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Not Losing Sight of the Forest for the Trees
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by Karen Hatter | April 23, 2009 at 09:21 am
240 views | 27 Recommendations | 3 comments
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Dick Cheney: Release More Memos So You Can See Torture Works! pt_1
sourced by Karen Hatter
For the past several weeks, I've been listening to former Vice President Dick Cheney, who apparently has decided to personify the Ghost of the Administration Past, appearing almost weekly to offer his opinions, as he attempts 'C.O.A.', in this case, the 'O' is for 'Our' instead of a 'Y' for 'Your', for the Bush administration's past misdeeds.
The Bush administration, on all levels including the Executive Branch, as is now being revealed, was involved in helping to shape the torture policy, which began by denying those captured were prisoners of war, during the course of the Bush administration waging the War on Terror also known as the War Against Terrorism, as no war had been declared, in the traditional sense, against any specific nation.
This questionable logic denied those captured to be accorded any of the rights listed in the Geneva Conventions, which the United States of America helped to create.
Shaping how those captured could be tortured, through the use of the Bush administration's Department of Justice legal team writing and creating memoranda, in a series of steps with stunningly dazzling arrogant and misguided prestidigitation, it was argued that torture was not torture as long as the intent of the 'interrogator' was not to cause “.... severe physical and mental pain or suffering”, which would indicate any other types of pain, whatever it may be, would be acceptable and not torture, if it were not deemed to be 'severe'.
Lost in the forest of denial, focused on attempts to justify the administration's misdeeds by claiming the misdeeds were successful, the former Vice President of the United States is trying to lead the country and its citizens into the woods with him.
As it relates to torture, which was conveniently renamed “enhanced interrogation techniques” during the Bush administration, its use ignores the federal law of the United States as well as international law against the use of torture, with the International Committee of the Red Cross confirming the prisoners they examined at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba were tortured, prisoners that had been previously held at known sites, like Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and unknown sites called 'Black sites', located around the world, 'Black sites' being secret prisons into which those captured were 'disappeared' and held without trial, many for as long as seven years.
Discussing the alleged benefits of and poisonous fruits gathered from the illegal use of torture, as former Vice President Cheney seeks to do, obfuscates the reality that it is the illegality of torture that is at the heart of these matters.
To argue contrary to that actuality serves to compound the misguided Bush administration policies, essentially aiding and abetting the original crimes perpetrated.
Also at NowPublic :
"I Was (We Were) Following Orders" Just Ain't Good Enough
A link to the Senate Armed Services Committee Inquiry Into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody
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at 11:51 on April 23rd, 2009
I think that if these members of government are found guilty of using torture methods that are prohibited then they should be punished accordingly, however, they won't be I think, we can already see that.
at 06:00 on April 24th, 2009
Thank you for your thoughts, Amy.
This is another of those 'Devil in the details' situations.
Members of the Special Forces program, Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, SERE, highlighted in the article I posted here two days ago, provided testimony contained in the Senate Committee report on treatment of detainees recently released.
SERE has indicated that the training they use to prepare those enrolled in their program are subjected to torture methods previously used on formerly captured American soldiers.
The CIA attempted to reverse engineer the techniques of SERE, which they were advised, by SERE, not to do.
The '"enhanced interrogation techniques" are not torture' defense hinges on selling everyone that learns of all that went on under this torture program that somehow, because U.S. soldiers were subjected to similar torture tactics, by fellow U.S. servicemen during the SERE training, doing the same thing to so called enemy combatants or detainees transforms the actions, making them no longer torture.
The problem with that twisted logic is the program was based on methods learned from the torture of U.S. soldiers. Those crafting the torture memoranda are attempting to persuade that the methods are adaptations so, somehow, they're not torture.
Bear in mind, despite the obvious discomfort and pain U.S. servicemen may experience, barring any impairment of judgement, the U.S. soldiers know it is an exercise and that it will end.
The prisoners in U.S. custody, subjected to the methods, had no expectation of when they would be relieved as they were tortured, adding an element of anxiety extremely different from the training offered at SERE.
By drafting documents that can be pointed to as providing point by point use of these adapted torture methods, using medical personnel to act as advisers as prisoners were tortured, all of this is meant to give the appearance that as a controlled methodology, meant to assure the intent of the 'interrogator' is not to cause " ... severe phyiscal and mental pain and suffering" , the techniques are no longer torture.
It is reasonable to assume that the memoranda that were written were written exactly to aid those involved to avoid possible prosecution, as the memoranda go to excruciating lengths to ignore and deconstruct existing law on torture, U.S. and international, re-shaping through the use of the torture memos whatever was necessary to suit the Bush administration's purposes.
The problem with the strategy, even when it is revealed in painstaking detail that all who tortured did so EXACTLY to the letter of the law as laid out in the torture memos, the methods used were still torture, merely adapted torture methods.
I agree odds are those responsible for driving this torture policy, its creators, will be placed above the law in some fashion.
I'd be highly surprised if anyone were held criminally accountable.
at 17:20 on April 23rd, 2009
First you have to prove that putting a caterpillar in a room with a guy who thinks it might bite and kill him is a form of torture.
I wouldn't bet on a jury of 12 men and women to find that to be the case.
Water-boarding is actually learned by having its future practicioners water-board each other. I have never heard of a form of torture that is done on the people who will use it so that they know what it is like.
You have more chance there, but I don't think that this is what was intended by the term "torture".
When you talk about depriving people of sleep, I can safely say that no jury exists that will find someone who has deprived an Al Qada member of sleep to be guilty of torture.