Editore"s Note
Tilting at Windmills

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March 14, 2009
By: Hilzoy

"We Freely Chose To Embrace The Caricature They Had Made Of Us"

Mark Danner has acquired a copy of the ICRC's interviews with the fourteen "high-value" detainees who were transferred from CIA black sites to Guantanamo, and he has written about it in the NYT and (a longer version; unless noted, quotes are from this piece) in the New York Review of Books. It's horrifying. Danner quotes George W. Bush saying: "The United States does not torture. It's against our laws, and it's against our values. I have not authorized it -- and I will not authorize it."

And yet, somehow, he did. From a man who had lost a leg, and who was forced to stand for two weeks, "apart [from] two or three times when I was allowed to lie down":

"After some time being held in this position my stump began to hurt so I removed my artificial leg to relieve the pain. Of course my good leg then began to ache and soon started to give way so that I was left hanging with all my weight on my wrists. I shouted for help but at first nobody came. Finally, after about one hour a guard came and my artificial leg was given back to me and I was again placed in the standing position with my hands above my head. After that the interrogators sometimes deliberately removed my artificial leg in order to add extra stress to the position...."

This seems to have been pretty common:

"I was kept for one month in the cell in a standing position with my hands cuffed and shackled above my head and my feet cuffed and shackled to a point in the floor. Of course during this month I fell asleep on some occasions while still being held in this position. This resulted in all my weight being applied to the handcuffs around my wrist resulting in open and bleeding wounds. [Scars consistent with this allegation were visible on both wrists as well as on both ankles.] Both my feet became very swollen after one month of almost continual standing."

But Donald Rumsfeld stands at his desk for eight hours a day, so I don't know what these people are complaining about.

A number of detainees report some variant on this:

"Also on a daily basis during the first two weeks a collar was looped around my neck and then used to slam me against the walls of the interrogation room. It was also placed around my neck when being taken out of my cell for interrogation and was used to lead me along the corridor. It was also used to slam me against the walls of the corridor during such movements."

Or:

"I was taken out of my cell and one of the interrogators wrapped a towel around my neck, they then used it to swing me around and smash me repeatedly against the hard walls of the room."

There's lots more, all of it appalling. Danner's conclusion in the NYT piece:

"From everything we know, many or all of these men deserve to be tried and punished -- to be "brought to justice," as President Bush vowed they would be. The fact that judges, military or civilian, throw out cases of prisoners who have been tortured -- and have already done so at Guantanamo -- means it is highly unlikely that they will be brought to justice anytime soon.

For the men who have committed great crimes, this seems to mark perhaps the most important and consequential sense in which "torture doesn't work." The use of torture deprives the society whose laws have been so egregiously violated of the possibility of rendering justice. Torture destroys justice. Torture in effect relinquishes this sacred right in exchange for speculative benefits whose value is, at the least, much disputed.

As I write, it is impossible to know definitively what benefits -- in intelligence, in national security, in disrupting Al Qaeda -- the president's approval of use of an "alternative set of procedures" might have brought to the United States. Only a thorough investigation, which we are now promised, much belatedly, by the Senate Intelligence Committee, can determine that.

What we can say with certainty, in the wake of the Red Cross report, is that the United States tortured prisoners and that the Bush administration, including the president himself, explicitly and aggressively denied that fact. We can also say that the decision to torture, in a political war with militant Islam, harmed American interests by destroying the democratic and Constitutional reputation of the United States, undermining its liberal sympathizers in the Muslim world and helping materially in the recruitment of young Muslims to the extremist cause. By deciding to torture, we freely chose to embrace the caricature they had made of us. The consequences of this choice, legal, political and moral, now confront us. Time and elections are not enough to make them go away."

An investigation is essential, if only to answer once and for all the question: how much actionable intelligence did we get from this, and how many wild goose chases did we send people off on? But prosecutions would be much, much better. Because our government should not be able to do this with impunity.

Hilzoy 11:44 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (17)

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Comments

Where's my pitchfork?

Posted by: Sirius the Star Dog on March 15, 2009 at 12:52 AM | PERMALINK

We can't prosecute those in Gitmo and we won't prosecute those who stashed them there. We might as well close shop at DoJ...

Posted by: exlibra on March 15, 2009 at 1:06 AM | PERMALINK

Intelligence yield? Wrong question. In setting up the equation we are measuring ends versus means. Ends, presumably, won't often be known before we engage in the means. We won't know the ends until where knee-deep in the means, We are at the bottom of the slippery slope already, and your "once and for all" question to be answered will merely determine where the slippery start gate was.

Posted by: Esoth on March 15, 2009 at 1:30 AM | PERMALINK

Esoth: I don't need a Congressional inquiry to answer the moral questions. I do think it would be useful, for people who aren't persuaded by my answers, to get the Bush admin. people to explain what, exactly, we actually got out of all this.

Posted by: hilzoy on March 15, 2009 at 1:43 AM | PERMALINK

We hanged people for less than this after WWII. Seriously.

Posted by: jonas on March 15, 2009 at 2:18 AM | PERMALINK

I truly pray that if George W Bush is ever abroad for any reason, he is arrested and charged with Crimes Against Humanity, and War Crimes.

He and his administration have destroyed so much.

Even with a War Crimes Tribunal, there is no justice that real humans could inflict on him that would be equal to the destruction that he has caused.

Posted by: jcricket on March 15, 2009 at 2:19 AM | PERMALINK

Because our government should not be able to do this with impunity.

But they can. They can, they have, and they will again.

It's over. Law, morals and reason lost. We had the chance to right these wrongs, but we elected a man who is choosing to ignore his Constitutional duty. And now the precedent is set - next time we have a thug regime in the White House we're going to see it again, and probably worse.

Posted by: Tree on March 15, 2009 at 2:57 AM | PERMALINK

At the very least, it seems to me that everyone in congress could support an investigation to determine why these "high value" detainees can't be successfully prosecuted. Let's start there.

Posted by: eric on March 15, 2009 at 3:51 AM | PERMALINK

Who cares whether we got any actionable intelligence out of this or not? No 'ticking time bomb,' no borderline calls, just men agonizingly hung by their wrists for weeks at a time.

If no prosecutions come out of this, it's time for the mob with torches and pitchforks. Those responsible for doing these things in our names must pay, one way or another.

At the very least, nobody should pass Bush or Rumsfeld or Cheney or John Yoo or any of the others who enabled this, without spitting on the ground at their feet and cursing them to their faces. We, the people, can at least take away their freedom to go about in public as if they had done nothing wrong.

Posted by: low-tech cyclist on March 15, 2009 at 5:04 AM | PERMALINK

Isn't it naive to think that hiding behind national security and executive privilege won't protect those most responsible for this? Go after the architects of our economic collapse. They did more damage and don't have get out of jail free cards.

Posted by: Michael7843853 on March 15, 2009 at 8:07 AM | PERMALINK

"Multiple blunt force injuries. Abrasion in upper right forehead. Abrasion on right lower forehead above eyebrow. Multiple contusions on right cheek and lower nose, left upper forehead, back of head. Abrasions on chest, lower costal margin. Contusions on arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, upper inner arm, groin, inner thigh, right back of knee and calf, left calf, left lower leg. Cause of death was pulmonary embolism due to blunt force injuries."

From autopsy report of detainee killed by United States uniformed armed forces and/or CIA agents while in custody in Bagram, Afghanistan, December 3, 2002.

How is prosecuting those responsible for murder, kidnapping, rape, and torture, a "political decision?"

If these crimes had been committed on American soil, against white, Christian Americans, by agents of the United States government acting under orders from the President, the Vice President, and the heads of the Department of Defense and the CIA, is there any doubt that these crimes would be prosecuted, and that no commentators-- right wing or otherwise-- would dream of suggesting that these were hard political decisions made in a time of war or crisis which should be overlooked as we "move forward"?

These were not political decisions which a subsequent administration is attempting to criminalize for political gain. These acts included murders, kidnappings, torture, rapes, and wrongful imprisonment over a period of years. They occurred with the authorization and knowledge of the President and Vice President of the United States and the highest appointed officials.

And they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law- from the highest persons who authorized it or condoned it to the foot soldiers who carried out orders which they knew were unlawful.

Posted by: James Finkelstein on March 15, 2009 at 9:32 AM | PERMALINK

While we're busy spinning our wheels trying to figure out how to prosecute the creeps who perpetrated these crimes, can we at least suspend some of them from duty pending psychiatric evaluation and counseling? We do this with cops and other security types all the time. It doesn't take a trial and it doesn't take a congressional hearing. It is good management practice, and it incidentally collects data for the other legal processes.

Posted by: Midland on March 15, 2009 at 10:56 AM | PERMALINK

According to one former Gitmo guard who has come forward to tell the truth, most of his fellow guards were fellow Sotherners. Surprised?

These people have to be prosecuted just like the guards at Auschwitz were. They may not have given the orders, but what they did is a crime against humanity and a crime against this country. The Bozo Brigade has to be smacked and smacked hard, so there will be fewer volunteers in the future.

Posted by: TCinLA on March 15, 2009 at 11:13 AM | PERMALINK

Time to burnish my liberal credentials.

If we caught bin Laden tomorrow. I would NOT want him treated like this.

No one who believes this is true should be incapable of shame in being American.

If this occurred, it is patriotic to feel ashamed of your country when we torture. If you don't, you allow your country to decay into a worthless scrap of d inhabited by monsters. Choosing not to know is traitorous. There is no "moving on" from this without closure and, if nessary, remedy.

If our nation chooses to remain ignorant, this too, is something we should be required to feel ashamed of.

When we are proud to be American, it matters WHY.
Finding our faults and working to correct them... THIS is where I could strengthen my pride in belonging to this first, but struggling, democracy.

,

Posted by: toowearyforoutrage on March 15, 2009 at 11:20 AM | PERMALINK

can we at least suspend some of them from duty pending psychiatric evaluation and counseling?

The mechanism to do so is there. People have clearances revoked and later restored all the time. A member of the military who holds a clearance will have that clearance suspended temporarily just for getting married, until the new spouse is investigated and vetted.

I grew up on Navy bases, joined the Army and had my own clearance, but still, when my husband and I got married, his clearance was suspended until the Air Force sent their own investigators out to vet me.

Posted by: Blue Girl on March 15, 2009 at 11:49 AM | PERMALINK

I am a physician and I was appalled to read in Mr. Danner's article that a doctor was present for all of the torture sessions. The doctors were their to make sure the torture didn't result in death or organ failure, but not to make it any less painful. Who were these doctors, and if American, how can they keep their licenses? The actions of these doctors is diametically opposed to the Hippocratic oath. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Posted by: Tony58 on March 15, 2009 at 8:22 PM | PERMALINK

And the Bush admin continues to torture us, the American people.

Posted by: ImprisonCheney on March 16, 2009 at 8:38 AM | PERMALINK




 

 

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