On the benefits of Freedom

[caton]

The following is an article by the Baltimore Sun, of USA



American scar
By George Hunsinger
Originally published January 31, 2005
WHEN THE Senate confirms Alberto R. Gonzales as U.S. attorney general, the vote will be the beginning, not the end, of public debate about our government's policy on torture.

The Abu Ghraib scandal is only the most visible sign that this policy is inconsistent. Officially, our government opposes torture and advocates a universal standard for human rights. Yet, at the same time, it has allowed ingenious new interrogation methods to be developed that clearly violate these standards. They include stress positions, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation and desecration of religious objects. These practices, which should never be used, are no less traumatic than the infliction of excruciating pain.

For religious people, torture is especially deplorable because it sins against God and against humanity created in God's image. It degrades everyone involved - planners, perpetrators and victims.

More than 225 Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh religious leaders signed an open letter to Mr. Gonzales. They objected to his role in developing a narrow definition of torture and to his equally troubling assertion that some people are not subject to the protections of international law. They registered deep concern about our government's moral foundations, urging support - in practice, not just in words - for fundamental human rights.

Four steps must now be taken to clarify that our government has truly abolished torture.

First, Congress must remove the false partition placed between the military and intelligence services governing extreme interrogation techniques tantamount to torture. The Senate was right to pass, nearly unanimously, new restrictions for the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence services. But congressional leaders in both houses later buckled under White House pressure and scrapped the language governing intelligence services.

Whether the military or intelligence services are conducting practices tantamount to torture is of absolutely no significance. Trying to differentiate between the two perhaps eases the conscience of decision-makers, but it is a distinction without a difference. It fails to insulate us from the absolute evil that is torture.

Second, Congress must outlaw "extraordinary rendition," a euphemism for torture by proxy. It means that detainees are secretly transferred to countries where torture is practiced as a means of interrogation. Although made public only through shocking cases, such as those of Maher Arar, who was deported to Syria by the United States, and Mamdouh Habib, an Australian citizen who was sent to Egypt before being held at Guantanamo, it has become a mainstay counterterrorism tool.

Does it really need to be said that "disappearing" people without any kind of due process is contrary to everything America stands for, not to mention our laws and treaties? The reasons for a detainee's arrest and his guilt or innocence are irrelevant. No sound moral argument can be made that enabling torture through rendition is permissible.

Third, Mr. Bush should make a clear statement that torture is wrong in any form and under any circumstances. He should state beyond a shadow of doubt that America will not be complicit in its commission. Leadership from the president would go a long way toward resolving the torture crisis.

Finally, America needs a special prosecutor. Our reputation has been so badly damaged by Guantanamo, Bagram and Abu Ghraib that no other remedy will do. The existing investigations are not enough because they have not been truly independent. Organizations such as the American Bar Association, Amnesty International and the highly respected International Commission of Jurists in Geneva have all insisted that an independent investigation is imperative.

Nothing less is at stake in the torture crisis than the soul of our nation. What does it profit us if we proclaim high moral values but fail to reject torture? What does it signify if torture is condemned in word but allowed in deed? A nation that rewards those who permitted and promoted torture is approaching spiritual death.

George Hunsinger is McCord professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary and coordinator of Church Folks for a Better America.

[caton]

Free Torture for All!

Enjoy the knews but don't worry. It has been done for freedom sake!




Feb 5, 6:28 PM EST

Papers Barred From Evidence in Abuse Case

By ROBERT WELLER
Associated Press Writer

DENVER (AP) -- Newspaper lawyers asking that a military hearing on the alleged suffocation death of an Iraqi general be held in open court say the Army has refused to let them see evidence on why the session should be closed.

Four soldiers based at Fort Carson are charged with murder and dereliction of duty in the death of Maj. Gen. Abed Mowhoush during an interrogation at Qaim, Iraq, on Nov. 26, 2003.

A hearing officer closed the preliminary proceeding in their case on Dec. 3 after Army lawyers said classified information could be revealed.

Lawyers for The Denver Post appealed the closure to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals in Washington, which stopped the hearing until it rules in the case.

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The Army gave the appeals court information to support its argument that the hearing should continue behind closed doors, but refused to share that evidence with the newspaper's Washington lawyers, even though they have the necessary security clearances, Post attorney Steven Zansberg said.

"It is a fundamental tenet of due process and our adversarial system that a litigant must be afforded an opportunity to review and comment on the evidence offered in support of a requested ruling," said a motion filed Friday on behalf of The Post.

The Army had no comment on The Post's motion because it is a matter before the court, said Martha Rudd, Army spokeswoman.

An Army brief filed with the court of appeals noted that an executive order issued by President Bush says information may be classified if it concerns intelligence activities, anti-terrorism defense or weapons of mass destruction.

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A military law expert, Washington attorney David Sheldon, said the appeals court probably will order some of the hearing opened but defer to the Army on which matters can only be presented in a closed hearing.

The four defendants, Chief Warrant Officer Jefferson L. Williams, Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr., Sgt. 1st Class William J. Sommer and Spc. Jerry L. Loper, allegedly were questioning Mowhoush because he was suspected of funding insurgent attacks on U.S. forces.

The Army has said Mowhoush was placed inside a sleeping bag and tied in a so-called stress position, according to a filing in the case.

"This particular stress position has been used in the past and had rendered one person unconscious," military attorneys wrote. "After that incident, CW3 Welshofer directed that only he and (another soldier) could use the sleeping bag technique."

It said Welshofer placed his hand over the major general's mouth and the Iraqi stopped breathing, although he recovered after 15 to 20 seconds. It said Welshofer ordered him turned on his stomach and sat on the prisoner's back.

Mowhoush soon became non-responsive was later pronounced dead.

Defense lawyers have refused to comment.

In a separate case, an Army judge at Fort Hood, Texas, on Saturday dropped the most severe abuse charge faced by a former guard at the Abu Ghraib prison, dismissing an indecent acts charge pending against Spc. Sabrina Harman.

She still faces charges of conspiracy, maltreating detainees and dereliction of duty for not reporting abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and could face a maximum of 6 1/2 years in prison if convicted. Her trial is set for March 7.

[Johnmcd]

Javier,
As you pre-empting lawful process have you any comment to make on Michael Jackson? You obviously believe to know more than the courts?

John.

[caton]

John,

When I read your comment on Michael Jackson, I thought you were making some ironnical comment on the trail of the pop singer in USA and the amount of coverage of it by the press, so my intention was to follow the mood.

Given the fact that there is a general of your Army who happens to have exactly the same name (what is general ignored by the great public, at least on our shores) I wrote that question as post scriptum. I don't know if GENERAL Jackson has had or has any problem or issue with Justice either in Britain or abroad.

What I know about him is that he might well avoided WWIII in Pristina airport (Kossovo war) when the US general in charge ordered him to take it by force (it had been occupied by Russians in a brillant commando raid and they refused to hand it over) and he disobbeyed the order. Of course, the Russians were not in force there to resist, but it would have been undoubtedly cassus belli and as I've already said, the Russian bear might be ill, but it is still a bear...


best - javier

[caton]

February 14, 2005 Issue
Copyright © 2005 The American Conservative



The Truth About Torture


by William Pfaff


A historian in the future, or a moralist, is likely to deem the Bush administration’s enthusiasm for torture the most striking aspect of its war against terrorism.

This started early. Proposals to authorize torture were circulating even before there was anyone to torture. Days after the Sept. 11 attacks, the administration made it known that the U.S. was no longer bound by international treaties or by American law and established U.S. military standards concerning torture and the treatment of prisoners. By the end of 2001, the Justice Department had drafted memos on how to protect military and intelligence officers from eventual prosecution under existing U.S. law for their treatment of Afghan and other prisoners.

In January 2002, the White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, who is soon to become attorney general, advised George W. Bush that it could be done by fiat. If the president simply declared “detainees” in Afghanistan outside the protection of the Geneva Conventions, the 1996 U.S. War Crimes Act—which carries a possible death penalty for Geneva violations—would not apply.




Those who protested were ignored, though the administration declared it would abide by the “spirit” of the conventions. Shortly afterward, the CIA asked for formal assurance that this pledge did not apply to its agents.

In March 2003, a Defense Department legal task force concluded that the president was not bound by any international or federal law on torture. It said that as commander in chief, he had the authority “to approve any technique needed to protect the nation’s security.” Subsequent legal memos to civilian officials in the White House and Pentagon dwelt in morbid detail on permitted torture techniques, for practical purposes concluding that anything was permitted that did not (deliberately) kill the victim.

What is this all about? The FBI, the armed forces’ own legal officers, bar associations, and other civil-law groups have protested, as have retired intelligence officers and civilian law-enforcement officials.

The United States has never before officially practiced torture. It was not deemed necessary in order to defeat Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. Its indirect costs are enormous in their effect on the national reputation, their alienation of international opinion, and their corruption of the morale and morality of the American military and intelligence services.

Torture doesn’t even work that well. An indignant FBI witness of what has gone on at the Guantanamo prison camp says that “simple investigative techniques” could produce much information the Army is trying to obtain through torture.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Bush administration is not torturing prisoners because it is useful but because of its symbolism. It originally was intended to be a form of what later, in the attack on Iraq, came to be called “shock and awe.” It was meant as intimidation. We will do these terrible things to demonstrate that nothing will stop us from conquering our enemies. We are indifferent to world opinion. We will stop at nothing.

In that respect, it is like the attack on Fallujah last November, which—destructive as it was—was fundamentally a symbolic operation. Any insurgent who wanted to escape could do so long before the much-advertised attack actually began. Its real purpose was exemplary destruction: to deliver a message to all of Iraq that this is what the United States can do to you if you continue the resistance. It was collective punishment of the city’s occupants for having tolerated terrorist operations based there.

The administration’s obsession with shock and awe is a result of its misunderstanding of the war it is fighting, which is political and not military. America’s dilemma is a very old one.

It is dealing with politically motivated revolutionaries in the case of al-Qaeda and nationalist and sectarian insurgents in the case of Iraq. It has a conventional army, good for crushing cities. But the enemy is not interested in occupying cities or defeating American armies. Its war is for the minds of Muslims.

Destroying cities and torturing prisoners are things you do when you are losing the real war, the war your enemies are fighting. They are signals of moral bankruptcy. They destroy the confidence and respect of your friends, and reinforce the credibility of the enemy.
_________________________________________________________

William Pfaff is a columnist for the International Herald Tribune in Paris. Copyright Tribune Media Services International.

[Johnmcd]

Javier,
Very sharply observed comments of the time in Kosova!

Actually, the Russian forces that arrived stayed for a while, but were under supplied, so the Brits and the yanks helped them out - mostly with food and fuel.

WWIII was press hiatus.

Best,
John.

[caton]

And a part of Kossovo to be under Russain control...

[Johnmcd]

Javier,
Are there any Russian troops left in Kosova?

John.