It’s Passover and not much time for writing. But since there is no current Open Thread I’ll put these links and quotes in a diary. This is worse than the John Yoo memos.
How the military was hoodwinked into torture.
Below::
Please check out both links to The Guardian:
Top Bush aides pushed for Guantánamo torture
Senior officials bypassed army chief to introduce interrogation methods
America’s most senior general was “hoodwinked” by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners, the Guardian reveals today.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture.
The way he was duped by senior officials in Washington, who believed the Geneva conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date, is disclosed in a devastating account of their role, extracts of which appear in today’s Guardian.
[…]
The lawyers, all political appointees, who pushed through the interrogation techniques were Alberto Gonzales, David Addington and William Haynes. Also involved were Doug Feith, Rumsfeld’s under-secretary for policy, and Jay Bybee and John Yoo, two assistant attorney generals.
The revelations have sparked a fierce response in the US from those familiar with the contents of the book, and who are determined to establish accountability for the way the Bush administration violated international and domestic law by sanctioning prisoner abuse and torture.
The Bush administration has tried to explain away the ill-treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by blaming junior officials. Sands’ book establishes that pressure for aggressive and cruel treatment of detainees came from the top and was sanctioned by the most senior lawyers. […]
Stress hooding noise nudity dogs
It was the young officials at Guantánamo who dreamed up a list of new aggressive interrogation techniques, inspired by Jack Bauer from the TV series, 24. But it was the politicians and lawyers in Washington who set the ball rolling. Philippe Sands follows the torture trail right to the top
On Tuesday, December 2 2002, Donald Rumsfeld signed a piece of paper that changed the course of history. That same day, President Bush signed a bill to put the Pentagon in funds for the next year. The US faced unprecedented challenges, Bush told a large and enthusiastic audience, and terror was one of them. The US would respond to these challenges, and it would do so in the “finest traditions of valour”. And then he signed a large increase in the defence budget.
Elsewhere in the Pentagon, an event took place for which there was no comment, no fanfare. With a signature and a few scrawled words, Rumsfeld reneged on the tradition of valour to which Bush had referred. Principles for the conduct of interrogation, dating back more than a century to President Lincoln’s famous instruction of 1863 that “military necessity does not admit of cruelty”, were discarded. He approved new and aggressive interrogation techniques that would produce devastating consequences.
[Read on for excerpts of the book]
I first suspected this might be disinformation (scrubbing the reputation of the armed forces), but the articles are published in The Guardian and when looking up Professor Sands, he comes across as very credible.
Professor Philippe Sands calls Tony Blair to account
Professor Philippe Sands (UCL Laws) has argued cases, published books and advised governments, but this year his legal expertise is taking him beyond the classroom and courtroom into the theatre.
Professor Philippe SandsFor the past few weeks, he has been cross-examining tantalisingly high-ranking members of the British Establishment in support of the argument that Tony Blair could be indicted for the crime of aggression due to the decision-making process that led the UK into war with Iraq. The resultant transcripts will be turned into a script for a play to run at the Tricycle Theatre in London from April to May 2007.
Also author of: Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules–From FDR’s Atlantic Charter to George W. Bush’s Illegal War