April 12, 2009
Feds Need Torture Commission Now
CourtWatch: The President And Congress Should Set Up Bipartisan Panel To Understand Why Torture Occurred, If It Reached Goals
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Attorney General Eric Holder, who evaded the question of whether there should be a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission." (CBS)
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Blog Court Watch CBSNews.com Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen's new blog on the big issues and analyzes important cases of the day.
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Section The Bush Legacy As President Bush leaves office, the nation takes a look at his record.
Like the good politician that he is, Attorney General Eric Holder last week evaded a point-blank question about the advisability of a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" that would broadly investigate America’s descent into torture both as a technique and as a policy in the war on terrorism. Even in the immediate wake of a
Sen. Leahy is famously on the record as favoring such a commission - but only if the Republicans play along. Leahy blames the GOP for labeling any sort of official review of our torture policies as a post-hoc witch hunt. But he also blames human rights organizations for pushing too loudly for criminal charges for former officials. And therein lays the genius of a blue-ribbon, bipartisan panel on torture policy; it’s the most reasonable compromise offering the best possible outcome for the most people on the still-contentious political, legal, moral and ethical issue of why we tortured before - and whether we should again.
Despite a slew of recent coverage summarizing the damming Red Cross report, the notion of prosecuting the men who engaged in torture, or the lawyers and bureaucrats who blithely authorized them, still has little legal or political traction here in the United States. Like it or not, American law virtually guarantees the failure of a torture case against, say, former White House counsel. But in Poland and the United Kingdom, officials reportedly have begun criminal investigations into the past conduct of U.S. officials. And a Spanish magistrate may be ready even as early as this week to indict on torture charges former U.S officials like Alberto Gonzales and Jay Bybee.
The White House and the Congress shouldn’t allow zealous foreign prosecutors, domestic inertia or restrictive legal precedent to determine how the torture debate evolves. It’s not enough to declare again, as the Administration did on Friday, an official end to the use of “secret prisons” all over the world. It’s not enough to say we will no longer torture or contract out torture to private contractors. We must fully understand why and how we sanctioned torture, and why and how it did or did not ultimately work, so that we may react properly and decisively the next time the question of torture flares up as an option in fight to protect Americans from terrorism.
No foreign prosecution is going to accomplish that goal. And no domestic prosecution is going to get anywhere close enough to trial to make a difference. President Obama and Congress should do the right thing right now and set up a bipartisan blue-ribbon panel - like the well-conceived and brilliantly-executed 9/11 Commission. If the Bush Administration itself could accede to a contemporaneous study of its own negligence and incompetence in the lead-up to Sept. 11, and then ensure such a worthy report as we got from the 9/11 Commissioners, then surely the Obama Administration could and should accede to a fair look-back on torture.
Indeed, the current Justice Department has taken several concrete steps toward illuminating the rest of us on some of the Bush-era decisions surrounding the war on terror. We now know, for example, that some Bush officials early on in the fight contemplated drastic restrictions upon our First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights. We are anticipating the release of more of those legal “memos” that offered justification and rationale for the ugly practices that have done so much damage to our reputation and which may, in the end, have been far less successful than initially claimed.
Taking this concept one step further, the White House and Justice Department must ensure the value of a torture commission by granting use immunity to (and the concomitant power of contempt over) all officials, in and out of government now, who would need to be questioned by members and investigators. Such a bold stroke would break the legal gridlock that has muted Holder and Company, give powerful political momentum to commission advocates like Leahy, and offer President Obama another opportunity to demonstrate the “post-partisanship” for which he wants to be famous. Combine this immunity with a diplomatic initiative to stop those overseas investigations and you’ve got yourself a winning quinella. Don’t wait. Do it now.
Advocates on the left cringe when they hear the "I-word" - to them it smacks of capitulation, another example of government protecting itself from its own misconduct. But what, realistically, do human rights advocates believe is going to happen otherwise? What’s better - years of pre-trial hearings and appeals in a vain effort to bring John Yoo before a jury? Or hauling him in as early as this year, under penalty of perjury, before an inquisitive panel of experts? What’s worse? Hearing Vice President Dick Cheney use torture as a political issue with his dire (but cynically unspecific) warnings about how we are weaker now that we don’t degrade prisoners? Or a nationally-respected panel that has access to classified information, subpoena power, and near-universal heft?
Three months ago, I laid out the argument in favor of a commission (and against criminal trials for former Bush officials). Intervening events only make both of those cases stronger. We shouldn’t spend five years trying to restrict the scope of governmental immunity. We shouldn’t spend the time roiling in litigation against defendants that we almost surely can’t win. We should instead spend our energy on getting to the truth of the matter. Author and torture-law expert Mark Danner, a brilliant scholar on the topic, easily said this best. In the most recent issue of the New York Review of Books, he wrote:
The issue [of torture] could not be more important, for it cuts
to the basic question of who we are as Americans,
and whether our laws and ideals truly guide us in our
actions or serve, instead, as a kind of national decoration
to be discarded in times of danger. The only way to
confront the political power of the issue, and prevent
the reappearance of the practice itself, is to take a hard look
at the true ‘empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years’
and speak out, clearly and credibly, about what this story really
tells.
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More From CourtWatch
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- Has this ideolgy changed since then? Can you get the truth from Senator Patrick Leahy?
About Senator Leahy:JUNE 9, 1987 WALL STREET JOURNAL, section:JUSTICES DELAYED
Third paragraph reads: The American Bar Association twice has rated Judge Sentelle "Well qualified", but that did not prevent Vermont?s Senator Patrick Leahy from announcing that Judge Sentelle's membership in the Masons could disqualify him. According to Senator Leahy's information, Masons have to be "male, white and believe in a supreme being."
Has this ideolgy changed since then? Can you get the truth from Senator Patrick Leahy? - Reply to this comment
- bonjour
d'un coté les etats unis se vantent d'etre le pays des lois...de la democraticie, de la liberté(des droits de l'homme) etc......d'un autre coté...et quand il s'agit d'appliquer ces lois sur leurs citoyens...il ya hesitation...refus...nul n'est au dessus de la loi...
et la torture est.... et restera un acte abominable..d'une perversité...d'une cruauté incroyables... l'humiliation infligée par un etre humain a un autre...ce qui s'est pas passé en irak est cruel...merci - Reply to this comment
- One of Couric's "experts" today suggested this is unique in that one admin may be prosecuting a prior admin. Has he forgot about Clinton and the republican congress? They tried their damnedest to throw him out of office based on a claim of perjury or obstruction of justice when the whole issue actually came down to an attempt to prosecute consensual sex.
There;s nothing unique about this. The Dems will just be trying to prove we are a nation of laws and that no one is above the law. The Clinton prosecutors should be very familiar with that line of thinking and fully support it. Why would there be any question? - Reply to this comment
- More politics. This commission will do nothing but spend more tax dollars and dink around for YEARS.
Do not tell me that the "government" does not know where all of these terrorists are.
Just kill them. - Reply to this comment
- "... Now the US nuts want to give the bad guys a free hand. Whose side are they on????"
Posted by rocketjl
Here's one for you, Sherlock, if we break our own laws in order to do what we claim the "bad guys" do, then what is the difference, if any, between the "bad guys", and us? - Reply to this comment
- Posted by opedanderson
Just like a typical neo to forget that, whatever you think the reason for using torture is, it is still illegal by at least two international treaties to which we are signatories, and therefore constitutionally obligated to observe.
But then again, neos seem to think that law only applies to other people. - Reply to this comment
- "...Torture leaves the victime broken in body or mind. We on the other hand may have dicomforted someone, or even scared them into spilling info that saved American lives, but left the person interogated in full possesion of every mental and physical faculty they possessed prior to being questioned." Posted by kesac4650
So typical of a sadistic torture apologist neo to try to redefine the English language to suit their perverted agenda.
Read this son, from the UN convention against torture, which we, as signatories are constitutionally obligated to observe, and show where there is mention of, as you put it, "Torture leaves the victims broken in body or mind."
Article 1
"...1. For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. "
That is the entire clause. Where does it say anything about leaving a victim broken in any way? - Reply to this comment
- Even as far back as WWII there have been these 'nuts' who sit back and claim to be the watchdogs of 'everyone else'. The **** tortured and murdered US and Allied service personnel and many civilians. The Army was able to try some of them and execute those found guilty. Now the terrorists are killing people around the world, regardless of who they are. Islamic terrorists claim 'their version' of their justification to kill everybody is right. Still other Islamic people say they disagree. Now the US nuts want to give the bad guys a free hand. Whose side are they on????
- Reply to this comment
- The author seems to be insisting that he knows torture was committed.
Our media has tried to confuse phsychological efforts to gain verifiable information, with torture.
Torture leaves the victime broken in body or mind. We on the other hand may have dicomforted someone, or even scared them into spilling info that saved American lives, but left the person interogated in full possesion of every mental and physical faculty they possessed prior to being questioned. - Reply to this comment
- This whole debate is stupid.
The only true value of torture is showing potential enemies that torture MIGHT happen if they are caught. What is learned from torture is mostly irrelevant.
Every Muslim out there now knows that any hint of support to AQ or the Jihad MIGHT result in torture at the hands of the USA - Reply to this comment
- "...Torture away. If it saves one American life than it was worth it. You can't win a war by playing by the rules when the opponent does not follow the same rules." Posted by chenz66
The problem with that, in this case, is that it hasn't been proven to have saved one life, when asked for an example, the Bush klan usually responded with "that's a secret." Only a true sucker would believe anything they say, after knowing they lied and wasted lives in the first place.
Also it makes us no different than those we condemn, when in fact it was Bush and his lies that sent our soldiers to kill innocents, or be caught and tortured in the process, and for no other reason than his personal profit.
You sadistic torture-bots always ignore the fact that we had no business even being where our soldiers could be captured. in the case of Iraq, they never attacked us, we are the ones in the wrong. - Reply to this comment
- Torture away. If it saves one American life than it was worth it. You can't win a war by playing by the rules when the opponent does not follow the same rules.
- Reply to this comment
- " THE US HAS NEVER........NEVER FOUGHT A RELIGIOUS WAR. THAT TYPE OF WAR IS THE MOST BRUTAL AND MOTIVATING." Posted by krisinal
The US never posited a purely religious motive for it's hostilities against others, (even if they did give free mouth to the Islamophobes out there which they then pimped to stir up blind, reasonless hatred against Muslim nations) but since those others felt it their right to resist and fight back, and since they felt that right was granted by their respective deities, several became religious wars. - Reply to this comment
- " OUR.....OUR enemies...I know how to spell" Posted by krisinal
Good, now learn how to think. - Reply to this comment
- Posted by isidorordl
So, since you understand, I am moved to ask, what are you doing personally to help us bring the Bush klan to justice?
Posted by krisinal
Yes there are people very motivated to resist US hegemony, and inhumanity towards other nations. You write as if you believe that the US has some kind of right to harm those people, but that they do not have the right to get angry about it.
As was composed by the great George Clinton, "If you don't like the effect, then don't produce the cause".
Posted by tincup356
It also won't do his lifespan any favors, there is enough money being corrupted to have Obama killed, and some sucker neo-kkk would gladly take the fall. He needs us solidly behind him if he is going to act, and apparently he hasn't seen enough of that yet. - Reply to this comment
- "Severe injury" intentionally inflicted is the standard set by the Convention on Torture. That may be a standard too difficult for prosecutors to meet." Posted by maistir
Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is:
? ...Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a male or female person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions."
Did you see the words "...severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental.." in there?
I did.
So, you were saying...? - Reply to this comment
- <snore>
Granted, the left has their socialist dream team in charge of the House, Senate, and White House, but do you really want to usher in these Stalinistic inquisitions? To anyone not blinded by leftist ideology, it's clear this is nothing more than a continuation of BDS. - Reply to this comment
- Nothing less than War Crimes Trials at the Hague will do!
- Reply to this comment
- As we all recall, Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Crunch 137, (1803), confirming that impartial judicial review is a constitutional imperative when pointing out certain fundamental principles of our constitutional system: first, that the people had united to establish a limited government; second, that they organized it into three departments and assigned certain powers to each, while at the same time setting limits to the exercise of those powers; and, third, these limits were expressed in a written constitution, which would be a useless document ?if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained.? Id. at 140.
Consequently, since the Constitution which is the ?a superior paramount law,? and prohibits the government power to inflict "cruel and unusual punishment" nether the executive, nor legislation nor judicial branch-can authorize torture.
However, during the past 35 years under both Republican and Democratic Administrations, in response to both the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960's and Watergate legislation of the 1970's, there has been a collusion by the Executive Branch (DOJ) and the Judicial Branch under Chief Justices Burger, Rehnquist, and now Roberts, to do away with restrictions and prohibitions on government power by usurping legislative authority through abusing power delegated by Congress under the Rules Enabling Act and the Judicial Conference Act, so to develop and implement policies to affecting all individuals-citizen and non citizen alike:
? limiting access to an impartial courts;
? do away with independent practitioners of the courts abuse of power;
? abuse the discretion of summary judgement so deny the right to jury trials;
? to minimize the fundamental rights protected by the Constitution;
? hold that outside of the US there are no Constitutional restrictions on government power; and,
? hold that both the Executive and Judicial Branch are absolutely immune from a private citizens suit for either criminal or tortious acts.
For this reason, the Rule of Law in the USA has now become a political slogan and not a reality based on the Judicial Branch collusion with the DOJ (see http://www.liamsdad.org/others/isidoro.shtml and http://home.earthlink.net/~isidoror), to the point where they have unilaterally declared themselves no longer accountable for malfeasance.
As Thomas Jefferson foretold: "[t]he germ of destruction of our nation is in the power of the judiciary, an irresponsible body - working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall render powerless the checks of one branch over the other and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."
Isidoro Rodriguez, Esq.
Member of the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court
since September 11, 1992
7924Payton Forest Trail
Annandale, Virginia 22003-1560
Telephone: 571.423.5066
E-Mail: isidoror@EarthLink.net - Reply to this comment
- If we do not investigatte and prosecute, the next time the Republicans get in, we can expect them to pick right up and continue violating the Consitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishement as well as the Geneva Conventions.
On another story on the Spanish inestigation of our legal officials, one comment said the Spanish were out of line, because we can take care of this ourselves. In fact, I doubt if the Spanish would spend the effort if there were any sign of action on our part.
Frankly, I am most angry that the high level types who authorized torture are going free. The torturers, themselves, at a minimum, need extensive psychiatriccounseling to make them safe for society. People tend to take their work home with them. Would you want your daughter married to a torturer and your grandchildren subject to his ideas of acceptable discipline? - Reply to this comment
