Petition: Investigate Prisoner Abuse

by hilzoy

Wes Clark has drafted a petition calling on Sen. John Warner, the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to investigate the role of the Bush administration in the various prisoner abuse scandals. It reads:

"Chairman Warner:

I urge you to investigate the Bush Administration's role in the prisoner abuse and humiliation that has motivated our enemies in the war on terror and endangers the well-being of our fighting forces.

Today, the reports of abuse and humiliation at detainment facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba are distracting the world from focusing on winning the war on terror. Although the military chain of command seems to have properly investigated the role of its personnel and held accountable those in the wrong, the civilian leadership in this country has failed to do the same.

How can we win the war on terrorism, a fight for democracy and freedom in America and around the world, if we forsake the very principles and institutions for which we are fighting?

The laws of war are designed to regulate combat and to protect non-combatants from the violence and degradation of war. The conduct of this Administration may ultimately lead to a green-light for our enemies to torture our soldiers when captured -- we owe it to our men and women in uniform and their families to investigate.

I urge you to hold hearings and investigate the Bush Administration's role in the abuse and neglect of detainees. For the sake of our international reputation, and for the sake of our soldiers in the field, we can't afford to keep silent."

This is not a new issue for Clark. While his campaign had ended by the time the abuses at Abu Ghraib became public, he advocated US entry into the International Criminal Court not only because it was both the right thing and the smart thing to do, but because he thought that the idea that we needed to worry about holding the members of our armed forces to the standards of international law was insulting to them. He was horrified by the abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, both for the obvious reasons and because he loves the army he spent his life in, an army in which it was expected that everyone would follow the laws of war; and these abuses were opposed to everything he thought it stood for. As he writes in the letter that prefaces the petition:

"For generations, the United States has been a powerful voice of moral authority in the world. After World War II, we led the world in creating the Geneva Conventions and prosecuting war criminals at Nuremberg, and later became one of the first nations to ratify the Convention Against Torture. Even today, Slobodan Milosevic is being tried for war crimes thanks to a U.S.-led NATO air strike against his brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has squandered our legacy of moral leadership."

If you support such an investigation, you can sign the petition here. Thanks.

Comments

[cleek]

utterly OT: someone is trying to build a hotel on land currently owned by Justice Souter. guess how they want to get that land ?

[Spin Doctor]

If true, this is going to stoke the debate and raise the level of acrimony even more:

The UN has learned of "very, very serious" allegations that the United States is secretly detaining terrorism suspects in various locations around the world, notably aboard prison ships, the UN's special rapporteur on terrorism said.

While the accusations were rumours, rapporteur Manfred Nowak said the situation was sufficiently serious to merit an official inquiry.

The use of prison ships would allow investigators to interrogate people secretly and in international waters out of the reach of US law, British security expert Francis Tusa said.

"This opens the door to very tough interrogations on key prisoners before it even has been revealed that they have been captured," said Tusa, an editor for the British magazine Jane's Intelligence Review."

[dmbeaster]

Just another version of "ghost prisoners."

And US law would apply anyway to this US activity on these ships (and perhpas even the law of the flagged ship if not a US ship).

[Katherine]

There were rumors about the Diego Garcia at one point, which they seemed to deny vehemently enough that people believed them. But we already know there are secret CIA facilities that are much further beyond the reach of law than Guantanamo; why does it matter if they're on land or sea?

[liberal japonicus]

But we already know there are secret CIA facilities that are much further beyond the reach of law than Guantanamo; why does it matter if they're on land or sea?

I'm guessing because they can be moved, because (I don't think) there are any laws that specify jurisdiction in international waters (or the ones that exist are based on man o wars and pirates of the Barbary Coast) Furthermore, there is no problems like when a Karimov decides to shoot down protestors, leading to sticky questions. You don't want you torture cell geting shut down, you don't put it where someone can shut it down. US law does apply on US flagged ships, but who is going to enforce it? What if the ship is leased and is under a Panamaian flag?

As I said, I'm guessing on all this, but I've always been struck by the story told in _The Voyage of the Damned_ of the SS St Louis, and the Jewish refugees on board. This is just a guess, but I don't believe that the laws of the sea have been modified extensively, especially given the questions over offshore gambling.

[Nell]

So those in our government who ordered and executed this are literal outlaws.