Bush and his "CIA secret prisons"

President Bush has acknowledged the existence of secret CIA prisons and said 14 key terrorist suspects have now been sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5321606.stm

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Thus, the Administration is now moving in two related directions. On the one hand, it wants a "clarified" standard for what constitutes war crimes, which really means that it wants a standard far weaker than Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. After all, it's hard to argue that "shocks the conscience" is a particularly bright-line test. At the same time, the Administration has made noises that it still regards the War Crimes Act as potentially unconstitutional when applied to persons acting under orders from the Commander-in-Chief. And all the while, the Administration has continued to insist that the most egregious forms of prisoner mistreatment or abuse were not authorized or ordered by anyone higher up in the Administration, but rather was solely the result of a few bad apples or rogue elements acting completely without authorization-- that the Administration has always treated detainees humanely, and therefore has always acted within the boundaries of Common Article 3.

So the Administration position, post-Hamdan, is that Congress should excuse Americans (and Administration officials) from liability for possible war crimes, either because the act is unnecessary-- since we have always acted humanely except for a few bad apples who didn't take orders from the Administration-- or because it is necessary-- since the Administration has in fact ordered people to violate Common Article 3. Finally, if Congress does nothing, the President will continue to take the position that the War Crimes Act may be unconstitutional as applied to him and to persons acting on his orders. (That unitary executive stuff comes in real handy!)

And what about those bad apples who were acting completely on their own? Well, there's the rub, you see. If any of them is ever prosecuted under the War Crimes Act, their most likely defense will be that they weren't really bad apples after all, but were actually following orders of the Administration-- the same Administration that insists that it has always treated its detainees humanely. And if a jury were to find that they believed this defense, it would be a bit-- shall we say-- embarrassing for the Administration. So to minimize the risk of any such embarrassments, the Administration would prefer that even the bad apples don't get prosecuted under the War Crimes statute.

So there you have it. A law making it a illegal to commit war crimes is simply a luxury that we Americans can't afford. Freedom isn't free, you know. If you want to protect human rights and democracy around the world, you have to break a few testicles-- I mean, eggs.

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There was some very good news today -- namely, that in its revised Army Field Manual, and accompanying Directive 2310.01E, the Department of Defense appears to have committed, at least for the time being, to prohibiting the use of unlawful and abusive techniques, and to compliance with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The new Army Field Manual goes even further, providing numerous examples of techniques -- many of which Donald Rumsfeld and Jim Haynes had previously (and eroneously) approved as "legally available" -- that will will now be off limits for all detainess in DoD custody, including: forcing a detainee to be naked or perform sexual acts; using beatings and other forms of causing pain, including electric shocks; placing hoods over prisoners’ heads or tape on their eyes; mock executions; withholding food, water or medical care; using dogs against detainees; and waterboarding.

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As I explain below, however, that's only half the story, because the draft Administration bill would (i) retroactively legalize all the unlawful acts that were approved and performed from 2001 to the present day (see section 9, page 86); (ii) would cut off all judicial review of U.S. compliance with the Geneva Conventions (section 6(b), page 79); and, most importantly, (iii) would authorize the CIA -- and, for that matter, other agencies, including DoD itself -- to engage in what the President today euphemistically referred to as the CIA's "alternative set of [interrogation] procedures." Those proceudres include many techniques that today's Army Field Manual would purport to prohibit for the military. According to numerous previous reports, quoting Administration officials, such techniques have included hypothermia, threats of violence to the detainee and his family, prolonged sleep deprivation, "stress positions," and waterboarding.

The Administration draft bill would effectively authorize these techniques by conspicuously excluding them from the list of techniques that would constitute war crimes violations of Common Article 3 (section 7, pages 79-84), and also by purporting to provide -- unconvincingly -- that compliance with the McCain Amendment's "shocks the conscience" standard will satisfy the U.S.'s obligations under Common Article 3 (section 6(a), pages 78-79), even though (as I've previously explained) the Administration apparently has construed the McCain Amendment, which has governed the CIA since late December 2005, to permit the "alternative" CIA techniques.

But the draft bill would not actually identify these techniques. Such obfuscation would allow the Administration (and Congress) to nominally continue the pretense of U.S. compliance with our treaty obligations, while at the same time immunizing conduct that would appear by any reasonable account to violate the Geneva Conventions' prohibition on all "cruel treatment and torture."

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How can these detainees receive a fair defense when any and all of their confessions, to date, should not be used in a proper court of law because the confessions were obtained through various forms of torture?

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Roadkill said:

I find the timing of this a little odd.

Forgive me if I'm missing the obvious here, but why did Bush admit to secret prisons and, near as dammit, torture? The US Governnment has been denying it for ages and, although no-one believed them, why shouldn't they have gone on denying it?

The only reason I can see is that they really do want to legitimise it, which is understandable, but surely a fairly risky strategy right now. Bush is in enough legal and political trouble as it is, without courting even more controversy.

Anyone got any thoughts?

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Bernie Gunther said:

Those articles I posted above explain why he's doing it.

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New Rules of Interrogation Forbid Use of Harsh Tactics

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 7, 2006; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/06/AR2006090601947.html

Pentagon officials yesterday repudiated the harsh interrogation tactics adopted since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, specifically forbidding U.S. troops from using forced nudity, hooding, military dogs and waterboarding to elicit information from detainees captured in ongoing wars.

The Defense Department simultaneously embraced international humane treatment standards for all detainees in U.S. military custody, the first time there has been a uniform standard for both enemy prisoners of war and the so-called unlawful combatants linked to al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other terrorist organizations.

[...]
Human rights groups generally welcomed the changes. "This is the Pentagon coming full circle," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "This is very strong guidance."

The Army has adopted 16 standard interrogation tactics that are carryovers from previous field manuals, including such approaches as direct questioning, offering positive incentives and playing on a detainee's emotions. Three expanded techniques -- good cop, bad cop; pretending to be an official from another country; and detention in a separate cell from others -- are allowed but require approval from senior officers. Officials originally considered keeping those three techniques classified but decided to make them public for the sake of full transparency.

Gone are techniques that at one point Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved for use at Guantanamo Bay and later appeared in Iraq, such as putting detainees in stress positions; manipulating their sleep patterns, diet and environment; and using dogs and sexually provocative behavior. Also prohibited is waterboarding, which involves putting detainees on boards and simulating drowning.

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In a televised address alongside families of those killed in the 11 September 2001 attacks....

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Bernie Gunther said:

Well, Disney and ABC have been making propaganda movies for the Republicans. Basically they've made a hyped mini-series blaming 911 on Clinton.

Path to 911

Could it be a coincidence that the November mid-terms are coming up and the Republicans are very worried about losing control of one or both Houses?

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Yet as Mr. Bush took these constructive steps, he also undermined them. He delivered a full-throated defense of the CIA's "alternative set of procedures" that the world properly regards as torture. With an election pending and families of Sept. 11 victims as his audience, he demanded legislative action on issues of enormous complexity in the few remaining days of the congressional session. And the bill he sent to Congress would authorize the administration to resume some of the worst excesses of the past five years.

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Bernie Gunther said:

Washington Post

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Senior Pentagon officials suggested that creating separate rules for the CIA and the military represented a logical division of labor.

"Each of us has our task to do," Stephen A. Cambone, the undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, said in an interview Thursday.

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friedaweed said:

cheers Bernie i did wonder where that version of events was coming from Kinda makes sense now.
Interesting how soon it's appearing on uk mainstream tv too.
Is anyone else a bit sceptical about 'sleeper cell'

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Sleeper Cell...not especially, since (IMO) it does an extremely good job of showing both sides of the coin...

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niksativa said:

Yes well spooted - it turns out the new "no torture" policy if just for military, not for CIA


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...8sep08,0,7792324.story?coll=la-home-headlines

...why leave torture in the hands of squadies when you can fly the CIA in to do it properly.... leave the torture to the pros.

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Bernie Gunther said:

Well, Disney and ABC have been making propaganda movies for the Republicans. Basically they've made a hyped mini-series blaming 911 on Clinton.

Path to 911

Could it be a coincidence that the November mid-terms are coming up and the Republicans are very worried about losing control of one or both Houses?

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Charles Gibson, referred to Chavez and Ahmadinejad's speeches to the UN as "America bashing".

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kyser_soze said:

Well that's what they were - both speeches were highly critical of the US and it leadership and policies...how else would you describe it if I were to refer to Chirac as 'the devil' etc = it'd be France bashing wouldn't it?

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kyser_soze said:

Did you ever read 'The Bush Dyslexicon'? Really good analysis of Bush and the media in the US, with quite a lot on how 'Bush Bashing' is dealt with by Rove and co...

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