Getting Away with Torture (HRW Report 2011)

[Solly Mack]

In case you haven't read it yet.

Getting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees


George Tenet asked if he had permission to use enhanced interrogation
techniques, including waterboarding, on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.…
“Damn right,” I said.
—Former President George W. Bush, 2010

There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has
committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is
whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.
—Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, June 2008

Should former US President George W. Bush be investigated for authorizing “waterboarding”
and other abuses against detainees that the United States and scores of other countries
have long recognized as torture? Should high-ranking US officials who authorized enforced
disappearances of detainees and the transfer of others to countries where they were likely to
be tortured be held accountable for their actions?

In 2005, Human Rights Watch’s Getting Away with Torture? presented substantial evidence
warranting criminal investigations of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director George Tenet, as well as Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, formerly
the top US commander in Iraq, and Gen. Geoffrey Miller, former commander of the US
military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

This report builds on our prior work by summarizing information that has since been made
public about the role played by US government officials most responsible for setting
interrogation and detention policies following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United
States, and analyzes them under US and international law. Based on this evidence, Human
Rights Watch believes there is sufficient basis for the US government to order a broad
criminal investigation into alleged crimes committed in connection with the torture and illtreatment
of detainees, the CIA secret detention program, and the rendition of detainees to
torture. Such an investigation would necessarily focus on alleged criminal conduct by the
following four senior officials — former President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and CIA Director George Tenet.

[7wo7rees]

1. Were they capable of torture?

Damn right.

[Solly Mack]

16. I can see those 3 doing that...just as depicted.

With Cheney smirking the entire time.

[BeFree]

2. Reformatted... Thanks, Solly, for not forgetting

Getting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees


George Tenet asked if he had permission to use enhanced interrogation
techniques, including waterboarding, on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.…
“Damn right,” I said.
—Former President George W. Bush, 2010

There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has
committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is
whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.
—Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, June 2008

Should former US President George W. Bush be investigated for authorizing “waterboarding”
and other abuses against detainees that the United States and scores of other countries
have long recognized as torture? Should high-ranking US officials who authorized enforced
disappearances of detainees and the transfer of others to countries where they were likely to
be tortured be held accountable for their actions?

In 2005, Human Rights Watch’s Getting Away with Torture? presented substantial evidence
warranting criminal investigations of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director George Tenet, as well as Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, formerly
the top US commander in Iraq, and Gen. Geoffrey Miller, former commander of the US
military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

This report builds on our prior work by summarizing information that has since been made
public about the role played by US government officials most responsible for setting
interrogation and detention policies following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United
States, and analyzes them under US and international law. Based on this evidence, Human
Rights Watch believes there is sufficient basis for the US government to order a broad
criminal investigation into alleged crimes committed in connection with the torture and illtreatment
of detainees, the CIA secret detention program, and the rendition of detainees to
torture. Such an investigation would necessarily focus on alleged criminal conduct by the
following four senior officials — former President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and CIA Director George Tenet.

[BeFree]

4. And... let us not forget

The waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was not known to the 9/11 commission when it used the results of that torture to decide that the Mohammed dude was the mastermind.

A very large part of the story, as told by the commission, was based on those tortured induced confessions, but the commission, at the time, did not know it was from torture that that information flowed.

The commission can almost be forgiven.

[Solly Mack]

13. Thanks, BeFree. Forgetting is the cowards way out.

[slipslidingaway]

3. Thanks, what a sad chapter ...

"...Much important information remains secret. For example, many internal government
documents on detention and interrogation policies and practices are still classified, and
unavailable to the public. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has
secured the release of thousands of documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA),
among the dozens of key documents still withheld are the presidential directive of
September 2001 authorizing CIA "black sites"—or secret prisons—as well as CIA inspector
general records.3 Moreover, many documents that have ostensibly been released, including
the CIA inspector general’s report and Department of Justice and Senate committee reports,
contain heavily redacted sections that obscure key events and decisions.

Human Rights Watch believes that many of these documents may contain incriminating
information, strengthening the cases for criminal investigation detailed in this report. It also
believes there is enough strong evidence from the information made public over the past
five years to not only suggest these officials authorized and oversaw widespread and serious
violations of US and international law, but that they failed to act to stop mistreatment, or
punish those responsible after they became aware of serious abuses..."

[Solly Mack]

17. A chapter that won't ever be closed....ignored...but not closed.

[tblue]

5. Epic fail not to prosecute them.

We had a chance to clean it up and we failed to do it and show the world we weren't that kind of nation. We let the torturers get away with it, so I guess we are.

[sad sally]

7. When the outgoing administration knows they'll never be investigated,

let alone tried and possibly found guilty of war crimes, it sets up a standard for each new administration. We are the losers, as the US becomes more and more morally bankrupt.


from CommonDreams: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/10/27-2?du

UN says "torture practices" under Bush not continuing * But Obama administration has failed to investigate

Nowak criticized the Obama administration for not pursuing the allegations of torture under Bush.

There was "an obligation under the Convention Against Torture to independently investigate every allegation of torture or suspicion of torture, and there are plenty of allegations," he said. "Not much has been done."

The obligation, Nowak said, extended to the courts, which are required to prosecute those suspected of committing or supporting torture and to order the payment of compensation.

Nowak complained that the Obama administration, like Bush's before, has invoked state secrecy laws to block all civil litigation by victims of alleged rendition and torture.

Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Iraq and Afghanistan were among the countries to which the United States consistently sent suspected militants, he said.

Nowak also reiterated calls by him and other U.N. officials for the Obama administration to investigate reports from reams of leaked military documents showing U.S. troops killed Iraqi civilians or ignored prisoner abuse by Iraqis.

But he made clear a proper investigation should not be limited to Iraq and that congressional inquiries would not suffice because they are not in the public domain.

"What we need is a full investigation into torture practices by U.S. officials -- whether it's military officials, CIA officials or private security companies," he said, adding it should include those "who willingly and knowingly handed over detainees to other states" that torture.

An ideal probe, Nowak said, would be conducted by a special prosecutor or panel of international experts.

[The Doctor.]

12. Not true.

The wingnuts and their media programmers wouldn't let a Democratic administration get away with any damn thing. OTOH, They'll defend to the death (of anyone else) any Republican administration who does so.

[Solly Mack]

15. Once power knows what it can get away it, it will try for more.

The standard has been set in America...torture is AOK as long as it is not called torture and you can confuse the ignorant into thinking torture isn't torture...but it is very important to claim the US doesn't torture the whole time the government is torturing people....and to talk about freedom and justice and liberty...and how no one is above of the law..and how America is a nation of laws...and how important the rule of law is....talk about all that and then torture suddenly becomes something else....something not criminal.

[slipslidingaway]

19. Klein - The US has used torture for decades. All that's new is the openness about it

"...but it is very important to claim the US doesn't torture the whole time the government is torturing people...."

Exactly!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/dec/10/usa.comment

"...Does it somehow lessen today's horrors to admit that this is not the first time the US government has used torture, that it has operated secret prisons before, that it has actively supported regimes that tried to erase the left by dropping students out of airplanes? That, closer to home, photographs of lynchings were traded and sold as trophies and warnings? Many seem to think so. On November 8, Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott made the astonishing claim to the House of Representatives that "America has never had a question about its moral integrity, until now".

Other cultures deal with a legacy of torture by declaring "Never again!" Why do so many Americans insist on dealing with the current torture crisis by crying "Never before"? I suspect it stems from a sincere desire to convey the seriousness of this administration's crimes. And its open embrace of torture is indeed unprecedented.

But let's be clear about what is unprecedented: not the torture, but the openness. Past administrations kept their "black ops" secret; the crimes were sanctioned but they were committed in the shadows, officially denied and condemned. The Bush administration has broken this deal: post-9/11, it demanded the right to torture without shame, legitimised by new definitions and new laws.

...This casual amnesia does a disservice not only to the victims, but also to the cause of trying to remove torture from the US policy arsenal once and for all. Already there are signs that the administration will deal with the uproar by returning to plausible deniability..."

[Solly Mack]

20. Yep

and people are already well into their ignoring of the crimes under Bush....and they will claim "it's the past" - and "We can't do anything ; it's too late"....in fact, some claim all that now.

Happy to sit by as the years go by, ignoring war crimes & the lack of prosecutions, while pretending that it was all somehow an aberration. A "few bad apples", if you will. A happy little myth that allows people to pretend that such is not the 'real' America.

[slipslidingaway]

21. Yes, so happy those bad apples are gone ..

:sarcasm:

[Solly Mack]

22. And we'll never have bad apples again!

[slipslidingaway]

24. Maybe another season :( n/t

[sad sally]

26. Here's a disturbing article on the American Military University and

it's role in teaching torture. It's long, and there are more than four paragraphs worth posting here, but these from the Summary address the idea that torture, once practiced and not denounced or prosecuted, becomes acceptable (not to me, but I'm always surprised at the folks who think torture may be okay).

http://dailycensored.com/2010/03/29/does-the-american-military-university-amu-teach-torture-to-its-students-or-has-it-taught-torture-in-the-past-wikileaks?du

On February 15th, 2009, Scott Horton, a reporter for Harper’s Magazine reported:

“Army Private Brandon Neely served as a prison guard at Guantánamo in the first years the facility was in operation. With the Bush Administration, and thus the threat of retaliation against him, now gone, Neely decided to step forward and tell his story. “The stuff I did and the stuff I saw was just wrong,” he told the Associated Press. Neely describes the arrival of detainees in full sensory-deprivation garb, he details their sexual abuse by medical personnel, torture by other medical personnel, brutal beatings out of frustration, fear, and retribution, the first hunger strike and its causes, torturous shackling, positional torture, interference with religious practices and beliefs, verbal abuse, restriction of recreation, the behavior of mentally ill detainees, an isolation regime that was put in place for child-detainees, and his conversations with prisoners David Hicks and Rhuhel Ahmed. It makes for fascinating reading” (Gitmo Guard Tells All, February 15, 2009, Harpers Magazine, http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/02/hbc-90004409).

Early this year, the same Scott Horton, writing in Harper’s spoke about the three detainee deaths that miraculously were reported as suicides.

No, Ms. LaGuardia is either doing poor public relations or she doesn’t know the facts. With the Obama administration protecting Bush era politics of detainment and torture, there is no telling how many screams are not being heard as you read this.

[Solly Mack]

27. I remember (reading) that Wikileak.

Horton is someone I read and have been thankful for in his coverage of America's war crimes.

[Solly Mack]

14. I agree. We're that kind of nation.

All the evidence says so.

[The Doctor.]

6. The media would never let the OA get away with investigating them,

much less prosecuting them.

They'd whip the fucking wingnuts into a frenzy over it and we'd have a full-scale revolt.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. well in that case, to hell with decency, morality and humanity

the media might make a fuss and put a crimp in fun time! It might be difficult, so fuck principles.

[The Doctor.]

11. Yes, and to hell with reading and comprehension as well, I guess.

Did that all really go over your head? Are you completely oblivious to the current state we're in? Are you ignoring what I've said just to pretend the choice was as simple as you appear to believe it was?

Please, if this nation is to stand a chance, we have to acknowledge some VERY uncomfortable realities.

I'll understand if you'd rather not, but then perhaps it would be best to steer entirely clear of the issue.

Just trying to help.

[EFerrari]

8. K&R

[Solly Mack]

18. Thanks, EFerrari

[Mnemosyne]

10. ...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

23. War crimes prosections are soooo 1940's and only reserved for the other side. K&R

[Solly Mack]

28. Of course! The other side doesn't practice "good faith" torture.

Only the 'good guys' do that!

[EFerrari]

25. Kick

[azul]

29. The ugly and dangerous pattern of the opposition party covering-up

and thus condoning the criminal activity of previous administrations.

The Reagan and GHWBush Iran-contra-CIA-drugs scandal lawsuit that the congress and courts decided was too big and serious a case, that could bring down the whole government and perhaps lose the Cold War, to let proceed.

http://www.oocities.org/iran_contra_christic_institute/

Then Clinton came in and let it pass, even after the Soviet Union was no longer a threat, and did nothing to bring those to justice that most needed it. Because those same crazies came back to do more damage with Bush Jr.

Was Clinton somehow involved or compromised in the operation as governor and so supported as a presidential candidate, by corporate USA, because he could be counted on to not prosecute this gang?

http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MENA/walsh_gets_evidence.html

Politics even uglier than many suspect? The media is supposed to be the watchdog, but it appears to be leashed or poisoned.

[Zax2me]

30. Terrible n/a