NoaIzumiA Twofer on Torture, from the Wall Street Journal
January 25th 2009 00:31
With the Jan. 22 executive order from President Obama calling a halt to the “enhanced interrogation” practices of the Bush years, the Wall Street Journal wasted no time at putting in their two cents. A bargain at a penny per article.
The Jack Bauer Exception
“The Attorney General, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Director of National Intelligence-designate Dennis Blair will report back and offer ‘additional or different guidance for other departments or agencies.’…The ‘special task force’ may well grant the CIA more legal freedom to squeeze information out of terrorists”
The full text of the executive order is provided here, courtesy of Fox News.
Really Long Link
It provides for a Special Task Force to evaluate how well Army Field Manual techniques work when used by other departments, such as the CIA. But, in the very same section, it forbids rendition for the purposes of torture, so it would be awfully odd if it forbade that, but allowed torture at home. The Chairman of the task force will be Attorney General Eric Holder, who has spoken out bluntly against waterboarding and other forms of interrogation that qualify as torture. I also notice that they mention Holder, Gates, and Blair as if they were equals, when Holder is the one in charge.
As for the likelihood that these men will actually recommend harsh techniques:
Eric Holder has said bluntly during his confirmation hearing that waterboarding is torture,
Really Long Link
Robert Gates is arguably responsible for some of the techniques that Obama now wants to stop, but wanted to close Gitmo even before the election.
Really Long Link
Really Long Link
Dennis Blair, the president’s nominee for Director of Intelligence Services, hesitated to equate waterboarding with torture, but declared that there would be “no waterboarding on my watch”, and “no torture on my watch”.
Really Long Link
Obama himself has publically stated that the US would abide by the Geneva conventions and not torture. If he decides to break that pledge, he’ll have some explaining to do.
Really Long Link
I also find interesting that the folks at WSJ bitch about the restrictions of the Army Field Manual, and then complain that the task force’s findings may allow ways around them. They nail Obama coming and going.
“The wider danger Mr. Obama is inviting by claiming to draw a line while drawing no line at all is the message it sends to Langley"
What’s this “drawing no line at all” stuff? The executive order drew a very definite line, at least for the next six months. If CIA interrogators follow the Army Field Manual, they’re fine, legally. If they don’t, they’re knowingly in violation of an order from the President. When the task force finishes its work, the line may be drawn somewhere else, depending on the agency, but there’s no reason to think that the rules will be made more restrictive than they currently are (the authors of the article didn’t seem to think so a couple of paragraphs ago), and no reason to think they’ll be made retroactive. You can’t be punished for doing something that was legal at the time.
Torture Inquisition
“Until he has access to confidential information about past interrogation techniques unavailable to a nominee, Mr. Holder is merely expressing a personal view.”
No one (without the proper security clearance) knows all the types of techniques used by officials under the Bush administration, but Holder wasn’t asked about all of them, he was asked about one specific technique that the US has admitted to using, waterboarding. As waterboarding has been legally defined as torture and this definition has been the basis for a number of war crimes convictions, Eric Holder, the nominee for Attorney-General, is quite qualified to make that statement in an official capacity. Legally, waterboarding is torture.
“In any event, the legal standard for any possible prosecution into torture allegations would include mens rea -- whether, say, a CIA interrogator understood, i.e., possessed the "guilty mind," that his actions constituted a crime. No one remotely suggests that's the case.”
That reasoning would apply to a CIA interrogator who is not aware of the legal precedents. The same would not apply so much to the men who gave the order in the first place, who arguably should have been aware that they were probably breaking the law.
And President Obama has indicated that he would not prosecute individuals who were acting in good faith.
Really Long Link
If the Justice Department decides there's enough evidence to prosecute government officials for torture and/or other war crimes, the accused can argue good faith in their defense. They'll get their day in court, like every other American.
The Jack Bauer Exception
“The Attorney General, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Director of National Intelligence-designate Dennis Blair will report back and offer ‘additional or different guidance for other departments or agencies.’…The ‘special task force’ may well grant the CIA more legal freedom to squeeze information out of terrorists”
The full text of the executive order is provided here, courtesy of Fox News.
Really Long Link
It provides for a Special Task Force to evaluate how well Army Field Manual techniques work when used by other departments, such as the CIA. But, in the very same section, it forbids rendition for the purposes of torture, so it would be awfully odd if it forbade that, but allowed torture at home. The Chairman of the task force will be Attorney General Eric Holder, who has spoken out bluntly against waterboarding and other forms of interrogation that qualify as torture. I also notice that they mention Holder, Gates, and Blair as if they were equals, when Holder is the one in charge.
As for the likelihood that these men will actually recommend harsh techniques:
Eric Holder has said bluntly during his confirmation hearing that waterboarding is torture,
Really Long Link
Robert Gates is arguably responsible for some of the techniques that Obama now wants to stop, but wanted to close Gitmo even before the election.
Really Long Link
Really Long Link
Dennis Blair, the president’s nominee for Director of Intelligence Services, hesitated to equate waterboarding with torture, but declared that there would be “no waterboarding on my watch”, and “no torture on my watch”.
Really Long Link
Obama himself has publically stated that the US would abide by the Geneva conventions and not torture. If he decides to break that pledge, he’ll have some explaining to do.
Really Long Link
I also find interesting that the folks at WSJ bitch about the restrictions of the Army Field Manual, and then complain that the task force’s findings may allow ways around them. They nail Obama coming and going.
“The wider danger Mr. Obama is inviting by claiming to draw a line while drawing no line at all is the message it sends to Langley"
What’s this “drawing no line at all” stuff? The executive order drew a very definite line, at least for the next six months. If CIA interrogators follow the Army Field Manual, they’re fine, legally. If they don’t, they’re knowingly in violation of an order from the President. When the task force finishes its work, the line may be drawn somewhere else, depending on the agency, but there’s no reason to think that the rules will be made more restrictive than they currently are (the authors of the article didn’t seem to think so a couple of paragraphs ago), and no reason to think they’ll be made retroactive. You can’t be punished for doing something that was legal at the time.
Torture Inquisition
“Until he has access to confidential information about past interrogation techniques unavailable to a nominee, Mr. Holder is merely expressing a personal view.”
No one (without the proper security clearance) knows all the types of techniques used by officials under the Bush administration, but Holder wasn’t asked about all of them, he was asked about one specific technique that the US has admitted to using, waterboarding. As waterboarding has been legally defined as torture and this definition has been the basis for a number of war crimes convictions, Eric Holder, the nominee for Attorney-General, is quite qualified to make that statement in an official capacity. Legally, waterboarding is torture.
“In any event, the legal standard for any possible prosecution into torture allegations would include mens rea -- whether, say, a CIA interrogator understood, i.e., possessed the "guilty mind," that his actions constituted a crime. No one remotely suggests that's the case.”
That reasoning would apply to a CIA interrogator who is not aware of the legal precedents. The same would not apply so much to the men who gave the order in the first place, who arguably should have been aware that they were probably breaking the law.
And President Obama has indicated that he would not prosecute individuals who were acting in good faith.
Really Long Link
If the Justice Department decides there's enough evidence to prosecute government officials for torture and/or other war crimes, the accused can argue good faith in their defense. They'll get their day in court, like every other American.
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