Debra Sweet's Open Salon Blog

Torture called legal for 10 years, but “we don’t torture”

Wed, 1 Aug 2012 13:08:47 -0400

Ten years ago today, lawyers for the Bush Regime sent memos up the chain of command which quickly reached the military and the CIA. The August 1, 2002 “torture memos” authored by attorneys in the Office of Legal Council at the White House gave the green light to torture, calling it “harsh interrogation” and completely legal.

Prisoners in Guantanamo were immediately water-boarded, “walled,” put in isolation, deprived of sleep. A few were men the US thought were part of al Qaeda; most of them were just guys sold to the US by someone in Afghanistan for bounty. Almost none of them, it’s now admitted, were involved in criminal activity, or even military struggle, against the US. But, they were still “the worst of the worst.”

I was reminded of this anniversary by Curt Wechsler, who edits FireJohnYoo.net, a project of World Can’t Wait:

The clock is ticking. August 1st marks the 10th anniversary of the adoption of professor John Yoo’s “Torture Memos,” which sanctioned mental and physical torment and coercion practiced by the state. It’s been 9 years since those same documents were found legally defective and withdrawn. The Bush Gang left the stage, Barack Obama took the helm, and 168 prisoners remain at Guantanamo. These men must not be forgotten, or their stories conveniently swept under the rug for the remainder of this election season.

Amy Davidson, a senior editor at The New Yorker, interviewed Jose Rodriquez, who for 30 years was head of the Counterterrorism Center during his 30 years at the CIA and who recently published a book defending everything done to prisoners, Hard Measures: How Aggressive C.I.A. Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives. Rodriguez neatly recounted where the Torture Memos fit:

Over the summer of 2002, when we knew we had to do something different to get information out of Abu Zubaydah, who had been captured a few months earlier, we worked with our lawyers to make sure that we came up with techniques that were within the law. These techniques were vetted with the Department of Justice and the White House—with the policy people and the leadership people at the White House. Then, on August 1, 2002, we received a binding legal opinion in writing from the Justice Department that said waterboarding and nine other techniques we wanted to implement were not torture. We then went to the White House and asked the N.S.C. to give us policy approval to proceed, and for the President to direct us to proceed. And they did. A month later, when the Congress came back to town, we briefed the leadership of the House and Senate committees on intelligence, both Democrats and Republicans. They had no objection.

Which is the point, exactly. Everyone was in on it; “everyone” now in government has no objections to what happened. John Yoo teaches constitutional law at one of the most highly regarded law schools, Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley, protected, and actually defended by an administration that uses its liberal credentials as a shield against justice. Jay Bybee got a gig as a federal judge, nominated by G.W. Bush and approved by the same Congress which was OK with torture methods as long as they were named harsh interrogation.”

And none of the torture team partners has suffered indictment, or even deeply serious investigation by the Obama administration.

I have to add a thanks to Women Against Military Madness in Minneapolis, who are outside the Federal Building in Minneapolis today in an action called Tackling Torture at the Top.

And from Curt Wechsler:

My donation to World Can’t Wait today will help send an orange-jumpsuited contingent to the Democratic National Convention to represent the victims of brutal prison policy, and all of us who say NO to torture.

Drones and Guantanamo, owned and operated in a bi-partisan fashion. But it’s the Democrat War party who got people at accept them as “normal” and even legitimate.

Read the original memos, courtesy torturingdemocracy.org:

Memo from Jay Bybee to Alberto Gonzales
DATE: August 1, 2002
SUBJECT: “Standards for Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. 2340 – 2340A”
AUTHOR: Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel â€¨In what has become notorious as the “torture memo,” Jay Bybee signs off on an opinion authored by John Yoo. The memorandum systematically dismisses numerous U.S. federal laws, treaties and international law prohibiting the use of torture, essentially defining the term out of existence.

Letter from John Yoo to Alberto Gonzales
DATE: August 1, 2002
SUBJECT: N/A
AUTHOR: John Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel â€¨John Yoo writes to White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales warning of potential threats of international prosecution regarding the administration’s interrogation policies. Yoo notes that “Interrogations of al Qaeda members … cannot constitute a war crime” because of the Presidential determination that Geneva’s protections do not apply.

Memo from Jay Bybee to the CIA
DATE: August 1, 2002
SUBJECT: Memorandum for [REDACTED] Interrogation of [REDACTED]
AUTHOR: Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel â€¨Written by the Office of Legal Counsel’s Jay Bybee and sent to the Central Intelligence Agency, this heavily redacted document was released to the ACLU in 2008. It details “advising the CIA regarding interrogation methods it may use against al Qaeda members,” and in one un-redacted portion, argues that “to violate the statute, an individual must have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering. Based on the information you have provided us, we believe those carrying out these procedures would not have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering.”

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The New York Times & More Weapons of Mass Destruction

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 10:07:28 -0400

Dear Reader of The New York Times,

If you’re been worrying, even slightly, about how people at the receiving end of the U.S. drone war — wait, excuse me, the “remotely piloted vehicle” war — it seems yesterday The Times must have made you feel better.

As we are told in Elizabeth Bumiller’s front page article, A Day Job Waiting for a Kill Shot a World Away, we really should be concerned more about its effect on the pilots of the drones such as a colonel who acknowledges the “peculiar new disconnect of fighting a telewar with a joystick and a throttle from his padded seat in American suburbia.”

More chaplains and shrinks are being ordered up to bases where the pilots operate. A recent study revealed increased stress on the pilots. An Air Force doctor explains that watching targets for weeks at a time in domestic situations can mean it feels strange to shoot up a home. “At some point, some of the stuff might remind you of stuff you did yourself. You might gain a level of familiarity that makes it a little difficult to pull the trigger.”

Bumiller’s point, or shall we just say, the point of The New York Times, is directed right at you, and your humanitarian objections to targeted killing and murder from a distance: “Stop worrying about the people at the other end of the war.”

And don’t worry about the U.S. military pilots either. Despite a job doing 12 hours shifts 18″ from a screen where they watch families going about daily life one moment, and obliterated the next, they’re OK. Bumiller quotes the colonel:

“I feel no emotional attachment to the enemy,” he said. “I have a duty, and I execute the duty.”

Peter Hart, on FAIR’s blog today reminds us that Elisabeth Bumiller is:

“perhaps best known for a testy C-SPAN appearance where she explained that New York Times reporters ‘can’t just say the president is lying.’”

It was only two weeks ago that The New York Times published The Moral Case for Drones by Scott Shane, who has done some accurate and critical reporting of the U.S. global “war on terror.” But that was then, in the Bush years. Now he quoted only one academic political scientist who raised objections to killing targets instead of capturing them. His drone cheerleader sources were a former C.I.A. official, and a military professor.

And the voices of the people targeted are so not there, almost ever, in the main newspaper of record in the richest country ever, with the biggest military in history.

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Where to Place Your Hopes in 2012

Wed, 4 Jul 2012 22:07:54 -0400

Join the Sustainer Drive
July 9-31

As I’ve been speaking around the country this spring, I’ve found many people genuinely agonizing about this election.

I feel their pain. World Can’t Wait has not swayed from our principles, in elections years or other times. We will be on the streets, in the classrooms and neighborhoods exposing the wars for empire, the torture, the whole Bush-like direction of the US.

Our message will be consistent. Vote your conscience: support actions against US wars. World Can’t Wait sustainers are a special group of committed individuals who give monthly so that this message can consistently get out.

Between July 9-31 join us in this drive to ready our people, materials, and organization for the fall and beyond, when people really need to hear our message that “Humanity and the Planet Come First – Stop the Crimes of Your Government.”

One thing I can state for certain: no matter who which party wins in November, or who is president, we will be facing a government intent on spreading empire, detaining indefinitely, surveilling almost everyone.

A friend asked me recently if there’s any hope for justice and accountability for the Bush era war crimes. He had campaigned hard for Obama, with the hopes many had, that Guantánamo would close, and that the Bush regime would face charges, or at least investigation for Abu Ghraib, for lying about WMD’s, or at least for detaining thousands of people with no charge.

No one in power is going to act to bring justice on these issues without mass upheaval and resistance, regardless of whether it’s election time. There are elements, now, of potential for sentiment and action against these crimes to catch hold strongly. The Arab Spring, the unrest in Europe over economic disaster, the threats by the U.S. and Israel to start a war on Iran or other unforeseen developments can effect how people here see what’s possible, and what’s acceptable.

Never forget that what the Bush regime did — and what the Obama administration continued — is illegitimate, unjust, and immoral. And there are hundreds of millions who know and see that. It can’t be covered up, even if Wikileaks is punished severely.

Consider the 4 year investigation in Poland of the CIA “black site” secret prison there. There’s a struggle within the Polish government over whether torture charges will come out of it, and how far up they’ll go. Andy Worthington looks into that case in Polish Senator’s Startling New Allegations About CIA Torture Prison in Poland:

“In the long quest for accountability for those who ordered, authorized or were complicit in the Bush administration’s torture program, every avenue has been shut down within the US by the Obama administration, the Justice Department and the courts, and the only hope lies elsewhere in the world, and specifically Poland, one of three European countries that hosted secret CIA prisons, where “high-value detainees” were subjected to torture.” Andy delves deeply into the story, citing his trip to Poland with Anna Minkiewicz when he learned more about what the investigation. See also the LA Times story Poland Shaken by Case Alleging an Illicit CIA Prison There.

What to do? Support World Can’t Wait’s work to stop the crimes of your government. Become a sustainer! Engage in visible protest, tell the truth about these crimes.

Dallas Chicago Washington, DC

Reporting on a Week Against Torture Across the U.S.

If not us, who? If not now, when?

“I find myself living in an EXCEPTIONAL time. A time when the myth of American moral superiority is being used to excuse, even PROMOTE, cruel and intolerable crimes against humanity…”
From the speech given by World Can’t Wait representative MaryAnn Thomas at the Rally Against Torture, Guantanamo & NDAA on June 26th in San Francisco.

Across the country last week, from Olympia to Dallas (left) to Washington, people challenged the new — 10 year old – “normal” of indefinite detention.

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Video from the American Humanist Association Awards Banquet

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 20:06:29 -0400

Zelda Gatuskin, Co-Chair of AHA’s Feminist Caucus and President of Humanist Society of New Mexico presents Debra Sweet, Director of World Can’t Wait with the Humanist Heroine of the Year award at the AHA National Conference in New Orleans June 9, 2012:

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What the US Drone War Is, What It Isn’t and Remembering the Nameless Victims

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 12:06:56 -0400

This is the talk I gave in Madison two weeks ago at the Veterans for Peace Memorial Day Commemoration:

I am so glad to be here in Madison, and to appreciate what Madison has brought us, including the 1967 Dow Chemical protests against Napalm, and the 2011 uprising against Walker. The Veterans for Peace chapter in Madison is so active. I saw many of you last week in Chicago, protesting US/NATO war crimes. Todd Dennis and others did an inspiring action last Sunday by throwing their medals, won in the illegitimate, unjust, immoral US wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, back at the NATO Summit. I am proud of Iraq Veterans Against the War for the content of their message, and for the way many of them spoke of the damage to the people of those countries.

After almost 11 years of US war on Afghanistan, I’ve had people say to me recently, “at least President Obama is ending that war.” Of course, he isn’t doing any such thing. It was Obama who vastly expanded the war on Afghanistan in 2009 to 150,000 troops. It’s the US/NATO forces under which the “surge” brought about the biggest loss of Afghan civilian life of the war, during the last year. It’s Obama and Afghan President Karzai who just signed an agreement to keep US forces in Afghanistan until 2024, or another 12 years at least.

This was the war that had to be fought to “save” the Afghan people, according to the Bush regime. In 2001, Afghanistan was the second most dangerous country on the globe for a woman to give birth. In 2011, it was the MOST dangerous country for a woman to give birth – it had the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. And this past winter brought reports of dozens of children under 5 freezing to death in coalition-sponsored refugee camps, while the U.S. has sent tens of billions of dollars to fund the occupation.

Out of this comes the U.S. drone war, now fully directed and justified by the Obama administration. Since 2009, Obama has increased the use of unmanned aerial vehicles – drones – by 8 times more than the Bush administration in Pakistan. Drones are now fully a part of the US war-fighting plan, so much so that the US Air Force is now training more pilots of un-manned vehicles than of fighter-bomber planes. These pilots are based around the world, and within the US, controlling the surveillance and armed drones at 18” from the action on their screens. Of the two US drone programs, the one run by the CIA is probably the larger – the budget is secret – and employs civilian pilots.

The argument from The Pentagon is that drones can “surgically target” insurgents. You have people in the Obama Justice Department who criticized George Bush for doing what they now defend Obama for doing. In fact, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which tracks US drone strikes in Pakistan, has found that at least 175 children have been killed, and hundreds of people not involved with Al Qaeda or any local insurgent group. In fact, the U.S. military defines people as insurgents merely by the fact that they’ve been killed in a drone strike. Most alarmingly, there are repeated and growing examples of strikes coming in series, killing groups of rescuers and mourners. There is no hiding from the drones; they have sophisticated surveillance technology, including heat sensors that can see through walls. Buildings and bodies are obliterated.

So that’s what the US drone war is. But, as terrible as the use of drones is, it doesn’t change anything about US wars of empire. They are still illegitimate, immoral, unjust. And they are most damaging to the people they target; secondarily, they have mostly destroyed the lives of the one million U.S. military who have been used to fight them. The U.S. drone wars — now in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and they used drones in Libya – are the newest technological development in the United States effort to spread an unchallengeable empire, no matter who the president is.

The problem for those of us trying to end these wars is that too many people living in this country go along with these crimes carried out in our name, thinking that their interests are the same as those in power. World Can’t Wait says, “Humanity and the Planet Come First – Stop the Crimes of Our Government.” We say this in recognition of the damage causes by these now endless wars, the system of indefinite detention that is part of the wars, and in recognition that American lives are not more important than other lives.

Join us in working to end the crimes of our government, and in a sending a message to the people of the world that there are people here who say, NO, not in our name!

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Debra Sweet's Open Salon Blog

Torture called legal for 10 years, but “we don’t torture”

Read the original memos, courtesy torturingdemocracy.org:

The New York Times & More Weapons of Mass Destruction

Where to Place Your Hopes in 2012

Join the Sustainer Drive July 9-31

Reporting on a Week Against Torture Across the U.S.

If not us, who? If not now, when?

Video from the American Humanist Association Awards Banquet

What the US Drone War Is, What It Isn’t and Remembering the Nameless Victims

This is the talk I gave in Madison two weeks ago at the Veterans for Peace Memorial Day Commemoration:

Join the Sustainer Drive
July 9-31