In his speech at the American Enterprise Institute last Thursday, former vice president Cheney vigorously and angrily defended the previous administration’s detainee and interrogation policies.
I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program. The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed. They were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do.
Unfortunately for Mr. Cheney, these statements are flatly contradicted by the facts.
Former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan has already dismissed the affirmation that all other efforts failed. Furthermore, there is no evidence that torturing detainees prevented any attacks, let alone saved hundreds of thousands of lives, as Mr. Cheney claims
That the program did constitute torture, and thus violated US and international law, is also obvious.
In fact, after World War II, the Tokyo War Crime Trials convicted several Japanese for having water boarded US and allied soldiers.
After the 1898 Spanish-American War, US soldiers were court-martialed for having water boarded Filipino rebels.
Mr. Cheney’s defense is predictable. He is attempting to steer the debate away from the program’s ethical and legal dimensions. Instead, he seeks to transform the issue into a purely political one, a debate on policy differences, and thus accuses his opponents, and President Obama of trying to criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessors.
Mr. Cheney deliberately misses the point.
In a democracy, political differences are natural, and settled at the ballot box.
What we are dealing with here, is not a difference of opinions concerning the former administration’s detainee and interrogation policies.
It is the immoral and illegal nature of these policies that is being denounced.
Just because it was MM Bush and Cheney’s responsibility to protect the American people (9/11 was a tragic failure to fulfill that responsibility) does not mean that they had the authority to launch a program that violated US and international law, and was also immoral.
For both of these gentlemen had another responsibility besides protecting the American people. It was to protect and defend the constitution.
It was their dereliction of duty in this exercise that is the issue here, and not some political differences of opinion. The latter are resolved election time (and they were last November), the former in a court of law…
In their zeal to prevent a second attack on US soil, the former administration adopted policies that violated US and international law.
It is for this that the former president and vice president should be held accountable.
That prospect, naturally, does not please Mr. Cheney, and as such, he now seeks to portray the former administration’s policies as the only ones feasible:
But in the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed…There is never a good time to compromise when the lives and safety of the American people are in the balance.
According to this logic, you do whatever it takes, the end justifies the means, torture your enemies if you deem it necessary, or surrender to them. There is no other option.
Incidentally, though Mr. Cheney continues to refer to Guantanamo detainees as hardened terrorists, a 2008 McClatchy investigation concluded that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees captured in 2001 and 2002 in Afghanistan and Pakistan were innocent citizens or low-level fighters of little intelligence value who were turned over to American officials for money or because of personal or political rivalries.
And yet, you do not fight extremism with extreme methods, you do not detain people indefinitely, you do not torture them, not if you believe in justice and democracy.
Mr. Cheney claims that these terrorists hate us because of our values.
Do they?
Perhaps it is not that they hate our values, but our hypocrisy, and propensity to lecture the world about justice and democracy, all the while ignoring these values, and supporting those who brazenly violate them, if it is in our national interests, when it is convenient.
America antagonizes, infuriates and alienates the rest of the world when it fails to live up to its professed values.
That is why the most effective way to fight extremism is simply to uphold our own values, and not let fear rashly lead us astray and repudiate them.
It is never a good time to compromise with our values.
On the contrary, they have been so successful in establishing free, vibrant and prosperous societies on all continents.
This is the antidote to extremism, not resorting to cruelty and injustice to neutralize a cruel and unjust enemy .
MM Bush and Cheney have a lot to answer for, but first and foremost, for having betrayed our most cherished values, and undermined the cause of freedom and democracy around the world.
Though Mr. Cheney desperately seeks to avoid this debate and its obvious legal ramifications, and accuses all those who question the nature of these policies of weakening the nation’s resolve and capacity to defend itself, and thus strengthening the enemy, this debate needs to take place.
These policies need to be investigated, fairly and impartially, if that is still possible, and if US and international laws have indeed been violated, then those responsible, and including the former vice president if necessary, must be prosecuted.
That would be a powerful signal sent to the rest of the world: that America is indeed a nation of laws, and that no one is above the law, not even Mr. Cheney…
lundi 25 mai 2009
dimanche 24 mai 2009
Remembering who we are
The parlous situation the US now finds itself in, and aptly described by Obama in his recent speech, is first and foremost the responsibility of MM Bush and Cheney.
No one should underestimate the monumental issues that President Obama now has to address.
Trying to rehabilitate a security policy based on faulty legal reasoning and that led to Guantanamo and the CIA torture program is no mean feat.
Can it even be done?
Can Obama humanize the legal structure put in place by MM Bush and Cheney to deal with terrorism suspects?
He thinks he can, but this very well may be a case of wishful thinking…
The previous administration’s detention and interrogation policies were illegal and immoral.
As such, they should be repudiated unequivocally.
No one should blame Obama for trying to sort out a morally and politically complex situation, which he has rightly described as a mess.
Yet, he should resist the temptation to try to tinker with and salvage these policies.
He should take his time, and start anew , with the following caveat in mind: denying justice to your enemies will never make America safer, but only render them stronger, for you will only be proving them right that the idea of justice is but a myth, a tool that we cynically manipulate to imprison and humiliate our enemies, and not one of the founding principles of our civilization, and one which we hold sacred.
Obama should take his chances, and defend this noble ideal and shun political expediency.
The more frivolous and opportunist politicians will always accuse those who actually believe in justice and human rights for all of compromising national security with their misguided idealism…
They will never hesitate to exploit the now proverbial GWOT to serve their own political ends.
The threat represented by al-Qaeda has been inflated by all those with a vested interest in preserving the status quo, vis-à-vis detention and interrogation policies.
To dismantle them would expose their fundamental immoral and illegal character, and encourage all those now calling for an investigation into all aspects of the previous administration’s security policies, and who rightly demand as well that those
responsible for devising and implementing them be held accountable.
It is, therefore, in the interests of these parties to change the subject. Abandon the legal and ethical battlefields, for these battles have been lost, and instead indulge in fear mongering.
The Fox News host Sean Hannity condemned the idea of transferring Guantanamo detainees to US jails, claiming these are the worst of the worst. We seem to be letting our guard down again.
In essence, the terrorist threat is a real but minor one.
Al-Qaeda is a non-state actor, without access to resources that a state can command, and with scant resources of its own.. It can launch attacks here and there, now and again, but in no conceivable way constitutes an existential threat to the US, or to any one else, for that matter.
It can be handled within existing democratic institutions.
Obama must resist the temptation ,and ignore the numerous calls, to subvert the entire framework underpinning our human rights because a few thousand Muslim extremists actually believe in their millenarian propaganda.
Hence, there is no need to update national and international legal norms, as the WP columnist Jim Hoagland argues.
As we have already said, that would be handing them a precious propaganda victory, validating their claim that our concepts of human rights and justice are nothing but hypocrisy. Gunatanamo, Abu Ghraib and Mr. Cheney’s cherished EIT ("enhanced interrogation techniques") have done nothing to prove them wrong…On the contrary…It is time to change course.
We can defeat these people simply by remembering who we are, without betraying our principles, sullying our values, and debasing our humanity…
No one should underestimate the monumental issues that President Obama now has to address.
Trying to rehabilitate a security policy based on faulty legal reasoning and that led to Guantanamo and the CIA torture program is no mean feat.
Can it even be done?
Can Obama humanize the legal structure put in place by MM Bush and Cheney to deal with terrorism suspects?
He thinks he can, but this very well may be a case of wishful thinking…
The previous administration’s detention and interrogation policies were illegal and immoral.
As such, they should be repudiated unequivocally.
No one should blame Obama for trying to sort out a morally and politically complex situation, which he has rightly described as a mess.
Yet, he should resist the temptation to try to tinker with and salvage these policies.
He should take his time, and start anew , with the following caveat in mind: denying justice to your enemies will never make America safer, but only render them stronger, for you will only be proving them right that the idea of justice is but a myth, a tool that we cynically manipulate to imprison and humiliate our enemies, and not one of the founding principles of our civilization, and one which we hold sacred.
Obama should take his chances, and defend this noble ideal and shun political expediency.
The more frivolous and opportunist politicians will always accuse those who actually believe in justice and human rights for all of compromising national security with their misguided idealism…
They will never hesitate to exploit the now proverbial GWOT to serve their own political ends.
The threat represented by al-Qaeda has been inflated by all those with a vested interest in preserving the status quo, vis-à-vis detention and interrogation policies.
To dismantle them would expose their fundamental immoral and illegal character, and encourage all those now calling for an investigation into all aspects of the previous administration’s security policies, and who rightly demand as well that those
responsible for devising and implementing them be held accountable.
It is, therefore, in the interests of these parties to change the subject. Abandon the legal and ethical battlefields, for these battles have been lost, and instead indulge in fear mongering.
The Fox News host Sean Hannity condemned the idea of transferring Guantanamo detainees to US jails, claiming these are the worst of the worst. We seem to be letting our guard down again.
In essence, the terrorist threat is a real but minor one.
Al-Qaeda is a non-state actor, without access to resources that a state can command, and with scant resources of its own.. It can launch attacks here and there, now and again, but in no conceivable way constitutes an existential threat to the US, or to any one else, for that matter.
It can be handled within existing democratic institutions.
Obama must resist the temptation ,and ignore the numerous calls, to subvert the entire framework underpinning our human rights because a few thousand Muslim extremists actually believe in their millenarian propaganda.
Hence, there is no need to update national and international legal norms, as the WP columnist Jim Hoagland argues.
As we have already said, that would be handing them a precious propaganda victory, validating their claim that our concepts of human rights and justice are nothing but hypocrisy. Gunatanamo, Abu Ghraib and Mr. Cheney’s cherished EIT ("enhanced interrogation techniques") have done nothing to prove them wrong…On the contrary…It is time to change course.
We can defeat these people simply by remembering who we are, without betraying our principles, sullying our values, and debasing our humanity…
vendredi 22 mai 2009
Justice, human rights, and the chosen few
In his speech at the National Archives Building in Washington yesterday, President Obama reasserted his belief in the core values of the US, and affirmed that they were not to be the unwitting casualties of the nation’s security and anti-terrorism policies.
As such, he condemned the actions of the previous administration in these areas, and vowed to change direction:
Now let me be clear: We are indeed at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates. We do need to update our institutions to deal with this threat. But we must do so with an abiding confidence in the rule of law and due process; in checks and balances and accountability. For reasons that I will explain, the decisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable -- a framework that failed to rely on our legal traditions and time-tested institutions, and that failed to use our values as a compass. And that's why I took several steps upon taking office to better protect the American people.
As such, his early decisions to ban torture techniques, and to close Guantanamo within twelve months were sound. We can only but applaud them.
What was disappointing however, but not surprising, was his commitment to preserve the military commissions system, one that is deeply flawed, and whose sole purpose is to secure convictions that could not possibly be obtained in conventional civilian or military courts.
Though Obama has vowed to reform them, the military commissions prevent the accused from examining all incriminating evidence; allow secret evidence against the accused that he cannot review; do not allow the defendant to choose his own lawyer.
Furthermore, a non-guilty verdict is no guarantee that the accused will be freed…
One can therefore be declared innocent, but held indefinitely behind bars!
All that is required for some hapless individual to find himself picked up anywhere on this planet and hurled into the clutches of the system is for the President to declare that he is an «unlawful enemy combatant»…
It is a system which is entirely controlled by the military: judge, prosecutor, lawyer and jury…
The sole vocation and reason for being of these courts is to convict those we fear on the basis of evidence that would be thrown out of any legitimate court…
Can our equanimity and peace of mind durably rest on such morally dubious shortcuts?
Secondly, the notion that there are some individuals that we can legitimately hold indefinitely without trial is morally suspect.
The President said:
We're going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantanamo who pose a danger to our country. But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, in some cases because evidence may be tainted, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States. Examples of that threat include people who've received extensive explosives training at al Qaeda training camps, or commanded Taliban troops in battle, or expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden, or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans. These are people who, in effect, remain at war with the United States.
Due to the fact that the rights of these people have been so egregiously violated, and without the slightest compunction, judging by the former vice president’s recent statements, they cannot possibly be tried because no court, even the military commissions, could ever consider as legitimate any evidence or testimony, due to their total lack of credibility, and the suspect and damning circumstances under which they were extracted.
Because we have denied them their rights, no court could ever consider the charges against them without dismissing them altogether.
Since that option is considered unacceptable in Washington, then there can be no trials.
The consequence is clear: prolonged, indefinite detention without charge…
Because we violated their rights in the recent past, we shall continue to do so into the distant future.
Because we denied them justice yesterday, we shall continue denying them justice tomorrow.
What kind of justice is that?
These people deserve their day in court, in a court which will protect their rights.
For justice is not a luxury reserved for those who resemble us, or for those whose deeds and values we approve.
It either exists, or it does not: it cannot prevail in New York or Washington, and be ignored at Guantanamo.
Nor is this about being an absolutist, to use the President’s word, when dealing with human rights.
Defending them, as well as human dignity, should not be the sole responsibility of naïve do-gooders, including those who, because they happen to be oblivious to the evils of this world, do more harm than good.
But we cannot have it both ways: we cannot pretend to be a democratic society if we violate the rights of those under our responsibility, even if we do not like them.
We cannot still pretend to be that shining city on the hill if we unabashedly imprison those we are afraid of, and throw away the key, because, were we to respect our democratic traditions and institutions, they would undoubtedly be freed.
If we want to go down that road, we can do so. But then, we have to do so openly, without pretending that we still are what we consider we can no longer afford to be. Thus, we have to change our laws, declare that our previous conceptions of justice and democracy are obsolete, and institute a two-tier judicial system: one for us, and one for them, for those who we believe do not deserve the same fundamental rights that we possess, and that we consider our heritage.
How will we be able to make that distinction?
Will it suffice for the President of the United States to claim that so and so is an «unlawful enemy combatant» to forever strip that individual of all rights as a human being?
We shall also have to explain to our allies in Europe and elsewhere (though many in the US could not care less what the civilized world thinks) why we no longer believe that human rights are universal, but, in fact, reserved for the chosen few, the chosen few to be selected, naturally by America, and only America…
As such, he condemned the actions of the previous administration in these areas, and vowed to change direction:
Now let me be clear: We are indeed at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates. We do need to update our institutions to deal with this threat. But we must do so with an abiding confidence in the rule of law and due process; in checks and balances and accountability. For reasons that I will explain, the decisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable -- a framework that failed to rely on our legal traditions and time-tested institutions, and that failed to use our values as a compass. And that's why I took several steps upon taking office to better protect the American people.
As such, his early decisions to ban torture techniques, and to close Guantanamo within twelve months were sound. We can only but applaud them.
What was disappointing however, but not surprising, was his commitment to preserve the military commissions system, one that is deeply flawed, and whose sole purpose is to secure convictions that could not possibly be obtained in conventional civilian or military courts.
Though Obama has vowed to reform them, the military commissions prevent the accused from examining all incriminating evidence; allow secret evidence against the accused that he cannot review; do not allow the defendant to choose his own lawyer.
Furthermore, a non-guilty verdict is no guarantee that the accused will be freed…
One can therefore be declared innocent, but held indefinitely behind bars!
All that is required for some hapless individual to find himself picked up anywhere on this planet and hurled into the clutches of the system is for the President to declare that he is an «unlawful enemy combatant»…
It is a system which is entirely controlled by the military: judge, prosecutor, lawyer and jury…
The sole vocation and reason for being of these courts is to convict those we fear on the basis of evidence that would be thrown out of any legitimate court…
Can our equanimity and peace of mind durably rest on such morally dubious shortcuts?
Secondly, the notion that there are some individuals that we can legitimately hold indefinitely without trial is morally suspect.
The President said:
We're going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantanamo who pose a danger to our country. But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, in some cases because evidence may be tainted, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States. Examples of that threat include people who've received extensive explosives training at al Qaeda training camps, or commanded Taliban troops in battle, or expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden, or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans. These are people who, in effect, remain at war with the United States.
Due to the fact that the rights of these people have been so egregiously violated, and without the slightest compunction, judging by the former vice president’s recent statements, they cannot possibly be tried because no court, even the military commissions, could ever consider as legitimate any evidence or testimony, due to their total lack of credibility, and the suspect and damning circumstances under which they were extracted.
Because we have denied them their rights, no court could ever consider the charges against them without dismissing them altogether.
Since that option is considered unacceptable in Washington, then there can be no trials.
The consequence is clear: prolonged, indefinite detention without charge…
Because we violated their rights in the recent past, we shall continue to do so into the distant future.
Because we denied them justice yesterday, we shall continue denying them justice tomorrow.
What kind of justice is that?
These people deserve their day in court, in a court which will protect their rights.
For justice is not a luxury reserved for those who resemble us, or for those whose deeds and values we approve.
It either exists, or it does not: it cannot prevail in New York or Washington, and be ignored at Guantanamo.
Nor is this about being an absolutist, to use the President’s word, when dealing with human rights.
Defending them, as well as human dignity, should not be the sole responsibility of naïve do-gooders, including those who, because they happen to be oblivious to the evils of this world, do more harm than good.
But we cannot have it both ways: we cannot pretend to be a democratic society if we violate the rights of those under our responsibility, even if we do not like them.
We cannot still pretend to be that shining city on the hill if we unabashedly imprison those we are afraid of, and throw away the key, because, were we to respect our democratic traditions and institutions, they would undoubtedly be freed.
If we want to go down that road, we can do so. But then, we have to do so openly, without pretending that we still are what we consider we can no longer afford to be. Thus, we have to change our laws, declare that our previous conceptions of justice and democracy are obsolete, and institute a two-tier judicial system: one for us, and one for them, for those who we believe do not deserve the same fundamental rights that we possess, and that we consider our heritage.
How will we be able to make that distinction?
Will it suffice for the President of the United States to claim that so and so is an «unlawful enemy combatant» to forever strip that individual of all rights as a human being?
We shall also have to explain to our allies in Europe and elsewhere (though many in the US could not care less what the civilized world thinks) why we no longer believe that human rights are universal, but, in fact, reserved for the chosen few, the chosen few to be selected, naturally by America, and only America…
jeudi 21 mai 2009
Whatever happened to the rights of man?
The Obama administration is considering establishing a national security court that would be utilized to try, convict and imprison terrorists, even though the available evidence would be insufficient to obtain a conviction in a federal court or even in the military commissions program.
Yet, why should we seek to detain someone, if there is insufficient evidence to do so?
Either there is solid, reliable evidence to prosecute someone, or there is not.
If there is, then judge the suspect, if there is not, then he or she should be released…
On what possible grounds can we still detain them?
Because the President claims they are enemies of the state?
Should that be sufficient in a democracy?
According to Bruce Fein, a former Reagan administration justice department official, the federal court system is quite suitable to try Guantanamo detainees:
Shortly after 9/11, Michael Chertoff, then head of the Criminal Division of DOJ, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Article III federal courts have performed brilliantly in the trials of terrorism cases assisted by the Classified Information Procedures Act of 1980 (CIPA).
CIPA preserves the rights of the accused, while at the same time preventing classified information from being disclosed…
Are some individuals, therefore, inherently unworthy of being treated fairly, like the rest of us?
Why can’t the conventional court system apply to suspected terrorists?
Others have successfully been tried there in the past ( Zacarias Moussaoui, for example).
Must we devise special rules for those we may have impetuously branded terrorists?
One participant in a meeting the President held yesterday with representatives of human rights organizations said afterwards:
He was almost ruminating over the need for statutory change to the laws so that we can deal with individuals who we can’t charge and detain. We’ve known this is on the horizon for many years, but we were able to hold it off with George Bush. The idea that we might find ourselves fighting with the Obama administration over these powers is really stunning.
If we cannot charge or detain them, then what are these people doing in prison?
Since when do democracies lock people up without justification?
The situation is paradoxical for the following reasons:
So many of these detainees having been abused, the evidence obtained, however credible it may be, is tainted , and thus inadmissible in court…
Even those who were later interrogated in more conventional ways were not advised of their rights against self-incrimination!!
Because of these shortcuts, of these shortcomings, they will have to settle for a second rate judicial system, based on this national security court, or the military commissions system that Obama has decided to preserve, albeit with a few modifications, that is incompatible with the very concept of justice.
They will be judged by standards we would consider disgraceful were they to be
applied to us…
We would demand justice for ourselves, but will tolerate a parody of justice for them.
Is that really our conception of freedom and democracy?
What ever happened to the rights of man…?
Yet, why should we seek to detain someone, if there is insufficient evidence to do so?
Either there is solid, reliable evidence to prosecute someone, or there is not.
If there is, then judge the suspect, if there is not, then he or she should be released…
On what possible grounds can we still detain them?
Because the President claims they are enemies of the state?
Should that be sufficient in a democracy?
According to Bruce Fein, a former Reagan administration justice department official, the federal court system is quite suitable to try Guantanamo detainees:
Shortly after 9/11, Michael Chertoff, then head of the Criminal Division of DOJ, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Article III federal courts have performed brilliantly in the trials of terrorism cases assisted by the Classified Information Procedures Act of 1980 (CIPA).
CIPA preserves the rights of the accused, while at the same time preventing classified information from being disclosed…
Are some individuals, therefore, inherently unworthy of being treated fairly, like the rest of us?
Why can’t the conventional court system apply to suspected terrorists?
Others have successfully been tried there in the past ( Zacarias Moussaoui, for example).
Must we devise special rules for those we may have impetuously branded terrorists?
One participant in a meeting the President held yesterday with representatives of human rights organizations said afterwards:
He was almost ruminating over the need for statutory change to the laws so that we can deal with individuals who we can’t charge and detain. We’ve known this is on the horizon for many years, but we were able to hold it off with George Bush. The idea that we might find ourselves fighting with the Obama administration over these powers is really stunning.
If we cannot charge or detain them, then what are these people doing in prison?
Since when do democracies lock people up without justification?
The situation is paradoxical for the following reasons:
So many of these detainees having been abused, the evidence obtained, however credible it may be, is tainted , and thus inadmissible in court…
Even those who were later interrogated in more conventional ways were not advised of their rights against self-incrimination!!
Because of these shortcuts, of these shortcomings, they will have to settle for a second rate judicial system, based on this national security court, or the military commissions system that Obama has decided to preserve, albeit with a few modifications, that is incompatible with the very concept of justice.
They will be judged by standards we would consider disgraceful were they to be
applied to us…
We would demand justice for ourselves, but will tolerate a parody of justice for them.
Is that really our conception of freedom and democracy?
What ever happened to the rights of man…?
lundi 18 mai 2009
Which is the greater offense?
Following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) comments that she had been misled by the CIA concerning its use of torture, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told CNN: Lying to the Congress of the United States is a crime. And if the speaker is accusing the CIA and other intelligence officials of lying or misleading the Congress, then she should come forward with evidence and turn that over to the Justice Department so they can be prosecuted.
Imagine anyone accusing the CIA of misleading Congress, the nation, and the world, for that matter!
Was it not the CIA that confidently asserted that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to world peace because he possessed weapons of mass destruction?
By the way, did the CIA ever apologize for having made those preposterous claims?
In any case, it is reassuring to see that Mr. Boehner is a firm believer in the law, and, no doubt, in the notion that all violations should be prosecuted.
As such, it presumably goes without saying that he will support an inquiry into the Bush-Cheney torture program, a clear violation of US and international law.
The fact that Mrs. Pelosi did not see fit to object to the program is indeed disturbing, for what we expect from leaders is leadership, particularly on the most meaningful issues.
Yet, what of the program itself?
Shouldn’t its sponsors, MM Bush and Cheney at least apologize for having designed and launched it?
Shouldn’t they apologize to the nation, for having subverted its ideals, to the world, for having disgraced the noble ideal of democracy, and last but not least, to the victims themselves, none of whom have been convicted of any crime, let alone tried? How many have not even been charged with the least offense?
And let us suppose that they did apologize, Mr. Boehner, don’t you think some kind of investigation is in order here, or is abetting the crime a greater offense than committing the crime itself?
Imagine anyone accusing the CIA of misleading Congress, the nation, and the world, for that matter!
Was it not the CIA that confidently asserted that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to world peace because he possessed weapons of mass destruction?
By the way, did the CIA ever apologize for having made those preposterous claims?
In any case, it is reassuring to see that Mr. Boehner is a firm believer in the law, and, no doubt, in the notion that all violations should be prosecuted.
As such, it presumably goes without saying that he will support an inquiry into the Bush-Cheney torture program, a clear violation of US and international law.
The fact that Mrs. Pelosi did not see fit to object to the program is indeed disturbing, for what we expect from leaders is leadership, particularly on the most meaningful issues.
Yet, what of the program itself?
Shouldn’t its sponsors, MM Bush and Cheney at least apologize for having designed and launched it?
Shouldn’t they apologize to the nation, for having subverted its ideals, to the world, for having disgraced the noble ideal of democracy, and last but not least, to the victims themselves, none of whom have been convicted of any crime, let alone tried? How many have not even been charged with the least offense?
And let us suppose that they did apologize, Mr. Boehner, don’t you think some kind of investigation is in order here, or is abetting the crime a greater offense than committing the crime itself?
A new pecking order?
In last week’s Economist, the leader began thus:
FOR years leaders in continental Europe have been told by the Americans, the British and even this newspaper that their economies are sclerotic, overregulated and too state-dominated, and that to prosper in true Anglo-Saxon style they need a dose of free-market reform. But the global economic meltdown has given them the satisfying triple whammy of exposing the risks in deregulation, giving the state a more important role and (best of all) laying low les Anglo-Saxons…Indeed, a new European pecking order has emerged, with statist France on top, corporatist Germany in the middle and poor old liberal Britain floored.
So, is France’s economic model sclerotic or effective? Paradoxically, the answer is probably both….
In times of economic crisis, the system tends to serve the population well because it provides greater job protection than in the US or the UK; it distributes higher benefits, and some 21% of the workforce is actually employed by the state, protecting them from economic downturns. They are shielded from the major evils of our time: downsizing, outsourcing or bankruptcy…Hence, France has weathered the economic storm somewhat better than others: its economy should contract this year by some 3%, compared to 4% in the UK, 4.4% in Italy, and 5.6% in Germany…
Yet the system is expensive and cumbersome, relying on heavy taxation ( France's public spending represents 52% of its GDP, compared to 45% in the UK and 37% in the US) and an intrusive bureaucracy.
The cost of labor, and the abundant rules protecting it, inhibit job creation in times of economic growth . Hence, even in good times, the unemployment rate never dips below 8%.
One direct result is that French productivity is higher than in the US, because employers hire just the strict minimum…The Economist mentions one fast food chain that, for the same restaurants, has 33% less staff in France than in the UK…
It also a creates a sub class of workers who are hired as part-timers, or with temporary contracts, and thus can be easily disposed of when the economy stalls…
The bureaucracy, as well the thousands of labor laws that regulate employment, also hinder job creation as well entrepreneurship…To quote the Economist, the French are champion rule-makers.
In addition, the generous benefits are not always much of an incentive to find a job…
When Nicolas Sarkozy ran for president two years ago, he did so on a free market platform, aware of France’s poor economic performance and perennially weak growth rates…The economic crisis has thus had the paradoxical effect of rehabilitating the very archaic French model he sought to overhaul…
Hence, the window of opportunity to reform the old model has passed….
It may be many years before another arrives…
FOR years leaders in continental Europe have been told by the Americans, the British and even this newspaper that their economies are sclerotic, overregulated and too state-dominated, and that to prosper in true Anglo-Saxon style they need a dose of free-market reform. But the global economic meltdown has given them the satisfying triple whammy of exposing the risks in deregulation, giving the state a more important role and (best of all) laying low les Anglo-Saxons…Indeed, a new European pecking order has emerged, with statist France on top, corporatist Germany in the middle and poor old liberal Britain floored.
So, is France’s economic model sclerotic or effective? Paradoxically, the answer is probably both….
In times of economic crisis, the system tends to serve the population well because it provides greater job protection than in the US or the UK; it distributes higher benefits, and some 21% of the workforce is actually employed by the state, protecting them from economic downturns. They are shielded from the major evils of our time: downsizing, outsourcing or bankruptcy…Hence, France has weathered the economic storm somewhat better than others: its economy should contract this year by some 3%, compared to 4% in the UK, 4.4% in Italy, and 5.6% in Germany…
Yet the system is expensive and cumbersome, relying on heavy taxation ( France's public spending represents 52% of its GDP, compared to 45% in the UK and 37% in the US) and an intrusive bureaucracy.
The cost of labor, and the abundant rules protecting it, inhibit job creation in times of economic growth . Hence, even in good times, the unemployment rate never dips below 8%.
One direct result is that French productivity is higher than in the US, because employers hire just the strict minimum…The Economist mentions one fast food chain that, for the same restaurants, has 33% less staff in France than in the UK…
It also a creates a sub class of workers who are hired as part-timers, or with temporary contracts, and thus can be easily disposed of when the economy stalls…
The bureaucracy, as well the thousands of labor laws that regulate employment, also hinder job creation as well entrepreneurship…To quote the Economist, the French are champion rule-makers.
In addition, the generous benefits are not always much of an incentive to find a job…
When Nicolas Sarkozy ran for president two years ago, he did so on a free market platform, aware of France’s poor economic performance and perennially weak growth rates…The economic crisis has thus had the paradoxical effect of rehabilitating the very archaic French model he sought to overhaul…
Hence, the window of opportunity to reform the old model has passed….
It may be many years before another arrives…
vendredi 15 mai 2009
Torture is unreliable and slow (besides being immoral and illegal)
If I understand Mr. Krauthammer correctly, torture is acceptable and legitimate if the authorities only resort to it when confronted with the now proverbial «ticking time bomb scenario».
After all, if you arrested a suspect who you were convinced held vital information about an imminent 9/11-like attack, would you not torture him if need be to save lives?
Hence, MM Bush and Cheney were fully justified in resorting to «enhanced interrogation techniques» (the less squeamish among us simply call it torture) in order to prevent further attacks upon the homeland….
The major weakness of this argument is that it is disputed by…former Bush administration officials. Lawrence Wilkerson , the former chief of staff of Secretary Colin Powell, wrote the following in the Washington Note:
Its (the Bush-Cheney torture program) principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at preempting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al Qaeda.
He added that by the beginning of 2002, we had al Qaeda pretty much on the run.
The priority had turned to other purposes, and one of those purposes was to find substantial contacts between al Qaeda and Baghdad in order to justify what had become the administration’s obsession after 9/11, the invasion of Iraq.
Maj. Paul Burney, an army psychiatrist at Guantanamo, confirmed Wilkerson’s version:
Even though they were giving information and some of it was useful, while we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between aI Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful in establishing a link between aI Qaeda and Iraq. The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish this link ... there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results.
And until the Bush-Cheney administration had the necessary information to confirm the al-Qaeda-Saddam link, the torture would continue.
An al-Qaeda suspect, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (who, incidentally, died a few days ago in his Libyan cell, apparently a suicide…) was water boarded, at the VP office’s request, according to Wilkerson, because he had failed to confirm that much needed link. Needless, to say, al-Libi eventually did tell his interrogators what they wanted to hear.
As a result, based on these revelations, President Bush claimed in an October 2002 speech, that Saddam trained al-Qaeda militants in Iraq in the manufacture of biological and chemical weapons.
Much to his later chagrin, Colin Powell repeated the accusation in his famous UN presentation in February 2003.…We now know how reliable al-Libi’s information was. In fact, al-Libi later repudiated these claims, indicating that they had been prompted by the abuse he had been subjected to…
So much, for the «ticking time bomb scenario»…
Furthermore, this justification, this argument in support of torture is essentially contradictory…
We are told that, because time is of the essence, and because the bomb is ticking, we have no time for rapport and confidence building. We need to get the vital information as quickly as possible…
Yet, torture takes time.
The two principle torture techniques utilized by the Bush-Cheney administration have been sleeplessness and water boarding…Some seven to eleven sleepless days are required to break the will of these detainees….
Furthermore, Abu Zubaydah was water boarded 83 times, and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed 183!!
How many ticking time bombs could have gone off while these interrogators kept some detainees awake and water boarded the others?
How many?
Hence, if the information obtained is unreliable ( the al-Libi case demonstrated that a detainee, in the end, will say next to anything to stop the pain, particularly what his interrogators want to hear, and that the latter are incapable of distinguishing between fable and truth…), and slow in coming as well, what is the point of the torture program?
Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who initially interrogated Abu Zubaydah according to the standard Informed Interrogation Approach, said the following to the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary last Wednesday:
A major problem (with the torture program) is that it is ineffective. Al Qaeda terrorists are trained to resist torture. As shocking as these techniques are to us, the al Qaeda training prepares them for much worse – the torture they would expect to receive if caught by dictatorships for example…In addition the harsh techniques only serves to reinforce what the detainee has been prepared to expect if captured. This gives him a greater sense of control and predictability about his experience, and strengthens his will to resist…. A second major problem with this technique is that evidence gained from it is unreliable. There is no way to know whether the detainee is being truthful, or just speaking to either mitigate his discomfort or to deliberately provide false information…A third major problem with this technique is that it is slow.
In addition , according to Soufan, the program badly undermined FBI-CIA cooperation, as the former refused to participate in such an interrogation process. The FBI Director Robert Mueller told the CIA, we don’t do that.
Finally, Soufan concluded that many of the claims made in the memos about the success of the enhanced techniques are inaccurate. For example, it is untrue to claim Abu Zubaydah wasn't cooperating before August 1, 2002. The truth is that we got actionable intelligence from him in the first hour of interrogating himIn addition, simply by putting together dates cited in the memos with claims made, falsehoods are obvious. For example, it has been claimed that water boarding got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Jose Padilla. But that doesn't add up: Water boarding wasn't approved until 1 August 2002 (verbally it was authorized around mid July 2002), and Padilla was arrested in May 2002. The same goes for KSM's involvement in 9/11: That was discovered in April 2002, while water boarding was not introduced until almost three months later. It speaks volumes that the quoted instances of harsh interrogation methods being a success are false.
What remains of Mr. Krauthammer’s claims?
That MM. Cheney, Krauthammer and the other torture apologists are now doing their utmost to defend torture is not surprising. Torture’s alleged effectiveness is their ultimate argument, as the ethical and legal ones have already been lost.
«Yes», they claim, «maybe we went too far, but it was for your own good, and we succeeded in protecting you…»
If only that had been one of their main preoccupations as of January 2001!
For, on whose watch were three thousand innocent and hapless individuals killed in the worst terrorist attack in US history?
Finally, that Mrs. Pelosi and other Democrats, along with, let us not forget, the entire Republican party, did not have the courage to denounce and repudiate the Bush-Cheney torture program is unfortunate and deeply disappointing, but that in no way exonerates MM Bush and Cheney: they were leading this country, and it was their program from beginning to end. Would they have shelved it had Mrs. Pelosi publicly denounced it?
As for doing nothing to cut off the funding, imagine the outcry, among Republican ranks, and their supporters in the op-ed pages, had she had the aplomb to make such a suggestion!!!
What would have been the charge, Mr. Rove, treason, coddling terrorists, and reading them their rights instead of dealing with them vigorously?
Mr. Krauthammer is no doubt jesting with us…
But no rational arguments will ever convince the torture apologists that abusing detainees is anything but patriotic…
To conclude, there is but one way to get to the bottom of this: an independent commission, with subpoena powers, to examine the torture interrogation program in all its aspects….
I nominate Mr. Krauthammer to lead it…Who, then, would be bold enough to dispute its findings?
After all, if you arrested a suspect who you were convinced held vital information about an imminent 9/11-like attack, would you not torture him if need be to save lives?
Hence, MM Bush and Cheney were fully justified in resorting to «enhanced interrogation techniques» (the less squeamish among us simply call it torture) in order to prevent further attacks upon the homeland….
The major weakness of this argument is that it is disputed by…former Bush administration officials. Lawrence Wilkerson , the former chief of staff of Secretary Colin Powell, wrote the following in the Washington Note:
Its (the Bush-Cheney torture program) principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at preempting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al Qaeda.
He added that by the beginning of 2002, we had al Qaeda pretty much on the run.
The priority had turned to other purposes, and one of those purposes was to find substantial contacts between al Qaeda and Baghdad in order to justify what had become the administration’s obsession after 9/11, the invasion of Iraq.
Maj. Paul Burney, an army psychiatrist at Guantanamo, confirmed Wilkerson’s version:
Even though they were giving information and some of it was useful, while we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between aI Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful in establishing a link between aI Qaeda and Iraq. The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish this link ... there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results.
And until the Bush-Cheney administration had the necessary information to confirm the al-Qaeda-Saddam link, the torture would continue.
An al-Qaeda suspect, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (who, incidentally, died a few days ago in his Libyan cell, apparently a suicide…) was water boarded, at the VP office’s request, according to Wilkerson, because he had failed to confirm that much needed link. Needless, to say, al-Libi eventually did tell his interrogators what they wanted to hear.
As a result, based on these revelations, President Bush claimed in an October 2002 speech, that Saddam trained al-Qaeda militants in Iraq in the manufacture of biological and chemical weapons.
Much to his later chagrin, Colin Powell repeated the accusation in his famous UN presentation in February 2003.…We now know how reliable al-Libi’s information was. In fact, al-Libi later repudiated these claims, indicating that they had been prompted by the abuse he had been subjected to…
So much, for the «ticking time bomb scenario»…
Furthermore, this justification, this argument in support of torture is essentially contradictory…
We are told that, because time is of the essence, and because the bomb is ticking, we have no time for rapport and confidence building. We need to get the vital information as quickly as possible…
Yet, torture takes time.
The two principle torture techniques utilized by the Bush-Cheney administration have been sleeplessness and water boarding…Some seven to eleven sleepless days are required to break the will of these detainees….
Furthermore, Abu Zubaydah was water boarded 83 times, and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed 183!!
How many ticking time bombs could have gone off while these interrogators kept some detainees awake and water boarded the others?
How many?
Hence, if the information obtained is unreliable ( the al-Libi case demonstrated that a detainee, in the end, will say next to anything to stop the pain, particularly what his interrogators want to hear, and that the latter are incapable of distinguishing between fable and truth…), and slow in coming as well, what is the point of the torture program?
Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who initially interrogated Abu Zubaydah according to the standard Informed Interrogation Approach, said the following to the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary last Wednesday:
A major problem (with the torture program) is that it is ineffective. Al Qaeda terrorists are trained to resist torture. As shocking as these techniques are to us, the al Qaeda training prepares them for much worse – the torture they would expect to receive if caught by dictatorships for example…In addition the harsh techniques only serves to reinforce what the detainee has been prepared to expect if captured. This gives him a greater sense of control and predictability about his experience, and strengthens his will to resist…. A second major problem with this technique is that evidence gained from it is unreliable. There is no way to know whether the detainee is being truthful, or just speaking to either mitigate his discomfort or to deliberately provide false information…A third major problem with this technique is that it is slow.
In addition , according to Soufan, the program badly undermined FBI-CIA cooperation, as the former refused to participate in such an interrogation process. The FBI Director Robert Mueller told the CIA, we don’t do that.
Finally, Soufan concluded that many of the claims made in the memos about the success of the enhanced techniques are inaccurate. For example, it is untrue to claim Abu Zubaydah wasn't cooperating before August 1, 2002. The truth is that we got actionable intelligence from him in the first hour of interrogating himIn addition, simply by putting together dates cited in the memos with claims made, falsehoods are obvious. For example, it has been claimed that water boarding got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Jose Padilla. But that doesn't add up: Water boarding wasn't approved until 1 August 2002 (verbally it was authorized around mid July 2002), and Padilla was arrested in May 2002. The same goes for KSM's involvement in 9/11: That was discovered in April 2002, while water boarding was not introduced until almost three months later. It speaks volumes that the quoted instances of harsh interrogation methods being a success are false.
What remains of Mr. Krauthammer’s claims?
That MM. Cheney, Krauthammer and the other torture apologists are now doing their utmost to defend torture is not surprising. Torture’s alleged effectiveness is their ultimate argument, as the ethical and legal ones have already been lost.
«Yes», they claim, «maybe we went too far, but it was for your own good, and we succeeded in protecting you…»
If only that had been one of their main preoccupations as of January 2001!
For, on whose watch were three thousand innocent and hapless individuals killed in the worst terrorist attack in US history?
Finally, that Mrs. Pelosi and other Democrats, along with, let us not forget, the entire Republican party, did not have the courage to denounce and repudiate the Bush-Cheney torture program is unfortunate and deeply disappointing, but that in no way exonerates MM Bush and Cheney: they were leading this country, and it was their program from beginning to end. Would they have shelved it had Mrs. Pelosi publicly denounced it?
As for doing nothing to cut off the funding, imagine the outcry, among Republican ranks, and their supporters in the op-ed pages, had she had the aplomb to make such a suggestion!!!
What would have been the charge, Mr. Rove, treason, coddling terrorists, and reading them their rights instead of dealing with them vigorously?
Mr. Krauthammer is no doubt jesting with us…
But no rational arguments will ever convince the torture apologists that abusing detainees is anything but patriotic…
To conclude, there is but one way to get to the bottom of this: an independent commission, with subpoena powers, to examine the torture interrogation program in all its aspects….
I nominate Mr. Krauthammer to lead it…Who, then, would be bold enough to dispute its findings?
jeudi 14 mai 2009
So much for transparency
So, should the photos depicting the abuse of detainees be released?
President Obama decided to appeal a court decision authorizing their release, following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU
(for an interesting discussion of the issue, try Dan Froomkin’s piece).
What is disappointing is that we thought we had entered a new era last January, and that transparency, after eight years of secrecy and dissimulation, was now the order of the day.
Instead, Obama has chosen to parrot the previous administration’s arguments that revealing detainee abuse would inflame anti-American sentiment abroad, and put US troops in harm’s way.
Yet, what, in fact, should we find objectionable: the release of the pictures, or what they contain?
It is the behavior so graphically recorded that is unacceptable and despicable. It is that lack of restraint, that contempt for human dignity that is unconscionable and so deeply disturbing and dismaying…That is what has been so harmful to America’s image and reputation abroad. The damage has already been done, at Abu Ghraib, naturally, but also at Guantanamo, Bagram, Falluja, to name but the most notorious places…
Perhaps the only way that America’s standing can be restored is not by concealing the scurrilous actions of a former administration, but for the new US president to seize the high ground and release all the photos, all the memos, for the entire world to see.
It would signal that a new day has indeed dawned in America, and that unlawful, unethical behavior not only will no longer be tolerated, but also publicly exposed and prosecuted.
The best way, the only way to protect America’s reputation and armed forces abroad is for America to convince the world that it does indeed believe in justice, and that it will not hesitate to expose and prosecute its own, even if the latter happen to be former senior officials...
President Obama decided to appeal a court decision authorizing their release, following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU
(for an interesting discussion of the issue, try Dan Froomkin’s piece).
What is disappointing is that we thought we had entered a new era last January, and that transparency, after eight years of secrecy and dissimulation, was now the order of the day.
Instead, Obama has chosen to parrot the previous administration’s arguments that revealing detainee abuse would inflame anti-American sentiment abroad, and put US troops in harm’s way.
Yet, what, in fact, should we find objectionable: the release of the pictures, or what they contain?
It is the behavior so graphically recorded that is unacceptable and despicable. It is that lack of restraint, that contempt for human dignity that is unconscionable and so deeply disturbing and dismaying…That is what has been so harmful to America’s image and reputation abroad. The damage has already been done, at Abu Ghraib, naturally, but also at Guantanamo, Bagram, Falluja, to name but the most notorious places…
Perhaps the only way that America’s standing can be restored is not by concealing the scurrilous actions of a former administration, but for the new US president to seize the high ground and release all the photos, all the memos, for the entire world to see.
It would signal that a new day has indeed dawned in America, and that unlawful, unethical behavior not only will no longer be tolerated, but also publicly exposed and prosecuted.
The best way, the only way to protect America’s reputation and armed forces abroad is for America to convince the world that it does indeed believe in justice, and that it will not hesitate to expose and prosecute its own, even if the latter happen to be former senior officials...
mardi 12 mai 2009
Release the memos, all the memos
In his latest piece, the Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wonders whether Mr. Cheney is in fact right when he argues that torture works, to quote the writer.
As such, Mr. Cohen follows up with this question:
In effect, Cheney poses a hard, hard question: Is it more immoral to torture than it is to fail to prevent the deaths of thousands?
The difficulty, here , lies in the following: the torture enthusiasts have never produced any evidence that abusing detainees has in fact, prevented attacks….We are constantly told that vast and potentially massively lethal conspiracies were foiled, but are always spared the details. Let’s have them!
Mr. Cheney is now demanding that two memos , which he claims confirm his case, be released. Why Mr. Cheney needs the memos that he himself (and his colleagues in the Bush-Cheney administration) classified to discuss the attacks is not clear.
Surely he can bring up the matter without revealing state secrets, and it would certainly add to the credibility of his arguments, that torture saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of lives , were he to do so.
But then, why not release the two memos, but also all the other memos the secretive Bush-Cheney administration has classified over the years (eight long years) on this most important issue (and all the others) ?
We have nothing to fear from transparency…I am not sure Mr. Cheney can make the same claim…
Yet, as I have written elsewhere, the essential ethical point is not about the effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, of torture.
The torture enthusiasts are telling us that we have no other option between effectively combating terrorism, and thus losing one’s soul, that is to say, betraying every principle of justice and decency that our democratic societies are built upon; "taking the gloves off", in their expression, and betraying what and who we are, or purport to be, or failing in our mission to protect innocent life, and our democratic society.
That, affirms the writer Mark Danner, is an insidious and dangerous argument: for it holds that it is impossible to protect the country without breaking the law. It says that the professed principles of the United States, if genuinely adhered to, doom the country to defeat. It reduces our ideals and laws to a national decoration, to be discarded at the first sign of danger.
Yesterday, it was torture.
To what other expedients will we resort tomorrow when facing the next major crisis?
Can a democratic society long endure such onslaughts on its foundations, before it ceases to be one?
As such, Mr. Cohen follows up with this question:
In effect, Cheney poses a hard, hard question: Is it more immoral to torture than it is to fail to prevent the deaths of thousands?
The difficulty, here , lies in the following: the torture enthusiasts have never produced any evidence that abusing detainees has in fact, prevented attacks….We are constantly told that vast and potentially massively lethal conspiracies were foiled, but are always spared the details. Let’s have them!
Mr. Cheney is now demanding that two memos , which he claims confirm his case, be released. Why Mr. Cheney needs the memos that he himself (and his colleagues in the Bush-Cheney administration) classified to discuss the attacks is not clear.
Surely he can bring up the matter without revealing state secrets, and it would certainly add to the credibility of his arguments, that torture saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of lives , were he to do so.
But then, why not release the two memos, but also all the other memos the secretive Bush-Cheney administration has classified over the years (eight long years) on this most important issue (and all the others) ?
We have nothing to fear from transparency…I am not sure Mr. Cheney can make the same claim…
Yet, as I have written elsewhere, the essential ethical point is not about the effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, of torture.
The torture enthusiasts are telling us that we have no other option between effectively combating terrorism, and thus losing one’s soul, that is to say, betraying every principle of justice and decency that our democratic societies are built upon; "taking the gloves off", in their expression, and betraying what and who we are, or purport to be, or failing in our mission to protect innocent life, and our democratic society.
That, affirms the writer Mark Danner, is an insidious and dangerous argument: for it holds that it is impossible to protect the country without breaking the law. It says that the professed principles of the United States, if genuinely adhered to, doom the country to defeat. It reduces our ideals and laws to a national decoration, to be discarded at the first sign of danger.
Yesterday, it was torture.
To what other expedients will we resort tomorrow when facing the next major crisis?
Can a democratic society long endure such onslaughts on its foundations, before it ceases to be one?
lundi 11 mai 2009
Our Savior, Dick Cheney...
Last night, former vice president Cheney justified on CBS the torture of detainees by the US security establishment: I'm convinced, absolutely convinced that we saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of lives...No regrets. I think it was absolutely the right thing to do.
And yet, an Inspector General report, issued on May 7,2004 , by CIA Inspector General John Helgerson, stated that it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations have provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks.
Steven Bradbury, then deputy assistant attorney general, concluded in a memo written May 30, 2005, and released last month by the Obama administration, that it is difficult to quantitfy with confidence and precision the effectiveness of the program.
Mr Cheney has no such difficulties in declaring that thanks to him and his like-minded colleagues, he saved hundreds of thousands of lives...
Furthermore, there are reports that interrogators may even have gone beyond the tactics authorized by the Bush-Cheney administration (particularly in the case of waterboarding).
Although, among the various torture tactics, most of the media attention has focused on waterboarding, the preferred technique was, in fact, sleep deprivation. A former US government official told Greg Miller of the Los Angeles Times : waterboarding was obviously the most controversial, but sleep deprivation is probably the most effective thing they had going. The technique was banned by President Obama in January.
The LAT, based on the memos made public last month, describes the technique thus: the prisoners had their feet shackled to the floor and their hands cuffed close to their chins. Detainees were clad only in diapers and not allowed to feed themselves. A prisoner who started to drift off to sleep would tilt over and be caught by his chains, and thus awaken...
The process could go on for as long as eleven days!
One detainee, Mohammed Jawad, a young Afghan who was 16 at the time of his capture, changed cells 112 times in 14 days...At Guantanamo, this procedure was referred to as the "frequent flyer program"...
The technique was highly valued because it appeared less physically debilitating than other more conventional and harsher means. It left no overt traces.
It was particularly effective when combined with other techniques, such as slapping the detainee and confining him in small boxes.
James Horne, director of the Sleep Research Center at Loughborough University, in Great Britain, was appalled to learn that some of his work had actually inspired the interrogators: my response was shocked concern. Even though the pain of sleep deprivation can't be measured in terms of physical injury or appearance does not mean that the mental anguish is not as bad...To claim that 180 hours is safe in this respect is nonsense.
Even if detainees do talk, I would doubt whether the state of mind would be able to produce credible information, unaffected by delusion, fantasy or suggestibility.
And yet, an Inspector General report, issued on May 7,2004 , by CIA Inspector General John Helgerson, stated that it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations have provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks.
Steven Bradbury, then deputy assistant attorney general, concluded in a memo written May 30, 2005, and released last month by the Obama administration, that it is difficult to quantitfy with confidence and precision the effectiveness of the program.
Mr Cheney has no such difficulties in declaring that thanks to him and his like-minded colleagues, he saved hundreds of thousands of lives...
Furthermore, there are reports that interrogators may even have gone beyond the tactics authorized by the Bush-Cheney administration (particularly in the case of waterboarding).
Although, among the various torture tactics, most of the media attention has focused on waterboarding, the preferred technique was, in fact, sleep deprivation. A former US government official told Greg Miller of the Los Angeles Times : waterboarding was obviously the most controversial, but sleep deprivation is probably the most effective thing they had going. The technique was banned by President Obama in January.
The LAT, based on the memos made public last month, describes the technique thus: the prisoners had their feet shackled to the floor and their hands cuffed close to their chins. Detainees were clad only in diapers and not allowed to feed themselves. A prisoner who started to drift off to sleep would tilt over and be caught by his chains, and thus awaken...
The process could go on for as long as eleven days!
One detainee, Mohammed Jawad, a young Afghan who was 16 at the time of his capture, changed cells 112 times in 14 days...At Guantanamo, this procedure was referred to as the "frequent flyer program"...
The technique was highly valued because it appeared less physically debilitating than other more conventional and harsher means. It left no overt traces.
It was particularly effective when combined with other techniques, such as slapping the detainee and confining him in small boxes.
James Horne, director of the Sleep Research Center at Loughborough University, in Great Britain, was appalled to learn that some of his work had actually inspired the interrogators: my response was shocked concern. Even though the pain of sleep deprivation can't be measured in terms of physical injury or appearance does not mean that the mental anguish is not as bad...To claim that 180 hours is safe in this respect is nonsense.
Even if detainees do talk, I would doubt whether the state of mind would be able to produce credible information, unaffected by delusion, fantasy or suggestibility.
Yet, other medical professionals, this time not unwittingly, participated from the very outset in the development of the CIA's torture program. The Defense Department's JPRA (Joint Personnel Recovery Agency) administers the SERE program (The US Army's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training), which is designed to train US personnel in resisting torture should they fall in enemy hands. The training is based on simulation, however. The trainees are not subjected to the types of sessions real detainees undergo at Guantanamo and elsewhere.
A senior JPRA SERE psychiatrist, Dr. John "Bruce" Jessen, was asked in late 2001 to evaluate Al Qaeda's own resistance tactics. Soon, according to a report issued by the Committee on Armed Services of the US Senate, Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in US Custody (November 2008), Jensen, who had no background whatsoever in interrogation, and the JPRA were training personnel in interrogation tactics. These were based on the SERE: waterboarding, walling, isolation, sleep deprivation. Harsher techniques were required, according to BSCT (Behavioral Service Consultation Team, at Guantanamo) psychiatrist Maj. Paul Burney, who declared in 2006, that there was a lot of pressure to use more coercive techniques, because detainees were not responding to conventional measures, and we were not being successful at establishing a link between Al qaeda and Iraq.
It seem, therefore, that the launching of the torture program is a direct consequence of the Bush-Cheney administration's desire to link Al Qaeda with Sadam Hussein, in order to justify the upcoming invasion of Iraq. Since, not surprisingly, no evidence was forthcoming, the administration increased the pressure on those detainees it did have its hands on, and crossed the Rubicon.
Hence, Jessen and psychologist John Leso drew up a series of interrogation techniques. Cat III techniques were reserved for the most important detainees: Category III techniques included the daily use of 20 hour interrogations; the use of strict isolation without the right of visitation by treating medical professionals or the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC); the use of food restriction for 24 hours once a week; the use of scenarios designed to convince the detainee he might experience a painful or fatal outcome; non-injurious physical consequences; removal of clothing; and exposure to cold weather or water until such time as the detainee began to shiver.
Yet, their October 2, 2002 memo also included this clear warning: Physical and/or emotional harm from the above techniques may emerge months or even years after their use...Interrogation techniques that rely on physical or adverse consequences are likely to garner inaccurate information and create an increased level of resistance.
The recipient of the memo, Col. Louie "Morgan" Banks, head of the Psychological Applications Directorate at the US Army's Special Operations Command had his own misgivings, which he shared with the BSCT: The use of physical pressures brings with it a large number of potential negative side effects ... When individuals are gradually exposed to increasing levels of discomfort, it is more common for them to resist harder ... If individuals are put under enough discomfort, i.e. pain, they will eventually do whatever it takes to stop the pain … it usually decreases the reliability of the information ... Because of the danger involved, very few SERE instructors are allowed to actually use physical pressures ... everything that is occurring [in SERE school] is very carefully monitored and paced ... Even with all these safeguards, injuries and accidents do happen. The risk with real detainees is increased exponentially ... My strong recommendation is that you do not use physical pressures ... [If GTMO does decide to use them] you are taking a substantial risk, with very limited potential benefit.
The psychologists, however, were not against psychological pressure, such as isolation, and sleep deprivation. The goal was to keep the detainee off balance; his environment was to be one of controlled chaos.
The list of techniques contained in the memo, and approved by Donald Rumsfeld, were to be adopted at Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and of course, at Abu Ghraib...The warnings issued by the medical professionals were simply ignored.
Maj. Burney, however, was present at some interrogation sessions of Mohmmed al-Khatani, the suspected twentieth 9/11 hijacker, who was subjected to stripping, forced grooming, invasion of space by a female interrogator, being treated like an animal, intimidated by a military working dog, and forced to pray to an idol shrine. He, therefore, knew how his professional advice had been used.
John Leso told a former colleague that he was devastated to have been part of this, that he had received increasing pressure to teach interrogators procedures and tactics that were a challenge to his ethics as a psychologist and moral fiber as a human being.
Some professionals however, had objected at the outset to the treatment that had been reserved for Khatani. Michael Gelles, a psychologist and civilian working at Guantanamo, said: It wasn't what Americans did. Why would you prescribe something that doesn't work? It wasn't the right prescription for what we wanted to do ... to get accurate and reliable information.
Susan Crawford, who supervised the Military Commissions, later dropped all the charges against Khatani because he had been subjected to what she called the legal definition of torture .
Hence, though army psychologists may have been uneasy about their role in the implementation of the administration's torture program, which seemed to negate their responsibilities and obligations as health professionals, the Bush-Cheney "enhanced interrogation techniques" continued for years...Major Frakt, a defense lawyer in the Guantanamo Military Commissions, said: one of the things that disappointed me was how few people raised objections.
The American Psychological Association launched an investigation into the role played by psychologists in detainee interrogation, in 2005. It concluded that it was consistent with the APA ethics code. Six of the ten members of the task force had worked or still worked with the US Army and the CIA...
The evidence that has come to light fails to confirm Mr Cheney's initial premise that torture is an effective means of obtaining reliable intelligence. Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who interrogated Abu Zubaydah, recently wrote in the NYT: I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.
Let us for a moment pretend that Mr Cheney is right, and that torture does work...
What, in the end, would that change? Not the vile and despicable nature of the procedures. Civilized societies do not, should not, cross that line, for whatever reason. Therein lies the meaning, the very essence of civilization. It is difficult to imagine how the use of Gestapo tactics can serve the noble cause of freedom and democracy...
vendredi 8 mai 2009
France to accept a Guantanamo detainee
The French government confirmed last Thursday that it would allow a detainee currently held at Guantanamo into the country.
Lakhdar Boumediene, 42, an Algerian national, has been held without charge at Guantanamo since January 22, 2002, and is expected to arrive in France some time next week.
Mr Boumediene was arrested in Bosnia in October 2001, at the request of the United States.
A legal resident, he worked for the Red Crescent in the Bosniac capital Sarajevo. Along with five other Algerians, he was accused by the US government of planning a terrorist attack against the US embassy in Sarajevo, and thus picked up by the local police.
The men were released in January 2002, following a Supreme Court of Bosnia ruling, ordering the charges be dropped due to lack of evidence...
The men were nevertheless handed over to US authorities, who proceded to detain them at Guantanamo, where they have languished for the last seven years...
According to a report published by the New York Center for the Constitutional Rights entitled Report on Torture, Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment of Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, (July 2006), Mr Boumediene was deprived of sleep for 13 days during an intense interrogation period in early 2002, chocked by an interrogator, repeatedly hurled onto the floor of his cell while his wrists were shackled to his waist and his feet were shackled to an anchor in the floor of his cage.
When requesting medication, interrogators controlled his access to medical treatment, and access to that treatment was granted or denied based on the interrogator's assessment of his level of cooperation.
The list goes on...
Mr Boumediene went on a hunger strike to protest these abuses, in December 2006.
He has undergone forced feeding ever since...
On June 12, 2008, The US Supreme Court ruled (in Boumediene vs Bush) that Guantanamo detainees could not be deprived of the right to habeas corpus, contrary to the provisions of The Military Commissions Act (2006), which sought to do just that.
Finally, in November 2008, US District Court Judge Richard Leon ordered the release of five of the Algerians, due to the fact that the evidence put forward was insufficient: one single unnamed source!
There are about 240 detainees left at Guantanamo and, as President Obama pledged to close the facility by January 2010, a home must be found for all of them.
It is in this context that House Republicans plan to propose a bill called Keep Terrorists Out of America Act, to prevent any detainees from residing in the US.
Yet, if we are to take seriously the bill's language, including in its title, none of the detainees in question are covered by it. Indeed, none of the detainees have been convicted, let alone charged of any terrorist offences. As such, they may be many things, but terrorists they are surely not, for only a court conviction can transform a detainee into a terrorist.
Furthermore, because of the Bush-Cheney "enhanced interrogation techniques" program, steadfastly supported and applauded by these very same Republicans, it seems fair to say that most, if not all, will never be tried due to the fact the evidence against them (if indeed any exists) is tainted and thus inadmissible.
One cannot expulse them to their home countries either, as they would most likely be detained and tortured anew upon their arrival...
So this conundrum now facing the new administration is principally a Bush-Cheney-Republican party creation (with, it seems, some tacit support from Democratic leaders), but President Obama's to solve...
Lakhdar Boumediene, 42, an Algerian national, has been held without charge at Guantanamo since January 22, 2002, and is expected to arrive in France some time next week.
Mr Boumediene was arrested in Bosnia in October 2001, at the request of the United States.
A legal resident, he worked for the Red Crescent in the Bosniac capital Sarajevo. Along with five other Algerians, he was accused by the US government of planning a terrorist attack against the US embassy in Sarajevo, and thus picked up by the local police.
The men were released in January 2002, following a Supreme Court of Bosnia ruling, ordering the charges be dropped due to lack of evidence...
The men were nevertheless handed over to US authorities, who proceded to detain them at Guantanamo, where they have languished for the last seven years...
According to a report published by the New York Center for the Constitutional Rights entitled Report on Torture, Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment of Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, (July 2006), Mr Boumediene was deprived of sleep for 13 days during an intense interrogation period in early 2002, chocked by an interrogator, repeatedly hurled onto the floor of his cell while his wrists were shackled to his waist and his feet were shackled to an anchor in the floor of his cage.
When requesting medication, interrogators controlled his access to medical treatment, and access to that treatment was granted or denied based on the interrogator's assessment of his level of cooperation.
The list goes on...
Mr Boumediene went on a hunger strike to protest these abuses, in December 2006.
He has undergone forced feeding ever since...
On June 12, 2008, The US Supreme Court ruled (in Boumediene vs Bush) that Guantanamo detainees could not be deprived of the right to habeas corpus, contrary to the provisions of The Military Commissions Act (2006), which sought to do just that.
Finally, in November 2008, US District Court Judge Richard Leon ordered the release of five of the Algerians, due to the fact that the evidence put forward was insufficient: one single unnamed source!
There are about 240 detainees left at Guantanamo and, as President Obama pledged to close the facility by January 2010, a home must be found for all of them.
It is in this context that House Republicans plan to propose a bill called Keep Terrorists Out of America Act, to prevent any detainees from residing in the US.
Yet, if we are to take seriously the bill's language, including in its title, none of the detainees in question are covered by it. Indeed, none of the detainees have been convicted, let alone charged of any terrorist offences. As such, they may be many things, but terrorists they are surely not, for only a court conviction can transform a detainee into a terrorist.
Furthermore, because of the Bush-Cheney "enhanced interrogation techniques" program, steadfastly supported and applauded by these very same Republicans, it seems fair to say that most, if not all, will never be tried due to the fact the evidence against them (if indeed any exists) is tainted and thus inadmissible.
One cannot expulse them to their home countries either, as they would most likely be detained and tortured anew upon their arrival...
So this conundrum now facing the new administration is principally a Bush-Cheney-Republican party creation (with, it seems, some tacit support from Democratic leaders), but President Obama's to solve...
jeudi 7 mai 2009
Ethics reports and international law...
An ethics investigation conducted by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibilty is currently assessing the role played by Bush administration lawyers John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury in devising and drafting the notorious Torture Memoes.
The latter were then used as legal justification by the administration in the abuse of detainees at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.
Begun in 2005, the report should be issued this summer.
As such, according to the Washington Post, those representing Yoo and Bybee have asked former Justice Department and White House officials to intercede on their behalf so that the final report may mitigate their responsibility in the matter...
At this stage, the report reportedly favors referring the lawyers to their bar associations for disciplinary action, and does not recommend criminal prosecution.
Oddly, one of the parties under investigation, Steven Bradbury, participated in the inquiry, as acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel, a body which provides legal advice to the president...
One may wonder, therefore, if this obvious conflict of interest will not undermine the report's credibility...
In any case, Some in Washington expect further action.
Senator Durbin (D-Ill) asked, in the current context, the relevant question: It's a question of responsibility. In this chain of command, how far up did it go?
Senator Chris Dodd (D-Ct) whose father, incidentally, was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, supports a commision of inquiry proposed by Patrick Leahy (D-Vt), the aim of which is a comprehensive, nonpartisan, independent review of what happened.
In an interview, Dodd said: I don’t know who the genius was in the room that night when they were discussing this, but if you’re going to make a decision to release the documents (the four Torture Memos released last month), I presume everyone of us here would then have a follow-up question, which is: What are you going to do with that information? And if the answer is, “Well, nothing, we’re just going to release the documents,” I’m amazed, and some of us in the room say, “Wait a minute, you’ve got a problem.” If you’re going to release them, you’re going to have to answer the next question: What are you going to do with them?...
In a sense, not to prosecute people or pursue them when these acts have occurred is, in a sense, to invite it again in some future administration.
And yet, interestingly, even though 60% of Americans, according to a recent poll, conclude that the Bush administration's interrogation program, including waterboarding, was tantamount to torture, 50% still support it.....
As such, it is not surprising that a majority of Americans neither support a congresional investigation (42% yes, 57% no) into the issue, nor an inquiry by an independent body (42% yes, 55% no).
It seems the Amercian people, like President Obama, want to move forward and avoid looking back on the dark side of the Bush-Cheney era...
And yet, it is not that simple.
As a party to the UN Convention Against Torture, the US government is legally bound to investigate and prosecute all violations of the treaty.
Professor Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture declared in an interview that the Convention provides unequivocally that states are not merely obligated to make torture a crime, but also to prosecute any incidents of which credible evidence can be found
What, then, will Obama do...?
The latter were then used as legal justification by the administration in the abuse of detainees at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.
Begun in 2005, the report should be issued this summer.
As such, according to the Washington Post, those representing Yoo and Bybee have asked former Justice Department and White House officials to intercede on their behalf so that the final report may mitigate their responsibility in the matter...
At this stage, the report reportedly favors referring the lawyers to their bar associations for disciplinary action, and does not recommend criminal prosecution.
Oddly, one of the parties under investigation, Steven Bradbury, participated in the inquiry, as acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel, a body which provides legal advice to the president...
One may wonder, therefore, if this obvious conflict of interest will not undermine the report's credibility...
In any case, Some in Washington expect further action.
Senator Durbin (D-Ill) asked, in the current context, the relevant question: It's a question of responsibility. In this chain of command, how far up did it go?
Senator Chris Dodd (D-Ct) whose father, incidentally, was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, supports a commision of inquiry proposed by Patrick Leahy (D-Vt), the aim of which is a comprehensive, nonpartisan, independent review of what happened.
In an interview, Dodd said: I don’t know who the genius was in the room that night when they were discussing this, but if you’re going to make a decision to release the documents (the four Torture Memos released last month), I presume everyone of us here would then have a follow-up question, which is: What are you going to do with that information? And if the answer is, “Well, nothing, we’re just going to release the documents,” I’m amazed, and some of us in the room say, “Wait a minute, you’ve got a problem.” If you’re going to release them, you’re going to have to answer the next question: What are you going to do with them?...
In a sense, not to prosecute people or pursue them when these acts have occurred is, in a sense, to invite it again in some future administration.
And yet, interestingly, even though 60% of Americans, according to a recent poll, conclude that the Bush administration's interrogation program, including waterboarding, was tantamount to torture, 50% still support it.....
As such, it is not surprising that a majority of Americans neither support a congresional investigation (42% yes, 57% no) into the issue, nor an inquiry by an independent body (42% yes, 55% no).
It seems the Amercian people, like President Obama, want to move forward and avoid looking back on the dark side of the Bush-Cheney era...
And yet, it is not that simple.
As a party to the UN Convention Against Torture, the US government is legally bound to investigate and prosecute all violations of the treaty.
Professor Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture declared in an interview that the Convention provides unequivocally that states are not merely obligated to make torture a crime, but also to prosecute any incidents of which credible evidence can be found
What, then, will Obama do...?
mercredi 6 mai 2009
Two years ago today...
Two years ago today, Nicolas Sarkozy was elected President of the French Republic.
Yesterday, a month before the European Elections (voters across Europe will elect their representatives to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France), the President delivered a speech (which you can read here, in French) defending his policies, and detailing his plans for the future.
For Sarkozy, the gravity of the economic crisis may just provide an opportunity to invent new ways to eliminate all the obstacles that inhibit economic growth and efficiency.
Yet, success, our degree of boldness really depend on our faith in the future. If we are more frightened than hopeful, if we believe in neither globalization nor the promises of tomorrow, then we will not prevail....We will only make it if we restore hope in those who have lost it, the President declared (my translation).
That will be a tall order in a country like France where, even before the current financial and economic meltdown, globalization was perceived as a threat by most to a way of life, and not the path to a brighter tomorow...
To make it palatable, or more palatable, I think Sarkozy wants to seize the opportunity offered by the crisis to demand and instore at the French but also the European level, a stricter regulation of the financial industry, and what he calls the moralization of capitalism, whereby salaries and bonuses of top management reflect performance, ability and viability of the firm, such that failure and even more so, bankruptcy are never rewarded.
This may be the only way to reconcile the French with globalization, which currently is synonimous with stock market crashes, greed, plant closures and massive unemeployment.
In France, people tend to have more faith and hope in, the government (though when asked, consistently complain about its performance, no matter who is in power), than they trust the private sector, to better their lot and protect their interests.
It is simply impossible to sell deregulation, and promote a policy of free markets and greater competitiveness, if the state is not sufficiently present to prevent any excesses in the financial markets, or board rooms.
This, I think, is the French model Sarkozy would like all Europe to share (though it seems clear the British would never buy this), but it remains to be seen even if a majority of the French would accept it...
The need for state protection, for social safety nets, the demand for global finance regulation; the need to build a new economic and monatery order; the need for justice, these are European ideas and values, which have been rehabilitated: Europe must not shy away from them...the President said (my translation).
Sarkozy's goal is a more energetic, dynamic common economic policy among the countries of the Euro group (to which Britain does not belong...), to facilitate Europe's return to growth.
Sarkozy's domestic ecomomic policy was focused on investment: in the banks (so that they would resume lending); the car industry (so that France's big three, Renault, Peugeot and Citroën would not close plants in France and the EU); in infrastructure and research and development to spur economic activity and prepare France for the future.
Sarkozy preferred this strategy to simply sending each French family a check, for the economic impact of that measure would have been short lived, a slight but evanescent boost.
This option was backed by the opposition Socialist party, while the unions demanded a general increase in salaries.
The Socialist party commemorated the anniversary by issuing a 32-page indictment called: Failure...Martine Aubry, the head of the party, considers that two years of Sarkozy has led to ineffectiveness and ever greater injustice.
What do the French make of two years of Sarkozyism?
If 85% consider him dynamic, and 75% brave, 55% judge that he is not a good president..
He has three years left to make them change their minds...
Yesterday, a month before the European Elections (voters across Europe will elect their representatives to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France), the President delivered a speech (which you can read here, in French) defending his policies, and detailing his plans for the future.
For Sarkozy, the gravity of the economic crisis may just provide an opportunity to invent new ways to eliminate all the obstacles that inhibit economic growth and efficiency.
Yet, success, our degree of boldness really depend on our faith in the future. If we are more frightened than hopeful, if we believe in neither globalization nor the promises of tomorrow, then we will not prevail....We will only make it if we restore hope in those who have lost it, the President declared (my translation).
That will be a tall order in a country like France where, even before the current financial and economic meltdown, globalization was perceived as a threat by most to a way of life, and not the path to a brighter tomorow...
To make it palatable, or more palatable, I think Sarkozy wants to seize the opportunity offered by the crisis to demand and instore at the French but also the European level, a stricter regulation of the financial industry, and what he calls the moralization of capitalism, whereby salaries and bonuses of top management reflect performance, ability and viability of the firm, such that failure and even more so, bankruptcy are never rewarded.
This may be the only way to reconcile the French with globalization, which currently is synonimous with stock market crashes, greed, plant closures and massive unemeployment.
In France, people tend to have more faith and hope in, the government (though when asked, consistently complain about its performance, no matter who is in power), than they trust the private sector, to better their lot and protect their interests.
It is simply impossible to sell deregulation, and promote a policy of free markets and greater competitiveness, if the state is not sufficiently present to prevent any excesses in the financial markets, or board rooms.
This, I think, is the French model Sarkozy would like all Europe to share (though it seems clear the British would never buy this), but it remains to be seen even if a majority of the French would accept it...
The need for state protection, for social safety nets, the demand for global finance regulation; the need to build a new economic and monatery order; the need for justice, these are European ideas and values, which have been rehabilitated: Europe must not shy away from them...the President said (my translation).
Sarkozy's goal is a more energetic, dynamic common economic policy among the countries of the Euro group (to which Britain does not belong...), to facilitate Europe's return to growth.
Sarkozy's domestic ecomomic policy was focused on investment: in the banks (so that they would resume lending); the car industry (so that France's big three, Renault, Peugeot and Citroën would not close plants in France and the EU); in infrastructure and research and development to spur economic activity and prepare France for the future.
Sarkozy preferred this strategy to simply sending each French family a check, for the economic impact of that measure would have been short lived, a slight but evanescent boost.
This option was backed by the opposition Socialist party, while the unions demanded a general increase in salaries.
The Socialist party commemorated the anniversary by issuing a 32-page indictment called: Failure...Martine Aubry, the head of the party, considers that two years of Sarkozy has led to ineffectiveness and ever greater injustice.
What do the French make of two years of Sarkozyism?
If 85% consider him dynamic, and 75% brave, 55% judge that he is not a good president..
He has three years left to make them change their minds...
Torture is an international crime...
In an op-ed in today's Washington Post, John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the United Nations during the Bush administration, takes President Obama to task for not doing his utmost to prevent foreign nations from launching judicial investigations against former Bush officials suspected of taking part in the administation's "enhanced interrogation techniques" or torture, program.
The irony here is that the Spanish investigation led by Magistrate Baltasar Garzon (who in the past indicted former Chilean president Pinochet) targeting six administration lawyers (other similar efforts are taking place in Germany) would have never been initiated, had the US launched its own...
As a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture, it is the US government's legal responsibility to treat all detainees humanely, and to investigate any potential violation of the treaty's provisions.
If, for whatever reason, it fails to do so, then other nations must intervene. Martin Scheinin, the UN special investigator for human rights and counterterrorism, told the Washington Post:"torture is an international crime irrespective of the place where it is committed. Other countries have an obligation to investigate. This may be something that will be haunting CIA officials, or Justice Department officials, or the vice president, for the rest of their lives".
Mr Bolton claims that the real objective of the foreign investigations is to "intimidate US officials into refraining from making hard but necessary decisions to protect our national security".
No one, naturally, is demanding that the US cease taking those measures it deems necessary to protect itself.
I would argue that the only objective here is to compel those nations that have signed the UN Convention to abide by their treaty obligations, including the US.
The US can implement whatever policies it wishes, as long as they are legal!
Furthermore, what support and ligitimacy can the US possible derive from policies that violate international law?
Will not such violations encourage a host of other nations to follow suit, arguing that they are only following America's lead?
US leadership is much needed in many parts of the world, in order to help resolve a host of intractable problems. Yet, now that it is tainted, how effective can US policy be, particularly in the Middle East and Asia?
Contrary to what Mr Bolton further asserts, the issue at hand is not about "criminalizing policy disagreements", but prosecuting violations of international, but also US law.
This is a prerequisite to reestablishing US credibility abroad, as well as its moral standing.
One cannot castigate the human rights record of other nations, no matter how brazen the violations, or insist that they respect international law, if one ignores one's own failings...
Mr Obama is making considerable efforts to reintroduce America to the rest of the world, after eight years of Bush-Cheney bravado (Thomas P.M. Barnett pithily described their grand strategy in his great new book, Great Powers: America and the World after Bush, as "kicking ass and taking names", p.235).
His good faith and standing can only be butressed if he decides to confront the US torture program head on, and prosecute those who broke the law...
The irony here is that the Spanish investigation led by Magistrate Baltasar Garzon (who in the past indicted former Chilean president Pinochet) targeting six administration lawyers (other similar efforts are taking place in Germany) would have never been initiated, had the US launched its own...
As a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture, it is the US government's legal responsibility to treat all detainees humanely, and to investigate any potential violation of the treaty's provisions.
If, for whatever reason, it fails to do so, then other nations must intervene. Martin Scheinin, the UN special investigator for human rights and counterterrorism, told the Washington Post:"torture is an international crime irrespective of the place where it is committed. Other countries have an obligation to investigate. This may be something that will be haunting CIA officials, or Justice Department officials, or the vice president, for the rest of their lives".
Mr Bolton claims that the real objective of the foreign investigations is to "intimidate US officials into refraining from making hard but necessary decisions to protect our national security".
No one, naturally, is demanding that the US cease taking those measures it deems necessary to protect itself.
I would argue that the only objective here is to compel those nations that have signed the UN Convention to abide by their treaty obligations, including the US.
The US can implement whatever policies it wishes, as long as they are legal!
Furthermore, what support and ligitimacy can the US possible derive from policies that violate international law?
Will not such violations encourage a host of other nations to follow suit, arguing that they are only following America's lead?
US leadership is much needed in many parts of the world, in order to help resolve a host of intractable problems. Yet, now that it is tainted, how effective can US policy be, particularly in the Middle East and Asia?
Contrary to what Mr Bolton further asserts, the issue at hand is not about "criminalizing policy disagreements", but prosecuting violations of international, but also US law.
This is a prerequisite to reestablishing US credibility abroad, as well as its moral standing.
One cannot castigate the human rights record of other nations, no matter how brazen the violations, or insist that they respect international law, if one ignores one's own failings...
Mr Obama is making considerable efforts to reintroduce America to the rest of the world, after eight years of Bush-Cheney bravado (Thomas P.M. Barnett pithily described their grand strategy in his great new book, Great Powers: America and the World after Bush, as "kicking ass and taking names", p.235).
His good faith and standing can only be butressed if he decides to confront the US torture program head on, and prosecute those who broke the law...
lundi 4 mai 2009
A most humble welcome to all...
The subject of the day, and for some time to come, will be torture, and its use by the CIA and the US military...Though obviously immoral and illegal, the practinioners of torture and their supporters (eg Charles Krauthmmer) have but one argument left: though abhorent and unacceptable (in most cases, that is), torture works; as such, a nation at war has no other option but to use whatever methods lead to protecting its citizens...It is therefore not surprising that members of the US security establishment have not hesitated to confirm that thanks to "enhanced interrogation techniques" (what most of us call torture) vital information and numerous attacks have been prevented.But then, what else could we expect them to say?
If torture is immoral, illegal, and ineffective, would we not be entitled to know why they did not refuse to engage in such dispicable activities?
Interestingly, back in 2003, George W Bush , in a speech to the UN commemorating International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, said that the US is "committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example"...
Considering that the US administration had approved the use of torture August 1, 2002,
what are we to make of Mr Bush's statement: pure cynicism, or plain ignorance?
In any case, though torture enthusiasts are now arguing that these methods were useful, the US government decided to abandon them in March 2003: "no one was waterboarded after March 2003, and coercive interrogation methods were shelved altogether in 2005"
But if torture is so effective, and if the end justified the means, why did they scrap the program?
The subject of the day, and for some time to come, will be torture, and its use by the CIA and the US military...Though obviously immoral and illegal, the practinioners of torture and their supporters (eg Charles Krauthmmer) have but one argument left: though abhorent and unacceptable (in most cases, that is), torture works; as such, a nation at war has no other option but to use whatever methods lead to protecting its citizens...It is therefore not surprising that members of the US security establishment have not hesitated to confirm that thanks to "enhanced interrogation techniques" (what most of us call torture) vital information and numerous attacks have been prevented.But then, what else could we expect them to say?
If torture is immoral, illegal, and ineffective, would we not be entitled to know why they did not refuse to engage in such dispicable activities?
Interestingly, back in 2003, George W Bush , in a speech to the UN commemorating International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, said that the US is "committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example"...
Considering that the US administration had approved the use of torture August 1, 2002,
what are we to make of Mr Bush's statement: pure cynicism, or plain ignorance?
In any case, though torture enthusiasts are now arguing that these methods were useful, the US government decided to abandon them in March 2003: "no one was waterboarded after March 2003, and coercive interrogation methods were shelved altogether in 2005"
But if torture is so effective, and if the end justified the means, why did they scrap the program?
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