumsfeld was in an auditorium in Paris preparing
to deliver a lecture when he learned that the Paris Prosecutor was mulling over
what to do after being served a formal complaint against Rumsfeld for ordering
and authorizing torture.
The charges against Rumsfeld were brought under the 1984 UN Convention Against
Torture (CAT), ratified by both the United States and France. The complaint was
brought in France under the concept of universal jurisdiction.
The criminal complaint stated that because the authorities in the United States
and Iraq had failed to launch any independent investigation into the
responsibility of Rumsfeld and other high-level U.S. officials for torture
despite a documented paper trail and government memos implicating them in direct
as well as command responsibility for torture it was the legal obligation of
states such as France to take up the case. The complaint also noted that the
U.S. had refused to join the International Criminal Court, which might have had
more routine jurisdiction.
In an attempt to avoid a major diplomatic headache, U.S. embassy officers
advised: “Run, Rummy, Run,” before the Paris authorities decided what to
do. Rumsfeld went out a side door, slipped into the embassy, and then got out of
Dodge tout suite.
Rumsfeld’s skedaddle from Paris thus spared him the possible humiliation that
befell Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who had been head of Chile’s military dictatorship
from 1973 to 1990. While on a trip to the United Kingdom in 1998, Pinochet was
arrested on a Spanish judicial warrant and was held under house arrest until
2000. The Spanish judge cited the same principle of universal jurisdiction.
Pinochet was freed only after the intervention of high-powered friends,
including former President George H.W. Bush and former Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger.
That was only the first of several times when European judges applied that
principle, declaring themselves competent to judge crimes committed by former
heads of state, despite local amnesty laws. If former heads of state are
vulnerable, it seemed to follow that former defense secretaries and other senior
subordinates must be as well.
If the Rumsfeld precedent were not enough to make Brennan think twice about
travel to Europe, he has surely been told of the criminal complaints lodged in
Switzerland (also a CAT signatory) against George W. Bush in early 2011. When
the former president learned of it, he decided not to take any chances and
abruptly nixed longstanding plans to address a Jewish charity dinner in Geneva
on Feb. 12, 2011.
The Goods on Brennan
Brennan’s checkered past has been an open secret. On Dec. 5, 2005, after
finishing a stint as acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center,
Brennan told Margaret Warner of the NewsHour that “rendition” (also known as
kidnapping) is “an absolutely vital tool … producing intelligence that has saved
lives.” (In his Feb. 7, 2013, testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on
his nomination to be CIA Director, Brennan backed off the “saved lives” claim,
since the committee had just completed its own comprehensive study disproving
it.)
On the NewsHour, Brennan described rendition as “the practice or the process of
rendering somebody from one place to another place. It is moving them, and the
U.S. Government will frequently facilitate that movement from one country to
another.”
Brennan’s co-panelist, another former CIA operations officer, objected to
turning prisoners over to foreign intelligence services, insisting that, “It
would be far better if the United States retained control of that terror suspect
and did the interrogation itself.”
This drew a sharp rejoinder from Brennan: “Quite frankly I think it’s rather
arrogant to think that we are the best in every case in terms of eliciting
information from terror suspects.” Right. In the decades since World War II,
many “friendly” intelligence services have acquired a lot more experience with
verschaerfte Vernehmungthan the CIA, though it often served as the tutor.
(The term verschaerfte Vernehmung was not only coined by the Nazis, but the
techniques were indistinguishable from those used during the presidency of
George W. Bush, according to a 2007 article in the Atlantic. The major
difference, so far, is that after WWII the torturers were punished as war
crimes, with the penalty often death by hanging.)
NewsHour’s Warner asked Brennan if the U.S. employs rendition “because we want
another country to do the dirty work?” Brennan replied: “It’s rather arrogant to
think that we’re the only country that respects human rights.”
A comprehensive study just published by the Open Society Justice Initiative
reveals that, under President George W. Bush, Brennan and his counter-terrorist
team suborned the officials of 54 other countries to cooperate in the rendition
program, providing help of various kinds, including transiting their land,
airports or airspace, or accepting secret prisons in their countries.
It is no secret that the purpose of “rendition” is to move detainees secretly to
countries with experience/expertise in “enhanced interrogation techniques” or to
the infamous CIA “black sites” abroad where waterboarding and other abuses took
place. Such activities violate the Convention Against Torture and, often,
national laws.
Some Accountability
What is new is that some governments in both “old” and “new” Europe a
distinction that Donald Rumsfeld would make derisively against France and other
parts of “old” Europe are now showing a common commitment to justice by
prosecuting former heads of their own intelligence services.
Italy’s former chief of military intelligence, Nicolo Pollari, just got ten
years in prison for helping the CIA abduct Egyptian cleric Osama Hassan Mustafa
Nasr (aka Abu Omar) from the streets of Milan in early 2003 and send him to
Egypt for more “enhanced” interrogation.
More than two dozen Americans have been tried and convicted in absentia for this
case of truly extraordinary rendition, in which they exhibited notoriously
adolescent tradecraft. If any of them travel to Europe, they risk arrest. John
Brennan should remember that highly embarrassing flap quite well, since it came
on the eve of his appointment to head a newly created Terrorist Threat
Integration Center.
And in “new” Europe, in January 2013, Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, former head of
Poland’s secret service and former minister of internal affairs, was indicted
for his role in cooperating with the CIA renditioners and
torturers. Siemiatkowski facilitated CIA renditions and the establishment of a
CIA “black prison” in Poland, where the U.S. arranged interrogation and torture
of terrorist suspects snatched from their home countries.
It is no overstatement that for the first time since World War II, many foreign
intelligence chiefs are likely to have very mixed reactions to being seen, even
in Washington, with a freshly minted CIA Director with the heavy baggage that
Brennan carries.
So where might these intelligence counterparts get together without too many
risks. What about the Bahamas?
It has signed CAT but has not yet ratified
it. So, with adequate security forces deployed, there may be a measure of safety
there. For the time being at least, Bahamas could offer one of the few feasible
ways that Brennan would be able to schmooze with key foreign counterparts
perhaps by offering as a bonus a timeshare week there. A short flight for
travelers from Washington, DC, Bahamas would have another cost-saving advantage
in saving on jet fuel.
Things to Do at Home, Like Iran
Besides worries about arrest, Brennan has other compelling reasons to stay at
home for a while. Iran’s nuclear program remains on the front burner as it has
since early 2008 when the Director of National Intelligence revealed the
National Intelligence Estimate completed in November 2007 concluding,
unanimously and “with high confidence,” that Iran had stopped working on nuclear
weaponization in 2003 and had not resumed that work a judgment revalidated every
year since by the DNI.
That assessment has not prevented neocons and their favorite media personalities
from trying to make Iran’s nuclear program seem more menacing. On “Meet the
Press” on Feb. 3, for example, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was the subject of
attempted mousetrapping by NBC’s Chuck Todd, who clearly was hoping Panetta
could be maneuvered into contradicting the NIE.
It was awkward for Panetta, but to his credit rather than apologize when Todd
pointed his finger accusing him of believing “the Iranians were not pursuing
nuclear weapons,” Panetta held firm under the goading. Finally, after conferring
with co-panelist Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Gen. Martin Dempsey, Panetta
said, with some exasperation:
“I no, I can’t tell you because
I can’t tell you
they’re in fact pursuing a weapon because that’s not what intelligence says we
we we’re they’re doing right now. ” (emphasis added)
John Brennan, when appearing before his Senate Intelligence Committee
confirmation hearing on Feb. 7, chose to deviate from the 2007 NIE by including
the following in his prepared written testimony: “And regimes in Tehran and
Pyongyang remain bent on pursuing nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic
missile delivery systems.” (emphasis added)
Never mind Brennan’s disingenuousness in conflating Iran with North Korea. The
question is how could he diverge so markedly both from what Panetta said just
four days before, as well as from the unanimous assessment of the entire U.S.
intelligence community that Iran stopped working on a nuclear weapon in 2003 and
has not resumed that work. In no way does that continuing assessment support his
claim that Tehran remains “bent on pursuing nuclear weapons” and ICBMs to
deliver them.
There are, of course, reasonable grounds to suspect that Iran might be seeking a
capability that eventually would allow it to rapidly break out of
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) constraints on building a nuclear weapon. That, of
course, is why U.S. intelligence is riveted on monitoring related activity in
Iran, as are the UN inspectors in Iran.
But “bent on pursuing” ICBMs? Really? Iran has not flight-tested a ballistic
missile with ranges in excess of its 2200-kilometer-range Sajjil MRBM. Nor has
it launched a space rocket that might conceivably be a suitable model for an
ICBM. Has Brennan found someone perhaps an analyst left over from the notorious
2002 NIE on WMD in Iraq to tell him the Iranians are testing ICBMs in their
hardened underground sites?
I doubt that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who observed at
close hand the concocting of fraudulent “intelligence” on Iraq, will cave in to
the likes of Brennan “fixing” the intelligence on Iran. However, there is no
word yet this year on when the DNI will present the annual worldwide threat
briefing traditionally given in sworn testimony to Congress in January or
February.
So the battle is joined. Assuming Congress, in its wisdom, does not altogether
cancel the worldwide threat briefing this year, and assuming I’m right about
Clapper, Brennan has his work cut out for him in squaring that circle about how
“bent” Iran seems to be on “pursuing nuclear weapons.”
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church
of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. During his 27 years as a CIA analyst,
he chaired NIEs and prepared and briefed the President’s Daily Brief. He now
serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
(VIPS).
He covered some of these issues during an interview Sunday for PressTV.
Neocons Escape Accountability
Nearing the Iraq War’s tenth anniversary, an overriding truth is that few of the
key participants in government, media or think tanks have faced accountability
commensurate with the crime. Indeed, many of these Mideast “experts” are
still go-to people for advice, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
By Paul R. Pillar
One regularly hears much talk in Washington about accountability, but also
regularly sees examples of how the concept of accountability gets applied in
this town in an inconsistent and warped way. There are the inevitable calls for
heads to roll after any salient untoward event, and huzzahs to senior managers
who do roll heads in response.
I have addressed previouslywhat tends to be wrong about how such episodes play
out. Too often there is no consideration of whether the untoward event is or is
not part of some larger pattern of malfeasance or incompetence, whether those at
any one level in a chain of command could reasonably be expected to prevent all
such events when the action is at some other level, and whether there is any
reason to expect the changes in personnel to result in any change in
institutional performance.
Nor is there consideration of why those who roll heads and collect the huzzahs
but who also are part of the same chain of command should be allowed to
determine, in a very un-Truman-like, the-buck-didn’t-get-to-me way, that
accountability stops just below their own level.
The converse of this is that in some instances in which there is a proven
pattern of error, and good reason to believe that if we trust the same people
who led us into failure in the past we are likely to be led into failure again,
no accountability seems to be taking place. Accountability in this instance
would not necessarily mean losing a particular job; it could mean being
discredited as a source of policy advice.
There is such a thing as malpractice in policy analysis. The most obvious
example of lack of this type of accountability is that neocons, the people who
gave us the Iraq War, still get listened to. Not only that, but they still get
listened to on matters eerily reminiscent of getting us into the Iraq War.
Another example is brought to mind by the latest set of recommendations from
veteran Middle East peace processor Dennis Ross. A fair reaction to this comes
from Lebanese commentator Rami Khouri. Khouri observes that it is understandable
to think about how the Obama administration, with its new secretary of state,
might try to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. But, he continues,
“Less understandable is why a leading American publication, the New York Times
in its Sunday Review section, should turn for advice on this issue from former
diplomat Dennis Ross. … I say this is less understandable because Ross has
almost nothing but failure to show for his 11 years of leadership on ArabIsraeli and other Middle Eastern issues in the White House and State Department,
between 1993 and 2011. Only in Washington could a serial failure in Arab-Israeli
diplomacy such as Ross be consulted on how to move ahead in Arab-Israeli
diplomacy.”
Another type of accountability-shedding, which one sees especially on Capitol
Hill but also elsewhere, is that someone who supported what turned out to be a
failure disclaims responsibility on grounds of having been misinformed. This
certainly has been a pattern regarding the Iraq War ever since it turned sour.
Some proponents of the war have confessed to having made an error; a larger
number have used the excuse of having been misinformed by the Bush
administration, the intelligence community, or both about Iraqi weapons
programs.
The excuse gets repeated even though very few members of Congress ever bothered
to look at what the intelligence agencies were saying either about the weapons
programs or about anything else concerning Iraq, and even though there would not
have been a case for launching this offensive war even if everything the
administration had said about the weapons had been true.
A similar way of shedding responsibility, again a favorite of members of
Congress, is to immerse oneself in the political mood of the moment and to
disregard how that mood represents a change from earlier moods. Here the
outstanding example is the practice that gets euphemistically called enhanced
interrogation techniques.
Scott Shane has an excellent description in the New York Times of the state of
play about this issue that confronts John Brennan, and particularly about the
question of how he will handle a reportedly damning report prepared by
Democratic Congressional staff.
He faces Democrats who have moved strongly into the anti-torture camp,
Republicans who haven’t moved as much, and employees involved in the
interrogation process who have seen public and political standards about this
subject shift markedly between the early post-9/11 days, when they were doing
some of this stuff, and now, when people want to hold someone accountable for
doing that stuff.
Given past patterns, the smoothest way out of this bind may be found in the
report itself, in which, according to Shane, people involved in the
interrogation program are described as having given “top Bush administration
officials, members of Congress, the American public and even their own
colleagues, possibly including Mr. Brennan himself, a deeply distorted account
of its nature and efficacy.”
Here’s a prediction: Mr. Brennan will find places at lower levels to satisfy the
appetite for accountability, while further determining that both he and members
of Congress had been “misinformed.”
Paul R. Pillar, in his 28 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, rose to be
one of the agency’s top analysts. He is now a visiting professor at Georgetown
University for security studies. (This article first appeared as a blog post at
The National Interest’s Web site. Reprinted with author’s permission.)
Does John Brennan Know Morality?
Sen. Barbara Mikulski and other defenders of CIA Director-nominee John Brennan
say they are reassured by his Jesuit education at Fordham that he must be wellgrounded in moral philosophy. But two Fordham alumni, Scott McDonald and Ray
McGovern, disagree in this open letter to Mikulski.
From: Scott McDonald and Ray McGovern
To: Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland
Subject: Misplaced Trust in “Values” of John Brennan
Dear Senator Mikulski:
During John Brennan’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence
Committee on February 7, you expressed yourself as being reassured by his values
and Jesuit education, suggesting you may intend to vote to approve his
nomination to be Director of the CIA. We believe your trust in Mr. Brennan is
misplaced.
Despite the fact that Mr. Brennan holds a degree from Fordham College, a Jesuit
college and our Alma Mater, we contend that he has failed to live the mission
that is compelled by his education, his Alma Mater, and his religion. In no way
is he a man “for and with others.”
To live up to the Jesuit mission, to be a man or woman “for others,” is to stand
on the side of the oppressed in opposition to structures of oppression and
violence. Mr. Brennan, a man who has built a career designing, implementing, and
defending such structures, can more aptly be described as a “man for
extrajudicial assassinations,” “a man for torture and rendering,” or “a man for
government secrecy and deception.”
During your brief questioning of Mr. Brennan, you suggested that his Jesuit
education, along with what you believe to be his values, inclined him to “speak
truth to power, to speak truth about power.” While a sound Jesuit education
calls one not only to be honest, but also to challenge unjust power structures,
Mr. Brennan has a record of anything but honesty, having repeatedly lied about
the CIA drone campaign, including whether or not it even existed, and the number
of civilian deaths it has caused.
Mr. Brennan has served as the Administration’s mouthpiece in deceiving the
American people and Congress about a program of extrajudicial killings,
including the targeting and killing of American citizens.
Mr. Brennan has defended the use of torture by the United States, as well as the
U.S. secret prison system throughout the world. He has also openly endorsed the
United States’ rendition policies, which effectively circumvent due process and
habeas corpus and outsource America’s torture regime to client states.
Senator Mikulski, you and 20 other Democratic Senators, were able to see through
the “intelligence” that deceived most of your colleagues into voting in October
2002 to authorize war on Iraq — intelligence later described by Senate
Intelligence Committee chair Jay Rockefeller as “unsubstantiated, contradicted,
or even non-existent.”
Your expressed inclination to trust Mr. Brennan leads us to conclude that you
have not performed due diligence in looking into his role, as right-hand-man to
then-Director George Tenet, in that consequential intelligence fraud. You voted
to approve the bipartisan Intelligence Committee report of June 2008 that
prompted those devastating remarks by Sen. Rockefeller. And so, we assume you
are aware that that “intelligence” was not “mistaken” as many still claim but,
rather, fraudulent.
As fellow graduates of Fordham College, who try to live out the mission of our
education, we feel it is our duty to voice serious concern and opposition not
only to the nomination of Mr. Brennan as Director of the CIA, but to Mr.
Brennan’s repeated use of his Jesuit education and his warped understanding of
Augustine’s “just war theory” to try to justify the unjustifiable, and to serve
as a shield of Jesuit morality around the Administration and the CIA’s immoral
and unlawful policies abroad. We find this abuse of Jesuit moral and ethical
training offensive.
Mr. Brennan should be challenged to reconcile his education with his
professional conduct. Reviewing his record, we find it highly doubtful that the
two can be reconciled. We therefore urge you, as a member of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, to vote against confirming him as CIA Director.
Sincerely,
Scott McDonald, B.S. summa cum laude (Phi Beta Kappa), 2012, Fordham
Ray McGovern, B.A. summa cum laude (Phi Beta Kappa), 1961, Fordham
Scott McDonald graduated from Fordham College in 2012 with a B.S. in Physics and
a minor in Mathematics. He plans to enroll in law school this fall and
eventually pursue a career practicing law in the public interest.
Ray McGovern graduated from Fordham College in 1961 with a B.A. in Russian. He
served as a CIA analyst for 27 years and now works with “Tell the Word” at the
ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.
Framing the Torture-Drone Debate
The neocons have lost ground within the Executive Branch, but continue to wield
great influence in Congress and Washington opinion circles. That sway is
revealed in the framing of debates on President George W. Bush’s power to
torture and President Obama’s use of lethal drones, notes ex-FBI agent Coleen
Rowley.
By Coleen Rowley
Sen. Rand Paul is not the only one with serious questions about the nomination
of John Brennan for CIA Director. Many people are rightly concerned that the CIA
nominee failed to provide a clear answer to Paul’s question: “Do you believe
that the president has the authority to order lethal force, such as a drone
strike, against aU.S. citizen onU.S. soil, and without a trial?”
On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on “Drones and
the War On Terror: When Can the U.S. Target Alleged American Terrorists
Overseas?” Unfortunately, besides being framed in a completely leading way, the
only witnesses who will testify, all four, were drawn from the same Lawfare
blog. Lawfare co-founder Benjamin Wittes (who doesn’t even possess a law degree
himself) gloatsabout it.
Have you ever heard of a congressional hearing that calls all of its “experts”
from one certain pro-war agenda-driven blog?!
(Note how the Lawfare blog byline, “Hard National Security Choices.” masks how
these blogging lawyers tend to always come up with the very easy answer that the
law of force is the answer instead of the rule of law. Clearly the aim of this
“Judiciary Hearing” should be questioned as it does not appear it is to fairly
consider the range of views about the illegality of drone assassination without
judicial process.)
Additionally, we in Minnesotahave initiated meetings and letters signed now by
over 200 members of different peace groups asking our Senators Amy Klobuchar and
Al Franken, given their important Judiciary Committee assignments, to use their
influence to seek answers. We’ve asked several other serious questions about
Brennan’s background with CIA torture black sites as well as his role in drone
assassinations (in this latest full letter to Sen. Klobuchar.)
Finally, our Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) group sent a
memo to Sen. Dianne Feinstein warning her about endorsing Brennan, who
cooperated with former CIA Director George Tenet as he helped fix the Bush
administration’s case for war onIraq.
It would be her next-to-worst mistake of her tenure on the Senate Intelligence
Committee, we told her. The worst we hope she now concedes was voting to
authorize the Iraq War. Read the letter in full here.
Let me also mention something else that seems to be going on in the “legal”
debate that is now distracting people as it devolves into party partisanship. A
number of law professors and legal commentators, from both the Right and the
Left (even most recently Georgetown Law Professor David Cole who wrote: “Laying
Down the Law Why Obama’s targeted killing is better than Bush’s torture“) have
turned what should be a much wider real debate based on facts and law into the
narrow, more partisan-driven question of “What’s worse? (Bush’s) Torture or
(Obama’s) Drone Bombing?”
Some like Cole, at least have the decency to preface their comments with “well
they are both wrong, but..” while John B. Bellinger III and others of his
Lawfare ilk post their challenges on the other side of the partisan “divide,”
that in fact killing is worse than torture, using such common sense arguments
that it’s better to be alive with your fingernails torn out than to be dead.
Isn’t this partisan “divide” as to whether to prefer torture or assassination as
the lesser evil a bit like counting how many demons can dance on the head of a
pin?! It’s certainly confusing to those of us who think torture AND drone
assassination are both wrong.
The unfortunate result, however and perhaps the goal of the two party kabuki
theater is that the entire red herring “debate” distracts the partisans of both
parties, making both Republicans and Democrats more complacent about both
torture and drone assassination. This is how so many people come to ignore the
right and wrong of it all and turn it into a mere political difference of
opinion.
Coleen Rowley is a retired FBI agent and former chief division counsel in
Minneapolis. She’s now a dedicated peace and justice activist and board member
of the Women Against Military Madness. [A version of this article was originally
posted at Huffington Post.]
The Dark Side of ‘Zero Dark Thirty’
From the Archive: The hunt-for-bin-Laden film, “Zero Dark Thirty,” portrays
torture as a key element in that search. But the filmmakers distorted the facts
and ignored the reality that torture is illegal, immoral and dangerously
ineffective, wrote Marjorie Cohn.
By Marjorie Cohn (First published Jan. 11, 2013)
On Jan. 11, eleven years to the day after George W. Bush sent the first
detainees to Guantanamo, the Oscar-nominated film Zero Dark Thirty makes its
national debut. Zero Dark Thirty is disturbing for two reasons.
First and foremost, it leaves the viewer with the erroneous impression that
torture helped the CIA find bin Laden’s hiding place in Pakistan. Secondarily,
it ignores both the illegality and immorality of using torture as an
interrogation tool.
The thriller opens with the words “based on first-hand accounts of actual
events.” After showing footage of the horrific 9/11 attacks, it moves into a
graphic and lengthy depiction of torture. The detainee “Ammar” is subjected to
waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and confined in a small box.
Responding to the torture, he divulges the name of the courier who ultimately
leads the CIA to bin Laden’s location and assassination. It may be good theater,
but it is inaccurate and misleading.
The statement “based on first-hand accounts of actual events” is deceptive
because it causes the viewer think the story is accurate. All it really means,
however, is that the CIA provided Hollywood with information about events
depicted in the movie.
Acting CIA Director Michael Morell wrote a letter to the Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence in which he admitted the CIA engaged extensively with the
filmmakers. After receiving his letter, Sens. John McCain, Dianne Feinstein and
Carl Levin requested information and documents related to the CIA’s cooperation.
The senators sent a letter to Morell saying they were “concerned by the film’s
clear implication that information obtained during or after the use of the CIA’s
coercive interrogation techniques played a critical role in locating Usama Bin
Laden (UBL).”
They noted, “the film depicts CIA officers repeatedly torturing detainees. The
film then credits CIA detainees subjected to coercive interrogation techniques
as providing critical lead information on the courier that led to the UBL
compound.” They state categorically: “this information is incorrect.”
The letter explains that after a review of more than six million pages of CIA
records, Feinstein and Levin made the following determination: “The CIA did not
first learn about the existence of the UBL courier from CIA detainees subjected
to coercive interrogation techniques. Nor did the CIA discover the courier’s
identity from CIA detainees subjected to coercive techniques.
“No CIA detainee reported on the courier’s full name or specific whereabouts,
and no detainee identified the compound in which UBL was hidden. Instead, the
CIA learned of the existence of the courier, his true name, and location through
means unrelated to the CIA detention and interrogation program.”
In a speech on the Senate floor, McCain declared, “It was not torture, or cruel,
inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees that got us the major leads that
ultimately enabled our intelligence community to find Osama bin Laden.”
McCain added: “In fact, not only did the use of ‘enhanced interrogation
techniques’ on Khalid Sheik Mohammed not provide us with the key leads on bin
Laden’s courier, Abu Ahmed; it actually produced false and misleading
information.”
Many high-level interrogators, including Glenn L. Carle, Ali Soufan and Matthew
Alexander, report that torture is actually ineffective and often interferes with
the securing of actual intelligence. A 2006 study by the National Defense
Intelligence College concluded that traditional, rapport-building interrogation
techniques are very effective even with the most recalcitrant detainees, but
coercive tactics create resistance.
Moreover, torture is counter-productive. An interrogator serving in Afghanistan
told Forbes, “I cannot even count the amount of times that I personally have
come face to face with detainees, who told me they were primarily motivated to
do what they did, because of hearing that we committed torture. Torture
committed by Americans in the past continues to kill Americans today.”
Torture is also illegal and immoral important points that are ignored in Zero
Dark Thirty. After witnessing the savage beating of a detainee at the beginning
of the film, the beautiful heroine “Maya” says “I’m fine.”
As he’s leaving Pakistan, Maya’s colleague Dan tells her, “You gotta be real
careful with the detainees now. Politics are changing and you don’t want to be
the last one holding the dog collar when the oversight committee comes.”
Torture is illegal in all circumstances. The Convention Against Torture and
Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, a treaty the United
States ratified which makes it part of U.S. law, states unequivocally: “No
exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war,
internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as
a justification of torture.”
The prohibition of torture is absolute and unequivocal. Torture is never lawful.
Yet despite copious evidence of widespread torture and abuse during the Bush
administration, and the Constitution’s mandate that the President enforce the
laws, President Obama refuses to hold the Bush officials and lawyers accountable
for their law breaking.
Granting impunity to the torturers combined with propaganda films like Zero Dark
Thirty, which may well win multiple Oscars, dilutes any meaningful public
opposition to our government’s cruel interrogation techniques.
Armed with full and accurate information, we must engage in an honest discourse
about torture and abuse, and hold those who commit those illegal acts fully
accountable.
Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Her most recent
book is The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse.