Criminal law, International, Society

Report: U.S. Government Ran Torture Program After 9-11

220px-AbuGhraibAbuse-standing-on-boxAn independent report by the Constitution Project, a non-partisan Washington think tank, is the latest to confirm what is already known to the world — we ran a torture program approved by the highest levels of our government in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. The report is an indictment not only of President Bush who is responsible for the torture program but President Obama who promised CIA officials that they would not be investigated or prosecuted for torture.

The report concluded that the Bush Administration embraced torture in an unprecedented way. While there is brutality in our history, the report determines, “there is no evidence there had ever before been the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after September 11, directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody.”

Of course, the same extreme voices from the Bush Administration were quick to condemn the report like former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, John Bolton, who called the report “completely divorced from reality.” Bolton insisted that the procedures were “lawyered, and lawyered again, and lawyered again.” That is three lawyers and would include John Yoo, Steven G. Bradbury, and Jay Bybee — three discredited lawyers who many felt should have been criminally charged or subject to disbarment. Instead, while the Justice Department rejected their legal findings as fundamentally flawed and substandard, they were not personally disciplined. Bush officials continue to cite the facially illegitimate analysis of these hand-picked lawyers as excusing them of torture.

Since the Obama Administration has shielded these officials of prosecution (prosecutions that would have been politically costly to President Obama), these officials can continue to claim that they were not responsible for torture or that torture never occurred. Indeed, Yoo is back teaching law students while Bybee is passing judgment on others as a federal judge.

We are obligated to investigate and prosecute torture under treaty and international law. President Obama simply did what countless of other leaders have done in history: rather than make the difficult decision to comply with our obligations and the rule of law, Obama insisted that such enforcement would be too costly or divisive for the nation. It is a position that will be played back over and over to this country as we call for officials in other countries to be prosecuted for torture.

Source: Washington Post

65 thoughts on “Report: U.S. Government Ran Torture Program After 9-11”

  5. For Hannah……research before you refute. You can start by going to the original source “Washington Post”. Use the google for Pete’s sake…and by the way…This is old news.

  6. We need a faux organization to begin Nuremburg War Trials and try the Americans in abstentia. Amsterdam might put up with such a thing. It could be televised and sent round the world by internet. A good primer on the subject would be the book by Whitney Harris, a Nuremberg prosecutor. The book is called Tyanny On Trial. That was back in the days after WWII when America was Exceptional. Now AmeriKa is Exceptional from a contrary point of view. It is Exceptional to bomb a village and kill kids in Afghanistan with some “drone”. Had the Marathon Bomber used a drone, it would have brought things into perspective.

  8. 54 nations involved in systematic torture program lead by the USA
    20 prisoners that were tortured are missing or not accounted for
    1 whistleblower behind bars for revealing the torture program
    0 political leaders held accountable for instigating acts of torture

  9. Did I read a new blog correctly….. now Obama has been sent ricin as well as a Sen from MISSISSIPPI….

  11. Arthur Randolph Erb:

    You have on several occasions insisted that lawyers who criticize Pres. Obama ought to start disbarment proceedings against the lawyers who prepared the torture memos. I suspect that you do not understand how bar disciplinary proceedings are initiated and prosecuted.

  13. Torturers are not punished. Lawyers are not disciplined. Our own “democratically elected” government gets away with lying, cheating and stealing. Cover-up is the biggest activity of the state and federal agencies. (Yawn)

  15. Mr. Obama is only working with the hand he was dealt by Mr. Bush. He is recycling a lot of Bush’s shadow-warriors like John O. Brennan (present director of CIA). John was responsible for the MQ-1 Predator drone equipped with Hellfire missiles and the collateral damage that came along with it. John also entertained the Saudis (one of our other true down-low enemies posing as our friends). He did this as a CIA case officer under DCI Casey (Bush man). The real EIT (torture) lady is now under consideration for director of National Clandestine Service or NCS (spooks). She was the composite character in the movie Zero Dark Thirty.

    She is now the acting director NCS but her name is being withheld by the MSM (main stream media). They know here name. She too is a Bush Man. She even has a man’s name. Mr. Obama is stuck with these cretins because they produce actionable intelligence. The last few guys (Joe Camel aka Leon Panneta and David Patreaus) were all embarrassments. Why? Because Leon was just a hatchet-man reducing the shadows via burn notices. One even predicted the Bengazi incident in his unauthorized unvetted book.

    And then there is Patreaus another Bush Man that turned out to be a total joke. He got played by an embedded book writer a/k/a agent of a foreign so-called friendly country. He also screwed up the Bengazi incident and is still answerable for it as is Mrs. Clinton.

    Does torture work? No. But it works on others watching from the shadows hoping they don’t get a free trip to Camp X-Ray (et al) to join in on the fun.

    Source: http://www.waynemadsenreport.com

  16. I will be more impressed with those who slam Obama for not prosecuting when the lawyers in that group start disbarrment procedings against the three crooked lawyers. You do NOT have to wait for Obama. File charges against them and show your guts and legal expertise.

  17. Bush and Cheney’s continued liberty makes war criminals of all Americans. Add Obama to that list barring some epiphany. Add all future Presidents doomed with awful powers granted by a terrified Congress, the exact state of terror called for by those we would call “enemies.”

    It is not too late to seat grand juries.

  18. The U.S. committed war crimes decreed by Bush and Cheney, et. al.. President Obama validated these crimes by refusing to prosecute those responsible. It was an exercise in cowardice on his part, or alternatively another example of the Corporate Military Industrial Complex actually running this country.

  19. Is there any doubt that Bush and the Puppet Master Cheney are War Criminals and should be held accountable?

  20. OT OT but it’s got my blood in a roil, not on the same scale as government sanctioned/ordered torture, but still……

    http://www.politicususa.com/congress-acts-quickly-kill-bill-aim-shady-insider-trading.html

    What could make the House pass something in 30 seconds that the Senate also passed? What would motivate them to put aside their alleged “differences” and act in the best interest of the people? The answer is when they are not acting in the best interest of the people, but rather, in their own best interests.

    To that end, late last week, your congress quickly approved a measure that modified (aka, killed) a part of the STOCK Act (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act ), which was only enacted a year ago. The STOCK Act was supposed to address shady stock trades based on insider information.

    Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) is taking credit for sponsoring the measure, but clearly he got no pushback from either side of the aisle. Check out the fast movement of this bill, and tell me if you’ve seen anything fly through like this in recent years, sans committee referrals and Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) deep debate over what he can even allow for a debate about a vote:

    4/11/2013 Introduced in Senate
    4/11/2013 Passed/agreed to in Senate: Introduced in the Senate, read twice, considered, read the third time, and passed without amendment by Unanimous Consent.
    4/12/2013 Passed/agreed to in House: On passage Passed without objection.
    4/12/2013 Presented to President.

    On Tuesday the 15th, the President signed the legislation.

    The Sunlight Foundation notes that the amendment passed with unanimous consent, though many members had gone home already. Huh. This doesn’t seem to work for measures that protect the security of the American people, like say, jobs. The Sunlight Foundation also pointed out what might be seen as a precursor of times to come, “The bill was not available to the public on the Library of Congress website until after the vote.” NPR noted that it took the House all of 30 seconds. “NPR’s Tamara Keith tells us the House procedure took exactly 30 seconds.”

    The STOCK Act took aim at insider trading and insider information, and also required some 28,000 federal employees from the congressional and executive branches post their conflict of interest disclosures online. It followed “a ’60 Minutes’ report on how many members of Congress are making money on stock trades that are illegal for everyone else, correspondent Nancy Cordes reports a bill to ban lawmakers from insider trading is now on the fast track.”

    So, while you were paying attention, they passed The STOCK Act, and now, a year later on a Friday, when you’re not paying attention, they quietly killed the parts they don’t like by unanimous consent (the coward’s way, so you can’t hold them individually accountable on the record).

    Yes, senior officials will still have to fill out disclosure forms, but news agencies and anyone else who’s interested will have to dig deeply in order to get access to the information. Your congress claims it’s a security measure (apparently, when you hear “security”, you’re supposed to automatically bend over and initiate invasion, paying off too big to fail, etc.). However, the Sunlight Foundation pointed out that they did not merely address the alleged security issues, but found a way to deeply obscure and bury any path to the transparency:

    The sweeping exemption goes even farther than critics of the disclosure requirements requested. For those to whom online disclosure would still apply (the president, vice president, members of Congress, congressional candidates and individuals subject to Senate confirmation) the Senate bill made electronic filing of the information optional and struck the requirement that online information be searchable, sortable and downloadable, making even the disclosures that remain in the bill tepid and relatively unusable.

    Not only does the change undermine the intent of the original bill to ensure government insiders are not profiting from non-public information (if anyone thinks high level congressional staffers don’t have as much or more insider information than their bosses, they should spend some time on Capitol Hill) but it sets an extraordinarily dangerous precedent suggesting that any risks stem not from information being public but from public information being online.

    Are we going to return to the days when the public can use the Internet to research everything except what their government is doing? Will Congress, in its twisted wisdom, decide that information is public if journalists, academics, advocates and citizens are forced to dig through file cabinets in basements in Washington, DC to find it? And does anyone think that makes us safer?

    This is heartening, indeed. Your congress can act and does act quickly, in a bipartsian manner, to address their privacy and security. No concerns about who’s read the bill and how it might destroy democracy or cover up crimes against citizens. No debate needed.

    Your government can and does at times function much better than conservatives would like you to believe, but this is not one of them. If there’s ever a time when both sides should come together, it’s when elected officials betray the trust of the people in this manner. Not only is it apparent that these bodies can act quickly when their interests are at issue, but the haste with which they’ve agreed to bury transparency without debate should trouble citizens from both sides of the aisle.

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