All Blog Posts from Courtwatch

Although we came to learn about them five years apart, there is no separating in law or in fact the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib from the prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay or wherever else our government's agents used mock executions and power-drills during interrogation sessions of terror suspects.

Whether in Iraq or Cuba, whether at Gitmo, Bagram Air Force Base, Diego Garcia or at some secret prison, the odious conduct occurred around the same time (2003), came from the same dubious legal rationale (Bush-era torture memos), and ultimately upon its disclosure brought embarrassment, if not outright shame, to our diplomatic and public-relations efforts in the war on terrorism.

We've already processed through our court systems the men and women whose actions generated the Abu Ghraib scandal. At least 12 soldiers and civilians, including Lynndie England and Charles Graner, were found guilty or pleaded out their cases. Most of these ignominious people say they have been punished unfairly for the sins of their superior officers. Six years after the photos, we still do not know how high up goes this particular chain of command.

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He'll probably get overturned on appeal, but if and when he does, at least U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White will have gone down fighting and with candor.

The federal trial judge in Northern California declared late Friday in a 42-page ruling that a civil lawsuit against John Yoo could proceed, at least for the time being, to determine whether the torture-memo scoundrel can be held legally accountable for his role in authorizing and enabling the Bush Administration's odious torture policy.

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People far smarter than me have tried to psychoanalyze Dick Cheney to understand his motivations, both recent and past. Books have been written on the topic; talking head politicos have strained neck muscles arguing the matter before television cameras. But after watching Cheney’s terror-law speech on Thursday, and after reading his prepared remarks, let me humbly offer a theory that may explain both why he seems so creepy to so many and so right to some.

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Let’s assume the worst about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her rough re-entry into the national debate over Bush Administration torture tactics. Even though she vigorously disputes this, let’s assume that she knew back in 2002 that the Central Intelligence Agency was performing water-boarding and other “enhanced” interrogation tactics upon terror suspects. Let’s assume Rep. Pelosi said nothing for years even as those policies crumbled under the weight of their own illegalities and immoralities.

This makes her a hypocrite, a coward and probably a liar (not exactly a new or rare trifecta in Washington). It neutralizes her as a weapon the Democrats may choose to employ as some (but not all) Republicans eagerly seek to distance themselves from the disastrous policy. It paints her as part of the problem and not part of the solution, which is the kinder way of saying what many GOP leaders were saying about Pelosi as the week wore on. It also helps educate us all about the routine interaction between parties on sensitive intelligence matters.

But what Pelosi’s complicit silence does not do is exonerate the men who drafted the torture memos and the men and women who authorized them to do so. Their degree of culpability for this mess is an order of magnitude more profound than is Pelosi’s. She did not conjure up the dangerous legal theories used by John Yoo, Jay Bybee, Alberto Gonzales, and Steven Bradbury to justify the shift in policy. She didn’t decide to call off FBI interrogators (whom we now know were successful) and replace them with dark CIA operatives (whom we now know were not).

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There is no justice in the world. John Yoo, the disgraced architect of the Bush Administration’s odious torture policies, has been rewarded for his infamy with a job writing columns for the Philadelphia Inquirer. There are a dozen other people, journalists and scholars alike, who have covered the legal war on terror with dignity and candor and insight and integrity. But the Inky instead chose Yoo to continue to spew his twisted vision of the Constitution.

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