[Mb-civic] Torture: some good questions + important online petition to sign

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

A few questions about torture 
Congress should get answers from the policy-makers
Karen J. Greenberg, Joshua L. Dratel
Sunday, January 23, 2005
 

The "torture memos," as they have come to be known, reveal much 
about the Bush administration. They point to a level of secrecy 
matching, or even surpassing, any sought or achieved by the 
executive branch in prior eras, even during wartime. 

They point to a lack of concern for accountability that veers far from 
previously acknowledged limits on unchecked executive power. 
They deliberately disregard, even nullify, the balance-of-powers 
doctrine that has defined the United States since its inception. 
Essentially, much of what has been put in place by the Bush 
administration since Sept. 11, 2001, has relied on the fear of terror 
as a means to establish a new doctrine of state; it is a doctrine that, 
before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, 
had lingered in the outer corridors of power. 

Much of the Patriot Act, for instance, had already been drafted 
before Sept. 11; and the proposal for the Department of Homeland 
Security was also in draft form at that time. So, too, were plans for a 
war in Iraq. 

The torture memos developed inside the White House by a task 
force of lawyers headed by presidential confidant and White House 
legal counsel Alberto Gonzales, whose Senate confirmation vote on 
his nomination for attorney general was delayed on Wednesday, are 
important, and not just as evidence of a policy that disregards 
human rights and reciprocity in the treatment of soldiers, civilians 
and prisoners. 

The torture memos are also, perhaps primarily, important because 
they reveal the most basic attitudes with which the administration 
greets the Congress, the courts, the American public and the world 
at large. 

One of the chief figures in turning legal questions on torture into 
policy in the matter of the treatment of prisoners has been Secretary 
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who oversaw the approval of harsh 
interrogation methods in 2002 and who became personally 
responsible for approving or disapproving the use of coercive 
interrogation and "Category 3" torture after the spring of 2003. 
It seems only apt and fitting, then, that he, as well as Gonzales, be 
brought before Congress and asked questions about this policy and 
his role in it. 

Based on a careful reading of the hundreds of pages of torture 
memos that poured out of the White House, the thousands of pages 
of military reports, investigations and original documents that have 
emerged from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, as well as the flood of 
recent FBI e-mails and prisoner complaints that have emerged from 
the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, we might -- as a lawyer and 
an historian who have been working in this area for the last two 
years -- suggest the following series of questions: 

-- Does torture work? Given the detailed attention shown in the 
White House memos to describing three levels of interrogation 
(from questioning to physical abuse) to be applied in the war on 
terror, is there an underlying assumption that torture in fact really 
works? That it is more effective than ordinary means of questioning 
prisoners? And, if so, what does it work to produce? 

Have you considered whether it is a means of venting frustration or 
a means of obtaining reliable information? Is there clinical, verifiable 
evidence that torture produces better information more quickly and 
more accurately than other methods of interrogation? 

Did your discussions of torture involve consulting experts in Israel, 
Britain, Egypt and elsewhere? If so, what did those sources have to 
say in recommending torture? Or was the administration convinced 
of the efficacy of torture before it began drawing up its legal 
documents? 

-- Assuming, for a moment, that torture is effective, what is the 
difference between this conflict and these detainees, and previous 
conflicts and prisoners? 

After all, the rationale that torture is necessary to save lives, if true, 
applies to any war. Surely the torture of German and Japanese 
soldiers -- particularly officers -- in World War II could have yielded 
information that might have "saved lives"? 

Wouldn't this then apply no less to U.S. soldiers and officers -- 
either in or, as in the case of Special Forces troops, out of uniform -- 
captured by the enemy? Indeed, why would it not apply to any 
situation in which lives are in the balance: cigarette manufacturers, 
polluters, ordinary criminals? Wouldn't torturing them for information 
"save lives"? 

-- Why was one of the first tasks of your administration finding a 
place -- Guantanamo Bay -- that was meant to be beyond the reach 
of the courts? Do you fear review by the courts? Why do you 
dismiss the role of the courts and ordinary law enforcement in 
eliciting information from prisoners in the war on terror? 

Isn't it possible that the art of interrogation, practiced by law 
enforcement officers and professional lawyers, might in fact elicit 
more important and more accurate information in assessing the 
motives, networks and plans of terrorists than, say, dogs at 
Guantanamo Bay or water boarding in some CIA holding area? 
What exactly was it you felt it was so important to keep secret from 
the courts? 

-- In the war on terror, do you see the Department of Justice as 
essentially an adjunct of the Department of Defense? Is there an 
expectation that what the Pentagon deems necessary in the war on 
terror and the war in Iraq will simply be justified after the fact by the 
Justice Department? 

What is your response to observers who have noted that the 
lawyers in the White House's Office of Legal Counsel acted more 
like corporate lawyers than protectors of the U.S. Constitution; that 
they followed the corporate model of providing arguments and 
justifications for their superiors -- in this case, justifying secrecy, 
torture and the disregard of the Geneva Conventions -- rather than 
approaching them objectively and independently as matters of legal 
inquiry? 

-- Do you think terrorists and alleged terrorists deserve to be 
tortured as a form of punishment? In a Nov. 27, 2002, memo on 
acceptable interrogation methods, you personally handwrote the 
following comment: "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing 
(as a counter-resistance technique) limited to 4 hours?" 

Is there a sense that the prisoners in Guantanamo, though not yet 
tried, let alone convicted, deserve the punitive treatment they 
receive, including acts that may be outlawed internationally and in 
domestic law? Do you consider them, by virtue of their potential 
association with terrorists, to deserve fewer rights than others? 

-- Can you address the timing of the development of a Bush 
administration torture policy and your decision to step away so 
quickly from the Geneva Conventions to which we are signatories? 
Why, as early as autumn 2001, before you even had prisoners who 
might have been available for torture, was the administration so 
willing to consider torture as a practice? 

Had such a policy been privately discussed prior to Sept. 11, 2001, 
and already deemed necessary to the security of the United States, 
and if so, what was the rationale for considering such a policy? 
What was your basis for concluding that traditional methods 
consistent with international law were a failure? 

-- Why have you not consulted Congress on the question of torture? 
What role, if any, do you think Congress should play in overseeing 
either the treatment of military prisoners or the military commissions 
you are planning to set up to try them? 

In the August 2002 memo from the Office of Legal Counsel, 
Congress, it was claimed, did not have the power to prohibit torture 
if the president, acting as commander-in-chief, deemed it 
necessary. Do you still agree with this, as Gonzales seems to, given 
his recent Senate testimony? Do you really think that, in times of 
war, the president has the power to do whatever he wants? 

-- Why did the complaints from detainees like David Hicks and the 
Tipton Three, NGOs, the International Red Cross, military whistle-
blowers and other governments regarding the mistreatment of 
detainees fall on deaf ears for so long? 

The recently released FBI memoranda and the recently unsealed 
court filings by Guantanamo detainees establish the existence of 
torture, abuse and mistreatment beyond any doubt. Why did 
Pentagon investigations (of which there have now been so many) 
not uncover this abuse, and why didn't the investigators pay any 
attention to the claims made by knowledgeable outside parties? 

-- If Gonzales were not involved in confirmation hearings, would the 
government's position on torture have been revised, as it was just 
before he testified? Who or what precipitated the administration's 
decision to suddenly change its definition of torture? How long had 
such a change been in the works? Who was responsible for that 
change, and who was involved in crafting the new definition(s)? 


Karen J. Greenberg is director of the Center on Law and Security at 
New York University School of Law, and Joshua L. Dratel is 
president-elect of the New York State Association of Criminal 
Defense Lawyers and civil lawyer for David Hicks, an Australian 
detained at Guantanamo. A version of this article appears on 
www.tomdispatch.com. 
Page C - 3
***
CAMPAIGN FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY 
STATEMENT CONDEMNING ATTACKS ON IRAQI 
TRADE UNIONISTS
        Please join Stanley Aronowitz, Medea Benjamin, Marc Cooper, 
Daniel Ellsberg, Barry Finger, Barbara Garson, Thomas Harrison, 
Doug Henwood, Doug Ireland, Joanne Landy, Jesse Lemisch, Betty 
Reid Mandell, Marvin Mandell, David McReynolds, Mike Parker, 
Glenn Perusek, Katha Pollitt, Matthew Rothschild, Jennifer Scarlott, 
Alan Sokal, Chris Toensing, Jay Schaffner and others in signing this 
statement. 
       To add your name to this statement, please go to 
www.cpdweb.org
Thank you, 
Joanne Landy, Thomas Harrison, Jennifer Scarlott
Co-Directors, Campaign for Peace and Democracy
OPPONENTS OF THE OCCUPATION CONDEMN ATTACKS ON 
IRAQI TRADE UNIONISTS 
        We, who opposed the U.S.-led war on Iraq and who call for an 
immediate end to the occupation of that country, are appalled by the 
torture and assassination in Baghdad on January 4, 2005 of Hadi 
Salih, International Officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions 
(IFTU). There are also disturbing reports of intimidation, death 
threats and murders targeting other IFTU members, trade unionists 
in general, and political activists. 
        
        We utterly condemn the assassination of Hadi Salih. We call 
upon all sides in the conflict in Iraq to respect the rights of non-
combatants as required by international law and to recognize the 
rights of workers to organize freely, without threat or harm, in trade 
unions of their own choosing in accordance with International Labor 
Organization (ILO) standards. 

        We believe that the physical targeting of trade unionists is in no 
way politically or morally acceptable, even though we disagree 
strongly with the IFTU's support of UN Resolution 1546, which 
supports the U.S. military presence in Iraq. This resolution has been 
used by the Bush Administration to justify keeping U.S. troops in the 
country.

        We also oppose the victory of those elements of the resistance 
whose agenda is to impose a repressive, authoritarian regime on 
the Iraqi people, whether that regime is Baathist or theocratic-
fundamentalist. We do not know whether such authoritarian 
elements have gained decisive control over the resistance to the 
U.S. forces and their Iraqi and international allies. We do know, 
however, that the continuing occupation of Iraq, which grows more 
brutal with every passing day, only strengthens these elements, 
increases their influence over the resistance and makes their 
ultimate victory more likely. 

        We further oppose the occupation because it is part and parcel 
of an imperial U.S. foreign policy that shores up undemocratic 
regimes like those of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, gives one-sided 
support to Israel against the Palestinians, and promotes unjust, 
inequitable economic policies throughout the world. Not only in Iraq 
but throughout the Middle East and globally U.S. foreign and military 
policy either directly or indirectly subverts freedom and democracy. 

To add your name, go to www.cpdweb.org

For further information about the issue,  contact us at cpd at igc.org 
Please send this message on to your friends and colleagues, and 
any listserves you are on. Thanks! 



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