Below is my column today in USA Today on the torture report. This is the slightly longer version that ran on the Internet.
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As Shakespeare wrote in the Merchant of Venice, “truth will out.” The release of the report of the Senate Intelligence Committee was the long-awaited truth about one of this country’s most shameful chapters. Like water, truth has a way of finding its way out even against the determined obstruction. However, the question is what truth came out this week in the hundreds of pages of highly disturbing, and often disgusting, details of the “enhanced interrogation” program.
There are obvious “truths” about waterboarding being a crime and how torture is a poor vehicle for obtaining intelligence.
Then there are truths that are less obvious but equally clear in the pages of this report. Here are three such inconvenient truths that emerge from the Torture Report:
Truth #1: The CIA proved it is immune from legal restraints
As damaging as this report is to the reputation of the Agency, it reaffirms the underlying assumption that made the torture program possible: CIA officials enjoy effective immunity from the law.
The report details crimes that run gamut of the criminal code. It starts with torture itself that is not just a crime but a war crime. However, the report also details – and names some of those responsible – for destroying evidence, lying to Congress and obstructing investigations into the torture program. Former Director Michael V. Hayden is cited for actively telling employees to lie and for personally giving false information to Congress . CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin was expressly called on the Senate floor by Sen. Dianne Feinstein for giving false information to Congress. CIA General Counsel Scott Muller in 2003 is quoted as lying to the White House about the existence of videotapes on the interrogations. The report details false statement after false statement given by past directors and high-ranking officials to Congress, to the White House and to the American people. It also details how, after CIA were told about inquiries into the legality of the torture program, officials promptly ordered the destruction of video tapes to get rid of the evidence.
Yet, what did all of that prove? It proved that the CIA could commit all of these crimes, even war crimes, and not face a single federal charge. Not one. The only thing more chilling than the torture carried out in our name was the fact that it was carried out with utter impunity.
Truth #2: The Justice Department First Facilitated Torture And Then Obstructed Its Prosecution
One of the least discussed “truths” in this study is the ignoble role played by the Justice Department. During the Bush Administration, figures like Jay Bybee and John Yoo issued the infamous “torture memos” that gave legal cover for the programs. The only thing more tortured than the subjects was the legal authority used to justify their abuse. However, the report also details how the Bush and Obama administrations obstructed the investigation at every turn. Six months after Congress began to investigate the program and was demanding to interview key players, Attorney General Eric Holder suddenly announced the Justice Department’s own investigation under John Durham. As soon as the Justice Department investigation was announced, virtually every key player refused to speak with congressional investigators in light of the internal investigation. As expected, Durham later found that not a single crime could be found. Not in the destruction of evidence. Not in the false statements. Certainly not in the torture itself.
Holder and the Justice Department proved as much enablers as did their predecessors in the Bush administration. Soon after taking office, President Obama shocked many by going to the CIA and assuring employees that, despite his recognition of the torture, no one would be prosecuted. Holder and the Justice Department played as great a role in fulfilling that pledge as Justice did in facilitating the program itself.
Truth #3: Torture remains a question of effectiveness for many in government
Perhaps the most chilling truth is that the CIA and key American leaders continue to deny the very premise of both international and domestic laws. The key response of the CIA was to insist that the program was “effective” – the very rationale that is expressly rejected in the Convention Against Torture and other laws. It does not matter if torture was useful or productive. It is a war crime. We should know. We wrote that language saying that no nation can justify torture due to “exceptional circumstances” or effectiveness. Yet, the very agency that committed these crimes has continued to argue that those crimes were productive exercises.
The current debate over whether torture works reveals how far we have fallen as a nation in our view of this war crime. Not only does our embrace of torture threaten our own soldiers and citizens abroad, we have lost the moral high ground internationally. The truth is that torture could easily return to the United States so long as it is viewed as a practical question instead of a moral one.
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors.
Jill
“Do you agree with Obama when he said that “nobody is above the law”, even high ranking officials?”
= = =
In theory Obama is correct…
… Yet he shows a lack of action on this subject.
It appears that CIA agents ARE above the law…
Paul Schulte:
I realize that *some* of the things I mentioned are used in prisons, e.g., isolation, but if prisoners are being shackled in stress positions for days, deprived of sleep and, presumably, waterboarded, I will be more than happy to discuss representing them in whatever lawsuit seems appropriate.
But, even assuming that this a normal part of prison life and not an ongoing series of Eighth Amendment violations, can we agree that those prisoners have actually been tried and convicted of something, and thus have been found deserving of *punishment*?
It seems to me that if those things are tools of punishment, then by definition they are intended to be unpleasant and painful. Is there a principled distinction between those “enhanced interrogation techniques” and, say, the rack, the thumb-screw, or the [more modern] rubber hose? I think not.
Porkchop – there are any number of ‘innocent’ convicts who confessed after sleep deprivation by the local police department. I am sure they would love to have someone handle their appeal.
2 people paid $82,000,000.00 to pervert Justice…
… Taxpayer funded perversion no less!
Paul CS,
Do you agree with Obama when he said that “nobody is above the law”, even high ranking officials?
Jill – I do not agree with Obama because he has continually protected high ranking officials of his government. They are all special snowflakes.
@bigfatmike ~ If that was your brother, or father in that orange suit with a knife to their neck, you can honestly say that it’s an easy question. No, of course not?
That it’s a war crime?
http://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/iraq-security_.jpg?w=720&h=480&crop=1
“If that was your brother, or father in that orange suit with a knife to their neck, you can honestly say that it’s an easy question. No, of course not?
That it’s a war crime?”
I don’t see how torture could possibly make that situation better.
I would love to see either apprehension and prosecution, or military action against the perpetrators of these crimes.
Finally, I though one of the main points of law was to take action away from family members and others close to the victim in order to prevent irrational acts based on grief and desire for revenge.
If you believe the grief of those close to the victim should guide our actions they why stop with terrorists? Why not torture for ordinary crimes? I think your position leads to questions like ‘how many electric shocks for a mugging’, and ‘how long do we beat the murderer before execution’?
Dick Cheney is evil and deserves eternity in a level of hell even Dante couldn’t imagine.
Here’s candidate Obama: ““If I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in cover-ups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our constitution is nobody above the law,”
Gosh, he just found out and can’t seem to find anything to prosecute. Obama still engages in torture and he certainly covers it up and ignores anyone who covers it up. He only prosecutes those who expose torture.
At one time, the US population had largely repudiated torture. Obama lied about his stance on it because he knew his lies would help get him elected. So I am wondering what has happened to the people of the US now? Why are we so changed that we blithely accept torture as legal, normal and good?
2008 wasn’t so long ago that people elected a lying torturer because they thought he would end it. Propaganda works as long as people refuse to feel, to think, to reason, to question. We should reassess who we want to be as a nation. We did that in 2007, we repudiated torture. We can do that again.
Msjettexas:
I apologize. I should not have made my comment above. It was nasty and sexist. But I have become annoyed with the view that adherence to the rule of law is a malleable notion to be abandoned based upon our perception of an enemy. Torture is prohibited because, among other things, it is primarily an instrument of terror to control others. That is, it serves the same social function as a lynch mob. And it is worthy of the same level of contempt.
Mike A – what is the difference between torture then and bombing your enemy into submission?
A commenter way above said the following:
“davidm2575
Oxa, I’m open to considering waterboarding to be a crime of torture, but war itself seems to be a much bigger crime against humanity than waterboarding during a time of war. I’m still waiting for a Democrat to explain how waterboarding is torture but using drones to kill or maim unsuspecting targets is not. Sorry if I am a little slow in understanding this.”
–end-
I am not a Democrat but I will explain some differences between torture and using a drone to kill or maim unsuspecting targets. The folks at Nuremberg Trials (some were American conservatives like Justice Jackson) sorted this sort of thing out. A human being in custody who was an enemy could not be given an enema by his captors in order to make him talk or tell a lie that hurt his country. Captured enemy combatant could not be tortured. Human rights. On the other hand, legitimate bombing of an enemy land from the air which resulted in collateral damage to innocent civilians was not a violation of human rights. When we bombed German cities during the war we could justify the bombing by saying that we were going after war leaders, warriors, armament factories. When today we bomb a village in Afghanistan which has a terrorist residing therein and we kill his neighbors, we are still within the framework of collateral damage. A Democrat could probably explain it better but I am just a Barry Goldwater RepubliCon who thinks that we have a choice and not an echo.
In essence. Bombing a terrorist on his home ground is not the same as torture when you have that terrorist handcuffed to a chair in your prison and you are giving the enemy the enema or waterboarding him. Simple strokes for just plain folks and all that.
Oily, You keep juxtaposing torture and drones. They are the same thing-illegal war crimes. If you truly value the rule of law then you would oppose Obama/Bush’s torture and drone policy.
Msjettexas:
It is usually wise not to make life-and-death decisions, or determine war policy, while enduring a bout with the vapors.
Mike A – concerning your advise to Msjettexas, are you speaking from experience?
Thanks, Olly — I like to think that my comments are both profound and broadly applicable. 😉
ISIS is selling James Foley’s body for 1 million dollars!
Would anyone not torture these b@stards for that or for beheading him?
http://nypost.com/2014/12/11/isis-wants-1m-for-james-foleys-headless-body/
“Would anyone not torture these b@stards for that or for beheading him?”
Finally an easy question. No, of course not.
We have laws and the laws of war to deal with criminals that murder civilians – regardless of how depraved that murder might be. Why would anyone think that torture would make that situation better?
The question of torture to elicit information is, in my opinion, more difficult. But I have no trouble deciding that torture is a war crime.
“In any case the one thing that does not change is the ability of human beings to rationalize bad behavior.”
That would describe the RIL completely!
@Sandi Hemming ~ Your comment below is worth a re-post:
Watch these videos and not be sick and angry and want to do something is totally abnormal. It seems our laws, certainly in these attacks, protect the guilty and forget about anyone else.
After listening and reading more about this report, it’s incomplete. No interviews with people there, especially people with responsibility, makes it questionable. Not for all it says, but all it ignored. Urgency was the main point. Find out as much as you can as soon as you can. That was the duty to the American people.
We have discontinued many of the things objected to by the committee. That should have been the goal. Instead, the people who hate Bush are looking for trials and punishment. Their anger over torture is a cover for “we got him!” That is pitiful.
All of the things were known for years, as were the mistakes in ACA. The push for single-payer health care was more important than how the law was written. Congressional, House and Senate, responsibility for passing necessary, understandable laws was ignored. We’ve known for a long time what was going to happen to people who had been taking care of themselves all along.
The President lied, along with hundreds of his lemmings. And now DiFi accuses Republicans, with nothing to support her theory, of their intention to bury this information when they take responsibility of the Senate. She assumes the Republicans will manage the Senate as Reid has. I think she and all Democrats are in for some big surprises. Again, lie because she wants the information publicized. There was no concern that the minority on the committee had requested interviewing several witnesses with more complete information.
The harm this has done to our country is immeasurable. Senator Feinstein’s legacy will be torturing the citizens of the greatest country in the world for how they may be treated in the future, especially those who volunteer to protect us. I have usually experienced great respect for our country when abroad. It’s a shame the Senator didn’t feel any need to protect anyone.
For all of you who are so concerned about laws above people, has she committed any violation by releasing what was certainly very confidential?
Shame, shame on you Senator. You diminish the state I live in..
@Davidm2575
“I did notice, however, that in many of those cases there were other forms of torture used in addition to water, like burning the prisoner with lit cigarettes or beating them. Sometimes murder was involved. For example, one part reads: ‘They convicted Yuki of the charges that he tortured and murdered a civilian non-combatant, and sentenced him to life imprisonement [sic].’
“In one interview, the prisoner was asked if the waterboarding was painful. His reply was: ‘Not so painful, but one becomes unconscious. Like drowning in the water.’
“So how is it that we call this interrogation technique torture if it is not painful?”
You seem to imply that waterboarding alone just isn’t enough. I haven’t read that the CIA detainees were burned with cigarettes, but there were plenty of other “techniques” that were applied to them — isolation, loud music, sleep deprivation, shackling in stress positions, slapping across the face, pushing them forcefully into the wall, and more. Even if one were to grant your implied premise, it seems to me that you still have a losing argument, because our CIA interrogators apparently engaged in “waterboarding plus.”
Moreover, while suffocation by drowning or otherwise may not be “painful” in the same sense as being punched in the nose, I don’t think that there are very many people who would argue that it is in any sense pleasant or desirable — it is just the opposite. That was why it was used.
@ Paul Schulte
“porkchop – things change over time as well. When the Japanese War Crime Trials were going on homosexuality was illegal.”
A complete non sequitur.
In any case the one thing that does not change is the ability of human beings to rationalize bad behavior.
Porkchop – you have never worked in a prison setting have you? Everything you mention as being torture is part and parcel of the routine of prison. Unless you ask for an attorney, police will use sleep deprivation on you to obtain a confession. This is how many innocent people confess and later recant.
http://youtu.be/846VZr5ebhw
Part 2. Things get a bit heated. This great stuff!
http://youtu.be/ycZEr7hIwZc
A blast from the past, Professor Turley on Harball in 2009 discussing war crimes, torture, investigations and prosecutions. Part 1. Fascinating.
Now, we have a terminated “torture” program and an ongoing drone program; which program should be of immediate concern? Of course it would be the terminated ‘torture’ program because anything that happened 7 years ago is far more important to our national security than some current ‘drone’ program that is racking up confirmed kills of enemy combatants AND innocent civilians.
Jeff Silberman – “Jim22: Funny how our constitution does not suspend its protections for U.S. citizens who are suspected of mass murder. How do you explain that?
As far as your question about the unborn child, I suppose it depends if the father is a terrorist….”
“our constitution”
“U.S. citizens”
That’s how.
So you do believe in torturing the unborn to death. Got it.