After 9/11 the Bush administration decided to ‘take the gloves off’ and authorized the CIA to get medieval on suspected terrorists. Here’s Mark Danner:
As you know, very shortly after 9/11, the then-White House counsel [Alberto Gonzales] proposed to President Bush that provisions of the Geneva Conventions had been rendered obsolete, even quaint, by this quote “new paradigm.” The Geneva Conventions, the Convention against Torture, and the federal statutes against torture — these undertakings by the U.S. — represented restrictions that would unduly hobble the country in fighting the war on terror and, by extension, threaten[ed] the existence of the United States. And I think that’s where torture — “extreme interrogation” is the euphemism — goes to the heart of the reaction against the way this country has observed human rights in the past, a reaction in a way against law itself. What we have here is a conflict between legality and power.
The problem is that 9/11 did not change the laws, nor did it change our treaty obligations. To be sure, some laws were changed domestically (for example, the Patriot Act), but none that dealt with torture. So, in effect, the CIA was authorized by the President to commit crimes. One crime they committed was to abduct Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off a Milan street and fly him to Egypt where he “he was tortured by Egyptian agents under questioning…with electric shocks, beatings, rape threats and genital abuse.” You may be surprised to learn that the Italians consider this a prosecutable offense. And they intend to prosecute.
Italian prosecutors on Tuesday asked a judge to order CIA agents and Italian spies to stand trial on charges of kidnapping a terrorism suspect and flying him to Egypt, where he says he was tortured, a court source said.
After a more than two-year investigation that has embarrassed Washington and Rome, prosecutors said they were ready to go to court over the 2003 “rendition” of a Muslim cleric in Milan.
An Italian judge must call a preliminary hearing to decide if there is enough evidence for a trial, but even defense lawyers say privately they expect the case to go to court.
There is a lot of investigative journalism on this case available on the web. I am not going to get into the details of the case except to note the following.
Suspects include 26 Americans, most believed to be CIA agents, as well as six Italians, including the former head of Italy’s SISMI military intelligence agency, Nicolo Pollari.
Prosecutors believe the CIA agents, with help from SISMI, grabbed Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off a Milan street, bundled him into a van and flew him out of Italy from a U.S. airbase.
Needless to say, the USA will not be turning over 26 CIA operatives to the Italians for prosecution. They already have European Union issued arrest warrants, but they will be tried in absentia. That will lead to permanent persona non grata status in Europe. So, if nothing else, 26 CIA operatives will no longer be of any use to us for any duty in Europe. Nicely done, Mr. Bush.
But more than the damage done to our national security, these 26 individuals have damaged themselves. They delivered a man up for torture. And we’re not talking about borderline torture. This is isn’t stress positions, loud noise, or temperature extremes. This is gential abuse and electric shocks. They may never go to jail for participating in this, but they may very well have trouble sleeping at night.
This is what George W. Bush does to people. He destroys them. He ruins anyone or any organization that he comes into close contact with. It’s a pattern. And it needs to be recognized. American cannot begin to heal itself until it comes to grips with the sins of the President. He authorized genital abuse and shock treatment. He’s says he didn’t, but he did.