More Torture.

From Ha'aretz, via American Street:

"The Central Intelligence Agency declined Wednesday to comment on a Haaretz report that it is holding 11 susepcted senior Al-Qaida members in Jordan, the BBC reported.

Haaretz has learned from international intelligence sources that the CIA is running a top-secret interrogation facility in Jordan, where the detainees - considered Al-Qaida's most senior cadre - are being held. ...

Their detention outside the U.S. enables CIA interrogators to apply interrogation methods that are banned by U.S. law, and to do so in a country where cooperation with the Americans is particularly close, thereby reducing the danger of leaks.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, the CIA was granted special permission by the U.S. law enforcement authorities to operate "other laws" at the secret facility with regard to interrogation methods.

Detainees are subjected to physical and psychological pressure that includes the use of simulated drowning, loud music, sleep deprivation, and sensory deprivation. Some of these methods were exposed with the revelation of torture techniques used by American interrogators at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. ...

The 46-page Human Rights Watch report levels harsh criticism at the U.S. administration for using "undisclosed locations" and "disappearing" prisoners.

The report charges that the U.S. thereby is in breach of all international conventions, including the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war, by refusing prisoners access to the Red Cross or their families.

The report contends that American operatives detained Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's children to serve as "hostages" through which to pressure their father into cooperating.

The prisoners were subjected to severe torture, the report states."

I have no particular fondness for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or Abu Zubaydah. I do, however, care a lot about my country and its principles. I want us to be more than 'not as bad as the terrorists', or 'not as bad as Saddam Hussein'. I want America to be the country it could be: one that doesn't just talk about the rule of law but lives by it; that sticks to its principles not just when it's easy but all the time; that lives up to the ideals it was founded on. I want us, when we give our word or sign a treaty, to live up to it, not just to decide on our own initiative that a treaty we have signed is "quaint", and therefore that we can discard it at will. I want to live in a country where, when elected officials decide that a law is burdensome, they change it rather than setting up shop in a foreign country where, in their eyes, they can act outside the law. I want to live in a country that other people look up to not just because it's powerful, but because it deserves their respect. The actions described in this story are not those of such a country. If this was the only time this administration had acted in a way that forfeits my country's claim to respect, that would be bad enough. But, of course, it is not. Our moral authority took generations to build, and this administration squanders it daily.

Comments

[Freder Frederson]

It is shameful that this does not get this does not get more attention. This is where we have lost our more our moral compass. I only hope that when Kerry is elected he has the courage to push endictments against the people, up to and including President Bush, who committed these war crimes.

[John Thullen]

Secretive governments breed paranoia. Thus I wonder how senior these people are in Al Qaeda, and if extremely senior, where have all the audio tapes of Al Qaeda threats been produced since 9/11?

From this facility?

Could this be why a certain someone no longer worries about the evil ones?

[Clark]

How's life in M-Town, Freder?

[dmbeaster]

This adds a new wrinkle added to the phrase, "9/11 changed everything."

[TwoTon]

I truly wish that Americans and the Human Rights Watch could focus on the real enemy and their evil acts...

I agree that our moral authority took years to build up and was paid for with the lives of many Americans. It saddens me that so many Americans here today at home do squander their sacrifices daily... and innocents pay the price for it.

Asia News
- KABUL, (AFP) Monday September 27, 2004

Mullah Ghafar was freed from the US prison in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba in February but soon rejoined the Taliban and led its deadly guerrilla operations in southern Afghanistan, Uruzgan governor Jan Mohammad Khan said.

Since his release he had launched several attacks against Afghan and coalition forces in Uruzgan and surrounding provinces, killing an engineer working for the United Nations and at least three Afghan soldiers in separate ambushes, the governor alleged.

Tuesday 12 October 2004, 23:30 Makka Time, 20:30 GMT

A Pakistani rebel leader has refused to meet a council of tribal elders trying to secure the release of two Chinese captives held by his group.

Abd Allah Masud said on Tuesday he would not negotiate unless his men holding the Chinese engineers were allowed to leave their besieged base with the captives

The elders reached Masud's hideout after midday on Tuesday only to be told that the leader would not speak to them until his demands were met by the government, a local official said.

The delegation was hoping to persuade Masud, who was freed from the US' Guantanamo Bay detention centre in March this year after spending 25 months there, to drop threats to kill the captives and release them.

Maybe we could focus on the real bad guys who we know are doing real bad things???

[hilzoy]

Two-Ton: is it your view that when our government violates its treaty obligations and our laws, that is not a "real" bad thing? Or that we don't get to criticize anything unless it is the single worst thing in the world?

As I said, I don't think that 'better than the terrorists' is the standard we should be aiming for. Like President Bush, I don't believe in "the soft bigotry of low expectations."

[Bernard Yomtov]

I get the feeling from some of these reports that torture is really being used as punishment, and not as an interrogation tool.

If so, does the Eighth Amendment apply?

It says, in toto:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Nothing about applying only to citizens, or residents; no geographic restrictions. In my wholly inexpert reading, it seems to restrict the government without regard to who the potential victim of the cruel and unusual punishment might be, or where it might be inflicted. Why, now that I think of it, wouldn't this ban torture even for interrogation?

Perhaps Katherine touched on this and I missed it. If not, I'd be curious to read comments.

[Katherine]

Bernard: the Constitution applies to non-citizens but not beyond the borders of the U.S. (otherwise torture in interrogation would be Right Out because of the due process clause and the self incrimination clause of the fifth amendment.)

There is some debate about what constitutes the borders of the U.S.--an airport? Guantanamo?--but a few CIA officers' presence in a Jordanian jail does not qualify by almost any definition.

Kidnapping family members, eh? For the 300th time, I wonder how anyone still takes seriously Bush's rhetoric on his respect for freedom and fundamental human rights.

[Lyndon]

The interesting thing is that this is hardly new. Read 'Rogue State', the US has been training/sanctioning/commiting these sort of inhuman acts for years.

[LJD]

I question information that comes from newspapers, like the Haaretz, and escpecially the BBC. Their bias has been clear for years.
It is very interesting how Americans are so willing to take such information as fact, without any substantiation from the source. Why do Americans hate their country so much?
Why not turn over American foreign policy to the U.N. Then we would never have any problems. Oops, except maybe the oil-for-food program, the genocide in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sudan, ......