New Yorker Correspondent Jane Mayer and British Attorney Philippe Sands on Bush Administration Torture and How Obama Should Address It
We spend the hour on the latest news around the US torture of foreign prisoners with two guests who have helped expose many of its facets: New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, and British attorney Philippe Sands, author of Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values. Mayer and Sands discuss the Obama administration’s recent decisions to block the release of photographs showing the abuse of prisoners at overseas CIA and military jails and revive the military tribunal system; the scrutiny of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s role in attending torture briefings; Spanish efforts to investigate torture allegations at Guantanamo Bay; Democratic-led resistance to funding the Obama administration’s plan to close Guantanamo; and more. (Click related link to read more and view interview.)
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Worth watching :
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#30856294
Worth reading: Obama Huddles With Human Rights Groups Before Security Speechhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/20/obama-huddles-with-human_n_206104.html
Under heavy criticism for a series of decisions on national security that resembled, for some, those of the Bush years, President Barack Obama hosted a lengthy meeting on Wednesday with the leaders of several key human rights and civil liberties groups.
Addressed were the topics that promise to be front and center during the President's major foreign policy speech scheduled for Thursday.
According to an attendee, Obama expressed frustration with Congress' decision to remove funding for the closure of the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. The president declared that his hands were tied in some ways regarding the use of reformed military tribunals, though he pledged to try as many detainees as possible in Article III federal courts. (click related link to read more.)
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Former Vice President Dick Cheney has triggered a roaring debate by his recent and repeated claim that torture "worked." Last week, Senator Lindsay Graham echoed the claim that torture "works" and added that is has for five hundred years (a timescale which connects us to the Spanish Inquisition).
Recent polls show a slim majority of Americans opposing any investigation or prosecution of torture under the Bush Administration, even though a majority acknowledges that torture took place. Cheney's claims may have had a major impact on public opinion.
The reliability and truthfulness of information obtained under torture is in serious doubt. But even if it weren't, the whole argument over the claim that torture works is grotesquely beside the point. The issue is not whether torture works, but whether there are other methods of obtaining equivalent or better information that don't incur the enormous moral, legal and security hazards torture entails. (Click related link to read more.)
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Friends,
Take a minute to consider the deluge of news about torture and prosecutions in the last couple of weeks. I made a rough list of 12 positive stories and developments. There is huge momentum here. Feel encouraged, and feel free to add on, comment or correct.
Please pass the world -- torture is always wrong, and must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Here are a few things each of us can do:http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/39106
Thank you,
Linda Boyd
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1. Release of Memos Fuels Push for Inquiry Into Bush’s Terror-Fighting Policies
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/washi ... legal.html
2. Conyers' letter to Holder asking for special council: http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/869-co ... rture.html
3. Spain is investigating war crimes --
http://www.ccrjustice.org/newsroom/pres ... ion-u.s.-t
4. Nadler Press Release renews call for Special Prosecutor: http://www.house.gov/list/press/ny08_na ... 41709.html
5. HR 104, by Conyers -- Calling for Commission to investigate: http://www.pubrecord.org/law/815-conyer ... rimes.html
6. Federal Court Permits Landmark ACLU Rendition Case To Go Forward : http://www.aclu.org/safefree/rendition/ ... 90428.html
7. Torture was used to create justification for war in Iraq: http://www.truthout.org/042509A
And, the Military was against torture http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03171.html
8. Yoo -- at the very least derelict in his duties, if not obstructing evidence: http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/854-re ... oners.html
9. NYT editorial supports impeaching Bybee: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/opinion/19sun1.html
10. Leahy pushing for Commission -- again: http://www.truthout.org/042209A
11. Britain launched an investigation into torture claims: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090415/w ... 9189115500
12. Obama says waterboarding is torture in today's press conference :http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/29/obama-asserts-waterboardi_n_193270.html
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Jay Bybee finds it "frustrating" that he hasn't been able to speak publicly about his role in authorizing torture when he was a top lawyer in the Bush administration, according to a recent account in the Washington Post.
Patrick Leahy wants to help him out.
The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, a Democrat from Vermont, wrote to Bybee Wednesday to call him to testify before his panel.
"The Post article concludes that you have allegedly found it 'frustrating' not to be able to explain your position with regard to these memos. By coming forward to testify, you will be able to explain your position with regard to these matters, including your involvement and your knowledge regarding how these memos were written and approved, what considerations went into that process, who was consulted in that process and the roles of various individuals," Leahy wrote. (Click related link to read more)
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QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. You've said in the past that waterboarding, in your opinion, is torture. Torture is a violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. Do you believe that the previous administration sanctioned torture?
OBAMA: What I've said -- and I will repeat -- is that waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. I don't think that's just my opinion; that's the opinion of many who've examined the topic. And that's why I put an end to these practices.
I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do, not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.
I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, "We don't torture," when the entire British -- all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat.
(click related link to read more)
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The Stomach-Turning Truth About Bush's Torture Programs, By Scott Horton, The Daily Beast. April 28, 2009.
Obama insists America must "look forward" on the question of torture and accountability, but we're far from closure.
In the space of a week, the torture debate in America has been suddenly transformed. The Bush administration left office resting its case on the claim it did not torture. The gruesome photographs from Abu Ghraib, it had said, were the product of “a few bad apples” and not of government policy. But the release of a series of grim documents has laid waste to this defense. The Senate Armed Services Committee’s report—adopted with the support of leading Republicans senators John McCain, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham—has demonstrated step by step how abuses on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan had their genesis in policy choices made at the pinnacle of the Bush administration. A set of four Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel memoranda from the Bush era has provided a stomach-turning legal justification of the application of specific torture techniques, including waterboarding. (Click related link to read more.)
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Dick Cheney has called for declassifying memos he claims will vindicate the Bush administration's torture policy. Now former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV urges the former vice president to extend his demand for transparency to his still-secret testimony in the Scooter Libby obstruction of justice case.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney's reemergence on the political stage after his ignominious departure on Inauguration Day, eschewing the traditional handshake with his successor and the new president, is nothing if not ironic. The most secretive individual in American politics is now calling for the selective release of documents that remain classified in one of his own files marked "Detainees." We have also learned that a principal reason for having tortured senior al Qaeda detainees was not, in fact, to defend the Homeland, but rather to build the case for war with Iraq based on alleged ties between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Despite literally hundreds of waterboarding sessions, there was no evidence developed that such a link existed. But that did not stop Cheney. He and others in the Bush administration simply asserted a link even though they knew one did not exist. (please click related link to read more)
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Victory! House Judiciary Democrats Want Special Prosecutor for Torture
This will help and you made it happen!
(PLEASE THANK the signatories below and urge the rest to do the same: You can leave a message for the entire House Judiciary Committee: 202-225-3951 - LB)
Judiciary Democrats Call for Special Counsel on Torture
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) and fifteen other Judiciary Democrats today called on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special counsel to investigate possible violations of federal criminal law related to the interrogation of detainees. The attorney general acknowledged in his confirmation hearings that waterboarding is torture. Moreover, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the top Bush Administration official in charge of military commissions have also concluded that the United States engaged in torture of detainees. The Geneva Convention and the Convention Against Torture both require the United States to investigate, and if necessary prosecute, alleged violations. Justice Department regulations provide for the appointment of a special counsel when a criminal investigation is both warranted and in the public interest, and when an investigation may pose a conflict of interest within the Department. Since these conditions are present, the signatories below conclude that a special counsel should be appointed.(Click on related link to read more.)
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This is an important win for the ACLU, and all of us. Now Boeing subsidiary Jeppeson can be sued for providing rendition flights. "State secrets" are the tools of dictators. This decision asserts that the government cannot invoke "state secrets" to throw cases out of court.
Now it is even more possible to obtain the information needed to successfully prosecute criminals in the Bush Administration. The Obama Administration has an obligation to pursue the prosecution of those who created U.S. torture policy -- in violation of international law and the Constitution.
Torture is wrong, ineffective and illegal. Bush Administration officials used torture to illicit false confessions to permit a war with Iraq.
Please urge Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and ALL government officials who have participated in torture and other war crimes. AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
Thank you,
Linda
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http://www.aclu.org/safefree/rendition/ ... 90428.html
Federal Court Permits Landmark ACLU Rendition Case To Go Forward (4/28/2009)
Government Cannot Claim State Secrets To Deny Torture Victims Day In Court
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org
NEW YORK – A federal appeals court today ruled that a landmark American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan Inc. for its role in the Bush administration's unlawful extraordinary rendition program can go forward. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court dismissal of the lawsuit, brought on behalf of five men who were kidnapped, forcibly disappeared and secretly transferred to U.S.-run prisons or foreign intelligence agencies overseas where they were interrogated under torture. The government had intervened, improperly asserting the "state secrets" privilege to have the case thrown out. Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled, as the ACLU has argued, that the government must invoke the state secrets privilege with respect to specific evidence, not to dismiss the entire suit.
"This historic decision marks the beginning, not the end, of this litigation," said Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, who argued the case for the plaintiffs. "Our clients, who are among the hundreds of victims of torture under the Bush administration, have waited for years just to get a foot in the courthouse door. Now, at long last, they will have their day in court. Today's ruling demolishes once and for all the legal fiction, advanced by the Bush administration and continued by the Obama administration, that facts known throughout the world could be deemed 'secrets' in a court of law."
In its ruling, the court wrote that "the Executive's national security prerogatives are not the only weighty constitutional values at stake," and quoted the Supreme Court's decision in Boumediene v. Bush that security depends on the "freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by adhering to the separation of powers."
"The extraordinary rendition program is well known throughout the world," said Steven Watt, a staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program. "The only place it hasn't been discussed is where it most cries out for examination – in a U.S. court of law. Allowing this case to go forward is an important step toward reaffirming our commitment to domestic and international human rights law and restoring an America we can be proud of. Victims of extraordinary rendition deserve their day in court."
"I am happy to hear this news," said Bisher Al-Rawi, a plaintiff in this case who was released from Guantánamo last year without ever having been charged with a crime. "We have made a huge step forward in our quest for justice."
In recent years, the government has asserted the state secrets claim with increasing regularity in an attempt to throw out lawsuits and justify withholding information from the public not only about the rendition program, but also about illegal wiretapping, torture and other breaches of U.S. and international law.
Mohamed et al. v. Jeppesen was brought on behalf of Al-Rawi, Binyam Mohamed, Abou Elkassim Britel, Ahmed Agiza and Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah.
In addition to Wizner and Watt, attorneys in the lawsuit are Steven R. Shapiro and Jameel Jaffer of the national ACLU, Ann Brick of the ACLU of Northern California, Paul Hoffman of the law firm Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris & Hoffman LLP and Hope Metcalf of the Yale Law School Lowenstein Clinic. In addition, Margaret L. Satterthwaite and Amna Akbar of the International Human Rights Clinic of New York University School of Law and Clive Stafford-Smith and Zachary Katznelson represent plaintiffs in this case.
More information about the case is available online at: www.aclu.org/jeppesen
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