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TORTURE
– A SICK SYMPTOM OF ALL TOTALITARIAN DICTATORSHIPS
Pity
us Poor Torturers and Executioners:
“The
few words of the sentence ‘The Jews must be exterminated’
are easy to say. Yet for those who must carry it out, what it demands
is the hardest and most difficult thing there is. I ask you really to
listen to what I have to say in this circle, and never to talk about
it. The question has arisen: what about the women and children? I
resolved to find an utterly clear solution for this as well. For I do
not consider myself justified to eradicate the men—that means
kill or have killed—and allow the avengers of their deaths to
grow up in the form of the children and grandchildren. Thus the
difficult decision had to be taken to make this people disappear from
the face of the earth.”
Heinrich Himmler,
Reichsfuhrer SS, Poland, November 6, 1943
Although Bush has fiercely denied that his regime approves of Torture; there is a growing corpus
delecti body of gruesome evidence, that he and his
medieval inquisitors have abandoned the century old Laws of War and
authorized
the Physical and
Psychological torture, and murder, of captives and POWs by American
CIA and Army Intelligence; and authorized the widespread
practice of extraordinary
rendition to surrogate countries known to
routinely torture their prisoners.
Like
The Holocaust - Torture Never Happened:
“Lies
have poisoned the whole subject of Auschwitz for more than a quarter
century…Since 1945, the whole world has been assailed by this
legend. Hundreds of lies have been repeated in thousands of books in
an increasingly virulent rage”
Belgian Leon Degrelle,
Letter to the Pope on visit to Auschwitz, 1979; Leader of the REX
Fascist Movement in Belgium, Joined Waffen SS in 1943, Commander of
the Wallonie Brigade in 1944, defended the Hitler bunker in 1945,
Received asylum In Franco’s Spain.
The brutality of the methods used by the U.S. in the War on Terror, have permanently and unnecessarily
damaged the moral leadership and reputation of the U.S. people.
Experts in interrogation all agree; torture is not necessary or
effective for eliciting useful information from captives. These
policies have created many thousands of bitter captives that will
hold a deep hatred for the American people for the rest of their
lives. One of these victims may very well become the Ali Agca
deranged fanatic that kills millions of Americans someday. By 2005 a
growing critical mass of soldiers were coming forward with
allegations of abuse and outright criminal torture:
“There
were freaking horrible things people were doing. I saw (detainees)
who had feet smashed with hammers.”
Anthony
Lagouranis, Army Enlisted Specialist
In August 2005, a Washington Post
story written by Josh White, contained the following excerpt of a
description of the murder
of an Iraqi General Officer obtained from official documents.
General Mowhoush had voluntarily visited the prison looking for his
son:
“Iraqi
Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush was being stubborn with his American
captors, and a series of intense beatings and creative interrogation
tactics were not enough to break his will. On the morning of Nov. 26,
2003, a U.S. Army interrogator and a military guard grabbed a green
sleeping bag, stuffed Mowhoush inside, wrapped him in an electrical
cord, laid him on the floor and began to go to work. Again.
It
was inside the sleeping bag that the 56-year-old detainee took his
last breath through broken ribs, lying on the floor beneath a U.S.
soldier in Interrogation Room 6 in the western Iraqi desert. Two days
before, a secret CIA-sponsored group of Iraqi paramilitaries, working
with Army interrogators, had beaten Mowhoush nearly senseless, using
fists, a club and a rubber hose, according to classified documents.
The
sleeping-bag interrogation and beatings were taking place in Qaim
about the same time that soldiers at Abu Ghraib, outside Baghdad,
were using dogs to intimidate detainees, putting women's underwear on
their heads, forcing them to strip in front of female soldiers and
attaching at least one to a leash. It was a time when U.S.
interrogators were coming up with their own tactics to get detainees
to talk, many of which they considered logical interpretations of
broad-brush categories in the Army Field Manual, with labels such as
‘fear up’ or ‘pride and ego down’
or ‘futility.’
Hours
after Mowhoush's death in U.S. custody on Nov. 26, 2003, military
officials issued a news release stating that the prisoner had died of
natural causes after complaining of feeling sick. Army
psychological-operations officers quickly distributed leaflets
designed to convince locals that the general had cooperated and outed
key insurgents.
The
U.S. military initially told reporters that Mowhoush had been
captured during a raid. In reality, he had walked into the Forward
Operating Base "Tiger" in Qaim on Nov. 10, 2003, hoping to
speak with U.S. commanders to secure the release of his sons, who had
been arrested in raids 11 days earlier.”
Army
Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr., was eventually
convicted of negligent homicide and dereliction of duty in the
interrogation death of General Mouhoush, but he received only
a reprimand! At a hearing at Fort Carson, Colo., a
military jury recommended that he receive no jail time. It also said
his salary should be docked $6,000 and that he be restricted to
barracks for 60 days.
The NFC Republican-controlled Congress has become a particeps
criminis in the continuing torture scandals, by
continuously turning a blind eye to the gruesome evidence of these
awful war crimes committed by U.S. Military, CIA agents, and the
civilian and military Chain-of-Command; which has continued
throughout the War on Terror.
Except for one reserve MP officer, Captain Christopher Beiring (the Army
later dropped the case), no one above the rank of enlisted soldiers
had been prosecuted as of December 2005, none in a General Court
Martial, and none will, because the evidence that would be presented
in Court, by anyone with direct evidence, would lead directly back to
Mr. Bush himself.
In July 2005, the Washington Post reported that Bush and Vice-President Cheney had been actively
involved in efforts to stop a series of amendments and bills being
circulated by a few embarrassed Republicans led by Senator John
McCain - a former Vietnam War POW. The Bush administration had
been trying to block legislation, supported by these Republican
Senators; that would bar the US military from engaging in "cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees, regardless
of physical location,” from hiding prisoners
from the Red Cross, and from using interrogation methods not
authorized by a new Army Field Manual.
Vice President Cheney met with these three senior Republican members of the Senate Armed Services
Committee to press the administration's case that legislation on
these matters would usurp the president's authority and - in the
words of a White House official - interfere with his ability "to
protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack." At
a minimum, the Vice-President demanded that the phrase “regardless
of physical location”
be removed from the amendment.
The Senate meeting was attended by Armed Services Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) and committee members
John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). Warner and
Graham had recently chaired hearings that explored detainee abuse and
interrogation tactics at Guantánamo Bay and the concerns of
senior military lawyers that administration policies have left the
door open to abuse.
The McCain amendment sets uniform standards for interrogating anyone detained by the Defense
Department and would limit interrogation techniques to those listed
in the Army Field Manual on interrogation, now being revised. Any
changes to procedures would require the defense secretary to appear
before Congress.
It requires that all foreign nationals in the custody or effective control of the U.S. military
must be registered with the International Committee of the Red Cross
- a provision specifically meant to block the holding of ghost
detainees in Iraq, in Afghanistan or elsewhere.
Sensing a Public Relations disaster in the next election, these and other concerned Republican
Senators expressed concern with the Bush regime torture policies; and
in a rebuke to Bush and Cheney, the Senate passed the McCain
legislation in October 2005, by a lop-sided vote of 90-9.
Senator McCain, a former POW, wants to require the Bush regime and
all future U.S. Presidents to adhere to the Geneva Conventions and
the International Law on Human Rights.
(The
9 pro-torture Republicans were Wayne Allard (CO*), Kit Bond (MO), Tom
Coburn (OK), Thad Cochran (MS*), John Cornyn (TX), James Inhofe
(OK*), Pat Roberts (KS*), Jeff Sessions (AL*), Ted Stevens (AK*)
–remember these names; those with * are up in 2008, the others
in 2010.)
On July 26, 2005, McCain issued a
press release which included the following comments:
“Mr.
President, I rise to offer an amendment that would establish the Army
Field Manual as the uniform standard for the interrogation of
Department of Defense detainees and I ask for its immediate
consideration. I also ask that Senator Collins …be added as a
cosponsor.
To
fight terrorism it is obvious that we must obtain intelligence, but
we have to ensure that it is reliable and acquired in a way that is
humane. To do otherwise not only offends our national morals, but
undermines our efforts to protect the nation’s security. Abuse
of prisoners harms – not helps – us in the war on terror,
because inevitably these abuses become public. When they do, the
cruel actions of a few darken the reputation of our honorable country
in the eyes of millions. Mistreatment of our prisoners also endangers
U.S. service members who might be captured by the enemy – if
not in this war, then in the next…
Mr.
President, let me just close by noting that I hold no brief for the
prisoners. I do hold a brief for the reputation of the United States
of America. We are Americans, and we hold ourselves to humane
standards of treatment of people no matter how evil or terrible they
may be. To do otherwise, as I have noted, undermines our security,
but it also undermines our greatness as a nation. We are not simply
any other country. We stand for something more in the world – a
moral mission, one of freedom and democracy and human rights at home
and abroad. We are better than these terrorists, and we will win. The enemy we
fight has no respect for human life or human rights. They don’t
deserve our sympathy.
But
this isn’t about who they are. This is about who we are. These
are the values that distinguish us from our enemies”
Senator Frist, Majority leader and administration stooge, promptly tabled the
entire Defense Authorization Bill, but McCain threatened to put it on
every bill coming before the Senate.
The McCain amendment was probably
the most threatening to Bush and his co-conspirators. A truly
independent investigation will uncover criminal liability all the way
up the chain of command to the White House.
The following letter was sent to Sen. McCain on Sept. 16, 2005:
“Dear
Senator McCain:
I am a graduate of West Point currently serving as
a Captain in the U.S. Army Infantry. I have served two combat tours
with the 82nd Airborne Division, one each in Afghanistan and Iraq.
While I served in the Global War on Terror, the actions and
statements of my leadership led me to believe that United States
policy did not require application of the Geneva Conventions in
Afghanistan or Iraq.
I am certain that this confusion contributed to a wide range of abuses
including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to
elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking,
stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment. I and troops
under my command witnessed some of these abuses in both Afghanistan
and Iraq.
Since clear standards only limit interrogation techniques, it is
reasonable for me to assume that supporters of this argument
desire to use coercion to acquire information from detainees.
This is morally inconsistent with the Constitution and justice in war. It
is unacceptable.
I strongly urge you to do justice to your men and women in uniform.
Give them clear standards of conduct that reflect the ideals they
risk their lives for.
With the Utmost Respect,
Capt. Ian
Fishback, 1st Battalion,
504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd
Airborne Division,
Fort Bragg, North Carolina”
In early 2003, several senior uniformed military lawyers from each of the services voiced vigorous
dissents to the policies outlined in a 2002 Justice Department memo
to the President that alleged that the rules against torture did not
apply in the War on Terror.
Maj. Gen. Jack L. Rives, the Air Force deputy judge advocate general, wrote that several of the "more
extreme interrogation techniques, on their face, amount
to violations of domestic criminal law" as
well as military law. In fact, Rives added, use of many of these
techniques "puts the
interrogators and the chain of command at risk of
criminal accusations abroad." Rives was talking
about the well-established concept of universal
jurisdiction, according to which any nation has the
authority to prosecute any person for the commission of war crimes.
The tactics proposed in the 2002 memorandum also troubled Rives because he felt the new interrogation
policies threatened to undo progress the military had made since the
Vietnam War. Accusations of war crimes committed by U.S. forces
during Vietnam damaged the military "culture
and self-image," Rives wrote. Post-Vietnam
military programs that emphasize compliance with the laws of war have
"greatly restored the
culture and self-image of US armed forces,"
according to Rives.
Moreover, Brig. Gen. Kevin M.
Sandkuhler, a senior Marine lawyer, wrote that military lawyers
believed the harsh interrogation system could have adverse
consequences for American service members. These might include
diminished "public
support and respect of US armed forces, as well as loss of
pride, discipline, and self-respect within the US armed
forces." The interrogation regime could also
jeopardize military intelligence-gathering and efforts to obtain
support from allied countries.
On August 13, 2005, Liberal Columnist Joe Conason gave liberal credit to the three Southern
Senators, and wrote in the New York Observer:
“Among
the most durable stereotypes of American political culture is that
military officers secretly yearn for authoritarian rule and blind
brutality, especially if they happen to be from the South, while
civilian officials and intellectuals supposedly cherish our
constitutional order.
Those
fissures were exposed when Senator (Lindsey) Graham released
declassified memoranda written by top Judge Advocate General
officers. Pried loose from the Pentagon by the Senator, those memos
show that in early 2003, ranking J.A.G. officers from every service
branch tried to warn against interrogation methods that violate the
human and legal rights of prisoners in U.S. military detention
facilities.
In
essence, the J.A.G. officers worried about the effect of the military
of policies that encouraged torture and other interrogation practices
prohibited under U.S. and international law. Doing so endangered
American troops, who could be prosecuted in U.S. or international
courts—and undermined their own protection against enemy
abuses. The J.A.G. officers could barely conceal their astonishment
that the Bush administration would consider discarding decades of
training and tradition for the sake of dubiously effective
interrogation methods.
‘Treating
[the] detainees inconsistently with the [Geneva] Conventions arguably
‘lowers the bar’ for the treatment of U.S. POWs in future
conflicts,‘ wrote Air Force Maj. Gen. Jack Rives. ‘How
will this affect their treatment when incarcerated abroad and our
ability to call others to account for their treatment?’ asked
Navy Rear Adm. Michael Lohr.
The
‘implementation of questionable techniques will very likely
establish a new baseline for acceptable practice in this area,’
wrote Army Gen. Michael Romig, ‘putting our service personnel
at far greater risk and vitiating many of the POW/detainee safeguards
the U.S. has worked hard to establish over the past five decades.’
Somehow,
those concerns appear to have made little impression on Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his advisors. But then, as Marine Corps
Gen. Kevin Sandkuhler noted dryly in his own dissenting memo, those
zealous lawyers promoting torture in the Justice Department and the
White House ‘do not represent the services; thus,
understandably, concern for service members is not reflected in their
opinion.’
More
broadly, the J.A.G. officers were troubled by the implications for
the military and the nation, of the high-handed attitude exemplified
by the Bush advisors. What kind of country would the United States
become if we allowed our military officers to behave like criminals?
What kind of country would we become if we accepted the dangerous
theory, promoted by the Pentagon civilians, that in wartime a
President can issue whatever orders he may choose, regardless of U.S.
and international law?”
We
have yet to confront the full consequences of that theory, as applied
in U.S. military detention facilities. At the moment, the Pentagon
and the White House are withholding photos and videos that reportedly
document abuses even graver than what we’ve already seen,
despite a court order demanding their release.
The
warnings of the J.A.G. officers were prescient indeed. Someday, when
historians consider how this President and his associates sought to
overturn American values, traditions and statutes in pursuit of
absolute power, they will praise the officers and politicians who
resisted those illegitimate maneuvers.”
Military officers in active service cannot openly criticize their CINC, as it is potentially a
court martial offense. However, Mr. Conason should have given more
credit to the many retired traditional-conservative
high ranking military officers that have
continuously spoken out against the war, the occupation, and the
captivity and torture policies. Professional officers of all ranks
and services are appalled by the torture policies of the Bush regime;
but there is little more they can do for now, as long as the Congress
fails to act.
Three former U.S. Flag officers
filed an Amicus brief with the Supreme Court, through their
attorneys, on behalf of the Captives at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Case #
03-334, 03-343)
B/Gen. David M. Brahms, USMC Ret.,
Rear Admiral Donald J. Guter, USN, and Rear Admiral John D. Hutson,
USN; had formerly served as the Judge Advocate General or the Senior
Legal Advisor for a branch of the United States military, with
extensive experience in U.S. military regulations and the Laws of
War.
Each dedicated his military career
to the principle that the mission of the nation’s Armed Forces
must be consistent with the rule of law. This is an excerpt from
their Curiae Brief:
“The
government’s contention is that no court any where on earth has
jurisdiction, even to entertain the GuantÁnamo prisoner’s
claims---that the federal courts could not intervene even if
prisoners were being executed or tortured. The government’s
position is based on the proposition that only Cuba, not the United
States, has sovereignty over the base.”
“Applying
the rule of law to the GuantÁnamo is especially important to the
members of the United States Armed Forces.”
“…if
the United Sates refuses to apply the competent tribunal requirement
in the Geneva Conventions to the prisoners being held at GuantÁnamo,
it increases the likelihood that foreign authorities holding American
captives will decide to ignore the Geneva Conventions
entirely—thereby putting the lives of American prisoners at
risk.”
NFC Republicans Nullify
Supreme Court Decision
Senator Graham, has been outspoken
on the need for Congress to get involved in the issue of detainee
treatment, said in an interview that he intended to pursue additional
amendments that would define the term enemy
combatant, for purposes of detention and regulate the
military trials of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay. Some
believed this was a ploy to essentially legislative authorization for
Torture; so that the President and those in the Chain-Of-Command, can
not be prosecuted for their actions in the War on Terror.
It didn’t take long to
find out what the NFC Republican from the right wing red state of
South Carolina meant by getting “Buy
In” to GuantÁnamo. The
Senate voted on November 10, 2005 on a Graham amendment to strip
captured enemy
combatants at GuantÁnamo Bay, Cuba, of the principal
legal tool given to them last year by the Supreme Court, when it
allowed them to challenge their detentions in United States courts.
The vote, 49 to 42,
on an amendment to a military budget bill came at a time of intense
debate over the government's treatment of prisoners in American
custody worldwide, and just days after the Senate had passed the
measure by Senator McCain banning abusive treatment and torture.
In an unbelievable act of
disrespect for the Rule of Law, five Democratic Senators;
Joseph
Lieberman of Connecticut, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Ben Nelson of
Nebraska, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, and Ron Wyden of
Oregon… voted with
most Republicans in support! Several Courageous honorable
traditional-conservative Republicans voted against it, including the
powerful Chairman of the
Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
If approved in its current form by
both the Senate and the House, the law would
nullify a June 2004 Supreme Court opinion that
detainees at GuantÁnamo Bay had a right to challenge their detentions
in court.
Nearly 200 of roughly 500
detainees have already filed habeas corpus motions; which are making
their way up through the federal court system. As written, the
amendment would void any suits pending at the time the law was
passed.
Mengele
Returns from Dante’s Inferno
On July 1, 2005, the Washington
Post ran a story written by Burton J. Lee III, a former White House
physician, and a military medical officer who is concerned that U.S.
Medical services personnel have been directed to assist in the abuse
and torture of prisoners, by the civilian leadership. It is important
to be included here in its entirety. These are from a web mail copy
of his story;
The
Indelible Stain of Torture
“Having
served as a doctor in the Army Medical Corps early in my career and
as presidential physician to George H.W. Bush for four years, I might
be expected to bring a skeptical and partisan perspective to
allegations of torture and abuse by U.S. forces. I might even be
expected to join those who, on the one hand, deny that U.S. personnel
have engaged in systematic use of torture while, on the other,
claiming that such abuse is justified. But I cannot do so.
It’s
precisely because of my devotion to country, respect for our military
and commitment to the ethics of the medical profession that I speak
out against systematic, government-sanctioned torture and excessive
abuse of prisoners during our war on terrorism. I am also deeply
disturbed by the reported complicity in these abuses of military
medical personnel. This extraordinary shift in policy and values is
alien to my concept of modern-day America and of my government and
profession.
The
military prides itself, as do physicians, on being professional in
every sense of the word. It fosters leadership and discipline. When I
served as White House physician, my entire professional staff was
drawn from the military, and they were among the best and most
competent people I have met, without qualification.
The
military ethics that I know absolutely prohibit anything resembling
torture. There are several good reasons for this. Prisoners should be
treated as we would expect our prisoners to be treated. Discipline
and order in the military ranks depend to a large extent on
compliance with the prohibition of torture --indeed, weak or damaged
psyches inclined toward torture or abuse have generally been weeded
out of the military, or at the very least given less responsibility.
In addition, military leaders have long been aware that torture
inflicts lasting damage on both the victim and the torturer.
The
systematic infliction of torture engenders deep hatred and hostility
that transcends generations. And it perverts the role of medical
personnel from healers to instruments of abuse.
Today,
however, it seems as though our government and the military have
slipped into Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." The
widespread reports of torture and ill-treatment -- frequently based
on military and government documents -- defy the claim that this
abusive behavior is limited to a few noncommissioned officers at Abu
Ghraib or isolated incidents at GuantÁnamo Bay.
When
it comes to torture, the military's traditional leadership and
discipline have been severely compromised up and down the chain of
command.
Why?
I fear it is because the military has bowed to errant civilian
leadership.
Our
medical code of ethics requires us to oppose torture wherever it is
inflicted, for any reason. Guided by this ethic, I served as a
volunteer with the international group MEDICO in 1963, taking care of
people who had been tortured by the French during Algeria's civil
war. I remain deeply affected by that experience today -- by the
people I tried to help and could not, and by their families, which
suffered the most terrible grief. I heard the victims' stories,
examined their permanently broken bodies and looked into faces that
could not see me because of the irreparable damage done not only to
their senses but also to their brains. As I have studied reports of
torture throughout our
troubled world since then, I have always found comfort in knowing
that at least it did not occur here, not among Americans.
Now
that comfort is shattered. Reports of torture by U.S. forces have
been accompanied by evidence that military medical personnel have
played a role in this abuse and by new military ethical guidelines
that in effect authorize complicity by health professionals in
ill-treatment of detainees. These new guidelines distort traditional
ethical rules beyond recognition to serve the interests of
interrogators, not doctors and detainees.
I
urge my fellow health professionals to join me and many others in
reaffirming our ethical commitment to prevent torture; to clearly
state that systematic torture, sanctioned by the government and aided
and abetted by our own profession, is not acceptable.
As
health professionals, we should support the growing calls for an
independent, bipartisan commission to investigate torture in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, and demand restoration of
ethical standards that protect physicians, nurses, medics and
psychologists from becoming facilitators of abuse.
America
cannot continue down this road. Torture demonstrates weakness, not
strength. It does not show understanding, power or magnanimity. It is
not leadership. It is a reaction of government officials overwhelmed
by fear who succumb to conduct unworthy of them and of the citizens
of the United States.”
The writer is a former
physician to President George H.W. Bush and a board member of
Physicians for Human Rights.
In August 2005, a Conference of
representatives of Medical Professional Organizations such as the AMA
and the American Psychological Association was broadcast on C-Span.
The purpose of the conference was to announce that the various
professional medical Associations were in opposition to the use of
Army Medical and Psychological personnel to facilitate Interrogations
and Torture, and that any such personnel participating in such
activities might lose their professional recognition. This issue, it
was observed, could impact on the recruitment of Doctors and
Psychiatrists for the Army.
The
memories of the Nazi doctors involvement in torture now hover over
the American medical profession like a toxic black cloud.
“Research
in sterilization techniques involved exposure to large doses of
x-rays, straightforward castration, sterilization with drugs, , and
injection of inflammatory liquid into the uterus. Other experiments
entailed drinking sea water, infection with gas, gangrenous wounds,
bone transplants, exposure to phosgene and mustard gas, the
artificial inducing of phlemon, and so forth.”
Hitler’s
SS, Richard Grunberger
On October 20, 2005, three California medical experts requested an investigation of any U.S.
military doctor linked to the torture of detainees since Sept. 11,
2001. The probe was urged in a letter published Friday in the New
England Journal of Medicine. The letter was in response to a
disclosure of such mistreatment in Iraq and Cuba published in the
journal and other publications in July.
“There
is now sufficient published evidence in professional and public
journals that physicians, psychologists, and perhaps other health
care professionals have abetted or directly participated in
interrogation activities which are prohibited by accepted
professional ethical codes.”
Dr.
Philip Lee; a Professor at both Stanford University and the
University of California, San Francisco.
In any case, the efforts of the
Republican Senators were too little, too late, and were partly
intended to cut off an effort by Senate Democrats to attach more
stringent demands to the defense bill regarding detainees. One group,
led by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Michigan), has proposed an amendment
calling for an independent commission similar to the Sept. 11
commission, to look into administration policies on interrogation and
detainee abuse.
The
Unrestricted Commander-In-Chief State
“The
Fuehrer must have all the rights demanded by him to achieve
victory.”
Adolf Hitler, 1942
The
Torture Law does not apply to Emperor Bush as CINC!
After doing everything possible to
kill the Anti-Torture provisions of the Defense Bill, Bush signed the
Bill containing the Anti-Torture prohibitions on December 30, 2005.
He then quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his
exaggerated sense of his powers as Commander-in-Chief!
Bush issued a ''signing
statement" -- an official document in which a
president lays out his interpretation of a new law -- declaring that
he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader
powers to protect national security. Bush wrote;
“The
executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with
the constitutional authority of the President . . . as Commander in
Chief.”
This means Bush believes he can
waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.
The president's signing statement, which was posted on the White
House website, had gone unnoticed over the New Year's weekend, and
raises serious questions about whether he intends to follow the law.
On August 1, 2005, Chris Floyd,
reporting for the Moscow Times, had stronger words for the carte
blanche authority demanded by the NFC
Bush regime:
“‘Last
week, we wrote of the Bush Faction's increasingly successful drive to
establish the principle of unlimited presidential authority -- beyond
the reach of any law or constitutional restriction -- as the new
foundation of a militarist American state. This relentless push
toward autocracy gained even more strength in recent days, in two
cases centering on what has emerged as the very core of Vice
President Dick Cheney was dispatched to Congress last week to
strong-arm three Republican senators seeking to place the mildest
limitations imaginable on Bush's power to do whatever he wants with
his captives in ‘the war on terror,…’’ The Washington Post
reports. The proposed amendments to the defense budget would simply
require interrogators to follow whatever procedures the Pentagon
establishes for questioning prisoners and to register all captives
with the International Red Cross. A third provision would take the
radical step of prohibiting ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading
punishment’ of anyone in custody -- behavior that is already
expressly forbidden in U.S. law.
But
Cheney brought hard words from on high for the tepid trio:
‘Bush
will veto any attempt by Congress to place any fetters on his
arbitrary power over the captives in his worldwide gulag. The
grim-visaged veep put it plainly: Such legislation would ‘restrict
the President's authority’ to conduct the terror war as he sees
fit, and thus cannot be tolerated’
The
whole defense budget will be tossed into the toilet if the amendments
are attached, Cheney thundered.
This
would be the first veto of Bush's presidency: a mark of the supreme
importance he places on his ability to seize people without charges,
hold them indefinitely, break their bodies and their minds, then
dispose of them as he pleases. This power is obviously more important
to him than the defense of the nation itself. But what's most
striking about this case is the fact that the amendments -- sponsored
by ersatz maverick John McCain, among others: are actually
part of the process of establishing an open, ‘legal’
structure for Bush's unrestricted ‘Commander-in-Chief
state.’
The
measure is an attempt to lend congressional legitimacy to the Bush
gulag, as co-sponsor Lindsey Graham made clear.
‘We
need congressional buy-in to Guantánamo.’
Graham said bluntly. He also
noted that the amendments would recognize and support Bush’s power to
establish his own private judicial system: the rigged ‘military
tribunals’ for anyone Bush has arbitrarily designated an ‘Enemy
Combatant.’ What's more, the measure exempts the CIA -- which
runs the gulag's most secret quadrants -- from almost all of its
provisions.
As
for ‘cruel punishment,’ recent history shows that current
U.S. laws against such practices have hardly deterred the Bush
Faction's yen for torture. The White House simply redefines the
meaning of ‘torture’ to suit its needs of the moment. In
2002, a series of memos crafted by Bush's legal minions virtually
defined torture out of existence. Only the deliberate attempt to
murder a prisoner or maim him for life was considered beyond the
pale, they said; everything else was fair game.
Later,
when the Abu Ghraib atrocities drew some brief media heat in an
election year, the Pentagon issued a few new restrictions on
barbarity for public consumption -- although once again, the CIA was
pointedly exempted from
restraint. McCain's redundant and rather pathetic proposal, asking
the Bushists to please obey laws that already exist, would doubtless
be subjected to the same weasel-wording treatment.
So
why put the kibosh on this gutless, toothless bill? It's simple.
The
autocratic principle cannot accept any institutional infringement on
the Leader's arbitrary power not even a craven accommodation like
McCain's measure. Yes, Congress may rubber-stamp the gulag (‘a
buy-in to GuantÁnamo’); that's allowed. And Congress may approve
funding for the gulag.
But
the people's representatives must have no say whatsoever in the
gulag's operations.To give way on this point would reintroduce the
rule of law and genuine democracy to U.S. government. And the Bush
militarists have gone too far, waded through too much blood, to
return to such "quaint" notions now.
Likewise,
the idea of judicial oversight of the executive must also be refuted.
Even as Cheney was chastising Congress, the Bushists were blatantly
defying a federal court order to release 87 photographs and four
videos of last year's Abu Ghraib mayhem. These depict barbarities
that even Pentagon warlord Don Rumsfeld once described as "blatantly
sadistic, cruel and inhumane," Editor & Publisher reports. A
Republican senator who saw the material spoke of ‘rape and
murder.’
‘Bush
simply refused to obey the federal court, saying he would provide an
explanation for his actions -- in secret -- at some later date.
But
there is more. Eyewitnesses have said the pictures show the rape
and brutal abuse of young teenagers and children. The filmed
evidence is corroborated by the Pentagon's own investigators. Yet in
all this time -- and in all the show trials of low-ranking ‘bad
apples’ the Bushists have staged -- not a single person has been
charged or even reprimanded for these abominations.
This
is the power that Bush declares cannot be restricted by courts or
Congress or any law on earth: the power to torture, to murder, to
terrorize -- and to rape children. This is the dark, filthy heart of
his militarist state.
With
each new atrocity on every side in the hydra-headed "war on
terror," you think that now, perhaps, we've reached the bottom.
But never believe that comforting notion. The evil that has opened up
beneath our feet is bottomless, and we are falling deeper, fathom by
fathom, into the pit. The worst, far worse, is yet to come.”
“As
a matter of U.S. policy, the United States' obligations under the CAT
(Convention against Torture), which prohibits cruel, inhumane and
degrading treatment -- those obligations extend to U.S. personnel
wherever they are, whether they are in the United States or outside
of the United States.”
Condaleeza Rice, December 7, 2005
As the Torture story continued to
plague the Bush regime, the American people became more aware of the
facts, and Bush’s approval rating dropped into the toilet,
Condaleeza Rice was sent to Europe to reassure the Europeans with
more Bushworld propaganda and disinformation; but by December 2005,
the European public and their leaders were not buying it. Rice told
the Europeans that the United States government does not authorize or
condone torture of detainees, but they know “it”
all depends on what she meant by
"authorize," "condone," "torture" and
"detainees."
The U.N. treaty also prohibits
treatment that doesn't meet the legal definition of torture,
including many practices that human rights organizations say were
used routinely in places such as Afghanistan and GuantÁnamo Bay in
Cuba.
Human rights organizations and
critics in Europe have said that the administration's prior
statements that standards overseas were different; created a loophole
for torture. Prisoners suspected of links to terrorism have been
chained to the floors of their cells, denied sleep and led to believe
they could be killed by methods such as waterboarding.
These methods, called Coercive
Persuasion or Interrogation are known to create the
phenomenon of Regression
which causes physical and psychological injuries and death. At least
108 deaths
of prisoners in U.S. custody have been reported.
For example, the U.S. has been
accused by released captives and some U.S. experts of using
waterboarding; in which prisoners are strapped to a plank and
submerged in water or have water continually poured on their face to
approach drowning. These methods were recognized as torture as early
as the Spanish Inquisition, and occasionally result in death from
heart attacks or drowning. We will never know just how many were
murdered or driven insane by these methods.
Rice faced sharp criticism despite
the defense of U.S. policy she had outlined in Washington, Berlin and
Bucharest. U.S. and European critics strongly suspect the CIA of
running secret prisons in Eastern Europe and covertly transporting
suspects around the continent. Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot of NATO
said that Rice's answers to the allegations had so far been
unsatisfactory.
On Wednesday, December 7, 2005,
Louise Arbour,
the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights had harsh words for the
Bush regime;
“The
U.S.-led war on terror has undermined the global ban on torture,
weakening American moral authority on human rights worldwide; The
principle once believed to be unassailable -- the inherent right to
physical integrity and dignity of the person -- is becoming a
casualty of the so-called war on terror, There are a lot of human
rights that can be set aside in cases of emergency, lots of them, but
not the right to life and not the protection against torture; To
the extent that there's a perception that there is a withdrawal from
the high-water mark of commitment to civil and political liberties, I
think it makes it a lot more difficult for the United States to
exercise that kind of moral leadership on all human rights issues…”
(Arbour is a former
Canadian Supreme Court justice and a chief prosecutor for the U.N.
War Crimes Court for the former Yugoslavia.)
Britain's highest Court also
thrust itself into the middle of the roiling U.S. debate in December
2005, declaring that evidence obtained through torture - no matter by
whom - was not admissible in British courts. It also said Britain had
a “positive obligation”
to uphold anti-torture principles abroad as well as at home.
The Democratic leadership has
so far failed to take the moral high ground and officially condemn
the Bush regime for these war crimes.
As
of December 2005, they had not introduced a bill to impeach Mr. Bush,
and the high level slugs that are responsible for authorizing these
crimes.
Conservative
Christian Moral Leadership is Blessed:
“Providence
withdrew its protection and our people fell, fell as scarcely any
other people heretofore. In this deep misery we again learn to pray.
… The mercy of the Lord slowly returns to us again. And in this
hour we sink to our knees and beseech our almighty God that he may
bless us; that He may give us the strength to carry on the struggle
for the freedom, the future, the honor, and the peace of our people.
So help us God.”
Adolf
Hitler, March 1936
The
Law of Honor of the Religious SS-Man:
“Question:
What is your Oath? Answer: We swear to you, Adolf Hitler,
loyalty and bravery as the leader and Chancellor of the German Reich.
We vow to you and to the principles laid down by you obedience to the
death. So Help Us God. Question: Thus you believe in God? Answer:
Yes, I believe in a Lord God. Question: What do you think of a
person who does not believe in a God? Answer: I consider him
arrogant, stupid, and a megalomaniac; he is not suited for us.”
50
Questions and Answers for the SS—Man, by Heinrich Himmler, 1937
During the rise of the Fascist
dictatorships in Italy, Germany, Austria, Spain, and Portugal, the
Christian clergy were largely silent and failed to criticize the
brutality and criminality of the street thugs called the
“Blackshirts” in Italy, and the “Brownshirts”
in Germany, when they were still a minority; and could have been
defeated. By failing to provide moral leadership at the right time,
the Conservative Protestant and Catholic Churches contributed to the
subsequent horrors, perpetrated by the Gestapo and the SS.
American religious leaders,
especially the holier than thou Christian-Nationalist
Crusaders have been silent on the shame of official
sanction of torture. Their deafening silence evokes memories of the
unconscionable behavior of German church leaders in the 1930s and
early 1940s. Despite the hate whipped up by administration
propagandists against those it brands terrorists,
most Americans agree that torture should not be permitted.
Few seem to know that, although
President George W. Bush says he is against torture, he has openly
declared that our military and other interrogators may engage in
torture “consistent
with military necessity.” Military
necessity was rejected as an excuse for torture after WWII at the
Nuremberg trials.
It
is specifically repudiated and outlawed by Army Field Manuals as a
justification for torture.
For far too long we have been
acting like obedient Germans, averting our eyes, even as our
mainstream media have finally begun to expose the routine torture
conducted by US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo, and
throughout the theater of the War on Terror. By violating the
Principles of Civilized nations the U.S. has lost the moral high
Ground and for the foreseeable future our power and influence will
decline unless we rid ourselves of the War Criminals that have
control of the country. This must be done at the very next electoral
opportunity.
The NFC Bush government’s
official sanction of barbaric mistreatment, abuse, torture, and
murder of detainees in U.S. custody in the World War on Terror, is a
shameful first in U.S. history, and the President and his accomplices
must eventually be prosecuted for these U.S. Crimes and International
War Crimes.
PUBLIUS
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