The civilian trial of terrorism suspect Ahmed Ghailani, who was linked to the U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, was unsatisfying to those who believe that accused terroristsshould not be tried in civilian courts. To them, the scoreboard tells the story: Ghailani was convicted on one count, and acquitted onover 280 other charges.
The newspaper headlines today lay out the problem:
USA Today (11/19/10):
Detainee’s Acquittals Spark Debate Over Civilian Trials
Washington Post (11/19/10):
Verdict in Terror Case a Setback for Advocates of Civilian Trials
A more rational media system would discuss the verdict primarily as a resultof the U.S. government’s decision to torture detainees like Ghailani, who has been held at “black sites” and Guantanamo Bay. As Glenn Greenwald noted (Salon, 11/18/10):
Last month, the federal judge presiding over the case, Lewis Kaplan, banned the testimony of a key witness because the government under George Bush and Dick Cheney learned of his identity not through legal means but instead by torturing(and also possibly coerced the testimony of that witness).
The manner in which the government pressed the case against Ghailani was closely linked to these torture allegations. It’s hard to have a serious conversation about the case without acknowledging this. And the fact thatthe trials excluded evidence allegedlyobtainedthrough torture is, as Greenwald argued, proof that the justice system wasfunctioning properly.
Thanks for the Greenwald link, Peter. To put it simply, what reactionaries and other haters of democracy want is the Queen’s idea: “First the verdict, then the trial.”
Is Bush a war criminal? He says in his book that his lawyer told him the torture was legal so he ok’d it. Here a Federal Court ruled that Bush’s torture prohibited the evidence gained from being used in court. Our allies want to know if its o.k. for Bush to torture. How do we stop our enemies from torturing our soldiers and our allies soldiers?
Will Bush be arrested in a foreign country and tried as a war criminal?
Do we take the blindfolds off the statues of Justice that stand around the land of the free?
Or do we agree that its legal if the President says so?
Orlando Fl
Torture is illegal. Period. Bush is a war criminal. Period. The Corporate Press is complicit. End of story.
Bush is a war criminal. It’s a very serious breech that the Justice Dept. has failed to act on this matter.
Those who argue that torture is necessary and saves lives don’t understand the purpose of the rule of law and are falling prey to the same passion that motivates terrorists – the ends justify the means. The terrorists have truly won if we allow this to stand.
If we aren’t prepared to live with the results provided by our system of justice, we don’t deserve to live under its protection.
We are all soldiers in this war for our values. Those who are so fearful as to torture are cowards and traitors who don’t really believe our system works. They would take matters into their own hands. They don’t really believe in democracy and freedom. How ironic that they wave the flag and claim to love America more than those of us who are willing to die at the hands of a terrorist rather than defile our righteous way of life and rule of law.
WHy is our justice system trying this man at all is another question.Answer …because there are no terrorists.JUSt criminals.
I never thought I’d have a word of praise for Tory Lord Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. A blonde chunky, overgrown teenager wearing his college scarf, he shocked mnany when he ousted “Red Ken.”
But maybe he’s that thing that has been eliminated in America–a rational conservative. He told that ultra-right, now a Murdoch paper, the Daily Telegraph, that if Bush visits Europe, he might not see Texas again.,
Sherry Noland – So true.
I am going to pass on your words. I have hundreds of files and docs, which can’t possibly put it as simply as you have done, here.
STill running against Bush guys???You really need to move on.IT will not be effective this election cycle.AS bad as Bush was we have a new boss in Town who is worse on so many levels.War criminal?I have heard Al Jezeera call ALL our presidents war criminals.Obama included.Bush believed he was taking ultimate measures to save Americans.HE took responsibility.Wether it saved lives is debatable.MOst say it did.But war criminal?WEll At least you have settle on just one disregarding all the charges against all the other presidents.I was against what I felt was torture.A real low point.Bush was wrong.But in the end these animals who killed so many…are all well and good, as thousands they murdered rot in their graves.It is hard to see them as victims.And many bloggers here have a warped perception of moral equivalency.BUsh as a SAddam or a Osama?Lets stay off of the drugs guys. And as far as arresting our president or ex president on foreign soil…….um yeah tell me how that works for ya.
If we are going to torture, we have to expect that those captured by the enemy will be tortured and complaints to the world about the Rule of Law being ignored will go/should go unheard. The sentence of twenty years for the crime that could be proven/validated seems just. Maybe the other crimes were committed by the accused but, there was no reliable evidence on which to base that descision.
Evidence obtained by torture is inadmissable in “courts”- military or otherwise.
Why are we still fighting this fight? It is difficult to accept our complicity- The President, Congress and most of the citizenry-if we know something is not right and we say/do nothing we are quilty too -that’s a biblical concept right?. We do not want to believe that our “leaders” will lie to us, will connive to circumvent the law, will gamble that “no one will find out what I did or didn’t do-that I should have done or should not have done, especially, if I deny, deny, deny. ( America and Americans can do no wrong/If it is done by an American or by America then it must be right this seems to be our guiding principle)
The Geneva Convention was signed by our governmental representatives. This IS THE torture memo that governs conduct re prisoners of war-John Yoo’s memo does not have the standing that the Geneva Convention enjoys.
Think about it Twenty years of confinment in federal prison!!
Here’s hoping, Des. And so true, Sherry.
michael e’s “argument would be comical if it weren’t so monstrously sick. Saved lives? Whose lives? Certainly not those hundreds of thousand civilians lives of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc. Of course to bed wetting “patriots” like yourself only certain lives count. Yes Bush is a war criminal and so is Obama and for that matter Clinton, but as long as the U.S. is the mafia capo of the world what we say goes and the rule of law is only for those other people.
Mike
INformation gleaned reportedly halted the plans of many bombings, and some things so monsterous and horrific, that it was decided not to release the information.It is called top secret.Israel lives this way. Catching these maniacs with great intel before they can strike.We are also adapting.And word is we have been magnificently successful.Much of it taken from those torture sessions(that i am completely opposed to).Bush dealt with it.Obama now deals with it.I got to talk to Richard Clark (national security advisor to Clinton and Bush and head of once cyber warfare.He said some of these security briefings would turn your hair white overnight.This is what our presidents deal with daily.As mealy mouthed little twerps ,yell WAR CRIMINALS at them (as they guard your miserable butts)I must say it must sometimes seem a thankless job.But it is a free country.WE know how it would end if you spoke as freely in Iran.Or pre war Afghanistan.Or pre war Iraq.Or N Korea.Or China(I could go on all day)Keep yelling it.At our presidents.Our Congress and Senate.Our Unions and religious leaders.At our poor and our rich.Aint HATE AMERICA first a hoot?
Umm . . . I thought FAIR was supposed to publish stories the major news outlets censored? EVERYONE has carried the story of the Bush regime torturing foreign terrorist suspects – and NO ONE has covered the stories of the extra-judicial, state-sponsored terrorism AND torture of millions of American political dissidents and true liberals. Why?
http://dontfearyourfreedom.blogspot.com/2010/05/i-am-not-terrorist-dont-take-my.html
The fuckwit michael e would have been right at home as a spokesmen for the waffen SS.
OMIGOD, I feel so much safer since Bush ok’d torture. He got so much good info from guys who would reveal anything to keep from being tortured some more, even to the point of,….ahem….having them lie to stop the pain. What the hell, lies are good info. And since the USA at one time in the near past subscribed to leading the world in a well positioned stance where torture is a crime on this planet (except when they the USA do it) Unlike those NAZIS scum suckers in Germany and evil Russkies in the USSR doing their torture of human beings, the high road has suddenly become the wrong road to take. Bush relied on lawyers to decide what torture was and the lawyers decided on what was permissible according to the ideology of the ones in power. Which would be…..oh gosh…. the war criminals made up of Bush, Cheney, Rove and the whole clan of Republicans.
Now the results of their actions is to cause the rest of the world to think Americans are such hypocrites, which they are. The USA has virtually no credibilty in the world anymore because actions like this and in going against the United Nations’ decision to go against the invasion of Iraq. And then Bush says, gee, I felt so bad there were no WMD’s found in Iraq; so bad that at a journalist’s dinner all he could do was tell jokes about not being able to find WMD’s….yeh, he was just so upset. The Iraq war cost 4600 service people’s lives, 300,000 Iraqis lives, the displacement of 3 million Iraqis, and really strengthened Iranian position in the region. Yeh, aren’t US wars good for the world? And especially good for the USA, because it shows the world just how great we are, and just what American exceptionality really means. I wonder….is Iraq really better off than when they had Hussein? Maybe Hussein was a bad guy for his misdeeds, but what have the combination of civilian soldiers and the military done for the common people of Iraq? What do they the Iraqi people say?
The Bush presidency, filled with the doctrine of crony capitalism and the concerns of the wealthy and the corporate fiefdom, has wrought a country where ideology matters more than doing for the highest number of people of that country what is best for them. And so what happens in 2010 in which case President Obama carries on his 2 years much of what Bush put in place; Guatanamo still in place and still doing torture the Bush way. And Obama looking to infiltrate the Internet with deeper probes of government intervention.
Yes, I feel so much safer. Bring on the torture to other people who might be innocent, how would we know?
And now some neocons are saying let’s have a war with Iran as if Iraq and Afghanistan were not enough of a drain on our resources….wait a minute… just like the Iraq war, it can be paid for by Iraqian oil…..right? Our leaders no longer rely on diplomacy and peace talk; instead we establish 700 military bases around the world to establish ourselves and our imperialist’s leverage to influence the world. Our way or the highway.
R Bobert…OH my the LIb is calling the conservative a Nazi and cursing him out.True to form without any understanding of your own crude behavior…. or that National SOCIALISM came from a populace empowering a central government that ran crazy with power.And that would be your side sir..
RAymond
I share no agreement with Bushes actions.I Was only offering a sad perspective of those things that transpired in those turbulent times.IT repulses me as much as it does you I am sure.Lets also just say you are not cut out for the hard world of intelligence gathering or CIA Operations that Bush and Obama depend on to hopefully stop a nuke from going off in lets say LA.I would guess it is dirty work.Ugly.Not for the faint of heart.
When a president orders an attack knowing innocents will probably die…..is there anything less presidential he could ever do?Who would even want that job?Obviously not you..or me.THose knifes edge decisions that could result in the death of millions is thank GOd above my pay grade.THat is why I pray for Obama as i did Bush.
david rose : I spoke to numerous counterterrorist officials from agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. Their conclusion is unanimous: not only have coercive methods failed to generate significant and actionable intelligence, they have also caused the squandering of resources on a massive scale through false leads, chimerical plots, and unnecessary safety alertsâ┚¬”Âwith Abu Zubaydah’s case one of the most glaring examples.
As for K.S.M. himself, Bush said he provided â┚¬Ã…“many details of other plots to kill innocent Americans.â┚¬Ã‚ But according to a former senior C.I.A. official, who read all the interrogation reports on K.S.M., â┚¬Ã…“90 percent of it was total f*cking bullshit.â┚¬Ã‚ A former Pentagon analyst adds: â┚¬Ã…“K.S.M. produced no actionable intelligence. He was trying to tell us how stupid we were.â┚¬Ã‚Â
http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2008/12/torture200812
Woodward “…”numerous counterterrorist officials”? “According to a former senior CIA official”?”A former pentagon analyst”?Since when did we go so far down the ladder to reach un named sources to give them weight over the president of the United States and his top people on site and on the job?And since when did we give the advantage of top secret information to a writer for Vanity fair,and the Observer, over our president who maybe just maybe hears a few things that “Charlie” might of missed.Answer…..since his name is George Bush.This is the problem and the spurious nature of the argument.
Sorry- heard David is nicknamed Charlie.That was a bit confused if you are not in the know dont ya know.
Ali Soufan
Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned Abu Zubaydah from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August.
There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions â┚¬” all of which are still classified.
Defenders of these techniques have claimed that they got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a top aide to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Mr. Padilla. This is false.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html?_r=2&ref=opinion
FBI special agent Jack Cloonan:
â┚¬Ã…“The proponents of torture say, â┚¬Ã‹Å“Look at the body of information that has been obtained by these methods.’ But if K.S.M. and Abu Zubaydah did give up stuff, we would have heard the details, what we got was pabulum.â┚¬Ã‚Â
MAJ Paul Burney, Army’s Behavior Science Consulting Team psychologist:
“It was stressed to me time and time again that psychological investigations have proven that harsh interrogations do not work. At best it will get you information that a prisoner thinks you want to hear to make the interrogation stop, but that information is strongly likely to be false.â┚¬Ã‚Â
Major General Thomas Romig, former Army JAG:
â┚¬Ã…“If you torture somebody, they’ll tell you anything. I don’t know anybody that is good at interrogation, has done it a lot, that will say that that’s an effective means of getting information. â┚¬Ã‚¦ So I don’t think it’s effective.â┚¬Ã‚Â
Matthew Alexander, leader of a Special Operations interrogation team in Iraq:
â┚¬Ã…“When I was in Iraq, the few times that I saw people use harsh methods, it was always counterproductive. Because the person hunkered down, they were expecting us to do that, and they just shut up. And then I’d have to send somebody in and build back up rapport, reverse that process, and it’d take us longer to get that information.â┚¬Ã‚Â
W and B
Your still throwing people at us that really do not outrank the president or his top cabinet and security people as far as i can see, and do not have the level of security clearance as does the commander in chief(i mean who does). Some might know something. Might…. I say.In the military everyone has an opinion as in civilian life. You could find a ton of people me included who were against this and have varying degrees of knowledge and reasoning on the subject.My guess would be those completely in the know number less than 10 people total.AS far as I have seen those top people feel differently about the info gained.If the subject is what was gained(not a philosophical argument on how it was gained)I would be wary of listening to people who are in direct opposition to those who have the complete picture simply for political brinksmanship reasons.Example… Everyone is sure they know where Osama is.Yet my money is on Obama.Not some Jag officer or CIA operative or reporter down the ladder.Lets give the benefit of the doubt to the guy in charge.The commander in chief. Bush and Obama.I understand that is foreign to you people.Even the thought of it. Especially with Bush.But to disregard his words or Obamas simply because they are the president is just as loony as believing everything and moving in lockstep with them.Maybe more so.And that is always your way.The presidents are stone cold liars.Lets prove it.Sad
Walter Pincus // Washington Post 11/15/10
In his memoir “Decision Points,” former president George W. Bush passionately defends his 2003 decision to invade Iraq, citing, among other things, a Jan. 27, 2003, report to the U.N. Security Council by Hans Blix, the Swedish director of the U.N. inspectors who had spent two months looking for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
But Bush makes selective use of Blix’s January report, citing elements that support the idea that Hussein was not cooperating and leaving out parts that indicate his government was. More to the point, however, Bush fails to mention two subsequent Blix pre-invasion reports in February and early March, weeks before U.S. bombs struck Baghdad. Those show Iraq cooperating with inspectors and the inspectors finding no significant evidence that Hussein was hiding WMD programs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/15/AR2010111506015_pf.html
In June 2008, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller described the conclusions of his committee’s exhaustive report on the Bush administration’s public statements regarding Iraq:
“Before taking the country to war, this Administration owed it to the American people to give them a 100 percent accurate picture of the threat we faced. Unfortunately, our Committee has concluded that the Administration made significant claims that were not supported by the intelligence. In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed.
Top Administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and al Qaeda as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11. Sadly, the Bush Administration led the nation into war under false pretenses.
There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate.”
…the Downing Street Memos, first published in May 1, 2005, documented the conclusions of British officials after high-level talks in Washington in July 2002: “Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
I agree military action based on some of the intelligence was flawed.I cant agree the action Bush took was based on a lie he perpetrated on the American people.I think that is not proven.I believe Saddam broke all 17 caveats of his surrender terms in gulf war one. That is a fact. Any one of which could or should have resulted in a resumption of military action according to the measure of your purpose.Saddam gauged correctly the UN and allies would not act.He purposefully evaded inspectors, and i do believe he eventually meant to re-arm in blatant violation, according to his own words upon capture. After 911 Bush began a ratcheting up of the process to bring Saddam to heel. His flagrant violations had not gone unnoticed by Bush. The time for playing games was over. Yet Saddam played the game of brinksmanship till the final hour believing Bush was a paper tiger.He was not. Saddams stubborn- till- death continence can be seen even on the gallows. Bush was just as stubborn in his vow to protect America after 911. The confluence was deadly.
As N Korea pushes Obama’s buttons i hope and pray they do not push our president past a point he feels he can allow. Whatever that point is……will we blame Obama for the moves he undertakes to protect us from some pretty cold hearted evil people as we have Bush?And further attribute the majority of the blame upon America?I would say if only North Korea would stand down….as Bush hoped Saddam would….. right up till the final moments.