How the World Sees Jack Bauer

Amar Bakshi investigates how the world sees Jack Bauer. For more on the real world impact of TV's portrayal of torture, check out HRF's Primetime Torture project.

NYT: Support the Troops by Ending Detainee Abuse

Today's New York Times editorial page reacts to the accountability gap remaining after the verdict this week in the last of the Abu Ghraib trials:

The need to be honest about Abu Ghraib and correct the abuses at military and C.I.A. prisons is not only about upholding the law and American values. It is about the safety of American soldiers. Every right the United States denies to its detainees may one day be denied to Americans captured in wartime. Every abuse the United States visits on detainees increases the risk of American soldiers being abused in foreign prisons.

If humanity and law are not reasons enough to end the detainee abuse, then it should be done for the cause that Mr. Bush invokes daily: supporting the troops.

Up to Us to End Torture

In today’s Village Voice, Nat Hentoff suggest sending Leave No Marks, the joint Human Rights first and Physicians for Human Rights Report that shows how the Bush Administrations so-called “enhanced” interrogations techniques are tantamount to torture to the Justices on the Supreme Court. He finishes his piece by asking the questions we at Elect to End Torture ’08 are asking.

If the conscience of a majority on the Roberts Court isn't shocked by what we've
done to our prisoners, then it will be up to the next president and the next Congress—and, therefore, up to us—to alter, in some respects, how history will judge us. But do you see any considerable signs, among average Americans, of the conscience being shocked? How about the presidential candidates of both parties?

The report Hentoff mentions, Leave No Marks, is online here.

Abu Ghraib Accountability Gap

Yesterday’s verdict in the trial of Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan means that no one in the Army’s upper ranks will be imprisoned for the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in 2003. As HRF’s Hina Shamsi told the AP: ''None of the cases brought to date has given the systemic accounting the nation needs of what happened, why and how far up the chain of command responsibility lies.”

HRF’s Washington Director, Elisa Massimino also weighed in in today’s Washington Post:

"This was the one that everyone was waiting for, and more than anything else,
the trial and verdict in this case demonstrates that there is an enormous
accountability gap left," Massimino said. "They have almost completely missed
the real point."

Did Chertoff lie to Congress about Guantánamo?

Mark Benjamin at Salon wants to know.

HRF's Hina Shamsi tells Benjamin: "If Mr. Chertoff is nominated, the Senate needs to ask him some very tough questions about what he knew about the abuses at Guantánamo."

The Gonzales Legacy of Torture and Cruel Treatment of Detainees

While the scandal immediately preceding the departure of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales from the Justice Department centered on the firing of U.S. Attorneys, today’s papers spell out the misguided poicies of torture and cruel treatment Gonzales leaves as his legacy.

Here’s National Public Radio:

Out of that quiet counsel emerged the policy that enemy combatants could be held indefinitely without access to a lawyer, and the policy that detainees captured in Afghanistan were not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions. Gonzales helped create the so-called "torture memo," which allowed harsh interrogation tactics that some people considered torture.

"All of these policies were legally suspect at best, and certainly deeply damaging to U.S. interests, both as a matter of human rights and as a matter of national security," says Princeton scholar Deborah Pearlstein, who was then director of the U.S. Law & Security Program at Human Rights First.

And more on the Gonzales legacy of torture and cruel treatment from:

L.A. Times

Boston Globe

Washington Post

New York Times.

And in commentary in the San Francisco Chronicle:

As early as January 2005, a dozen retired generals and admirals publicly opposed Gonzales' nomination for the post of U.S. attorney general, declaring that "U.S. detention and interrogation operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere ... have fostered greater animosity toward the United States, undermined our intelligence-gathering efforts, and added to the risks facing our troops serving around the world."

Jordan Paust, a former member of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps, recently wrote that "not since the Nazi era have so many lawyers been so clearly involved in international crimes concerning the treatment and interrogation of persons detained during war."

Military Lawyers Object to the Double Standard on Detainee Treatment

This weekend the Boston Globe reported on a meeting last month between the military’s top lawyers and several Republican Senators in which the JAGs told the Senators that President Bush’s July 20 executive order on the treatment of CIA prisoners appears to be carefully worded to allow humiliating or degrading interrogation techniques. The JAGs seem downright alarmed about the potential for the abusive practices to spread from the CIA and undermine the higher standards of the Army Field Manual.

The top JAG for the US Army, Major General Scott C. Black, followed up on the meeting this month by sending a memo to lower-ranking soldiers reminding them that Bush's executive order applies only to the CIA, not to military interrogations. Black told soldiers they must follow Army regulations, which "make clear that [the Geneva Conventions are] the minimum humane treatment standard" for prisoners.

"This Executive Order does not change the standard for the Army. . . . I want to ensure that there is no confusion concerning the Executive Order's lack of applicability to the Army," Black wrote in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by the Globe. "As a Corps, we must be diligent to ensure that all interrogation and detention operations comply with the Army standard."

Gonzales Goes

Alberto Gonzales is out as Attorney General. Human Rights First opposed his confirmation. Here’s a video explaining why.

Abu Ghraib Trial Fails to Close the Accountability Gap

In today’s Washington Post, Dana Milbank illustrates how the trial of Army Lt. Col. Steven Jordan currently taking place at Fort Meade isn’t shedding any more light on the policies, circumstances, or events that led to the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Unable or unwilling to find a higher-ranking officer to prosecute, the generals who ordered the charges against Jordan would have had a big PR problem if they hadn't brought any officer before a court-martial for the Abu Ghraib abuse. A higher-ranking officer from the prison in Iraq, Col. Thomas Pappas, ended up with a reprimand and a fine, though he admitted approving the use of dogs in interrogations.

But the 51-year-old Jordan, portly and bespectacled, wasn't an ideal choice: He isn't in the infamous photographs from Abu Ghraib, and he had nothing to do with interrogations there; the most serious surviving charge against himis that he spoke about the investigation after being ordered not to -- and even that unraveled in court yesterday.

The accountability gap described here is nothing new. In February 2006, Human Rights First released a report, Command’s Responsibility, which describes more than 20 cases where prisoners died in U.S. custody to illustrate both the failures in investigation and in accountability that have followed these incidents. Among the cases examined in the report is that of Manadel al-Jamadi, whose death became public during the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal when photographs depicting prison guards giving the thumbs-up over his body were released; to date, no U.S. military or intelligence official has been punished criminally in connection with Jamadi’s death.

Is there a loophole in the American Psychological Association’s anti-torture resolution?

Does the new resolution passed by the American Psychological Association on the interrogation of detainees contain a loophole allowing psychologist to continue to participate in brutal CIA interrogations? Mark Benjamin surveys the criticism directed at the new policy in Salon.

What's at stake with the APA's role was made clear when President Bush signed a new executive order last month reauthorizing the CIA interrogation program: The White House emphasized that all interrogations would be overseen by medical officials, as a way of ensuring the safety of prisoners. Since doctors and psychiatrists have ruled themselves out as professional groups, that leaves the psychologists to do the work. And some of them worry that the APA's latest position will still allow the abuse of detainees psychologically, so long as the pain doesn't last too long.

Floridians Demand Answers on Torture

Because Human Rights First is a 501(c)(3) organization, there are legal limits on the kinds of information we can publish on this blog. For example, while we’re working to make ending torture and cruel treatment an issue in the 2008 presidential campaign, we won’t be able to post directly on what the presidential candidates are saying. However, the issue is clearly on voters’ minds. Here’s a brief write-up of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) getting grilled on a recent vote in his home state of Florida. You can bet that Florida voters will be asking the presidential candidates how they plan to put an end to torture and cruel treatment as November 2008 approaches.

Psychologists Join Lawyers in Opposing Administration’s “Enhanced” Interrogations

A week after American lawyers declared their opposition to the Bush Administration’s “enhanced” interrogation system, psychologists struck a second blow against the program. On Sunday, The American Psychological Association banned its members from taking part in interrogations that include mock executions, simulated drowning, sexual and religious humiliation, stress positions, sleep deprivation, the exploitation of prisoners' phobias, the use of mind-altering drugs, hooding, forced nakedness, the use of dogs to frighten detainees, exposing prisoners to extreme heat and cold, physical assault and threatening the use of such techniques against a prisoner or a prisoner's family. This resolution is significant because the Bush Administration left the door open for the CIA to employ some of these techniques in its July 20th executive order, and the Director of National Intelligence has sought to allay concerns about the program by asserting that the “enhanced” interrogation program is being conducted "under medical supervision." The APA voted against instituting a complete ban on participation in interrogations by its members.

A recent report by Human Rights First and Physicians for Human Rights shows that the techniques objected to on Sunday by the APA are violations of the law.

Another Voice Against Torture: John Donne

On the Harper’s blog, Scott Horton discusses a 1625 sermon delivered by John Donne opposing state-sponsored torture to make the case that opposing official cruelty is a moral and ethical position – not a partisan one. This is a point Elect to End Torture ’08 will be making from now until November 2008 as Americans of all political viewpoints come together to demand that the next president put an end to torture and official cruelty.

Michael Posner on the ABA's Strong Stand Against Torture and Official Cruelty

Here’s HRF President Michael Posner writing on the resolution recently passed by the ABA asking Congress to overturn the Bush Administration’s July 20th executive order that leaves the door open to torture and official cruelty by the CIA. The ABA’s strong anti-torture position is the latest evidence of the groundswell of support across the country for a change in policy and an end to torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The following piece was originally published in the Daily Journal.

By Michael Posner
August 16, 2007

On August 13, the American Bar Association passed a resolution urging Congress to enact legislation superseding a recent executive order that interpreted a provision of the Geneva Conventions that requires the humane treatment of detainees. That order gives the CIA latitude to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" — a euphemism for acts of official cruelty.

The United States has a proud history of requiring humane treatment of enemy prisoners, a tradition that dates back to the founding of our country. At the battle of Trenton in 1776, Gen. George Washington directed his troops to treat captured British soldiers "with humanity." Following World War II, the United States led the international effort to adopt the Geneva Conventions, including their important humane treatment provisions.

Given this proud history, how did our government come to authorize official cruelty and why do representatives of the administration continue to defend it? The answer, at least in part, goes back to the origins of what the administration calls the "global war on terror." Days after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration had staked out positions that the president, as commander in chief, needs virtually unbridled power to carry out a war that has no limits on time or place, against a broadly defined set of enemies.

While wartime presidents rightfully have been granted wide latitude to make military decisions in the past, the administration’s "global war on terror" goes well beyond that. Yes, the military response to root out the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan in 2001 was a war. But the arrest and criminal prosecution of al-Qaida shoe bomber Richard Reed in the United States was not. Unfortunately, the administration has sought to blur this distinction from the outset and has tried to frame the global war against terrorism in the broadest manner possible.

This resistance to legal constraints has been most profound in detention and interrogation policies. In early 2002, as the first detainees were transferred from Afghanistan to the detainment camp at Guantanamo Bay, the administration concluded that it would not afford the Geneva Convention’s prisoner of war protections to the Taliban or al-Qaida. While asserting that detainees would be treated "humanely," the administration indexed that treatment to what was considered "appropriate and consistent with military necessity" — standards that have never been explained or defined.

In 2002, the administration signed off on abusive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo and at "black sites" — secret CIA detention facilities holding senior al-Qaida suspects. Extreme tactics were permitted on the proviso that they would not cause pain equivalent in intensity to "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."

Abusive interrogations became front-page news in the spring of 2004, with the release of photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, but the abuses have been more widespread and dramatic than just that incident. Since 2002, more than 100 people have died in U.S. custody in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. Based on the Pentagon’s own definitions, at least 34 of these cases are criminal homicides. None of those homicides took place at Guantanamo and only one occured at Abu Ghraib. Human Rights First has documented eight cases in which those held in U.S. custody were literally tortured to death.

Fortunately, both Congress and the courts have acted in accordance with their Constitutional mandates. In 2005, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act, which explicitly prohibited cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. In 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that Common Article 3, which contains the humane treatment provisions of the Geneva Conventions, applies to the conflict with al-Qaida. Following that decision, the U.S. military took a number of positive steps to implement the court’s requirements, most notably adopting a new Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogations.

The intent of the new Army Field Manual was to create a single, bright-line standard for the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. At stake, the Army has made clear, is not just the physical safety of prisoners detained by the United States, but of American service members as well. Almost 50 retired military leaders wrote President Bush last September, urging fidelity to Common Article 3, stating: "If degradation, humiliation, physical and mental brutalization of prisoners is decriminalized or considered permissible … we will forfeit all credible objections should such barbaric practices be inflicted upon American prisoners."

Sadly, the administration continues to resist this standard. The July executive order contains a number of provisions that provide the CIA with greater latitude to stray from the Common Article 3 humane treatment standard. The order ignores Sen. John McCain’s reminder during the debate on the Military Commissions Act that while creating regulations for interrogations, the "President is bound by the Conventions themselves."

The ABA’s advocacy of legislation that supersedes the executive order is a clarion call for the restoration of legal guidelines and moral clarity. Guaranteeing the minimum protections of humane treatment for all detainees would be a significant step forward. The U.S. government must uphold a single standard by which all U.S. personnel, including members of the CIA and private contractors, are allowed to interrogate and treat enemy detainees.

As Congress takes these issues up in the fall, the ABA’s strong, principled leadership is a welcome reaffirmation of the legal community’s commitment to the rule of law.

Congress would do well to listen.

Michael Posner is the president of Human Rights First in New York City.

AP: Senator Wyden Blocks Nomination Over CIA Interrogation Program Concerns

Senator Says He Will Block C.I.A. Nomination

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A Democratic senator said he would indefinitely block President Bush’s nominee to become the C.I.A.’s top lawyer. “I’m going to keep the hold until the detention and interrogation program is on firm footing, both in terms of effectiveness and legality,” said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. Mr. Wyden said he was troubled that John Rizzo, who is the Central Intelligence Agency’s interim general counsel, did not object to a 2002 memo authorizing interrogation techniques that stop just short of inflicting pain equal to that accompanying organ failure or even death. Mr. Wyden also said he was concerned that an executive order issued last month by Mr. Bush did not clarify legal guidelines regarding detentions and interrogations.

American Psychologists Debate Their Role in CIA Program

Salon previews the conflict expected to arise at this weekend’s American Psychological Association conference over whether APA members can continue to play a role in the CIA’s “enhanced” interrogation program. The APA has come under fierce criticism after news of psychologists’ participation in the development and use of harsh interrogation techniques came to light. This weekend, the APA will consider a resolution condemning specific practices, but many members want the organization to go further and place a moratorium on psychologist participation in the entire CIA program. Since the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, has said that the CIA program is proceeding "under medical supervision," and doctors and psychiatrists have already ruled out their own participation, the position of the APA has the potential to impact the CIA program. Of course, as Mark Benjamin, the author of the piece, notes, given that the CIA won’t comment on its interrogation program, “whatever happens, it will be done in secret.”

Deliberations Begin in the Padilla Trial

As jurors in the Padilla case begin deliberations today in Miami, check out this excellent 3-part series currently running the Christian Science Monitor. Warren Richey provides a chilling look at the alleged mistreatment suffered by Padilla in U.S. custody and explores what this case could mean for the American legal system.

Beyond Padilla terror case, huge legal issues
His detention and interrogation in the US raises basic constitutional questions.

US Gov't broke Padilla through intense isolation, say experts
Despite warnings, officials used 43 months of severe isolation to force Jose Padilla to tell all he knew about Al Qaeda.

US terror interrogation went too far, experts say
Reports find that Jose Padilla's solitary confinement led to mental problems.

ABA Votes No on "Enhanced" CIA Interrogation

An article in today’s L.A. Times covers the nearly unanimous vote by the American Bar Association yesterday disapproving of the executive order issued this past July by the Bush Administration which allows the CIA to continue to use “enhanced” interrogation methods. From the San Francisco ABA conference:

Barbara Berger Opotowsky, executive director of the New York City Bar Assn., said the order was clearly "inconsistent with U.S. obligations" under Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, which requires humane treatment of detainees.

"The use of official cruelty has repeatedly been shown to be far from the best means of extracting truthful information," said Opotowsky, who proposed the resolution. She noted that a U.S. Army field manual on intelligence interrogations issued last September barred the controversial interrogation techniques that will be available to the CIA."Unfortunately, the executive order sets a lower standard for the CIA," she said.

Memphis lawyer Albert Harvey, a retired Marine major general, also spoke in favor of the resolution, which passed by voice vote with only a single "nay" registering in the large meeting hall at the Moscone Center here.

"When we put our troops in harm's way, we expect other countries to treat our soldiers humanely. We can do no less," said Harvey, who heads the Bar Assn.'s Standing Committee on Law and National Security.

On more than one occasion, speakers at the conference referenced a powerful take-down of the current policy written by P.X. Kelley, a former Marine commandant, and Robert Turner of the University of Virginia's Center on Law and National Security, both longtime supporters of Bush Administration policies. Their piece, published in the Washington Post, explains that they could not support the executive order because it allows the CIA to engage in “willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse.”

For more information on how the techniques allowed by the July 20th executive order are prohibited by U.S. law and could subject U.S. officials who authorize or use them to criminal prosecution, check out the joint Human Rights First and Physicians for Human Rights report, “Leave No Marks,” online here.