No one is above the law, and the law must be equally enforced. Accountability is necessary for any functioning democracy and for restoring America's reputation at home and abroad. Three of the memos released today were written by Steven Bradbury, then a lawyer in the OLC, in Bybee in August The memos are based on legal reasoning that is spurious on its face, and in the end these aren't legal memos at all — they are simply political documents that were meant to provide window dressing for war crimes.
While the memos should never have been written, we welcome their release today. Transparency is a first step towards accountability. As David Cole, professor of law at Georgetown University, writes:. Rather than offer a nuanced evaluation of completing claims about the legality of the methods in question, every argument was clearly motivated by the desire to protect Cabinet-level officials and CIA agents from prosecution if they subjected Abu Zubayda to a series of increasingly brutal interrogation techniques.
It also seemed as though the memos were tailored to a preconceived policy goal rather than as means to more deeply understand the limits of the statute. The President himself seemingly admitted that the torture memos were authored after the CIA started using some of the enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubayda. We knew that Zubayda had more information that could save innocent lives, but he stopped talking.
Indeed, the documents only tell half the story, and it is necessary to look at least at some level at the practices and applications these documents initiated. The August 1 st memos and February 7 th memorandum of understanding from President Bush authorized the use of enhanced interrogation techniques in the War on Terror explicitly, through the language of the memorandum and the OLC interpretations, and latently, through the wiggle room and loopholes contained within these documents.
One of the consequences of authorizing torture is that it historically unleashes a common set of forces on organizations that professionally conduct it. He writes that government authorization of torture is typically accompanied by a set of approved techniques, as occurred with the classified torture memo from August Other adverse consequences of the use of torture belie its assumed effectiveness so often expressed by public commentators.
The tendency of organizations to let dexterity in alternatives fall by the wayside, known as deskilling, is compounded by the effect of narrow professionalism.
It is through this lens that we can understand the significance of the torture memos and abandonment of the Geneva Conventions. The authorized list of techniques in particular proves helpful in that it provides a mechanism by which we can compare the explicit authorization for each method side by side with publicly available information about its usage. Since the August 1 st classified memo featured ten separate techniques, in the interest of brevity I will focus mostly on two in particular, waterboarding and stress positions.
The August 1 st classified memo that authorized a set of techniques to be used on Abu Zubayda legalized a number of procedures that had been used as torture methods in other countries for decades or, in some cases, centuries. Another technique, waterboarding, had been used at least as early as by the Dutch as economical way to torture British merchants in the East Indies.
In a side-by-side comparison, it easy is to see discrepancies between the authorization of the techniques in the August 1 st classified memo and their actual use on War on Terror detainees. Though techniques in the memo appear to be approved in isolation, there were in many instances utilized in combination with other techniques that may or may not have been authorized. In addition, techniques that were utilized in isolation may have been used in ways that expanded beyond the limits of their authorization.
One could also look at the technique that dominated public discussion about torture, waterboarding, and find applications of the technique that seem to go well beyond what was authorized in the memo. In a memo that was released in , it was disclosed that Abu Zubayda and Khalid Sheikh Muhammad had been waterboarded a collect times. Detainees were fed a liquid diet to ensure they did not choke on their own vomit during a waterboarding session.
Interrogators also switched to saline solution rather than simple water, because:. Even though these accounts provide a limited overview of some of the failures to apply the authorized interrogation methods within the approved guidelines, the are on some level indicative of the overall trajectory the use of these techniques followed, becoming increasingly brutal overtime.
Of course, there is at least one final question that must be asked: where do we go from here? While the accounts and government documents that detail the program provide us with a comprehensive view of much of the internal struggle over the torture policy, many of the accounts of detainee treatment come from the detainees themselves. We know through various inside sources that anytime the authorized techniques were used by interrogators their use first had to be approved by senior administration officials.
That in itself provides a paper trail, but there are can be no question there are countless other documents that would piece together the larger story.
Additionally, the interrogation program was one carried out by the two most clandestine agencies in the United States government, the CIA and the Defense Department, who have a vested interest in secrecy.
Combined with the heavy utilization of secrecy by the administration during this time, we can be assured that there is much we do not know about the use of torture that occurred in the name of American citizens. At a minimum, we need to shed light on this dark chapter in American history. The process can take many forms. There are those who believe passionately that the authorization and use of torture violate international and domestic law, and that those responsible for breaking the law ought to be prosecuted.
Others believe that the uncovering of truth will never occur in the court system, where defendants only have an incentive to keep concealed the evidence of their own guilt, and favor a commission-style investigation—complete with subpoena power—instead. Whichever method is the best choice is of course up for debate, but there is no denying that if there is going to be some pursuit of transparency and to a lesser degree accountability for these acts, then the most senior officials in our government need to make the push.
Without senior governmental officials, there is no way Americans will get the full story about some of the most despicable and brutal acts ever carried out in their name. Fontas, J. Fontas, Jeffrey P. A compilation of articles researched and composed by a class of Northeastern University Political Science students, edited by Chris Federici and Nicole Wilkins. The newsletter highlights recent selections from the journal and useful tips from our blog.
Inquiries Journal provides undergraduate and graduate students around the world a platform for the wide dissemination of academic work over a range of core disciplines. Representing the work of students from hundreds of institutions around the globe, Inquiries Journal 's large database of academic articles is completely free. Learn more Blog Submit. Disclaimer: content on this website is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical or other professional advice. Moreover, the views expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of Inquiries Journal or Student Pulse, its owners, staff, contributors, or affiliates.
Forgot password? Reset your password ». The latest version of Trump's executive order concerning the US' controversial prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has dropped language ordering a review of whether the United States should bring back torture and reopen CIA "black sites.
However, the US President said he will allow his Defense Secretary James Mattis who "do[es] not necessarily agree" with him on the issue to "override" him on torture. A Senate report, though, on the use of torture says interrogations were brutal—and ineffective: In , A senate intelligence committee report on CIA's interrogation and detention programmes was released. Then committee chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein said the report found that torture "regularly resulted in fabricated information.
In one of the instances, one of the detainee's lunch, which contained hummus and pasta, and nuts was rectally infused to him, the report says. CIA interrogators threatened to hurt detainees' children and "sexually assault" their mother, it was documented. Subscribe to our Youtube channel for all latest in-depth, on the ground reporting from around the world.
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