Don't Buy Books By Torture Apologists

In the sorry history of interviews with national security hacks from both political parties, this interview with Michael Hayden, former head of both the NSA and the CIA, on All Things Considered tonight has to stand among the worst of many self-serving book tours.


The interview is fairly uniformly odious, but the worst section is when Hayden recounts his admonition to his CIA successor, Leon Panetta.

I simply said: "Do not use the word 'torture' and 'CIA' in the same sentence ever again. You can object to some of the enhanced interrogation techniques. You can, in your heart of hearts, believe they meet some legal definition of torture. But Leon, you're taking over a workforce that did these things in good faith. They did these things with the assurance of the attorney general that they indeed were not torture. Do not accuse them of felonies."

By this logic, couldn't KGB or Gestapo torturers claim legal cover that they were just following orders from their legitimate Stalinist or Nazi governments? Maybe someone who spent his career embedded in the military and intelligence communities should have been more familiar with the first four Nuremberg Principles.

Principle I

"Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment."

Principle II

"The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law."

Principle III

"The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law."

Principle IV

Main article: Superior Orders "The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him".

This principle could be paraphrased as follows: "It is not an acceptable excuse to say 'I was just following my superior's orders'".

The Correction of the Day Concerns a Donald Who Was Worse Than Trump.

I just stumbled upon this correction to a July 14, 2005 Washington Post article about the use of Abu Ghraib tactics at Guanatamo before the low-level Abu Ghraib scapegoats for the widespread US torture program made the mistake of using a digital camera.

CORRECTION TO THIS ARTICLE

A July 14 article said that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved the use of certain interrogation tactics against a detainee who the government believed was to be the "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Rumsfeld approved the use of aggressive tactics against Mohamed Qahtani, but he did not specifically approve attaching a leash to Qahtani's chains or forcing him to wear women's underwear on his head, tactics that were authorized and used by interrogators on the prisoner in late 2002.

Rumsfeld just said "underwear"; he didn't say "women's underwear."

This Blog Could Not Exist in Saudi Arabia

Please read this appeal from the PEN American Center: Saudi Arabia: Halt Flogging of Raef Badawi

Raef Badawi has been sentenced to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes (scheduled to be delivered in groups of 50 after Friday morning prayers for 20 weeks, beginning today) for the great "crimes" of “insulting Islam” and “founding a liberal website.”

The United States should not accept this from an ally without the strongest condemnation, especially during this week when we have seen the brave journalists of Charlie Hebdo die for the right to express themselves freely. If Charb, Cabu, Tignous, and Wolinski had tried to publish their cartoons in a weekly published from Riyadh rather than Paris, we can be sure that they would have been executed -- or at least flogged 1,000 times -- long before this week.

I don't expect a formal public rebuke of our friends on the Arabian peninsula from the US Government, but I'll add this small formal "FUCK YOU SAUDI ARABIA" from TrueBlueLiberal.org.

Jon Stewart nails confessed torturer Dick "The Dick" Cheney

This is must-see TV from last night's The Daily Show. However, Dick Cheney and others responsible for "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" need to be asked these questions before an international court of law where "9/11-9/11-9/11-9/11!-9/11!!!-9/11!!!!!!" is not an acceptable defense for torture.

The Daily Show
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"George W. Bush, thank you for not dying while you were in office."
--Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, 14 December 2014

Legal Strategy 101 for War Criminals

With the Senate report on CIA torture during the Bush/Cheney years being released today, it's important once again to remember that Administration's intense opposition to United States participation in the International Criminal Court as soon as they came into power in 2001 (long before September 11th of that year). It's almost as if they knew that there might be Americans committing war crimes in the near future.

I couldn't find any lengthy statements from George Bush or Dick Cheney about their principled opposition to a permanent Nuremberg-inspired war crimes court, but I did find an interesting video explanation from the Captain Kangaroo they placed as their recess-appointment ambassador to the United Nations. John Bolton puts the reason the Iraq Warriors objected to the ICC clearly in the following lines delivered about three minutes into this video:

"And yet, the threat of prosecution -- the threat of being accused of being a war criminal -- can have an inhibiting effect. And since there's no accountability for these institutions, it could pose a threat to the United States -- or to the will of American friends and allies -- to take actions that they should undertake for their own self defense." --John Bolton [Emphasis Added]

Isn't that the point of all police and prosecutors and courts? To have an inhibiting effect on potential criminals?



And without American participation in an International Criminal Court, shouldn't even Bolton agree that it's therefore incumbent on American judicial institutions to look into and possibly prosecute the people behind the numerous war crimes listed in the report released today?

#ArrestBush for #Torture in British Columbia Tomorrow

The Canadian government probably doesn't have any more will to arrest America's most prominent war criminal than an Obama administration whose main concern is proving their bipartisanship (and continuing Bush's wars "with honor"), but the fact remains that both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have officially warned our neighbor to the north that a torturer and war criminal is on his way to Surrey, British Columbia tomorrow and should be arrested.
If you're on Twitter or other Social Notworking sites, please send your support for Bush's arrest.

Disassembling a Presidential Sentence

I couldn't believe the last sentence of this quote from today's "News" Conference when I heard it on NPR this afternoon, so I had to look it up in the transcript:

BUSH: I'm aware of the Amnesty International report, and it's absurd. It's an absurd allegation.
The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world. When there's accusations made about certain actions by our people, they're fully investigated in a transparent way.
It's just an absurd allegation.
In terms of, you know, the detainees, we've had thousands of people detained. We've investigated every single complaint against the detainees.
It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of and the allegations by people that were held in detention, people who hate America, people that have been trained in some instances to disassemble, that means not tell the truth. [emphasis added]

No, it doesn't, George. It means "to take things apart". Dissemble, on the other hand, does have a meaning very close to "not tell the truth," only it's a little more subtle than that. Calling you a dissembler, for example, when discussing your intentions toward Iraq in the summer of 2002, would probably be closer to the truth than calling you a liar. Calling you a disassembler, on the other hand, would refer to your intentions toward Social Security and the United Nations and every other piece of FDR's legacy to this country.

But I can't help thinking that this easy emphasis on the presidential abuse of the English language, on his funny little "Bushisms", takes away from the heart of this ridiculous complaint about Amnesty International: "...they based some of their decisions on the word of and the allegations by people that were held in detention. . ." Does this mean that the torturers and other legal authorities are the only people Amnesty International should listen to? The victims should have no say? When Solzhenitsyn challeges Stalin and Khruschev, we should ignore him? There's the real Bushism in this sentence. Maybe we should start parsing, deconstructing, and disassembling, his language more carefully.

--True Blue Liberal