An odd way to show ideas but the ideas in this video are extremely thought provoking.
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An odd way to show ideas but the ideas in this video are extremely thought provoking.
PanzerKunt
Black Metal Jihad
Way to try to have intelligent conversation. To paraphrase the video, the Iraqi war is illegal according to the U.N. charter, which is a treaty, and the U.S. Constitution says that all treaties become domestic law. So in both international and domestic laws the United States government is breaking the law. The U.N. Charter forbids war except in self defense or unless it is approved by the security counsel, and self defense does not mean a preemptive strike, that is illegal. Bush is a war criminal. Now... thoughts?
Hubster
...
My thoughts are, he *is* a war criminal. But as we all know, the oil companies are probably the true criminals, Bush is simply a stupid puppet doing what he is told.
The sooner Bush is out, the better things will be imo. And the same goes for John Uber-Racist Howard as well. Fuck 'em both.
The sooner Bush is out, the better things will be imo. And the same goes for John Uber-Racist Howard as well. Fuck 'em both.
LithiumLulu
Member
- Jul 17, 2007
- 207
- 0
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Who is John Howard? This thread isn't just about Iraq, I just felt like talking about it, if you want to talk about something else politically related have at.
Forbids? ... People listen to the U.N. about as much as they listened to the League of Nations back in the day... the U.N. is no different then any country's corrupt government (and they are all corrupt to some degree or another). In the U.N. much like in most countrie's gov'ts I would sum it up as Money Talks and BS walks... not that I don't agree with you because I do... but the damage is done and now we should pull out of Iraq...
This is true... but doesn't that leave us, the American people, responsible for dealing with the crimes of our government, since we're the only people who have the power to? America won;t listen to the U.N. nor will anyone else... doesn't that mean they should have more power to back up their weak ass resolutions?
PanzerKunt
Black Metal Jihad
Just wondering, is all this "the Iraqi war had in fact nothing to do with Al-Qaida" new to you guys (Americans)?
Hubster
...
John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia... him and Bush are the only two who didn't ratify for Kyoto, and both have firmly had each others hands on each others bananas for years now. imo, most of Australia hates Howard, and hates Bush.
skeptik
Member
- Feb 7, 2003
- 24,413
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The United States, says President George W. Bush, does not torture. Its against our laws and its against our values (The White House, 2006, 2). While it is true that torture is against or laws and our values, one could argue that the Presidents statement above is only half right; one could argue that we do, in fact, torture. Both directly, as suggested by cases in Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, the secret CIA prisons allegedly scattered throughout Eastern Europe and elsewhere, and with regards to such individuals as Abu Zubaydah, Mamdouh Habib, Jose Padilla, and Mohammed al Qahtani, as well as reciprocally through the practice of extraordinary rendition. The Bush Administration has made it a habit of relying on a string of deceit and verbal acrobatics, such as the memos put forth by governmental lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee, to escape criticism. Many of the United States government-approved methods of interrogation amount to torture as dictated by the definition of torture found in the UN Convention Against Torture, US Code 2340, and what the Constitution defines as cruel and unusual punishment. Not only is the United States use of torture in interrogation methods against the law, but it also goes against the fundamental principles upon which the Administration so adamantly clings, and in fact negatively affects the nations ability to obtain power, prosperity, and peace. The use of torture has been sufficiently proven to be, in fact, generally ineffective, and an inferior method of interrogation than direct questioning, due to the incredible amount of evidence suggesting that torture leads to false confessions. The Administration should not be in the business of inaccurate information if its reconciliation of its conduct in interrogation relies on the absolute necessity of timely and accurate information in order to procure a degree of stability in the nations national security interests.
According to Section 2340, title 18 of the US Code implementing the standards of conduct under the UN Convention Against Torture, torture is an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control (Legal Information Institute, 2006, 1). It is this definition upon which Jay Bybee and John Yoo build their case for using what is generally recognized as torture tactics in a legal (or at least legally untouchable manner) in what has come to be known as the torture memo of August 1, 2002. In this memo, the governmental lawyers elaborate upon just what is physical or mental pain, saying that in order for physical pain to be categorized as torture, it must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death (Greenberg, 2005, 172). In order for mental pain to be classified as torture, it must result in significant psychological harm of significant durations, e.g., lasting for months or even years (172). They remain ambiguous as to what specifically these definitions entail, and then go on to ensure that the understanding of this language confirms the view that the criminal statute penalizes only the most egregious conduct (173). In this way, the language ensures that the US would be in the position to claim that their interrogation methods do not produce pain or suffering of the necessary intensity to meet the definition of torture and therefore are acceptable under their provisions of their ratification of the UN CAT (173). They further elaborate upon the United States guiltless methods of interrogation by stating that under the current circumstances, necessity or self-defense may justify interrogation methods that might violate Section 2340A [by invoking the Presidents Commander-in-Chief powers] (173). According to this memo, in order for an act to be deemed torture, that act must have been specifically intended to inflict torture (174). As articulated by Joseph Margulies in Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power (2006), though the defendant might know his actions would produce severe pain, if causing such harm is not his objective he lacks the requisite specific intent even though the defendant did not act in good faith (90). Thus, according to the memo, a defendant is guilty of torture only if he acts with the express purpose of inflicting severe pain or suffering (Greenberg, 2005, 175).
The above description is simply one document of many that demonstrate the Bush Administrations attempt to construct a new reality in order to justify their actions or intended courses of action, or as Margulies (2006) words it, the Administration constructed its legal positions to serve its policy preference (11). He also succinctly summarizes just what is wrong with the Bush Administrations policies of abusing and breaking the law:
This passage above from articulates the argument against the Bush Administration as effectively as possible, adding that several dozen [people] are being held by the CIA in secret locations unknown to all but a select few, and approximately two hundred others have been rendered to countries with a long history of torturing prisoners (4). This is the argument put forth against this administration and their unjust, illegal actions of torture, ignoring the writ of habeas corpus granted by the 5th Amendment of the US Constitution, and violations of international law. One of the most powerful examples of the above mentioned criticisms is the Administrations conduct with regard to their detainment policy and practices in Guantánamo Bay.
As is made clear by the predominance of the evidence, the prison Guantánamo Bay was built to serve several purposes, among them a prison camp to hold people captured during the conflict, a tribunal site to charge the prisoners with war crimes, and seemingly most importantly, an interrogation facility, given its location, its design, and its day-to-day operations (4). Due to its placement in Cuba, outside the US, the Administration believed that they had effectively eliminated the possibility of being held accountable for their actions there, making use of some ambiguous language found in the United States lease statement for Guantánamo Bay with Cuba. They claimed that, while the United States shall exercise complete jurisdiction and control over and within the area, the United States recognizes the continuance of the ultimate sovereignty of the Republic of Cuba over the land, and therefore Guantánamo Bay falls outside the jurisdiction of the federal court system, leaving the detainees entirely subject to the will of government action (49-50). The Administration felt that this language effectively eliminated any chances for prosecution, however, in the case Rasul v. Bush, the judge ultimately decided that what matters...is the unchallenged and indefinite control that the United States has long exercised over Guantánamo Bay, and that the indefinite lease of Guantánamo Bay has produced a place that belongs to the United States (153). Under this ruling, the prisoners can no longer be held indefinitely; they had to be charged, or otherwise they had to be let go.
Numerous reports from prisoners, a former Arab chaplain, the Red Cross organization, and various testimonies by FBI officials, suggest that the US militarys interrogators have displayed a considerable amount of questionable conduct (Margulies, 2005). In fact, according to a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the methods [used in Guantánamo] had become more refined and repressive over time, and were tantamount to torture (135). Two of the most prominent demonstrations of these actions tantamount to torture involve the interrogations of Mohammed al Qahtani, often referred to as the 20th hijacker, and Jose Padilla, a US citizen. One report from al Qahtanis interrogations, published by Time magazine, details a 50 day span between November 2002 and January 2003 (86). The interrogations of al Qahtani are detailed as the following:
In addition to the above account, al Qahtani was mentally abused, his interrogators assuring him that he occupied a place in the world somewhere beneath that of an animal, going so far as to give him a presentation of this fact by demonstrating how a family of banana rats held a higher place in life moving around freely, playing, eating, showing concern for one another, at which he began to cry 86-87). Al Qahtanis interrogations also included being led around by a leash like a dog, having a thong placed on his head, being forced to wear a bra, being forced to stand naked in front of a female interrogator for 5 minutes, suffering regular strip searches as a method of interrogation, and being repeatedly doused with water (218). According to the Schmidt Report, as cited by Margulies, the cumulative effect [of the interrogations had been]...abusive and degrading (218).
In addition to the above, al Qahtani was denied access to use the bathroom and forced to urinate on himself, and at one point his sleep deprivation reached such an extreme that his heartbeat slowed to 35 beats per minute, causing interrogators to forcibly administer fluids into his body via IV drip during interrogations. The worst of all of his treatment, however, involved a massive deception. He was tranquilized and put on a plane that flew for several hours, once again landing at the base. He was told that he was in the Middle East, and he was then put into an isolation cell and subjected to further rounds of aggressive interrogations at the hands of interrogators impersonating Egyptian security operatives (88). He was isolated from representatives of the Red Cross for a period spanning several months (88). Al Qahtani demonstrated behavior consistent with extreme psychological trauma (talking to non-existent people, reporting hearing voices, crouching in a corner of the cell covered with a sheet for hours on end) by the end of 2002 (6).Ultimately, the Pentagon stated that his treatment fell considerably short of torture and that his interrogation plan was consistent with the Pentagons unequivocal standard of humane treatment for all detainees (126).
In the case of Jose Padilla, Padilla's lawyers are claiming that new images taken from a government video show that he received unduly harsh treatment while being held at a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. (Zagorin, 2006, 1). His lawyers argue that Padilla was subjected to the equivalent of torture while in U.S. military custody, and that the experience has left him psychologically damaged and unable to participate in his own defense (1). A further elaboration of the report alleges that he was subjected to sleep deprivation and extremes of heat and cold, forced to stand in stress positions that can be painful, and given truth serum to make him talk (2). Finally, an affidavit from a psychiatrist notes that Padilla suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome (2). Under these allegations, even under the restrictions of the torture memo, one would be led to the conclusion that Padilla, a US citizen, was tortured, a violation of his Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment, his Civilian Convention rights, and his rights under the UN CAT.
According to Article 16 of the UN Convention Against Torture, all parties who have signed and ratified the Convention are obligated to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture as defined in article I, the definition being
Given these two terms, as defined in the United Nations Convention Against Torture, signed and ratified by the United States, one can see that the methods of interrogation used in Camp Delta contradict several articles of the UN CAT and are therefore in violation of international law. As such, the interrogation methods performed by the military interrogators, officially sanctioned by the Pentagon (Margulies, 2005, 126), are illegal because they fail to coincide with international law, which trumps federal law. Sleep deprivation and light deprivation, prolonged isolation, and [exposure to] room temperatures that varied from 100 degrees to 10 degrees, or environmental manipulation, are among the tactics used that clearly are prohibited by the Convention Against Torture (179). All of this, of course, also goes against the Geneva Conventions.
Characteristic of the Bush Administration is the use of word manipulation in order to ensure a way out of a divisive issue if all else fails, such as using the term Geneva Convention instead of Geneva Conventions, which one would then imply that one was only referring to, for example, Geneva III, which protects the rights of POWs. According to the Bush Administration, as expounded upon by the Geneva memo by John Yoo, the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay were not included in the Geneva Conventions (56). The memo came to this conclusion because
While the memo makes a legitimate claim against the detainees rights to POW protection under Geneva III, it clearly dismisses any rights that they may have under Geneva IV, also known as the Civilian Convention, and the irreducible humanitarian principles of Common Article 3 (58). It is at this juncture that one would resort to invoking the language used by the Administration, specifying that they only were referring to the detainees not qualifying under Geneva III. Geneva IV covers the rights of all people who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever fall into enemy hands (54). All people are protected against acts of violence or threats thereof, and while they may be interrogated, they cannot be subjected to physical or moral coercion...to obtain information from them or from third parties, nor can they be subjected to torture, corporal punishment, or physical suffering (55). Another important note is the clarification supplied by the International Committee of the Red Cross, stating that
Thus, according to the Red Cross, contrary to the claims of the Bush Administration, the prisoners in Guantánamo Bay must be protected under some international law. Additionally, Common Article 3 bans all violence to life and person, cruel treatment and torture, outrages upon personal dignity, and humiliating and degrading treatment (55). Of course, this entire argument put forth by the Administration hinges on the idea that the detainees are indeed members of or supporting terrorist organizations, and holding them without charges for years on end does not allow the military to determine whether or not they are, in fact, those whom they seek to detain (10). Finally, under Article 5 of the UN CAT, every state must take such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over...offences...in [such] cases [as]...when the offences are committed in any territory under its jurisdiction or on board a ship or aircraft registered in that State, and according to the ruling in Rasul, Guantánamo Bay is a territory under US jurisdiction (Office of UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, 2006, 2). Therefore, the US failure to do anything with regard to the rampant allegations of torture is another failure to comply with international law.
Article 5 of the POW Convention requires that any doubt regarding the persons status be resolved by a competent tribunal, and that all detainees enjoy POW status until a tribunal determines otherwise (Margulies, 2006, 56). Following the case Rasul v. Bush, in order to meet the qualifications of the ruling, the Bush Administration devised Combatant Status Review Tribunals, bodies that, at a cursory glance, bared a resemblance to the Article 5 tribunals dictated by the POW Convention. Unlike the Article 5 tribunals, however, the CSRT do not have to rely on evidence secured in compliance with the Geneva Conventions, which means that the CSRT can legally use evidence of confessions obtained by torture, mere hearsay, or the fact that a detainee wore a Casio watch similar to a model whose part have been used in explosives (164-5). The CSRT is also free to dismiss exculpatory evidence suggesting the innocence of a prisoner even if there is very little evidence to the contrary (165). There is also the issue of the CSRT using secret information that they refuse to share with the detainee, so the detainee is not even in a position to defend himself because he does not know against what he is supposed to defend (169). Using the CSRT, the Administration was able to keep the vast majority of the detainees in Camp Delta with absurd charges.
Another issue that must be addressed is the case of Abu Zubaydah, an al Qaeda operative. According to Ron Suskind in his book, The One Percent Doctrine (2006), Abu Zubaydah was held in a secret CIA prison where he was interrogated using a variety of extreme tactics that, carried out by any other nation, the US would surely amount to torture; the book also makes note of the fact that Zubaydah had a split personality disorder, that the information that Zubaydah provided under torture was entirely unreliable, and that only when interrogators addressed him directly and appropriately did they extract any meaningful information. The case of Zubaydah raises a larger issue, that of secret CIA prisons. According to Margulies (2006), since 2002, the CIA has operated a small network of secret, overseas detention centers that, by official accounts, do not even exist (177). These black sites have held what reports indicate as many as three thousand people since 9/11, and is currently holding approximately thirty prisoners (177-8). Among the enhanced interrogation techniques that the CIA is authorized to use include the ability to force a prisoner to stand on his feet shackled to the floor and his hands cuffed together for more than thirty hours, the ability douse a prisoner with cold water and left to stand naked in a cell that is kept near fifty degrees, and water-boarding (178). In addition, prisoners have also been forced into coffin-like boxes, forced into cells where they are alternately denied all light and put in brightly lit rooms and denied sleep for long periods (178). This conduct is undeniably in violation of the UN CAT.
A final issue that must be brought up is that of extraordinary rendition, the practice of sending prisoners to other countries to carry out further interrogation. This tactic has been grossly abused by the Bush Administration in such a way as to violate the UN CAT under Article 3, which states that no State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture (Office of UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, 2006, 2).The second property of this Article clearly states that competent authorities must take into account all considerations of the issue, including the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights (2). This statute has clearly been violated if one examines the case of Mamdouh Habib, an Australian citizen captured and sent to Pakistan and Egypt for further interrogation before being sent to Guantánamo.
Mamdouh was first interrogated by Pakistani agents in extremely brutal fashion that undeniably amounts to torture, as the following report suggests:
One can imagine the ensuing dance that occurred between resting on the electrified drum and suspending ones feet above it, leaving oneself hanging to a wall by hooks. In Egypt, Mamdouh was subject to an array of elaborate techniques of water torture (186-7). After being sent to Guantánamo, Mamdouh faced being sent to Egypt once again, and was only saved by a question posed to (at the time) Attorney General-designate Alberto Gonzalez by Senator Richard Durbin, asking Gonzalez if it would be illegal to turn over a prisoner to a country that would torture. To this, he responded we have an obligation not to render someone to a country that we believe is going to torture them; that is correct (194). In the days following this event, it was learned that Mamdouh was scheduled for release from Guantánamo Bay (194).
The Administration claims it has satisfied its obligations under the Torture Convention by securing assurances from the receiving country that the prisoner will not be tortured (194). However, the Torture Convention does not merely state an assurance, but explicitly states that the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights must be considered before rendering a prisoner (Office of UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, 2006, 2). According to Margulies (2006), every year for the past decade, the State Department has made the same complaint: Egypt tortures prisoners (188). With the common knowledge of Egypts frequent violations of human rights, the argument posed by the Administration for rendering prisoners to Egypt is simply unacceptable.
According to Section 2340, title 18 of the US Code implementing the standards of conduct under the UN Convention Against Torture, torture is an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control (Legal Information Institute, 2006, 1). It is this definition upon which Jay Bybee and John Yoo build their case for using what is generally recognized as torture tactics in a legal (or at least legally untouchable manner) in what has come to be known as the torture memo of August 1, 2002. In this memo, the governmental lawyers elaborate upon just what is physical or mental pain, saying that in order for physical pain to be categorized as torture, it must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death (Greenberg, 2005, 172). In order for mental pain to be classified as torture, it must result in significant psychological harm of significant durations, e.g., lasting for months or even years (172). They remain ambiguous as to what specifically these definitions entail, and then go on to ensure that the understanding of this language confirms the view that the criminal statute penalizes only the most egregious conduct (173). In this way, the language ensures that the US would be in the position to claim that their interrogation methods do not produce pain or suffering of the necessary intensity to meet the definition of torture and therefore are acceptable under their provisions of their ratification of the UN CAT (173). They further elaborate upon the United States guiltless methods of interrogation by stating that under the current circumstances, necessity or self-defense may justify interrogation methods that might violate Section 2340A [by invoking the Presidents Commander-in-Chief powers] (173). According to this memo, in order for an act to be deemed torture, that act must have been specifically intended to inflict torture (174). As articulated by Joseph Margulies in Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power (2006), though the defendant might know his actions would produce severe pain, if causing such harm is not his objective he lacks the requisite specific intent even though the defendant did not act in good faith (90). Thus, according to the memo, a defendant is guilty of torture only if he acts with the express purpose of inflicting severe pain or suffering (Greenberg, 2005, 175).
The above description is simply one document of many that demonstrate the Bush Administrations attempt to construct a new reality in order to justify their actions or intended courses of action, or as Margulies (2006) words it, the Administration constructed its legal positions to serve its policy preference (11). He also succinctly summarizes just what is wrong with the Bush Administrations policies of abusing and breaking the law:
The Bush Administration maintains that people sized in this conflict may be takenkidnapped if necessaryfrom any location in the world, even thousands of miles from any battlefield, without the knowledge or participation of the host government and without any judicial process. They may be shipped to an offshore prison on nothing more than the judgment of a single, anonymous field commander. They may be held for the rest of their lives, based solely on the presidents self-asserted authority. At the prison, they can be subjected to any conditions the military devises. And throughout their imprisonment, they may be held incommunicado and in solitary confinement, without access to courts or counsel, without charges of any kind, unknown to the world, and without the benefit of the Geneva Conventions, an international treaty signed and ratified by the United States designed to protect people seized during armed conflict. (3-4)
This passage above from articulates the argument against the Bush Administration as effectively as possible, adding that several dozen [people] are being held by the CIA in secret locations unknown to all but a select few, and approximately two hundred others have been rendered to countries with a long history of torturing prisoners (4). This is the argument put forth against this administration and their unjust, illegal actions of torture, ignoring the writ of habeas corpus granted by the 5th Amendment of the US Constitution, and violations of international law. One of the most powerful examples of the above mentioned criticisms is the Administrations conduct with regard to their detainment policy and practices in Guantánamo Bay.
As is made clear by the predominance of the evidence, the prison Guantánamo Bay was built to serve several purposes, among them a prison camp to hold people captured during the conflict, a tribunal site to charge the prisoners with war crimes, and seemingly most importantly, an interrogation facility, given its location, its design, and its day-to-day operations (4). Due to its placement in Cuba, outside the US, the Administration believed that they had effectively eliminated the possibility of being held accountable for their actions there, making use of some ambiguous language found in the United States lease statement for Guantánamo Bay with Cuba. They claimed that, while the United States shall exercise complete jurisdiction and control over and within the area, the United States recognizes the continuance of the ultimate sovereignty of the Republic of Cuba over the land, and therefore Guantánamo Bay falls outside the jurisdiction of the federal court system, leaving the detainees entirely subject to the will of government action (49-50). The Administration felt that this language effectively eliminated any chances for prosecution, however, in the case Rasul v. Bush, the judge ultimately decided that what matters...is the unchallenged and indefinite control that the United States has long exercised over Guantánamo Bay, and that the indefinite lease of Guantánamo Bay has produced a place that belongs to the United States (153). Under this ruling, the prisoners can no longer be held indefinitely; they had to be charged, or otherwise they had to be let go.
Numerous reports from prisoners, a former Arab chaplain, the Red Cross organization, and various testimonies by FBI officials, suggest that the US militarys interrogators have displayed a considerable amount of questionable conduct (Margulies, 2005). In fact, according to a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the methods [used in Guantánamo] had become more refined and repressive over time, and were tantamount to torture (135). Two of the most prominent demonstrations of these actions tantamount to torture involve the interrogations of Mohammed al Qahtani, often referred to as the 20th hijacker, and Jose Padilla, a US citizen. One report from al Qahtanis interrogations, published by Time magazine, details a 50 day span between November 2002 and January 2003 (86). The interrogations of al Qahtani are detailed as the following:
Al Qahtani was kept to a grueling schedule. Interrogations typically began at 4:00 A.M. and lasted until midnight... According to the military, in forty-eight of the fifty-four days from November 23, 2002, to January 16, 2003, al Qahtani was interrogated eighteen to twenty hours per day. If he fell asleep during a session, he was doused with water. Sometimes, if he did not cooperate, he was made to stand at attention or sit immobile for hours at a time on a metal chair. On rare occasions, al Qahtani was given extra time to sleep, but then interrogated at irregular intervals. This not only left him disoriented, it impressed upon him that he had no control over his environment and routine. His time, his body, and his mind belonged to his captors. (86)
In addition to the above account, al Qahtani was mentally abused, his interrogators assuring him that he occupied a place in the world somewhere beneath that of an animal, going so far as to give him a presentation of this fact by demonstrating how a family of banana rats held a higher place in life moving around freely, playing, eating, showing concern for one another, at which he began to cry 86-87). Al Qahtanis interrogations also included being led around by a leash like a dog, having a thong placed on his head, being forced to wear a bra, being forced to stand naked in front of a female interrogator for 5 minutes, suffering regular strip searches as a method of interrogation, and being repeatedly doused with water (218). According to the Schmidt Report, as cited by Margulies, the cumulative effect [of the interrogations had been]...abusive and degrading (218).
In addition to the above, al Qahtani was denied access to use the bathroom and forced to urinate on himself, and at one point his sleep deprivation reached such an extreme that his heartbeat slowed to 35 beats per minute, causing interrogators to forcibly administer fluids into his body via IV drip during interrogations. The worst of all of his treatment, however, involved a massive deception. He was tranquilized and put on a plane that flew for several hours, once again landing at the base. He was told that he was in the Middle East, and he was then put into an isolation cell and subjected to further rounds of aggressive interrogations at the hands of interrogators impersonating Egyptian security operatives (88). He was isolated from representatives of the Red Cross for a period spanning several months (88). Al Qahtani demonstrated behavior consistent with extreme psychological trauma (talking to non-existent people, reporting hearing voices, crouching in a corner of the cell covered with a sheet for hours on end) by the end of 2002 (6).Ultimately, the Pentagon stated that his treatment fell considerably short of torture and that his interrogation plan was consistent with the Pentagons unequivocal standard of humane treatment for all detainees (126).
In the case of Jose Padilla, Padilla's lawyers are claiming that new images taken from a government video show that he received unduly harsh treatment while being held at a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. (Zagorin, 2006, 1). His lawyers argue that Padilla was subjected to the equivalent of torture while in U.S. military custody, and that the experience has left him psychologically damaged and unable to participate in his own defense (1). A further elaboration of the report alleges that he was subjected to sleep deprivation and extremes of heat and cold, forced to stand in stress positions that can be painful, and given truth serum to make him talk (2). Finally, an affidavit from a psychiatrist notes that Padilla suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome (2). Under these allegations, even under the restrictions of the torture memo, one would be led to the conclusion that Padilla, a US citizen, was tortured, a violation of his Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment, his Civilian Convention rights, and his rights under the UN CAT.
According to Article 16 of the UN Convention Against Torture, all parties who have signed and ratified the Convention are obligated to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture as defined in article I, the definition being
Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. (Office of UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, 2006, 1; 5)
Given these two terms, as defined in the United Nations Convention Against Torture, signed and ratified by the United States, one can see that the methods of interrogation used in Camp Delta contradict several articles of the UN CAT and are therefore in violation of international law. As such, the interrogation methods performed by the military interrogators, officially sanctioned by the Pentagon (Margulies, 2005, 126), are illegal because they fail to coincide with international law, which trumps federal law. Sleep deprivation and light deprivation, prolonged isolation, and [exposure to] room temperatures that varied from 100 degrees to 10 degrees, or environmental manipulation, are among the tactics used that clearly are prohibited by the Convention Against Torture (179). All of this, of course, also goes against the Geneva Conventions.
Characteristic of the Bush Administration is the use of word manipulation in order to ensure a way out of a divisive issue if all else fails, such as using the term Geneva Convention instead of Geneva Conventions, which one would then imply that one was only referring to, for example, Geneva III, which protects the rights of POWs. According to the Bush Administration, as expounded upon by the Geneva memo by John Yoo, the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay were not included in the Geneva Conventions (56). The memo came to this conclusion because
the treaty is an agreement between nations, or High Contracting Parties. Since al-Qaeda is not a country, its members cannot claim protection under the Conventions. They also said that, even if the Conventions applied to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the president could conclude, unilaterally and without the need for individual Article 5 hearings, that members of both groups had no right to be treated as POWs because they did not always carry arms openly, follow an organized command structure, wear a fixed barge of insignia, or comply with the laws of warthe criteria for POW status under Geneva III. (56-57)
While the memo makes a legitimate claim against the detainees rights to POW protection under Geneva III, it clearly dismisses any rights that they may have under Geneva IV, also known as the Civilian Convention, and the irreducible humanitarian principles of Common Article 3 (58). It is at this juncture that one would resort to invoking the language used by the Administration, specifying that they only were referring to the detainees not qualifying under Geneva III. Geneva IV covers the rights of all people who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever fall into enemy hands (54). All people are protected against acts of violence or threats thereof, and while they may be interrogated, they cannot be subjected to physical or moral coercion...to obtain information from them or from third parties, nor can they be subjected to torture, corporal punishment, or physical suffering (55). Another important note is the clarification supplied by the International Committee of the Red Cross, stating that
Every person in enemy hands must have some status under international law; he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, [or] a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention...There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can fall outside the law. (55)
Thus, according to the Red Cross, contrary to the claims of the Bush Administration, the prisoners in Guantánamo Bay must be protected under some international law. Additionally, Common Article 3 bans all violence to life and person, cruel treatment and torture, outrages upon personal dignity, and humiliating and degrading treatment (55). Of course, this entire argument put forth by the Administration hinges on the idea that the detainees are indeed members of or supporting terrorist organizations, and holding them without charges for years on end does not allow the military to determine whether or not they are, in fact, those whom they seek to detain (10). Finally, under Article 5 of the UN CAT, every state must take such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over...offences...in [such] cases [as]...when the offences are committed in any territory under its jurisdiction or on board a ship or aircraft registered in that State, and according to the ruling in Rasul, Guantánamo Bay is a territory under US jurisdiction (Office of UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, 2006, 2). Therefore, the US failure to do anything with regard to the rampant allegations of torture is another failure to comply with international law.
Article 5 of the POW Convention requires that any doubt regarding the persons status be resolved by a competent tribunal, and that all detainees enjoy POW status until a tribunal determines otherwise (Margulies, 2006, 56). Following the case Rasul v. Bush, in order to meet the qualifications of the ruling, the Bush Administration devised Combatant Status Review Tribunals, bodies that, at a cursory glance, bared a resemblance to the Article 5 tribunals dictated by the POW Convention. Unlike the Article 5 tribunals, however, the CSRT do not have to rely on evidence secured in compliance with the Geneva Conventions, which means that the CSRT can legally use evidence of confessions obtained by torture, mere hearsay, or the fact that a detainee wore a Casio watch similar to a model whose part have been used in explosives (164-5). The CSRT is also free to dismiss exculpatory evidence suggesting the innocence of a prisoner even if there is very little evidence to the contrary (165). There is also the issue of the CSRT using secret information that they refuse to share with the detainee, so the detainee is not even in a position to defend himself because he does not know against what he is supposed to defend (169). Using the CSRT, the Administration was able to keep the vast majority of the detainees in Camp Delta with absurd charges.
Another issue that must be addressed is the case of Abu Zubaydah, an al Qaeda operative. According to Ron Suskind in his book, The One Percent Doctrine (2006), Abu Zubaydah was held in a secret CIA prison where he was interrogated using a variety of extreme tactics that, carried out by any other nation, the US would surely amount to torture; the book also makes note of the fact that Zubaydah had a split personality disorder, that the information that Zubaydah provided under torture was entirely unreliable, and that only when interrogators addressed him directly and appropriately did they extract any meaningful information. The case of Zubaydah raises a larger issue, that of secret CIA prisons. According to Margulies (2006), since 2002, the CIA has operated a small network of secret, overseas detention centers that, by official accounts, do not even exist (177). These black sites have held what reports indicate as many as three thousand people since 9/11, and is currently holding approximately thirty prisoners (177-8). Among the enhanced interrogation techniques that the CIA is authorized to use include the ability to force a prisoner to stand on his feet shackled to the floor and his hands cuffed together for more than thirty hours, the ability douse a prisoner with cold water and left to stand naked in a cell that is kept near fifty degrees, and water-boarding (178). In addition, prisoners have also been forced into coffin-like boxes, forced into cells where they are alternately denied all light and put in brightly lit rooms and denied sleep for long periods (178). This conduct is undeniably in violation of the UN CAT.
A final issue that must be brought up is that of extraordinary rendition, the practice of sending prisoners to other countries to carry out further interrogation. This tactic has been grossly abused by the Bush Administration in such a way as to violate the UN CAT under Article 3, which states that no State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture (Office of UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, 2006, 2).The second property of this Article clearly states that competent authorities must take into account all considerations of the issue, including the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights (2). This statute has clearly been violated if one examines the case of Mamdouh Habib, an Australian citizen captured and sent to Pakistan and Egypt for further interrogation before being sent to Guantánamo.
Mamdouh was first interrogated by Pakistani agents in extremely brutal fashion that undeniably amounts to torture, as the following report suggests:
He was suspended from hooks on the wall with his feet resting on the side of a large cylindrical drum. Down the middle of this drum ran a metal rod, with wires attached to both ends. The wires ran to what appeared to be a battery. When Mamdouh did not give the answers that his Pakistani questioners wanted, a guard threw a switch and a jolt of electricity ran through the rod, electrifying the drum on which Mamdouh stood. (Margulies, 2006, 184-5)
One can imagine the ensuing dance that occurred between resting on the electrified drum and suspending ones feet above it, leaving oneself hanging to a wall by hooks. In Egypt, Mamdouh was subject to an array of elaborate techniques of water torture (186-7). After being sent to Guantánamo, Mamdouh faced being sent to Egypt once again, and was only saved by a question posed to (at the time) Attorney General-designate Alberto Gonzalez by Senator Richard Durbin, asking Gonzalez if it would be illegal to turn over a prisoner to a country that would torture. To this, he responded we have an obligation not to render someone to a country that we believe is going to torture them; that is correct (194). In the days following this event, it was learned that Mamdouh was scheduled for release from Guantánamo Bay (194).
The Administration claims it has satisfied its obligations under the Torture Convention by securing assurances from the receiving country that the prisoner will not be tortured (194). However, the Torture Convention does not merely state an assurance, but explicitly states that the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights must be considered before rendering a prisoner (Office of UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, 2006, 2). According to Margulies (2006), every year for the past decade, the State Department has made the same complaint: Egypt tortures prisoners (188). With the common knowledge of Egypts frequent violations of human rights, the argument posed by the Administration for rendering prisoners to Egypt is simply unacceptable.
The only reason the UN were pissed about Bush invading Iraq was because that took away the UN's oil scam that they profited from Sadaam Hussein...
skeptik
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Despite the fact that torture is illegal under federal and international law, the very act of torture hinders US policy on ALL fronts. The first point of this argument is that torture very rarely has proven effective, and that it mainly leads to nothing by false confessions (29). The United States benefits nothing from obtaining false confessions, and in fact hinders national security by requiring that additional resources be wasted on tracking dead-end leads recovered by torture-induced information. According to Army Field Manual 34-52:
Experience indicates that the use of prohibited techniques is not necessary to gain the cooperation of interrogation sources. Use of torture and other illegal methods is a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the interrogator wants to hear. (30)
With this view of torture to readily obvious to the military, it is unfathomable as to why the Administration would deem the ability to administer torture tactics essential to national security. As far as one could be aware, there has been no substantial benefit from any acts of torture conducted throughout this campaign, though they deny any acts of torture at all (Margulies, The White House, Suskind, Zagorin). The evidence that suggests that torture is an ineffective and counterproductive means of interrogation leads one to deduce the conclusion that torture negatively affects America’s policy goals relating particularly to prosperity, in that it drains unnecessary time and resources from the system. The only tactics of interrogation that have proven legitimately effective most consistently are direct questioning (Margulies, 2006, 30).
America’s foreign policy goals relating to power also take a devastating blow in the wake of allegations of torture, “as the Army recognizes” that “‘revelations of [the] use of torture by US personnel will bring discredit upon the US and its armed forces while undermining domestic and international support for the war effort” (30). The statement continues, saying that “it may also place US and allied personnel in enemy hands at greater risk of abuse by their captors” (30). This statement, or at least the former part, has very much come true. The various pictures and reports of conditions of Camp Delta “acted as a powerful wedge, driving the United States away from the Muslim world on whose behalf we claimed to wages this war, and from the Western democracies whose standard we claimed to bear” (141). The UN high commissioner for human rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the English Court of Appeal, among others, have expressed their concern over the Administration’s detainment policies and urged for change (141-2). On the other side of this condemnation stood other nations who used the situation in Guantánamo Bay as leverage against criticism from the US, diminishing their foreign policy goals relating to power. For example, “in Liberia, then-President Charles Taylor announced shortly after 9/11 that opposition to his rule was in fact part of the global terror threat” and that, in response to the US protesting Taylor’s arresting of a respected journalist critical of his rule, claimed the journalist “was being treated ‘in the same manner in which the U.S. treats terrorists” (143). Eritrea, among the countries toward which the State Department is critical of their interrogation practices, “arrested a group of dissident politicians and later suggested they were agents of Osama bin Laden” with no evidence to suggest that this was indeed true (143). In other instances “Egypt, the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso...all invoked the indefinite detentions at Guantánamo when they locked up human rights campaigners as threats to national security” (143). In effect, “Camp Delta had established a new baseline for human rights: the U.S. government could only act on cases of abuse that were “worse than Guantánamo,” a limitation that greatly hinders the government’s ability to promote peace by resisting human rights abuses, as well as its ability to carry out its foreign policy goals relating to power for national security purposes.
One particularly alarming account from Washington of the damage caused by the Bush Administration’s foreign relations policies can be found in the dissenting views of House Resolution 624. In the dissenting views to the resolution is stated that “in order to fulfill our constitutional responsibilities, this Committee and the Republican-controlled Congress more generally must immediately do more to investigate” the allegations presented by numerous sources (US Congress House Committee on Internal Relations, 2006, 5). The statement goes on, saying that “beyond the simple moral imperative to stop such abuses and the historic commitment of the United States to abide by its international obligations, the international reaction to the images at Abu Ghraib demonstrates to us that these events do not merely implicate the principles described above, but go to the core of our national security” (5). The statement contests that by passage of the Resolution “we can prove to the world that we are serious about accountability for human rights violations and counter the damage to our national security done by them” and that Congress’ failure to address the questions raised “is a fundamental abdication of Congress’ constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight of the
Executive Branch (10).
The Administration’s policies of detainment have been a great hindrance to American foreign policy, causing great harm to our ability to protect our national security. By torturing, the only things achieved have been negative. The US has lost credibility and standing in the international community, negatively affecting our claims to power and prosperity. It has also hindered the US’ ability to strive for peace in that human rights violators cite Guantánamo Bay and other prisons as the worst human rights violations of all. The very act of torture not only goes against the UN Convention Against Torture, the Geneva Conventions, and the US Constitution, but it also destroys the US claim to be an international example of proper conduct, putting the principles upon which the nation was built in serious jeopardy of being overthrown. The US’ engaging in the illegal act of torture has weakened the government’s ability to carry out foreign policy goals on all fronts, with relation to power, peace, prosperity, and most clearly, principles.
References
Greenberg, Karen J. and Joshua L. Dratel. 2005. The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Legal Information Institute. 2006. “U.S Code Collection.” Cornell University. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002340----000-.html (December 9, 2006).
Margulies, Joseph. 2006. Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Office of the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights. United Nations. 1994. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/cat.htm (December 10, 2006).
Suskind, Ron. 2006. The One Percent Doctrine. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Committee on Internal Relations. US Congress House. 2006. Requesting the President of the United States and Directing the Secretary of State to Provide to the House of Representatives Certain Documents in Their Possession Relating to United States Policies Under the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the Geneva Conventions. http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi- bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_reports&docid= f:hr375.109.pdf (December 11, 2006).
White House, The. 2006. President Bush Signs Military Commissions Act of 2006. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061017-1.html (December 12, 2006).
Zagorin, Adam. 2006. “Was Jose Padilla Tortured?” Time Magazine, December 4. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1565798,00.html (December 12, 2006).
Experience indicates that the use of prohibited techniques is not necessary to gain the cooperation of interrogation sources. Use of torture and other illegal methods is a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the interrogator wants to hear. (30)
With this view of torture to readily obvious to the military, it is unfathomable as to why the Administration would deem the ability to administer torture tactics essential to national security. As far as one could be aware, there has been no substantial benefit from any acts of torture conducted throughout this campaign, though they deny any acts of torture at all (Margulies, The White House, Suskind, Zagorin). The evidence that suggests that torture is an ineffective and counterproductive means of interrogation leads one to deduce the conclusion that torture negatively affects America’s policy goals relating particularly to prosperity, in that it drains unnecessary time and resources from the system. The only tactics of interrogation that have proven legitimately effective most consistently are direct questioning (Margulies, 2006, 30).
America’s foreign policy goals relating to power also take a devastating blow in the wake of allegations of torture, “as the Army recognizes” that “‘revelations of [the] use of torture by US personnel will bring discredit upon the US and its armed forces while undermining domestic and international support for the war effort” (30). The statement continues, saying that “it may also place US and allied personnel in enemy hands at greater risk of abuse by their captors” (30). This statement, or at least the former part, has very much come true. The various pictures and reports of conditions of Camp Delta “acted as a powerful wedge, driving the United States away from the Muslim world on whose behalf we claimed to wages this war, and from the Western democracies whose standard we claimed to bear” (141). The UN high commissioner for human rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the English Court of Appeal, among others, have expressed their concern over the Administration’s detainment policies and urged for change (141-2). On the other side of this condemnation stood other nations who used the situation in Guantánamo Bay as leverage against criticism from the US, diminishing their foreign policy goals relating to power. For example, “in Liberia, then-President Charles Taylor announced shortly after 9/11 that opposition to his rule was in fact part of the global terror threat” and that, in response to the US protesting Taylor’s arresting of a respected journalist critical of his rule, claimed the journalist “was being treated ‘in the same manner in which the U.S. treats terrorists” (143). Eritrea, among the countries toward which the State Department is critical of their interrogation practices, “arrested a group of dissident politicians and later suggested they were agents of Osama bin Laden” with no evidence to suggest that this was indeed true (143). In other instances “Egypt, the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso...all invoked the indefinite detentions at Guantánamo when they locked up human rights campaigners as threats to national security” (143). In effect, “Camp Delta had established a new baseline for human rights: the U.S. government could only act on cases of abuse that were “worse than Guantánamo,” a limitation that greatly hinders the government’s ability to promote peace by resisting human rights abuses, as well as its ability to carry out its foreign policy goals relating to power for national security purposes.
One particularly alarming account from Washington of the damage caused by the Bush Administration’s foreign relations policies can be found in the dissenting views of House Resolution 624. In the dissenting views to the resolution is stated that “in order to fulfill our constitutional responsibilities, this Committee and the Republican-controlled Congress more generally must immediately do more to investigate” the allegations presented by numerous sources (US Congress House Committee on Internal Relations, 2006, 5). The statement goes on, saying that “beyond the simple moral imperative to stop such abuses and the historic commitment of the United States to abide by its international obligations, the international reaction to the images at Abu Ghraib demonstrates to us that these events do not merely implicate the principles described above, but go to the core of our national security” (5). The statement contests that by passage of the Resolution “we can prove to the world that we are serious about accountability for human rights violations and counter the damage to our national security done by them” and that Congress’ failure to address the questions raised “is a fundamental abdication of Congress’ constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight of the
Executive Branch (10).
The Administration’s policies of detainment have been a great hindrance to American foreign policy, causing great harm to our ability to protect our national security. By torturing, the only things achieved have been negative. The US has lost credibility and standing in the international community, negatively affecting our claims to power and prosperity. It has also hindered the US’ ability to strive for peace in that human rights violators cite Guantánamo Bay and other prisons as the worst human rights violations of all. The very act of torture not only goes against the UN Convention Against Torture, the Geneva Conventions, and the US Constitution, but it also destroys the US claim to be an international example of proper conduct, putting the principles upon which the nation was built in serious jeopardy of being overthrown. The US’ engaging in the illegal act of torture has weakened the government’s ability to carry out foreign policy goals on all fronts, with relation to power, peace, prosperity, and most clearly, principles.
References
Greenberg, Karen J. and Joshua L. Dratel. 2005. The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Legal Information Institute. 2006. “U.S Code Collection.” Cornell University. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002340----000-.html (December 9, 2006).
Margulies, Joseph. 2006. Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Office of the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights. United Nations. 1994. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/cat.htm (December 10, 2006).
Suskind, Ron. 2006. The One Percent Doctrine. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Committee on Internal Relations. US Congress House. 2006. Requesting the President of the United States and Directing the Secretary of State to Provide to the House of Representatives Certain Documents in Their Possession Relating to United States Policies Under the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the Geneva Conventions. http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi- bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_reports&docid= f:hr375.109.pdf (December 11, 2006).
White House, The. 2006. President Bush Signs Military Commissions Act of 2006. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061017-1.html (December 12, 2006).
Zagorin, Adam. 2006. “Was Jose Padilla Tortured?” Time Magazine, December 4. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1565798,00.html (December 12, 2006).
After 9-11 Bush had everyone in his shirt pocket, most of us are still waking up. A lot of people just avoid the truth, some are too stupid to see it, or too blind to stop supporting Bush, but a good I would say 70% of the American public despises Bush for basically lying to the public. A lot of Americans just don't care.
Was that an essay? Did you write that?
The information on torture being counterproductive is enlightening, but most of it I already knew. I didn't see the consequences of us being completely shunned by the international community though. I really hope people realize that is the Bush administration, not America in general... it's shit like this that makes me embarrassed to be an American.
The information on torture being counterproductive is enlightening, but most of it I already knew. I didn't see the consequences of us being completely shunned by the international community though. I really hope people realize that is the Bush administration, not America in general... it's shit like this that makes me embarrassed to be an American.
Hubster
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