Below is my column today in USA Today on the closure of the final torture investigation by the Obama Administration. Notably, in light of the rift with civil libertarians and his move to the right on national security matters, Obama is not running on civil liberties in this election or claiming to be champion for such rights. Likewise, liberal newspapers and commentators have criticized the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party for rolling back on strong language in the prior 2008 platform to civil liberties in the Democratic platform. The downgrading of civil liberties by the Democratic Party leaves civil libertarians without even a pretense of a party or candidate championing the cause in this election. In a prior column one year ago, I complained that President Obama had not just killed certain civil liberties but killed the civil liberties movement in the United States. That appears reflected in the tepid response to these issues in the party platform. Of course, while party platforms can be dismissed as meaningless statements, the final closure of the last torture investigations without a single criminal charge promises to have a more lasting impact on the law and our record on civil liberties and human rights. Here is today’s column:
Let it not be said that President Obama does not keep his promises.
As he prepared to accept his nomination for re-election last week, the president made good on a promise he made at the beginning of his term: No CIA officers will be prosecuted for torture. Attorney General Eric Holder quietly announced before the convention that the last two torture investigations would close (like all the prior investigations) without any charge. As a virtual afterthought, the Justice Department added that it would not address the “propriety of the examined conduct.” The “impropriety” involved two suspects who died under torture by CIA officials.
For those still infatuated with Obama, the announcement was the final triumph of “hope” over experience. Since Obama ran on a civil liberties platform, many expected an independent torture investigation as soon as he took office. After all, waterboarding is one of the oldest forms of torture, pre-dating the Spanish Inquisition (when it was called tortura del agua). It has long been defined as torture by both U.S. and international law, and by Obama himself. Torture, in turn, has long been defined as a war crime, and the United States is under treaty obligation to investigate and prosecute such crimes.
However, such a principle did not make for good politics. Accordingly, as soon as he was elected, Obama set out to dampen talk of prosecution. Various intelligence officials and politicians went public with accounts of the Obama administration making promises to protect Bush officials and CIA employees from prosecution.
‘Order is an order’
Though the White House denied the stories, Obama later gave his controversial speech at the CIA headquarters and did precisely that. In the speech, he effectively embraced the defense of befehl ist befehl (“an order is an order”) and, in so doing, eviscerated one of the most important of the Nuremburg principles. Obama assured the CIA that employees would not be prosecuted for carrying out orders by superiors. This was later affirmed by Holder’s Justice Department, which decided that employees carrying out torture were protected because they followed orders. The administration then decided that those who gave the orders were protected because they secured facially flawed legal opinions from the Justice Department. Finally, the Justice Department decided not to charge its own lawyers who gave those opinions because they were their . . . well . . . opinions.
This, of course, still left two inconvenient corpses in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2002, Gul Rahman was grabbed in Pakistan while seeing a doctor who is the son-in-law of an Afghanistan warlord. He was taken by the CIA to the infamous Salt Pit, a former brick factory north of Kabul. He was beaten by guards, stripped and shackled to a cement wall in near freezing temperatures. He froze to death overnight. The CIA officer in charge of the prison who ordered the lethal abuse has been promoted, according to the Associated Press and The Washington Post.
The second torture case was that of Manadel al-Jamadi, who died in 2003 in Iraq’s infamous Abu Ghraib prison. Al-Jamadi’s face was featured in pictures with smiling U.S. troops posed with his dead body — giving the thumbs up sign. A CIA official had interrogated al-Jamadi by suspending him from a barred window by his wrists, which were bound behind his back. The CIA interrogator, Mark Swanner, continued to demand answers even when al-Jamadi stopped responding. Swanner accused him of “playing possum” and ordered him to be repositioned for more interrogation, according to a New Yorker account. The guards finally convinced Swanner that the man was deceased. Al-Jamadi’s death was officially ruled a homicide.
CIA promotions
Not only have people like the commandant at the Salt Pit been promoted, but various CIA officials associated with the abuse of detainees have also been promoted under President Obama. Likewise, the lawyers responsible for those now rejected legal opinions have been promoted. One of the most notorious, Jay Bybee, was even given a lifetime appointment as a federal judge in California.
We have gone from prosecuting torture as a war crime after World War II to treating allegations of torture as a “question of propriety” under Obama. Hundreds of officials, including President Bush, were involved. People died in interrogation. High-ranking CIA officials admitted that they destroyed evidence of torture to keep it from being used in any later prosecutions. Yet, after a years-long investigation, not a single CIA official will be charged with a single crime connected to the program. Not even a misdemeanor or a single bar referral for an attorney. Well, no one except former CIA official John Kiriakou, who is awaiting trial on criminal charges for disclosing information on the torture.
After World War II, political philosopher Hannah Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil” to describe those who committed war crimes. The Obama administration now can add the “impropriety of torture” to our lexicon. The image of a man beaten, stripped and frozen to death in a CIA prison is not nearly as unnerving as a nation that stood by and did nothing about it. We have become a nation of dull-eyed pedestrians watching as our leaders strip away the very things that distinguish us from our enemies. With our principles gone, we are left with only politics and, of course, our sense of propriety.
Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors.
USA TODAY September 11, 2012
I agree totally about DOJ under Obama not being committed to Rule of Law. I have continued to slog along pro se against DOJ. Some of you may remember that I am a U.S. Citizen with no criminal record at all and DOJ imprisoned me three times for 5 months. Last summer the FBI released records showing that the USMS entered non-existent criminal charges for felony obstruction and bail jumping into the NCIC. The USMS sent an email to state law enforcement saying that I should be arrested for bail jumping and that is why I was arrested and held for 22 days. However, I never had a bail hearing and there weren’t any of the special orders that judges are supposed to issue after a bail hearing per 18 USC section 1346. The first time when I was held for 124 days I was told in Court that I didn’t have a right to an attorney or to witnesses because I wasn’t accused of a crime. But it turns out that 18 USC section 1346 just refers to federal detention of more than 5 days so even if you aren’t criminally charged you still have a right to an attorney and witnesses because that is part of the Bail Reform Act. I had to figure this out all by myself. US Courts has a special form an AO472 that is supposed to be use for pretrial detention but DOJ didn’t get one of those even though they entered into the Prisoner Tracking System Form 129 that I was being held for civil contempt only and that I was “W-T Trial”.
Obama’s employee filed in Court that the purpose of the Prisoner Tracking System is to manage the detention of Federal prisoners held pursuant to a judicial proceeding. (see pacer DDC 09-0562 doc 8-1 p. 23). Actually, DOJ’s Notice in the FR Vol 69 p. 23214 uses the words “Federal prisoners who are in custody pending criminal proceedings” so DOJ misrepresented its own Notice in the F.R. in order that a judgment in my favor shouldn’t issue. They violated Rule 3.3 Duty of Candor Toward the Tribunal so now I am arguing that I have an extension of the statute of limitations under 5 USC section 552a (g)(5). In 2009, DOJ claimed that they only had records re me in the PTS and the Warrant Information Network but in 2010 they released records from JABS. DOJ published in the FR Vol 66 p 20478 that the “categories of individuals covered by the system” are “alleged criminal offenders” and no one else. However Obama’s man, with or without Obama’s knowledge, filed in Court “JABS [the Joint Automated Booking System] is not limited to inclusion of records that were created incident to arrest for a ‘criminal charge’” (see PACER DDC 11-01032 doc 16-1 p. 10) and “Nothing in that Federal Register Notice states, as Plaintiffs erroneously claim, that the JABS must be used only to process individuals arrested for criminal offenses”. (see PACER DDC 11-01032 doc 31 p 3).
I really thought things would be different for me after Obama was elected. I mean I donated to his campaign, I wore his button, I recruited voters for him, and I made a real effort to defend him on the conservative websites where I was blogging. I also went out of my way to defend and praise Michelle on various blogs. But I don’t see how anything would have been any worse for me personally if he hadn’t been elected.
As you can see from my blogspot, I complained to USMS and they said that they did an internal investigation but nothing happened even though I now have proof, courtesy of the FBI, that the USMS entered the non-existent criminal charges against me into their systems. They also filled in a “charge validation form” which turned out to be a very minimal form. For charge validation someone entered the number of a civil docket and he or she didn’t fill in their name where they were supposed to.
Another DOJ problem is that there isn’t supposed to be a search fee for records about self under the Privacy Act. They claim I owe them $140 for searches about myself. They never sent me an invoice. Now they say that they don’t have to do more records searches. But they published in the Federal Register Vol 52 p 10019 and also in a General Services Administration on line brochure called “Your Right to Federal Records” that there aren’t any search fees for records searches about oneself. The GSA brochure says that there isn’t any procedure for Privacy Act searches for records about self at all — no 20 day waiting and no administrative appeal — but another lawyer working at DOJ claimed in Court that an administrative appeal is required before a court can adjudicate a Privacy Act search request for records about self.
Another DOJ problem is that they sent me a form letter. Then they filed copies of the form letter in Court. But behind it they stuck a second page as if it were a part of the form letter. They did this multiple times. The form letter is coded as a form letter in the corner. The second page isn’t coded and it has a different phone number. In fact, the phone number on the second page is disconnected. This just happened in July.
Nate had it right when he wrote:”The evil we created has come full circle”. -Kraaken
Yes, he did. And it’s come full circle in ways that many don’t yet realize.
>Bruce
“Without waterboarding Bin Ladin would still be roaming the hills of Pakistan. Obama can’t have it both ways.”<
So, therefore, the use of torture to obtain this 'information' is justified? Even if I accept your premise (and I most assuredly DO NOT), the ONLY imprimatur for the actions that we have taken as a nation was that we held a moral imperative; that what we did was in defense of our country and that because of the righteousness of our cause, we could show everyone else how to act (last verse of the Star Spangled Banner). When we as a nation sanctioned torture, we completely lost that moral high-ground. 'We' have become 'them'. How many innocent people must we torture and kill to assuage the horrors of 9/11 (because that is what is at the root of this whole issue)? 'An eye for an eye' (one for one)? We passed THAT number a long time ago. 2 for 1? We also passed THAT number a long time ago. I DO agree that "Obama can't have it both ways", and the fact that this administration has done nothing to mitigate the horrors of the Bush administration is among my greatest disappointment with the present administration. It will be hard for me to vote for Obama in November. Once again I feel that we are faced with the lesser of two evils (however the thought of Romney as president is too horrible to even contemplate). Nate had it right when he wrote:"The evil we created has come full circle".
Bruce where is your evidence that “without water boarding Bin Ladin would still be running..”? According to what I’ve seen it was a physician doing a door to door that found him. If I’m wrong and you’re right does tah make tourture right or less od a war crime?
We have become the people we used to fight against.
@Darren: I do not criticize Romney for spending his money, I criticize him for how he made it, by fraudulent and ruthless means. Obama has made his money by publishing memoirs, and he didn’t twist anybody’s arm to buy them.
As for using government aircraft, surely you can comprehend the concept of assassination or kidnap of the wife or children of the most powerful person in the country (and the world) posing a problem. Using government aircraft for the first family is really the cheapest way of providing security (and I sincerely doubt it costs $400K a trip).
I do not criticize any such use, regardless of party. The same thing goes for her duties as First Lady; all such presidential wives have acted as public figures and advocates for their chosen causes, rich or not, and ended up influencing the expenditure of public funding. Like the “just say no to drugs” campaign, reading literacy programs, etc. They have all flown on government aircraft with tight security.
MLK was a private citizen, not an elected official. The fact that he was the de facto leader of millions and was assassinated because of that proves the necessity of Air Force 2, it does nothing to prove it was not necessary.
Judicial Watch Obtains Documents Detailing the Cost to Taxpayers for Michelle Obama’s Family Trip to Africa.
Charges for the Aircraft and Crew Alone Amount to $424,142
http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-obtains-documents-detailing-the-cost-to-taxpayers-for-michelle-obama-s-family-trip-to-africa/
Michelle Obama’s August 2010 Vacation in Spain Cost American Taxpayers $467,585
http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/michelle-obamas-august-2010-vacation-in-spain-cost-american-taxpayers-467585-according-to-records-obtained-by-judicial-watch/
Bob, Esq,
Love your first name.
“Torture was legal under Bush. How do you prosecute someone for abiding by the law?”
Torture has never been legal. It has been, and is now, a war crime.
Darren, How would you have Michelle Obama travel? Or are you suggesting that she should stay in the WH?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/post/john-sununu-questions-cost-of-michelle-obamas-dress/2012/09/06/2416f0dc-f85d-11e1-a93b-7185e3f88849_blog.html Sununu questions the $350.00 dress. This criticism of Michele over nothing has been going on since the 2008 campaign. It is nothing more than right wing propaganda. I think it originated with Sean Hannity. Michele Obama did such an excellent job at the convention that these old wingers had to find something to discredit her with.
So I got a friend who’s a die hard Obama supporter who responded to the above article by Turley with this:
“Torture was legal under Bush. How do you prosecute someone for abiding by the law?”
What do you say to that? It’s like FOX news propaganda but on the left.
Dung Ho, That’s not the point. Repeating old slurs about Michele is.
Now if that’s not an antiobama political statement, then I’ve never heard one so pure today. I will not be surprised when you get taken down a notch by the bully system. Darren, you must tread carefully or soon you’ll be whimpering off in a corner. This will be your own fault, you have been warned. Nothing negative about Obama, got it?
Well it seems the gloves have come off and we might as well flush out everything and get over it.
I used the comparison of Michelle Obama’s spending habits to bring attention to the amount of blind eyes that are turned by people who would otherwise object to this type of behavior because it involves the Obamas. And that type of blind eye mentality empowers people such as Our President to continue tsome actions which violate the principles of our constitution and other misdeeds.
So many of the same people make much criticism of, for example, Mitt Romney’s lifestyle, wealthy people, royalty or whatever. But these same people often cast this blind eye toward the Obamas in the same manner that they also forego their beliefs in civil rights because they allow President Obama to get away with the same violations they criticize the previous administrations and the leaders of other countries for.
And yes I take great exception to the hypocracy of anyone who one day shows up to serve people food in a soup kitchen, proffering he/she truly cares about the fate of the unfortunate and later spends millions of dollars on a lavish and regal lifestyle for themselves. But what is more unsettling is when these people waste this money so flagrantly and most of it is derived from money obtained by taxation of the public. That harks just as equally with the abuses of royalty upon the citizenry.
And yes Michelle Obama is one who spends as this goes. Yet she is not an elected offiial. She is not in charge of the Air Force. So how is it that she can fly in Air Force 2 costing $400,000 a trip on her own accord? The office of her husband permits it. He could put the brakes on this kind of abuse of tax payer dollars but he does not choose to. Why? Because he has no reason to because there are not enough people who object so they get away with it. That is what it boils down to. He could set a better example but he again chooses not to.
Now let’s look at a historical context. Most anyone who has a civil rights leaning will agree that Dr King had a vision and a determination to liberate millions of people from discrimination and repression. I ask this. Did Dr. King espouse a regal lifestyle? Did he stay in expensive luxury hotels and wear expensive jewelry? He did not. He stayed in modest venues because he did not believe in such things and I am certain he did not want to detract from his message by blowing through money at the expense of those he was trying to liberate.
And to say that the Obamas are off limits from criticism I ask what do you really support. Responsible governance and fiscal responsibility or promoting a celebrity lifestyle that is beyond reproach. One that we dare not criticize even when some of their actions violate our own morals.
So feel free to use the old and tired retorts such as that I am a racist, I am stupid, or whatever methods you choose to poison the well of this debate. After all, in doing so it seems that it is better to criticize and censor those who challenge a particular issue because like President Obama’s trashing of the rights of certain persons, it is all done to uphold the freedoms of our constitution.
Woosty, I was off line for a while and just got back on, and don’t understand your post, although I have tried — maybe I’m too tired.
Are you suggesting that I could have retained my rights at any point along the line if I had said NO to those who were taking them?
Are you suggesting that I could NOW defend myself from torture or anything else if I chose right NOW to say NO to whatever is threatened or done to me?
If not, please help me understand what you’re telling me because I want to show you that I said NO a thousand times, a hundred ways, and most recently, got so tired I couldn’t say anything for several months, but that I have used every avenue and made every effort. The fact that I have not been tortured (about which I am really very glad!) has been, IMO, luck alone. If I were really significant to the people I oppose and they had no method to dominate me other than torture, I’d be tortured. If I was really dangerous to them in any way and they had no method to get rid of me other than to kill me, I’d be dead. I can’t escape; I have no passport.
I did, believe me, say NO. On my own behalf, on my kid’s behalf, on behalf of 257 other mothers, on behalf of dozens of death sentence inmates, on behalf of all and sundry victims our powers were victimizing, whether or not female, whether or not Jewish, whether or not American, whether or not convicts, I have been doing it.
People just don’t realize what is actually going on here.
I don’t mean to be dense; tell me what you mean, I’ll try to understand.
Democratic National Convention 2012: Where to Buy Michelle Obama’s J.Crew Pumps
Sep 5, 2012 @ 10:20 am
Michelle Obama made her first appearance at the Democratic National Convention last night in Charlotte, North Carolina wearing a pink-and-gold printed frock that immediately lit up the Twitterverse with compliments and applause. The dress is a custom design by Tracy Reese, a Detroit-born African-American designer, who told the Wall Street Journal she was “moved to tears” by the First Lady’s speech. To finish the look, Obama paired the dress with rhubarb-hued heels by J.Crew—the Everly suede pumps, available for $245 at jcrew.com (they also come in azure, burnt sienna, and vivid lime
Nick,
I’m gonna take a leap here. I don’t think Darren knows the difference between a manolo blahnik and j crew. And if he does, then his comparison between Michelle and Imelda is even more odious.
nick,
Got it … I’ll skip on over there … well, not exactly skip …
No problem, Eeyore. I believe Darren was just talking about shoes, but there are many unwritten rules.
Blouise, I meant I responded on the Az. thread. I do plead guilty[not “no contest”..guilty, just ask my kids.] to being an old goat and throw myself on the mercy of the court.
Should have been directed to Darren.
Nick,
Imelda Marcos was a young beauty queen who married an old corrupt man. The two of them raped and plundered their country. Your comparison of Michelle Obama to Imelda Marcos is odious. I’ll give you a pass on racism.