Following the admission that the CIA hacked Senate computers and lied to Congress, President Obama today affirmed that it did indeed torture people. This admission (while belated) is an important recognition by the United States of what is obvious from a legal standpoint. However, that also means that CIA officials violated both federal and international law. The question is why Obama began his first term by promising CIA employees that they would not be tried for what he now describes as “tortur[ing] some folks.”
Despite the prior lying to Congress, Obama insisted that he had “full confidence in John Brennan.” As noted before, the Obama Administration is clearly unwilling again to discipline, let alone charged, any CIA personnel for hacking into congressional computers.
The President then turned to the Senate report on our torture program and affirmed his earlier 2009 statement that this was torture — plain and simple:
Even before I came into office, I was very clear that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values. I understand why it happened. I think it’s important when we look back to recall how afraid people were after the twin towers fell and the Pentagon had been hit and the plane in Pennsylvania had fallen and people did not know whether more attacks were imminent and there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this. And, you know, it’s important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had. A lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots, but having said all that, we did some things that were wrong. And that’s what that report reflects.
Just a few points are warranted here.
First, torture is a war crime and the United States has insisted that it was at war. We have an obligation to investigate and prosecute any officials responsible for torture. Instead, both the Bush and Obama Administrations threatened countries like Spain and England for even investigating aspects of these crimes. Saying that we “tortured some folks” is not compliance with these law – either domestic or international
Second, it does not matter if we are “afraid” or angry under international law. These treaties clearly reject defenses like “just following orders” or justified torture.
Third, Obama has yet to explain his promise to the CIA employees after taking office. After his election, various high officials said that Obama told them privately that no Bush or CIA officials would be prosecuted. His staff denied the stories but he then soon thereafter told the CIA staff precisely that.
Finally, not only has the United States refused to hold our own officials to the same standards that we impose on other countries, but those responsible for our torture program are giving interviews and writing books in plain sight. In the meantime, the Administration has successfully blocked torture victims from seeking judicial review or relief in our courts.
That record makes the admission that “we tortured some folks” a bit less satisfying. No one familiar with the cases in this area should seriously doubt that we tortured people. What remains unclear is how we can justify not prosecuting those responsible. We may have “tortured some folks” but we never “prosecuted other folks.”
Source: ABC
John Oliver,
A sophisticated grasp of liberal philosophy is needed only for the controlling elites. Culture is not prerequisite. The acculturation of a liberal belief system in the people, while often concurrent, follows on basic elements like security, stability, civic function, and economy.
Developing the culture is a lesser included element in the practical nation-building process. Even for the new American citizens with an Anglo heritage and basic elements largely in place, figuring out the social politics was a process. The Constitution was only created after a clumsy 1st attempt at national governance. George Washington turned down monarch status as our first chief executive.
There was no spectral philosophical consensus, beyond the elites, that pre-existed the American founding and then reified, fully formed, upon independence. It was no less organically grown with us than with the nations we’ve built.
In the organic process, our nation-built hosts have mixed our input with their culture and arrived at different places than our forebears. The Germans, Japanese, and Koreans are not like Americans nor each other. They’re each liberal in their own way.
And that suits us. As said by President Bush up front, America’s primary motive with the post-9/11 liberal strategy was not an ideological crusade. Our primary motive was practical: a stable world.
The US normally deals with unsavory, illiberal competitors in the international community. A nation must pass an exceptionally high bar of incompatibility in order to warrant regime change as the Taliban and Saddam did.
As such, our nation-building standard is not platonic ideal mini-America’s. Instead, the standard is practical: a compatible nation that can be a peaceful, functional partner in the international community. That’s the standard we achieved in our European and Asian nation-building. That’s the standard we were progressing towards with Iraq before we prematurely pulled stakes.
The lead challenge to American liberal nation-building is not philosophical difference. Culture is not prerequisite. The lead challenge is the practical contest for the security and stability that’s the necessary foundation to build everything else. When we control basic security and stability, the rest follows. When we lose control, the rest can’t work.
leejcaroll,
“Prairie Rose I like that analogy, yes just like jury duty.”
I’m still going to have to mull over this idea for awhile. The jury duty angle is appealing, because jurists do seem to take their job seriously, so perhaps voters would take their job seriously, too.
Yet, the libertarian in me wants to reject required voting; it seems contrary to a free republic. And, I don’t know if required voting would actually fix anything because it seems the elements of money in politics and the media-frenzy (not to mention the existence of the 17th Amendment) almost do more to affect the process and choices of potential candidates than whether or not people vote.
Mandatory schooling doesn’t make the students value their education more, so I’m not sure people would value their votes more either, especially if the system still seems “rigged”.
In some ways “being informed is in their own best self interest” (in our case) just ticks us off and stresses us out. 🙂
Eric,
What seems to be the most common misunderstanding of our republics longevity is the belief all we need is a system of laws to make it work. The 150 years leading up to the Declaration are why our constitution works. Lincoln expresses it far better than I can in his “Fragment on the Constitution and Union”:
“All this is not the result of accident. It has a philosophical cause. Without the Constitution and the Union, we could not have attained the result; but even these, are not the primary cause of our great prosperity. There is something back of these, entwining itself more closely about the human heart. That something, is the principle of “Liberty to all” — the principle that clears the path for all — gives hope to all — and, by consequence, enterprize, and industry to all.
The expression of that principle, in our Declaration of Independence, was most happy, and fortunate. Without this, as well as with it, we could have declared our independence of Great Britain; but without it, we could not, I think, have secured our free government, and consequent prosperity. No oppressed, people will fight, and endure, as our fathers did, without the promise of something better, than a mere change of masters.
The assertion of that principle, at that time, was the word, “fitly spoken” which has proved an “apple of gold” to us. The Union, and the Constitution, are the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it. The picture was made, not to conceal, or destroy the apple; but to adorn, and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple — not the apple for the picture.
So let us act, that neither picture, or apple shall ever be blurred, or bruised or broken.
That we may so act, we must study, and understand the points of danger.”
Abraham Lincoln
January 1861
Add: For context, here’s the post where I first cited the Wolfowitz quote:
http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2011/05/untwining-threads.html
John Oliver,
As I said under the other post, you quoted me, not JFK. I suggest the Kennedy inaugural address for your purpose.
Still no love with the auto-mod. Let’s see if this version works.
The purpose of the Iraq enforcement from HW Bush to Clinton to Bush was not regime change for liberal reform. The purpose of the Iraq enforcement was achieving Iraq’s compliance with the Gulf War ceasefire so a rehabilitated Saddam could be trusted with the peace. After exhausting the non-military and lesser military enforcement measures at the point of Operation Desert Fox, the only measures left to compel Saddam’s compliance were the credible threat of regime change and, failing that, the last measure of regime change.
To wit, Paul Wolfowitz:
In terms of leading with liberal reform in his post-9/11 liberal strategy, Bush’s Freedom Agenda was collaborative. While underlain by American dominance, it was not forced.
To wit, President Bush:
You know, for someone who’s against holding other peoples to American ways, you’re extraordinarily formulistic about demanding an American-type Declaration of Independence. The uprisings, repression, lives lost, and suffering that compelled UNSCR 688 and eventually the extension of the no-fly zones virtually to the outskirts of Baghdad don’t impress you as carrying at least as much weight as a “formal document” by a cabal of elites who may or may not have actually represented a plurality of colonists at the time? Tough crowd.
Prairie Rose I like that analogy, yes just like jury duty.
I am already so pessimistic as to what has happened to the electoral process and the antipathy of voters that it can’t go any lower ); but hopefully if you are required to vote a decent number of folk would decide being informed is in their own best self interest.
I used to watch the TV news religiously but stopped a long time ago so youre not missing much, or anything, by not seeing it yourself (or heck a lot of what else is on the tube) I get my news online and a lot of it from this blog with the prof posting about news items and issues you don’t see in the mainstream media, including huff post,aol news etc
“I believe we need to restore our chauvinistic commitment to the American progressivism that shaped much of the 19th and 20th centuries.” JFK
“The United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom at home. I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq’s history or its ethnic or sectarian makeup. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else.” Bill Clinton
http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2014/05/operation-iraqi-freedom-faq.html#whatOIFabout
“For America the liberal hegemonic leader of the free world, the regime change that brought Iraq into compliance meant shepherding post-Saddam Iraq to a pluralistic liberal society, commonly called democracy. “ Eric
I honestly haven’t read your entire body of work Eric, but what I’m looking for is a formal document from the Iraqi People that indicates THEY want to join the international community and all that comes with it; something that says if they can get foreign assistance to remove the current regime that they will take on the heavy-lifting of self-governance.
Quite frankly, I don’t see how what you’ve provided refutes what I represented our foreign policy to be. That being said, I certainly would support a policy to bring about regime change if the Iraqi people shared in the commitment for the security of equality, life, liberty and property.
John Oliver: “Where are the formal Declarations requesting not only our intervention, but entanglement in nation-building?”
For the answer to that question, see http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2013/03/10-year-anniversary-start-Operation-Iraqi-Freedom-thoughts.html#law .
The auto-mod is eating my response to your last comment. I’ll try breaking it up into chunks later and maybe they’ll post that way.
John Oliver,
“Repealing the 17th would be a significant step in making Senators more accountable to the states rather than the lobbyists.”
Absolutely. But, how do we put the genii back in the bottle? Senators are unlikely to support such a power-limiting bill.
“Teaching people critical-thinking skills so that they know how to determine the information they receive is based on facts and then to draw reasonable conclusions without ideological filters.”
“Without ideological filters” are the operative words. The media and our dear politicians have us as a whole so entrenched in red state/blue state, conservative/liberal, Democrat/Republican partisan bickering that objectivity is going to be difficult to achieve.
How do you propose teaching people critical-thinking skills? Schools aim to achieve this but fall woefully short quite often. What would you change or improve?
“Make voter ID’s mandatory and to that end, provide whatever service is necessary to make them available.”
The last half of this statement is crucial.
“Require every incumbent prove how they honored their oath of office or term limits; maybe both.”
The first idea seems rather tricky and an arena in which half-truths or spinning would be the SOP, barring egregious and obvious failures. I’m generally in favor of term limits (not sure of the “limit” that would be reasonable, though). Again, how would such a bill be passed when it limits the power of politicians? Back to a Constitutional convention?
“If that won’t work then require a civics exam for a voter ID.” Do you mean for people running for office? 😉
leejcaroll,
“Prairie Rose gerrymandering could be outlawed so there is as you say more voices heard from the reps district.”
Getting it outlawed is the tricky part because it goes against the power-hungry politicians’ “best” interest.
“Citizen Unites and McCutcheon overturned or the senate taking action”
I will need to look into these since I’m not quite sure exactly what they entail. I try to stay up on the news, court rulings, etc, but I haven’t gotten the details on these and I don’t want to rely on what journalists or politicians say is in them.
“but would they bite the hand that feeds them?”
Too true. This is where it gets tricky in a lot of areas. Would they vote against gerrymandering? Would they repeal the 17th amendment? Yikes. We might be looking at Constitutional convention or something…ugh.
“If you cant trust a politician when they’re running, why bother to vote because they have proven they are untrustworthy.”
I wish there was a “none of the above” option on the ballot. That could conceivably empty Congress and cause a terrible upheaval for a short while, but at least our voices would be heard and hopefully better candidates would step forward.
“The media has a part in this, they are not independent, non biased”
I agree the media is a problem in how they present the news, but I really can only comment on newsprint media (no TV, so no way to comment objectively on TV news). I’d like to see an analysis of the degree to which MSM newspapers/TV news vetted President Bush versus President Obama, or, the number of times Edward Snowden was called a leaker versus a whistleblower on the various networks.
As far as TV news goes, the exit polling, I think, probably skews the results of elections.
“It is illegal not to vote in some countries, think it is Australia (going by memory here) I think maybe making voting mandatory would help.”
Interesting, but there really are some people that I’d rather they just continue to not vote. The don’t know who the candidates are, let alone what their platforms are. I know there are people that do that now, but I’d rather they not blindly cancel out my vote. Also, this goes against my belief that people should have the freedom to not participate. Heck, even President Obama (and plenty of others) have voted “present” when they don’t want to participate.
Are you thinking of mandatory voting as kind of like jury duty, a duty of every citizen that can only be escaped by exigent circumstances?
“Also they might find that this causes them to become more informed.”
How so? This seems far too optimistic (see, you are more optimistic than I!). 🙂
[Warning! Opinion to follow]: What do progressive Democrats and progressive Republicans have in common? Nation-building; with the Democrats focused on domestic policy and the Republicans focused on foreign policy. Keep in mind, neither finds the constitution anything other than an obstacle to their ends and the ignorant mind the grease for their means.
Eric,
I appreciate your passion in defense of your position and I once shared that stance. My views have changed as I’ve studied the Enlightenment Era philosophers, our founders, Bastiat and Toqueville, and others. I’m certain to adjust my thinking on policy matters from time to time; but the foundation of my opinions are firmly anchored in natural rights theory.
You mentioned cancer and that seems to be a good metaphor for the only legitimate purpose and justification for foreign entanglements. The world (not unlike America) would be more easily “controlled” if everyone shared the same beliefs. But human nature being what it is I’m actually in favor of the differences.
If one begins with the view that every nation is sovereign and the people within it responsible for the government they allow, then when or why should we become involved in their internal struggles? Our founders drafted a document to make a case for foreign entities to support and “get involved in” our struggle for independence. The British government was a cancer on our unalienable rights and the Declaration’s justification for our right “to alter or to abolish it”, did not include the foreign entities remaining to “help” us build a nation.
Our foreign policy (again in my opinion) seems to create the cancers we are then forced to fight. Where are the formal Declarations requesting not only our intervention, but entanglement in nation-building? It’s one thing to be the beacon of freedom, liberty, equality, democracy and natural rights. But there is a significant difference between shining the light and attempting to etch it into the hearts and minds of an indifferent culture. If they aren’t asking for it then no amount of effort, resources or lives can give it to them.
John Oliver,
You still haven’t answered the question.
Angelo Codevilla: “They responded to the Muslim regimes’ incitement of anti-American violence by trying to settle their internal conflicts and reforming their societies. As a result, today the only people in the world who fear American military action are the American people themselves.”
People like Codevilla, not nation-building, are why Americans “fear American military action”. Bush’s counter-terrorism was effective in practice, but distorted in the politics.
Contra Codevilla, respect and fear of American military action is an element of US-style nation-building. In the context of US-style nation-building, “[settling] their internal conflicts and reforming their societies” requires military dominance to establish security, stability, and define the peace on our terms.
Our nation-building successes, Cold War and today, only work when our military is respected and feared. When US-style nation-building is effective, eg, Iraq before we prematurely left, that infers we have established dominant alpha status in the pack – dominant enough to impose our will and reliable enough for the people with their lives at stake to buy in with us rather than the enemy.
Imagine the level of respect for and fear of the American military that was needed for the Anbar Awakening in Iraq, in the heart of the Muslim world. We earned that status with the nation-building COIN “surge”, but I doubt we have it anymore.
Our leadership isn’t about owning territory like a colonial empire. It’s about the setting, community condition and rule sets. Yet rather than enforcement, Codevilla posits a simple trip-wire of total destruction or no action, which might sound good to a layman, but actually opens a wide range of activity where rogue actors can simply calibrate to achieve their goals. That’s a formula for disorder and perpetual conflict spinning up.
Bush’s counter-terror response to 9/11 was designed to reform the international immune system with a more robust approach to the emerged modern threat. Codevilla’s opposition to enforcement fails to account for the reach of modern extra-national actors in combination with rogue actors. In fact, what he advocates – working with and pressuring local regimes to stop the terrorists in their sovereign territory – was already routine counter-terror practice pre-dating 9/11 and continuing into the War on Terror. It’s not enough by itself.
As I pointed to upthread, it’s a myth that Bush led his foreign policy with regime change. Bush, compatible with Codevilla’s position, acted against the Taliban and Saddam only after they refused to comply and end their threat. However, war is not just war. War is in the context of everything else. It’s not like sports where the game resets to zero on a game-clock and we go home while the groundskeepers reset the field. Winning a war but short-shrifting the post-war aftermath, as Obama has done, only leads to new problems, including the likely cancerous regrowth of a worse version of the same problems.
When President Washington made his farewell address, we were already entangled in foreign, European affairs. We began in a global empire and we won our independence with foreign help. We’ve never stopped being entangled with the world. Then we won WW2 and didn’t go home because we remembered what happened after we went home after WW1. America is a world leader, like it or not. Commission or omission, we have an effect. I suggest reading Bush’s baseline policy speeches in the wake of 9/11. You can start with the ones linked here:
http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2004/10/perspective-on-operation-iraqi-freedom.html
Repealing the 17th would be a significant step in making Senators more accountable to the states rather than the lobbyists.
Teaching people critical-thinking skills so that they know how to determine the information they receive is based on facts and then to draw reasonable conclusions without ideological filters. Proof this is lacking is when one opines about the slant of one media outlet over another.
Make voter ID’s mandatory and to that end, provide whatever service is necessary to make them available.
Require every incumbent prove how they honored their oath of office or term limits; maybe both. If that won’t work then require a civics exam for a voter ID.
Paul commentary is opinion. (my problem is often they don’t bother to mark it as commentary) Outright lies have gotten some people tossed, like Rather as the first example that comes to mind. Fox re[eatedly has been shown to lie but nothing ever happens.
The lies are important because people believe them and choose their candidates often based on the lie. (as a corollary look at the autism vaccination issue, proven repeatedly no connection to autism and yet people like Jenny McCarthy had the stage to foist the lie on people and many did not vaccinate based on people like her (I know idiocy to believe a TV personality but that’s another issue) Epidemics of measles and whooping cough has been the result.)
leejcaroll – it would no difference if you did it intentionally or it was accidental. Death penalty for all around.
Prairie Rose gerrymandering could be outlawed so there is as you say more voices heard from the reps district.
Citizen Unites and McCutcheon overturned or the senate taking action (but would they bute the hand that feeds them? Sanders with cosponsors does have a bill but is it going anywhere?)
I think a part of it is the way the elections work, withsuch over the top nastiness and outright lies. Why bother when both sides lie, provably, to get what they want.
I have heard folks say it should be illegal to lie in political ads but that goes against first amendment.
If you cant trust a politician when theyre running, why bother to vote because they have proven they are untrustworthy.
The media has a part in this, they are not independent, non biased, Fox bing the worst, at least MSNBC does present opposing voices such as morning Joe and in interviews, not often but a heck of a lot more often then Fox which mostly skewers opposing ideas, thoughts, etc.
When a president like Bush, (I don’t have Obama numbers at hand although he won by more then Bush’s “Mandate” wins but only 52% of the population voted and he got more then half of that he was wupported, by vote, by slightly more then /4 of the population.
It is illegal not to vote in some countries, think it is Australia (going by memory here) I think maybe making voting mandatory would help. People would come to the polls (yes some will vote for mickey mouse or vote without knowing the issues but that is also the case now) and let their voices be heard. Also they mioght find that this causes them to become more informed.
leejcaroll – I would like to see a law making it illegal to lie on TV either on the regular new or during commentary. You lie, the program dies. No one connected with the program works in TV again.
http://thefederalist.com/2014/08/05/how-to-mind-americas-business/?utm_source=The+Federalist+List&utm_campaign=5c4e3651bb-RSS_DAILY_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cfcb868ceb-5c4e3651bb-79248369
John Oliver,
If you’re a Navy veteran, then you know America as leader of the free world because you were a piece of it. Your job spanned the globe. Or maybe working on the ground with locals makes a difference. Maybe serving post-Cold War makes a difference, too.
Your suggestions are general policy goals. None of them is an applied solution for the specific Saddam problem.
Place yourself in Bush’s shoes at the decision point. Maybe you secretly curse at your father for not resolving Saddam in 1991 and leaving a mess that was dumped on Clinton who dumped it on you, still unresolved and worse for wear. Maybe you wish the US could retire the Carter Doctrine and Reagan Corollary to the Carter Doctrine that prompted your father to intervene with Iraq in the first place. None of that changes the festering Saddam problem and the short set of options that were all harsh even before 9/11. But before 9/11, you could at least kick the can, keep up the ‘containment’ charade, and watch Iraq for an “imminent” conventional military threat. 9/11 changed the threat calculation and took away that option.
What do you do about noncompliant Saddam with Clinton’s warning, “Heavy as they are, the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors; he will make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them.”?
What do you do with Iraq after Saddam’s final refusal to comply triggers the last enforcement measure?
leejcaroll,
“Prairie Rose I think people feel there is nothing we can do about it.”
This is sad and scary because what it entails is that the government “of the people, by the people, for the people” is gone. If people feel this way then they won’t act, and I want people to act. The system as it stands now is not in our collective best interest–it is in the best interest of the politicians and corporatists, as is often discussed here.
“I think the electorate understands this and at the end of the day put their hands up, say well that is always the way it is in the primaries, and go on their way to picking one of the 2 left standing.”
I think that is an accurate, but unfortunate, assessment (I was hoping you were more optimistic than I!). 🙂 But, if we continue picking one of the 2 left standing, then that is not a real choice and we’re stuck with power-hungry people whose character is questionable.
So, what would help people not feel helpless?
Could the 17th Amendment be repealed so more local leverage could be applied to senators?
Could redistricting rules be changed so people being elected are more moderate, reflecting a wider cross-section of viewpoints and hopefully preventing partisanship?
Could the number of people a House Rep represents be decreased (and the number of House Reps increased) to more accurately reflect the growth in population, and, so people’s views don’t get washed out as easily?
What else should be repealed, amended or overturned? Do they require a Constitutional Convention (considering far too many politicians on the Hill are unlikely to vote against their own self-interest)?
I do not want to, or my country to, ‘go gentle into that good night’. I’m tired of the status quo.
Eric,
You say I’m being evasive but what do we accomplish with the three things I suggested? What position does this put us in with the region when we are no longer dependent on their cooperation? If we are to regain this so-called modern heritage as leader of the free world (where is this definition found?) then eliminate ALL characteristics of the follower we have become today.