Turning A Blind Eye, Deaf Ear And Closed Mouth To Torture

By Steve Hynd

I've just finished reading through the first of the four released torture memos, the 18 pager from Assistant AG Jay Bybee to the CIA's general counsel. The whole thing, which carefully breaks down a cascade of "enhanced techniques" and never considers the effects of the cascade as a whole, reads as if Bybee knew that one day the memo might be used in evidence against himself or others. I'll read the others presently. Andrew Sullivan is doing likewise and comments after reading the Bybee memo:

This is what Hannah Arendt wrote of when she talked of the banality of evil. To read a bureaucrat finding ways to describe and parse away the clear infliction of torture on a terror suspect well outside any "ticking time bomb" scenario is to realize what so many of us feared and sensed from the shards of information we have been piecing together for years. It is all true. These memos form a coda to the Red Cross report, confirming its evidentiary conclusions, while finding exquisite, legalistic and preposterous ways to deny the obvious.

But Hilzoy is correct - where's the discussion of sensory deprivation techniques? We know they were used and we know the entire point of such techniques is to "disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality" - which is the very definition of torture which inflicts "severe mental pain". Could the memos justifying the use of sensory deprivation be among the majority of such legal opinions which are still being kept secret by the Obama administration?

Obama, in his statement accompanying the memos' release, was at pains to point out that his administration will still stick to a strong line on the infamous "state secrets" defense, even when concealing criminal acts.

the United States must sometimes carry out intelligence operations and protect information that is classified for purposes of national security. I have already fought for that principle in court and will do so again in the future...the exceptional circumstances surrounding these memos should not be viewed as an erosion of the strong legal basis for maintaining the classified nature of secret activities.

And has clearly stated that "those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice" can rest assured that they "will not be subject to prosecution." The U.S.A., which many years ago at Nuremberg held that "just following orders" someone had been told were legal was no excuse - that every person had a legal duty to act by their own moral compass - has now turned 180 degrees from that noble position. It makes a mockery of Obama's claim that "Our national greatness is embedded in America's ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence."

Obama, like Bush before him, has asked us to turn a blind eye to criminal acts, a deaf ear to calls for justice. He has told us that the President has the right to keep criminal acts secret and told us to close our mouths instead of protesting these outrages against the rule of law.

His answer should be simply "No".

It isn't retribution we're after, it is justice as has been previously practised and set in precedent by America.

(Far more coverage at Memeorandum)

Comments

[Batocchio]

I'm still catching up on reading a lot of this. Holder's statement left room for prosecuting Bush officials, and lower level operatives, but I don't like immunity before an investigation for anyone. Releasing the memos is great, but the pressure in D.C. is not to prosecute, and that can't be allowed to win. Check out Scott Horton on Democracy Now today if you didn't hear it already.