Protesters follow John Yoo, author of a so-called "torture memo" to his public appearances.
The president's authority as commander-in-chief overrides laws and treaties banning torture techniques, according to a 2003 memo declassified this week.
For several years, human rights groups, the media, and partisan opponents of the Bush administration and the war on terror have tried to portray the U.S. as a “torture state” that has completely abdicated its decency, its principles, and even its soul under the leadership of a president who believes in an ominous-sounding “unitary executive” branch. We’ve been barreling down a “slippery slope,” making America indistinguishable from Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia.
The slope toward more torture and abuse has gone up, not down, and it is today more difficult to climb than ever. According to existing law and Justice Department rulings, the practice has been proscribed for several years now — except, that is, for the thousands of U.S. servicemen who’ve been subjected to it by the U.S. military as part of their training.
What takes my breath away about the Yoo memos, now that we can finally read them, is their air of uttery certainty. One after another, complex questions of constitutional law are dispatched as if there's no cause for any debate. The president has all the war-making power. Congress has none. The president's commander in chief powers extend to interrogations (no matter how far from the battlefield in space and time they take place). Guantanamo Bay detainees and enemy aliens enjoy no constitutional protections. And then the pages Jack points us to, which include "Congress can no more interfere with the President's conduct of the interrogation of enemy combatants than it can dictate strategic or tactical decisions on the battlefield." In other words, Congress cannot prohibit any sort of treatment that the president chooses to allow.
Anti-torture protesters demonstrate waterboarding in front of the Justice Department.
President Bush on Saturday vetoed a bill that would have explicitly prohibited the Central Intelligence Agency from using interrogation methods like waterboarding, a technique in which restrained prisoners are threatened with drowning. Critics, Democratic and Republican alike, have called waterboarding torture.
Bush said the veto -- the eighth in the past 10 months with Democrats in control of Congress -- was essential to fight terrorism. “And this is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe,” Bush said. Democrats quickly condemned the veto.
Was the veto a reaffirmation of the president's powers as commander-in-chief or an affirmation of torture?
It is an ugly business, and it is rightly banned. The interrogators who waterboarded Abu Zubaydah were breaking the law. They knew they were risking their careers and freedom. But if the result of the act itself was a healthy terrorist with a bad memory versus a terror attack that might kill hundreds or even thousands of people, it is a good outcome. The decision to punish those responsible for producing it is an executive one. Prosecutors and judges are permitted to weigh the circumstances and consider intent.
Which is why I say that waterboarding Zubaydah may have been illegal, but it wasn't wrong.
Opponents of Mr. Bush’s policies on prisoners have long argued that it is immoral, dangerous and counterproductive to abuse and torture prisoners. We do not hold out much hope that the president will heed our last, urgent plea not to veto this bill.
We urge him to read the Army Field Manual, which says: “Use of torture by U.S. personnel would bring discredit upon the U.S. and its armed forces while undermining domestic and international support for the war effort. It could also place U.S. and allied personnel in enemy hands at greater risk of abuse.”
The attorney general won't second-guess his own department's advice.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey won't investigate CIA waterboarding of three terror suspects after the 9/11 attacks; the Justice Department originally signed off on the method. "That would mean that the same department that authorized the program would now consider prosecuting somebody who followed that advice," he said. Waterboarding critics are frustrated.
Should there be an investigation? Or does waterboarding save lives?
A small number of terrorists, high-value targets, held overseas have gone through an interrogation program run by the CIA. It's a tougher program, for tougher customers. These include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11. He and others were questioned at a time when another attack on this country was believed to be imminent. It's a good thing we had them in custody, and it's a good thing we found out what they knew.
The procedures of the CIA program are designed to be safe, and they are in full compliance with the nation's laws and treaty obligations. They've been carefully reviewed by the Department of Justice, and very carefully monitored. The program is run by highly trained professionals who understand their obligations under the law. And the program has uncovered a wealth of information that has foiled attacks against the United States; information that has saved thousands of lives.
We have now the Attorney General of the United States telling Congress that it's not against the law for the President to violate the law if his own Department of Justice says it's not.
It is as brazen a defense of the unitary executive as anything put forward by the Administration in the last seven years, and it comes from an attorney general who was supposed to be not just a more professional, but a more moderate, version of Alberto Gonzales
President Bush has now laid down his most aggressive challenge to the very constitutional authority of Congress. It is a naked assertion of executive power. The founders would have called it tyrannical. His cards are now all on the table. This is no bluff.
Egyptians dressed as prisoners of the US Guantanamo Bay prison protest Wednesday.
Canada thinks the U.S. has gone too far in the war on terrorism. The U.S. is listed in a Canadian diplomatic manual as a country where prisoners are at risk of being tortured. Canadian officials say the document doesn't reflect official policy -- but the damage has been done.
Why would Canadians make the statement? And how much attention should the U.S. pay to its allies on questions of national security?
A course on torture awareness sounds like something from the 07′/08′ Columbia University course catalogue. According to this course, interrogation techniques such as “forced nudity, isolation, and sleep deprivation” are considered torture. Then again this is the country that considers critical media commentary a violation of human rights.
Guantanamo Bay (where prisoners tend to gain weight) is specifically mentioned. It should be noted that suspects held at Gitmo live in conditions far superior to the those of the men and women on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces.
If ever there were a case that should turn the public against the Bush Administration's push for broader powers to suspend due process and continue to torture terror suspects, it is the story of Maher Arar, a Canadian computer engineer who found himself caught up in post-9-11 law enforcement paranoia. Arar was a victim of the secret "rendition" program --a process by which terrorism suspects have been "disappeared" to other countries notorious for torturing prisoners during interrogation.
The Canadian government blames the United States for withholding information from Canadian authorities, and sending Arar to Syria without notifying his family or the Canadian consulate, and for ignoring Arar's objections that he would be tortured. And, of course, there is the matter of his innocence.
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell.
The nation's intelligence chief says waterboarding "would be torture" if used against him or if someone under interrogation actually was taking water into his lungs. But Mike McConnell declined for legal reasons to say whether the technique categorically should be considered torture.
If America is serious about preventing these evil, vicious bastards from murdering hundreds or thousands of us and our friends — as they already have and promise to do — waterboarding must remain a weapon this nation proudly wields to defend itself and its allies. If not, those who weep about waterboarding information-rich mass murderers like Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheik Mohammed should volunteer to collect the body parts of American citizens blasted to bits because we flinched from this modest technique to squeeze vital operational intelligence from captured Islamic butchers.
Who will complain about the new world-wide embrace of torture? America has justified it legally at the highest levels of government. Even worse, the administration has selectively leaked supposed successes of the water board such as the alleged Khalid Sheik Mohammed confessions. However, in the same breath the CIA sources for the Washington Post noted that in Mohammed’s case they got information but "not all of it reliable." Of course, when you waterboard you get all the magic answers you want -because remember, the subject will talk. They all talk! Anyone strapped down will say anything, absolutely anything to get the torture to stop.
