Pulling the trigger on the Anti-Democracy gun

“Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing.”

Quote from On Violence, by Hannah Arendt, 1970, Pg. 65

They landed on a wild but narrow scene,
Where few but Nature's footsteps yet had been;
Prepared their arms, and with that gloomy eye,
Stern and sustained, of man's extremity,
When Hope is gone, nor Glory's self remains
To cheer resistance against death or chains,--
They stood, the three, as the three hundred stood
Who dyed Thermopylae with holy blood.
But, ah! how different! 'tis the cause makes all,
Degrades or hallows courage in its fall.
O'er them no fame, eternal and intense,
Blazed through the clouds of Death and beckoned hence;
No grateful country, smiling through her tears,
Begun the praises of a thousand years;
No nation's eyes would on their tomb be bent,
No heroes envy them their monument;
However boldly their warm blood was spilt,
Their Life was shame, their Epitaph was guilt.
And this they knew and felt, at least the one,
The leader of the band he had undone;
Who, born perchance for better things, had set
His life upon a cast which lingered yet:
But now the die was to be thrown, and all
The chances were in favour of his fall:
And such a fall! But still he faced the shock,
Obdurate as a portion of the rock
Whereon he stood, and fixed his levelled gun,
Dark as a sullen cloud before the sun.

Passage from the poem, The Island, by Lord Byron, 1823

Emphasis my own in the following...

        'Every government ­assumes deeds and ­misdeeds of the past," writes Hannah Arendt in Eichmann and the Holocaust. "It means hardly more, generally speaking, than that every generation, by virtue of being born into a historical continuum, is burdened by the sins of the fathers as it is blessed with the deeds of the ancestors." ...
        In short, by acknowledging the crimes while refusing to pursue the criminals he has promised to rectify America's grim recent history without ever ­reckoning with it.
        Events over the past few weeks have shown just how ethically and politically untenable this situation really is. His first term looks as though it may be ­consumed by these issues anyway - and not on his terms. Having released the torture memos, Obama then reversed his position on releasing photographs that accompanied them on the grounds that to do so would endanger US troops. Having opposed trying Guantánamo prisoners under military commissions, he now supports it. ...
        This should leave us in no doubt as to where the ultimate responsibility lies. "Where all are guilty, no one is," wrote Arendt. "Confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing." ...
        But in the absence of moral leadership the national conversation has morphed seamlessly from human rights to national security, where the issue of torture and detention is debated not on the grounds of morality but efficacy.
        With the former vice-president Dick Cheney leading the charge, the right has managed to mount a spirited defence of torture in which America's rights as the potential, abstract victim of terrorism supersede detainees' rights as actual victims of torture. ...
        Conventions are devised precisely to set boundaries in moments of crisis - in periods of relative harmony there is not much need to refer to them. The Geneva convention, in particular, was devised to establish the rules of engagement during times of war. If the very fact of being at war is reason enough to discard it, then it has no meaning.
        And finally, if showing the world what America has done would inflame anti-American sentiment then maybe America shouldn't do it in the first place.

If Obama Cedes Ground on Torture to Cheney, We'll All Pay a Heavy Price
By acknowledging recent crimes while refusing to pursue
the criminals, the president has made his position untenable,
by Gary Younge, May 24, 2009, The Gaurdian/UK,

        Whatever we were, we have degenerated into a nation that finds glory in deploying the most advanced high-tech, high-explosive weaponry against some of the world’s poorest people, that justifies killing women and children, even by the dozens, even if by doing so it manages to kill one alleged “enemy” fighter. A nation that exalts remote-controlled robot drone aircraft that can attack targets in order to avoid risking soldiers’ lives, even though by doing so, it is predictable that many, many innocent people will be killed. A nation that is proud to have developed weapons of mass slaughter, from shells laden with phosphorus that burns to death, indiscriminately, those who are contacted by the splattered chemical to elaborately baroque anti-personnel fragmentation bombs that spread cute little colored objects designed to look like everything from toys to food packages, but which upon contact explode, releasing whirling metal or plastic fleschettes which shred human flesh on contact. ...
        But we Americans are irrational, panicky cowards. We worry that the terrorists will come and get us.
        My guess is that a lot of this is mass guilt. Whether people admit it or not, I suspect most people know on some subconscious level that we Americans have been living off the rest of the world’s misery. We know we’re stealing oil from the people of nations like Iraq and Nigeria. We know that our toys, our electronics devices and our fancy name-brand running shoes are being made by people who cannot afford to buy them themselves. We know that for decades we have been overthrowing elected governments and propping up fascist dictatorships to keep the exploitation going so that we can buy cheap goods and extract cheap resources (As Marine Medal of Honor hero Smedley Butler long ago admitted, [Reference is to "War is a Racket", see Wikipedia.com, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler] that’s what our “heroes” in uniform are generally doing overseas). ...

Memorial Day in the Land of the Weak and Wussy,
by Dave Lindorff, May 25, 2009, Counterpunch.org,

        After granting the ‘untouchable’ status to all involved in this shameful chapter in our nation’s dangerous downward slide, he now refuses to release the photos, the incriminating evidence, and is doing so by using the exact same justification used repeatedly by his predecessors: ‘Their release would endanger the troops,’ as in ‘the revelation on NSA would endanger our national security’ and ‘stronger whistleblower laws would endanger our intelligence agencies’ and so on and so forth.
        Not only that, he goes even further to shove his secrecy promotion down other nations’ courts throat. In the case of Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian citizen and a legal resident in Britain who was held and tortured in Guantanamo from 2004 to 2009, and filed lawsuits in the British courts to have the evidence of his torture released, Mr. Obama’s position has been to threaten the British Government in order to conceal all facts and related evidence. This case involves the brutal torture and so very ‘extraordinary’ rendition practices of the previous administration, the same practices that ‘in words’ were strongly condemned by the President during his candidacy.
        Today he and his administration unapologetically maintain the same Bush Administration position on extraordinary rendition, torture, and related secrecy to cover up. Here is Ben Wizner’s, the attorney who argued the case for the ACLU, response “We are shocked and deeply disappointed that the Justice Department has chosen to continue the Bush administration’s practice of dodging judicial scrutiny of extraordinary rendition and torture. This was an opportunity for the new administration to act on its condemnation of torture and rendition, but instead it has chosen to stay the course.” Yes indeed, President Obama has chosen to protect and support the course involving torture, rendition and the abuse of secrecy to cover them all up. ...
        The report also includes the disagreement over the exact number of ‘Civilian Casualties’ in Afghanistan by our military airstrike:
        >>“Government officials have accepted handwritten lists compiled by the villagers of 147 dead civilians. An independent Afghan human rights group said it had accounts from interviews of 117 dead. American officials say that even 100 is an exaggeration but have yet to issue their own count.”<<
        Does it really matter - the difference between 147 and 117 or just 100 when it comes to children, grandmothers…innocent lives lost in a war with no well-defined objectives or plans? If for some it indeed does matter, then here is a more specific and detailed report:
        >>“A copy of the government's list of the names, ages and father's names of each of the 140 dead was obtained by Reuters earlier this week. It shows that 93 of those killed were children -- the youngest eight days old -- and only 22 were adult males."<<
        Maybe releasing the photographs of the nameless unrepresented victims of these airstrikes should be as important as those of torture. Because, from what I see, they and their loss of lives have been reduced to some petty number to fight about.

Two Sides of the Same Coin: From State Secrets to War to Wiretaps,
By Sibel Edmonds, May 25, 2009, Counterpunch.org

        When doctors started reporting that some of the victims of the US bombing of several villages in Farah Province last week—an attack that left between 117 and 147 civilians dead, most of them women and children—were turning up with deep, sharp burns on their body that “looked like” they’d been caused by white phosphorus, the US military was quick to deny responsibility.
        US officials—who initially denied that the US had even bombed any civilians in Farah despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, including massive craters where houses had once stood—insisted that “no white phosphorus” was used in the attacks on several villages in Farah.
        Official military policy on the use of white phosphorus is to only use the high-intensity, self-igniting material as a smoke screen during battles or to illuminate targets, not as a weapon against human beings—even enemy troops. ...
        C.J. Chivers, writing in the May 14 edition of the NY Times, in an article headlined “Korangal Valley Memo: In Bleak Afghan Outpost, Troops Slog On,” wrote of how an embattled US Army unit in the Korangal Valley of Afghanistan, had come under attack following a morning memorial service for one of their members, Pfc. Richard Dewater, who had been killed the day before by a mine.
Chivers wrote:
        >>After the ceremony, the violence resumed. The soldiers detected a Taliban spotter on a ridge, which was pounded by mortars and then white phosphorus rounds from a 155 millimeter howitzer.
        What did the insurgents do? When the smoldering subsided, they attacked from exactly the same spot, shelling the outpost with 30-millimeter grenades and putting the soldiers on notice that the last display of firepower had little effect. The Americans escalated. An A-10 aircraft made several gun runs, then dropped a 500-pound bomb.<<
        It is clear from this passage that the military’s use of the phosphorus shells had not been for the officially sanctioned purpose of providing cover. The soldiers had no intention of climbing that hill to attack the spotter on the ridge themselves. They were trying to destroy him with shells and bombs. In fact, the last thing they would have wanted to do was provide the spotter with a smoke cover, which would have helped him escape, and which also would have hidden him from the planes which had been called in to make gun runs at his position. Nor was this a case of illuminating the target. The incident, as Chivers reports, took place in daylight.

The U.S. is Using White Phosphorous in Afghanistan,
By Dave Lindorff, May 18, 2009, Counterpunch.org

        At the week-end Kilcullen and Andrew Exum, a Fellow with the Center for a New American Security, published an op-ed in the The New York Times going one step further. Their basic argument: ‘End the drone attacks’. Why? One of their arguments is pretty compelling (irrespective of the validity of the data):
        >>While violent extremists may be unpopular, for a frightened population they seem less ominous than a faceless enemy that wages war from afar and often kills more civilians than militants. Press reports suggest that over the last three years drone strikes have killed about 14 terrorist leaders. But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians. This is 50 civilians for every militant killed, a hit rate of 2 percent — hardly “precision.”<<
Kilcullen and Exum suggest:
        >>Expanding or even just continuing the drone war is a mistake. In fact, it would be in our best interests, and those of the Pakistani people, to declare a moratorium on drone strikes into Pakistan.
        A moratorium on drone strikes in Pakistan? Surely a step too far? The authors readily accept that:
        The appeal of drone attacks for policy makers is clear. For one thing, their effects are measurable. Military commanders and intelligence officials point out that drone attacks have disrupted terrorist networks in Pakistan, killing key leaders and hampering operations. Drone attacks create a sense of insecurity among militants and constrain their interactions with suspected informers. And, because they kill remotely, drone strikes avoid American casualties.<<
But, they argue, on balance the costs outweigh these benefits for 3 reasons:
        >>First, the drone war has created a siege mentality among Pakistani civilians. This is similar to what happened in Somalia in 2005 and 2006, when similar strikes were employed against the forces of the Union of Islamic Courts. While the strikes did kill individual militants who were the targets, public anger over the American show of force solidified the power of extremists.<<

Kilcullen: Drone strikes make Af-Pak strategy harder, not easier,
by Charlie Edwards, May 18, 2009, Globaldashboard.org

        "We need to call off the drones," testified David Kilcullen, who masterminded Iraq's surge for Gen. David Petraeus, to Congress last month. One problem is a dismal precision rate—Pakistani officials claim that as many as 50 civilians die in Predator attacks for every insurgent killed. "The moral requirement is a commitment ... not to strike unless you're sure who you're hitting," says Just and Unjust Wars author Michael Walzer. Peter Bergen, author of The Osama bin Laden I Know, also argues that drones "might fatally undermine U.S. efforts" as people on the ground feel besieged. A poll last year bore this out: 52 percent of Pakistanis blame the U.S. for rising violence; only 8 percent blame Al Qaeda. But the argument is falling on deaf ears: President Obama recently increased Predator flights, and the CIA says attacks are up 30 percent from last year.

To Drone or Not To Drone,
By Adam B. Kushner, May 23, 2009, Newsweek.com

        Imagine a gun or bullets that could automatically decide who to kill. One could point it in the general vicinity of the person who one intended to kill, but the choice of who to kill would ultimately be left to the machine. Sometimes it would lock on and kill the one who it was supposed to, sometimes it would hit someone else, a random pedestrian, woman, child, elderly person, baby in a carriage, the ultimate decision would be not a person's but a machine's.



        Now imagine the consequences. No police officer or person using such a device could be held liable for shooting an innocent bystander. Such distinctions between innocent and guilty, victim or criminal, they would be ultimately irrelevant. No one would or could be held liable if the machine hit the wrong target, and no crime or mistake would be made, so long as it fell within acceptable parameters of suggested probability error. And if it went beyond those parameters killing far more innocent bystanders than intended criminals or other targets, still, whose fault could it be? If such deaths, possibly huge numbers of people, were not crimes but merely 'errors', flaws in an otherwise laudable system of unaccountability, freeing those whose consciences would otherwise be burdened by guilt or feelings of remorse of killing an innocent person from losing any sleep over what they do, or who they killed or maimed unnecessarily, would this be not a good thing? They could increase exponentially their 'targets' without fear of ever being held accountable for 'mistakes' since they would not be 'their' mistakes at all, just another unaccountable untraceable part of 'the system'.

        The blame, if any, for these 'errors' which are not crimes anymore, not even misjudgments, certainly nothing to lose any sleep over, would be with those who made the police or other military group to carry and use such weapons of unaccountability instead of regular, judgment-required ones in which someone would ultimately held responsible for their misuse or 'wrongful deaths'. But then such people would be doing so only because they were told to do so by the authorities, elected representatives of the legitimate government, if the government is elected or legitimate. Thus the blame would not be on them either, nor even the company which invented or manufactured them, nor even on the person who invented them. They were simply making a proposal, it was not their fault the government decided to purchase them. And if they did not invent or make them and the government would have found them useful, they might have bought them instead from a competitor.

        In such a system of shared blame or fault, clearly no one would ever be held responsible for any 'accidental' deaths because, literally, there would not be any definition of such a thing. Such things will happen, it is to be expected, and the benefits of their use are thought to outweigh the costs, especially since now if all are responsible, or a large enough section of society are guilty, then no one is.

        We actually have instituted nationally a system of such fallible systems which can 'accidentally' destroy, or create the exact opposite of what they are supposedly implemented to correct, fairness and the public good. Paper-trail-less voting machines. Machines that can be hacked, can be used to totally subvert democracy or any election, and it is all legal. Such untraceable and unaccountable errors which can put a wrongly decided 'victor' into office more often than the Supreme Court can, are simply not anyone's fault. Not those who designed the machines, not those who purchased them, not those who authorized the funds to purchase them.

        The fallibility of such systems are well known by now. They are hackable as well as prone to error, and if they were hacked, there is no way to trace by whom because there is intentionally no evidence (except by statistical analysis, hardly a smoking gun) and no way to verify without a paper trail, that a wrong result had been given or that it would not have occurred that way anyway. But 'painful' recounts of close elections such as Florida in 2000 and an even closer Minnesota Senatorial election of 2008 can now be simply waved away where these machines dominate or have influence. Nothing to recount. Take the machines word for it because that is all you will ever get, and how it works is as classified as any Honduran death squad's relations to the US government could ever be.

        But there is another aspect of this which is clearly criminal. Though I would state that anyone who is responsible for having built or ordered such machines which INTENTIONALLY produce results, election results for who controls the government no less, which cannot be independently verified have committed crimes against the state or treason, many would consider that an extreme position. Get over it. Mistakes happen all the time. There is no such thing as an error free election anyway so what is the big deal if these new machines are not perfect? That is the price of progress! Heck, it can even be funny too.



        Literally we now have made stealing elections in plain sight no longer a crime. Though we have many many FBI and other officials who will state otherwise, that such actions are still in fact illegal, how can that stand when those running the elections are purposely making it possible for such things to be done, to hide the evidence that any election was indeed 'stolen' and such future investigations, if any, will be hampered by a preemptive 'shredding' of any evidence of such a crime?

        And even if one were to state that such things are merely 'bad judgment' such as creating a system of confinement or 'interrogation' based upon torture, sexual assaults, raping of relatives or threats to do so to elicit cooperation, then how can they explain away a doubling or tripling of doubt in the public of the fairness in their elections, that the person 'elected' to represent them actually won the most votes honestly? The last poll I saw, more than 30% of Americans doubted the fairness of the electoral process, in a large part due to unchallengeable, unverifiable electronic voting machines. That politicians and electoral boards can flagrantly put in systems of voting counting that completely and provably severely diminish the public's faith in the honestly of their elections shows such laws against tampering clearly do not extend to giving people valid reasons to not wish to vote at all. Why vote if you don't think it will be counted fairly? And if that is the intent after all, you have a completely legal way to disenfranchise millions simply because of 'bureaucratic bad decisions' which can create the exact same conditions as riggable voting machines without actually having to rig them except when one thinks simply turning people off to the idea of voting has not worked well enough this particular time.

        Once the evidence came out that such machines could be rigged, leaving them in place and not recalling them should have been prosecuted for the crime that it was, conspiracy to continue to make possible the rigging and theft of an election. And beyond that, even if such machines are not 'provable' to be 'hackable' simply putting in systems which do not have or severely diminish the public's confidence in the honesty of their elections, that alone should make it a crime. For that which undermines the public's desire to vote because such elections are purposely being held up as possibly being or having been tainted, with evidence quite enough to back that suspicion up, should itself be enough to make it a crime, as conspiring to suppress legitimate voters from having reason to vote.

        One would think that the Democrats, more than the Republicans who would benefit from such machines, would act to correct this and put in place laws that would ban machines which produce vote counts not verifiable by manual recounts after the fact, but that does not seem to be the case. Corruption in both parties by corporate interests may indeed stall action on this long enough for those who make and profit from this ability to steal elections to remain in business to once again be in a position to keep or expand such electronic systems, which not only may be hackable, may be able to be illegally used to benefit one candidate over another, but also to corrode the public's faith, shaky as that is, that their government is not completely corrupt already.

        When I voted in 2008, it was on a machine that counted the votes electronically, yet it was required to produce a printed ballot as well which could be used in the event of a recall to verify the computers tabulation. Such machines provide all the benefits of electronic voting machines that do not produce a paper trail except one, they cannot be used to steal an election. States that purchased, never mind those that continue to purchase, such machines that do not produce a paper trail can claim that they do not have funds to purchase new machines, and going back to older more verifiable systems is not practical. That is to admit that it is too expensive to have a system of voting that does not without due reason corrode the public's image of the honesty of their government and its elections, and that a system with a built-in potential to be made to give the completely wrong result than what it was intended to do, (if it indeed was ever intended to produce results accurate to how people voted,) is not valuable enough, or that completely verifiable honest machines are not where the most profits, kickbacks, contracts, or bribes, are to be found. Is that not after all, how government contracts for things like voting machines or anything else are awarded?

-----------------------------------------

        When I first thought of writing this a year ago, I had elections primarily in mind. However the US governments use of drones in 'targeted killings' (read assassinations) in Afghanistan and Pakistan show that the idea of unaccountability in the use of 'smart' weapons that I wanted to start with, have a much more real life meaning than in how it relates to election theft, real, potential, or the threat of which.

        Never mind the overwhelming disproportionate killing of innocent civilians (I know, there are no 'innocent' people over there, or the argument which carries the day stating that), more than 50 men, women, children (mostly women and children) killed for every 'terrorist' killed, it is wholly and completely being done in defiance of international law, treaties, and common sense.

        Before Christianity meant those who go to church regularly in the United States are 50% more likely to approve of torturing people than those who do not, it meant a religion based upon the principle of reciprocity. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Beyond 'American Exceptionalism' or that we are killing people in forwarding 'God's plan', what we are doing by such assassinations is completely what we have determined only the United States is justified in doing.

        We have been operating completely outside of international law so long now that many to most Americans cannot even recognize that there is or ever was such a thing, or that if there was, that it should not apply to us or our nations actions equally as to others.

        The 'justification' for these killings, some in countries we are not even at war with, and doing it in an 'extrajudicial' (read 'completely illegal') way, is that if we asked the governments in which whose territory where they are located to hand them over to us for extradition, that they would be unable or unwilling to do so. This also is limited by the fact that we often do not have any or enough evidence to justify them complying, other than simply handing over anyone we ask them to to be held without trail on evidence we do not have or are not willing to divulge. In such instances as to demand complete trust that we are not acting in error, bad faith, or in haste, in complete contradiction by the way to how we have acted in the past in this manner and are continuing to do so, we do not think such governments would comply with such requests. So we simply kill them all. In their houses, in their churches or mosques, wherever we think they are regardless of who may be around them at the time so long as we say we did it at a time when we think we killed the fewest numbers of innocent people possible, or a least tried to that effect or made some effort in that direction.

        The mirror that the American government cannot see in yet is visible to the entire world outside of the United States is 'What if other nations tried to do that as well? Are we the only nation that has people they want, but that they are in countries unwilling to turn them over to them?”

        The United States has many people living in it that China wants. We even house the leader of the Falon Gong movement which China not only considers a subversive, but the head of a movement who considers himself Jesus Christ reincarnated, has tens of millions of followers, and is considered a threat to their governments existence. Far more so than some Afghan or Pakistani holed up in some remote village we may or may not have any clear evidence against, certainly not with means to destabilize or overthrow our government. What would we think if China were to wipe out his US residence, killing everyone in the building, could they be that precise, whether he were home at the time or not being unimportant, but its OK because they tried at the time of day to kill the least amount of 'innocent' people. They could even make the case as we have, that his servants, followers, lawyers, in his house at the time, not to mention his family could hardly be described as wholly 'innocent' anyway. Not when after torturing a chauffeur for years after holding him without charges, and again torturing him (Enhanced Interrogation ® TM, Newspeak aside) for years, convicted him of terrorism by virtue of being the driver of a terrorist. How innocent can a maid or housekeeper really be? Of course they have it coming to them.

        The British have given asylum to at least one Russian billionaire who has called for the overthrow of the Russian government. Russia very much would like to extradite him so they can charge him for things they say he has done in the past, and I am sure they take him admitting in interviews that he would like to see the government of his country overthrown and is willing to pay to have it done, to be somewhat, at least to the Russians, a criminal with evidence or reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing which is documentable. In Afghanistan or Pakistan the US has supposedly wiped out at least one small village to kill one person, yet we tell the world to trust us, a bad person may have been there, or at least we have some evidence he may have been bad but its classified. Imagine Russia blowing up the billionaire's English estate because they thought that the billionaire was there, or might have been, or could have been, but its OK because they only took out that one home, and those working for him who were helping him, or could have been, and are equally guilty or are 'regrettable accidental deaths'.

        As these two reverse mirror examples of how the US or British would react or think if anyone dared to do anything remotely similar to them to what the US is doing week after week in violation of international law: war crimes, and crimes of aggression, (but since Obama is better than Bush, the world is just supposed to give it a pass), both of those examples are of people from those countries who fled and are charged with real crimes.

        Image if China or Cuba or North Korea was to say to the US government, "there are Americans living in your country (America) who may be terrorists based on secret evidence we have but we can't tell you about. Please hand them over to us so we can torture them or ship them off to a third country where we can have them tortured for us, yet escape accountability for the torturing of them. If the torture, I am sorry, the interrogation of these Americans, who we admit could quite very well be perfectly innocent, but that is hardly the point, is successful, then we will have confessions from them to justify our suspicions about them, even if completely unfounded. And if you do not comply, you really should not be surprised if we level their villages or their homes instead."

        And that is how we treat Pakistan, a democracy,(as if can remain one long if we keep doing this to its people, showing them often that their own government cannot protect them from us.) and supposedly is our ally. The rest of the world can and does expect even harsher requests of them. And all of this is for what? Our own generals and security experts say such attacks make us far more enemies than they kill, not to mention hundreds and hundreds of women and children dead, and many more crippled, disfigured, and will suffer for the rest of their lives. And this is to give President Obama his street cred with the CIA? To prove that the US can be every bit as barbaric as any dictator, warlord, or religious maniac? If that is so, they bravo, mission accomplished. Now is a good time to stop then.

5/25/09 - Rep. Ron Paul Speech- Torturing the Rule of Law

Torturing the Rule of Law, by Ron Paul, 5/25/09
(See original page by clicking here)

While Congress is sidetracked by who said what to whom and when, our nation finds itself at a crossroads on the issue of torture. We are at a point where we must decide if torture is something that is now going to be considered justifiable and reasonable under certain circumstances, or is America better than that?

“Enhanced interrogation” as some prefer to call it, has been used throughout history, usually by despotic governments, to cruelly punish or to extract politically useful statements from prisoners. Governments that do these things invariably bring shame on themselves.

In addition, information obtained under duress is incredibly unreliable, which is why it is not admissible in a court of law. Legally valid information is freely given by someone of sound mind and body. Someone in excruciating pain, or brought close to death by some horrific procedure is not in any state of mind to give reliable information, and certainly no actions should be taken solely based upon it.

For these reasons, it is illegal in the United States and illegal under Geneva Conventions. Simulated drowning, or water boarding, was not considered an exception to these laws when it was used by the Japanese against US soldiers in World War II. In fact, we hanged Japanese officers for war crimes in 1945 for water boarding. Its status as torture has already been decided by our own courts under this precedent. To look the other way now, when Americans do it, is the very definition of hypocrisy.

Matthew Alexander, author of “How to Break a Terrorist” used non-torture methods of interrogation in Iraq with much success. In fact, one cooperative jihadist told him, "I thought you would torture me, and when you didn't, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That's why I decided to cooperate." Alexander also found that in Iraq “the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq.” Alexander’s experiences unequivocally demonstrate that losing our humanity is not beneficial or necessary in fighting terror.

The current administration has reversed its position on releasing evidence of torture by the previous administration and we must ask why. A great and moral nation would have the courage to face the truth so it could abide by the rule of law. To look the other way necessarily implicates all of us and would of course further radicalize people against our troops on the ground. Instead, we have the chance to limit culpability for torture to those who were truly responsible for these crimes against humanity.

Not everyone who was given illegal orders obeyed them. Many FBI agents understood that an illegal order must be disobeyed and they did so. The others must be held accountable, so that all of us are not targeted for blowback for the complicity of some.

The government’s own actions and operations in torturing people, and in acting on illegally obtained and unreliable information to kill and capture, are the most radicalizing forces at work today, not any religion, nor the fact that we are rich and free. The fact that our government engages in evil behavior under the auspices of the American people is what poses the greatest threat to the American people, and it must not be allowed to stand.

The Cheney-Obama Dance to Rehabilitate Torture in the Public Conscience

        Despite what anyone says about Holocaust denials, be it in Europe, Rwanda, Turkey, or Ukraine, it is, if nothing else, a natural reaction. The more unthinkable something is, the harder it is to believe, the more it conflicts with your world view or opinions, saying it never happened is the first and most logical reaction. It requires the least amount of work, the most superficial introspection if the charges are aimed at your own people or an ally, political, cultural, be it in the present or who you hope to deal with or be identified by or with in the future. Or if such comparisons or relationships cannot help but be made by others.

        When this fails, the second reaction when denials are no longer possible, when ones view of how they wish reality was or should be seen fails or no longer will prevail over creeping cynicism, is a far more dangerous one. Beyond mere minimalization of the charges or 'so-called crimes' becomes the inevitable turn into the storm of outrage to head it off, defeat it, and make it run away to whimper in a corner and never dare show its face again. The proverbial “So what?” So what if it was done, we admit it, we own it now, it is ours to spin, to justify, to make right, to rehabilitate such 'so-called' atrocities in the public's imagination, and to make sure it is never mentioned again without the proper 'respect' that it was due!

        The initial spin regarding how it is outed, what registers when the initial shock hits home, this will last years, generations even, for that which is difficult to face up to, when one is forced to confront ugly truths they would far more prefer to not be made to deal with, to have to face up to when hiding ones head in the sand is far easier, it will be that much harder later to revisit and rethink. Yes, we did that, we dealt with it already, decided it wasn't that big of a deal, and 'moved on'. Making us face it again, why that would just be reopening old wounds, dredging up the past we would rather not have to ever again need to recontemplate. We've crossed that bridge already, move along now.

        This is the little minuet that Cheney and Obama have been playing into equally, each step of one creating the dance toward the inevitable “So what” which will define the notion that torturing people was ever once shocking at all. Anyone who thinks that Cheney is 'losing' the torture argument is living within their own assumptions that people think such things are naturally wrong. Nothing of the kind is happening. Obama by revealing such 'so-called' abuses or 'seemingly potentially criminal' atrocities, and then doing nothing about them, certainly not holding anyone accountable since no 'clear' crimes were committed, is making sure whoever stands up to defend them has his unspoken acknowledgment that such things were potentially reasonable, even possibly necessary. Cheney wins every argument thereafter by default since no one of similar stature dares to argue otherwise, simply to stand by smugly by thinking 'who would ever listen to him?' when, silently, most would prefer to think such things.

        Thinking otherwise is hard, uncomfortable, and who in America would wish to question the rightness of what we have done in the past? Leftists, radicals, un-American Americans of course! The President sure as hell won't, not this President, nor the one before, nor the probable ones to come. If we did it, it must have been for a good reason, and anyone wishing to be 'vindictive' to question the inherent rightness of our actions, if sometimes for no other reason than because it was we who did them, is standing on shaky ground when outright potentially treasonous or un-American. Especially when such things were truly bad, and the worse they were, the more they ought to remain unspoken, and the more right our President is when he makes sure they are either glossed over, never be forced to have to be admitted to, and minimized or trivialized when that is no longer possible when they are exposed. Isn't that the true lesson Obama has decided to give by his actions? Has he not shown this is inescapably how he is to be defined now? He doesn't own the torture, but he does own its rehabilitation, its now every day more and more undeniable 'utility'.

Emphasis usually my own in the following excerpts...

In reversing himself and declaring that the US government will not release further photos in its possession of torture being practiced on captives held by the US military and the CIA, President Obama is sounding increasingly like the Bush/Cheney administration before him.
It may well be that, as Obama says, release of those photos could lead to anger in the Islamic world and perhaps to recruitment gains among groups like Al Qaeda that are attacking American troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, but this is only true because at the same time, the Obama administration is opposing taking any legal action against the people who authorized and promoted that torture.
If the Obama administration were to open a full-scale legal investigation into torture, with an independent prosecutor assigned to go after anyone who violated the Geneva Conventions and the US Criminal Code outlawing torture and the authorization, condoning or covering-up of torture, quite the opposite would happen: people in the Islamic world would see that this nation was coming to terms with those who abused the law....
... Obama has endorsed that situation by again referring to the torture as just the actions of "a few people."
It was hardly that, however, and he knows it. Torture was a major part of the Bush/Cheney so-called "War" on Terror, and was being conducted on an industrial scale, with White House lawyers providing legal cover, the Secretary of Defense sending memos urging every more aggressive techniques, and government doctors and psychologists working assiduously to make them more "effective." ...
The truth is always better than a cover-up, and what we now have the president advocating is a cover-up of American torture.
But that's only part of the president's slide into Cheneyism. We have the president now calling for the possible indefinite detention of terror suspects--an idea that only insures that there will always be an incentive for recruiting more terrorists (to avenge those in captivity)--and that makes a joke of our own Constitution, which guarantees everyone--not just citizens--the right to a trial, the right to a presumption of innocence, and protection from "cruel and unusual punishment," which indefinite detention certainly is.

On Torture and War, Obama Channels Cheney, by Dave Lindorff
May 14, 2009: Counterpunch.org

By raising the stakes over the torture issue with his repeated appearances, Dick Cheney isn't merely daring Democratic Congress and the Obama administration to investigate him and other members of the Bush torture team. Cheney's is a scorched earth game he believes he can win.
Cheney's MAD strategy goes something like this. If the DOJ or Congress proceeds with torture probes or prosecutions, Republican retaliation will be massive and total. Nominees will be blocked, legislation filibustered and the gridlock in Washington permanent. The blame for the carnage, the theory goes, will go to the side (in this case, Democrats) which launched the first strike. As Ronald Reagan was fond of saying, "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought."
With the prospect of an atomic political conflict assured of leaving both parties devastated, stalemate is the only alternative. And in Dick Cheney's case, stalemate equals victory. By ratcheting up the public pressure, Cheney is forcing Obama's hand: act on torture, or back down. And by backing down, Obama would in essence codify the Bush administration's criminality. In the unsteady equilibrium which would endure, the Bush torture team would appear to be right, seemingly vindicated. Like the Soviet threat, the risk from torture prosecution would be successfully contained. In his eyes, Cheney's omnipresence isn't a nightmare for Republicans, but their path back.

Cheney's MAD, By Jon Perr
May 14, 2009: Crooksandliars.com

Based on this sampling of polling results, it is easy at first to be surprised and troubled by the degree to which Americans have expressed support for the inhumane treatment and torture of detainees. But public sentiment on such matters does not emerge in a vacuum. Rather, it often reflects the influence of carefully orchestrated marketing campaigns by powerful vested interests eager to shape opinion in support of a specific agenda or facts on the ground. Certainly it is now well known that the Bush administration embraced the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" in national security settings. It is therefore instructive to carefully consider the five-pronged message that they and their backers promoted to create a citizenry supportive of torture.
In sum, this seemingly successful campaign of mass persuasion depended upon convincing the public to believe five things: (1) our country is in great danger, (2) torture is the only thing that can keep us safe, (3) the people we torture are monstrous wrongdoers, (4) our decision to torture is moral and for the greater good, and (5) critics of our torture policy should not be trusted. And all the while, the marketers painstakingly avoided using the actual word "torture"--and contested the word's use by anyone else. Of course, this strategy is by no means unique to the selling of torture. A similar approach, designed for hawking war, was used with devastating and tragic effect in building public support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

How Americans Think About Torture - and Why, by Roy Eidelson
May 11, 2009: CommonDreams.org

But don't dismiss Dick Cheney as a fading punch line, or as tragedy reprised as comedy. While the Obama administration has adopted large numbers of policies that directly contradict Cheney's positions, it would be a mistake to overlook Cheney's continued influence on the executive branch through the precedents set by the Bush administration. Among the former vice-president's most important legacies is increased government secrecy. Obama's Department of Justice continues to rely on an alleged "state secrets" privilege. It has thus tried to block lawsuits by victims who alleged they were kidnapped and tortured by U.S. intelligence even though they were innocent of wrongdoing, on the grounds that such trials would reveal state secrets. The same state secrets doctrine was used by Obama's DOJ in an attempt to block investigations of Bush-Cheney warrantless wiretaps. Likewise, the DOJ has attempted to block lawsuits seeking the release of Bush-era e-mails and to prevent prisoners held at Bagram air base in Afghanistan from appearing before a judge to challenge their imprisonment. ...
In the government's commitment to a doctrine of "state secrets" that protect the executive from the scrutiny of other branches of government, in the continued attempt to block lawsuits and release of important documents, and in the shielding of secret programs of torture, unlawful kidnapping and warrantless wiretapping, Obama is preserving policies to which Cheney is deeply committed. In configuring Pushtun fundamentalists in southern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan as a mortal threat to the U.S. and potentially even a nuclear power, the Obama administration is picking up themes from Cheney's old speeches and running with them. Cheney may or may not win his struggle for the soul of the Republican Party. If we are not careful, he will win the struggle for the soul of the country as a whole.

The Hidden Hand of Dick Cheney:
Out of office, he continues to push his tortured version of reality
-- and his vision of an imperial presidency
-- and there are signs he is succeeding, By Juan Cole
May 13, 2009: Commondreams.org

Slowly but surely, Obama is owning the cover-up of his predcessors' war crimes. But covering up war crimes, refusing to proscute them, promoting those associated with them, and suppressing evidence of them are themselves violations of Geneva and the UN Convention. So Cheney begins to successfully coopt his successor.

Obama Reverses Course On Torture Photos, By Andrew Sullivan
May 13, 2009: TheAtlantic.com

>>Actually covering up evidence of torture is a criminal offense for which you can go to prison here in Britain, and I imagine in the US but I'm not quite sure about that. And the idea that the British government would conspire with the US or be threatened by the US to do this is again an independent violation of the law. . . .
The British courts are saying that the British government relied on President Obama's view that this material about torture shouldn't be released to the public. It became clear to us in Britain that actually President Obama had never made that decision and that the British government had somewhat misrepresented his position to the courts. And what I thought was only fair and appropriate was for President Obama to make a decision himself: Do you, President Obama, I voted for you and I think he's a good man, do you really, really tell your officials to cover up evidence of torture committed by US personnel?<<
That question about Obama's intentions -- along with Obama's decision last month to release the 4 OLC torture memos -- is what led Smith to make his motion for the British High Court to re-consider its ruling that it would not make the torture details public: namely, he wanted definitive evidence one way or the other as to whether Obama really was issuing these threats to the British government.
That definitive evidence came, and it leaves no doubt that these threats to the British government are now being issued every bit as emphatically from Obama. ...
>>>Mr. Smith said that by attempting to keep evidence of Mr. Mohamed's "abuse" secret, the U.S. official who communicated the threats to the British Foreign Office was in breach of British law, specifically the International Criminal Court Act of 2001.
"The U.S. is committing a criminal offense in Britain by seeking to conceal this information. What the Obama administration did is not just ill-advised, it is illegal," he said.<<<
Independently, Article 9 of the Convention Against Torture requires that "States Parties shall afford one another the greatest measure of assistance in connection with civil proceedings brought in respect of any of the offences referred to in article 4, including the supply of all evidence at their disposal necessary for the proceedings." If the U.S. were a country that adhered to its treaty obligations -- rather than systematically ignored them whenever the mood struck -- that, too, would be significant.

Obama administration threatens Britain to keep torture evidence concealed, By Glenn Greenwald
May 12, 2009: Salon.com

Bill Moyer's 'Extra' biased take on the Torture 'debate'

I lost count how many times everyone in the 'debate' agreed with each other. "Yes. Absolutely. Right. I agree." Is it possible that there are no Americans left who don't believe in torturing people anymore? Who think that we should forget about the past, and look to the future instead of carping on about "crimes" such as torture "might be"? Couldn't Moyers find anyone like John Yoo, Alberto Gonzales, or Barack Obama to add a taped comment or two about how such things hardly warrant being called crimes or even illegal? As much as I have criticized the Fox News Channel for such one sided debates, it would be heartening (but wrong) to think everyone agrees torture is wrong in America anymore. My recent guestimation of fourty million maximum who were "pro-torture" it seems was far below the numbers in recently polls, instead 40% to 60% of the population (up to 180 million). These numbers are far far above the 23% who identify with the Republican Party. Anyone else have a clue where this might be heading, especially since the spineless democrats will concede on this as with any other moral backbone issue?

Here are some good lines from the recent Bill Moyer's Journal's shamelessly biased "torture is bad" "debate". Boring and insightful as always. He did not even ask Mike Huckabee to contribute his favorite torture joke. So much for "fairness in broadcasting."



Emphasis my own in the following...

You have a political predicate being laid down by the former administration and by some Republicans now in office that essentially says, because these techniques have been stopped, if and when there's a second attack, it will be the fault of the new administration. That President Obama, in deciding not to torture, has left the country vulnerable to another attack. That is present politics. That's not about the past. That's about now. And that's why this has to be confronted, not only legally, because I agree with that. But politically, as well.

BRUCE FEIN: Mark, torture isn't a Republican or Democratic prohibition. We ratified the Convention against Torture in the Senate. We passed it and made it a crime. It's not a Republican or Democratic issue. Moreover, with regard to this idea of well, as long as we got good information, then we can flout the law. That's not how you do it in the United States. I've been around for 41 years. If you think the law is deficient, then we should have repealed the torture statute.

In fact, if it was so important to undertake waterboarding and torture, Cheney should be out there demanding that it be reinstituted. Because he still agrees that we've got Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda out there, wanting to plot and kill us.

MARK DANNER: But he is out there demanding it be reinstituted.

------------------

MARK DANNER: We're talking about Watergate again, of course, because this was in the aftermath of Watergate. They uncovered all kinds of assassination attempts, C.I.A. wrongdoing. And, in fact, from that point on the President, who before would have basically said, "I didn't know about that." Henceforth, as a result of those hearings, the President had to sign a finding and say, "You know what? Do this. I order you to do this. I'm the President. This is legal."

------------------

MARK DANNER: There's no question that there have been many times in American history when the United States is attacked, when it responds by breaking its own laws. You could cite the Palmer Raids, Korematsu, as you just did, the McCarthy period. You can cite a number of examples. But you asked why this is different. And I'll tell you what it seems to me is dramatically different. This was made legal, within the American Government. I say "made legal" with quotes. This was officially done. This was ordered by the President. The Department of Justice made memos saying you can do this. The principals, Attorney General, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, sat in meetings and talked about interrogations that were plainly illegal, according to our laws, and according to treaties we have signed.

All of it is now laid out before the public, and finally, if you look at Fox News, if you look at discussion of this — usually on the conservative side, not always, but usually on the conservative side — you find a strong attempt, basically, to say, "Not only should this stuff have been done, but we should not handcuff ourselves. We should keep doing it." So, we're talking about not simply what happened before. We're talking about the politics of now. And that's why it's important.

------------------

MARK DANNER: And one should add, by the way, that this is vitally important not only because of what happened before, but because of what's going to happen after another attack. And we have to assume there will be another attack. And if the argument that torture is absolutely crucial to protect the country is accepted by the population, then in the wake of another attack, the politics, I think, are very likely to be extremely poisonous.

Blaming the current administration, because it didn't torture, and thus left the country vulnerable. So, we're talking about not simply the Bush Administration. We're talking about who we are, what we do in the world, how we fight this war, and what will happen in the wake of another attack that's very likely to come.

------------------

MARK DANNER: You had-- tyrannies have a lot of experience with that. I'm not calling the U.S. a tyranny. But I'm saying, I agree, when you say that's the mark of a tyranny, you're completely correct. They did it secretly. But I think there are reasons, you know, there are reasons having to do with their attitude toward presidential power, which is why they didn't do what you're suggesting. Coming out and denouncing it. And I think that they should have done that.

BILL MOYERS: Anybody who expected there would be a diminution in the use and appropriation of executive power if Obama became President has to be disillusioned now.

BRUCE FEIN: Oh, yeah, absolutely-

BILL MOYERS: Because-- because he has expanded the powers of the Presidency in almost every direction, right?

BRUCE FEIN: Exactly.

------------------

BRUCE FEIN: But Mark, let me just identify. These are the ways in which Obama has gone beyond Bush Cheney. Out in the FISA cases, he's argued not only state secrets, he says the Federal Government is absolutely immune. You can't even sue the federal government for violating the FISA. An argument that Cheney and Bush didn't even make.

The other thing with regards to the detainees. Two things. He said that we can avoid the Habeas Corpus, sending the prisoners to Bagram. There's no coverage, no -- law doesn't apply there. Secondly, he's just said, "I won't call them enemy combatants." But he's made the same arguments.

------------------

BRUCE FEIN: The psychology of Empire's one that magnifies threats a million fold. Beyond what the real danger is to the United States. Because there's a compulsion, a psychic thrill, that comes from just being dominant, and not being controlled by anything. Once a country thinks it can live risk free, then it finds the tiniest kind of threat intolerable. And they will flout any law, send the military anywhere, to try to crush it.

They're like-- we're treating Pakistan like they're the next Soviet Red Army with three million people and ICBMs to come across the globe. And one of the things that I think needs to be fleshed out, if you can do it. Is the use of the-- now we're doing the drones. How does the C.I.A. target these people and kill them? How do they know they're getting the right people? And they're-- this antiseptic.

BILL MOYERS: They don't. They don't.

BRUCE FEIN: These are assassination squad. This is the equivalent of assassination squads by technology. They don't have any idea whether they're killing civilians or not. And we just say, "Okay, so what? We're the United States. It doesn't matter whether you're a little speck out there. If you-- if we think you might endanger us from 5,000 miles away, we can kill you.

------------------

MARK DANNER: This is the great loophole--

BRUCE FEIN: The covert act.

MARK DANNER: -- the C.I.A. used to--

BRUCE FEIN: Called the Mosaddeq loophole.

MARK DANNER: The President-- exactly, Mosaddeq. It's how you did assassinations. Now, the Church Committee basically closed that loophole. And put us where we are now. Which is, we have documents that say, "Okay, you want to make things legal? We're gonna show that torture is legal." This is-- comes originally from that loophole. And that C.I.A. loophole is really the heart of the empire. It says that Presidential power, which should be circumscribed in our system, as Bruce says, and as I completely agree. In fact, can be expanded infinitely.

Why? Because in the Cold War. In the nation that the United States has become. This world-straddling empire. The President has to be able to order these things. Has to be able to circumvent the law. And in a sense, we are right where that loophole, in 1947, was going to leave us.

BILL MOYERS: But gentlemen, small nations torture. North Korea. Eastern Europe. Small nations. Which have no presumptions of empire. You know, it reminds me of the photographer in Tom Stoppard. Who says, "People do awful things to other people. But it's worse when it's done in the dark." Isn't-- aren't you talking about the darkness here?

BRUCE FEIN: But it's not only that Bill. I say, if we purport to continue to have a rule of law and a republic, we have to confront these things openly. Repeal the torture statute. And see whether-- will you-- will that withstand scrutiny? Are we gonna openly say, "Yes, we're torture. We're like the North Koreans. That's, it's-- it's different. It does make an enormous amount of difference whether you just try to-- close your eyes to what you have to confront or morally say, "I want to cross that Rubicon, I'm gonna do that."

I don't think the American people would say, "We don't want the torture statute. We want to revoke the-- the convention against torture. But if it happens, it happens. But at least it's done in the proper way. We the people remain sovereign. We know what we're doing. The secrecy is the most horrible thing there is. It means: "hey, we don't control our own destiny. We should have known-- Bill, you and me, should have been able to know what was happening, so we could register our political loyalties. "No, Mr. President, I'm gonna march-- I'm gonna vote against you, if I see that's going on." We didn't know what's going on.

------------------

BRUCE FEIN: And the leaders have to say, "Hey, we gotta accept risk. It-- even if happens on my watch, I will accept the political penalty. If we're gonna remain free, we have to accept some risk. We're not gonna stoop to torture. We're not gonna rape women in order to get their husbands to confess. Because we would destroy the whole purpose of our country if we did that." Leaders have to change the psychology that you identified that's supporting the torture. And they aren't doing it. They are serving as human weather vanes, not-- not-

Still More on Obama Decriminalizing Torture (for Americans only, feel priviledged yet?)

AMY GOODMAN: —but then saying he will not be holding the interrogators responsible, people involved with it; we have to move forward, not move back.

ALFRED McCOY: Right. That’s exactly how you get impunity. That’s what’s happened every single time in the past. For example, in 1970, the House and Senate of the United States discovered that the Phoenix Program had been engaged in systematic torture, that they had killed through extraditial executions 46,000 South Vietnamese. That’s about the same number of American combat deaths in South Vietnam. Nothing was done. There was no punishment, and the policy of torture continued.

Historian Alfred McCoy: Obama Reluctance on Bush Prosecutions Affirms Culture of Impunity

I wanted to add the following inserts as an update at the bottom of the previous post, but then I decided to start a new post for them instead. Editing long posts gets much more difficult, and it gets harder to find errors in them and correct to them (and there were a lot of grammatical errors in the last one, and I am still finding them). These I quotes below I saw as good points toward what I was trying to say in the previous post.

UPDATE 1:

A similar crisis confronted the U.S. public in the mid-1970s. While the Watergate scandal was unfolding, widespread evidence was mounting of illegal government activity, including domestic spying and the infiltration and disruption of legal political groups, mostly anti-war groups, in a broad-based, secret government crackdown on dissent. In response, the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities was formed. It came to be known as the Church Committee, named after its chairman, Idaho Democratic Sen. Frank Church. The Church Committee documented and exposed extraordinary activities on the CIA and FBI, such as CIA efforts to assassinate foreign leaders, and the FBI’s COINTELPRO (counterintelligence) program, which extensively spied on prominent leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

It is not only the practices that are similar, but the people. Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr., general counsel to the Church Committee, noted two people who were active in the Ford White House and attempted to block the committee’s work: “Rumsfeld and then [Dick] Cheney were people who felt that nothing should be known about these secret operations, and there should be as much disruption as possible.”

Church’s widow, Bethine Church, now 86, continues to be very politically active in Idaho. She was so active in Washington in the 1970s that she was known as “Idaho’s third senator.” She said there needs to be a similar investigation today: “When you think of all the things that the Church Committee tried to straighten out and when you think of the terrific secrecy that Cheney and all of these people dealt with, they were always secretive about everything, and they didn’t want anything known. I think people have to know what went on. And that’s why I think an independent committee [is needed], outside of the Congress, that just looked at the whole problem and everything that happened."

Disclosure of ‘Secrets’ in the ’70s Didn’t Destroy the Nation, by Amy Goodman, April 29, 2009, Truthdig.com

Imagine being able to go back in time and help Dick Cheney stop the Church Committee from going forward. Now also imagine all of the world then holds Dick Cheney's burying of the truth, for "looking to the future, not the past" as a pattern for the whole world to emulate, and the Dick becoming a world-wide popular icon of 'openness in government' thus marking the beginning of a new "Cheney Century" and the new stronger "Strong America" (torture, American-style) model of governance spreading worldwide! Nothing less important, nothing less dangerous than that is going on right now by Obama's criminality in the same vein, mold, and likeness of the previous administrations, but far far more 'popularizing' of it than the previous administration's low popularity ever could. And all because of not 'confronting' its growing popularity at risk to his personal popularity amongst those who think that the US ought to torture people. Can't risk losing their votes, because with Obama's reluctance to take on that mentality and mindset head on, they are growing more numerous (and respectable!) everyday.

UPDATE 2:

The truth is that European liaison services as well as other intelligence services have tempered their cooperation with the CIA because of the use of torture and abuse as well as the extraordinary rendition of innocent individuals from their countries to intelligence services in the Middle East.

The CIA’s extra-legal activities have complicated and undermined the task of maintaining credible relations with our allies in the battle against terrorism.

Both Ignatius and Goss argue that, because of the release of the memos, CIA clandestine operatives will keep their heads down and avoid assignments that carry political risk, and that the decline in CIA “morale and effectiveness” will harm American national security.

More nonsense! CIA operatives and analysts are professionals who pride themselves on service to the country and their oath to the Constitution.

Very few of them took part in the corruption of intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and very few participated in the policies of torture and abuse. They know that the law should not be broken and they want to get these issues behind them so that they can continue to serve the national interests of the United States.

They know that painful truths must be acknowledged and that some price must be paid by all for the chicanery of a few.

If Agency personnel were permitted to share their opinions about torture and abuse with the press, a large majority would oppose the practices. Unfortunately, only those officers seeking to cover-up their own activities have the temerity to talk to reporters.

WPost: All the Ex-President's Excuses, by Melvin A. Goodman, May 1, 2009
http://consortiumnews.com/2009/050109b.html

UPDATE 3:
And to add a bit from the Memo to President Obama on Torture, by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, April 29, 2009 (Updated May 1, 2009)

Please do not be deceived into thinking that most intelligence officials, past and present, condone torture — still less that they are angry that you have put a stop to such techniques.

We are referring, of course, to what President Bush called “an alternative set of procedures” involving cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment that violates domestic and international law. ...
You need to know that the vast majority of intelligence professionals deplore “extraordinary rendition” and the other torture procedures that were subsequently ordered by senior Bush administration officials.

Sadly, President Bush was not the first chief executive to find a small cabal of superpatriots, amateur thugs, and contractors to do his administration’s bidding. But never before in this country were lawless thugs given such free rein. The congressional “oversight” committees looked the other way.

Tenet and his acolytes successfully ingratiated themselves with President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and the faux lawyers who devised what actually amounts to a very porous “legal” shield for those who carried out the torture. ...

On April 28, former Vice President Walter Mondale exposed the speciousness of that argument during an interview in Minneapolis. Mondale was one of the senators on the Church Committee, which during the mid-Seventies unearthed the unlawful activities of COINTELPRO and other abuses by intelligence agencies.

Speaking from that experience, Mondale noted that concern over the effect on agency morale — a concern that is widely expressed now — was also voiced both before the Church investigation got under way and while it was proceeding.

The concern proved totally unfounded, according to Mondale, as it quickly became apparent that agency personnel called before the Church Committee were thankful for the chance to get the truth out, get a heavy burden off their shoulders, and put the scandal behind them.

Most important, the truth that was brought to light made it possible for the country to resolve how national security issues should be addressed in the future. Much of that wisdom and many of the legal protections introduced at that time were simply disregarded by your predecessor and the people he picked to run his administration.

As for the need for holding people to account, Mondale had this to say:

"Holding people responsible in some way for what happened is very important. If the verdict here is that you can do these kinds of things and there are no consequences, then that leaves a precedent. I've been around the federal government long enough to know that if there is a bad precedent, it's like leaving a loaded pistol on the kitchen table. You don't know who is going to pick it up and pull the trigger. There need to be consequences for violating the law.”
We of VIPS call for a full, truthful and public fact-finding process to begin without delay. We ask that you give careful consideration to Senator Carl Levin’s suggestion that the attorney general appoint retired judges with solid reputations for integrity to begin the process.

Another viable possibility would be the appointment of an independent “blue-ribbon commission,” perhaps modeled on the Church Committee of the mid-Seventies, to assess any illegal or improper activities and make recommendations for reform in government operations against terrorism.

We commend the administration for releasing the Department of Justice memos attempting to legalize torture. We believe the remaining relevant information must be released promptly so that the citizenry can make informed judgments about what was done in our name and, if warranted, an independent prosecutor can be appointed without unnecessary delay.

We believe strongly that any judgments regarding amnesty, forgiveness or pardon can only be made on the basis of a fully developed, public record — and not used as some sort of political bargaining chip.

Finally, we firmly oppose the notion that anyone can arrogate a right to ignore the Nuremberg Tribunal’s rejection of “only-following-orders” as an acceptable defense.

(signatories are listed alphabetically with former intelligence affiliations)

Gene Betit, US Army, DIA, Arlington, VA
Ray Close, National Clandestine Service (CIA), Princeton, NJ
Phil Giraldi, National Clandestine Service (CIA), Purcellville, VA
Larry Johnson, CIA & Department of State, Bethesda, MD
Pat Lang, US Army (Special Forces), DIA, Alexandria, VA
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council, Linden, VA
Tom Maertens, Department of State, Mankato, MN
Ray McGovern, US Army, CIA, Arlington, VA
Sam Provance, US Army (Abu Ghraib), Greenville, SC
Coleen Rowley, FBI, Apple Valley, MN
Greg Theilmann, Department of State & Senate Intel. Committee staff, Arlington, VA
Ann Wright, US Army, Department of State, Honolulu, HI

Annex

We list below additional experienced intelligence personnel and a few others, who have spoken out/written publicly about the inefficacy and counter productiveness of torture:

FBI: Ali Soufan, Dan Coleman, Jack Cloonan

CIA: John Helgerson (former Inspector General), Bob Baer, Haviland Smith, Mel Goodman

Military: Navy General Counsel Alberto J. Mora; Major General Antonio Taguba (who probed Abu Ghraib and concluded that Bush officials committed war crimes: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/41514.html); Air Force Col Steven M. Kleinman; Rear Admiral (ret) and former Judge Advocate General for the Navy John Hutson; former Naval Intelligence officer and Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan Administration Lawrence Korb; former U.S. military interrogator (pseudonym) Matthew Alexander; and former military intelligence officer Malcolm Nance.

Journalists: Scott Horton, Patrick Cockburn

Update 4:

Indeed. What kind of primitive, brutal country knows for years that its own powerful government officials participated in torture and then fails even to investigate what happened, let alone impose meaningful accountability on the torturers? The international community simply cannot tolerate acquiescence to that sort of evil. Note that the UAE apparently compensated the victims of the prince's torture, whereas the U.S. blocked -- and continues to try to block -- its own torture victims from even having a day in court. ...

>> It had been previously known that officials of the agency had destroyed hundreds of hours of videotaped interrogations, but the documents filed Monday reveal the number of tapes. . . . The destroyed videotapes are thought to have depicted some of the harshest interrogation techniques used by the C.I.A.<<

Only monsters and barbarians fail to destroy their own torture tapes. The New York Times previously reported that the highest-level White House officials -- including David Addington and Alberto Gonzales -- participated in discussions about whether to destroy those videotapes (acts which the co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission have called "obstruction of justice"), though because we need to Look Forward, Not Back, and this all happened in The Past, we don't know what was said and don't need to. Knowing that might disrupt our moment of quiet, contemplative reflection. ...

>> We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during a course of that, both by the armed forces and CIA. [Releasing the memos] was the right thing to do. . . . There is prosecutorial discretion. We shouldn't in my view go after the CIA officers involved in this. There is a good argument in my view for reviewing the White House justice council and the Attorney General's office who okayed this.<<

Gen. McCaffrey's point was echoed by the Hard Leftist Vengeful Partisan, Gen. Antonio Taguba:

>>>[T]here is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. . . . [T]he Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. . . . The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.<<<

Even by official U.S. Government acknowledgments, there have been numerous deaths of detainees in U.S. custody which "were acts of criminal homicide." Independent reports make clear just how prevalent detainee death was.

But anyway, enough about all that divisive partisan unpleasantness -- back to this brutal, criminal UAE prince: let's watch more of those videotapes, express our outrage on behalf of international human rights standards, and threaten the UAE that their relationship with us will suffer severely unless there is a real investigation -- not the whitewash they tried to get away with -- along with real accountability. We simply cannot, in good conscience, maintain productive relations with a country that fails to take "torture" seriously. We are, after all, the United States.

UAE 'Torture' Scandal and Cover-up Sparks Outrage in the US, by Glenn Greenwald, May 3rd, 2009, Salon.com