Former Vice President Dick Cheney came out this weekend in an interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl to proclaim “I was a big supporter of waterboarding.” It is an astonishing public admission since waterboarding is not just illegal but a war crime. It is akin to the Vice President saying that he supported bank robbery or murder-for-hire as a public policy.
The ability of Cheney to openly brag about his taste for torture is the direct result of President Barack Obama blocking any investigation or prosecution of war crimes. For political reasons, Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have refused to carry out our clear obligations under international law to prosecute for such waterboarding. Indeed, before taking office, various high-ranking officials stated that both Obama and Holder assured them that they would not allow such prosecutions. While they denied it at the time, those accounts are consistent with their actions following inauguration. 
By the way, this is the same man who insisted that acknowledging waterboarding was barred under national security laws — a position accepted by ranking Democrats who were eager to avoid the issue during the Bush Administration.
We have now come to this: a Vice President who feels perfectly comfortable in bragging out his support for a torture program. It is a moment that is more of an indictment of Obama than (the unindicted) Cheney. It is fruit that comes from an Administration that chose politics over principle — even at the cost of precedent forged in the Nuremberg trials and the Geneva Conventions. Cheney’s statement should be a moment of unspeakable national shame.
For the full interview, click here.
I think that Obama should prosecute Bush, Cheney, and their fellow torturers, but we should also turn them over to the Hague for prosecution (just the way someone can be prosecuted under federal and state law for the same conduct if it violates both laws). It is important to turn them over to the Hague for two reasons: (1) to demonstrate our willingness to recognize international law and to reenter the family of nations, (2) because the U.S. has little credibility; if anyone were acquitted, the rest of the world would understandably conclude that the trial had been fixed, whether it had been or not.
Alan:
I think you’re making a semantic argument here. I guess it is a CBA in a very abstract sense (But then, what isn’t? I suppose that’s your point).
I don’t like referring to the rule of law or civil liberties or human rights as things that would factor in to a CBA because I just assume that no one would want to throw those things away. The benefits are infinite, so how could the CBA even apply?
But we’ve gotten sidetracked. Back to your original point: “I agree with the decision not to prosecute Bush administration officials because I think the costs outweigh the benefits, but if the evidence warrants it, I think they should be referred to the Hague for potential prosecution.”
Benefits of prosecution:
– upholding the rule of law
– ensuring justice for torture victims
– restoring international prestige
– lessening worldwide anti-American sentiment
– discouraging future lawbreaking by high political officials
Costs of prosecution:
– Ending Cheney’s political career. Actually, this might be a benefit.
Duh asks, “SO are you saying that torture could be considered acceptable in some circumstances? And if it is performed in a circumstance that you find acceptable, it would then be acceptable if it was not prosecuted?”
Again, we must separate the question of acceptable and legal. I do not think that it should ever be legal. If the fictional ticking time bomb scenario really occurred, and someone tortured, at the risk of being prosecuted, and saved lives, then it would be acceptable if it was not prosecuted. If someone tortured in a good faith belief that he would save lives but didn’t, then he should be prosecuted, because we do not want to encourage violating the laws against torture; anyone who violates them ought to risk prosecution.
Alan:
As I say, I have no problem with cost-benefit justice (we do it all the time), but one needs to factor in all the costs when national honor sits on the scale.
@meso: I was against the Iraq War from the beginning, and the “Patriot” Act, and torture, and a whole lot of other things. I am in favor of applying a cost-benefit analysis to the pursuit of terrorists, as well as to the pursuit of war criminals. And I would not willingly give up liberty for the perception of safety. All that is to say (a) my conscience is clear and (b) it was not my choice, it was a choice made by the voters in this country, and we had no choice but to abide by them.
Alan:
I have no problem with your cost-benefit analysis of justice so long as you factor in your cost structure the price we will have to pay for being viewed as a hypocrite, our loss of prestige around the world, and the effect that selling our self-respect in exchange for a little temporary safety has on us. Add to that charge, the toll left by unleashing torturers, sadists, and psychopaths on our civilian population, and I think your ledger will never balance in favor of being a war criminal.
Franklin understood those, like you, who engage in market-based freedom and its cousin, market-based honor:
“They who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Duh,
Also you said I couldn’t prove that torture isn’t effective. I provided evidence from a variety of sources, some current, some historical, which you dismissed out of hand with some bizarre “that’s what THEY want you to believe” theory.
Perhaps, for the sake of accuracy, you should have said “you can’t prove to me, because I don’t believe anything that might show I’m wrong.”
The quote came from the historyandpolicy.org link by the way.
Duh,
And no evidence to support said reason.
Why would the British intelligence agencies fix their records from WWII so that years later, when they were eventually declassified they’d show that most of the intelligence gathered from a site known for “breaking” captured German soldiers through “mental pressure” came from tricking them using information gathered from a broken code?
Since it appears you didn’t bother to read my linked material, here’s a an excerpt dealing with that same top secret facility:
“Contrary to what we might assume, Stephens governed Camp 020 according to a strict rule of non-physical violence. ‘Violence is taboo’, wrote Stephens in his in-house history of Camp 020, which has recently been declassified, ‘for not only does it produce answers to please, but it lowers the standard of information’. We can assume that if he had so desired, Stephens could easily have physically abused prisoners at the MI5 interrogation facility. It was, after all, a top-secret facility with little or no interference from outside authorities. Despite effectively having free reign to do with prisoners as he wished, Stephens outlawed the use of ‘physical pressure’ at the facility. Stephens did not do this because he was some sort of humanitarian at heart. During the course of the war 14 German agents held at Camp 020 were executed and Stephens later admitted that he wished more had been. Instead, Stephens forbade the use torture at the camp because, in his opinion, as soon as an interrogator physically abused a prisoner, the intelligence produced automatically became unreliable.
Stephens’ axiomatic rule of non-violence at Camp 020 is supported by other contemporary records, which significantly were intended to remain permanently secret. The recently declassified wartime diary of Guy Liddell, then head of MI5’s counter-espionage department and a future Deputy Director-General of MI5, shows that Stephens sometimes went to extraordinary lengths to outlaw physical violence at Camp 020. On one occasion in September 1940, Stephens expelled a War Office interrogator from the camp for hitting a prisoner, the MI5 double-agent codenamed ‘Tate’. As Liddell noted in his diary: ‘It is quite clear to me that we cannot have this sort of thing going on in our establishment. Apart from the moral aspect of the whole thing, I am quite convinced that these Gestapo methods do not pay in the long run’. Stephens saw to it that the officer in question never returned to the camp, and, indeed, from that point on, only MI5 interrogators were allowed to interrogate prisoners at Camp 020. ”
So again, please explain why I should ignore all the evidence? Especially when the context of said evidence in no way relates to the matter at hand.
@Mike Appleton: you are mistaken if you equate me with an apologist for torture. And there is BTW an economic “theory” of justice–not just a theory, but a necessity: you might be able to achieve justice in one area, at the cost of not achieving justice in many other areas. Choosing one means you have chosen against the others.
Mike A and Blouise,
I couldn’t agree more. There is only one test here to employ. Is their evidence of a possible crime? If yes, then the Justice Department has a legal duty to investigate and if their is sufficient evidence, then prosecute. Torture is a crime,no matter what BS is employed by the right. We have prosecuted our own citizens and enemies as well, for waterboarding. When did Congress or the Courts abolish that crime?
I also want to add that Ford did this country a great injustice when he pardoned Nixon before an investigation and a trial could be completed. He could have made a better argument after a conviction for a pardon, but not before an investigation and a trial. That issue alone made me vote against Ford when he lost his bid for a full term. We are nothing if we are not a nation of laws.
Gyges,
I never said that you won’t find claims that torture doesn’t work. I provided you with a reason to make such claims.
Following are portions of Ford’s justification for pardoning Nixon:
“As we are a nation under God, so I am sworn to uphold our laws with the help of God. And I have sought such guidance and searched my own conscience with special diligence to determine the right thing for me to do with respect to my predecessor in this place, Richard Nixon, and his loyal wife and family.
Theirs is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must. …..
After years of bitter controversy and divisive national debate, I have been advised, and I am compelled to conclude that many months and perhaps more years will have to pass before Richard Nixon could obtain a fair trial by jury in any jurisdiction of the United States under governing decisions of the Supreme Court.
I deeply believe in equal justice for all Americans, whatever their station or former station. The law, whether human or divine, is no respecter of persons; but the law is a respecter of reality.
The facts, as I see them, are that a former President of the United States, instead of enjoying equal treatment with any other citizen accused of violating the law, would be cruelly and excessively penalized either in preserving the presumption of his innocence or in obtaining a speedy determination of his guilt in order to repay a legal debt to society.
During this long period of delay and potential litigation, ugly passions would again be aroused. And our people would again be polarized in their opinions. And the credibility of our free institutions of government would again be challenged at home and abroad.”
All of the above arguments have been offered, in one form or another, as justification for not prosecuting Cheney and his torture buddies.
Ford was wrong then and Obama is wrong now.
Keep in mind that Cheney was appointed by Nixon to his executive staff and Ford then made Cheney his chief of staff. The rule of law is something Cheney knows Presidents don’t respect and thus he can admit to anything without fear of retribution. Cheney can count on the “elitism” of the Presidential Club and he knows it.
cont…
And there’s nobody involved that says torture hindered the intelligence gathering?
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/05/14/torture/
I when I make claims, I back them up. Why should I accept your premise when all the evidence I’ve seen points to it being false?
Now that Mr. Cheney has openly professed his pride in being a war criminal, it was to be expected that all of the apologists for torture would start repeating their phony arguments. There are already a couple in this thread:
1. The economic theory of justice: This argument pretends to accept the premise that this is a nation of laws, but concludes that the prosecution of war crimes will be unsettling to the nation and will cost a lot of money. This can be translated as, “I agree we’re a nation of laws, but only if we can afford it.”
2. The Billy’s mom lets him strangle cats, so why are you mad at me argument: This specious garbage isn’t really an argument. It’s simply a political statement. It can be translated as “I happen to favor torture and any effort to prosecute it is motivated solely by a desire to trash the previous administration.”
3. The waterboarding is not a crime argument: It is useless to cite treaties, statutes and case law to proponents of this argument because they won’t read them.
4. The waterboarding is an effective device for gathering information argument: Since all of the evidence is to the contrary, this really amounts to an argument that we need torture to satisfy the public’s bloodlust for vengeance. County sheriffs have been known to approve of this approach by standing by while prisoners were forcibly removed from their cells and hanged in the public square. One cannot argue rationally with lynch mobs because reason fails in the face of fear and rage.
These arguments rely variously on false choices, false reasoning and false values. Ultimately, our obligation to investigate and prosecute war crimes is not predicated upon a concern for our reputation around the world (although that is clearly important), but upon our commitment to protecting constitutional government. If this seems far-fetched, consider what we know about human nature. Whenever anyone in a position of power is able to act contrary to law without consequences, further extra-legal actions are inevitable. The lawlessness of the Bush/Cheney regime was breathtaking in scope, and we do not yet know all of the ugly details. Our failure as a nation to aggressively respond constitutes a ratification of that lawlessness and silent permission for its continuance. When a government is permitted to ignore its own laws, that is the very definition of tyranny. The erosion of the constitution can occur much like the erosion of a hillside. It may occur slowly enough not to be noticeable on a daily basis, but the ultimate result is the same; the hill has been leveled and the constitution has become a useless piece of paper. In the end we must investigate and prosecute these crimes because the law and the constitution are all that we have.
> Do you think it continues to be practiced because it is not effective?
No, it continues to be practiced despite the fact it is not effective.
Duh,
Really? So, no experts say that it doesn’t work?
http://www.historyandpolicy.org/papers/policy-paper-78.html
http://www.lawac.org/speech/2008-09/Rubenstein,%20Leonard2008.pdf
(more to follow, breaking the post up to avoid the 3 link min.)
Alan & SM,
Torture has been practiced for a very long time. Do you think it continues to be practiced because it is not effective?
Have you ever considered that the claims of torture being ineffective are made public so that the enemy doesn’t work to improve their technique?
Duh,
Really? So, no experts say that it doesn’t work?
http://www.historyandpolicy.org/papers/policy-paper-78.html
http://www.lawac.org/speech/2008-09/Rubenstein,%20Leonard2008.pdf
And there’s nobody involved that says torture hindered the intelligence gathering?
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/05/14/torture/
I when I make claims, I back them up. Why should I accept your premise when all the evidence I’ve seen points to it being false?
Duh Many people will say yes to anything to stop the pain. Torture is not effective.