Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's
Stories
May
25, 2004
Steven
Banko, III
A Vietnam Vet on "Supporting the
Troops"
May
24, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Dan Senor is Safe!
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Tricks & TortureGate: the
Missing Taguba Pages
Sam
Hamod
Gen. Zinni: "Wrong War, Wrong
Place, Wrong Time"
Mike
Whitney
The Wedding was a Bomb
Stan
Goff
Open Season on MAMs
May
22 / 23, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
Colin Powell, a Political Obituary
Jeffrey
St. Clair
When War is Swell: Bush and the Carlyle Group
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Her Son Was Told He Wouldn't See Combat; Now He's Dead: an Interview
with Sue Niederer
Brian
Cloughley
America is Committing War Crimes in Iraq
Saul
Landau
Democracy in Latin America: Great for Investors; Not So Good
for People
Brandy
Baker
Feminists Stand By Their Man: Abortion, Judges and Kerry
Randall
Robinson
Bushwhacked in the Caribbean
Uri
Avnery
The Rape of Rafah
Ben
Tripp
Assume the Worst
Bruce
Anderson
News from Ecotopia: the Truth About the Wine Business
Josh
Ruebner
Why I Burned My Israeli Military Papers
Peter
Wolson, Ph. D.
Exhibitionistic Revenge at Abu Ghraib
Chloe
Cockburn
In Defense of "Troy": What Hector Could Teach Rummy
Linda
Burnham
Sexual Domination in Uniform: an American Value
Adrien
Rain Burke
War of the Necrophiliacs: Spc. Sabrina Harman and Her Corpse
David
Krieger
Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy
Ron
Jacobs
Turnaround
Poets'
Basement
Ford, Albert & LaMorticella
May 21, 2004
Ray
Close
The Canards of the Apologists
Christopher
Brauchli
"The Object of Torture is Torture"
Amira
Hass
Darkness at Noon
Jack
McCarthy
Camilo Mejia: Can the Son of a Sandinista Get a Fair Trial from
the US Army?
Bill
Kauffman
Nader v. Bush
Omar
Barghouti
No More Tears for America
Ghali
Hassan
Moral Failure of the "Free World" in Gaza
Christopher
Reed
How the CIA Taught the Portuguese to
Torture
Website
of the Day
Eric Idle on the Bush Administration: Fuck You, So Very Much
May
20, 2004
Andrew
Cockburn
The Truth About Chalabi
Kathy
Kelly
A Visit from the FBI
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Brown and Bored of Education in India
Tom
Stephens & John Philo
The War Crimes of Bush, Cheney & Co.
Sam
Bahour / Michael Dahan
Genocide by Public Policy
Robert
Ovetz
Ending the Race for the Last Turtle
Billy
Wilson
The Most Important Thing I Learned at School This Year
Website
of the Day
Rafah Today
May
19, 2004
Elizabeth
W. Corrie
Caterpillar Should Do the Right Thing,
Now
Bill
and Kathleen Christison
The US Can't Win
Vijay
Prashad
For Whom the Polls Toll: the Indian Elections of 2004
Ray
Hanania
Israeli War Crimes: Who to Believe, AIPAC or Amnesty Intl.?
Greg
Moses
Man President Kisses Up at AIPAC
Michael
Gillespie
Who is Kenneth deGraffenried?
Josh
Frank
Homes Destroyed; Death Toll Mounts: But Where's John Kerry?
Gary
Corseri
Out of Iraq and Plato's Cave
Kevin
Alexander Gray
If Malcolm Were Alive
May
18, 2004
Neve
Gordon
The Gaza Debacle
Doug
Stokes
Imperial Policing: Why Abu Ghraib
Shouldn't Surprise Us
Bob
Wing
The Color of Abu Ghraib
Vanessa
Jones
Man on a Leash
Thomas
P. Healy
Chemical Trespass: the Body Burden
Zeynep
Toufe
Torture and Moral Agency: the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations
Kenneth
Roth
Mistreatment of Detainees in US Custody: a Letter to Bush
Elaine
Cassel
Pre-empting the Bill of Rights: The Other War, One Year Later
Website
of the Day
Truth Against Truth
May
17, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
The John-John Ticket: Kerry Woos McCain
Laura
Santina
Military Conditioning and Abu Ghraib
Mickey
Z.
With Friends Like These: More Election 2004 Madness
Frederick
B. Hudson
Police Terror: Three Mothers Search for Justice
Shakirah
Esmail-Hudani
Inside Abu Ghraib: the Violence of the Camera
Boris
Leonardo Caro
The Revelations of Mr. W.
Alex
Dawoody
Iraq: From Saddam to Occupation
Victor
Kattan
On Watching the Execution of Nick Berg
Ron
Jacobs
Rumsfeld's Sovereignty Shell Game
May
15 / 16, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Green Lights for Torture
Douglas
Valentine
ABCs of American Interrogation: Phoenix Program, Revisited
John
Stanton
Kings of Pain: UK, US and Israel
Ben
Tripp
Torture: a Fond Reminiscence
Brian
Cloughley
Where are You Heading, America? Taking a Closer Look at the Patriot
Act
Justin
E. H. Smith
Islam and Democracy: the Lesson from Turkey
Brandy
Baker
Equal Opportunity Torture: Lynddie England, the Right and Feminism
John
Chuckman
Peep Show on Capitol Hill: Sex, Lies and Videotape
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Goon Squad
John
Holt
Fencing the Sky
Ron
Jacobs
The Power of Patti Smith
Brian
J. Foley
Why the Outrage Over Abu Ghraib?
Robin
Philpot
Re-writing the History of the Rwandan Genocide
Eric
Leser
The Carlyle Empire
Ray
Hanania
From Abu Ghraib to Nick Berg: There's No Such Thing as a Good
War Crime
Jeff
Halper
Dozers of Mass Destruction
Joe
Surkiewicz
Inside the Baltimore Detention Center
John
Whitlow
Iraq Goddamn
Michael
Leon
Invitation to a Beheading: Why Bush Should Watch the Berg Video
Poets'
Basement
Krieger, Ford, LaMorticella, Smith and Albert
May
14, 2004
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's POW Porn
Ron
Jacobs
Secret History of the War on Drugs
William
Blum
God, Country and Torture
Michael
Donnelly
The People v. Corporate Greed: A Victory on the North Coast
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
India Shines
Stephen
Gowans
Building Democracy in Iraq and Other
Absurdities
May
13, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Where is Kerry?
Colm
O'Laithian
Torture and Degradation: Revenge American Style?
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassan
Wal-Mart: Scrooge with Hi-Tech Accounting
Practices
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush on the Inhumane Treatment of Iraqi Prisoners
Willliam
James Martin
Deir Yassin Massacre Recalled
Marc
Salomon
Reality TV Bites
Forrest
Hylton
Law 'n Order in La Paz: All Quiet
on the Southern Front?
May
12, 2004
Blanton
/ Kornbluh
Prisoner Abuse: Cheney Warned in
1992
Virginia
Tilley
So, Who's to Blame?
Bruce
Jackson
James Inhofe, the Dumbest Senator
of Them All
Thomas
P. Healy
No Enemies: Making Peace with Bert Sacks
Linda
S. Heard
Racism and Ignorance: a Lethal Cocktail in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
Spinning Torturegate
Lisa
Viscidi
The People's Voice: Community Radio in Guatemala
Jack
Heyman
View from the Bay Bridge: Longshoremen Plan Mass Workers March
on DC
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Rummy's Reprieve
CounterPunch
Wire
Teamsters Corruption Scandal: Hoffa Exec. Assistant Alleged to
Have Quashed Investigation into Mob Influence
Christopher
Brauchli
Detention Camp, USA
William
S. Lind
Bush's Waterloo?
May 11, 2004
Mark
Engler
On the "Necessity" of Torture
Ray
McGovern
More Troops? A March of Folly
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Nukes and Jefferson's Grand Experiment
Mickey
Z.
Less Than Hero
Christopher
Reed
Torture on the Homefront: America's Long History of Prison Abuse
Dennis
Hans
When John Negroponte was Mullah Omar
Bruce
Jackson
Pete Seeger at 85
Mike
Whitney
Killing al Sadr
Simon
Helweg-Larsen
Shrinking the Guatemalan Military
William
A. Cook
The Unconscious Country: Righteous Indignation,
Nakedly Displayed
May
10, 2004
Robert
Fisk
From Hollywood to Abu Ghraib: Racism
and Torture as Entertainment
Wayne
Madsen
The Israeli Torture Template: Rape,
Feces and Urine-Soaked Cloth Sacks
Col.
Dan Smith
The Shame of Abu Ghraib
Joe
Bageant
John Ashcroft, Keep Your Mouth Off My Wife!
Ron
Jacobs
Rummy's Prisongate Blues: Don't Leave Mad; Just Leave
Ben
Tripp
Getting in Touch with Your Inner Savage
Ray
Hanania
Why They Hate Us: Racism, Bigotry and Abuse
Reza
Fiyouzat
"Mishandled" Invasions
Diane
Christian
Images & Abstractions &
Genitals
Website
of the Day
Crushing Iraqi Skulls with Tanks for Sport?
May
8 / 9, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Torture: as American as Apple Pie
Adam
Jones
America's Srebrenica: What About the Hundreds of POWs Suffocated
and Shot at Kunduz?
Douglas
Valentine
Who Let the Dogs Out?: Torture, the CIA and the Press
Kurt
Nimmo
Rush Limbaugh and the Babes of Abu Ghraib
Brian
Cloughley
Humpty Dumpty is Falling
Lucia
Dailey
Forbidden Games
Joanne
Mariner
* * * *: Redacting Moussaoui
Mickey
Z.
Please Forgive U.S.? (There Are No Innocent Bystanders)
John
Chuckman
The Thing with No Brain
Doug
Giebel
Someone Knew: There Were No WMDs
Norm
Dixon
How the Bush Gang Exploited 9/11
Sam
Bahour
A Guiding Light Falls on Ramallah
Susan
Davis
Disorderly Conduct as Fine Art
Dave
Marsh
In a Pig's Eye: Alan Lomax, Dead But Still Stealing
Laura
Flanders
Life with Dick and Lynne
Dave
Zirin
Fans Push Spiderman Off Base
Carolyn
Baker
Why I Won't Vote in 2004
Prince
"Ain't No Sense in Voting"
Dr.
Susan Block
Onan for Two: Liberating Masturbation
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Sleeth, Ford, Albert and Saska
May
7, 2004
Human
Rights Watch
10 Prisons; 9,000 Prisoners: US Detention
Facilities in Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
UnAmerican? I Wish It Were So
Robert
Fisk
An Illegal and Immoral War
Ahmad
Faruqui
The 50th Anniversary of Dien Bien
Phu
Alexander
Zaitchik
From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib: Doesn't It Ring a (Prison)
Bell?
Mike
Whitney
The Price of Victory
Norman
Solomon
This War, Racism and Media Denial
M.
Shahid Alam
A Comic Apology
May
6, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
They Did It for Jessica: Smeared with
Shit; Kicked to Death
Kathy
Kelly
May Day in Pekin Prison: Prison Labor
for the War Machine
Werther
The Sunk Cost Fallacy: War as Vegas
Casino Game
Lawrence
Ferlinghetti
Totalitarian Democracy
Robert
Fisk
"Smoke Him": Video Shows Wounded
Men Being Shot by US Helicopter
John
Janney
Torturing the Way to Freedom?
Christopher
Ketcham
Outlaw Heterosexual Marriage Now!
Alan
Farago
Dead Oceans: So Long, Thanks for the Fish
Sam
Hamod
Bush on Arab TV: Worthless and Demeaning
James
Brooks
Sullen Spring
William
S. Lind
On the Brink of Defeat in Iraq
May
5, 2004
Maj.
Gen. Antonio M. Taguba
Complete US Army Report on Abuse of
Iraqi Prisoners
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Kerry: a Lost Cause for Progressives?
Will
Youmans
Deal with the Devil: a Palestinian
Zionist and the End of the World
Patrick
B. Barr
Terrorists R Us: the Powerful are Exempt from the Label
Lawrence
Magnuson
Nightline's All-American Morgue
Greg
Moses
Pocketbook of Denuded Ideals
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Tormenting Prisoners, Torturing
Truth
Lee
Ballinger
Cinco de Mayo and Unity
Gilbert
Achcar
Bush's Cakewalk into the Iraq Quaqmire
Website
of the Day
Operation Phoenix & Iraq
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
May
25, 2004
The
Geneva Conventions & Moral Authority
A
Question of Human Dignity
By
Col. DAN SMITH
"There are always going
to be differences of views....The test is what has been decided
and what is issued, and then is it adhered to."
That was Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld this past May 13 en route to Iraq. The day prior, Rumsfeld
and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General (GEN) Richard Myers
told Congress that, Abu Ghraib prison notwithstanding, the Geneva
Conventions did apply to Iraqi detainees and were being followed
by U.S. troops in Iraq (New York Times). Moreover, both
men emphasized that interrogation procedures being used in Iraq,
Afghanistan, and Guantanamo had been reviewed by Pentagon and
White House lawyers, who declared the techniques conformed to
the Conventions.
Back in Washington, as Rumsfeld
flew to Iraq, Senator Jack Reed (RI) did what no other member
of Congress had done since the Iraq prison abuses caught the
public's attention: he hypothetically inverted the circumstances.
Reed's question to Marine GEN Peter Pace, Vice-Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs, was straight-forward: "If you were shown
a video of a United States Marine or an American citizen in the
control of a foreign power, in a cell-block, naked, with a bag
over their [sic] head, squatting with their [sic] arms uplifted
for 45 minutes, would you describe that as a good interrogation
technique or a violation of the Geneva Convention?" To which
GEN Pace responded: "I would describe it as a violation,
sir."
Two days before, on May 12,
the "Interrogation Rules of Engagement" (IROE) issued
last year over the signature of Lieutenant General (LGEN) Ricardo
Sanchez, Combined Joint Task Force-7 (CJTF-7) commander in Iraq,
appeared in the Washington Post. Incredibly, both GEN
Pace and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who also
was testifying that day before Congress, told lawmakers they
only saw the IROE just before their appearance. Unlike GEN Pace,
Wolfowitz seemed to have trouble categorizing Senator Reed's
examples ("crouching naked for 45 minutes" and having
"a bag over your head for 72 hours") as inhumane.
Wolfowitz's hesitancy is quite
understandable, especially in view of what came to light in the
following week:
- In May and again in October,
as many as eight senior Judge Advocate General (JAG) officers
privately met with the chair of the New York City Bar Association's
International Human Rights Committee to express their deep forebodings
that the legal ambiguity created by the Bush Administration concerning
the classification and handling of prisoners vis-à-vis
the Geneva Conventions was a "disaster waiting to happen"
(Salon.com, May 15, 2004). JAG officers had not been included
in the process of defining safeguards, in discussions about the
use and role of civilian contractors as interrogators, or in
oversight of prison operations.
The directing role of military
intelligence (MI) at Abu Ghraib, long suspected, began to come
into focus. Buried in the 6,000 page Army investigation report
by Major General (MGEN) Antonio Taguba is an acknowledgement
by the ranking intelligence officer, Colonel (COL) Thomas Pappas,
that MPs designated to "support" interrogators were
instructed by MI personnel to force prisoners to strip and to
shackle them prior to questioning. Pappas further acknowledged
that his unit had "no formal system in place" to ensure
the guards understood what they had been told and what restrictions
applied to their actions (New York Times, May 18, 2004).
In the words of a senior International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) official, there was such "physical and psychological
coercion [that it] in some cases was tantamount to torture."
- The use of extremely secret
"Special Access Program" (SAP) regulations to disguise
or hide legally questionable interrogation techniques and practices
employed on "high value" prisoners was revised. The
Army's 1998 regulations (AR 380-381) permitted creation of SAPs
"to prevent significant damage to national security or the
reputation or interests of the United States" (National
Security Archives, May 18, 2004). But safeguarding the "reputation
of the U.S." is not sufficient justification for classifying
any governmental activity, and most assuredly not the use of
a SAP. With the furor over the Abu Ghraib scandal, the regulations
were rewritten in April with the "reputation" reference
dropped.
- In a reversal of policy with
regard to the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, the Defense Department
established three-person military boards to review, on an annual
basis, the status of prisoners and ascertain whether they remain
a threat to the United States. Prisoners are to be provided military
"representation"--but not legal counsel--and can make
oral presentations. Boards will accept written communications
from families and the governments of detainees and, after due
consideration, recommend to a "high-level Defense Department
official" whether the prisoner should be detained longer
or be released. At first glance, creation of the boards seems
to bring the U.S. closer to conformity with the Geneva Conventions.
However, all captured individuals are supposed to be immediately
processed by a board to determine combatant status, a procedure
that apparently is not followed in the drive to extract "actionable"
intelligence. Moreover, the directive does not provide information
about the standards the board will use to evaluate the continuing
"danger" a prisoner may pose.
- A British newspaper revealed
that U.S. forces in Afghanistan had distributed a flyer warning
Afghans that humanitarian aid could be cut off unless they provided
information on the Taliban and al Qaeda (Guardian, May
6, 2004). While the threat to end aid or to condition it on the
basis of compelling non-combatants to take sides in a war does
not seem to violate the Geneva Conventions per se, it does--as
one senior international aid official noted--seriously assault
the spirit of international laws regarding care of non-combatants.
- The Taguba report also detailed
one instance in which the CJTF-7 commander, LGEN Sanchez, authorized
the use of "harsh" interrogation measures approved
by Defense Department and White House lawyers (USA Today,
Mach 19, 2004). However, in testimony before the Senate Armed
Services Committee on May 19, LGEN Sanchez said he could remember
approving only some two dozen requests for extensive (more than
30 days) solitary confinement. Reflecting the uproar over the
"harsh" measures, many of which contravene the Geneva
Conventions, Sanchez later banned all aggressive interrogation
techniques in April 2004.
- During the same May 19 Senate
Armed Services Committee hearing, MGEN Geoffrey Miller, who
ran the Guantanamo prison compound and went to Iraq to "advise"
CJTF-7 on interrogation techniques, denied that his recommendations
in any way contributed to the violations of the Geneva Conventions
by MPs in Iraq. Miller said he encouraged only passive activities
(e.g., watching prisoners, noting who they talk to). However,
MGEN Taguba noted that Miller's recommendations in September
2003 included: "It is essential that the guard force be
actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation
of the internees." Miller attributed the abuses to a failure
of leadership at the prison rather than a misinterpretation of
his recommendations. GEN John Abizaid, Central Command commander,
along with LGEN Sanchez, concurred. Abizaid also said there
was no climate of abuse in Central Command. Rather, the military's
system for monitoring detention and interrogation activities
was disjointed.
To the contrary, the record
of events suggests that more than the military's system was awry.
There was a climate of abuse--one that, within the military,
spread from Central Command but originated in higher-level policy
circles.
The poisonous atmosphere in
which the abuses flourished was set in January 2002 when the
Administration unilaterally declared that the Geneva Conventions
did not apply to Taliban or al Qaeda prisoners. White House counsel
Alberto Gonzales, in a January 25, 2002, memorandum that primarily
dealt with possible future domestic prosecutions of officials
under the 1996 U.S. War Crimes statute, urged the President to
"stay the course," claiming that many terms in the
Conventions were "undefined." Gonzales asserted that
"Your determination [that the Conventions did not apply]
would create a reasonable basis in law that [the statute] does
not apply which would provide a solid defense to any future prosecution"
(Newsweek, May 17, 2004).
Gonzales then expanded the
scope of his opinion to the whole "war on terror":
"The nature of the new war places a high premium on other
factors [than the Geneva Conventions], such as the ability to
quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their
sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities." Gonzales
conceded that prisoners could be treated in accordance with the
Conventions, but he opined that such treatment would have nothing
to do with the strictures of international law as the option
to treat prisoners humanely could be claimed to be conditioned
"to the extent appropriate and consistent with military
necessity" (emphasis added).
An earlier (January 9, 2002)
Justice Department draft memorandum first proposed this point
of view, claiming that in Afghanistan the laws of war did not
apply either to orders from the President or to actions by U.S.
personnel on the ground. This same theme emerged in Iraq where
MGEN Miller, just before returning to the U.S. for the Senate
committee hearing, told reporters that he always insisted that
Geneva Convention standards were to be observed "except
where military necessity dictates" (Los Angeles Times,
May 19, 2004) (emphasis added).
Apparently, some in CJTF-7
must have reasoned that "military necessity dictated"
that the Conventions could be ignored by either refusing access
to prisoners by the ICRC or requiring the ICRC to request inspection
access. As a matter of fact, the ICRC formally raised objections
to prison and interrogation regimens observed by inspectors as
early as March 2003, a few days after the war started. Instances
of physical abuse, prisoner deaths caused by overreaction by
guards, and other mistreatment were noted in a series of "working
reports" of visits and interviews conducted throughout the
spring and summer months of 2003. In general, abuses were corrected
at the various facilities visited. But, except for an "informal"
visit in July, Abu Ghraib did not receive an in-depth inspection
until October 2003 (Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2004).
CJTF-7 response to the ICRC's
November 6 report covering the October inspection was signed
December 24, three weeks before the scandal was first mentioned
by the U.S. command. Significantly, the senior legal officer
in CJTF-7 knew of the ICRC report in November. He drafted the
reply, but there is no indication he informed LGEN Sanchez, leaving
the latter "in the dark" until mid-January. Moreover,
the reply strongly suggested that not all detainees in Iraq were
covered by the Geneva Conventions, a position that directly contradicted
White House statements (New York Times, May 23, 2004).
Throughout this period, misgivings
and objections by military officers to the fundamental thrust
of the whole policy surfaced. In a lengthy memorandum dated in
February 2003, "senior military lawyers" reportedly
cautioned that plans to use severe interrogation methods for
a particular "high-interest" al Qaeda detainee in Guantanamo
would violate the Geneva Conventions. (Some of the proposed "techniques"
had been employed at Guantanamo in late 2002 and early 2003.)
In response to the lawyers' memo, in April 2003 Secretary of
Defense Rumsfeld approved a list of "aggressive" techniques
from an array of "nondoctrinal" methods presented by
MGEN Miller, who was then in charge of the Guantanamo facility.
Tellingly, Miller's predecessor disclosed that he had been under
unremitting pressure to "bend" the Conventions (Los
Angeles Times and USA Today, May 21, 2004).
But Guantanamo was not the
only influence on how prisoners were treated in Iraq. Personnel
from the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion who had interrogated
detainees in the more permissive (according to the U.S.) atmosphere
of Bagram air base and Kandahar in Afghanistan were among those
working at Abu Ghraib. And from numerous detainee accounts, the
more aggressive interrogation tactics were transferred along
with the interrogators. Reportedly, investigators looking into
the abuses at Abu Ghraib have found conflicting IROE issued by
the MI unit operations officer and by LGEN Sanchez. As it was,
Sanchez at first (September 14) approved interrogation policies
that, if not violating the Conventions, straddled the line very
closely, finally deciding in mid-October to require his direct
approval of the questionable practices on a case-by-case basis.
Nonetheless, this October 12 instruction authorized the MI-MP
interaction to "manipulate internees' emotions and weaknesses"
that contributed to the poisonous atmosphere in which abuses
occurred (New York Times, May 21, 2004).
It is quite obvious that many
officials, civilian and military, have been uncomfortable during
their appearances before congressional committees. Their discomfiture
ranges across not only descriptions of what actually happened
at Abu Ghraib but also the basis for the development of highly
questionable, unilateralist policies regarding treatment of prisoners
that clearly violated international law and the law of land warfare.
The prohibitions against physical and psychological coercion
in the Geneva Conventions explicitly forbid both, and as a signatory
to the Conventions, the strictures of the Conventions are part
of U.S. law and cannot be abrogated by executive fiat.
While highly-placed U.S. civilian
officials have thus far publicly escaped legal consequences or
even censure (unless one counts Bush's discussion with Rumsfeld
in mid-May) in connection with these breaches of international
law, the uniformed military has been forced to act. Specialist
Jeremy Sivits, one of the MPs accused of abuse at Abu Ghraib,
has pled guilty in a "special court-martial" proceeding
as part of a plea-bargain agreement with military prosecutors.
Although the proceedings and sentence have yet to be reviewed,
Sivits received the maximum sentence the military judge could
impose (which is less than the others who have been charged could
receive as they are to face general, rather than special, courts-martial).
In an ironic twist, the military
has convicted a Florida National Guardsman with desertion for
refusing to return to his unit in Iraq. The soldier, who has
filed for conscientious objector (CO) status, said one reason
for refusing to go back involved the "great cruelty"
inflicted on Iraqi detainees at the U.S.-controlled al-Assad
air base. Significantly, the Guardsman's statements and application
for CO status were submitted to military authorities on March
16, 2004, well before the scandal broke into the mainstream press.
His description of techniques that troops were instructed to
use to aid the interrogators included some that violated international
law (Associated Press, May 19 and May 22, 2004).
Self-serving interpretations
such as those from the Justice Department and the Gonzales opinions
cannot be said by any objective person to be law or the basis
for law. This realization underlies and informs a crucial statement
from testimony by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage
before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on May 18: "Americans
are human beings; we are not above injustice and sin. But because
we are American, we can also say that we are not above the law--no
one is above the law."
In the end, it is law and the
rule of law--which includes recognition of and respect for individual
human dignity--that translates moral principle into ethical action.
The United States has a choice: it can reaffirm its historical
principles by following the rule of law or surrender its claim
to moral leadership by defying the law. Without question, in
less arrogant times, history and principle would triumph.
Col. Daniel Smith, a West Point graduate and Vietnam
veteran, is Senior Fellow on Military Affairs at the Friends
Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker lobby in the public
interest. He can be reached at: dan@fcnl.org
Weekend Edition
Features for May 22 / 23, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
Colin Powell, a Political Obituary
Jeffrey
St. Clair
When War is Swell: Bush and the Carlyle Group
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Her Son Was Told He Wouldn't See Combat; Now He's Dead: an Interview
with Sue Niederer
Brian
Cloughley
America is Committing War Crimes in Iraq
Saul
Landau
Democracy in Latin America: Great for Investors; Not So Good
for People
Brandy
Baker
Feminists Stand By Their Man: Abortion, Judges and Kerry
Randall
Robinson
Bushwhacked in the Caribbean
Uri
Avnery
The Rape of Rafah
Ben
Tripp
Assume the Worst
Bruce
Anderson
News from Ecotopia: the Truth About the Wine Business
Josh
Ruebner
Why I Burned My Israeli Military Papers
Peter
Wolson, Ph. D.
Exhibitionistic Revenge at Abu Ghraib
Chloe
Cockburn
In Defense of "Troy": What Hector Could Teach Rummy
Linda
Burnham
Sexual Domination in Uniform: an American Value
Adrien
Rain Burke
War of the Necrophiliacs: Spc. Sabrina Harman and Her Corpse
David
Krieger
Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy
Ron
Jacobs
Turnaround
Poets'
Basement
Ford, Albert & LaMorticella
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