BBC (early Wednesday): Rumsfeld agreed (to) prisoner threats (Gitmo)

[Jack Rabbit]

From the BBC Online
Dated Wednesday June 23 03:01 GMT (Tuesday 8:31 pm PDT)

Rumsfeld agreed prisoner threats

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the use of aggressive tactics to frighten Guantanamo Bay detainees, according to newly-released documents.
These included stripping prisoners, forcing them into stress positions and harassing them with dogs.
But the methods, approved in December 2002, were rescinded weeks later.
The Bush administration has released hundreds of secret documents which it says show interrogation methods in Cuba fell well short of torture.

Read more.

[aquart]

1. Well, let's do them TO them, and see if they still feel that way.

[Cha]

2. Doesn't that just sound like our ol'

rummy.. from all we have come to learn about his wonderful personality?

[demoman123]

3. This is what is known as a 'limited hang out.'

A term from the Nixon administration meaning a partial admission in lieu of a full disclosure. Or: pleading guilty to a lesser charge.

[Jack Rabbit]

4. An observation

Rummy says what he approved fell short of torture. He probably thinks anything short of an iron maiden isn't torture.

[MetaTrope]

5. Did they ever find the body of that soldier who disappeared from Gitmo

early on?

[TahitiNut]

6. So ... just what is an "illegal order" anyway?

Maybe I'm just dense, but it sure seems to me that the Busholini Regime has printed up a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card for every member of the military, and possibly any "contractor" as well, charged with abusing detainees at any of the couple of dozen concentration camps this regime is now running. Let me see if I understand this.

An "illegal order" is one that's contrary to UCMJ and the pertinent laws, both domestic and international, that the UCMJ holds sovereign. The Executive Branch is solely vested with enforcement, not enactment nor interpretation, of laws. Yet the Executive Branch, particularly in both the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense, has established as the policy of the Executive Branch that the Commander in Chief can, without breaking the law, order treatment of "detainees" consistent with the treatment that has resulted in courts martial of some enlisted folks.

Now, unless they were specifically ordered not to treat these prisoners in the ways they did, just what can they be convicted of? After all, if that treatment can be ordered at all, then it must be "legal," right? Doing something without a specific order is usually called "initiative" in the military. So, if it's not illegal and it's not contrary to an order ... what's the government's case?

Furthermore, it seems to me, if the people (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Gonzalez, et. al.) who've opened this Pandora's Box aren't prosecuted, they've permanently established the permissable nature of this treatment of prisoners except in cases where, by order, it's specifically prohibited. But it's not generally regarded as 'illegal' anymore once the CinC claims he can order it. (After all, in this regard the CinC is as subject to what's legal or illegal as anyone else, right?)

When DimSon repeatedly claims he didn't order the torture of prisoners, he's specifically avoiding the fact that he didn't prevent or prohibit it, either.

Notice that Rumsfeld didn't prohibit it either ... he said it was OK in early December 2003 and then "withdrew his permission" on January 15. This clearly sent the message it was "legal" ... because the SecDef wouldn't do something illegal, would he?

In other words, they LIHOP ... even more far-reaching than 9/11, methinks.

[Jack Rabbit]

7. TN, you're a vet and I'm a vet

So we know what we're talking about.

As a supporter of international law (including the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court), I do not believe that grunts should be routinely brought before an international tribunal, nor do I desire that. If there is enough wrongdoing to be thought widespread and the commanders of those troops do nothing, it should be clear that the policy of commanders or their government is to permit war crimes to persist. In that instance, it is the commanders or government officials who should answer for war crimes.

It is a specious defense for commanders or government officials charged with war crimes that private soldiers are obligated to disobey an illegal order. We who have served in the military know that one is also trained to obey orders without question and we are aware that military discipline breaks down when orders from superiors are questioned. Consequently, in a military environment, it is the superiors who must bear the greater responsibility for heinous acts against prisoners of war or other protected persons carried out by the Lynndie Englands and Charlie Graners of the world. They did what they were told to do as they were shown how to do it. Normally, that is how a soldier gets a good EER and gets promoted to the next pay grade.

If commanders don't want to have their orders challenged by a tribunal, they must take responsibility not to give illegal orders. If the civilian authorities don't want their policies to be characterized as war crimes, they should be more clear about adhering to international norms and conventions instead of circulating memos about how to bend or disregard them.

It is my view that the memo prepared by Mr. Gonzalez and others are exhibits for a possible prosecution of Bush and his aides, including those who prepared these memos, for war crimes. It is a prima facie case. It would be preferable for Mr. Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld and others responsible for this policy to be indicted and tried in a federal court, but if the US government is unwilling or unable to do so, then an international tribunal should be convened for that purpose.


Reference: Who is Responsible? by Jack Rabbit, Democratic Underground. May 11

[TahitiNut]

11. The Nuremberg defense can only be prohibited (imho) if ...

... those who give such orders or proclaim such an order to be legal (by proclaiming their authority to give such an order) are themselves prosecuted and punished to a greater degree than the troops who act under such the guise of such legitimacy (i.e. not an 'illegal order.').

The point is this: The troops in the field cannot in equity be held to a higher standard of law than the commanders up to and including the CinC.

A failure to prosecute and convict those in command positions for promulgating such violations of international law, in effect and in equity, precludes the prosecution of junior military personnel (and agents). It only worked at Nuremberg because the Nazi command was itself prosecuted and punished! That's the only thing that invalidates the Nuremberg Defense.

We're beyond the hypothetical or theoretical. This cannot be partisan. This is now real and present. It's inarguable that such actions have taken place and punishment for acts that this administration claims authority to permit have been applied.

A failure to impeach, prosecute, convict, and punish the members of this administration who, by proclaiming themselves having the authority to order such treatment of prisoners, have established a de facto (extralegal) legitimacy to such behavior.


On edit: I have always believed Lt. Calley was a "fall guy." Few of us were unaware of the impact inherent in the command authority to designate an area as a "free fire zone." Further, few of us were unaware that My Lai was not anomalous - on both sides: NVA/VC and US/ARVN. That no member of the US command was prosecuted is an abomination.

[Frances]

8. When I turned on CNN this morning

the scroll at the bottom of the screen said that Pres Bush ordered that prisoners be treated humanely

So what did all those memos advocating torture mean?

Did CNN mean to say humane torture?

[Jack Rabbit]

9. In the memos

EDITED for typing

In the memos, Bush said he wants US actions to be consistent with the Geneva Conventions and the Convention ageist Torture. However, just as we are now caught up in how he defines a "relationship" between Saddam and al Qaida, we can get caught up in what he meant by "torture". He might have meant anything other than the rack or the iron maiden is not torture.

The fact is that most people would regard what happens inside most of these semi-secret detention facilities he set up for the war on terror to be torture. Threatening such acts may be construed as torture. Bush and his aides will have to answer for that.

Moreover, the term illegal combatant or unlawful combatant is not found in international law. The catch-all term is protected person. If one is not a prisoner of war under the Third Geneva Convention, then one is a protected person under the Fourth Geneva Convention. The rights of prisoners of war and detained protected persons are very similar; either way, they are being violated. In any case, the Third Geneva Convention specifies that a competent court is to rule on the status of any detainee and one taken in combat is to be considered a POW until such a ruling is handed down. Note that this is a judicial, not an executive, decision.

Since there has been no court ruling on the status of any detainee in Guantanamo, they are all Prisoners of War until a court rules otherwise. In short, Mr. Bush's order establishing the status of of detainees by executive fiat is a violation of the Third Geneva Convention on its face.

[TahitiNut]

10. It means that such treatment, according to Bush*, is no longer ...

... inherently illegal. In presenting this "opinion," the Busholini Regime has opened the LIHOP floodgates and proclaimed that the only thing that inhibits US military personnel (or other agents of the US government) from torturing anyone proclaimed (without due process, of course) to be an 'illegal combatant' (an undefined term) is the (temporary) order of the pResident to treat such people humanely.

It's essential that we take note of the extralegal posture this madminstration takes - it's an Imperial posture, one which annoints the Head of State judicial powers unconstrained by either precedent or established law. This is no longer hypothetical. It's real and, absent charges and prosecution, permanently moves the US into an outlaw status internationally.

Thus, within the legal framework of the US, anyone who tortures such a prisoner can no longer be held responsible in any US court (civil or martial) for performing an inherently illegal act. (It cannot be inherently illegal if the CinC proclaims he has the authority to order such treatment since the CinC is not a law maker but a law enforcer.) Indeed, no such order in the field can be deemed an 'illegal order' anymore since the CinC and SecDef have demonstrated and proclaimed that they can legally give such orders. Since they are bound by the very same laws as troops (and agents) in the field, such an order (if allowed to go unprosecuted) cannot be inherently illegal.

In my view (IANAL), this establishes the absolute necessity to impeach and prosecute (not merely defeat in an election) the pResident and SecDef for war crimes. A failure to do so at this time merely legitimizes their policy position and makes the US an outlaw nation.

[bearfan454]

12. Good point.

They are trying to make this permanent.

[TahitiNut]

13. One could validly argue that the Congress, ...

... both Republicans and Democrats, in avoiding impeachment, prosecution, and criminal convictions, are totally complicit in making the US an outlaw state.

This is a behavior, at the highest levels of our government, worse than the behavior of (for example) the Ramparts Division of the LAPD. It's a criminal abuse of power and widespread corruption.

[ninkasi]

14. I agree

We have, in fact, become an outlaw nation. Bush has decided that whatever he wants to do is legal, and that nobody...not the U.N., not the Congress, not the people...nobody can dispute the validity of what he chooses to do.

In order to again become a civilized nation, and regain any shred of respect, we need to bring legal proceedings against him and his thugs, imprison them, and pray that this nation never again sinks to the level of barbarity we have suffered under this unelected sociopath.

[struggle4progress]

15. kick for setting dogs on naked prisoners