| Scapegoating the small-fry
Guest Opinion
By Ray McGovern
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The news that yet another Army private, Lynndie England,
22, of Fort Ashby, West Virginia, has been convicted
and sentenced for posing for the infamous photos of
torture at Abu Ghraib, while her superiors duck responsibility,
is a sad commentary on the extent to which the Bush
administration has corrupted the US Army. |
The reminder of the photos of those inexcusable activities
was sickening enough, and England deserves to be punished.
But I am of the old-Army school where officers took responsibility
for the actions of those under their command. For anyone who
cares to look, there is abundant documentary evidence that
the Army brass and its civilian leadership are responsible
for the torture. They continue to dance away from taking responsibility.
They choose, instead, to stone the woman, like the hypocrites
of Bible fame, contending that the photos inflamed the insurgency
in Iraq. It is the torture, not the photos, that inflames
the insurgency. And responsibility for the torture reaches
directly up the chain of command to the commander-in-chief
himself. Perhaps when even more repulsive photos and videos
of torture at Abu Ghraib are released, as a federal judge
has now ordered, the American people finally will be jarred
awake.
So far, the silent acquiescence with which Americans - including
our institutional churches - have greeted President George
W. Bush's open assertion of a right to torture some prisoners
evokes memories of the unconscionable behavior of "obedient
Germans" of the 1930s and early 1940s. Thankfully, despite
the hate whipped up by administration propagandists against
people branded "terrorists," polling conducted last
year showed that most Americans reject torturing prisoners.
Almost two-thirds held that torture is never acceptable.
Yet few speak out - perhaps because President Bush says he
too, is against torture, and our domesticated media have successfully
hidden from most of us the fact that the president has added
a highly significant qualification. On February 7, 2002, the
president issued an order instructing our armed forces "to
treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and
consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent
with the principles of Geneva" (emphasis added). In the
preceding paragraph, the president determined that Taliban
and al-Qaeda detainees "do not qualify as prisoners of
war." Never mind that there is no provision in the Geneva
Conventions for such a unilateral determination.
Speedy Gonzales
In taking this position, Bush had to overrule then-Secretary
of State Colin Powell, the only one of his senior advisers
with experience in combat. On January 26, 2002, Powell sent
to then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales formal comments
on the latter's MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT: "DECISION
RE APPLICATION OF THE GENEVA CONVENTION ON PRISONERS OF WAR
TO THE CONFLICT WITH AL QAEDA AND THE TALIBAN."
This is the Mafia-like memorandum in which Gonzales not only
branded some Geneva provisions "quaint" and "obsolete,"
but also reassured the president that he could probably escape
domestic criminal prosecution for violating the US War Crimes
Act of 1996 (18 USC 2441), as well. Here is what Gonzales
told the president on this key point: ... it is difficult
to predict the motives of prosecutors and independent counsels
who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted charges
based on Section 2441. Your determination would create a reasonable
basis in law that Section 2441 does not apply, which would
provide a solid defense to any future prosecution.
Meanwhile, back at the State Department, Powell apparently
thought the memorandum was still in draft. But Gonzales, who
knew what the president wanted, did not wait for Powell's
formal comments. Rather, on January 25, Gonzales sent his
final draft to the president, thereby shielding him from dissonance
like Powell's written observation that exempting detainees
from Geneva protections "will reverse over a century
of US policy and practice in supporting the Geneva conventions
and undermine the protections of the law of war for our troops."
Gonzales was already aware of Powell's opposition, and in
his own memo the former White House counsel and now attorney
general was dismissive of Powell's request that the president
reconsider the argument that al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees
are not prisoners of war under Geneva. In a short paragraph
tacked onto the bottom of a list of "negatives,"
Gonzales took brief note of Powell's objections. Gonzales's
paragraph speaks volumes in the light of subsequent abuses
in Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo:
A determination that the GPW [Geneva Convention on Prisoners
of War] does not apply to al-Qaeda and the Taliban could undermine
US military culture which emphasizes maintaining the highest
standards of conduct in combat, and could introduce an element
of uncertainty in the status of adversaries.
Last week, over a dozen high ranking military officers sent
a letter to President Bush, pointing out that "It is
now apparent that the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo
and elsewhere took place in part because our men and women
in uniform were given ambiguous instructions, which in some
cases authorized treatment that went beyond what was allowed
by the Army Field Manual."
A pity that Colin Powell limited himself to writing memos
to the president's lawyer.
The photos from Abu Ghraib, and the more recent Human Rights
Watch report describing "routine" torture by the
once highly professional 82nd Airborne Division, offer graphic
evidence that Powell's misgivings were well-founded. The report
relies heavily on the testimony of a West Point graduate,
an Army Captain who has had the courage to speak out after
17 months of trying in vain to go through Army channels.
Human Rights Watch Director Tom Malinowski has noted, "The
administration demanded that soldiers extract information
from detainees without telling them what was allowed and what
was forbidden. Yet when the abuses inevitably followed, the
leadership blamed the soldiers in the field instead of taking
responsibility." A Pentagon spokesman has dismissed the
report as "another predictable report by an organization
trying to advance an agenda through the use of distortion
and errors of fact." Judge for yourselves; the report
can be found at http://hrw.org/reports/2005/us0905/.
Grim but required reading.
Pictures Worth a Thousand Words
After seeing the photos from Abu Ghraib last year, Senate
Armed Forces Committee Chairman John Warner of Virginia took
a strong rhetorical stand against torture. But then he quickly
succumbed to White House pressure to postpone Senate hearings
on the subject until after the November 2004 election.
In July, Warner joined two other Republican Senators, John
McCain and Lindsey Graham, in attempts to introduce amendments
against torture to the defense authorization bill. The amendments
would require that US forces revert to the standards set forth
in Army Field Manual (FM 34-52) for interrogating detainees
held by the Defense Department. The manual prohibits the use
of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Another
amendment that has been discussed would require that all foreign
nationals "be registered with the International Committee
of the Red Cross." This would prohibit sequestering unregistered
"ghost detainees" at prisons like Abu Ghraib and
secret CIA interrogation centers.
Inured as I thought I had become to the gall of top Bush
administration officials, I found the White House reaction
shocking. On the evening of July 21, Vice President Dick Cheney
went to Capitol Hill to dissuade the three Senators from proceeding
with the amendments. But the Senators were not cowed - not
then, at least. Four days later on the floor of the Senate,
John McCain - who knows something of torture - made a poignant
appeal to his colleagues to hold our country to humane standards
in treating captives, "no matter how evil or terrible"
they may be. "This is not about who they are. This is
about who we are," said McCain.
The following day Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist pulled
the Pentagon spending bill off the floor, sparing Bush the
political risk of vetoing the much needed defense authorization
bill simply because it included amendments requiring the protections
for detainees - protections already required not only by international
law but also by US criminal statute.
Yesterday, the White House again warned lawmakers not to
add any amendments on the treatment of detainees. It will
be interesting to see if, in the end, the Senators cave in
to White House pressure. For if they do, they will be providing
yet another congressional nihil obstat for the general approach
so succinctly voiced by the president to then-terrorism czar
Richard Clarke and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld in the White
House on the evening of 9/11. According to Clarke, the president
yelled, "I don't care what the international lawyers
say, we are going to kick some ass."
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