-- Sen. Hillary Clinton, speaking against the Military Commissions Act
“Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their Treatment of our unfortunate brethren.”
-- Gen. George Washington's orders concerning Hessian prisoners at the Battle of Trenton
It's hard to imagine anyone could have studied law, been a judge for eighteen years, and have not formed an opinion on whether waterboarding is torture. Yet, the current nominee for the post of U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has said just that before the Senate Judiciary Committee. As a lawyer, he should be familiar with the fact that we tried people as war criminals after World War II for using waterboarding, among other forms of torture:
Within the legal and academic community there has been a good deal of discussion of water torture in various forms under the general rubric of “water boarding.” See, generally, Karen Greenberg, Ed., The Torture Debate in America, Cambridge University Press (New York, 2005). There has been no mention, however, of past American government pursuit and prosecution of individuals who inflicted such treatment on U.S. military personnel (the trials of Japanese war criminals after World War II) or of American service members who indulged in the technique (the Philippine insurgency hearings).
Drop by Drop: Forgetting The History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts (pg. 5)(PDF)
That's an excellent title, because we do seem to have forgotten all about what is and is not torture recently. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks this is crazy. Here's Malcolm Nance on the subject:
I’d like to digress from my usual analysis of insurgent strategy and tactics to speak out on an issue of grave importance to Small Wars Journal readers. We, as a nation, are having a crisis of honor.
Last week the Attorney General nominee Judge Michael Mukasey refused to define waterboarding terror suspects as torture. On the same day MSNBC television pundit and former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough quickly spoke out in its favor. On his morning television broadcast, he asserted, without any basis in fact, that the efficacy of the waterboard a viable tool to be used on Al Qaeda suspects.
Waterboarding Is Torture ... Period
Nance writes a blog called Small Wars Journal, so I'm guessing he's not some peacenik. He goes on:
In fact, waterboarding is just the type of torture then Lt. Commander John McCain had to endure at the hands of the North Vietnamese. As a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California I know the waterboard personally and intimately. SERE staff were required undergo the waterboard at its fullest. I was no exception. I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school’s interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques used by the US army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What was not mentioned in most articles was that SERE was designed to show how an evil totalitarian, enemy would use torture at the slightest whim. If this is the case, then waterboarding is unquestionably being used as torture technique.
Waterboarding Is Torture ... Period
Yep, definitely not a peacenik. So why is Mukasey so unsure of why this is torture? Kevin Hayden offers an explanation:
If Mukasey says it’s torture, he places his predecessors, some folks he supervises and his superiors at risk of prosecution. If he says it’s not torture, he’ll not be confirmed because he’ll be wrong on an important matter. If he aims to hint of his disapproval while avoiding legal prosecutions, well, that’s what Mukasey has done. And he may get shot down for choosing a political answer instead of the truth.
It appears Bush, Cheney, Addington, Yoo and Gonzalez created a conundrum
Damned if you do, damned if you don't usually means "go ahead and speak your mind" to me, but that doesn't seem to have been Mukasey's choice. Instead, he chose to dissemble about something that just about anyone who's ever heard a valid description of the practice or seen it in action knows perfectly well is torture. As Malcolm Nance explains:
The carnival-like he-said, she-said of the legality of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques has become a form of doublespeak worthy of Catch-22. Having been subjected to them all, I know these techniques, if in fact they are actually being used, are not dangerous when applied in training for short periods. However, when performed with even moderate intensity over an extended time on an unsuspecting prisoner – it is torture, without doubt. Couple that with waterboarding and the entire medley not only “shock the conscience” as the statute forbids -it would terrify you. Most people can not stand to watch a high intensity kinetic interrogation. One has to overcome basic human decency to endure watching or causing the effects. The brutality would force you into a personal moral dilemma between humanity and hatred. It would leave you to question the meaning of what it is to be an American.
...
2. Waterboarding is not a simulation. Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.
Waterboarding Is Torture ... Period
My guess is that Mukasey's waffling because he doesn't want to have to prosecute half the people who work for him. I can't say I blame him there. Unfortunately, we're living in a time when that's not good enough, not for an Attorney General, at least. Nance is right, this practice has brought dishonor and shame to us as a people, and it's done nothing to enhance our security. If anything, the opposite has occured.
"None of us feels comfortable speaking out publicly," said retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, who served as the Navy’s judge advocate general from 1997 to 2000 and presided over the JAG corps’ 1,600 members. "That’s not the nature of what military officers do…. [But we] care very, very much about the country and the military — and that’s why [we] are speaking out."
The group of retired flag officers first came together in 2005, when a dozen of them signed a letter opposing the nomination of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general for his role in developing Bush’s policies on torture in the war on terror. Late last year, they supported Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) ban on cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees in U.S. custody anywhere in the world.
Why Retired Military Brass Don’t Want Torture
Jane Hamsher's quote from the other day on the Mukasey hearings comes to mind again:
[I]t will be nice to watch all our Senators confirm this “very serious man” who will not say that the President does not have the right to detain US citizens seized on American soil indefinitely without charging them.
We’re ruled by moral pygmies.
Glenn Greenwald, He Funny
Under far worse conditions than the ones we now find ourselves, George Washington refused to torture or kill Hessian prisoners he'd captured during the Battle of Trenton. Yet even though we are by far the most powerful nation on earth, these people maintain that we must use sadistic interrogation methods in order to be safe. Jane's only half right - we're ruled by cowards as well.
UPDATE: For the moment at least, Eli gets the last word: When the media feel obliged to provide a pro-torture viewpoint for “balance,” your country has gone insane.
In case you're keeping track, this raving shithead thinks waterboarding sounds like a fraternity prank, and this gormless twinkie thinks it's like swimming. Where do they find these people?
UPDATE 2 (Nov. 2): Bustedknuckles has a thing or two to say on the matter of semantics and water torture.
2 comments:
The fact the you and I both have written about this personally, along with the thousands of others out there, has just got me flummoxed.
Why are we having this conversation?
Why?
Everybody and their dog knows this is torture, that it violates the Geneva Convention ,and yet, here we are.
Watching MuKasey try to parse his way out of a direct answer.
This is insane.
So help me, I think a personal demonstration with the nominee as an active participant would get the definitive answer quite rapidly, I think.
It's mind-boggling to think that people really believe what Madsen and Scarborough say they believe. The only thing I can think of to explain it is that they just think it's some form of S and M game. Unfortunately, the difference between S & M and actual torture is that in the one case the partners trust each other, or ought to, anyway (no personal experience along these lines, just going by the literature). Torture is done in a situation where there is no choice, and where the victim is powerless to stop his torture except by giving his torturers what they want. Assuming, of course, that what they want isn't just to torture somebody.
I also don't recall any military or foreign service experience on the resume of those two. That and a feeling of entitlement may help to explain it, as well.
Post a Comment