Sotomayor and Maher Arar

Adam Liptak and Jo Becker have a piece in the New York Times today about Judge Sonia Sotomayor and the case of Maher Arar—an innocent Canadian man abducted by US authorities, "held in solitary confinement and subjected to harsh questioning before being sent to Syria ... where (he) was tortured ... and imprisoned for nearly a year in an underground cell the size of a grave until the Syrians finally let him go. (NYT. Feb. 17, 2009)"

Seems Sotomayor didn't approve of rendition and the innocent Arar being tortured. But some believe this case demonstrates a "blunt and even testy side (that) was on display in December during an argument before the federal appeals court in New York."

I hope that should President Obama continue this repulsive practice that all decent men and women display their blunt and testy sides.

Write Liptak and Becker:

'So the minute the executive raises the specter of foreign policy, national security,' Judge Sotomayor asked the lawyer, Jonathan F. Cohn, 'it is the government’s position that that is a license to torture anyone?'

Mr. Cohn managed to get out two and a half words: 'No, your hon—— .'

Judge Sotomayor cut him off, then hit him with two more questions and a flat declaration of what she said was his position. The lawyer managed to say she was wrong, but could not clarify the point until the chief judge, Dennis G. Jacobs, stepped in, asking, 'Why don’t we just get the position?'

Good for Sotomayor. The United States can afford to be just and humane and when we lose our capacity for outrage, we're through.

Marcy Wheeler's The Torture 13

Marcy Wheeler has an important piece in Salon naming the The Torture 13.

These key Bush administration officials authorized it, decided how to implement it and crafted the legal fig leaf to justify it.

[Top row from left: Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales. Second row: David Addington, William "Jim" Haynes, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, George Tenet (Wikipedia)]

It's clear that Obama has no intention at this point of pursuing transparency and accountability for what was done in our names the last eight years. There's another name for a government that behaves this way, no matter the rationale and intentions: A tyranny.

Democratic Dittoheads

PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) scream the commenters across the blogs of those who dare criticize the leader.

The issue is Obama's decision to bar release of torture photos, and you are a PUMA if you criticize Barack Obama. The Party merits your unwavering support.

Some of the shall we say less-than-sophisticated Democrats get right in line behind the leader, a la the most unthinking of the Republican mob.

Gleen Greenwald notes today:

Apparently, the proper reaction to heinous acts by our political leaders is not to hold them accountable but, instead, to hide evidence of what they did. That's the warped mentality Obama is endorsing today, and has been endorsing since January 20.

Raul Hilberg and Norman Cohn, were they alive today, would look on in disgust at this mob of the unthinking.

I thought the dittoheads were limited to their side.

Obama's Assualt - A Sister Secrecy Moment

Update: Greenwald on Obama's latest effort to conceal evidence of Bush era crimes. Dittoheads beware, Greeenwald links to John Aravosis (Obama's logic was "a bit Bushian") Steve Hynd ("Obama Trades Our Principles For Cheneyism") TPM ("Obama falls back on Bushisms") Dan Froomkin ("Obama Joins the Cover-Up"). And as Greenwald points out, "Obama now has new cheer-leaders: Bill Kristol, Michael Goldfarb and Max Boot," and come MyDD commenters below.

This is a trust-breaking moment, President Obama, and you really blew it.

It's not a mistake. It's an assault against this democracy.

That would be President Obama's decision to to block release of detainee photos of torture out of a concern that the photos would “further inflame anti-American opinion.”

What is this, a Sister Secrecy moment? Are you trying to prove to America that you're really not an open government, transparency-loving, honest, straight-shooting democrat?

Obama's argument is:

We cannot practice democracy at home by ensuring that the American people have access to IMAGES of facts already known, because we're afraid that sympathizers of torture victims will seek revenge.

If Obama is worried about the troops, get them the hell of out of these two wars in Asia already. Release the photos and then condemn them in the strongest possible terms, singling out the Neocon idiots on whose watch these obscenities happened and who ordered torture to begin with, instead of refusing to investigate and prosecute these war criminals.

From the Times:

The A.C.L.U. sharply criticized the president’s decision. In a statement, its executive director, Anthony D. Romero said:

'The Obama administration’s adoption of the stonewalling tactics and opaque policies of the Bush administration flies in the face of the president’s stated desire to restore the rule of law, to revive our moral standing in the world and to lead a transparent government. This decision is particularly disturbing given the Justice Department’s failure to initiate a criminal investigation of torture crimes under the Bush administration.

'It is true that these photos would be disturbing; the day we are no longer disturbed by such repugnant acts would be a sad one. In America, every fact and document gets known – whether now or years from now. And when these photos do see the light of day, the outrage will focus not only on the commission of torture by the Bush administration but on the Obama administration’s complicity in covering them up. Any outrage related to these photos should be due not to their release but to the very crimes depicted in them. Only by looking squarely in the mirror, acknowledging the crimes of the past and achieving accountability can we move forward and ensure that these atrocities are not repeated.'

Already, the Democratic equivalents of dittoheads are lining up behind the leader. Pathetic.

Prosecute Torture Conspirators Now

Update: Conason: If Dick Cheney believes he can prove that torture saved us from terrorist attacks, why does he oppose a full investigation?

Appealing to state power to set things right, for justice, is a political act just as defenders of torture say it is.

Listening to the words of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and this deplorable array of liars as they deny-defend-rationalize torture is a political act, just as doing nothing is a political act.

It's a high hurdle for state prosecution but it has been met.

We can't help the victims of American torture now, but we can help ourselves and make it more difficult for this to happen again: Prosecute the group of torture conspirators working under cover of state to inflict this crime.

But forget about a bipartisan commission. We need a commission of human rights advocates and rule-of-law adherents. We need Robert H. Jackson dedicated to Reason.

This is a historical moment for President Obama, a morally defining moment. Don't blow it!

From Frank Rich:

"Five years after the Abu Ghraib revelations, we must acknowledge that our government methodically authorized torture and lied about it. But we also must contemplate the possibility that it did so not just out of a sincere, if criminally misguided, desire to 'protect' us but also to promote an unnecessary and catastrophic war. Instead of saving us from 'another 9/11,' torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 so that fearful Americans would be bamboozled into a mission that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. The lying about Iraq remains the original sin from which flows much of the Bush White House’s illegality."

Rice approved CIA waterboarding

From the BBC:

The CIA's use of waterboarding to interrogate terrorism suspects was approved by Condoleezza Rice as early as 2002, a senate report reveals.

As national security adviser, Ms Rice consented to the harsh interrogation of al-Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah, the Senate Intelligence Committee found.

Bush Used Torture to Support Iraq Lies

Update: Mark Benjamin: Bush officials said they only tortured terrorists after they wouldn't talk. New evidence shows they planned torture soon after 9/11 -- and used it to find links between al-Qaida and Saddam. Mike Madden: Rumsfeld: Architect of torture The secretary of defense began laying the groundwork for detainee abuse years before Abu Ghraib.

Bush and Cheney approved torture to get false information to support their lies to the American people to invade Iraq.

From Report: Abusive tactics were used to find Iraq-al Qaida link:

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration put relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist

Obama Blog on Torture Memos

Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 7:50 pm

What Makes the United States Special

Last week the President released memos issued by the Office of Legal Counsel between 2002 and 2005 as part of an ongoing court case. The memos discussed techniques that were used in the interrogation of terrorism suspects during that period, techniques that President Obama has disavowed. Today the President visited CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia to speak to CIA employees directly. Telling them of his great faith in them, and the faith that the American people have in them, he went on to discuss precisely why he has decided to change interrogation policy for the United States:
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Now, I have put an end to the interrogation techniques described in those OLC memos, and I want to be very clear and very blunt. I've done so for a simple reason: because I believe that our nation is stronger and more secure when we deploy the full measure of both our power and the power of our values –- including the rule of law. I know I can count on you to do exactly that.

There have been some conversations that I've had with senior folks here at Langley in which I think people have expressed understandable anxiety and concern. So I want to make a point that I just made in the smaller group. I understand that it's hard when you are asked to protect the American people against people who have no scruples and would willingly and gladly kill innocents. Al Qaeda is not constrained by a constitution. Many of our adversaries are not constrained by a belief in freedom of speech, or representation in court, or rule of law. I'm sure that sometimes it seems as if that means we're operating with one hand tied behind our back, or that those who would argue for a higher standard are naïve. I understand that. You know, I watch the cable shows once in a while. (Laughter.)

What makes the United States special, and what makes you special, is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it's hard, not just when it's easy; even when we are afraid and under threat, not just when it's expedient to do so. That's what makes us different.

So, yes, you've got a harder job. And so do I. And that's okay, because that's why we can take such extraordinary pride in being Americans. And over the long term, that is why I believe we will defeat our enemies, because we're on the better side of history.

So don't be discouraged by what's happened in the last few weeks. Don't be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we've made some mistakes. That's how we learn. But the fact that we are willing to acknowledge them and then move forward, that is precisely why I am proud to be President of the United States, and that's why you should be proud to be members of the CIA. (Applause.)

Obama releases torture memos, vows 'never again'

Update: Ex-Bush aides: Releasing torture memos is dangerous
Now the terrorists will know how we'll torture them, the theory goes,
writes Mike Madden.

Good, not good, great:
by Glenn Greenwald:
Obama releases torture memos
If early reports are correct that there are few redactions in the Bush-era documents, the president will have passed a major test

Bad. On the other hand Bush, Cheney, Yoo, Gonzales, Addington, Feith, Haynes, and Bybee and the whole rotten bunch ought to get the ax before anyone. Maybe retributive justice vis a vis exposure won't do anyone any good.
by Alex Koppelman: Administration takes one step forward, one back
The DOJ will release disputed memos about torture, but CIA officials won't be prosecuted for waterboarding

Never again, Obama says below; he has set the record straight, what more can we ask?

Perhaps more facts.

"As the President recognized, there is no valid reason to shield these memos when the techniques they describe have already been exposed and discontinued by the new administration," says Elizabeth Goitein, Director of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Project.

"Disclosure is only the first step though," Goitein adds. "There must also be accountability for the illegal policies and practices sanctioned in these memos. We cannot move forward toward a sound and effective national security policy unless we address the systemic failures that allowed the despicable practices described in these memos to be adopted and implemented. That's why we need an independent, non-partisan commission to examine the facts and circumstances surrounding torture and other counter-terrorism practices that violated our laws and our values."

---
Statement of President Barack Obama on Release of OLC Memos

The Department of Justice will today release certain memos issued by the Office of Legal Counsel between 2002 and 2005 as part of an ongoing court case. These memos speak to techniques that were used in the interrogation of terrorism suspects during that period, and their release is required by the rule of law.

My judgment on the content of these memos is a matter of record. In one of my very first acts as President, I prohibited the use of these interrogation techniques by the United States because they undermine our moral authority and do not make us safer. Enlisting our values in the protection of our people makes us stronger and more secure. A democracy as resilient as ours must reject the false choice between our security and our ideals, and that is why these methods of interrogation are already a thing of the past.

But that is not what compelled the release of these legal documents today. While I believe strongly in transparency and accountability, I also believe that in a dangerous world, the United States must sometimes carry out intelligence operations and protect information that is classified for purposes of national security. I have already fought for that principle in court and will do so again in the future. However, after consulting with the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, and others, I believe that exceptional circumstances surround these memos and require their release.

First, the interrogation techniques described in these memos have already been widely reported. Second, the previous Administration publicly acknowledged portions of the program – and some of the practices – associated with these memos. Third, I have already ended the techniques described in the memos through an Executive Order. Therefore, withholding these memos would only serve to deny facts that have been in the public domain for some time. This could contribute to an inaccurate accounting of the past, and fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about actions taken by the United States.

In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution. The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world. Their accomplishments are unsung and their names unknown, but because of their sacrifices, every single American is safer. We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs.

Going forward, it is my strong belief that the United States has a solemn duty to vigorously maintain the classified nature of certain activities and information related to national security. This is an extraordinarily important responsibility of the presidency, and it is one that I will carry out assertively irrespective of any political concern. Consequently, the exceptional circumstances surrounding these memos should not be viewed as an erosion of the strong legal basis for maintaining the classified nature of secret activities. I will always do whatever is necessary to protect the national security of the United States.

This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America’s ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.

The United States is a nation of laws. My Administration will always act in accordance with those laws, and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals. That is why we have released these memos, and that is why we have taken steps to ensure that the actions described within them never take place again. ###

Terrorists Rejoice as Obama Renounces Torture

I wonder if Joe Lieberman and Company who repeated the talking point that we need torture, though we don't do it, as a weapon against terrorism really believed it.

No matter.

From The Christian Science Monitor's Warren Richey reports:

Obama moves to overhaul ‘war on terror’ practices
In three executive orders signed Thursday, he departs sharply from Bush's policies on Guantanamo, CIA prisons, and harsh interrogation tactics.

President Obama is taking swift and dramatic action to shift the direction of America’s efforts to fight terrorism, counter the threat from Al Qaeda, and safeguard the nation. On Thursday, on his second full day in the White House, Mr. Obama signed three executive orders and a memorandum that provide the broad outline of a major overhaul of US national security policy. The actions mark not only a sharp departure and rejection, but a rebuke, of policies that formed the backbone of President Bush’s global war on terror.

Mr. Obama’s executive orders call for:

• Closing the terror prison camp at Guantanamo within a year.

• Closing 'as expeditiously as possible' all secret CIA prisons overseas.

• Banning the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics not authorized by the Army Field Manual.

• Requiring the International Red Cross be granted access to any individual detained by the US in any armed conflict.

• Requiring that all US detainees be treated in accord with at least the minimal protections of the Geneva Conventions.

It would funny though if a Lieberman, Cheney or Bush or some other Republican were to say, 'Well, I was wrong and I lied anyway.'

U.S. Torture Truth Commission Needed

In this morning's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof calls for the establishment of a Truth Commission to document and investigate the human rights violations of the United States government under the Bush administration.

Kristof writes:

The first step of accountability isn’t prosecutions. Rather, we need a national Truth Commission to lead a process of soul searching and national cleansing. ... Both Barack Obama and John McCain should commit to impaneling a Truth Commission early in the next administration. This commission would issue a report to help us absorb the lessons of our failings, the better to avoid them during the next crisis.

Good idea on not prosecuting the perpetrators, as any rational accounting could sensibly hold most of us reading these words accountable. And that's not so realistic.

So, let's establish the Truth Commission and take the folks directly responsible for conceiving and carrying out the despicable American torture program: George Bush, Dick Cheney, John Yoo, David Addington, the whole stinking lot of them; subpoena the bastards, grant total immunity save the vow to prosecute any lie or half-truth left out under testimony.

As for Kristof's suggestion that we stack the proposed commission with military personnel--forget that, let's stack the commission with human rights activists, investigators, and journalists who have a demonstrated history of reporting on human rights violations.

Allan Nairn, human rights activist and journalist, would be the model.

Some resources on human rights:

- United States Constitution
- Fourth Geneva Convention (full text)
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- Physicians for Human Rights Report on American Torture

Waterboarding Is Torture: Hitchens' First-hand Account

Christopher Hitchens, on assignment from Vanity Fair, arranged to be tortured by waterboarding and write a first-person account. He lasted for 17 seconds during the exercise.

From Vanity Fair (video follows below here), Hitchens writes:

Here is the most chilling way I can find of stating the matter. Until recently, 'waterboarding' was something that Americans did to other Americans. It was inflicted, and endured, by those members of the Special Forces who underwent the advanced form of training known as sere (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). In these harsh exercises, brave men and women were introduced to the sorts of barbarism that they might expect to meet at the hands of a lawless foe who disregarded the Geneva Conventions. But it was something that Americans were being trained to resist, not to inflict.
[Read the entire piece at Vanity Fair.]

The video is not for children to watch, but very much for adults to watch and act against this obscenity of our government.

One can only guess how many innocents have suffered at the hands of the modern-day Torquemada: America under Bush and his assorted chickenhawks.

I have not been a fan of Hitchens' writing the last several years, but Hitchens deserves credit for his first-hand account exposing the cowardice and betrayal by the Bush administration.

Secret Torturing US Government

From Tom Lasseter at McClatchy:

The framework under which detainees were imprisoned for years without charges at Guantanamo and in many cases abused in Afghanistan wasn't the product of American military policy or the fault of a few rogue soldiers.

It was largely the work of five White House, Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers who, following the orders of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, reinterpreted or tossed out the U.S. and international laws that govern the treatment of prisoners in wartime, according to former U.S. defense and Bush administration officials. ...

NYT: Fear of Exposure to Public Drove Suppression of CIA Torture Tapes

The 2,060 piece in today's New York Times tells the American public the essential story of the truly immoral regime that is the Bush administration.

See SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI's piece that one hopes leads to denunciations across the globe.

Not only did the CIA under Bush torture human beings, but they concealed and destroyed the taped evidence of torture for fear that the American public and Muslims would object. All the time, Bush and his drones blared: "We do not torture."

This contempt for democratic accountability makes the political illegitimacy of the Bush regime plain for all to see. Its contempt for human rights makes the Bush regime war criminals who ought to face trial.

From the Times:

But interviews with two dozen current and former officials, most of whom would speak about the classified program only on the condition of anonymity, revealed new details about why the tapes were made and then eliminated. Their accounts show how political and legal considerations competed with intelligence concerns in the handling of the tapes. ...

The discussion about the tapes took place in Congressional briefings and secret deliberations among top White House lawyers, including a meeting in May 2004 just days after photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq had reminded the administration of the power of such images. The debate stretched over the tenure of two C.I.A. chiefs and became entangled in a feud between the agency’s top lawyers and its inspector general. The tapes documented a program so closely guarded that President Bush himself had agreed with the advice of intelligence officials that he not be told the locations of the secret C.I.A. prisons. Had there been no political or security considerations, videotaping every interrogation and preserving the tapes would make sense, according to several intelligence officials. ...

The investigations over the tapes frustrate some C.I.A. veterans, who say they believe that the agency is being unfairly blamed for policies of coercive interrogation approved at the top of the Bush administration and by some Congressional leaders. Intelligence officers are divided over the use of such methods as waterboarding.

###

Bush Stonewalls CIA Torture Tapes Destruction

Do we have a right to know what George W. Bush's role was in the destruction of the CIA torture tapes?

Apparently not.

From the Times:

President Bush deflected questions on Thursday about the destruction of C.I.A. interrogation tapes, saying that he will withhold comment until investigations into the affair are complete.

When the investigations are over, Bush will say: Time to move on.

###

The U.S. Torture Squads: Inhuman and Illegal

A Salon exclusive by Mark Benjamin chronicles the plight of an innocent Yemeni man tortured and brutalized for 19 months.

This is why Republicans block bills in Congress outlawing torture, bills which would make U.S. law on torture clearly in accordance with the U.S. Army Field Manual and international law. Because Republicans under Bush do torture and need protection from the investigations of the civilized world.

Writes Benjamin:

The CIA held Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah in several different cells when he was incarcerated its network of secret prisons known as "black sites." But the small cells were all pretty similar, maybe 7 feet wide and 10 feet long. He was sometimes naked, and sometimes handcuffed for weeks at a time. In one cell his ankle was chained to a bolt in the floor. There was a small toilet. In another cell there was just a bucket. Video cameras recorded his every move. The lights always stayed on -- there was no day or night. A speaker blasted him with continuous white noise, or rap music, 24 hours a day.

The guards wore black masks and black clothes. They would not utter a word as they extracted Bashmilah from his cell for interrogation -- one of his few interactions with other human beings during his entire 19 months of imprisonment. Nobody told him where he was, or if he would ever be freed.

It was enough to drive anyone crazy. Bashmilah finally tried to slash his wrists with a small piece of metal, smearing the words "I am innocent" in blood on the walls of his cell. But the CIA patched him up.

So Bashmilah stopped eating. But after his weight dropped to 90 pounds, he was dragged into an interrogation room, where they rammed a tube down his nose and into his stomach. Liquid was pumped in. The CIA would not let him die. ...

"This really shows the human impact of this program and that lives are ruined by the CIA rendition program," said Margaret Satterthwaite, an attorney for Bashmilah and a professor at the New York University School of Law. "It is about psychological torture and the experience of being disappeared."

###

Canadian Federal Court: U.S. Does Torture

Karl Rove, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are ideologues of different abilities and temperaments.

But one thing they all share in their rigid, authoritarian ideology is their enthusiasm to torture people, and then lie about it.

Human rights attorney and Harper's writer Scott Horton reports on a key decision announced last Thursday by Canada’s Federal Court.

Writes Horton: "Here’s the short version: '''We do not torture?' That claim has been formally reviewed by a court and found to be a lie."

Horton's longer version (and the work of Professor Jaya Ramji-Nogales) are worth reading, if you object to torture and our government lying about torturing, especially innocent people.
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