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State Department Endorses Conclusions Of Senate That CIA Misled Congress and Brutalized Suspects

StateDepartmentCIAThe State Department has issued a document that endorses the findings of the Senate report on the CIA’s interrogation and detention practices after the 9/11 attacks. The document notably avoids references to “torture” but discussed now the CIA brutalized suspects and misled Congress. Putting aside such word substitutions of “brutalizing” for “torture” and “misleading” for “lying,” there remains one glaring omission: not a single CIA official was disciplined, let alone criminally charged. One official even publicly admitted to destroying evidence to avoid its use in court in a torture prosecution. He was allowed to retire with honors and accolades. The Bush and Obama Administration steadfastly refused to prosecute such officials. Indeed, soon after coming to power, Obama went to the CIA to assure officials that they would never face prosecution.

The document states to its credit that “This report tells a story of which no American is proud.” However, it then adds: “But it is also part of another story of which we can be proud. America’s democratic system worked just as it was designed to work in bringing an end to actions inconsistent with our democratic values.” Is this really how the system “was designed to work”? We are bound by treaty and federal law to investigate torture — a standard that we have applied to other nations. However, Obama kept his pledge to the CIA and moreover leaks have shown how the U.S. government threatened both Spain and England not to investigate American torture.

Now we have a celebration over the fact that we are willing to admit that the CIA committed such violations, including lying to Congress, while ignoring that no one was punished for these acts. Indeed, as we saw with the false statements given Congress over surveillance by James Clapper, there remains a pattern of protection for intelligence officials committing what many allege to be criminal acts like perjury.

I am impressed by the openness of the State Department under John Kerry on such issues. However, the disconnect with the absence of any accountability continues to erode the credibility of the country on human rights and civil liberties.

Notably, the State Department affirms again that no life-saving intelligence was actually produced from our torture of suspects. It still however refuses to call it by its proper and legal name: “[The Senate report] leaves no doubt that the methods used to extract information from some terrorist suspects caused profound pain, suffering and humiliation. It also leaves no doubt that the harm caused by the use of these techniques outweighed any potential benefit.”

The report does acknowledge obvious questions that continue to lack any real answer from the Administration:

“Doesn’t the report make clear that at least some who authorized or participated in the RDI program committed crimes?”

“Will the Justice Department revisit its decision not to prosecute anyone?”
“Until now the (U.S. government) has avoided conceding that the techniques used in the RDI program constituted torture. Now that the report is released is the White House prepared to concede that people were tortured?”

“Isn’t it clear that the CIA engaged in torture as defined in the Torture Convention?”

The mere fact that these questions even appeared in such a report is a triumph for Kerry and a positive development. It also admits that some ambassadors who were informed of the use of torture at black sites were instructed not to tell their superiors at the State Department.

I do believe that the State Department and John Kerry deserve credit for this frank discussion. It is the type of action that will help to restore our position in the world. However, we will never regain our position as the world’s leader on human rights and civil liberties if we continue to shield our own officials for accountability for such actions.

Source: Fox

111 thoughts on “State Department Endorses Conclusions Of Senate That CIA Misled Congress and Brutalized Suspects”

  1. “He’s more conservative than Bush”….. Ah so why do the conservatives say he is a lefty lefty leftist socialist?

  2. SMM, I believe you know that I was referring to the period of 2007, 2008 when Obama was elected. By that point, people had rejected torture. I’m sure that you know that is true. Had Obama been who people thought he was, Gitmo would have been long closed. (See Glenn Greenwald for information about the oft stated lie that it’s all Congress’s fault that Gitmo is open.) Only partisans still argue that! Further, what is the reason you accept what is happening to people in Gitmo? It is just unbelievable that so many people will excuse this cruelty because Obama is ordering it. Please, we have to be better as human beings and support justice, stop harm by holding even Obama to account for his actions.

    Annie, Obama is responsible for Gitmo so I am arguing with a conservative! He’s more conservative that Bush. When Bush was in power I spoke out about his detention of people in Gitmo, publicly, consistently and powerfully. I do not change my positions based on party.

  4. rafflaw

    The idea that anyone would think that waterboarding is not torture, only has to look to the past where we have prosecuted foreigners and our own soldiers for waterboarding.
    =========================
    Reagan’s DOJ prosecuted sheriffs and deputies who did it (President Reagan Puts Cheney In Jail).

    1. Dredd – Reagan’s DOJ prosecuted one sheriff and three deputies for waterboarding. We also used to jail people for sodomy. What is your point?

  11. How did I misquote it? i copied and pasted from it. I went to Worthington’s site and saw nothing about torture. The articles focused on the need to close Guantanimo. Like I said i would not be surprised about the use of rendition..

  13. SMM, Also, Obama was extremely popular. He is one of the few people who could have gathered the nation behind him to go forward w/prosecutions. You can check back at the polls, most people in the US, including Republicans had repudiated torture. Many Republicans voted for Obama. It is so sad that he did not rally the US to hold these people to account.

    As to the economic crash, Obama failed equally to prosecute the financial fraud as required by our law. He called the House members and threatened them to go along with gifts to the financial industry. So, there’s that to consider.

  14. SMM, you misquoted the article: “a closer examination reveals that the canker at the heart of the state has not been excised. Obama’s people have also indicated that rendition – the forcible transfer of individuals to the custody of third-party states – will continue to be used by the US on terror suspects. Therefore, this new FBI unit could send people to regimes such as Morocco, Egypt and Syria and conduct interrogations on people being detained indefinitely by these old partners in the secret detention game.

    If the prisoners are being held by captors who routinely engage in torture, the US agents themselves will have no need to engage in coercive techniques themselves – ipso facto, the torture is simply outsourced. This new move represents the dark side of an increasingly concretised two-tier legal system: one in which those designated as “terror suspects” are not entitled to the full set of rights enshrined in the US constitution. By endorsing the use of extraordinary rendition – otherwise known as kidnap – Obama is moving back from the worst excesses of the Bush era, but in doing so he risks instituting a global legal apartheid involving an abusive detention regime for people regarded as “not quite citizens”. While US prisoners have legal rights, others may be sent by the US to any rights-abusing country in the world for interrogation and detention.

    If our collective experience of the past eight years is to count for anything, it should be that the rule of law must apply to everyone alike and equally, everywhere. Only then can we hope to prevent the recurrence of medieval abuse and disappearances that have disgraced the US and threaten to drag the world back into the dark ages.”

    I’m not surprised that you would try to make excuses for Obama’s lack of prosecution of Bush and Cheney (among others), but even I am surprised that you are on board with Obama’s current torture in Gitmo, for example. I have never seen people so unable to condemn cruel and inhuman behavior except Bush supporters. The strange thing about those people is that most of them finally repudiated torture while Obama supporters still carry that torch.

  15. I think Obama did not prosecute because we were in the middle of an economic crash and most people did not support it.Obama wanted to fit in with the good old boys but they called him a socialist and a muslim anyway. The Bushes are saints in Texas. There would have been a revolt.

  16. Annie, I told you where to look and linked you to excellent research. If you really want to know about this, I have given you more than enough places to find out about it. Are you really not capable of going to Andy Worthington’s site? I can’t believe you aren’t able to do that.

    I don’t think you will believe anything no matter what, because you simply cannot admit that Obama engages in torture. Otherwise, I cannot understand why you fail to go to links and information provided to you.

  17. “Obama is moving back from the worst excesses of the Bush era, but in doing so he risks instituting a global legal apartheid involving an abusive detention regime for people regarded as “not quite citizens”. While US prisoners have legal rights, others may be sent by the US to any rights-abusing country in the world for interrogation and detention.” From the guardian This article states that US may possibly still be using rendition. It would not surprise me but it does not offer proof.

  18. Jill, I think it’s because it might reveal info that pointed to the fact that Dems may have known and approved of torture. I will need all the proof ya got Jill to get fully on board.

  19. Annie and SMM, Let me provide that proof about Obama engaging in torture for you. First, you might want to check into Gitmo, maybe even Bagram! See Andy Worthington for that. Now, let’s check into extraordinary renditions. By Golly, Obama does that too! Here’s just one example:

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/aug/26/obama-rendition-cia-prisons-us

    Finally, there’s the point made by Scahill that torture is in place via the combination of techniques in the Army’s manual on “interrogations”. Please, open your eyes. We need Democratic partisans to face up to the truth and speak out with honesty. This is not the time to play fast and loose with reality on behalf of a “leader” one likes.

    Annie, The weird thing is that Cheney and Bush have both openly admitted to ordering torture, a war crime. Those admissions alone should have forced the opening of an investigation into these crimes. Yet, Obama has done nothing but protect those two. Ask yourself why?

  20. Annie, While it is true that the Obama administration refused to prosecute those that engaged in torture, I have seen no proof that Obama has engaged in torture.

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